They Met in Zanzibar (8 page)

She nodded jerkily, with her lips pulled in in case they trembled. Then she swallowed and said, “Can you see how it is for me ... can you? If I persuade him to sell he’ll always hold it against me, and I’ll never know whether I’ve done the right thing. I ... I’ve really only known him a few months,
and...
”

“Don’t,” he said swiftly. “I saw all that. You’re just a kid and it’s tough that you should be placed in such a position. Promise me one thing - that though you can’t bring yourself to persuade him to sell, you won’t oppose it.”

“However I may act, it will be for his sake,” she said in a subdued voice. “It’s a ... a terrible thing when a man is faced with such a situation. Years ago he had to choose between Motu and his family
...
”

“He made an appalling choice,” said Steve abruptly. “You adore him and accept
him
as he is, so you won’t agree with that. It’s all in the past now, but we can do our best to make sure he doesn’t let the plantation win this time. If it does win he’ll eventually lose everything - and I don’t mean money.”

She nodded sadly. “I do see the other side of it. My father’s no dope - he can see it too.”

“For him it’s obscured by a determination to live out his days right here on his own plantation.” He reached over and patted her shoulder. “Sorry I bawled at you just now. You mustn’t distress yourself - I’ve a couple of weeks in which to convince Jim.” He paused. “Been about much?”

“No.”

“
I’
d
take you up to the north coast of the island - maybe tomorrow. And perhaps we could go a few miles along the river one day; our river is spectacular.”

She pressed her hands together, more in command of herself. “You don’t have to be especially kind to me.”

He sounded more his old self, mocking and tolerant. “How do you know I don’t? You’re not inside me, watching an exuberant girl look despondent and pretty. You’re a queer one, Peg - candid and uninhibited about many things yet prickly as a barb-apple when your own or your father’s emotions are involved.”

“What’s a barb-apple?”

“It’s a local wild fruit that tastes good if you’ll take the risk of picking and peeling it. Its skin is shiny and covered with hair-like thorns.”

“And I’m like that?”

He grinned. “Only figuratively. Your skin would be smooth to the touch; kissing-skin, don’t they call it?”

Peg was conscious of a sudden thin tension between them, but she spoke offhandedly. “Do they? You seem to have a well-developed flair for conversation with women; you must have had lots of practice.”

He lifted his shoulders and threw out a hand. “I’m not a boy, honey. Do you want me to promise I won’t practise on you?”

“What would you do instead?”

His grey glance was tantalising. “What is there to do with a blue-eyed blonde if you don’t talk?” He let a silence take possession for a moment, then said, “Let’s make it a date for tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at ten in the morning and we’ll take a picnic to Nabanui. Remember our picnic on Zanzibar?”

“You’re not so snappish now as you were then.”

“I hadn’t quite accepted you.”

“And now you have?”

“I’ve a feeling,” he said with deliberation, “that it will never be wise to take you for granted. Part of the time you’re like a highly-strung colt, but there are moments when a sort of brooding passion looks out of those remarkable eyes. You’re going to be quite a woman, Peg.”

“Thanks. I think you’d better go now, don’t you?”

“That’s hardly the way to treat a guest, but you could be right.” He moved towards the door with disconcerting promptness. “Don’t forget - tomorrow at ten. Goodnight.”

He went out of the house with maddening indifference, and Peg heard him begin to whistle just below his breath as he got into his car. It was quite some minutes later, when she had put out the lamp and was lighting the one in her bedroom, that she discovered her teeth were clamped and her hands clumsy.

Next morning Jim Maldon was quieter than usual and he ate only one egg and two pieces of toast. He made no reference to Steve’s visit of the previous evening, but he did mention that he would be out to lunch; he intended going over to see old Gracey and would probably stay there for a few hours. Peg’s heart ached; she knew how her father would spend those hours with the anachronistic Mr. Gracey.

She told Nosoap that he needn’t prepare any lunch and that he could go over to the workers’ quarters if he wished, till tea-time. Nosoap was pleased.

“They are cutting new grasses to make walls,” he said happily. “My wife make wall to her father’s house for us to live. My wife’s father is the tuan’s headman.”

“You told me it was your cousin’s father,” Peg pointed out.

“My wife’s,” he reiterated, showing yellow teeth in a grin. “My wife is my cousin.”

“Oh, is she? You actually married your cousin?”

“No,” he said with a charming bow. “I marry my wife. She is the cousin of my half-brother. Always my cousin, also, till we married.”

“I see. How can she build a wall to her father’s house?”

“Inside,” he said simply, “to make one more room.”

Peg visualised the small, presumably two-roomed huts. “How many rooms are there in your father-in-law’s house?”

Nosoap spread his hands. “With the new one there will be six. One builds a wall
and there is the room!” With pride, he tacked on, “In our room we will have only one grass wall because we are at the end of the house. My wife’s brother is not so happy - he has two grass walls.”

“And how have you been living so far?” Peg queried.

“All of us together,” he said blandly. “But now we are to have baby and our own home.”

“Good for you,” she said. “Let me know if your wife needs anything.”

She wanted to tell him that she would ask Tuan Maldon to let
him
have a house all to himself, but she knew she couldn’t approach her father on a matter of that sort, just now. So she gave Nosoap a couple of the flannelette blankets which her father called “sweat sheets”, and a basket of groceries. The boy finished his tidying and went off cheerfully, and Peg changed from her house-frock into black jeans and a flowery cotton blouse. She sat down to wait for Steve, waited fully half an hour before he drove up. Her growing resentment dissolved swiftly; dangerously so, if she had but known it. She met him in the doorway.

“Terribly sorry to be late,” he said. “There was a boy injured just as I was ready to leave and I had to attend to him.”

“Seriously?”

“No, but I had to sterilise the wound; it took longer than I thought it would.”

“It didn’t matter,” she said, stiff with the restraint she had imposed upon herself. “I hardly noticed the time.”

“It was one of those things - couldn’t be helped.” He gave her a raking glance. “You look like a boy in that get-up. Very sweet. Come on, let’s go.”

The car was crunching down towards the gravel road when Steve gave her another look and said appreciatively, “I like the
modern
girl. She may have lost the touch of mystery, but she’s gained a sort of airy companionableness that’s just right. Who wants to make love to a mystery, anyway?”

The trouble with Steve, thought, Peg despairingly, was that he too often said something that challenged; and the trouble with herself was that she couldn’t fail to rise to it.

“I like the idea of a little mystery in a love affair,” she commented. “The other way it could be too matter-of- fact.”

“You mean too earthy. You’ll grow out of wanting a fairytale to happen to you. Where men are concerned, your life has been too narrow.”

“That’s not such a bad thing.”

“It is. It’s no compliment to a man if you marry him without knowing any others. Still, as I’ve said before, you’ve all the time in the world'.” A pause. “How is your father this morning?”

“If you mean has he said anything about the future, no, he hasn’t.”

Steve sighed gustily. “He’s going to be difficult. But we won’t talk about it today.” He turned the car down towards the river. “Ever thought what this island must have been like before the white Man came? You get a good idea of it from the bridge. Mangroves, Flame of the
Forest trees, and dumps of wild banana with the tufts of the palms rising here and there. Now, there’s only a narrow strip of jungle alongside the river and a bit of forest on the north coast. All the rest is given over to the almighty coconut palm.”

“And very beautiful they are,” she said, as the car slowed on the bridge and she was able to look along the sunshot river running between densely grown banks. “I feel as if no one has lived till he’s seen a South Sea island.”

“You felt the same about Zanzibar,” he teased her. “That’s what new places do to you when you’re young.”

“It’s a gorgeous feeling. Where is this place we’re going to - Nabanui?”

“About eighteen miles. It’s a bay adjoining the port;
good bathing in
clear water and at low tide you can wade out as far as the corals.”

“Lovely,” she murmured. “Do they dive for pearls there?”

“They did,” he said laconically. “All gone now.”

“Oh dear. I long to find a pearl myself.”

“They still find them near the western reef, but it’s more dangerous - or they’d all be gone too. You’ll have to make do with corals today.”

After that they drove much of the way without speaking. The immensely tall and graceful coconut palms reached up on either side, most of them leaning slightly away from the trade wind. Steve didn’t point out where the different plantations began, but Peg knew that this road touched most of them. She thought it rather wonderful that there were no fences anywhere, no trouble at all about boundaries; and inevitably she reflected that already the plantations were like one vast estate. If her father held out he would have to fence his acreage, a colossal task that would cost plenty.

They came to the little port of Motu, drove slowly along the waterfront, where a steamer was unloading beef and lamb alongside a refrigerated warehouse, and passed through a narrow street where pumpkins and squashes were spread over the low thatched roofs to ripen, before emerging on to a road that was lined with feathery mauve tamarisks which half a mile later gave way to the usual shore-side growth of palms and bananas. Steve stopped the car close to a narrow bay where the only sign of humanity was a solitary canoe. The sand was glaringly white and the blue sea washed over it in gentle ripples,
leaving a thin line of coral-weed as it receded.

Steve poured coffee from a flask into a polythene cup and gave it to Peg. She dropped a couple of lumps of sugar into it, shared a spoon with him and, leaning against the car, sipped luxuriously.

“Like to eat now, or bathe first?” he asked.

“I’m wearing my swim-suit. Any restrictions on sunbathing here?”

“None. The people are a cross between Malays and Polynesians and there’s nothing they like better than the sun. Except, perhaps, making love.”

Peg ignored the final remark. She stepped out of her jeans, hung her blouse over the back of her seat and performed a few swinging and bending exercises for the sheer joy of feeling the current of warm air over her skin. She straightened, laughing breathlessly, shook back her hair and met a dark gaze that sparkled rather warmly.

“Get into the sea. I’ll catch you up,” he said abruptly. She reached into her bag for her cap, swung it on one finger, took another fleeting glance at him and turned to run down to the sea. Two minutes later he joined her, but after greeting her he swam way out, and instinctively she knew he wanted her to get back to the car before he did. It was too hot to sunbathe after all, and Peg shouldered into her blouse and lay out in shade on the sandy grass with her eyes closed. She heard Steve towel himself, and when eventually she opened her eyes he was wearing the striped jersey shirt like an open jacket and had brought a box of food from the car.

Peg knew an exciting, precarious happiness. Through lowered lashes she watched Steve as he contentedly ate and drank, saw him pop nuts into his mouth and move his strong white teeth with a precision that must surely mean his thoughts were miles away. She took a cigarette from him and leaned to the flame he held. He sat and smoked, looking relaxed and debonair, yet when, against her will, she once more met his glance, there was a dark watchfulness in his eyes that didn’t quite match the smile on his lips.

“Glad you came?” he asked.

She nodded. “It’s grand.”

“Didn’t you come here with Michael Foster before I came home?”

“No. We did bathe at other beaches, but they weren’t as lovely as this.”

“Could it be the companion who makes the difference?”

She pretended to give this thought. “Michael’s rather a sweet. He doesn’t make one self
-
conscious.”

“Do I?”

“You know you do - it’s what you aim for. You’ve probably had so many affairs you don’t even notice you’ve developed a line.”