Substitute Engagement

by Jayne Bauling

  When they arrived back at the Ballard Hotel’s beach in the late afternoon Rob said a pleasant general farewell to the party, but all Lucia got was a brief inclination of the head and a last angry look. Then he turned and stalked away up the beach.

  Well, that suited her perfectly, she decided rebel-liously. She didn’t want anything more to do with him and it seemed that the feeling was mutual. And yet she couldn’t stop herself wondering what was wrong, and whether he had temporarily forgotten the deception they were supposed to be practising.

  Reaching her room, Lucia washed her hair under the shower, using a liberal quantity of conditioner, and when it was dry she put on a low-necked black cotton-knit shirt and a pretty pair of shorts with tiny black flowers on a white background, the few pleats gathered into a belted waistband flattering to her slim figure.

  She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, pleased with the slight tan that she had very carefully allowed herself to acquire during the course of the day and the few fair highlights that now glinted in her hair.

  Then, having found out from Madelon that staff members were permitted to sign for drinks against their salaries, she took herself along to the open-air bar where she had been yesterday for one. She deserved a drink, she decided.

  She had almost finished it when a young woman approached the small table at which she was sitting alone. She was momentarily startled, having almost forgotten Nadine Ballard’s existence. Somehow she had been reduced to a cipher in this whole uncomfortable mess.

  ‘Lucia?’ she ventured tentatively as Lucia stiffened. ‘I’m Nadine Ballard.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Lucia offered warily.

  ‘May I sit down?’ She waited for Lucia’s reluctant nod before doing so. ‘I wanted to talk to you, because Thierry can’t or won’t tell me much yet, and I need to know…’

  ‘If it’s all right?’ Lucia supplied flatly as Nadine’s voice trailed away, and she wondered tiredly if these constant trials of her strength would ever come to an end.

  ‘Something like that,’ Nadine agreed faintly.

  Lucia examined her with a certain amount of curiosity, this girl who had stolen Thierry from her. At present she sounded vulnerable, but her still, oval face expressed only a calm resolve, and Lucia gained an impression of inner strength. Secretly, she had to admit that Nadine seemed to be the sort of person she usually admired and sometimes wished she could be—serene and utterly unaggressive.

  ‘Well, it is,’ she assured her brightly, managing a careless smile, acting for all she was worth. ‘Thierry is the past. I think we became a habit to each other; that’s why it lasted so long—why we let it drift into more than it should have been, even to an engagement.’

  ‘He said something similar,’ Nadine confessed with evident relief, missing the way that Lucia’s eyes flashed.

  ‘I was between school and varsity when I met him—a child, really. I’ve changed, moved on.’ Lucia reflected tartly that she would soon have herself convinced, and she gestured rather coyly. ‘But, anyway, I thought you knew that your brother and I have…got a thing for each other.’

  If Rob was still intent on keeping up the pretence!

  ‘Yes, but I’m assuming that it’s as temporary as all his other affairs—and assuming that you know that too,’ Nadine added anxiously. ‘He’s usually fair that way—warning the girls.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lucia agreed blithely.

  ‘I was concerned that you might think you could have Thierry back when it was over.’ An implacable note made it clear that Nadine wouldn’t countenance any such thing, and Lucia shook her head cheerfully, earning a gratified smile, and now it was Nadine’s turn to regard her curiously.

  ‘I was surprised about you and Rob, I have to say, when it’s obvious that you must be dedicated to your future career—what with having got a degree in marine biology and all. It’s not that he’s sexist or anything like that, but he has always avoided any sort of personal involvement with women like you ever since Shelagh reinforced the prejudices our mother created in him.’

  ‘Shelagh?’

  ‘The only woman he ever considered having a per-manent relationship with—but it turned out to be disastrous, so it’s fortunate they never got as far as marriage. She was a Zimbabwean, like us, but she was always away up in Kenya or Rwanda or somewhere, spending months on end studying some kind of anthropoids.’

  ‘Oh, I think he did mention her, but not her name,’ Lucia realised, recalling his reference to an ex-girl-friend working with primates.

  So maybe, if he was prejudiced against career women, today’s proof of her absolute professionalism with regard to her new job had been responsible for the hostility that Rob had shown her since they had dived.

  Obviously he had never got over this Shelagh woman. He had said he liked warm, generous, emotional women, who gave all of themselves to a relationship, so he must be capable of the same, and yet, as Nadine had just confirmed, all his relationships were temporary, so he must still be in love with Shelagh.

  Lucia picked up her glass and drained it as Nadine said earnestly, ‘I will make Thierry happy, Lucia.’

  ‘And he you?’ Lucia made it a question.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Nadine was confident. ‘I’ve had some horrible experiences—it’s to do with my being so quiet—but I knew as soon as I met Thierry. All relationships make demands—difficult ones—but one thing I know he’ll never do is hit me.’

  ‘No, he’ll never do that,’ Lucia confirmed quietly, sure in her knowledge of Thierry as she pushed back her chair, suddenly glad for Nadine if she had the horror of violence in her past. ‘I do wish you both all the happiness in the world, Nadine. Will you excuse me, please? I think Chester Watson is looking for me.’

  It wasn’t an excuse. Chester was hovering a short distance away and Lucia went to see what he wanted with an odd feeling of relief. Nadine would make Thierry happy—but why should the knowledge please her? She loved him herself, didn’t she? She wanted to be the one to make him happy, the one who shared his home and settled family tradition.

  ‘I can’t find Rob to tell him, but I’ve thought it over, and that yachtsman I told you about is still available to do the boat trips,’ Chester announed mysteriously as she reached him and they moved out of hearing range of the evening drinkers.

  ‘Madelon Brouard is taking over Nadine’s job, so what I’ve decided is that you should go into the hotel shop, Lucia—you told me you you have till experience—as well as doing her share of the minibus tours she escorted round the island on certain days. Rob says you’re incredibly knowledgeable on all sorts of fascinating aspects, whereas Madelon had to swot it up.’

  Lucia’s immediate reaction was one of absolute joy, but then other things began to sink in.

  ‘What has Rob got to do with this?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘He found me competent! He said I was proficient and professional…He has told you to take me off the boat trips, hasn’t he?’

  Chester looked dismayed. ‘Oh, now, love, I had no idea I’d be causing trouble between the two of you! How was I to know he’s the old-fashioned sort who doesn’t discuss things with the little woman? He doesn’t come across like that. I thought it was a joint decision, that you’d talked about it since you’ve got something going between you.’

  ‘He never said a word!’ Raging resentment was gathering in Lucia’s breast. ‘He said I was good! So why has he done this?’

  Chester threw out his hands. ‘How should I know? Maybe he’s being protective if he doesn’t like the idea of his woman taking risks—because, let’s face it, there is an element of danger to most activities that involve the sea.’

  ‘I’m going to find him and ask him,’ Lucia declared contemptuously.

  ‘Well, just remember—and you can tell him too—I’m not responsible if you have a row and break up over this.’

  Whether Chester had tried Rob’s suite or not, that was where Lucia found him. He opened the door immediately in response to her
furiously thumping fist.

  ‘Not another rage,’ he remarked with amused exasperation as he saw her face.

  ‘Why have you told Chester to take me off the boat trips?’ she demanded stormily, and heard him swear succinctly. ‘You said you didn’t interfere, and now you’ve done this! It’s to drive me off the island, isn’t it? Having to pretend you’re involved with me is too much of a nuisance; it’s stopping you going after Madelon! Well, tough; your precious sister is just going to have to put up with seeing me around, because Chester has offered me a job in the shop and escorting bus tours, and I’m going to take it.’

  ‘I suggested that he should offer you something of the sort,’ Rob snapped, closing the door now that she had marched into the suite.

  ‘But why?’ she responded passionately. ‘You said I was good!’

  It was a wounded pride’s cry of protest, and he was silent, eyes unfathomable as he studied her stricken expression, although there was a distinct tightness about his mouth.

  ‘You’re brilliant,’ he affirmed eventually, and swore again. ‘I should have ensured that Chester didn’t involve me when he told you. That’s why I didn’t discuss it with you.’

  ‘Why?’ Her voice had gone shaky.

  ‘You’re not going to like it,’ he warned her tautly. ‘I didn’t think you needed the humiliation.’

  ‘Proficient and professional, you said,’ she reminded him.

  ‘And terrified, Lucia,’ Rob asserted softly.

  She stared at him in utter disbelief for a moment before dropping her eyes, her face flaming. How had he known? No one else had ever guessed, not even her father once he had forgotten that first childish display of fear.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked in an agonised whisper, quite incapable of assembling any sort of defence. ‘How can you know me like that?’

  Rob was silent for a moment, his expression as complicated as if he was entertaining some thought he didn’t much care for. Then he shrugged.

  ‘I just seem to know you,’ he allowed dismissively. ‘You are frightened of the sea, aren’t you, Lucia? You were so incredibly tense before you dived, so relieved after you were up. You weren’t even that enthusiastic about going in with the dolphins earlier, although you did so voluntarily in the end. But it was the others’ delight, plus the safety factory inherent in the dolphins’ presence, that finally decided you.’

  ‘All right!’ Lucia had hold of herself now, but her voice was raw and choking with resentment as she admitted, ‘I’m a coward! I’m not physically adventurous! I hate deep water and I am not the mermaid everyone around here keeps calling me!’

  ‘In a literal sense I think we may both be glad of that,’ Rob observed, with a disconcerting gleam of humour in his eyes. But even more disconcerting was the gentleness of tone with which he continued, ‘And you are not a coward, Lucia, you’re the reverse. You did it, you went down, and your first care was always for the others with you. None of them guessed the truth.’

  Lucia stared at him wonderingly, something hard and hurting in her breast easing slightly in response to his words.

  ‘That’s why you sent me up before you, isn’t it?’ she realised, humiliation returning, and with it the habitual need to hide it by attacking. ‘I suppose you’re going to come over all manly and encouraging, and make it your business to convince me there’s nothing to be afraid of, and help me overcome my fear. Don’t! I am afraid and I always will be.’

  ‘Of course you are, so give in to it. Never go into the water again if you don’t want to. We’re all obliged to do some things we don’t want to, from the day we’re first sent to school, and simply living and interacting with other human beings uses up most of the courage we’re given, so why should any of us force ourselves when it’s something that’s not essential?

  ‘When we’re forcing ourselves physically it means someone or something is imposing on us and our individual right to have preferences. You’re an adult. If you don’t like doing something and don’t want to, then don’t do it—don’t force yourself. Stay out of the sea; stand in the sun, Lucia, if that’s what you want to do.’

  He had defeated her anger and she gave him another wondering look, knowing an urge to surrender to the understanding that he was offering.

  ‘I’d like that,’ she confided slowly.

  ‘Why have you forced yourself in the past, though?’ Rob asked.

  ‘My dad…’ She hesitated, groping for the answer she had never before had to put into actual words.

  ‘Your father forced you to dive?’ A spark of cold anger had appeared in his eyes, banishing the smoky mystery and leaving them hard and brilliant.

  ‘No!’ Sensitive to the censure, Lucia was indignant. ‘He just…It was—Look, when I was very little I was scared of the water, and I saw how disappointed he was, so I made myself…It’s no big deal! I just did it because I knew he wanted me to be able to. I didn’t have to like it, and after a while I got so good at it all—swimming and the rest—that he forgot I’d ever been afraid.’

  ‘So you forced yourself, to please him?’ Rob probed, still sounding sharply critical.

  ‘I said it’s not big deal!’ she snapped.

  ‘All right, it’s no big deal!’ The repitition came with an air of mockery, as if he was humouring her, and she glared at him distrustfully.

  ‘So I don’t want you feeling sorry for me, as if I’m one of those people who’ve been damaged in their childhood,’ she instructed him, with a jerky little lift of her chin. ‘I wanted to please him. And there’s another thing—this new job you say you recommended I should have? You’ve said the Ballard Group isn’t a charity, and I won’t have—’

  ‘I’m very close to losing my temper with you, you impossible girl,’ Rob interrupted. ‘Why don’t you sit down and calm down? I’ve seen for myself today that you are good with people, interested and interesting, so you’d get on well in most jobs which involve dealing with them.

  ‘It’s a natural ability that’s going to go to waste once you can afford to leave here and find the sort of post for which you’re qualified. I imagine you’ll choose to spend most of your life working in laboratories as you’re such a contradiction—a trained marine biologist who fears the water.’

  ‘I may decide to do something else entirely,’ Lucia submitted vaguely, turning and accepting the invitation to sit down just so that her expression might be hidden from him for a few seconds.

  But her studiedly casual tone must have given her away, because when she looked up from her new position on the couch Rob’s eyes were glittering with realisation.

  ‘Just a moment!’ he rapped, but then his voice went very soft as he asked, ‘How much else have you done to please your father? How many other natural inclinations have you denied? Didn’t you want to be a marine biologist?’

  Frustratedly she thumped a fist down on the arm of the couch.

  ‘I hate the way you know everything! Yes, all right, I didn’t. And I know I’m cheating him in a sense, because I’d rather not ever use my degree, but I’ve given three years of my life to keep my promise and I don’t think I can give any more. I’ve got to live my own life—find somewhere to belong and do the things I want to do!’

  It was a guiltily defiant protest. ‘I think now that my mother tried to make me see that I needn’t even go for the degree, that he couldn’t be hurt once he was dead—but I didn’t listen.’

  ‘No, somehow I don’t quite see you as the sort of girl who listens much to her mother,’ Rob inserted sardonically.

  ‘And I’d made an actual promise, in so many words, when he had the heart attack and we knew he was dying. It was important enough for him to think of in his last moments, when he told us there was enough money…’ Lucia’s voice faded and she shook her head slightly, trying to rid herself of the weight of the unhappy anger that came with looking back. ‘So I did it. Maybe I cheated someone else too—out of the place I had at varsity. I don’t know. I’ve often felt guilty
about using the money for something I didn’t want, when someone like Hassan Mohammed would have loved the same opportunity in a different faculty but his family couldn’t afford it for him.

  ‘I’m glad your hotel is here for him now and he has such good prospects, because he’s ambitious…Oh, I know I’m a cheat in all sorts of ways!’

  ‘Hassan is important to you, isn’t he?’

  The question was distracting, but she nodded. ‘We moved around so much that it was difficult to keep the friends I made in various places, but he really made an effort to stay in touch.’

  ‘It seems to me it’s yourself you’ve cheated first and foremost,’ Rob remarked tautly, after spending a second or two digesting her answer. ‘Or are you going to tell me that this was no big deal either?’

  ‘I wanted to do it. I loved my dad!’ She was rebel-liously challenging. ‘Is there something wrong with that?’

  ‘Not a thing, but there’s a whole lot wrong with making sacrifices for love. Three years of your life—and Thierry Olivier too, Lucia?’ he prompted.

  She shrugged indifferently, pride to the fore. ‘I can live with it.’

  ‘You’ll have to. So all that, for love.’ There was a sharp edge of disgust to the reflection, and she could see the glint of anger in his eyes as he stood in front of her.

  ‘What are you so cross about? Is it because it seems you actually got something wrong, and that now you think I’m not that abomination, the single-minded career woman, you might have to like me a little better?’ Lucia taunted.

  ‘Don’t let it concern you. I was trying to find a way of breaking it to my dad that I’d really like to go to the South African hotel school or maybe try some kind of personnel work when he had the heart attack. Maybe I’ll finally get the chance to pursue something of the sort now that I’m not going to be marrying Thierry.’

  ‘Which tells me just what kind of sacrifices you were prepared to make for him, so maybe you really did love him after all,’ Rob conceded disparagingly. ‘I don’t think I want to hear about any others there would have been.’