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“Heavens, child, aren’t you dressed yet? We’re all ready to shove off to the club.”

As an excuse for turning her back, Phil picked up her brush and began to draw it over her hair. “I’ve had a long day, Jan, and I’m not hungry. I’ll stay here and go to bed early.”

“Julian’s going with us—it’s his treat.”

“It makes no difference,”

“It should. There are several here who’ll make play for him, and there’s nothing so potent as a cold wife to make a man easy meat.” She came a little farther into the room. “This afternoon I had the impertinence to ask Julian how long you’d been married. A year isn’t fair trial, Phil, particularly as you’ve spent practically half of it apart.”

“Some mistakes are evident the minute they’re made.”

“And some look like mistakes when they’re only growing pains or the pinch of readjustment. You’re still living at six months ago, when you quarrelled, or whatever it was. This advice may sound crude, but to bring your feelings up to date you ought to share a room for a night ... it would clear the air of toxins.”

Pausing, brush-handle tight in her hand, Phil said: “Your reactions are masculine, Jan . . . they’re Julian’s. You’re captured by the idea of a man neglecting his plantation to chase after an erring wife. But I happen to know that the plantation is so well organized that it can easily run without him for ten days. You see if he doesn’t get restive by the end of the week—if he stays that long.”

“Stubborn little ass, aren’t you? D’you think: he’s blind to the fact that you’re still in love with him?”

Phil twisted to look at her. “No, but I’m not so far gone as to let him stampede me back to Valeira.” Bitterly, she added: “He’s never known defeat or suffering. Through him, I’ve made the acquaintance of both, and neither his protestations nor your well-intentioned advice will persuade me to stick out my chin for more. I’m sorry this should happen in your house, Jan, but for my part you needn’t invite him again.”

Jan sighed, “You’re being an awful fool, darling, but I suppose you haven’t enough years and experience to turn this situation to solid account. I’d forgive a man almost anything rather than smash my marriage, but I’ve had seventeen years of it, and grown a good many roots,” She shrugged good-humouredly. “Cynthia Catenham seems to be Julian’s choice, probably because she’s at the other end of the pole from you. Dark, sophisticated and twice married—her husband’s hundreds of miles inland. You may have noticed at the swimming-pool that she strips well. Good night, duckie.”

Phil waited until tranquillity had settled over the house before opening her door to the side veranda. The sudden night had fallen, the air and sky were still. Trees had blackened, and stars, huge and crystalline, seemed suspended between them. Later there would be a moon to create near-daylight, and towards dawn the mist would steal its brilliance and smother everything, leaving a steaming world to be faced in the morning.

Tonight, the smell, a heavy perfume mixed with the everpresent exhalations of rotting vegetation, sickened Phil. It reminded her of the greedy eroticism of Mrs. Catenham, and for a moment brought Sonya Levalle very clearly to mind. Jan was proud of sending out roots, but Phil feared them. Once she had had illusions, taut heartstrings and terrible yearnings. Now she desired only that which was denied her: peace.

IT was good to be rocketing along the narrow road which rose and passed the convent and sloped down to twine through a forest of palms and casuarinas, with here and there a giant mahogany tree. Good to know that Port Andrew was behind one for eight hours or so.

The day out had been Jan’s suggestion. On Friday she had received a letter from her husband stating that he hoped to be home within a week, and to settle for a good long spell. Jan, stirred from her complacency, averred that she must have action or perish of impatience. She threw out an invitation to all who cared to bring their own food, and borrowed an open two-seater for herself and Phil.

They had begun with a bathe at the pool, eaten a cold breakfast at the pavilion and piled into the chain of cars. Four men went first, “just in case it might be expedient to use a rifle”, and Jan followed, with half a dozen assorted vehicles stringing along after. They were making for the lake which lay in a hollow in the jungle.

Julian was driving the third or fourth car, Phil wasn’t sure which. He had hired one of the new town taxis for the day, and selected Cynthia Catenham and two junior Government officials as passengers. Phil had answered his “Good morning” at the pool, and sat as far away from him as possible at breakfast. She had been prepared for him to come to the picnic, for wherever she happened to be spending her leisure hours during the past week Julian had managed somehow to make an appearance. Quite often he was accompanied by the dark Cynthia.

Phil had schooled her temperature and stiffly ignored the drumming of her heart, but her nerves needed rest which they didn’t get. When he walked the aisle in the dining-room at the club and paused at the table she might be sharing with Jan or Charles, she felt her nerves stretch like keyed-up wires while her tones went leaden. If he dropped in at Jan’s for a sundowner or morning coffee, a throbbing set up in various parts of her body. Her only consolation was that it couldn’t last; nine days had elapsed since he left the plantation.

“When Brad’s been home a day or so I shall give a party,” Jan was saying. “The poor old boy must have been paralysed with boredom, spending so long palavering with chiefs and whatnot. It’s a brute of a life. I went with him till I caught fever.”

“Malaria, Jan?”

“Yes, rather badly. We’d been away two months and were on the last lap, only about seventy miles from Port Andrew. We stayed a night with an agricultural man and, because he was short of quinine, left him all we had except a dozen tablets, which should have lasted us in the usual five-grain doses till we got home. Storms held us up at a rest-house, and our quinine was finished, but we didn’t worry. As you know, the effects of quinine don’t pile up— it’s the daily intake that does the trick. I went down with fever and Brad hadn’t a thing to give me. He sent boys in various directions and eventually one came back with a doctor, who pumped stuff into me till I could talk sensibly. Brad’s never taken me with him since then.” Conversationally, she tacked on. “Drag off this shroud and give me a cigarette, Phil.”

After puffing a ball of smoke Jan grunted contentedly. “When Brad’s about the place we don’t bother the club very much.”

“You won’t want me there. I can always go back to the Institute, Jan.”

“It isn’t as though you were intrusive,” she answered, a remark which left the matter open.

It took half an hour for all the cars to park and by that time several of the men were enjoying a dip in the lake. None of the women hankered for the experience, for the water was incredibly deep and pitted with sinister eddies. It was also reputed to shelter strange fish and water-snakes.

Julian sprawled on the farther edge of the check tablecloth which was spread over the rugs. From her seat at a table Phil had only to raise her glance a fraction to watch him dispose of tinned chicken and ham, vegetable salad, a section of pawpaw, soft cheese with rusks and a very tall glass of whisky and lemon.. She wished Charles were there so that she, like the other women, could have exchanged banter with one of the grounded males. She was thankful when Julian lay back with his hands under his head and stared at the sky.

Someone started the gramophone; an intolerably sweet Chopin waltz. The chatter went on. Julian sat up and reached for his jacket. He tapped both pockets and turned to where the coat had lain, scanning the rug.

“Looking for your cigarettes, darling?” laughed Cynthia from another table. “I lifted them on the way up. Don’t you remember?”

She slid down to the rug beside him, the gold case in her hands. Smiling into his face she lodged two cigarettes between her lips and steadied them to his lighter.

“Take one, Julian.”

He did, and held it. Phil was tense, her spine a rod. She thought, if he smokes it I shall know he’s staying to finish an affair with Cynthia; he doesn’t like her, but he’d do it to punish me. He’s fiendishly cruel.

Without haste, Phil made heaps of the plates on her table, grouped the glasses and cutlery and wiped the sweat from her hands with a napkin. The others were sleepy; some had already closed their eyes and a man caused sniggers by a full-throated snore. No one commented when Phil skirted the clearing and sauntered down to the water’s edge. By casual sideways steps she came to the path through the bush which surrounded the lake.

Now she was climbing earnestly, dragging herself up from rock to rock, clinging with feet and fingers to the age-old roots which knuckled over ledges and vanished underground, to merge again a few yards distant. She heard the bubble and splash of a tiny waterfall, and found a smooth rock near it upon which to rest. She was drenched with sweat. Her pink silk dress was plastered flat to her back and hips, and moisture itched down from her temples. The hair near her head was soaked, and her blood pounded. She flattened some young ferns, lay upon them in a blankness of solitude, and went to sleep.

Phil roused uneasily from a dream. She couldn’t have slept long, for the grey light among the trees retained the faint radiance of daylight and her dress had not completely dried out.

“Phil! Phil!”

So it had not been a dream. He had pursued and was calling her, his voice imperious with anxiety. Did he think he might have driven her to suicide?

She saw him first, his white shoulders mounting towards her, his forearm corded as he gripped and took his weight. He stopped and looked up, and she was sure the blue had changed to black in his eyes.

“You might have answered!”

She pushed aside the wisps which had dried against her forehead. “I was asleep.”

He accomplished the last few yards and dropped on to a comer of her fern bed.

“So you were asleep,” he said with brittle conciseness. “This is a hell of a place to choose for an afternoon nap.”

“It’s free, and private ... or it was.”

“Suppose you’d got lost, or broken your neck in the descent.”

“One neck less,” she returned.

From her dress pocket she extracted a comb and mirror, and for the next few minutes proceeded to make use of them. Suddenly he seized the comb and flung it wide, into the thick growth
alongside the waterfall.

“You’re developing delightful habits through associating with Cynthia,” she said. “May I powder my nose?”

“You know damn well I wouldn’t touch that woman.”

“Why not? She’s safe—impossible to harm.”

He grasped her hair and caught back her head. “That’s about enough,” he said, and kissed her with such force that the salt taste of blood ran on to her tongue from inside her lip.

Her nails curled viciously into the flesh of his shoulder, and in the momentary weakening of his hold she pulled away.

“Strong, aren’t you?” She felt round her neck. “I thought you’d decided that was one way of closing my windpipe for good.”

“So did I,” he savagely agreed. “What’s got into you? Why are you behaving like something subhuman? If it’s a new line of self-defence, you’re wasting the effort.”

“However I behaved you’d view it in the light most flattering to yourself. Your ego won’t allow you to believe that all I want from you is my freedom.”

“If you weren’t in love with me, you could have it.”

“The response I expected. You used not to be so obvious, Julian.”

“If we’re throwing brickbats again, you used to have infinite qualities of charm and tenderness.” He snapped off a fern frond and raised it to his mouth.

“Don’t,” she said sharply.

“Don’t what?”

“Bite that thing. We’re near water.”

He threw It down and gazed at her with concentration. “What do you care if I trap a fever? One neck less.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she cried. “You came to fetch me, so let’s go.”

“No.” He grabbed her wrist. “At last we’re really alone. There’s no door to admit Clever Jan or Brother Charles. Before we leave here I’ll compel you to admit you love me."

She was becoming frightened; a heaviness gathered in her chest. “And how will you set about it?” she challenged. “With another tainted kiss?”

Like a smouldering fire splashed with oil, he blazed. With a wrench of her wrist he had her on her back and was pinning her shoulders into the crushed leaves. She saw his jaw angular against the arching spears of the palms, heard the violent shuddering of his breath in his lungs before he pulled her into a furious, ruthless embrace.

Phil’s arm lay across her eyes. Blurred senses were attempting to focus. She smelled the sap of pulped stems, and cigarette smoke. Her mouth felt bruised, her throat parched, and behind her eyes stabbed scorching pain. She wished she were dead.

Ten yards down on a rock sat Julian, one knee drawn up to support an elbow. It was the spiral from his cigarette that smarted in her nostrils. Mechanically she brushed the bits from her head and shook out her dress. Hearing her actions he turned and came up.

Neither looked at the other.

“I’ll go first,” he said. “Avoid the tufts of grass, if you can.”

The journey to the path was as brief as he could make it and was contrived without contact. But before they faced the blatant stares of Jan and her friends he halted.

“Phil . . . I’m not going to beg you to forgive me till I can forgive myself.”

“I asked for it,” she said tonelessly.

“You did, but that doesn’t let me out. Nothing of that kind ever happened to me before in my life.”

“Well, now you’ve something new to paste in your scrapbook.”

“Don’t, Phil. It hurts now, but we’ll live it down because we love each other. I’ll resign from Valeira at once. We’ll get out of the tropics—go to Kenya and start our own plantation...

“We!” She gave a hoarse little laugh. “If I needed a prod to make my decision, I’ve had it.”

Gramophone music, a martial piece, burst shatteringly upon the air. Quickly Phil swerved from him, and entered the clearing.