An Apple in Eden

by Kay Thorpe

  The thud and boom of drums heralded the approach of the procession, and Eve leaned forward eagerly as the first floats came into view around the corner of the street, piled high with flowers and vines and laughing senoritas in local costume who threw streamers and confetti into the crowds. Guitar

  music throbbed on the air, mingling with the cheers and laughter and cries of appreciation which greeted the various themes. There were vendors selling charms, toys, trinkets, food—anything one wanted, a thousand throats taking up the catchy tune of Spain's latest pop parade hit. Several times Eve saw girls on the floats glance up towards their balcony and wave a hand, and knew that they were acknowledging Ramon at her back. One in particular not only waved but blew a kiss into the bargain, and she heard Ramon laugh as he no doubt returned it.

  As the cavalcade began to pass on the crowd started to follow, and Lynn tugged excitedly at Juan's arm. 'We're going too, aren't we? There's more than this?'

  'Of course.' Laughing, he flung an arm about her shoulders and made for the door, obviously taking it for granted that the other two would follow.

  Ramon indicated the throngs filling the street below. 'You wish to have your toes stepped on, your shins kicked, your sides full of elbows?'

  'You make it sound like torture rather than fun,' Eve retorted, trying not to think about pressing through that crowd down there with Ramon close at her side. 'Where are they all going?'

  `To the plaza. For the battle. Not for the weak or the frightened.'

  Eve glanced back at him. 'You don't want to go yourself?'

  His smile was pure malice. 'I want whatever you want. It's in your hands.'

  'Then we'll go along,' she said firmly. She leaned over the balcony to call out to Lynn and Juan who had just appeared in the street below. 'Hi, wait for us! '

  'See you in the plaza,' called back Juan cheerfully, and they were gone in the crush, leaving Eve to turn back slowly to meet Ramon's bland gaze.

  'So,' he said, 'we go alone. Unfortunate, but you appear to be stuck with it. Try to think of me as a brother.'

  'Stop it!' she said irritably, and saw his eyes crinkle at the corners. 'If you can't annoy me one way you'll try to do it another,' she snapped.

  'And succeed apparently in every way. This morning I took you at your word, and that didn't suit you either. Do you want to change your mind?'

  'No.' She moved quickly away from him to the door. 'I want to go to the plaza and find the others. If you don't want to come then stay here!'

  'And leave you to the mercy of the crowd out there?' He came after her, caught her by the hand and drew her along with him so swiftly that she almost fell down the narrow stairs on top of him. 'That would never do. You want company, you shall have it.'

  The flowing tide outside had thinned out a little, but was still heavy enough on the ground to impede free movement. For Ramon, however, the very difficulty seemed to present a challenge at which he threw himself with enthusiasm, dragging Eve along behind as he cleft a way through the multitude, until eventually, breathless and dishevelled, she had

  to plead with him to rest a moment.

  'You're doing it on purpose,' she accused when he had drawn her into a convenient doorway. `If all these people are going to the plaza there can't be all that much of a hurry.'

  'If all these people are going to the plaza we'll be lucky to even see the edge of it,' he returned practically. 'Either we go my way or we don't go at all—in which case I shall put you in the car and take you back to the villa before returning to find the others.'

  'I bet you would!' she said furiously, not at all sure just what it was she was so mad about but knowing only that at this moment she could cheerfully hit him. With a slight detour on the way, no doubt!'

  'Temper!' he reproved. His eyes were dancing `If I fail to arouse one kind of passion I can always fall back on another, it seems. You're improving, chica mia. A week ago you'd never have allowed yourself such lack of British control, yet look at you now : flashing eyes, clenched fists We'll make a Latin of you yet!' Laughing, he caught her hand which lifted almost involuntarily from her side. `No, that would never do. Not unless you want to be kissed until you don't know your head from your heels. Is that what you want?'

  Hardly knowing whether she was standing on her head or her heels, she said unsteadily, 'I told you what I wanted this morning.'

  'Oh, yes, you told me. And I agreed to see your reactions. Shall I tell you how you looked?' He had hold of both of her hands now, holding her there in front of him, ignoring the glances directed their

  way by the passers-by. 'You looked disappointed. You expected me to smile, to ignore what you tell me, to pull you into my arms and prove my own words.' He shook his head at her. 'What surprise would there have been in that? This way you've had a whole morning of uncertainty, only to find that I still have the same intentions towards you. That I still find you the most adorable, desirable, tantalisingly innocent little English Miss I ever met!

  'Whereas I,' she got out through clenched teeth, 'think you are the most arrogant, conceited, overbearing man I ever met anywhere. And if you don't let me go I'll ... I'll scream ! '

  'Then I'd certainly have to kiss you to stop the noise,' he said. 'Which brings us back to our starting point.'

  'Oh ' Eve glared at him, unable to find further words in which to express herself, and then the anger was dying and unwilling laughter trembling instead on her lips. 'Some day someone is going to do something drastic to you,' she said wryly.

  'But not today. Today is fiesta—a time for fun, not fury.' He brushed his lips across the tip of her nose, caught her about the waist and swung her back into the street, hurrying her along so that her feet barely touched the ground, bewitched, bemused and totally incapable of resisting him anymore.

  The plaza was a seething mass of bodies, the air full of streamers, flowers, balloons. Screams of laughter mingled with shouts of mock protest as handfuls

  of blooms found their marks. Carried along on the tide of fun-bent humanity, Eve saw Ramon scoop his own palm along the nearest float, and was next moment covered in a drifting cloud of petals which settled in her hair, on her collar, even found their way into the pockets of her dress. Someone unseen pressed a packet of confetti into her hand and without stopping to think about it she flung the lot in Ramons face, screaming herself as he picked her up and flung her across his shoulder to shouts of 'Brava' from all about them. Pummelling at his broad back, she was borne to a float which had not yet been stripped of its blooms and dumped unceremoniously among them. With his hands full and a devil in his eyes, Ramon stood over her daring her to move.

  `Have you had enough?' he demanded. 'Or shall I bury you ?'

  Breathless, laughing, Eve held up her hands. 'I've had enough. Pax. Let me down, Ramon ... please! '

  `Coward! ' he jeered, but he lifted her down. And then his glance had moved beyond her and a smile of a subtly different nature widened his mouth as his head inclined. Twisting in his grasp, Eve saw a girl who had blown the kiss to him during the cavalcade standing on a float a few feet away, body proud and lithe and challenging in the vivid flamenco dress, olive-skinned Byzantine face making no secret of its owner's reactions to the scene she was witnessing.

  'Time we pased on,' said Ramon in her ear, voice light, unperturbed, even amused, and Eve found

  herself moving once more through the milling throng, his hand imprisoning her elbow until they reached the comparative emptiness of a side street.

  'A drink?' he asked.

  Eve answered in the affirmative, and waited until they were seated outside the busy little café before saying tentatively, 'Were you supposed to see that girl at the fiesta today?'

  'Which girl?' he asked maddeningly, and she gave him an exasperated look.

  'The girl on the float back there. You know very well which one I mean.'

  'Ah, that one ' He leaned back in his seat to regard her with raised black brows. 'It bothers you that I might have desert
ed such promise? Makes you feel guilty perhaps that you've so far failed to appreciate your own good fortune in having my company for the day.'

  'It bothers me,' she returned with determined control, 'that your friend back there was obviously not expecting to see you with another girl, and that she was hurt.'

  'Isabella hurt?' His grin rejected the idea out of hand. 'Angry, jealous, ready to tear out your eyes—that would be more like it. To be hurt you first need a heart.'

  'To be jealous you'd have to have one already.' 'That's a form of pride,' he said. 'Not love.' 'They're both emotions.'

  'But stemming from different values. To be jealous is simply to acknowledge a lack of confidence in one's self.'

  `Then it's something you'll never suffer from. You don't care about anyone or anything, do you, Ramon? Really care, I mean. You go your own way regardless of who gets hurt, having fun, jeering at those who don't happen to be capable of your own hardness.' She broke off, confused by her own wildly erratic emotions. With Ramon one could run the gamut in minutes, from anger to laughter, from hatred to ... No, not that. She wasn't in love with Ramon. She couldn't be. He fascinated her, magnetised her, woke her to the realisation of needs she hadn't known she possessed. But that wasn't love. That was simply basic chemistry—the attraction of opposites. One couldn't love a man who didn't even know the meaning of the word. 'I don't think I like you very much at times,' she finished lamely.

  `Liking I can do without. The best affairs are based on far more passionate emotions such as anger and ...' his voice dropped to a sudden deliberate softness which made her pulses race afresh ... 'love. Do you love me, chica?'

  'If I did I'd despise myself for my weakness,' she managed with a creditable lightness. 'You don't deserve to be loved.'

  `No,' he agreed with the devil lurking in his smile. 'But few of us get what we truly deserve. What would you like to do next?'

  Eve looked down at her glass. `I'd like to find the other two and have some lunch,' she said. 'They must be wondering where we've got to.'

  `They have other things on their minds.' He

  tossed off his own drink, put the glass down again and said, 'I have a better idea. We'll leave the others to their own devices for a while longer and find our own lunch out of town, perhaps have a swim before it.'

  'We haven't brought costumes,' she pointed out.

  'The trappings of civilisation. Have you never

  known the joy of gliding through the water unhampered by unnecessary garments, the feel of silk on the skin?'

  'Yes,' she returned without lifting her head. 'I swim end to end of my bath every night.'

  'You make a joke of it because the subject embarrasses you?'

  This time she did look at him. 'Not at all. You see, I realise why you're doing it. You enjoy getting at me, don't you? At my British reserve, as you probably term it. Well, what you get up to with your own countrywomen is your affair, only don't expect to tempt me into trying to compete in daring. I find nothing shocking in the thought of nudity, but neither do I find it particularly exciting.'

  'Nor I,' was the ready reply. 'A woman clothed Incites an imagination which may well be disappointed with the reality. We can buy the things we need if we reach the shops before they close. You would trust me then?'

  'I'd trust you,' she said scathingly, 'as far as I could throw you Are we going to find Lynn and Juan, or do I have to make my own way back to the villa by bus?'

  'If you insist.' He eyed her admiringly. 'It's worth

  making you angry to see your eyes flash like that. A fiesta in themselves!' He came to his feet. 'We'd better make a start if we're to join your sister and Juan.'

  Eve blinked. 'Join them where?'

  'At the appointed place.' He gave her the maddening smile. 'You didn't really think I'd allow you to keep me to yourself all the afternoon? There will be a party of us at lunch—the same party with whom we shall probably be spending the evening. A safety in numbers, yes?'

  Wishing dearly at that moment for something heavy to throw at him, Eve had a sudden irrelevant mental picture of Gavin's reactions to such an impulse. Odd that such a short time ago her own abhorrence of public scenes would have matched if not exceeded his, while here she was now glaring across the table at this laughing devil of a man and hardly caring a hoot about the people surrounding them. He was so infuriatingly sure of himself, she fumed. It would do him a power of good if she just turned and walked out on him, left him flat with all these folk looking on and laughing at his discomfiture. Yet when he held out a hand to her she put hers into it without a murmur and went with him.

  Lynn and Juan were already waiting at the restaurant where they were to lunch, along with three other couples. All of them spoke enough English to make themselves understood, but kept forgetting the necessity and breaking into their own language, taxing Eve's scanty vocabulary to the full.

  'I'll take a night school course before I come back

  in August,' she said ruefully in the car going back to the villa. 'Then at least I'll be able to talk to the wedding guests, and know what they're saying. After all, I can't expect everyone to learn English just for my benefit—not in their own country.'

  'Most of us speak at least a little,' said Juan. `Lynn could teach you Spanish if you stayed. Ramon has been unable to persuade you?'

  'I haven't attempted to persuade her,' said his brother calmly. 'Eve must make up her own mind when the time comes.'

  'Isn't that leaving it a bit late?' asked Eve sweetly. He smiled. 'You want to be persuaded then?'

  `No,' hurriedly. 'I can't just walk out on my job

  and ... other things like that. Besides ...'

  'Besides which you're allergic to the sun,' he quipped dryly. 'Haven't you noticed, Juan, how she wilts in the heat?'

  Eve felt wilted all right. The day had been long and crowded with incident, and she was suddenly in no mood for Ramon's brand of satire. 'Oh, shut up! ' she said irritably. 'The sun isn't the only thing I'm allergic to '

  Immediately she had said it she could feel the pink rising in her face. It had been a childish retort, and an unnecessarily rude one. What was wrong with her anyway? She could feel Ramon's eyes on her, but she couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze. It was Juan who broke the awkward little silence with a casual remark about the evening ahead.

  The incident appeared to have been forgotten by

  the time they reached the villa, much to Eve's relief. Upstairs in her room she took off the cream dress and lay down on the bed and tried to relax for half an hour, only to find her mind going round in restless circles. Eventually she got up again and changed into a bathing suit. A long cool plunge would both refresh and revitalise.

  She had the pool to herself. She swam a couple of brisk lengths, did another under water, and then finished up with a lazy side stroke back to the steps. When she looked up Ramon was standing at the top of them.

  'We missed our swim together this afternoon,' he said, shedding his towelling jacket. 'So we'll take it now.'

  'I've had mine,' Eve pointed out, treading water as she eyed him uncertainly. 'I'm coming out now.' He didn't move. 'I think not.'

  'Ramon.' She said it as firmly as she could. 'I'm cold and I have to dry my hair. You've played the fool all day. Isn't that enough?'

  The day was dimming already for its plunge into night, and for a moment it was difficult to judge his expression as he leaned on the rail, then he straightened suddenly and stood back. 'Very well.'

  Eve climbed the steps quickly, stopped at the top to ease her cap, and was swept off her feet by a pair of arms which held her as easily as if she had been a child.

  'I'll teach you to call me a fool,' he said with a dangerous gleam, and before she could guess his intention he walked the couple of steps to the edge

  and tossed her back into the water.

  She came up gasping, having failed to take a proper breath before going under, heard the splash at her side and flung herself forward for the safe
ty of the steps. But she wasn't swift enough. There were hands at her waist, pulling her back and turning her, the flash of his smile and the hardness of his tanned chest beneath her flailing fists. Then his mouth was on hers and they were sinking under the water, his legs trapping her feet so that she couldn't kick, his arms locked about her back. With her eyes instinctively closed, Eve was aware of nothing but her immediate sensations : the cushioning of the water, the absence of sound, the pressure of mouth and limbs and the response springing inside her. Then they were breaking surface again and Ramon was holding her away from him, laughing as she gasped for breath.

  `The first time you've been kissed under water, I think,' he said sardonically. And the last time you'll call me a fool, chica mia. Many things I might be, but not that.' He let her go. 'Away now and make yourself pretty for tonight.'

  Eve swam to the steps, climbed out and swept up her robe without a backward glance. There was no point in saying anything when whatever she did say would simply roll off his back, no point in claiming outraged virtue when he must have recognised her response. She had never felt quite so totally at a loss in the whole of her life.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE party they had been invited to attend that evening was a private one, held in one of the older residences in Puerto de la Cruz. By the standards she had come to accept as normal to the Perestrellos, Eve found it a rather formal affair, although the buffet meal was obviously an innovation adopted to suit the nature of the entertainment, leaving the guests free to talk or dance or eat as and when they preferred.

  Just before midnight there was a display of fireworks out in the grounds, with everyone crowding out on to the patio to watch. Momentarily separated from her own party, Eve found herself standing beside a tall fair-haired man she had noticed several times during the evening. She wasn't all that much surprised when he spoke to her in English.