‘Can I help you, sir?’
‘My wife and I would like to see some garden statues and benches.’
He led them into a leafy yard enclosed by the inevitable carved stone walls and ringed with dusty hibiscus bushes. Here a positive army of statues was displayed. Bulging-eyed monsters with long fangs, drooping tongues and curly beards stood side by side with serene-faced Buddhas and exuberant floral wall panels. Emma strolled among them with a reluctant feeling of interest. Wouldn’t it be nice if she and Richard really were planning a garden to use for the rest of their lives? A garden where these boisterous stone warriors would remind them of happy times shared on an exotic little island just below the equator. You fool, she told herself.
‘What would you like, Emma?’
‘I don’t care. I’m not likely to be seeing it for very long anyway. You choose.’
Frowning slightly, he pointed out several statues and garden benches, along with some panelled wall carvings, and then walked into the office with the proprietor to organise payment and shipping. Left alone, Emma ran her hand over one of the mossy, crumbling stone walls and sighed. She was beginning to feel horribly surly and ungracious and the feeling worried her. Although Richard had driven her into a corner so skilfully that she could hardly help being surly, it didn’t suit her temperament. Even the strain and worry of business pressures had never set her nerves so badly on edge. Besides, she liked to be on friendly terms with everyone she met. Belatedly she wondered if she had hurt the stone-carver’s feelings by her indifferent response to his work. With a twinge of guilt, she hurried into the office, where the deal was just being completed.
‘Thank you very much for the statues,’ she said, smiling warmly at the workman. ‘They’re really beautiful. I’ll be so happy to have them in my garden.’ ‘Kambali,’ replied the man. ‘It’s a pleasure.’ Richard gave her a rather surprised, scrutinising look as they returned to the car, but he did not mention her change of attitude. Instead he made an oblique suggestion.
‘Do you think you’d enjoy having dinner over at Kuta Beach tonight?’ he asked. ‘Then we could come back to Bona after sunset and watch some of the dancing.’ ‘All right,’ agreed Emma warily. ‘That would be nice.’ Unexpectedly, it was nice. They reached the west coast of the island in time to watch the sun set at Tanah Lot. It was an enchanted place where a small temple sat perched on a rocky island about a hundred metres out from the coast. The fiery ball of the sun was just on the point of sinking into the blazing ocean as they arrived and against the vast red glowing backdrop of the sky and the sea the temple pagodas stood out as dark and sharp as the silhouettes of Norway spruce trees. Close in to the shore, the waves boiled and sucked against the rocks and flung themselves on the beach with a loud, crashing roar. Yet Emma and Richard did not have long to enjoy the view. Within moments of leaving their car, they were surrounded by a throng of shrill-voiced, determined little business people. Bright-eyed little girls with missing front teeth and enchanting smiles clutched at Emma’s sarong while brandishing their wares in their free hand. Boys scarcely any older delivered a smooth salesman’s patter in English and Bahasa Indonesia as they juggled their wares like conjurors.
‘You like to buy, you like to buy?’
Within moments, Emma, who was too soft-hearted to resist, was totally engulfed. Two dress lengths of brilliantly coloured cloth, one scarlet, one gold, with silver floral patterns imprinted on them, were wound around her shoulders. A dancer’s head-dress in imitation gold with tiny mirrors sat insecurely on her head, and her arms were full of ornate, carved boxes, bone carvings and filigree wooden fans threaded with red and yellow ribbon. Richard burst out laughing as he produced his wallet and paid for all this.
‘I’d better get you out of here while you can still walk!’ he exclaimed. ‘No, no more, thank you, kids. It’s really great stuff, but we’ve got enough now!’
Taking one of the dress lengths from Emma’s shoulders, he opened it up to form an impromptu bag.
‘Put the stuff in here and I’ll carry it for you, otherwise you’ll lose half of it.’
She obeyed, casting him a thoughtful sideways look. It surprised and perturbed her to see Richard entering so whole-heartedly into the spirit of the bazaar. When they reached the car, and he stowed her purchases safely away in the boot, she smiled uncertainly at him.
‘You didn’t have to pay for all that,’ she said. ‘I had some Indonesian money with me. Besides, I always thought you hated it when I bought things I didn’t really need.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Richard sharply.
He opened the car door for her and chased off the last remnants of giggling, squealing children by pulling fearsome faces and making demon noises at them. Then he climbed in the other side of the car.
‘You talk about me as if I’m some kind of ogre, Emma.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know. I know what you meant. But don’t go by what I was like nine years ago. I had a lot of business debts then that were worrying me and I wanted to make sure that our future together would be secure as possible. I never intended to spoil any of your harmless pleasure in having nice things. I’m sorry if I did.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said Emma in a subdued voice.
But it did. Like everything else in their marriage, it seemed to have a ripple effect that was still spreading out years afterwards, making waves. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and sighed. She had been terribly extravagant when they were first married, she realised that now. She’d been brought up as an adored only child, and it had never occurred to her not to just go out and buy anything she wanted; it had also never occurred to her that perhaps Richard couldn’t afford the things she bought.
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have a clue about money then. I must have made things very difficult for you.’
He gave her a strange look.
‘At the time I thought you were worth the difficulty, he said.
They didn’t speak again until they reached Kuta Beach and then their conversation was only about food.
‘What kind of meal would you like to eat?’ asked Richard. ‘Japanese? Mexican? German? Chinese?’
Emma let out an explosive giggle.
‘I thought we were supposed to be in Indonesia!’ she cried.
‘We are, but you wouldn’t know it at Kuta. Come on, what’s it to be?’
‘Um, Swiss!’ cried Emma, making the most unlikely choice she could think of.
Within half an hour they were cosily tucked up in a carved wooden booth, devouring Bratwurst, Kartoffelsalat and vast plates of Apfelstrudel while a cassette in the background provided energetic bursts of Swiss yo deling. Unexpectedly it was a lot of fun and Emma was surprised to find herself relaxing and even smiling when she caught Richard’s eye.
‘Goodness!’ she said as their coffee with cream arrived. ‘It makes me feel quite homesick.’
‘That’s right. You went to a Swiss boarding-school, didn’t you?’ demanded Richard.
She nodded.
‘Did you like it? You never told me much about it.’
‘Well, I was desperately homesick at first. I begged Dad not to send me but he wouldn’t listen. I was only twelve and I hated the thought of being so far away from everyone I loved.’
‘Everyone you loved?’ said Richard in an odd voice. ‘Who do you mean by that?’
Emma shifted awkwardly and spread her hands.
‘Oh, you know. Dad.’ She bit her lip. ‘I suppose that’s all, really. There wasn’t anyone else unless you count Miss Matty.’
‘No, there wasn’t anyone else,’ repeated Richard in a voice full of meaning. ‘And that was the way your father wanted to keep it, wasn’t it? I’ll bet that’s why he sent you off to boarding-school on the other side of the world, Emma. So that even if you did manage to make friends you wouldn’t be able to keep them once you’d left there. He wanted yo
u all to himself like a little princess shut up in a tower.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ protested Emma.
‘Is it?’ challenged Richard. ‘You know, when I first met you, Emma, I couldn’t get over what a lonely, sheltered existence you were leading. No job, no friends, nothing except that great barrack of a house and only your father for company whenever he could spare the time from his business affairs. It was a completely unnatural existence for a young girl. I felt really sorry for you.’
‘Oh, is that why you married me?’ asked Emma. ‘Because you were sorry for me?’
‘In a way,’ agreed Richard, looking down into his glass and sighing heavily. ‘I certainly wouldn’t have married you then if I hadn’t thought that things were seriously wrong with your home life.’
Emma felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She had always believed that Richard had married her because he loved her, even if things had gone horribly wrong later on. Was he telling her now that it was only pity?
‘Thanks a lot,’ she retorted. ‘It was really kind of you to take pity on me.’
He caught her by the wrist.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Emma,’ he said. ‘There was a lot more to it than that. You know damn well I didn’t just marry you out of pity. I married you because I loved you. But if things had been different between you and your father I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to do it. For God’s sake, you were only nineteen at the time. You should have had longer to become sure of your own feelings towards me, to get to know other men. And maybe it was selfish of me to go ahead with it when I did, but I could see too damned clearly what would happen if I didn’t. Your father would keep you under his thumb so effectively that you’d never have a chance to make a real choice of your own again. You’d wind up just marrying whoever he picked out for you and that would probably be some money-grubbing bastard who didn’t care a damn about you. Someone just like your father.’
Emma stared at him as a rapid hail of emotions tore through her like bullets—first an instinctive relief at the assurance that Richard had loved her, followed at once by rage and dismay at his attack on her father. The conflict of these responses made her feel deeply hurt and confused.
‘You’re being totally unfair!’ she protested. ‘I wasn’t under my father’s thumb and anyway he loved me.’
‘In his own, twisted way perhaps,’ agreed Richard grimly. ‘I don’t think anyone else would call it love, though. What it was all about was power, Emma—controlling every detail of your life, treating you like a windup doll that he could direct. And he wanted that control to extend not only to the school you went to, the friends you made, the clothes you wore, the job you did or didn’t do, but even to the man you married.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ exclaimed Emma. ‘Dad would never have tried to tell me who to marry!’
Then she hesitated. Wouldn’t he? Hadn’t he tried very hard to push Nigel Wellings on her? And hadn’t he been furious when she’d first announced her marriage to Richard? But no, it was ridiculous!
‘Yes, he would,’ insisted Richard. ‘He was seething when you married me and you know it.’
‘Only because he thought you were after my money. He was coming round later.’
‘He wasn’t. That was part of his low cunning and we both got sucked in by it, Emma. He only pretended to like me so he could destroy me more easily.’
‘That’s not true,’ insisted Emma. ‘Even after you walked out on me, he wanted things to come right between us. He did everything he could to make it happen.’
‘Oh, did he?’ sneered Richard. ‘I can’t say I noticed.’
Emma thought bitterly of the letter she had entrusted to her father, the letter begging Richard to come back to her to sort out their differences. A barb of pain went through her at the memory.
‘Oh, what does it matter now?’ she demanded. ‘My father’s dead and gone. And our marriage is on the rocks, Richard, and has been for years. You won’t change anything by raking over the past. Anyway, if we’re going to this dancing, hadn’t we better leave now?’
The Kecak dance was already in progress when they reached Bona and they had to stumble through semidarkness to reach their seats overlooking the dance area. The central performance area was lit only by a large, flaming lamp and in its flickering red lights the dancers’ moving forms cast huge, threatening shadows. There was no accompanying orchestra. Instead a chorus of men, dressed only in black and white checked sarongs with a red flower behind their right ear and a white one behind their left, moved in a circle, uttering a strange, hypnotic cry.
‘Chak! Chak! Chak!’
Emma had only a vague notion of the story behind the dance, but knew it was about the virtuous wife Sita who was kidnapped by a demon king and torn away from her beloved husband’s side. Yet, however little Emma understood the fine detail, she felt a glow of relief when the young lovers were reunited at the end. If only reallife problems could have such simple, satisfying solutions!
‘It was breathtaking, wasn’t it?’ she exclaimed, turning to Richard as the performance ended. ‘But why was her husband so furious with her early on in the piece?’
Before he could reply, the dancers came on to take a bow, Sita looking demure in a head-dress smothered in white frangipani blooms, a heavily embroidered top, and a green sarong with yellow sash, while Rama beside her looked every inch the aggrieved but triumphant husband. But as the lights around the edge of the courtyard came on and they filed out of their places, Richard’s powerful fingers gripped her arm and he answered her question.
‘Because he felt he could never forgive her for being unfaithful to him,’ he murmured. ‘And who could blame him? It’s the one form of treachery no red-blooded man could ever pardon. I know I never could.’
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR the next few days there was an uneasy truce between Emma and Richard. Emma felt as if she was walking on very thin ice and she had no desire whatsoever to plunge into the freezing depths below, so her solution was simply to back away. In the daytime, especially in the company of other people, she behaved as if she and Richard really were on a honeymoon. Light, friendly conversation, a readiness to accompany him on short excursions, a smiling, relaxed air as if she were having a good time. At night and in private it was a different matter. Every footfall, every sudden, unexpected look made her start nervously. For she was still half dreading, half yearning for the mumcnt when Richard would exact the final completion of their bargain. All the same, she was quite unprepared for his blunt announcement three days before the end of their holiday. They had just finished eating breakfast on their balcony, when he rose to his feet with a purposeful look.
‘You’d better pack a few clothes in an overnight bag,’ he told her. ‘I want to go to Penelokan and I think it’s a waste of time trying to do it all in one day.’
‘Penelokan?’ she echoed, appalled. ‘Why?’
‘Because it’s a beautiful place and it’s a shame to leave Bali without seeing it again. Come on, let’s get moving before the weather gets too hot.’
It was a distance of probably no more than seventy kilometres from Sanur, but the journey took them over two hours. Balinese roads seemed to be thronged with every imaginable vehicle and pedestrian from horsedrawn carriages to strong-minded ducks, all of which operated by highly independent traffic codes. Richard was kept quite busy honking the horn, slowing to a snail’s pace and weaving patiently around old ladies with bundles on their heads who thought the middle of the main road was just the place for a good gossip. At least this left Emma free to think, but her thoughts brought her no comfort. She didn’t want to go to Penelokan with Richard. The place was too deeply imbued with memories which should have been precious, but were now unbearably painful.
Her cheeks grew hot at the mere thought of how they had climbed Mount Batur together on their honeymoon and stood on the rim of its steaming crater vowing undying love for each other. Even wo
rse was the memory of the passionate encounter in their bedroom at Air Panas that night. Not to mention that final moment when they had stopped at Penelokan for a last glimpse of the lake before returning home. Richard, tough, unsentimental Richard, had hauled her into his arms and kissed her violently on the mouth. And then he had spoken words she had thought she would cherish for the rest of her life. ‘Emma Fielding, I swear I’ll love you until that mountain is levelled and that lake runs dry.’
Her lips twisted bitterly now at the memory. What a joke it was! But why did Richard want to drag her back there? Was it some cruel streak of sadistic humour that prompted this expedition? Was he determined to punish and humiliate her by callously using her body in a place where they had once been so happy? There seemed no other possible explanation.
As the car climbed into the hills, the ‘warm, damp blanket of air outside seemed to grow lighter and cooler. When they stopped to stretch their legs ten kilometres from Lake Batur the atmosphere was fresh and invigorating. The hotel staff had given them a packet of chicken sandwiches, a basket of tropical fruit and cold drinks so that they were able to have a picnic by the roadside. Leafy thickets of bamboo rustled in the breeze, sending dancing shadows over the long green grass. A carved Buddha sat cross-legged in one of the countless wayside shrines, his stone niche so overgrown with moss and ferns that he seemed in danger of being swallowed at any moment by the jungle. Somewhere there was the sound of running water and then overhead a sudden flutter of sound. A curious, chiming noise like the tinkling of distant bells. Emma glanced sharply up.
‘How odd!’ she exclaimed. ‘For a moment I thought I heard bells.’
‘You did,’ agreed Richard with a smile. ‘It’s a Balinese bird orchestra. The local people hang bells and little flutes around the necks of doves so that they can hear the music when they fly.’
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