“He’s gone to Fort Leppa, and taken Mrs. Redding. She heard about the cases of sleeping sickness and got terrified.”
“I see.” Dave was standing in front of the lounger with his back to it. His thoughts moved fast and with precision. Avia’s flight left Lokola womanless. Of the ten men in the district six were bachelors and sick to the soul with their state. “Well, Langland, you may reassure the D.O. The car was borrowed in Cape Ricos this morning, and I shall send a boy back with it at dawn.”
“So the young lady is staying?” The small eyes in their puffy setting glimmered. “You might introduce me, Dave.”
Dave half-turned. “Don’t get up, Tess. You’ve heard me talk about Walt. Here he is in the flesh, though he’s mostly bone. And this is Bill Langland, who looks like the skipper of a bug-boat, but he once filched a degree which entitles him to the pay of an education officer.” With an offhand smile and watchful eyes, he announced, “My wife, gentlemen.”
CHAPTER TWO
TESS spent most of the next two days and nights on the lounger in Dave’s living-room. He fixed it up with bed linen and brought in a mosquito screen each evening. She did not see much of him. He breakfasted on the veranda and cleared off till four or five in the afternoon. When he came in he made polite enquiries as he passed through to take a shower, and he did not appear again till dinner was ready.
Over the meal he talked of his job and about Walt and Brig. When coffee had been disposed of and cigarettes lighted he moved about, without haste, securing the window-blind at the glassless aperture, shifting her bed to catch the maximum of air and generally arranging things for the night.
“Need anything?”
“No, thanks.”
“Right. Good night, Tess.”
“Good night, Dave.”
He went out and the key snicked in the lock. She guessed that he passed the hours till midnight playing cards with the others. He came in quietly, the back way, and the rest of the night was silent.
Unused to inaction, Tess seldom fell into a deep sleep. There were times when, half-waking, she relived those frightful days after the lawyer had told her that the orange farm was to be sold. For more than a fortnight Richard had neglected his business to be with her; wherever she turned he had been there with wordless sympathy and suggestions for killing time and deadening pain.
Presently, Richard grew into more than the stranger who had befriended and sustained her. His sister had married and, with unusual warmth, had invited Tess to occupy one of the bedrooms of the big, rambling house. The arrangement had suited her for a while — till Richard had asked her to marry him. After that she had to get away.
In England she had rigidly banished both Dave and Richard from her thoughts. Her brothers’ friends, intrigued by the phenomenon of an English girl who knew nothing whatever about England, and willing to be fascinated by her slim brownness and the silver-gilt hair, had not disguised their interest. Tess had grasped at the fun they offered and wondered whether she could settle in England. But within weeks she was restless again, and inevitably had come the visit to the shipping office to book a ticket for stage one of her return to Port Cranston.
It was at Dakar that she first heard mention of Cape Ricos, and afterwards, each time the name was brought into a conversation she had questioned the speaker.
One man, a hardened rubber salesman, had answered her taut query: “Yes, it’s true enough. They’ve had several cases of blackwater over the last few months, but I’ve heard that it’s worse inland, beyond the swamps, in places like Mbana and Lokola.”
Tess had had a series of chaotic nightmares. By the time Cape Ricos was reached she found herself hoping dully that Dave had died of blackwater; that way he would be removed from her life for ever, and she could go ahead and marry Richard.
At the port she had learned that the rumour had arisen from two cases, one close upon the other. She was told that that particular fever could never become epidemic because it was chiefly the malaria-ridden who contracted it.
Tess should have gone back to the boat then, and unemotionally awaited departure; she should have soaked the pitted skin at her waist with calamine and avoided perspiring at all costs. Being Tess, she forgot everything except that Lokola was only a hundred miles away, and the possibility that Dave had picked up some other fever. She had to know.
It seemed foolish now that she should have been anxious about him; she should have accepted the fact that wherever she made her home there would always be Dave at Lokola to plague her subconscious.
The third afternoon Luke Walton came in. He brought her some flowers from the Redding’s garden.
“They won’t mind,” he said. “It’s a grouse with Redding that his wife has no interest in his garden; he’ll be glad to have his blooms appreciated.”
Tess was sitting up in a chair, her back well-cushioned and her feet raised to a stool.
“It’s kind of you to think of me. I don’t suppose Dave owns a flower jar, but there’ll be a jug or something. Call the boy, will you?”
The flowers were arranged on a small table, blood-red splashes against the white wall.
“Sit down and have some tea with me,” she invited. “It’ll be pleasant to have someone to talk to.”
Luke lowered himself into a dining-chair. Smiling, his unspectacular features had a certain charm, and somehow, the sight of his long brown shoes had for Tess a soothing, homely quality. She felt that she and Luke were bound to use the same language. She took a cigarette and tilted it to his match.
“How long have you been here?”
“In Lokola? About six years, but I’ve lived up and down the coast since I was twenty. I’ve had eighteen years of it.”
“I don’t suppose you can imagine yourself living anywhere else?”
“I’ve thought about it ... particularly when Dave moved out a couple of years ago. I kidded him like the others did, but if he’d asked me I’d have gone with him.”
Tess smoked for a minute. “Think you could have settled to orange farming?”
“I don’t know.” He tapped his cigarette into an ashtray. “Beats me why Dave didn’t — with you around. Can’t think why in hell he came back here.”
“He’d had enough of civilization.” She pushed aside a book to make room on the table for the tea-tray. “Dave’s happier without women,” she said. “I’m sorry I came.”
“You might give it a month’s trial,” he suggested.
Unguardedly, she said, “I might — if I were wanted.”
“Oh.” He slackened his knees and leaned on them, towards her. “I dare say you know me better than I know you. Dave might have told you about us —”
“A little,” she admitted.
“Well, you came to us out of the blue. Dave hadn’t let on that he was married. I can guess some things about him, but I didn’t guess that, though I did have a pretty good notion that something had happened while he was away.”
Her fingers curled into her palms. “Why?”
He gently shook his head. “He wasn’t the same.” Luke was remembering things: the occasional raw cynicism in Dave’s letters from Zinto; the derisive glitter in his eyes across the card table when he had unbent enough to describe some of his experiences as an orange farmer; and his flat refusal to go to the coast for a week-end’s binge. Seemingly he was off both oranges and women.
Tentatively, Tess broke in, “You didn’t believe Dave would ever tie himself up, did you?”
“It wasn’t that.” Any man was likely to meet a woman he couldn’t have without marriage, he thought, but that was a low reason for marrying. “You oughtn’t to have let him go. He’ll never forgive you for it.”
Tess looked at him queerly. “Why did you say that?”
Luke shrugged. “You’ve found his tenderest spot ... and his meanest. He used to say, ‘I’ll never marry, Walt. Women are too damned hard.’ You see what I mean?”
Yes, Tess saw. Luke, quiet, speculative and friendly, consti
tuted quite a menace.
“When does the next boat leave?” she asked.
“There’s one south in nine days. I’m shipping some oil in her.”
“Does she take passengers?”
“When necessary, but she only goes as far as Lobito Bay.”
“That’ll do.” Tess sighed and smiled. “As soon as I can walk freely I’ll come and watch you going about your business.”
“Dave told us you had a heat rash. Devil, isn’t it, but fortunately they soon fade with resting.”
Companionably he went back over the minor ailments of his apprenticeship in the tropics; light fevers, enteritis, scorpion bite. All had happened within his first two years, since when he had increased his whisky intake and grown the Coaster’s immunity to the commonest ills. He went on to give details of the various jobs he had done, and related the incident which had led to his becoming a “palm-oil gentleman.”
Tess laughed with him, and looked up to see Dave in the doorway. Luke got up.
“Hi, Dave. Hope you don’t mind finding me here.”
“Not a bit.” The grey gaze rested on the brilliant bouquet and passed on. “It’s going to be another steamy night.”
Tess pulled herself carefully to her feet and invited, “Stay and have chop with us, Luke.”
Luke hesitated.
“Thanks, but another night. See you later, Dave?”
“Probably.”
“Right. So long.”
They heard his tuneless whistling as he dropped down to the track and sauntered back to his own house. Dave kicked off one boot and started on the other.
“Listen, Dave,” she said firmly. “I shall be able to travel tomorrow, or the following day at the latest. You must take me to Cape Ricos, and I’ll wait there for the boat.”
He poured a drink. “I wish it were that easy. What d’you suppose they’d say about a man who’d dumped his wife in a flea-ridden port and left her there?
“That story has served its purpose. Tell everyone the truth.”
His lips thinned. “You may have no regard for your own reputation, but mine means quite a lot to me, even here. If you’re concerned about the construction your Richard will place upon it, I can only remind you that you came here of your own accord.”
“I didn’t intend to stay overnight. You made me do that!”
“Because I wouldn’t let you commit suicide. I’ve seen a man take infection through a cut finger and pass out within days. With your back in such a condition I had no alternative but to make you stay.”
“No one forced you to stretch your chivalry to the limit.”
“I said you were my wife,” he told her coldly, “so that you wouldn’t be plagued by woman-starved government officials.”
There was a silence while Dave finished his drink, and Tess despondently piled up the magazines.
“I’ve got no clothes but this thing,” she said without spirit.
“The boy pressed it up and washed the blouse.”
“But Luke said the next boat is nine days away.”
“It can’t be helped. If Avia were here she’d lend you some frocks.”
“Avia?” Tess twisted to watch his dark face. “Who is she?”
“Mrs. Redding. A good-looker, too, to save you asking.”
Tess let herself down among the pillows and turned her face against the cool linen. She heard Dave walk out, and the water being tipped into the bath. Then a door closed and sounds were muted.
Dave did not go out straight after dinner. For an hour he scanned the tin mine reports and pencilled notes for discussion with Brigham. He sat at the desk, as engrossed as if he were alone, while Tess lay alternately dozing and following the fortunes of the insects which flittered about the lamp.
It was nearly ten before he got up, lit a cigarette and put the customary enquiry.
“Need anything?”
Tess altered her reply. “Only a car filled with petrol — and no interference.”
“Grateful wench, aren’t you? Don’t get the notion that I’m keeping you here because it’s like heaven to have you around again. It isn’t.”
“I know. But, Dave...” Tess quelled a tremor. “If you go on hating me, nine days will be a lifetime. You never did really understand about ... Martin. You can’t realize how it is to have a man of his kind clinging as if you were the only solid thing in the universe. I wasn’t remotely in love with him and you knew it — but you allowed yourself to be ruled by anger and violence.” The set of his features was a warning, but she had to go on. “You came here to forget me, but it hasn’t worked, or you wouldn’t still loathe me. To forget each other we’ve got to come out into the open. I don’t believe there’s any love left between us, but we’ll never be happy with anyone else unless we make the test, by becoming just ... friends.”
“Finished?” he queried politely. “May I give you some advice, Teresa? I once had to be present at an exhumation; the remains were grisly and they got a man hanged. We’ll leave ours buried. Instead of lying there awake analysing the differences between a man and a woman, try dreaming ahead. Richard will make an excellent husband, and give you the three well-spaced children without which no merchant’s home is complete. Good night.”
Her answer was brief and vehement.
Nine days more of his relentless enmity? Not if she could avoid it!
CHAPTER THREE
LUKE’S was the fourth and last house in the clearing. Inside it was shabby but meticulously neat, typical, as were the polished, worn shoes, of his well-ordered and much-used mind. Luke disliked clutter, which, perhaps, was why he had never married. The trouble was, it seemed pretty well impossible to straighten out a woman’s ideas; she had too many of them at once, and no discrimination.
Dave’s wife seemed to be an exception; she was matey, like a boy, yet her bones were fine, her skin soft and honey-coloured. At first she had looked as if Dave could have snapped her in two, but Luke wouldn’t mind betting that she was tough as leather ... and that at times she could be as yielding.
It didn’t surprise him to come upon less in his shed next morning. She appeared fit, though a shade ludicrous in a baggy shirt of Dave’s and a pair of exceedingly roomy shorts lapped over and belted round her waist. She grinned at him.
“Look appalling, don’t I?” she said cheerfully.
“You certainly do. Did Dave see you like that?”
“No. He’d flay me.” She strolled about sniffing at kegs and sacks. “Don’t you sicken of the smell of palm-oil? What do you trade for it?”
“Hardware and cloth, but chiefly cash. It’s easier. “You’d make a heap more money if you ran an emporium as a sideline.”
“There’s already a native store at the village. They sell Manchester cottons — if you’re stuck for clothes.”
“Do they?” she sounded uninterested. “Do you ship all your palm-oil, Luke?”
“Most of it.”
“How do you get it to Cape Ricos?”
“By rail. It would be too chancy to send it round by road, even if I had a lorry.”
She gazed out at the surrounding arbutus trees and plantains, the tall ferns tangled with vine. “Where’s the railway station?”
“There isn’t one. The mines run a private line to Fort Leppa, seventy miles away, and I have a contract with them to take my stuff. They load at the terminus, just below the official houses.”
“No passenger trains?”
Thoughtfully, Luke shook his head. “None. Why the interest?”
She shrugged. “Merely curiosity. I wondered how Mrs. Redding made the trip to Fort Leppa.”
“There’s a road of sorts, but it’s dangerous. About half-way between Lokola and Fort Lappa is another mine, at Mbana. You may have read about the Mbana riots a couple of months ago.”
“I believe I did. Shooting, wasn’t there?”
“That’s right. Someone’s running guns and inciting the natives, and they’re using that road.”
; From the open end of a canvas bag Tess scooped some millet and trickled it between her fingers. “You’d think they’d have more sense than to play cowboys in this heat, wouldn’t you?” she said carelessly. “Can you lend me a hat, Luke?”
Tess went out, past her own door and past Redding’s; straight down into the trees. Luke hoped she hadn’t decided to go visiting in that get-up. Her unselfconsciousness was slightly unnerving. She didn’t seem particularly unhappy. Maybe he’d been mistaken yesterday; possibly she hadn’t quite got over the soreness of the rash. It didn’t occur to Luke that Dave might have made love to her. Her brightness wasn’t soft and spontaneous; it had an edge to it.
Just after eleven Tess came back up the track. She walked slowly and pensively, the hat tipped forward now to shade her eyes. She sure had stamina, thought Luke. He couldn’t remember seeing a woman about the place before four in the afternoon, and then they mostly appeared beneath a parasol in floating garments and clouds of perfume.
He sauntered down to meet her.
“See anyone?”
“Only a couple of half-breeds in uniform. Who are they?”
“Portuguese. They work with the construction gangs, and police the railway.” With faint mockery he added, “Pretty little town, isn’t it?”
“Men will stand anything for money. Dave will end up in a tropical hospital spending his filthy riches on a cure.”
“It’s up to you,” said Luke, in that gently ironical tone of his.
As she entered the living-room she was smiling, but without mirth. The hat was dropped into a chair and she poured some tepid water and gulped it down. The taste was dreadful; brackish and medicated. No wonder the men had to flavour it with alcohol. Everything here seemed to hide sudden, death.
And what had the men, to make up for such horrors. The same few faces about them, a game of poker, perhaps a sensation of power in being lords over a few thousand Africans ... and money. For her part they could have it.
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