The Gift of Shame

by Sophie Hope-Walker

  The following morning she woke to find Qito fussily working the camping oven and producing hot crispy croissants while keeping his back turned, firmly, towards her.

  Amused at his petulance she sang out a ‘Good morning’ with all the genuine happiness that she felt.

  Putting the coffee pot heavily in front of her he stood over her with just enough silence to let his annoyance show. ‘Who is he?’ he demanded.

  ‘None of your business,’ she told him, happily ladling butter and delicious apricot jam on her already overrich pastry.

  ‘It is my business when you are too tired to stand still!’

  ‘Yesterday wasn’t anything to do with that. I’d had too much sun, that’s all. Besides, I’m not your employee. I do as I want.’

  For a moment she thought Qito was going to explode with anger but, to her relief, the fight went out of him as he sank down to sit at the table and look steadily at her. ‘Jeffrey is my friend,’ he said flatly.

  ‘It has nothing to do with him either.’ She let Qito wait while she sank her teeth greedily into the flaky croissant. ‘He’s married.’

  Qito looked genuinely surprised. ‘Married?’ he asked. ‘Jeffrey? No. It’s not possible!’ Qito paused a moment as if searching his memory to see if he could be mistaken before going on. ‘I have known Jeffrey since he appeared on my doorstep fifteen years ago. A tall, skinny student who could talk sensibly about my work. We have been friends ever since. I have never known him to be married.’ Qito paused a moment. ‘Who told you of this marriage?’

  ‘His assistant.’

  Enlightenment, along with a knowing smile that bordered on the amused, crossed Qito’s face. ‘You mean that pretty girl – what’s her name …?’

  About to supply Annabel’s name, Helen was crushed with the sudden realisation of just how precipitately she had accepted Annabel’s word. It was obvious that Qito didn’t believe Jeffrey capable of such a deception and, in the colder perspective of time and distance, she found it hard to believe herself. What if it were not true – or a misunderstanding? The thought that her every revenge might have had no basis appalled her.

  Looking into Qito’s waiting sceptical eyes, she found the only response was defensive. ‘Why would Annabel have lied about something like that?’

  Raising his hands as if to ward off an intruder, Qito smiled. ‘You are asking me, a man, to divine the motives of a woman? Impossible! All I can say is that, until you have spoken to Jeffrey, I would caution you to withhold judgement.’ As he was speaking, Qito gathered up his sketch pad and bundle of pencils. ‘I’m off to do some work on my own,’ he told her. ‘We’ll work on the canvas this afternoon.’

  Alone with her thoughts, Helen considered what she might do if Annabel had been lying or misleading her. Would Jeffrey ever forgive her for her ‘revenge’? The likelihood of keeping it from him after last night’s discovery by Qito seemed distant. The more she thought, the more her newly discovered paradise became fragmented and fragile.

  Not for the first time, she felt bits falling off her life. Suddenly the glorious colours of the flora, the fine white sand of the beach and the pristine sparkle of the ocean, became a mocking reminder of her isolation.

  Jeffrey had reimposed himself into her consciousness and his presence made her feel guilt.

  Wandering aimlessly in search of something to distract her thoughts, she came upon the chest freezer under its canopy of solar panels and, remembering Qito’s boasted skill at preparing meals, lifted the lid to look inside.

  There, arranged in neatly labelled plastic boxes, were all the meals they had so far enjoyed and several that were, as yet, untouched. So Qito, for all his worldly pre-eminence, had been prepared to let her believe he was a master chef, when all the meals had been prepared on the yacht and delivered to them frozen, needing only to be de-frosted.

  Closing the lid, Helen felt the discovery somehow more profound, and less amusing, than it might have been in any other context.

  Was deceit endemic to the male species, she wondered?

  15

  THAT AFTERNOON QITO worked with greater intensity than ever before. He had, previously, broken off to comment on the cries of the birds and identified them for her – his knowledge of the flora and fauna of the island was impressive – but this afternoon he worked in total silence which, she felt, was creating a distance between them.

  As she posed, she painfully considered just how she might face Jeffrey if Qito’s confidence in him proved to be justified while, at the same time, resenting the confusion that the previously unconsidered possibility had brought. She had behaved mindlessly, she decided, and felt that retribution, should he take the trouble, would be quite painful.

  Her lurking masochism, driven by guilt, roared into her head on a flight of fantasy. Standing under Qito’s penetrating gaze she wished she could close down time and space so that she could immediately – this instant – confront Jeffrey with her suspicions so that he would have to either confirm or disprove them. Quite suddenly the prospective confrontation had taken on a quite exciting connotation – whichever way it went. The only immediate question her sexuality presented was what was she to do when, as she confidently expected he would, her mysterious fisherman lover reappeared?

  Her mind told her one thing while her body urged quite another. The dilemma was still unresolved when, after a silent dinner – which reminded her of Qito’s posturing as a resourceful chef – Qito took himself off to his bed.

  Tonight she decided to take a bottle of the delicious heady wine down to the beach and there sat on her blanket and gazed out into the lagoon, her eyes keening for first sight of the lantern which marked the dinghy’s progress. Uncertain of the passage of time – she wore no watch – she waited in vain for what seemed several hours before, wrapping herself in the blanket, she lay back on the sand and drifted off into the welcoming arms of a wine-induced drowse.

  It was the birds’ dawn chorus that woke her in time to witness a spectacular sunrise. She woke irritated and chilled and, spurning an early morning bathe, turned through the shrubs to the campsite. For once she had risen before Qito and, feeling an urgent desire for coffee, found matches and started the propane gas cooker. She hesitated to fetch croissants from the freezer since this would indicate to Qito that she had discovered his secret but then did it anyway, popping them into the oven to crisp.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Looking round she saw Qito had come out from the tent and was standing watching her. She was almost embarrassed to notice that his naked belly was adorned with a soaring erection. ‘Making breakfast,’ she told him, then, brimming with devilment, turned to fully face him and fixed her eyes on the exclamation mark at his groin. ‘On the other hand, would you like me to do something about that?’

  Qito frowned darkly at her and, turning away, moved some way into the bushes where she heard the splash of his early morning urination. ‘There goes your hard-on!’ she sang gaily after him. ‘It’s too late now!’

  When a still-disapproving, but now detumescent, Qito returned, he found her already at the table eating a hot croissant and coffee. When he reached for the coffee pot she reproved him. ‘First wash your hands,’ she said as primly as she could manage.

  ‘You’re in a funny mood this morning,’ he said acidly. ‘What happened? Didn’t your mysterious lover show up?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Qito laughed and sat at the table and, ignoring her injunction, helped himself to the coffee. ‘So he didn’t! I probably frightened him off. Maybe he thought I was an angry husband or lover.’

  She felt the urge to puncture the pleasure he was having at her expense so said: ‘More likely grandfather!’ but immediately regretted it when Qito, provoked, got up and walked away from her. Rising, she went after him to find him looking out across the lagoon. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting a hand to his broad shoulder. ‘You’re right. He didn’t come and I am irritable.’

  Turni
ng to her, his face wreathed in a smile as warm as the morning sun, he put out his strong arms, and she, feeling curiously self-conscious, went into his embrace. ‘And I’m a silly old man,’ he told her. ‘You know just how silly? Seeing you with that man, I was jealous.’

  Enveloped in a rush of warm affection she looked into his soulful eyes. ‘And not only that,’ she smiled, ‘you’re an old fraud!’ In the face of Qito’s offended expression she went on, ‘You’ve not been cooking – you’ve been defrosting!’

  ‘When did you find me out?’ he asked with heavy mock contrition.

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Nodding, Qito pulled her back into the embrace. ‘What we old men lack in virility we have to make up for with guile. Forgive me?’ he asked.

  Nodding into his shoulder, she murmured. ‘We have to make allowances for a genius.’

  Qito laughed and thrust her away. ‘What was it you said: “Too late”? You were quite right! Twenty years too late. My God, that Jeffrey is a lucky man! Not only is she beautiful, a perfect model and knows what she wants but is also charitable to old men. Get thee from me, Satan’s child!’ he cried before grabbing up her hand and kissing it.

  Together, hand in hand, she aware of a feeling of great privilege, they walked into the lagoon’s water and indulgently washed each other down.

  Later that afternoon, as she posed, she was consumed by the intensity which Qito brought to his work, and regretted that, while he looked at her, he saw only a shape worth putting to canvas. Having said he had been jealous of her fisherman and complimented her outrageously, she discovered a longing to seduce the great man. She imagined herself, some distant day, opening a newspaper to read of his passing and regretting not having taken the opportunity which currently presented itself. The incident in Jeffrey’s penthouse she discounted, since that had been for Jeffrey’s pleasure more than anyone else’s. Standing there she determined that before this idyll ended she would make a memory of a shared moment with Qito.

  It seemed that moment had come when, as the light began to fade, Qito called a halt and, coming to her, took one of her wrists firmly in hand to lead her to a glade of bamboo.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked as he took a vine, previously tied to one of the bamboos, and bending it down, tied her wrist to it.

  ‘Taming a wild banshee,’ he told her.

  She protested further, but to no avail, when he tied her other wrist and, letting go of the springy bamboos, had her stretched helplessly between the two of them. About to protest that she had daydreamed something gentler and more intimate between them, she watched, silently aghast, as he started to move away. ‘You can’t leave me here like this!’ she shouted after him. Unmoved, Qito sauntered away into the gathering night and didn’t look back.

  Her mind in tumult, it took her several moments to find the breath to scream further protest. Aware that the spaces between the trees were already darkening she had begun to feel real fear when, without warning, she felt herself grabbed from behind. The man, there was no doubt it was a man, put one arm about her breasts while the other sought out and penetrated her groin. Outraged and screaming, she tried to twist herself out of the unknown man’s grasping arms.

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Jeffrey’s voice in her ear.

  Her body instantly stilled, her mind went into confused orbit. ‘Where did you come from?’ she gasped.

  ‘Never mind that now. There are urgent things to be done to you.’

  Even as she twisted in her bonds, trying to catch a glimpse of his face, she felt him probing, then penetrating her to unleash in her an outrush of frustration. Still she protested. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘We have to talk!’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ he murmured, his voice now harsh. ‘Screw!’

  Her writhing had dragged one of her loosely tied wrists free and she swung on the other still-tied wrist, to stumble and almost fall as Jeffrey continued to hold her, now bent almost double, and, mercilessly impaling her, took all the breath from her body and smothered the protests of her brain.

  ‘Bastard!’ she screamed.

  ‘Filthy slut,’ he answered her.

  ‘I hate you!’

  ‘You disgust me.’

  Just then, at the expense of rope burns, she managed to free her second wrist and, with a violent thrashing movement, pulled herself away from the urgent liquid fire he had stoked deep inside her and turned to face him with fists bunched and anger flaring.

  Her small victory was short-lived as, his face fired like some wild forest creature, he caught her up and, his weight bearing her to the ground, again penetrated between her defiant thighs. Pinned firmly now, she was consumed by the moment. All thoughts of betrayal and guilt fled from a mind overwhelmed by the sensations he was creating. Nothing mattered now other than to answer her bodily urge to surrender. Her legs wound around his heaving body, she dug her nails deep into his back, the better to urge him even deeper and more firmly into her.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried as naked lust forced her body to rise to meet his every thrust. As he savaged deep into her their cries rose into the night canopy, stilling those of the other night creatures who, it seemed, had paused to lend an indulgent ear to the human intruders so noisily locked together on the floor of their domain.

  ‘Yes!’ she screamed again as the now familiar surge laid siege to her breathless body as he led her to all-consuming completion.

  After the mutuality of climax they lay in each other’s arms, he still lodged deep in her, and the rasping of their desperate lungs fighting for breath was now the only sound in the quieted night, until she spoke. ‘Annabel told me you were married.’

  ‘Annabel lied,’ he told her.

  Immediately assailed by two conflicting reactions – relief and a flood of guilt at her precipitate ‘revenge’ – she groaned. ‘Oh no!’

  Jeffrey raised his head to look at her. ‘You’re disappointed?’ he asked.

  Everything she had done since fleeing from him flashed before her with lightning speed and explicit detail. ‘Not with you. With me,’ she murmured. ‘Why would she lie about something like that?’

  ‘Jealousy.’

  ‘You had an affair with her?’

  ‘No. It seems that for years she’s been having an “affair” with me. Purely mental, I hasten to add. I sensed it but ignored it. I have a strict rule never to mix business with pleasure.’

  ‘She just invented it?’

  ‘Not entirely. I was married. We were students – I was in a state of depression. The whole thing was madness. The marriage barely outlasted the honeymoon before we both agreed it had all been a terrible mistake. We waited the statutory two years and got a no-fault divorce by mutual agreement.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘That’s all,’ he answered flatly.

  Feeling that ‘madness’ was the word to describe her own state of mind since running away from Paris, she fell into a morose silence.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  Pushing him from her she rose, only now aware that her back had been pressed into a patch of prickly thorns, and shook her head. ‘There’s things I have to tell you,’ she murmured.

  ‘Confessions?’ he asked.

  Only able to muster a nod in reply she turned away desolate in the knowledge that she had behaved badly – at the very least, foolishly – and terrified in case he would not forgive her. As they stumbled through the night towards the campsite she sought to divert her fear-filled mind. ‘You still haven’t told me how you got here.’

  ‘Annabel confessed what she’d done and showed me the fax. I called Carla on the yacht, heard where you were, and took the next plane.’

  Mention of Carla and the yacht made her realise that her idyll on the island was at an end. Attempting to make light of it she said: ‘I suppose that means I’ll have to put some clothes on,’ but inwardly she felt she was losing a great deal more than that. It was wildly impossible but she had a longing for things to stay just as they were – s
he left to wander primitively naked, visited at night by an undemanding lover, and leaving the complications of civilised relationships to others less enlightened.

  Coming to the campsite she saw the yacht’s crew had all but dismantled it, leaving little of the tranquil sanctuary she had known.

  Tsai Lo, appearing out of the shadows, came forward with a broad smile, holding out a sarong for her to wind about her body. Looking into the girl’s porcelain beauty she was reminded to add her name to the list of confessions she would have to make. Suddenly the thought of returning to the sophistication of the yacht overwhelmed her. Turning to Jeffrey, aware that her voice was tinged with desperation, she asked, ‘Couldn’t we stay on the island tonight? There’s so much to talk about.’

  ‘But they’ve taken everything away,’ Jeffrey protested.

  ‘It doesn’t get cold at night. We could sleep on the beach.’

  ‘You’re nuts!’ he told her, smiling. ‘Besides the Captain’s anxious about a hurricane warning and wants to sail immediately. We can talk on the yacht and sleep in a bed.’

  Defeated, she allowed herself to be handed into the waiting launch and silently, morosely, even, watched the boat’s growing wake stretching back to the island like some umbilical cord that must inevitably snap. The sense of impending loss caused a shiver to run through her.

  Thinking her chilly, Jeffrey put his arm round her shoulders. ‘I have a confession to make as well,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’

  Jeffrey nodded. ‘I find your interest in my marital status highly flattering.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘Could it be that your thoughts have wandered in the same direction as mine?’