As Tess grew accustomed to the feel of the deck beneath her flat, rubber-soled sandals and came to know one Portuguese from another, her heart lightened. There was an infectious excitement about sailing in a ship like the Bondoa. Luke and Dave were busy cleaning the engine and fitting a renovated exhaust, checking the ballast and acquiring gear and extra tools in the most unexpected places.
The fourth day a hundred and fifty gallons of water and food stores for a fortnight came aboard. The cold-storage plant was filled out with vegetables, fruit and dressed chickens. Then the gear was stowed and the seamen slung their hammocks aft. At about five the dinghy was hoisted and the lines cast loose. A collection of natives on the quay set up a racket, dancing so near the edge that a couple fell into the water.
Under power the Bondoa backed. The sails filled in the westerly breeze, white canvas touched with the ochre of a dying, brazen sun. Tess stood with her feet wide to watch the receding land. A miraculous coolness encompassed her, fresh salt air which reached and cleansed the sore places of her mind.
At her side Dave remarked laconically: “There goes Cape Ricos. Never no more!”
“The air’s a tonic,” she said.
“We can do with it. Go and put on a sweater.”
By dusk they were well out and moving down the thick green coast of Africa, which was vanishing under a purple pall from the east. The sky was clear and packed with birds which were homing to the rocks. A consistent wind persuaded Dave to cut out the engine, and quietly the Bondoa rode the billowing waters.
Shortly after dawn on their third morning out, Tess took her sea-water bath and came on deck. The Bondoa was anchored close inshore, and she could see an iron building and the tops of native huts among the dozens of coconut palms. Past the settlement mangroves clawed into the mouth of a black, tunnelled river.
She glanced along the deck to where Dave stood shaving at an unsteady mirror.
“Badoun,” he called in explanation. “Copra and palm-oil station.”
“Are you going ashore?”
“D’you want to?”
“I shan’t come this way again.”
He towelled his jaws and walked down to where she was standing. “I’ll take you over after breakfast. The village isn’t much, but there are some rare trees.” He pointed. “See those orchids in the treetops?”
“I can’t see anything for palms.”
“Just above those low ones.”
She shook her head, and he bent to bring his eyes level with hers.
“No, you’re not tall enough.” He moved his face against her hair and sniffed. “You smell nice, Teresa.”
“Thank you.”
“If you’d turn your lips a little I could kiss you.”
“You’re in a generous mood this morning.”
“The sea makes a man doubly conscious of women didn’t you know that?”
“Did you know it — before we came?
He laughed. “I took a chance. After all, you re the only woman around and I’ve had to be conscious of you for some weeks now, so the risk wasn’t enormous.
A pause. “No kiss?”
“Not just now.”
“We’ll, have to get by on coffee, then. Come and have it with Walt.”
When the dinghy was lowered, Luke elected to remain aboard. He’d seen enough bug-holes like Badoun, and the reek of palm-oil was quite penetrating enough from the boat. So Dave and Tess went alone, and tied up the dinghy among the mangrove roots. The scene was one which Tess had always expected to encounter in this part of Africa. Flowers were pasted all over the place on the dark foliage which rioted between the trees The river cascaded over boulders and pushed streams of white froth under the arched roots of kapok and mahogany, and from every crevice in every tree-trunk issued a network of ferns and mosses, vines and creepers. The whole place dripped, beating on the broad leaves of the lower vegetation in a continuous rain.
Dave went to the water’s edge and peered upwards. “You get a good view of those orchids from here.”
She joined him. “I wonder how they take root, among leaves? Uncanny and beautiful, isn’t it?” She shivered. “This place reminds me of the house among the trees, except that there it was terribly dark ... and hopeless.”
“Don’t dwell on it. Any place is hopeless when you’re alone and unhappy.”
She let a few seconds elapse. “That sounds rather like a drastic confession, from you.”
“It’s true of most people. The being alone is the worst. When two people are unhappy together there’s an element of hope which blunts the edge of the bitterness.”
“Is this an abstract discussion?”
“Not entirely.”
She turned from him slightly and pulled at a long, saw-toothed leaf. “You’re not unhappy, Dave. Perhaps you were when you left Zinto but you’re not now. You — haven’t that much feeling.”
“If it’s gone,” he said curtly, “you killed it.”
“It succumbed without a struggle, through a jealousy which you knew to be groundless.”
“Jealousy had nothing to do with it! You didn’t understand me — you don’t yet.”
Piccanins were swarming over the dinghy. Dave scattered them with a spate of profanity and a few coins. His smile, as he rowed to the Bondoa, had an irritating twist of cynicism, and Tess knew again the unbearable ache of defeat.
An hour later, with a steady breeze raising ripples on the waves, the Bondoa got under way. Badoun melted back into the rich coastline.
That evening Tess asked:
“How soon do we arrive at Kanos?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, if we keep up this speed.”
“Are we staying there several days?”
“It’s a city of women and wine, Teresa — more wine than women. Walt will have to decide how long we stay.”
Luke said: “That’s laying it on a bit thick. I could get tight aboard if I hankered to.”
Dave grinned, but made no further comment.
Kanos was a city of intense heat and gaiety. The club, the most palatial along the coast, sustained a fairly high pitch of excitement by frequent gala dinners and celebrations, and the Polo Club ran two first-class teams. Then there were the races and the river, and a vast amount of social life surrounding the Governor’s residence.
Tess liked the sparkling town and most of the people she encountered. She was amazed by their hospitality, and it was pleasant, too, to be admired and pursued for dances. She became acquainted with a few wives and found them a little less licentious than she had anticipated. One or two were blatant in their infidelity, but the rest, though of one voice in their detestation of the tropics, were normal in most respects. Apparently the weary ones were too exhausted to come out in search of distraction. Tess heard about them, but did not meet them.
Those days in Kanos provided the diversion which Tess needed. She returned to the Bondoa in the early hours of each morning almost too tired to undress and tumble into her bunk and she slept so late that when she sauntered out into the sunshine breakfast was over and the men had gone off to town or boarded a cargo vessel for a yam with the skipper.
The mornings were long and restful. Lying under the awning on deck she could watch the Negro dock labourers or the busy plying of a launch. Invariably she got so drugged with heat that she dozed till the men leapt on deck, and Dave stirred her with his toe and called her a slacker.
Tess had decided that while so much was available to occupy her thoughts, she would exclude Dave from them as far as possible. That was why she so eagerly accepted invitations which did not include him. Yet always, at the back of her mind, lay the conviction that they were nearing the end.
At Fort Leppa, while awaiting his intimation that he and Luke were at last unfettered and ready to travel, she had imagined that to be permitted to live near him and bear his masculine moods was the ultimate of her desires. Dave himself, with masculine brutality, had shattered that particular illusion; but it would be time enough
to lay herself bare when he began to talk of leaving Kanos.
When she came on deck the fifth morning, Luke was caulking a seam near the companionway.
“Hello,” she said, dropping down to sit on her heels. “Let me do some of that.”
“Go and get your breakfast.”
“I had all I want in the cabin. Club dinners last me nearly all day. Can I dip out the tar?”
“No.” He poked a black mass into a few inches of the crevice with a kitchen knife. “Those johnnies you dance with ought to see you now.”
“What a wonderful idea! Why don’t we give a deck party?”
“Dave wouldn’t hear of it. At least, I hope he wouldn’t.”
“Is he in the cabin?”
“No. He’s gone to bail out Gomes — he was in a fight last night.”
Idly she stirred the inch or so of tar in the bottom of the can. “I’m going to ask Dave about giving a party — one of those bohemian things when you sit around on deck and eat mounds of savouries. We could get the seamen to play and sing.”
“He won’t have it. He couldn’t stand the thought of a lot of careless beggars treading out cigarettes all over the planks and poking their noses into the cabins.”
“It’s no worse than entertaining a gang of people in one’s house.”
“A boat is more of a novelty to strangers than a house.” Luke was carefully smoothing off the job and scraping up the surplus smears of tar. “I’d forget it if I were you.”
“We’ve accepted so many invitations.”
“You can give a dinner at the club. Dave would prefer that.”
She pressed several thumb-prints along the repaired seam. “I suppose you’re right. You know him awfully well, don’t you, Luke?”
He shrugged. “I know that he has a fanatical pride in his own possessions, that he can’t tolerate sharing anything. He’s always been that way. He wouldn’t even let me go halves with the boat.”
She sat back with her legs crossed under her, rested an elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. Her tones were oddly flat. “He owned half the mine with Brigham.”
“He hadn’t any affection for the mine or for Brigham — never did have. It was just a bond with Lokola.” Luke became absorbed in the unnecessary task of straightening the edges of a seam adjacent to the one he had caulked. “Remember our first conversation — when I said he’d never forgive you for letting him go?”
She nodded. “I’ve often tried to get at what you meant. He ... we did love each other, Luke. I misunderstood his motives about something rather vital and he retaliated by demanding what seemed an impossibility. I was terribly unwise, and he was intolerant.”
“So you quarrelled good and hot and that was that. Yet I’ll wager that at the time you could have got anything out of Dave by giving in. He’s a tougher proposition now.”
She breathed a dispirited sigh, and stared silently at the emerald islands off the coast.
“You see,” said Luke reasonably, “you didn’t only twist his heart. The way he saw it you also wrecked his life’s ambition. For either, Dave would nail himself like hell so long as you got your share of chastisement, too. Something will snap in him one day — you’ll just have to wait for it.”
There were a few things about Dave that even Luke hadn’t guessed at, thought Teresa broodingly. He moved on with his tin of tar, and she got up and wandered along to the main cabin in search of reading-matter. Sitting at the long table against the wall, she leafed through a pile of periodicals. But she had never had the faculty for concentrating on magazine stories, even tough ones like these. An article on African timbers reminded her, by some swift and roundabout train of thought, of Martin Cramer, and she wondered if there were anyone else who ever spared a memory for the tragic young man. She saw that his early end had been as inevitable as the stars. There is no niche anywhere for the spiritually frightened people of this world.
At a sound behind her she turned, and shifted up to sit on the table with a foot on a chair.
“The skipper himself,” she said. “Did you hook Gomes out of jail?”
“I did.” Dave sloughed his jacket and slipped undone another button of his shirt. “Isn’t he back?”
“Maybe. I’ve been reading.” Sensing an unmistakable change in him, Tess became uneasy. “Is it very hot in town this morning?”
“Like a blast furnace.”
He lit a cigarette and stood gazing through the porthole at the blue and white combers rolling towards the sand bar.
“D’you want me to go?” she asked.
“No, I’ve something to tell you.” He looked at her, his grey eyes keen yet so dark as to cause her a qualm of foreboding. “We’re taking on another passenger.”
“Are we? What kind?”
“It’s Avia Redding.”
Slowly Tess reached her feet to the floor. “How nice,” "she said. “In which case you’ll still be three.”
“I guessed you’d say that, but you’re not running out, Tess. I met Avia this morning. She was having coffee at the club; it’s the first time she’s walked since landing in Kanos over a week ago. She’s a sick woman.”
“Kanos has a nursing-home.”
“Not for her kind of sickness. You’ve never even met Avia. Why do you dislike her so much?”
Tess answered abruptly, “Perhaps because she’s in love with you.”
“She isn’t, but if she were it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m so placed that I’m bound to help her.”
“Go ahead then, but don’t expect me to make friends with your ex-mistress.”
He drew a thick breath. “You’re about as sweet to handle as a swordfish. Avia is Redding’s widow, and I was Redding’s friend for a number of years.”
“So was Luke, but I’ll bet he’s not nearly so anxious to have her aboard as you are. It’s all right, Dave,” with a mock jaunty shrug she dipped her hands into the pockets of her shorts and took a step nearer the door, “bring the woman here, by all means. I’ll take care to leave the cabin neat and tidy.”
In a couple of strides he had closed the door and was standing with his back to it. “I’m not fighting with you, Tess. For once in my life I’m appealing to you. I’m asking you to do something for me.”
His strange tautness, the unfamiliar angle of his chiselled mouth, set a pain working about her heart.
“What is it?” she said. “To share the cabin with Mrs. Redding, to help her back to the woman she was when you drove her around Fort Leppa?” She paused and went on shakily. “If you cared for me as you did at Zinto, I might point a parallel. Martin was sick, too...”
“There’s no comparison. You were under no obligation to help Cramer — the reverse, in fact.” He came over, hand outstretched to grip her elbow. “You’re making this much too important, but I knew you would, though for the life of me I couldn’t see how else to act. Avia can sleep in here and Walt and I will make do with hammocks on deck. We’ll cruise up to Madeira take our time about it so that she gets fit and put her on a boat for England. There’s nothing more to it, Tess.”
Her head was bent away from him. “Don’t pretend that she means so little to you. Just meeting her this morning has altered you. I’m sorry, Dave. If she comes aboard the Bondoa I shall have to go.”
He compelled her into his arms, not fiercely but with half-angry force. He raised her chin, and held back his head.
“Regard it this way,” he said. “Avia is a burden we both have to bear for a while. I’m bringing her here this evening but we shan’t sail till Friday. Promise you’ll give it a trial.”
In the circle of Dave’s arms, with his breath warm and smoky across her cheek and the muscles of his shoulders hard beneath her hands, Tess would have agreed to anything.
A knock came at the door and he let her go. Luke hesitated on the threshold and walked in.
“Came for my pipe,” he said.
“You may as well stay to hear the news,” Dave replied evenly. “Mrs. R
edding is joining us this evening for a week or two.”
Luke assumed a blank mask. “That’ll be grand. I think I’ll stroll up to the Boulevard for some tobacco.
“Take Tess with you. She needs some exercise before lunch.”
That afternoon, in her cabin, Tess made valiant attempts to straighten out her thoughts. From whatever angle she contemplated them, the days ahead prickled with danger. She had heard enough about Avia Redding to be in no doubt about that woman’s emotions towards her late husband. Unwittingly, Luke had let fall some time ago that Avia had been attracted to Dave, and Tess, being a woman in love, had tormentingly stored that information and occasionally reviewed it.
She believed that Dave and Avia had never been lovers, but there was nothing to prove that they hadn’t wanted to be. And what about the stressed “obligation” towards her? Wasn’t it possible that he had made promises and had to retract them when his “wife” inconveniently turned up? The very suggestion was insupportable.
The sun went down and Kanos sprang alive, its lights hung out in uneven tiers along the waterfront and the avenues above. Mingling with the smells of cordage and spice came the faint aroma of frangipani. The breeze must be blowing off the land.
Luke appeared and made fast the short gangway up to the quay. The use of this was something new. When Tess went ashore she stood on the side of the boat, grabbed someone’s hand and leapt up to the jetty; she could slither down to the deck unaided.
“Now we look like a real ship,” she said aloud.
“If we’d taken the trouble to put it there for you, you wouldn’t have used it,” he countered dourly. “Trouble with you is you take everything as a challenge.”
“One has to, in a hostile world.” She smiled without much humour. “You needn’t be afraid that I’ll challenge Mrs. Redding.”
His glance was suspicious. His mouth began to open, but apparently he decided on discretion and closed it again. On tiptoes, he peered over the edge of the quay.
“Here comes a taxi. It’ll be Dave.”
Tess pushed back her chair. Annoyed to find her knees uncertain, she took a fresh hold of herself and backed slightly in order to watch the arrival. Dave got out of the taxi, paid off, and then helped Avia from the back seat.
Love This Stranger Page 18
