The Iceberg - [Richard Mariner 05]

by Peter Tonkin

  The posy hit the desk top immediately in front of Inga and exploded. As though the blooms had been a grenade, Inga herself fell back into her very much more substantial chair and raised her hands to protect her face from a wave of long-stemmed roses.

  Silence and stillness returned to the room, but they took awhile to do so. A connecting door opened and Indira Dyal’s head peered round it. ‘Inga,’ she began, ‘what on earth...’ But something in the German woman’s expression put Indira’s mind at rest. Her almond eyes swept round the room once, then she withdrew and closed the door behind her.

  Paul sat still, his heart thudding and his thigh throbbing. He was suddenly gripped by the enormity of the loneliness that was facing him now that he had failed with Inga Kroll. He looked across at her, as nervous as a boy, a wave of frustrated despair sweeping over him very much as the wave of roses had burst over her. Roses hung in her slightly dishevelled hair and clustered on her shoulders. Their sharp thorns clutched the fine cloth of her jacket. Three lay lengthwise in the valley of her breasts as revealed by the surrender of several blouse buttons, their leaves spread across the white silk of the blouse. She presented a slightly ridiculous and utterly irresistible figure to the smitten man.

  He noticed first that the roses were trembling. The three in the cleavage trembled most and were in any case holding his attention absolutely. Such was his concentration on these as they shook and began to heave, that he hardly heard the sounds she was making. He thought it most probable that she was sobbing in any case.

  But she was laughing. Her laughter gathered, grew, and it soon became obvious that she was not hysterical but genuinely amused. Suddenly the future looked brighter to Paul. He summoned up a chuckle, and at the sound she gasped, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. You?’

  ‘Nothing wounded but my dignity. But your leg . . .’

  ‘It’s fine. Honest.’

  ‘Good. Then get over here and remove your roses please, Doctor,’ she commanded softly, swinging her chair slightly to the right so that she was more easily available to him.

  It was easier said than done, but he was more than willing to make the effort. Lifting green stems from her shoulders was no problem, but disentangling the sharp hooked thorns from the cloth of her jacket required him to lean close to her. Far closer than he had ever come before. She exuded an unexpectedly powerful warmth and a faint, dizzying scent which added mysteriously to the odour of the roses. Next he freed the roses entangled in her soft, golden hair. By this time his hands were trembling, and his breath was short.

  The last of the roses nestled in the warmest, most intimate place of all and he looked up into her eyes before he dared reach down for them. Her expression was faintly challenging. There was a slight smile on her full lips which extended the shallow crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. She had stopped laughing now, which was, perhaps, fortunate, for his hands were trembling so much he could hardly grasp the stems where they lay between the soft slopes. The tiny thorns along the spines of the leaves lifted the silk of the blouse and his gaze fell inevitably upon the skin revealed by the action.

  He lifted the roses one at a time and the removal of each revealed more and more to his dazzled eyes. Curves of white flesh contained in delicate white lace. The warmth of her burned his sensitive fingertips. The perfume of her went into his nostrils like smoke from the finest opium.

  When the last rose was gone, he stood there, transfixed, until her long, elegant fingers moved languorously to fasten the buttons which had popped wide and close the cloth like curtains where the tiny mother-of-pearl discs had torn off altogether.

  ‘Well, I suppose that settles the time difference anyway,’ she observed softly, huskily. ‘We will have to do a little tidying up here and then I shall have to return home to change my clothings.’ This was the first incorrect use of English he had heard from her; the first hint that she was not, in fact, as cool and calm as she seemed. She got up and slid past him in one liquid motion. ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked as she righted the little table.

  ‘Kampung.’

  ~ * ~

  The restaurant was small and intimate. Their table could not have been better chosen or the service more solicitous. The lighting was low but still bright enough to show every fleeting expression on the faces of the couple as they kept up an animated flow of conversation as though they had been friends for many years parted for quite some time. As they sipped their beers and attacked their food, the last few flimsy barriers between them fell away and the seduction of each by the other became complete.

  Paul favoured Tiger beer from Singapore but Inga was a Budweiser girl. In fact it was the strong European forefather of that American institution that she favoured, and it was part of the magic of the evening that Kampurg had some of both in stock. They sipped their drinks, as cold as any Martini, and contentedly ravished the menu. Inga had some experience of what the restaurant could offer, but Paul had intimate knowledge of Malay cuisine. So they guided each other through great classics and chef’s specialities unerringly and the starters alone lasted them until after ten o’clock.

  Elegant satays on bamboo skewers were ordered, slivers of pork, beef, chicken, duck; curls of fat prawn and crab all marinated and deep-fried and brought to the table in aromatic bundles to be dipped in fiery peanut sauce and savoured as much as consumed. The jewels on her long white fingers caught the light as they moved. The polished perfection of her long almond nails glimmered liquidly. Kuay pie tee came next, tiny crisp baskets of savoury pastry filled with bamboo shoots, grated vegetables and minced prawns. Her lips caressed them as her perfect teeth bit into them. She took away his breath, his self-control; everything but his appetite.

  Kuay pie tee were followed by chicken wings, their bones pulled out and the flesh deep-fried to the lightest whisper of crispness. Then came tiny, exquisitely savoury spring rolls. Prawns returned, not skewered in satays but wrapped in pastry and deep-fried to golden crispness, followed by stuffed won tons and light-as-air prawn crackers. The seafood theme was interrupted by spare ribs marinated in soy sauce and deep-fried; but it returned again in crisp, aromatic seaweed, in a mau tan kar of prawns served with a chilli sauce even hotter than the peanut sauce which began this banquet of appetisers. By now they were leaning forward across the little table, their faces separated by little more than candle light. Beneath the crisp linen and the strong wood, their knees touched then leaped apart as though from an electric charge, only to come into contact once again. As they dipped their delicacies, their fingers, too, became used to contact. The tactile freedom thus achieved allowed for further intimacies. For every glance he sent directly across into her eyes, another fell lower, especially when she leaned forward.

  She had exiled him to the sitting room in her flat and he had taken his ease lengthwise upon her sofa and waited while she showered and changed. The frustration of remaining immobile while sounds and movements beyond the closed door set his imagination afire was rewarded when at last she returned. Her dress had an air of fifties elegance about it as though she was Grace Kelly stepping out of a classic Hitchcock film. It was the brightest of emerald velvet, hugging her hips and thighs down to the tiniest swirl below her knees. Above the tight waist it was equally tailored, rising to square shoulders and a high collar which stood behind her neck before falling into two tiny lapels. And the lapels fell further, in a long V down towards her waist, revealing at last in all its glory the cleavage he had so vividly dreamed of seeing.

  A dream which lay opposite him through all that meal, emphasised by a thin necklace of garnets, its slopes contained in emerald green, its warm depths clad only in candle shadows.

  The main courses were preceded by bowls containing the accompaniments with which they would be eaten. For her a nasi goreng of fragrantly spiced rice flavoured with ketjap manis and sambal oelek, and for him a bahmi goreng of noodles full of clouds of deep-fried bean curd. To go with these they chose rendang daging lambu of beef
in coconut gravy, ikan masak asam of fish in hot and sour sauce, lemon chicken, and sizzling king prawns which came to the table in a shallow iron dish which was so hot that the air above it wavered, the wood on which it sat smoked aromatically and the food within it bubbled and spat in clouds of mouthwatering steam. Thus, wielding chopsticks with equal adroitness, talking nineteen to the dozen and sipping their beer as though it was finest wine, they passed the better part of the two hours left to midnight.

  For pudding - and they both turned out to be sufficient trenchermen to require pudding - there were pisang goreng battered banana fritters, kueh dah pancakes stuffed with creamed coconut, and ram-butan, as scented as lychees, stuffed with fresh pineapple.

  ~ * ~

  The cab dropped them off at her flat just before one and Inga said, ‘Send him away and come on up for coffee.’

  Her flat was quite spacious and very well appointed. He had been restricted to the sitting room earlier; this could not be the case now, the beer alone had seen to that. And she was content to let him wander into the kitchenette too, continuing their lazy, intimate chat as she made fresh coffee in a French cafetière.

  They carried the coffee through into the sitting room and placed it on the low table there. ‘Would you wish a drink?’ she asked. ‘I have here kirsch and vodka.’

  He chose kirsch and she poured herself a vodka, then they sat companionably side by side on the sofa. They had hardly taken a sip of either liquid before he reached for her. Their first touches were as hesitant as their first social contact had been, but the shyness which both felt was soon overcome and fingers which had stroked tight braids on the first soft pressure of lip upon lip were soon sliding under green velvet lapels as tongue tip touched tongue tip.

  The clumsy, increasingly irritating thigh could not dampen Paul’s ardour, but it did threaten to cramp his style. It was bandaged -lightly but tightly to support the surgeon’s work and still fit inside the trouser leg of his best suit. He could bend his leg, but only a little and not for long as the muscles were stiff and tender. Increasingly, too, there was an irritating itching on the outer side, where the long incision was. There was no way in which he could take things on the sofa to any kind of conclusion, or even escalate them appreciably beyond a kind of heavy petting. This point was made frustratingly obvious at last when his leg hit the coffee table and nearly upset the cups and glasses standing on it. At this point, Inga pulled away decisively and rose. She paused, looking down at him, her hands automatically straightening her much disarranged clothing, and he could not read her expression. She stooped, caught up the tray, straightened and left the room.

  Silence and stillness without. Within, Paul Chan fought for some kind of control. He tried to regulate his breathing, calm the beating of his heart, rearrange the agonising tightness of his clothing -every bit as disarranged as hers had been. He concentrated so much on these things that he was only vaguely aware of the passage of time but as soon as he had restored himself to some kind of order, he found himself looking at his watch and frowning, struck suddenly by how long she had been gone. He had no sooner registered the length of her absence, than she returned.

  On Paul’s right, away beyond the end of the sofa, stood a tall double door, much grander than the single door leading out towards the bathroom and the kitchen. These doors opened now and Inga stood there, outstripping in every detail each point of his most erotic dreams. He looked up and looked again, breathless, feeling every hair on his body come erect.

  She wore a basque of white lace which contained her torso by something close to a miracle and seemed to narrow impossibly from the dazzling generosity of its cups to the severe restriction of its waist. She wore white stockings which disdained any support other than that their tops clutched the marble swell of her upper thighs. She wore shoes with high heels, their toes made of the same dark velvet as the dress which she had just removed. And she wore her jewels, the square-cut garnets set in gold at her throat and round her wrists.

  Behind her, framing her, glimmered a room designed to match her and the fantasies she walked out of. There were little sidelights covered in exotic cloths and tall candles with flames glittering like diamonds. There were dark curtains, long pier glasses and a brass four-poster bed liberally piled with silk and satin pillows. Paul took all this in with one dazed glance before his eyes returned to her, pulled by a force of nature beyond his control.

  It was not so much the nakedness of the rest of her that gripped him - though the nudity was quite glorious - as its sculpted perfection. There was precious little fat beneath the white skin before him. This was not the body of a soft office worker but of a trained athlete, and when she moved now, it was with the unconscious grace of a gymnast or a ballerina.

  Where she had discovered such a fund of self-confidence he would never know, but every trace of shyness had departed with her clothes. She took charge of him now, pulling him easily to his feet and supporting him through the double doors into her bedroom as though he weighed nothing at all. And every plane of her cool skin seemed to burn paradoxically through his clothing as they moved together so that it was as though there was nothing between the two of them at all. She sat him on the edge of the bed with his damaged leg supported on the firm mattress, then crossed to the door again with seemingly very little purpose other than to pull the wings of wood together and lean back against them while he feasted his eyes anew.

  ‘I wanted,’ he began, breathlessly, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘I wanted to do that. To take ... To remove . . .’

  ‘No,’ she purred, looking across the table at him, ‘there was no need. It’s all right.’

  She was in motion again, coming closer, reaching for him, her fingers busy as she removed his jacket and shirt; flowing down to her right knee and placing each of his feet upon her left thigh as she unlaced each shoe. Peeled off each sock. So it was the sensitive pads of his toes that first came into intimate contact with the cool solidity and burning softness of her.

  Trousers and shorts came off together, a lengthy and painful process complicated by his excitement. At last she pressed him back into the hillock of pillows at the head of the bed and swung herself up between his legs. Fractionally she hesitated, looking down at him slightly, her eyes just above his. Then she turned lightly and sat back, her pale buttocks between his thighs, her back fitting thrillingly into the curve of his belly and chest. Her position placed the golden helmet of her hair just beneath his chin. ‘There,’ she whispered throatily, comfortably. ‘You wanted to take my clothing off. You may let my hair down instead.’

  The release of her Rapunzel locks seemed to release something more inside her. Something at once dominant and subservient, demanding yet tender, wild yet thoughtful. He had brought protection. So had she. They threatened to run out, even so. After the first wild rush, they slowed and varied their positions so that his thigh would be protected from the strenuous heights of their passion. As they began to explore the gentler foothills, with just a bottle of Krug champagne to sustain them, his thigh began to gain in importance, for the itching he had felt on the side of his leg intensified. No doubt their exertions had covered this part of him, as well as the rest of him, in a liberal sprinkling of perspiration. The candles had burned low now, but they gave off heat as well as light. The radiators as well as the sidelights remained on and the temperature in the room was very nearly tropical. At last he broke away from her, hissing in ill-controlled agony.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, all concern at once.

  ‘The leg. I can’t stand it any longer!’

  ‘What is wrong with it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just burns! God! How it itches!’

  ‘Shall I take a look at it?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re a nurse too!’

  ‘No, but I will be able to tell if you need to go to the casualty, yes? If the wound is infected or tearing. This will be obvious, I think.’

  ‘Yes. All right. Please. But be careful,
please.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She pulled herself away and vanished. Moments later she was back with several pairs of scissors, disinfectant, dressings and clean elastic bandaging such as might be found in any well-stocked medicine cupboard. She turned on the main light so that she could see what she was doing and some of the wild romance left with the velvet shadows. She sat beside him, all efficiency and practical concern. Using the largest pair of kitchen scissors first, then smaller and smaller pairs in turn, she removed the bandage until the wound was revealed.

  Just uncovering the flesh brought Paul some measure of relief and, exhausted, he felt himself sinking into the soft pillows as though they were quicksand, and consciousness began to fade away.