They Met in Zanzibar (7 page)

“No gin?” said Steve with a challenging inflection. “Haven’t you got round to choosing your tipple yet?”

“No gin,” she answered, not taking him up.

“She’s pigheaded,” murmured her father. “Everyone tells her that gin or whisky is actually good for her out here, and for that reason she’ll get along without it. She says that if you rely on a booster you’re never sure how much of the tropics you can really take.”

“Meanwhile,” Steve commented, “she loses the conviviality that goes with a sundowner. Still, she’s plenty of time for it.” He lifted his glass. “Here’s to you both.” He looked handsome tonight in a very white shirt and fawn trousers. There was a muscular strength in the broad shoulders and a disturbing intimacy about the brown throat that showed in the opening of his collar. The cleft in his chin was deeply marked in the lamplight; it made the jaw appear hard even when his expression was companionable and nonchalant.

Jim went out to prepare a fresh syphon of soda, and Steve leaned back in his chair, studying first Peg and then the vase just behind her.

“You’ve made quite a show over there on the table. I’ve
never seen half a dozen full-blown gardenias to better advantage. Did you bring the vase from England?”

“It was my mother’s,” she said quie
tl
y.

“I’d say it suggests her character.”

Surprised and warmly pleased by the discovery that Steve could gather so much from an appraisal of the Etruscan-style vase, she gave him an unwittingly soft and luminous look.

“Yes, it does. I think it was an early present from my father. My mother never mentioned it, but the whole year round she found flowers for it. I shall try to do the same here.”

His shrewd glance had returned to Peg’s slim shoulders, her healthy pink lips and the pale shining hair.

“You still make me feel slightly worn at the edges,” he commented. And then Jim came back into the room.

Dinner was served at a smooth pace, and no one could have been more charmingly appreciative than Steve. He insisted that Nosoap’s cooking had improved since Peg’s arrival.

“Maybe it takes a woman to bring out the best in a Malay cook,” he observed. “Most of our cooks have had a short spell with Mrs. McTeale, but they tend to go off after a while unless there’s a woman in the home to keep them at it.”

“Glad you enjoyed it,” said Peg politely. “Shall we move closer to the door for coffee?”

Nosoap cleared the table and brought the coffee tray to Peg’s grass table. Jim got out the liqueur brandy and glasses and the three of them settled in armchairs, a triangle about the low table, which Steve inspected admiringly.

“I think I’ll get one of those,” he said. “That mahogany
thing
of mine has wood beetle and it’ll have to be burnt.
These grass things get it as well, but they’re easily renewed. I see you have bookshelves, too.”

“Peg’s idea,” said Jim with a laugh. “You should see her bedroom!”

Steve smiled mockingly. “What about it, Peg?”

“Go ahead,” she said lightly. “You probably know where it is.”

“Some other time, perhaps.” He offered cigarettes, set the flame
o
f
his lighter to Jim’s cheroot and held it there till the thing was glowing. Then he leaned back again. “I’ve something to tell you, Jim, and I know you too well to wrap it up. The company is aiming to buy up all the plantations on Motu.”

“Is that a fact?” said Peg’s father, unimpressed. Then he sat a little straighter. “I’ve heard those rumours too, but they don’t mean a thing. Did they get about before you went on leave?”

Steve nodded. “Some company officials made a preliminary visit.”

“How come you didn’t mention it when we met at Zanzibar?”

Steve shrugged. “It was difficult to know what was best. I compromised, and told your daughter.”

“You did?” The older man’s bushy brows went together as he looked at Peg. “Why haven’t you said anything about it?”

“There was no need,” she said clearly. “No one here seemed to be bothering much about it and I didn’t want to upset you over something that might fizzle out.”

Steve caught her blue glance, and held it. She could see him mentally shaking his head at her for prevaricating; she’d known darned well the proposition wouldn’t fizzle out.

“The whole thing is very much alive,” he said. “These
two company men made a tour of several of the plantations and weighed up their worth. They’re now going to make a definite offer to each planter of a certain figure per hundred acres. The whole palm-acreage of the island is to be coordinated and split up into six sections, each one to have a young superintendent in charge. That way, they’ll be able to run the complete crop much more economically.”

Jim had forgotten the cheroot between his fingers, his brandy and coffee. He pushed a hand over his reddish-grey hair, stared hard-eyed at Steve. “So the almighty company want to run us out of business, do they? They’re not satisfied with getting all the copra they want from individual planters: they’re making so much blamed profit that they have to put it into property or pay a whacking great tax on it. So they’ve decided to buy three parts of the island?”

Steve said calmly, “Let’s be realistic, Jim. This sort of thing is happening everywhere and it was bound to come here, to Motu, sooner or later. Throughout the years we’ve had a good steady price from the company and they’ve increased it whenever they could. We’ve never had to fight for a market, or worry about shipping. Our stuff was accepted at the harbour and paid for within a month of delivery there. We couldn’t have had a better deal.”

“But now it’s the finish,” said Jim Maldon bluntly. “The hayride’s over and we sell out to them or find our own copra buyer - is that it?”

“They haven’t said that. The very last thing they want is to cause hardship among the planters. I know how you
feel...”

“You don’t, because you’re not even the age I was when I first came here! To you, it’s ten or twenty thousand in your pocket and a fresh start somewhere, but I’m not starting again. I’m not only too old for it -
I
just don’t want to
l
ive anywhere else, or do anything different.”

“You don’t have to move away from Motu. Buy a dozen acres on the north coast and plant them. Build a decent
house...”

“For my retirement?” Jim broke in with a jeer. “Can you see me retiring? Jim Maldon of Coconut Island? No, thanks. I’ll stick to what I have, and if the company turns spiteful I’ll sell my copra elsewhere. You’ve told me,
Steve. Don’t spoil a good dinner by harping on it.”

Steve smoked, and looked speculatively at the ashtray he was using. Peg sat silently in her chair,
finishing
her coffee and watching a pale yellow lizard that was clinging, static, to the gently-moving reed blind. Jim, breathing a little heavily, took a long pull at his cheroot and swallowed his brandy in one go.

Without much expression Steve stated, “In spite of what you’ve just said I
do
know how you feel. But you must realise how times have changed, right here as well as elsewhere. The younger planters are all for selling. The Professor and old Gracey were against it, but I think they’ll come round when they know how much is being offered.”

“They won’t,” said Jim. “The Professor doesn’t care about money and old Gracey couldn’t see himself as anything but a Big Tuan leading a highly civilised life in a wild country. They couldn’t live as they do anywhere else.”

“There’s nothing to stop any of them staying on Motu. The Professor doesn’t live for his plantation; he exists for the pests he finds and classifies. If he had money he could equip a modern laboratory. And Gracey ... well, if he had to transfer to another house there’d be nothing to stop his dressing up for dinner and wearing natty whites. They’ll both sell - I’m certain of it.”

Jim Maldon pitched his half-smoked cheroot out of the open doorway. “I’m not like either of
’em. My chief interest
for fifteen years has been this plantation. I’ve lived it, breathed it, slept it, given up everything else a man values just so that I could be here, doing a planter’s job on my own acreage. I’m not selling, Steve.”

Steve jabbed out his cigarette with some force, but he spoke in the almost casual tones he had been using ever since broaching the matter. “Think it over from every angle before making a final decision. If you’re the only individual planter you’ll have trouble all round. You’ll have to take shipping space on one of the smaller freighters and place your copra with an agent, which means you may have to wait for months for your money, and that the price will probably be lower than the company’s. Then you may have trouble with your workers.”

“I don’t see why. I treat them well!”

“Your lot will feel out of it - small fry compared with the company labourers. The company will build another school and probably engage a Malay doctor, and your families won’t qualify for either. You’ll have them drifting away.”

“I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” said Jim stubbornly.

“Can you see yourself living here, surrounded by company property?”

“No, I can’t, but if it happens I shall have to put up with it.” He got up and went to the cabinet, poured two fingers of whisky and splashed soda into it. From where he stood he looked across at Peg’s carefully averted face. “You’re saying nothing, Peg.”

“It’s not really my business, is it?”

“It is, partly. When the worms get me this place will be yours. If I refuse to sell and can’t get labour or a good price for the copra, the value of the plantation will go down and you’ll find I haven’t left you much, after all.”

“I’m not interested in what you’ll leave. I want you to
do whatever will make you happiest.”

“You mean that?”

Steve was standing now. “Yes, she’s young enough to mean it,” he said in jaded accents, “but she has no conception of what might happen here, and you’re being blind about it yourself, Jim. You’re happy the way things are now, but you’d be damned miserable if the plantation fell away through your own obstinacy. I know it’s hard to have to make such a decision about something you’ve built up and intended to keep, and I know it’s worse for you than for any of us, but in the long run you’ll be far happier if you sell than if you cling to something that will start to crumble right under you. Once big business comes in, you won’t be able to make it alone.”

Jim Maldon fingered his glass, looked down into it and said softly, “Two of us might have stood out, Steve. Your property touches mine at one
corner
and you have fifteen hundred acres. Twenty-five hundred between us.”

Steve pushed his hands into his pockets. “As a matter of fact,” he said distinctly, “I’m going to invest the bulk of my money in the company. In this, I’m afraid I’m all for progress.”

There was a pulsing pause. Peg, gazing at her father, felt sick and angry for him, and rage against Steve Cortland was rising into her throat. She drew a deep breath.

“Perhaps you ought to know,” she said in sharp thin tones, “that Steve is to be appointed general manager of the new Motu copra estate. In due course he’ll probably be a company director. Won’t that be nice?”

Jin took this in, looked from Steve to Peg, and back at Steve. Slowly he said, “I’ll take my whisky to bed with me if you don’t mind. Goodnight.”

For fully two minutes after he had gone from the room neither Steve or Peg moved an inch. Steve still stood in front of his chair with his hands sunk into his pockets and his chin jutting while his glance was trained on something outside in the darkness. Peg sat in her chair, her muscles tense, her head bent so that the lamplight shone over her short, com-silk curls.

Then, with an effort she pushed to her feet. “
I’
m afraid you’ve upset him,” she said on a caught breath. “Perhaps you ought to go now.”

With a violence underlying his voice, Steve said, “You come outside. I’ve things to say to you!”

“My father closed his door. You can say them here.”

“Very well,” crisply. “Did you have to make that last crack? Do you think I’d have acted as Jim’s acting, even if I hadn’t been going to join the company? You don’t fight progress - you help it. Jim’s not too old to see that. And as for you ... you’re so blinded by your affection for him that you can’t see what’s best for him or for yourself. Jim has to choose between a fat sum of money that will keep
him
in more than comfort for the rest of his life and wretchedly grubbing along at odds with everybody while his land loses heart and value. And you’re helping him to choose the wrong way.”

She faced him, wide-eyed, bewildered. “Do you really think I have any say in this? Do you think I’d persuade my father to give up something that’s meant more to him than his own family? The way I see it, he has to have what he needs for his own kind of happiness, and even you will agree that he’s nothing without his plantation.” Her tones lowered. “Let him try it out. In a year’s time he may
think
differently.”

“You can’t play around with big companies. If your father goes to them in a year’s time it will be because he’s defeated, and they’ll base their offer accordingly. It’s soulless, but it’s the way companies are run. Peg, you’ve got to do your utmost to make him see where he’ll stand if he refuses to sell. I’d hate like hell to have to watch him and his plantation disintegrate together!”