Sandflower

by Jane Arbor

  So Chris had been wrong, and this was it. She sat forward, arms crossed on the steering wheel, and stared into the nothingness that the raging blizzard of sand had made of track, desert and horizon. Now she must make up her mind to remain where she was or to push on. Since she knew the road was there, and the car was taking the dunes in its stride, she resolved to start up again, and had just put out the clutch when she was seized under her ribs by a clamping, immobilizing pain such as she had never known before.

  Frightened, she sat back. But it was as if, unless she could stand upright, she could not draw up sufficiently against the cramp to make it pass. She must stand. She must—

  In her panic she was instantly out of the car and, relieved at being able to straighten up, was facing recklessly into the teeth of the storm. The car was her anchor, and she had fast hold of its door handle. But still in the grip of the pain, she did not hear the overtaking car until it pulled up with a bounce and shriek of brakes behind her.

  She turned, leaning back on the wind, and knew the exquisite relief of pain flowing away as panic of another kind set in. For the other car was Roger Yate’s, and in a couple of strides he was standing over her, his face dark with anger.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Get back inside at once!” Without waiting for her to obey he took her by the shoulders and bundled her into her seat before groping his way around the hood in order to get in by the other door.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sideways in the passenger seat, Roger faced her. “And now let’s have it,” he said. “Wasn’t it enough to have undertaken this fool drive at all in such conditions, without deciding to abandon the car and walk home?”

  “I—I didn’t! I wasn’t—” To her utter chagrin Liz heard her voice tremble on the edge of hysteria, and stopped. How and whence he had come, apparently expecting to come up with her, she did not know. Only that he was here, ready to blame her without a hearing, as he had done before. And that if—incredibly—he were kind for once, there was no knowing what folly she might commit.

  And then suddenly he was kind ... Tilting her chin with a fingertip, he asked, “Then what, Liz? Had you stalled your engine among these dunes? If not, what?”

  She did not answer directly. “You seemed to expect to overtake me. How did you know?”

  “I’d been out to the site, and I met Soper the far side of In Taj. He flagged me down to tell me you were ahead on the road, and we parted none too cordially after I’d told him in no mean fashion my opinion of him for allowing you to set out under the threat of a simoom; or for encouraging you to drive such a distance alone under any conditions, in fact.”

  “He didn’t encourage me. He had to get back to the site urgently, so I offered to drive him. And he didn’t expect the simoom to break today after all.”

  “Stepping in where even a meteorologist would fear to tread, eh? It’s true enough—the pattern of these things is usually a long buildup. But when did weather conditions ever conform to neat laws of timing? And there’s always the risk of a freak tornado like this. Meanwhile, what did possess you to leave the car while it lasted?”

  “I’d stopped because I couldn’t see through the windshield. I couldn’t decide whether to wait or not. And then, just as I had decided to try to go on, I had a sudden pain. A kind of cramp.”

  His scrutiny of her became clinical. “A pain? Where?”

  “Here.” She pressed her palms to the front of her ribs, and he nodded.

  “Still with you?”

  “No, it’s quite gone now. I got out of the car because I felt I must stand upright at all costs.”

  “I see. Well, wait a minute. No—better transfer to my car first. Come along and make it snappy.”

  With an arm about her, he shielded her from the wind while they struggled the few yards to his car. While he took a bottle from his bag and shook out a capsule, she asked, “What about the Land Rover?”

  “Leave it. I’ll have it collected. Here, take this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Something. You must take it dry. I’ve nothing to wash it down with.”

  He watched her swallow, took her pulse without comment, then prepared to drive off. “Your pain was a stomach cramp,” he told her. “It’s a fairly common reaction to the sudden, steep rise in the temperature, though when you’re fully acclimatized to the desert you may never suffer from it again. You’d better rest when you get home, and I’ll look in tomorrow to see that you’re all right.” He paused to throw a quizzical glance at her. “I must say you seem determined to gain experience the hard way. Weren’t you ever advised that you needn’t put your hand into a fire, in order to discover that it’s hot? Or that foolhardiness that worries other people isn’t particularly clever?”

  Liz colored. “I didn’t realize I was being foolhardy.”

  “Hmm. Famous last words! Comparable only to ‘Why didn’t somebody tell me?’ ”

  “Besides, you said yourself that there’s only a thin dividing line between foolhardiness and—and courage.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “I said so? When?”

  “On the plane, coming over. About the French woman who was bringing her baby into the Sahara.”

  “Oh, yes—Madame Guellemain. Well, well—how was I to guess I had a recording angel along? And have you been storing that one against me ever since?”

  “Of course not. It was just that the two cases seemed parallel.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t agree. Madame G. had looked both risks full in the face—the effect of an overlong separation upon her marriage, and the possible effects of bringing her baby with her, which she saw as the lesser evil. You tend to leap before you look into any risk, regardless of the wear and tear on the nerves of anyone who loves you.”

  “I suppose you mean dada? But he was out, and he may not know even yet that I—”

  Looking straight ahead, Roger said, “Well, Soper was pretty anxious, too. Not that I’m prepared to shed any tears for him, as he seems to have a party to the idiocy. By the way, he implored me to see that you called him as soon as you got back. You’d better do that.”

  “Yes, he asked me to.” Feeling once more like a child in disgrace, Liz lapsed into a silence that went unbroken for a long time.

  The storm blew itself out as suddenly as it had arisen, and before they reached the outskirts of the town Roger was driving at speed again. At the bungalow Liz would not resist the small self-torture of asking him to come in, as Beth would still be there, she thought. But he refused, saying he had some cases to visit, and that he would send his own mechanic to bring in the Land Rover.

  Liz noted that Beth had closed the shutters against the wind, and going in, she found her taking a duster to the sand which had gritted every level surface in sight.

  When Liz explained dispiritedly what had happened, Beth said, “Oh, dear, you do seem to land yourself in situations, don’t you, Liz? Not that you could have known about the simoom, though. And no one could suspect you of contriving that Roger should always be on hand to help you out of scrapes. But my dear, have you seen yourself?” Her would-be sympathetic gaze told Liz the worst. “You’re positively dun-colored from head to foot! I wonder Roger recognized you. Why don’t you bath and change right away, and I’ll wait, in case Mr. Shepard comes in?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that,” said Liz, wondering where Beth had learned the knack of being offensive with the mildest choice of phrase. Wearily she rose to go to her own room, but on reaching the door of it she halted, aghast at the sight which greeted her.

  For there alone, not only the shutters, but the window itself stood wide. As a result, bed, bureau, dressing table, floor were all coated in sand dust; the deep window shelf was strangely bare, and beneath it in a hundred glittering fragments lay her treasured rose de sable.

  Liz breathed, “Oh, no—” As she knelt to gather a few pieces into her hands, the tears came welling up from her sheer desolation of heart. For with the s
mashing of Roger’s gift, this dreadful day had touched zero, and if it had anything more in store for her she doubted if she could bear it.

  After a minute or two she knuckled the tears from her cheeks and took a grip on herself. The thing had happened; it was nobody’s fault, and of course nobody knew how precious the curio had been for her.

  Wait though—nobody? Was it possible that Beth had guessed, and if so, did that mean ...? No, she would not think such a horrible thing, even of Beth! And yet there it was—these were the only shutters that had remained unfastened, and with so few windows to the house, how had Beth missed this one if not deliberately?

  If Liz could have shaken off the ugly suspicion, she would gladly have done so. But her regrets were too bitter for that. If the shutters had been closed during the storm, she would still have her lovely sandflower. They had been left open, and if Beth did not know how or why, who did? Besides, how was it that only the rose de sable had been swept to disaster, while the other things on the window sill had gone unscathed?

  For they had. Her parents’ photographs had been flung—Or carefully placed—each with its back to the embrasure of the narrow window on either side. And though it was just possible that a flying curtain could have thrown one of them aside to safety in such a way, surely the chances were that the other would have been set atilt, or thrown flat, or even left in position? No, it looked sickeningly as if, supposing Beth to be guilty, her cruel intention had been satisfied when she had invited the wind to do its worst with the rose de sable.

  Liz gathered a fragment or two from the floor and went back to the living room. Dropping them on the table in front of Beth, she said in a voice studiedly drained of feeling, “It was thoughtful of you to close the shutters, but why didn’t you do those in my room?”

  Beth started. “In your room? But I—Why, I went there first, or at least when I’d done these. I had difficulty with the window, I remember.”

  “Yes, the window catch is faulty, and the wind could have wrenched it open,” Liz allowed. “But not the shutters. Once they are closed, they’re windproof. Or they always have been.”

  Beth looked hurt. “Are you saying I didn’t close them?”

  “I’m doubting it.”

  “But I’m sure—” As if she balked at the deliberate lie, Beth stopped and allowed her gaze to take in the significance of the glinting fragments on the table. “Why Liz—it’s your rose de sable! Do you mean the shutters are open and that the wind did this?”

  “Only this. Except for the hideous filth, nothing else in the room is damaged. Don’t you find that odd?”

  “Odd? Well, yes. That is, no. You’ve no idea of the tricks a freak wind like that does play. But naturally you blame me, if you think I didn’t close up properly. So come along, and I’ll show you what I did.”

  To Liz it was clear that Beth was playing for time and position, and when, with a shocked “Tch!” at the state of the room, she went through the motions of closing both window and shutters, Liz was even more sure. Beth said, “I did this—and then this, but I suppose I couldn’t have fastened the shutters properly, and the stupid window catch didn’t hold. I remember seeing the piece of rose and your people’s photographs. But as you say, they escaped, and only the rose was broken. That was lucky, wasn’t it?”

  “Very lucky!”

  Beth was making a business of setting the photo frames to rights. “You don’t sound as if you quite mean that. I’m terribly sorry if you still think it was my fault. But surely you wouldn’t rather it had been the photographs instead of the rose?”

  “The photographs couldn’t have been completely destroyed. The rose de sable was.”

  “Yes, but—” Beth uttered a little unsure laugh. “Well, what was it, for goodness sake? Just a lump of crystallized sand!”

  “I liked it, and I thought it was quite beautiful.”

  “And so you’re determined to put me through the hoop over its getting broken,” Beth pouted.

  “But if you did close down as you say, it wasn’t your fault, was it?”

  “Of course it wasn’t.” Beth’s agreement came too eagerly. “What’s more, I simply don’t understand the fuss you’re making. Unless—” her puzzled scrutiny of Liz implied that the idea had only just occurred to her “—unless you’re minding so much because it was Roger who gave the thing to you. Yes, and you’re blushing! That is the reason then! Oh, dear, Liz, how did such a thing happen to you? And don’t you see what a brute it makes me feel?”

  “How did what happen?” asked Liz. But she knew what the question meant. Beth had not only slid out from under a suspicion that could never be proved; now she was putting Liz herself on the defensive.

  She said plaintively, “Oh, Liz, you must know, without making me ask in so many words, whether you’ve fallen in love with Roger.”

  “Well, you needn’t ask, need you?” demanded Liz. “You could try minding your own business instead!”

  But Beth ignored the direct rudeness of that to muse, “I must have been blind, I suppose. I believe you’ve tried quite hard to show you dislike him; at least, you’re always on edge and never at your best when he is there. As if you were afraid he might guess. And how you must hate it when he’s just cool or professional with you! Oh, poor Liz! I shall understand now, when you’re positively surly with me about him. And I only wish there was something else I could do. But short of offering to give him up to you—which you couldn’t quite expect—there isn’t anything, is there?”

  At that, Liz, knowing her control to be near breaking point, and reckless that she was betraying herself still further to Beth, said intensely, “There is, if you must know. You can stop pitying me! And if you breathe a word to anyone, I’ll never forgive you—never!”

  Beth’s innocent eyes widened. “As if I should—when you’ve worked so hard to hoodwink us all! But you must see that I can’t bear to think that, perhaps through my carelessness, you’ve lost the only thing Roger ever gave you? So you won’t mind my asking him to get another piece of rose de sable for you, will you?”

  Liz rounded on her. “Try asking him!” she threatened. “Just try it—that’s all! I’ll tell him in my own time that the piece he gave me is broken. And if I find he knows already, I won’t promise not to tell him how it happened!”

  Beth’s glance slanted away. “Except that the wind swept it off the shelf, we—we don’t know how it happened,” she claimed.

  “But we know that if the shutters had been fastened, it couldn’t have happened.” For Liz, Beth’s hesitancy and her obvious fear that Roger should hear of the incident were equal to a confession, which somehow restored the balance of honors between them. From now on they might preserve a veneer of friendship in front of Andrew and Janine and other people. But with this open crossing of swords they had taken each other’s measure, and it was almost refreshing to know Beth for the enemy she really was.

  Beth hitched a shoulder with a show of indifference when Liz went on pointedly, “There’s no need for you to wait any longer, you know. I’m going to phone Chris, and then have my bath.”

  But on her way out she had a parting shot. She said sweetly, “Well, I do hope it’ll be ‘third time lucky’ for you, Liz. I mean—that man in London who turned you down, Roger who has never given you a second thought, and now, of course, Chris Soper. If I were you, I’d make quite sure of Chris while you can!”

  After that Liz was grateful for the regular pattern that her hospital work gave to her days. Now she need not meet Beth often, and she could still see Janine in the afternoons while Beth was resting. How much Janine knew or guessed about the situation, Liz did not know. But at least she asked no awkward questions, and her manner had not changed. Liz enjoyed Chris Soper’s next leave thoroughly. He would fetch her from the hospital and then usually stayed to lunch. After a lazy time on the veranda or the roof, they swam at the club and stayed on to dance or for the twice-weekly showing of father ancient films. Liz often thought that she liked C
hris much better than she had ever really liked Robin Clare; in fact, Chris had everything for her except the vital dynamic spark that could have lit their friendship into love.

  At the hospital Roger was as remote and professional a figure as any of the other doctors. To the French staff Liz was “infirmiere” and “orderly” to him, and under that anonymous cloak she fetched and carried for him and addressed him as “sir” before the patients with an odd, secret pleasure. And every day there was a taste of adventure in knowing that at any turned corner, at any door’s opening, she might come face to face with him.

  As the summer temperatures climbed, the children’s ward: became busier, and she spent more of her time there. Sister St. Olave now regularly entrusted minor dressings to her, and she often had the job of persuading the reluctant small patients into their first baths.

  They had fewer European children than half-caste or Tuareg, who ran the greater risk from mosquito-breeding ponds, sand infections and the ever recurring snake, jerboa and scorpion bites. The goatskin and sackcloth Tuareg encampment that Roger had shown Liz from the aircraft was still there, and on most mornings, it contributed a straggle of would-be patients to the colorful, Babel-tongued lineup for the casualty ward. The women and children came unveiled and barefoot; the men, blue-robed to eye level, usually on camels, great white beasts that they tethered in the courtyard alongside waiting cars, mules and autocycles—the whole collection surely the oddest mixed parking in the world!

  One morning Liz, coming off duty and waiting for Andrew to call for her, saw Roger talking to one such man who, in spite of a freshly bandaged hand, swung himself easily into his high saddle where he towered feet above even Roger’s considerable height.