'Any days will do, Kate.'
'Days,' smiled Kate. 'Plural. You're a glutton for work.'
'You're the same yourself.'
'Perhaps. It fills in time.'
And you have time to fill… as I have… Georgia was sure of that. She had guessed from the first that there was a remembered summer somewhere back in the years, too, for Kate.
'Those days will do, then,' she said, 'Tuesdays and Thursdays.'
'Good girl!' Kate hesitated, almost as though she wanted to sit and talk to her, talk woman's talk, not whatever went on in the office, not observations of the boys, but heart-to-heart things… then she smiled again, she had a lovely smile, and went back with her roster.
Georgia had not seen Justin for several more days, but she knew it was to be expected; though not a large island Cyprus was a comprehensive one, there was much to visit, in a rep job like Justin's much to do.
On her first stand-down, she drove the car to Nicosia and visited the smart shops there. But her next break found her surfeited with smartness, and wanting the simple life again. She had Yiannis pack a picnic lunch, took out her bathers and went down to the coast, rimming around it in the small car until she found a suitable beach. This was not difficult; the coast was literally fretted with inviting bays and reaches most of them since school was in term quiet and empty. The only low mark Georgia could allot were pebbles instead of sand, but she did manage to find a fairly smooth section, made smoother still by a small boat ramp that had been scraped out. She selected a large concealing rock and changed.
She did not swim at once. She lay in the warm sun, letting its golden comfort sink deliciously into her skin. Then, almost intoxicated by it, she ran into the water to let the soft waves waken her up, but finding the temperature barely cooler, so delightful indeed that she turned on her back and nearly fell asleep afloat.
She opened her eyes with a start. There was the chugging of an engine too near for comfort. She saw a small motor boat coming towards her, and only Just managed to dive underwater in time to escape being run down.
At once the engine was cut, and almost immediately she heard a splash as a figure dived in beside her. She surfaced. The person who had dived from the boat surfaced. They surfaced within inches of each other… and laughed.
It was Justin.
'Thank heaven you're all right!' he said between splutters, for the laughter had nearly drowned the pair of them.
'Did you know it was me?'
'No, I was bringing the boat in when I saw a blob of red to the port side—your cap. I thought I'd run you down.'
'So you saved me.'
'It wasn't necessary. Look, we'd better carry on this conversation aboard. There's not much tide movement just now, but Blue Girl is getting away from us.'
'Is that her name?'
'Yes, but I'll be changing it to Georgia.'
'That's nice of you.'
'Shut up talking, honey, and swim across. You can, can't you?' He said it confidently, for he knew her standard from the remembered summer, knew that she could handle herself in the water.
Side by side, stroke by stroke, they swam across, and once there he scraped aboard, then, leaning over, he scooped her up. In the boat he did not release her at once. He held her loosely, yet his eyes held her tightly. Although there were some inches between them as they stood in the slightly rocking Blue Girl, their wet bodies clung.
'Sit down,' Justin said a little gruffly. 'Didn't anyone ever tell you not to stand up in a boat?'
'You. Many times.' She laughed at the memory. The boat had been the Heron then, and he had moored it at Kyrenia.
'Is this yours?' she asked.
'I was giving it a trial run. Why I happened to come here I'll never know, but I can tell you it was a good happening.'
'Will you be in Cyprus long enough to have a boat?'
'I'll be here long enough for a lot of things. For instance'… he paused… 'for living for ever.' He looked directly at Georgia. 'Seriously,' he went on, 'I'll have all the rest of the summer, autumn, and a month or so of winter. I may be over at Rhodes, Crete, but I've wangled it so that Cyprus is my headquarters. Where else would I want?'
She did not answer that, she said, 'And you always loved boats.'
'Just put it down "I loved",' he said.
After that, they did not speak for a long time. They just sat on the cushions that Justin found and let the Mediterranean lap around them, let the soft surge and withdrawal of the sea ease them shoreward, bear them out again. The sun shone down. Georgia slept a little. Before she slipped off, she smiled back at Justin's smiling face.
When she woke he was there beside her, still smiling. She remembered other smiles that smiling summer…
While she still drifted drowsily he made tea in the galley.
'Only hardtack, I'm afraid.' He produced a packet of water biscuits.
'I have a hamper on the beach that Yiannis packed, if you like to row in.'
'Since when have we needed food?' he reproached, and handed her milkless tea and a fistful of biscuits.
She needed nothing else.
They sunned there until the first finger of dusk touched the sky.
'I'd like to take you home, Gigi, but I have to return Blue Girl. By the way, I waited this morning, then when you didn't go by, I decided to look the boat over instead.'
'Because it was my day off I didn't take the boys to school, Kate did it,' she explained.
'When is your next day off?'
She told him.
'Will you come out again?'
'Are you going to buy Blue Girl?'
'Will you come out again?' he repeated stubbornly.
'Are you?'
'Yes.' He paused. 'That is if you—'
'Yes.' Like Justin, she loved the sea, she could not resist the thought of another sun-soaking, sea-happy day.
'Then I'm buying Georgia,' he smiled. Before she could comment, he said wistfully, 'I wish it was as easy as that.'
She knew what he meant, what he wanted, what he waited for; he needed her to tell him they were going on from where they had left off that summer. She wanted it, too… at least she thought she wanted it… Justin was as dear to her as ever, and yet—
And yet—
He gave the ghost of a sigh, touched her shoulder briefly, said, 'Next time, perhaps,' then rowed her ashore.
She reached the hill house by dusk. She soaked in a hot bath and was surprised at the sting it gave her—she must have caught the sun.
Kate had fed and put the children to bed, so they sat three at dinner as they always did. Georgia thanked Kate, and the girl said, 'But it's your day off, you're not expected to lullaby two boys, surely.'
'I doubt if they'd let me,' Georgia laughed… but she was aware that Grip Smith was not laughing.
'You're red,' he said.
'I always am, or so I'm frequently told.'
'Red, not any lesser of the roseate hues. Have you been in the sun?'
'Yes.'
'It doesn't seem to have benefited your appetite.' He was looking at her only half-depleted plate; for some reason she was not hungry.
'Yiannis gave me a whacking lunch,' she excused herself.
His brows raised, it gave him a slightly satanic look. 'Which you didn't eat,' he pointed out.
Georgia was wild with herself; how could she have been so stupid as to put the untouched hamper back into the car? Andreas would have carried it to the kitchen, whereupon Yiannis, very touchy about his food, and how it was appreciated, very desirous for everyone to eat up and eat up big, would have raised his hands in distress and sought out the master to report that Miss Georgia must be ill, a ponus… a pain… perhaps—look, she has eaten nothing of my good lunch.
'Did you eat at a restaurant?' Grip pursued.
'No… I mean—'
'Did you eat at all?'
'Oh, yes.' Yes, I ate hardtack, Mr. Smith.
'Really, Grip'… Grip, how quickly Kate ha
d embraced that… 'you do worry at a bone! Not that you are, Georgia. In fact, you're looking exceptionally fit.'
'She's looking—' But Grip Smith did not finish.
Georgia did not meet Justin at the ramp, but she had not expected to, not now that there was another rendezvous. Rendezvous sounded clandestine, yet there was nothing clandestine there. Justin was free, she was free, she only saw him on a free day. Also, on the morning of the next boating, the sky and the air and the sea were free, beautiful and clear and unsmudged and free. She wore only shorts and bra top, she was going to soak in every bit of the sun that was offered.
As she drew up the little car, she saw that the boat was waiting, that Justin was waiting. He smiled expectantly, and she saw at once why. It was not Blue Girl they were going to rim the bays in, but—Georgia.
'Justin, you are sweet,' she said.
They set out at once, set out along the beautiful fretted coast, fingers of jutting land, bitten-in bays, pebble stretches, pale pumicy sands. Sometimes they passed barley fields, sometimes olive groves, regimented slopes of carobs, sometimes the old belfries, cupolas, towers and turrets of ancient basilicas.
It was pure delight, and Georgia enjoyed every moment. She had not brought any lunch today, and just as well, for this time there was much more offering than black tea and water biscuits. Justin had literally carried aboard a little feast.
'Fizz, too,' disbelieved Georgia of the champagne.
'Why not? It's an occasion.'
'What occasion?' she asked warily.
'Not the one I think you're thinking… unluckily. Well, not yet. At least, Gigi, allow me to say that. Not yet. No, honey, the occasion of Georgia instead of Blue Girl.' He flicked a few drops of the champagne over the bows. 'That's all you're getting,' he told his boat.
Afterwards he was to sigh that perhaps it was the champagne that did it.
'No, it was just bad luck,' Georgia hastened to reassure him.
'Not bad handling?'
'Justin, you were not to know the sandbank was there.'
'I should have taken the precaution of buying a chart, not just a general coastal map as I have, but a chart.'
'Justin, it wasn't your fault.' She was to add that it could have been worse, that the sand spit could have been rocks, for rocks they did fear they had encountered at first. For suddenly the boat had churned, then stopped, stopped dead.
'Rocks!' Justin had cried.
'There's no tearing sound,' she pointed out.
'It could be right down and the noise drowned. One thing's certain—whatever it is, we're stuck.'
He had dived in, and Georgia had waited anxiously while he examined below to see what was the trouble. He was an expert swimmer, but she was always uneasy when anyone was underneath for a length of time.
She had just been about to dive in herself to look for him when he had come up. He had grimaced as she had helped him aboard Georgia again.
'Stuck like a fly on flypaper, absolutely grounded.'
'A sandbank?'
'Yes.'
'Well, one thing, it's not rocks.'
'Dear little Pollyana,' he said unenthusiastically. 'Oh, yes, I'm pleased over that, but not pleased that it's happened at all. It's useless me trying to get her off, I'll need help, and have you noticed lately where the day has gone?'
She looked around, and was startled at the elf light that had crept in while they had been absorbed over their sudden predicament.
'It's almost evening,' she gasped, as indeed it was. In the distance, she did not know where it would be, which town, a necklet of street lights was beginning to sparkle.
'We're here for the night,' he said, 'and though ordinarily I could be jumping for joy for that, what I'm thinking of now is the hue and cry we're going to cause, you with your boss wondering why you haven't returned, me at the wretched hotel that takes such an interest in its guests that every time you don't turn up for a meal they knock on the door. Oh, lord, I ought to be kicked!'
'Justin, it's not your fault.'
'It's so near it doesn't matter.'
'Also,' persisted Georgia, determined to be cheerful, 'we're safe as houses.'
'On a small boat with a sea rising. I'm sorry, Gigi, I shouldn't have said that, but the fact is a sea is rising.'
She looked around and saw that the placid blue, now a dark steely blue, was indeed showing unrest. Whitecaps of waves were breaking its serenity. A larger wave veered the boat slightly to one side.
'If it looks really like getting bad, we'll make for shore,' Justin said, 'it's not all that far, and we're both competent swimmers.'
'Yes,' agreed Georgia, but not much liking the idea of that dark, uninviting sea, especially with its rock-strewn beaches, like all the Cyprus beaches, offering only a sharp welcome.
They sat together on the higher side of the boat to try to balance it, to prevent it leaning right over. It was not cold, Cyprus summer nights never were, but there was an edge to the wind that after a few hours of persistence would surely strike chill to the bone.
Justin fortunately had a jacket, but Georgia, thinking she would be home by dusk, had only her shorts and top. Justin took one sleeve of the jacket and Georgia the other, and there they sat as close as one jacket between two people could bring them.
All the shore lights were on now, house lights as well as street lights. That big cluster of lights they supposed would be distant Limassol.
There was no food left, but anyway neither of them felt like food.
'If this was the old days,' bantered Justin, 'you'd have to marry me. Perhaps it is the old days, perhaps we only think we're up to now. How did that scientist explain it? A long train with its carriages marked Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Gigi, let's slip back a few carriages, become yesterday, when you would have had to marry me.'
'Oh, Justin, you are a fool,' she laughed.
'Is that a refusal? he said in pretended hurt. 'Never mind then, so long as we can advance a few carriages to tomorrow, when you're my wife.'
'I don't know, Justin,' she sighed.
'There's nothing to stop us.'
'That's true, but I still don't know.'
'You're not holding anything against me because of then?'
'No. How could I? It was right what you did. No, I respect you for it.'
'But respect isn't love, is that it?'
'Justin, I don't know. I just don't know. I do know I like you terribly, and I know liking is more important even than loving, but—'
'Before you actually refuse, which you haven't yet, and thank heaven, put your head on my shoulder and sleep on it, the shoulder and the proposal. I don't want you to rush into shoving me off.'
'Off Georgia?
'Could be Georgia, too, by the way it's veering now. It may only be a sandbank under us, but I don't want us to be suddenly floundering if the sands happen to move, as is quite likely. If it keeps blowing, honey, we'll just have to swim to shore. But not yet. I'll keep watch. You just relax and build up your strength.'
'Yes, Justin,' she said obediently. It was not the time to be independent, she accepted, it was the time to conform.
She giggled.
'What is it?' he asked.
'I just told myself it was the time to conform, but this is scarcely conforming, is it?'
'You mean convention has finally conquered you and tomorrow we'll put up the banns?'
Her laughter, her 'Oh, Justin' came at the same time as a very large wave. At the same time again as a powerful searchlight, then a long alerting whistle. As the boat keeled over, throwing them both on the sandbank that seemed to be sinking, or moving, very rapidly, the craft behind the searchlight and the source of the alerting whistle loomed darkly into view, not a large boat but powerful and manoeuvrable. It manoeuvred almost to Georgia's side, and within seconds Georgia herself had been plucked out of the water, Justin after her.
There was a Cypriot at the wheel, a salty, sea-hard fellow as all professional sailors are, but
the man who hauled them on to the boat was no seagoer. His hands, as they touched Georgia, if not soft were certainly not hardened. More the hands of someone who worked in an office, she thought abstractedly, at accounts, perhaps, at architecture, at writing. —Writing?
Now she knew why she had flinched instinctively at the feel of those impersonal hands, she knew why, although they were cool, even cold, they had felt hot on her flesh.
They were his hands, Grip Smith's hands. Mr. Smith had come to rescue them. And he had.
Only—shrinking away from the oilskinned figure that in this moment appeared almost to tower over her—being rescued by Agrippa Smith seemed no rescue at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Apart from throwing her a coat, Grip Smith took no notice of Georgia, nor of Justin. He was too concerned with helping the skipper to edge their own boat away from the sandbank.
Justin joined in, adding his man strength, and Georgia, shivering in the too large, very rough garment Grip had tossed, wished she could help as well. Anything, she thought, to be occupied and not stand humbled like this. Though why should she feel humbled, she had done nothing wrong or foolish. Justin, either, for that matter, it had been sheer bad luck, not mismanagement, yet he was receiving the same cool treatment as she was. Poor Justin, nothing was going right for him.
But something at last weighed in Justin's favour. The Cypriot said some words to Grip Smith, and evidently Grip understood Greek, though he had never indicated that he had before, for he nodded, then turned to Justin.
'Your boat?' He gave the semi-submerged vessel a mere flick of a glance, but Georgia knew that that flick took in the boat's name. It would, she thought irritably, it just would veer that way, name clearly and unmistakably on top.
'Yes.'
'Not to worry, our skipper says, the bank will cover up no more than it's covered now. It will be a matter for a tug, of course, but you'll get off all right.'
'Thank you, that's a relief. Gigi and I were considering swimming for it, not knowing if the sands would move.'
'Gigi?' Grip Smith asked deliberately, Georgia thought; he would know to whom Justin referred, but he had to humiliate her.
'Georgia—Miss Georgia Paul.'
Flamingo Flying South Page 11
