"Don’t you worry, missy. No more mess than Miss Dolly used to make."
"You knew Dolly?" Kira concealed her surprise.
"Why, yes’m. I came with her to Fitt’s House when she were a bride; a tiny, flibbertigibbet of a thing. Always rushing about and bringing in flowers and animals and anything small and hurt, in and out of the sea. Then the little baby came and she carried that baby around all day, like she were a doll-toy."
Kira wondered how much this elderly woman knew. She would have to question her carefully. It was obvious that her loyalty to the family was unshakeable.
"Was Dolly a good mother?"
"Oh yes. She were a good mother to that baby. ‘Cept sometimes when she had to go off to the sea and run in the water. You can’t swim with a baby in your arms."
"Who looked after the baby then?"
"Anybody. She would put the baby in y’r lap and run off, like she had to be free. Never knew when she’d be coming back. Sometimes it were hours."
"How very strange." Kira wanted to ask how Dolly died, what had happened to her but she dare not.
"She weren’t properly grown up or brought up. No mother, you see. Just a child herself. Not ready to be a wife and mother. Poor Mr Benjamin, he done put up with a lot. She were a worry to him."
Jessy clamped her mouth shut as if she had said too much to a visitor. She waddled away, her ample hips swaying in a brightly patterned frock. Why, hadn’t she been the first person to see the baby, to hold the baby, all slimy and bloodied from the birth and covered in sand.
* * *
Dolly guessed the baby was due soon. Jessy had tried to explain about the months of pregnancy but Dolly cared little about dates and didn’t even listen. She only knew that the baby was growing fast and she was as fat as a balloon and her body was beginning to ache with the weight. She worried she was going to burst.
Nothing stopped her from swimming. She swam every day, a loose shift clinging to her voluptuous figure. Benjamin had tried to stop her but nothing he said had any effect. She went her own way.
She had not seen Reuben for months now, keeping out of his way, not wanting him to see her huge and ugly. Her legs had swollen in the heat. He was angry with her and she did not blame him. She still loved him even though she was married to another man.
She knew now why she had married Benjamin, though on the day itself she had been dazed and confused. She had done it to show Reuben that someone wanted her as a wife, someone cared, someone influential on the island. That she counted enough as a real person to become the Mrs Benjamin Reed.
It had been a heady moment, accepting Ben’s proposal, like she was a lady, not a wild beach girl.
Somehow in her naiveté, she had thought she would be able to get out of the marriage sometime and then marry Reuben when he was good and ready. She had not reckoned on a baby. A baby made a difference.
Nowadays she did not run down to the beach with her fat stomach protruding in front of her. It was a slower progress. She swam more lazily, floating on her back, letting the warm water support her. The sun dazzled her and she closed her eyes, content to be almost asleep in the water bed.
The waves washed her ashore and she lay in the shallows letting the wavelets lift and move her at will. She could stay there forever, not thinking, not worrying, not wondering about what was going to happen . . .
She knew nothing about birthing. Women on the island became pregnant, then suddenly one morning appeared carrying a baby slung across them in a colourful shawl. It usually happened overnight and seemed quite easy.
She had lain in the water a long time and the sun was beginning to go down. The tips of her fingers were wrinkled. She was thirsty. Fitt’s House, although only minutes away, seemed like miles to walk. It was a long way and she wondered if she could make it.
She struggled up onto her knees and, without warning, was gripped by a violent pain in her groin. She gasped, mind dislocated from her body, staring at her belly in disbelief and protest. Minutes later, another pain rocked her. She floundered in the water, trying to get to her feet, sweat and fear mingling with the salt water. She didn’t like it.
"Help me, help me!" she cried out, but there was no-one to hear.
She crawled up the beach, gathering sand in the folds of her wet shift, stopping each time her body was convulsed. But now the pains were coming faster and she hardly had time to move between them. She reached the fringe of sweeping palms, using the swaying lower branches to haul herself to her feet.
The shore line swam before her eyes. She could not focus in the fast-fading remaining light. She was gritting her teeth now, crushed under the searing pain that was ripping her body apart. Surely she was dying? The dark hooded presence of death appeared at her elbow.
"Help me, dear God," she moaned, dry mouthed, parched, her tongue swollen.
She spiralled into a swirling red abyss where her mind lost all sense of time and place. Something made her cling to the palm tree, the only strong living thing in a blurred landscape.
There was no time between the pains now; they merged into a red rag of racking torment, crucifying her tender flesh in its grip. It was a long tunnel of pain. Her mind spun out of control. Suddenly it changed into an enormous urge to push, to expel . . . she began to pant, little shallow breaths that cleared some of the fog in her head.
Her body was drenched in sweat and there was a warm wetness dripping between her legs.
She stared, horrified, thinking her stomach was falling out. She fought against the urge to push, hanging onto her insides, but she was already too weak to muster any strength. Gravity helped the baby. Dolly screamed, vaginal flesh and skin tearing apart in hot, jagged strips.
Tamara came into the world, upside down on the sand, howling, red-faced and bloodied.
* * *
Kira sat very still, half listening. Dolly and Tamara were suddenly very much alive, running round the garden like children together. She heard leaves rustling and imagined it was their arms and legs brushing the branches. She heard high, distant young voices but it was other children playing on the beach.
She felt so close to both women, Dolly and Tamara, women of her own genes. They came to her, beckoning, smiling. It was a strange feeling, not frightening.
It was time to get back to work. She changed into a sleeveless blue dress and decided to visit the smaller holdings nearer to hand. She did not feel up to a long drive.
They left at the same time. Benjamin was going into Bridgetown to a meeting at the bank and to do some shopping. By four o’clock Kira had interviewed so many farmers that their names were beginning to get mixed up in her mind. Her detailed notes were becoming wild scribbles.
Her head was buzzing with information, much of it about the two men paramount in her thoughts, Giles and Benjamin. They were both good employers. Benjamin, stubborn and old-fashioned, letting his plantation slip, while Giles was fighting to keep up to date and modernise every aspect of sugar production.
"Mr Giles, he really looks after his own," a grizzled old farmer told her, the lines on his face like a wrinkled walnut. "It were him who took my Maiz to hospital when she was taken bad and paid for her funeral. I’m never forgetting that. I don’t mind if I get short-weighted on my cane. I’m never forgetting his kindness."
"But Mr Giles doesn’t want you to be short-weighted," said Kira. "He’s going to put a stop to this and every other injustice if he can. Something is going wrong somewhere along the line."
"Yes, ma’am. You tell him. Mr Giles’ll put it right. He looks after his own."
He looks after his own . . . she warmed herself in the back draught of the thought. Kira knew he would. She liked being a small cog in their set-up; it made her feel good. She wanted to help these people, solve their problems, be trusted by them.
Fitt’s House was bathed in a crimson sunset as she turned into the drive, its pink walls reflecting the setting rays as its builder had planned. It was a fairy-tale chateau; the stone animals under so
me spell, waiting to be brought to life. Perhaps if she kissed them, she would find the prince of her dreams.
The front door was on the latch. Ben did not lock up.
Kira went up the old staircase, her leg hardly hurting at all. There was time for a quick swim before it got dark. It was Dolly’s blood and her passion for the sea.
She threw open the door to her room and stopped in the doorway. Had she come to the wrong room? She checked that it was the room opposite to Ben’s on the landing.
It had been transformed. The bare, functional bedroom she had chosen that morning was now fit for a princess. The brass bedstead had a flounced and flower-sprigged cover, matching curtains billowed at the windows. Soft white fur rugs scattered the polished boards; an elegant French antique writing bureau had been moved upstairs for her work. Pieces of rare crystal and porcelain stood on the deep windowsills. An old Victorian button-back armchair in dusky pink velvet and matching footstool was angled by the long window. A small hand-carved rose walnut coffee table was at the side of the chair. On it was a posy of flowers, a dish of fruit and a silver knife.
Ben had been shopping.
No-one had ever treated her like this before. Kira was so moved that she could not think. She went round the room, touching, feeling the different textures, the newness. There was even a new divan mattress on the old bed. Ben had thought of everything.
"Do you like it? Are the things all right?" Ben had been watching her reaction. His eyes were fixed on her face.
"It’s wonderful," said Kira, impulsively putting her hand on his arm. "Everything’s perfect. How can I ever thank you?"
"I want you to be comfortable while you’re staying at Fitt’s House. I’d forgotten how much fun shopping can be."
"I don’t understand why you are so kind to me," said Kira. "I’m a stranger you only met yesterday. You hardly know me."
"We met under the breadfruit tree, remember? I know when I like someone. As you get older you realise there isn’t time to wait around seeing if you’re right. If you get a gut feeling, then you have to act on it right away."
"Am I a gut feeling?"
"An indelicate way of putting it, but yes."
"I’m going to love this room," said Kira.
"Now I ain’t going to get in your way, missy. I guess you’re longing for a swim. My wife, Dolly, used to love swimming. Giles’s coming over later, to talk about the month’s figures. You’re welcome to join us later."
Kira did not know if she could face Giles yet, but it would have to be sometime. It might as well be this evening.
"Thank you. Yes, I’ll join you after my swim."
Kira swam out to a motorboat anchored off a small jetty which local residents used. It was a glass-bottomed boat for taking tourists to look at the coral reefs.
She lay on her back, floating in the bobbing waves, letting the last of the sun’s rays dapple her skin, trying not to think of Giles, or of seeing him again. The sea was so warm and buoyant, it required no effort to stay afloat, making only the occasional paddle with her hands.
She closed her eyes, thinking how far away London was. Bruce and Penny hardly seemed to exist. Barbados was so vibrant and colourful, the rest of the world paraded as a drab place. This was an emerald paradise.
The sun slid behind the horizon, shooting rays, and the sea darkened. Time to return to Fitt’s House.
Kira had drifted further than she thought but she was a good swimmer and struck out for shore. There was a sandbank beneath her feet and unexpectedly she felt it moving quite fast and her feet were flung up. She floundered for a moment that seemed an eternity, then righted herself and began to swim steadily.
But she was making no headway. The shore was suddenly further away. There seemed quite a strong current at this point which she had not encountered in the sheltered bay opposite the Sandy Lane Hotel. This was a long straight stretch of beach.
She was not making any headway; in fact she was being swept further out and along the coast. She did not like being helpless. She felt the first small twinge of fear.
Twenty-Five
Kira tried not to panic. The familiar rooftops and receding tree line that hid Fitt’s House were already some distance away.
She trod water, calling and waving her hands, but her voice was lost in the roar of the waves. She knew that if she kept her head, she would be safe. It was exhaustion and panic which killed swimmers in warm water.
The sea was indigo dark now and lights were coming on in the small houses fronting the shore. She called again, hoping that someone might be taking an evening stroll, or jogging along the beach. She tried swimming against the current but it was very strong, running parallel to the shore, and she could not make any headway through its racing flow.
Waves were breaking on rocks ahead, foaming white. The reef was approaching fast. A piercing stab of cramp caught her lame leg and she cried out in pain, clutching the muscle. In the confusion as she thrashed around, she did not hear the vigorous splashing of someone swimming.
A cropped dark head bobbed from under the water and then a gleaming sinewy arm came under her armpits and she felt herself being pulled against a chest. It was a strong man, young and confident. Kira screwed up her face in pain and relief.
"Keep still, lady. Don’t be afraid. It’s only Moonshine. You gonna be all right now."
Kira bit her lip against the cramp and allowed Moonshine to pull her. He was not swimming but letting the current take them along, drifting parallel to the shore, making a few deep strokes now and then to correct their direction and keep the same distance. She tried to relax, trusting him, not wanting to hinder his progress. How strange that it was Moonshine, the handsome and persuasive youth selling beads on the beach.
"You were caught in a rip current, lady," he said hoarsely, looking round the surface of the sea for signs of turbulence. He seemed to know what he was doing. "You have to swim along with it, not against it. You gonna drown if you go against it. You swim along with it and sooner or later, it gonna take you back to the beach."
It was true. The beach seemed to be getting nearer. A great surge of relief swept through her. Their feet suddenly touched sand and rocks and they began to scramble ashore, uncaring of the sharp edges scraping skin, stabbing toes. Moonshine kept her from falling with a firm grip on her waist.
"Oh Moonshine, Moonshine, thank you. What would I have done without you?" she gasped. "I was being swept out to sea and I didn’t know what to do. No-one could hear me. It was so frightening."
"These rip currents just pop up. You don’t know where; change from day to day. I saw you go swimming and thought there’s that pretty English lady who’s going around with Mr Giles. You didn’t come back and I thought she dun go get caught in a rip current. Then I saw you being swept towards the reef."
His muscular legs stood astride on the sand, chest heaving, water dripping down his ragged jeans. His dark, velvety eyes gleamed in the growing darkness but Kira was not afraid.
"How lucky for me you came along," she said, her rapid breathing slowing down. "I couldn’t have swum back from Bridgetown."
He peered down at her face. "You all right now? We go pick up your towel, then I take you back to Mr Reed’s house."
Kira felt almost light-headed with relief. She laughed. "To Fitt’s House? Is there anything that you don’t know about?"
He grinned in the darkness. "Moonshine know everything."
Her heart volunteered an extra beat. "Then you can put it on the island’s grapevine that I’m not going around with Mr Giles. I’m working for him. Quite different. It’s a business arrangement."
"If you ain’t going around with Mr Giles then he’s certainly acting as if you are. He’s charging along the beach now faster than that zippy white car of his." Moonshine peered ahead into the darkness, grinning.
The air was moist and briny, saturated with moonlight. Kira saw a tall man, striding along the beach, kicking up sand, looking for her as that first time on St L
ucia. Her heart almost stopped, then quickened at the sight of him. Wild and lonely music played in her ears. There was going to be no problem after all, seeing him again. Her eyes were riveted on the man coming into sight, the gaunt lines of his face etched in the glitter of the sea. She stumbled on the clogging sand and he ran forward, catching her in his arms before she fell.
"Kira, Kira . . . what the hell’s been going on? Are you all right? Benjamin said you’d gone for a swim."
"I got caught by a rip current. Moonshine saved me." Her head was spinning as she felt his arms go round her.
"Damn it, woman. Don’t you know not to swim in the dark alone? I should have told you about rip currents."
"I been telling the lady," said Moonshine. "You don’t get drowned by them if you know what to do."
"She didn’t know what to do."
Giles swung her up into his arms and began to carry her back to Fitt’s House. Moonshine was left behind on the sand, standing in dripping blue jeans, his case of beads flung all over the sand in his haste to dive into the sea to rescue her.
"Moonshine," Giles called back to the youth. "Come and see me tomorrow. I’ll settle up for the damage to your goods. And thanks for saving my lady."
Giles’s voice was gruff. Moonshine waved back. He had some tale to tell in the bars tonight and that was reward enough. "Don’t worry, be happy," he called back with the Caribbean farewell.
"Thank you, Moonshine," said Kira.
Kira lay her head against Giles’s shirt front, ruining it with her wet hair. He didn’t care. He gripped her tightly as if she was the slipperiest mermaid from the sea.
"Don’t start telling me off," she said.
"I won’t. You didn’t know about the currents."
"No, I didn’t know," she murmured.
He was carrying her like thistledown and Kira never wanted the sensation to end. He could carry her to the end of the island. She didn’t care how many women he had had or loved; she only knew that the thought of losing him now was unbearable.
He set her slowly down onto her feet, wrapped her towel round her shivering body like a baby, drying her arms and legs. He was not angry. All the anger of the night before had gone, vanished in a wave of warmth and awareness.
Sweet Seduction Page 17
