Stormy Encounter

by Roumelia Lane

  Janet, for a moment, saw stars at the savage move. Then gradually when she realised what was happening, the stars began to mellow blissfully into soft pink glows all around her, and her body, mellowing too, relaxed slowly againstthe hard lean frame. For long enough she experienced a sweetness that she had never known before, as the taut mouth fastened itself demandingly on hers. She wanted the world to stop there, just as it was.

  Then, becoming slowly aware that her arms had somehow found their way up and were curved around the linensuited shoulders, she drew away with a rush of colour. It took her a few moments to find her legs, and brushing the wisps of hair from her face for the sake of something to do, she stammered with stars of a different kind in her eyes now, 'I think ... I'd better be getting back to the house.'

  Bruce watched her move away. Perhaps it was something he had found out for himself that made him slope a smile. Handing her the bowl from the top of the fence post, be said whimsically, 'Don't forget your eggs.'

  Janet took them and floated up the path back to the house, while lazy footsteps crunched away across the track.

  Mrs. Kendall was standing at the back door, flour caked on her arms, her hair up on end, just as she had left the kitchen to see what the sudden flow of traffic through the house was all about. The puzzled look which had been stamped on her features had slowly been giving way to one of surprise, mingled with a sneaking delight. Now as she watched Janet move into the house, an enigmatic smile on her face, she expressed her reaction at what she had just seen at the bottom of the meadow in one volubly explosive word,

  'Well!'

  Janet, blushing under her teasing gaze, laughed shyly with shining eyes, 'Oh, Mother!' and made a quick escape to her bedroom.

  She didn't walk. She was transported on a rainbowcoloured cloud accompanied by the music playing in her heart.

  He had kissed her. Bruce had actually kissed her!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  August was the month for fiestas in Ibiza. Because of the heat the afternoon parties at the villa had come to an end. The fashion now was to travel in the cool of the evening to whichever village was celebrating its saint's day, and have one's party there—not very difficult when the villagers in question spared themselves nothing to make theirs the gayest pueblo of them all.

  The calleswere sure to be decorated from end to end with gay flags and banners. There was music and dancing, wine to drink, and all the local colour one could want at one's fingertips. The Fords usually went with a small crowd of friends. Mrs. Kendall had been a couple of times in with their group.

  The morning following the meadow incident Janet returned from a shopping expedition to the village to find her mother waiting for her impatiently on the terrace.

  'Bruce was over while you were away,' she said, smiling conspiratorially, 'but he had to leave for town. The Fords are going over to Santa Margarita tonight. He brought us an invitation to join their party.'

  Janet's heart skipped a beat. Bruce had been across to the house and she had missed him. Still, she would probably have been too shy to look him in the eye anyway. She heard her mother's news with mixed feelings. Was Bruce going to the fiesta? Well, of course he must be, she told herself, otherwise he wouldn't have come over, would he?

  Just the same she spent the rest of the day in an agony of uncertainty. When it came to the time to get ready in the evening, her excitement was tempered by the fear of disappointment.

  She showered and after slipping into filmy underwear pin on the nylon pearlbuttoned dress which she had worn the day that Bruce had taken her to see Don Ignacio's garden.Her hair, freshly shampooed during the afternoon, ,silkily round her face. A touch of makeup on, and tanned legs slim in gold strapped sandals, she finished off with dab of perfume, It was good to feel essentially feminine again after wearing nothing but old clothes for the past couple of weeks.

  Just after dark, the cars belonging to the friends of the fords began to converge along the track prior to starting ont for the fiesta. Janet's heart spiralled down into her shoes when she went across the terrace with her mother and found a long white estate car filled with laughing partygoers, waiting to pick them up. However, she joined in the gaiety on journey, reminding herself that Bruce was a busy man and could be held up in any number of places.

  The pueblo, when they arrived, was already humming with activity and the festivities well under way. Fireworks exploded into multicoloured lights in the sky and everyone was out in the garlanded streets, from the oldest of grandmothers in their best black dresses, to the tiniest of tots in colourful local costume. Tourists who had come to see the lights mingled happily with the villagers along the streets.

  The Fords' party drove to the main plaza and parked their cars under the trees at the side. The centre of the square was dominated by a woodenfloored dance enclosure in which a group of young musicians hammered out a nonstop beat for the benefit of gyrating teenagers. There would later be a display of local dancing, a special attraction laid on for the tourists.

  The square was lined with chairs, and there were the usual village cafes. The villa party made for the one where forms and tables had been set out under the loggia entrance. Mingling with the fragrance of the chestnut trees, cooling off after the heat of the day, was the heavier one of jasminewhich climbed over the loggia above the tables. Janet felt too on edge to sit down. She found a place atthe end of the cafe enclosure beside the trees, to watch the goingson in the square. Her mother, shrouded in the muted glow of the tiny coloured lights, was silting chatting happily with Mrs. Ford and one or two other feminine members of the party, while the men were giving their verdict on the local wine.

  Francisco was in the group. Janet was used to seeing him on odd occasions when he drove in or out of the villa, andthey always waved to each other as they passed. But though they were as friendly as ever, the closer companionship they had known in the early days of the summer was now a thing of the past.

  He came to join her half an hour or so after they had arrived. Very proudly he told her that Santa Margarita was his native village. He knew everyone in the square, and almost every other one was a relative of his. Practically all of those who jostled by the front of the cafe shouted him a friendly greeting, He was enjoying his night amongst his own people. He left her after a while to join a group who were making for the floodlit dance area.

  Janet watched him go, smiling over thehollowness inside her. She knew she didn't make very good company tonight. Standing at the edge of the villa group, she was supposed to be joining them in watching the fun in the square, but her gaze was trained more towards the shadows under the trees, where the cars were parked.

  She was beginning to think that disappointment was going to be her companion tonight. Then, when the exhibition dancing had just started, she saw it—a dark polished shape sliding in amongst the shadows, the whitewalled tyres striking through the darkness to make her pulses race.

  No one, perhaps, but her took any notice of the gentle slam of a car door, swallowed up amidst the sound of flutes and guitars and tambourines, or of the lean figure picked out in pale suit making his way across to the cafe.

  Janet's eyes following Bruce as he passed the table enclosure were starlit. Every line of his tanned features, the brilliant contrast of his cream shirt, his white smile as he acknowledged the Fords, were all stamped indelibly on herheart

  She watched him as he stood chatting in the group andtook a sip of the drink he was handed, but when in the dimglow of the cafe lights he started to make his way in her direction, she swung her gaze wildly out to the square, her heart thumping madly.

  She knew Bruce was behind her when her breathing became uneven. Or perhaps it was his close proximity which cut it off almost completely. She could hear the thudding of her pulses inside her head, and thought her knees were goingto let her down. Then his arm came up to curve around her waist. He drew her gently against him, and rapturously, blissfully she relaxed.

 
; Though they were outwardly watching the dancing display. Janet's gaze was too radiant to see anything but her own happiness. She doubted whether much of Bruce's attention was directed that way either, for his lips weredangerously close to her hair.

  After a few minutes he said softly against her ear, 'There's a good hotel not far from here. Shall we go?' Janet nodded against him. He guided her alongside himinto the shadows. They disappeared by a side opening out of the loggia, and leaving the music and the gay life in the plaza they crossed silently to the car under the trees. In a few minutes they were cruising out into the black night and the countryside, leaving the lights of Santa Margarita behind them.

  The tyres whispered over the road. Soon other lights were showing faintly in the distance. As they approached, one could make out the pale line of a beach and the lacy edge of black waves rustling in with a sigh on the still nightair.

  The hotel was a new white building. Brace drove into thecar park. From here he guided Janet through to where couples were moving around to the strains of music on an open terrace. Soft lights from the doors were reflected in the tiles at the dancers' feet. Waiters floated discreetly between the arboursheltered tables.

  It was a scene typical of any luxury hotel on a holiday island. Janet was stirred by the beauty of the view. Flowering shrubbery and trees beyond the tables were silhouetted against a backcloth of luminescent sky studded with stars. Bruce wasn't looking at the view. Without preamble he drew Janet into his arms and guided her on to the dance floor. Close against him, she thought she would burst with happiness.

  She moved as though she had been dancing a lifetime with him. But this was mainly because he attempted nothing apart from drifting around with his head close to hers.

  She lost all idea of time. When Bruce guided her towards the shadows of the trees, she didn't know whether she had been dancing five minutes or longer. He turned an arm about her waist as they walked to where they could hear the sea on the beach. With only the stars for company they stood before a bower of blossom which framed the night. In the silence she could hear his breathing, feel the warmth of it on her check. His arms curving about her, he drew her against him. His lips came down to meet hers.

  There was nothing of the roughness of that first meadow kiss in his embrace, only a gentleness, a tenderness which melted her bones.

  From her lips he trailed his mouth through her hair and across her throat. Drowning in the aching sweetness of his touch, she was far away, lost in an enchanted world, when he said deeply against her, 'We'd better be making our way back. The others will be getting ready for leaving.'

  Janet nodded reluctantly and with shining eyes allowed him to lead her out through the hotel grounds and into the car.

  She knew nothing of the ride back to Santa Margarita. She was lost to everything but the feel of Bruce beside her; his palesuited shoulders alongside hers, his slim hands, immaculate shirt cuffs and heavy cufflinks at the wrist, swinging the wheel effortlessly.

  The pueblo, when they got back, was still thick with people. The fireworks and the festivities would go on until two or three o'clock in the morning, but as Bruce had forecast, the villa party were on the point of getting ready to leave. Apparently the crowd had split up into groups to do different things, after the dancing display, so it was unlikely, Janet thought, that either she or Bruce had been missed.

  Everyone was converging at the cafe" as they left the carI strolled back through the shadows to join the throng. re was a slight commotion because Ralph Ford had mislaid the flash equipment belonging to his camera.

  Bruce drifted in to give him a hand to locate it. Janet was swooped down on by her mother and a couple of pleasantfaced women around her mother's age, whose acquaintance they had made in the car on the journey out. They were all full of the experience they had had in a bodega just round the corner. Barrels as big as houses lined the walls, they said, and the wine gushed out of taps as freely as water, half of it running away along the gutter beneath, as the villagers' botijas overflowed in the move towards the cars it was taken for granted that Janet would travel back with the party she came out with. Stepping into the white estate car, she look around for Bruce. Francisco had several friends he wanted to give lifts to. As his car was small, Bruce was obligingly taking theoverflow.

  Happily Janet took her seat and settled down amidst the twittering excitement of her mother and herfriends,Though she gave the appearance of listening to their chat on the drive back, nothing really penetrated the rosy glowshe was wrapped in. Dreamily, all she could think of was Bruce's arms around her, his lips on hers.

  Janet awoke the next morning to the realisation that it was her mother's shopping day inlbizatown. She couldn't think of anything less likely to coincide with her rapturous mood than browsing around the fish market or searching out the choicest vegetables. But she knew her mother enjoyed her company on that one afternoon a week. Also there was the thought that she needed assistance with the shopping bags.

  They discussed what they would wear at the breakfast table. With September just around the corner the days were less inclined to be sticky. There was the merest suggestion of a lightness in the air, after months of languorous heat.

  Mid-morning Janet took Dale for a walk, as she always did on shopping days, so that he would be pleasantly tired and ready to sleep indoors throughout the afternoon. Huge dragonflies zipped about at the bottom of the meadow. The grapes in the vinefields down by the farm hung in huge lilac clusters. Soon they would turn black and succulent in the sun. Then they would be ready for picking.

  Mrs. Kendall made a salad for lunch. They rested in their own bedrooms for a while afterwards, then when they had washed and changed, and with shopping bags in hand, they locked up the house and set out to catch the bus into town.

  Janet's heart gave a lilt when she saw Bruce's car across the track at the side gates. He must be working at the villa this afternoon. She would have liked to dawdle in case he took it into his mind, on the spur of the moment, to come over to the house. But they had already cut themselves fine for time. She was compelled to hurry off up the farm road alongside her mother in case they missed the bus.

  The town was packed with its usual contingent of holidaymakers, plus a steamerload of day trippers who had sailed in from a neighbouring island. Luckily they didn't get into the food markets much. All the same it was hardgoing, battling against the intrepid island women, who knew a bargain when they saw it, and weren't afraid to shout anyone down to get it.

  When all the items on Mrs. Kendall's list had been crossed off, mother and daughter sank down thankfully at a pavement cafe" and refreshed themselves with coffee, and the pastries which were a speciality of the island. It was pleasant sitting in the shade watching the passersby.

  Feeling deliciously lazy, they stayed on sipping a second cup of coffee until it was time to catch the bus back to San Gabrielle. It left town at sixthirty. They got back to the village around sevenfifteen. As she stepped down at the top of the farm road, Janet sniffed the air appreciatively. After the rush and push of town, the blare of traffic, and the acrid smell of exhaust fumes, it was always good to get back to the peace and freshness of the countryside.

  There was the softness of dusk in the air. The almond trees without a breath of breeze to stir them, stood etched against the red earth landscape, and dark blue mountains. From somewhere nearby came the trilling musical note of a nightbird.

  Even with the heavy shopping bags to carry, the walk down the farm road to the house was a pleasure. As they made their way up the railway track to the terrace they could hear Dale excitedly barking at their approaching footsteps. Janet hurried to let him out, and laughed as he tore in wide circles all over the garden, rushing back every few minutes to reassure himself that they really had arrived by nuzzling his nose into their hands, then hurling himself delightedly back at the fig trees.

  Janet left him to wear himself out, and went to help her mother unpack the shopping. When
everything was tidied away they went out to sit on the patio to get their breath back. Soon they would start to prepare a late meal, but first it was soothing to sit with a relaxing drink and watch the changing colours of the gathering dusk.

  The sky had darkened to an unbelievably brilliant turquoise blue and was slashed dramatically with plumes of even more brilliant salmon pink, when the phutphut sound of a light motorcycle coming down the farm road took their attention out to the end of the track. It was always interesting to see who was passing.

  Sometimes it was Pablo the shepherd, on his way to the farm to start work. During the summer months the sheep had to be taken out to graze through the night, for they would never have survived a day in the heat. Sometimes it was the electricity man in his uniform going down to collect his dues. Although he wasn't likely to be going to the farm at this time of night

  As it happened it was a man in uniform on a dusty red motorised bike, and surprisingly he turned in on to the railway track and bumped his way precariously up to the house. As he came nearer Janet recognised him as the clerk who worked behind the counter at the town hall. He looked hot and not a little put out as he dismounted and stood his machine up.