by Jessica Hart
Freya’s meandering thoughts had jerked to a halt then. Oh God, had she really said that? The one thing she hadn’t meant to do! You’ll regret it in the morning. Had Max really said that, or had she made it up? Freya hoped it was the latter.
She’d glanced at him from under her lashes. He’d been sitting, still and self-contained, his expression shuttered as he read Newsweek. He had been distant and impersonal with her all day. Was it out of embarrassment, or—worse—pity? Freya had shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Even if he hadn’t told her she would regret telling him she loved him, that was what he obviously thought.
Freya had fiddled absently with the wedding ring on her finger. She would have to convince him that she hadn’t really meant it, that she only loved him the way she loved Pel or Lucy. It wasn’t, and never had been, true, of course, but somehow she had to get him to relax so that she could tell him the truth. Until then, perhaps it would be best to pretend that she was still planning to see Dan.
‘Does Dan know you’re coming?’ Max had asked abruptly, following on her thoughts so aptly that Freya actually jumped.
‘No, not yet,’ she said, recovering herself. ‘I thought I would ring him tomorrow morning.’ She took a breath and tried for a casual approach. ‘What are your plans?’
‘I’ve arranged for a friend of mine to leave the Jeep at the airport. It’s only about an hour from there to Wularu, so we may as well drive up there tonight if you’re not thinking of going straight to Dan’s house in Usutu.
‘After that…’ Max shrugged. ‘There’s a village called Esuta inland from Wularu. It’s a long drive, but I could get there and back in a day. I need to see the elders there, and finish surveying the road near the village, so I’ll probably do that tomorrow.’
In other words, he wasn’t going to be moping around waiting for her. Freya mustered a smile as she twisted her hands together in her lap and felt the smoothness of the wedding band again. After a momentary hesitation, she tugged it off.
‘Here,’ she said, holding it out to Max. ‘I don’t need this any more. You’d better have it back before I forget.’
‘Of course,’ he said coolly as he put the ring in the pocket of his shirt. ‘We don’t want Dan getting the wrong idea, do we?’
‘I don’t want you to be out of pocket because of this,’ Freya tried. ‘Will you sell it again?’
Max went back to Newsweek. ‘I expect so.’
He sounded so indifferent that Freya subsided miserably into silence. She had been crazy to think that all they needed was to go away together to sort everything out. Max didn’t care what she was doing. It wasn’t easier now they were alone, it was much, much more difficult.
Still, her spirits rose at the smell of the night air—a mixture of fuel and frangipani and a faint hint of spices and a considerably stronger dash of rotting waste—as they walked across the tarmac to a ramshackle arrival hall. Max got them through customs and immigration with characteristic efficiency, and led her out to a battered Jeep.
It had been bad enough sitting next to him in the plane, but shut up with him in the cramped confines of the vehicle was even more unnerving. Freya pretended to be asleep as they drove north along the coast road to Wularu. Night fell abruptly in the tropics, Max had told her, so although it wasn’t that late there was nothing to see once they left the lights of Usutu behind. In the darkness, Freya fingered the place on her hand where Max had slid on the ring—had it only been yesterday? Already she felt bereft without it.
And now, at last, they were here, alone with the big bed between them. ‘I’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep,’ she said bravely.
‘You’d better have the bed.’ Max went over to untie the knot so that the mosquito net tumbled gracefully down.
Freya looked around the bare room as he tucked the net under the mattress. Where was he planning to sleep? ‘What about you?’
Max nodded his head towards a wooden bench. ‘There will do fine.’
‘You can’t sleep on that!’
‘I’ve slept in a lot less comfortable places, I can assure you.’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’ said Freya almost crossly. ‘That bed is plenty big enough for both of us, and there’s only one mosquito net.’ Her eyes drifted away from him. ‘We’re both adults,’ she said. ‘I don’t think there’s any need to be silly about sharing it.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’ Max hesitated. ‘It’ll probably be just for tonight anyway.’
A cold hand gripped Freya’s heart. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘I hadn’t planned to. No, I was thinking that you and Dan would probably want to find a room of your own if he doesn’t take you back down to Usutu.’
‘Oh…Oh, yes…of course,’ she said dully.
In spite of her tiredness and fact that she was the one who had insisted on sharing the bed, Freya couldn’t sleep. She was excruciatingly conscious of Max lying beside her, and she quivered every time he took a breath.
It was very hot, too. The ceiling fan barely stirred the soupy air. Max was wearing a pair of boxer shorts to preserve the decencies, but his chest was bare, and Freya could see the faint sheen of his skin in the moonlight. Her own oversize T-shirt was much too warm. She kept twisting up in it, and thought longingly of being able to take it off altogether, but being naked would only make her more aware of Max, if that were possible.
She didn’t trust herself not to roll against him in the night. He was so close. It would be so easy to slide across the bed towards him. Freya tortured herself by imagining what it would be like if she could, if she knew he would smile at her touch and roll her beneath him, if she could run her hands hungrily over his body and explore him with her lips…
Terrified that she would drop her guard in her sleep, Freya jerked herself awake every time she felt herself dropping off, and turned restlessly. Beside her, Max was breathing slowly and evenly. He must be asleep, she thought resentfully. Being in bed with her clearly didn’t bother him.
At length, she succumbed to sheer exhaustion. When she woke, she was lying with her face buried in a pillow, her hair tousled around her. Lifting her head, she blinked, trying to work out where she was. The room was filled with a pearly pink light, and she could hear the gentle shush of waves against a shore. Outside, a bird called with a strange, raucous cry.
Africa. She was in Africa.
Remembering Max abruptly, Freya turned her head, but the bed beside her was empty, which wasn’t surprising considering that she was sprawled over most of it. She sat up with a frown and pushed the hair out of her eyes as she looked around.
Through the open French windows, she could see the back of Max’s head. He was sitting on the verandah, lost in thought as he stared out over the ocean. Freya could just make out the silvery gleam of water through the palms. It was so still and so quiet that it must be very early, she thought.
She wished she could get up and sit with Max, enjoying the relative cool, but he had made it pretty clear on the plane that he wasn’t expecting or inviting her company, so she lay down again slowly. Max wasn’t a man who liked being crowded. She would give him this time at least on his own.
It felt very lonely lying in the bed by herself. Freya dozed for a bit, but as the room got brighter and hotter she couldn’t bear to stay there any longer. The stone floor was cool beneath her bare feet as she padded over to the verandah doors.
As if sensing her approach, Max turned his head. His eyes were very light and intense in his brown face, and Freya’s throat tightened at the sight of him.
‘Hello,’ she said awkwardly.
‘You slept well,’ said Max after a tiny pause.
‘Eventually.’ Freya hadn’t forgotten how long it had taken her to fall asleep. ‘I’m sorry, I realised when I woke up that I was taking up all the bed. Did I push you out?’
‘I was awake anyway,’ he said. ‘I like this time of day.’
They were being very polite to each other, Freya thought. Still, it
was better than the chilly distance of yesterday.
For the first time, she looked around her properly. Bright pink bougainvillaea scrambled along the rails of their private verandah and shallow steps led down to a sandy path that wound through coconut palms to a curve of dazzling white beach. As the sky had deepened in colour, so had the ocean. Beyond the reef, the water was a dark intense blue, while the lagoon rocked gently in the glittering light, as green and translucent as a glacier mint.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Freya, smiling over her shoulder at Max, who was watching her with the oddest expression in his cool grey eyes.
‘Yes,’ he agreed after a moment.
There was a silence. Freya turned back to look at the view, but she could feel his gaze boring into her back. It was unnerving.
‘I…um…I should think about ringing Dan after breakfast,’ she said.
‘I’d ring him now, if I were you,’ said Max distantly. ‘It gets so hot that offices open early. If you leave it too long, he’ll be gone for the day. There’s a phone at Reception. They’ll put a call through for you if you give them the number.’
He seemed determined for her to go off with Dan. Freya dressed and went listlessly along to the reception desk, feeling as if she were being pushed onto a train that was heading in quite the wrong direction. It was a huge relief when she heard Dan’s voice on the answer machine, saying that he would be away for about ten days, investigating a story on the border with Zambia and recommending that the caller try contacting him by e-mail.
Freya put the phone down slowly. She wouldn’t tell Max just yet. She didn’t want him putting her on the next plane to Kinshasa.
‘No reply,’ she said when she found Max sitting at a breakfast table under the palms.
There was a flash of something—irritation?—in his eyes. ‘That’s disappointing for you,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ lied Freya.
‘Are you going to try him again later?’
‘This evening,’ she said, hoping that by then she would have plucked up the courage to tell Max the truth.
She sat down opposite Max and a smiling waiter brought her paw-paw and lime.
‘So, what do you want to do today?’ said Max briskly. ‘Stay on the beach?’
Freya dug her spoon into the orange flesh. ‘Could I come with you?’ she asked tentatively.
‘With me?’ he echoed in a strange voice.
‘I’d like to see more of the country since I’m here.’
‘It won’t be very comfortable,’ Max warned.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Freya truthfully. She didn’t mind anything if she could be with him.
They left straight after breakfast. As Max had warned, the roads quickly deteriorated away from the coast. Bumping off the tarmac, they drove along laterite roads so corrugated and eroded that Freya was jolted and jarred and soon covered in a layer of gritty red dust, but she didn’t care. She was enthralled by the magic of the landscape where acacia trees and the occasional solitary baobab stood silhouetted against the vast sky, and thrilled by the glimpses of wildlife, but what really set the blood singing through her was the man sitting beside her.
She had never seen Max like this before. He looked utterly at home in the bush in his faded shirt and baggy shorts, his eyes creased against the sun and his hands very sure on the steering wheel. Every time she looked at him she felt hollow inside.
‘Look!’ He slowed to a halt and pointed. Eight or nine elephants were making their stately way through the bush, their huge ears flapping gently, stopping occasionally to investigate the spindly growth. A baby stuck close to its mother, twining its little trunk with hers.
Freya was entranced. Dusty face alight, she turned to smile at Max and something flared in his eyes, something that made her smile fade as the air shortened. The elephants were forgotten as they stared at each other, then Max broke the look by letting out the clutch. ‘We’d better get on,’ he said brusquely.
Although only three hours from the developed coast, Esuta seemed part of a different world. Freya could see why they needed a road. The last part of the drive was along a track so rutted and potholed that it was virtually impassable at points. Then Max would swerve into the bush, once coming nose to nose with a buffalo that raised its head and glared balefully at them. Prudently, Max waited until it had lumbered off into the scrub. ‘You don’t argue with a buffalo,’ he said.
Freya enjoyed visiting the village. She made friends with the children, and out of the corner of her eye watched Max with the men. His legs were straight and strong in his old shorts. As he gestured, the sun flashed off the chunky watch on his wrist, and Freya’s entrails twisted with desire.
Later, she held the staff while Max took the measurements with his theodolite, but even being shouted at and ordered to the right or left didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. She still ached for him.
‘I hope you haven’t been bored,’ said Max when they came to leave.
Freya waved at the children running along beside the Jeep. Bored? How could she be bored with him, out here? ‘No,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘I haven’t been bored at all.’
‘We’ll have a swim when we get back,’ he promised. ‘And a beer.’
‘And crab mayonnaise sandwiches?’
He laughed as he tooted the horn in farewell to the children. ‘Those too,’ he promised.
His smile burned in Freya’s brain on the long drive back. She couldn’t keep her eyes off his hands, off his thigh, off the corner of his mouth, and had to keep making herself look at the scenery. He was so much more relaxed out here. Part of her longed to fall into the sea and wash the sweat and grit from her skin and hair, but another part of her wanted to drive on with Max for ever through the bush like this, with his smile shimmering in the air.
But it was bliss to fall into the warm, clear waters of the lagoon when they at last made it back to the hotel. The glare of the day had faded, but the sand was still hot beneath their feet as they ran into the shallows. Freya drifted on her back and gazed dreamily up at the sky. She was utterly happy until she made the mistake of looking at Max, who had surfaced from a dive beside her, slicking his wet hair away from his face and smiling in a way that stopped the breath in Freya’s throat.
‘It feels good, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘I…er…I think I’ll go and have a shower now.’
I can’t bear this, thought Freya as she stood under the shower. I can’t bear being near him and not being able to touch him. I’m going to have to tell him.
Max came up while she was combing out her hair. ‘I’ve ordered beer and sandwiches,’ he said, a lunghi wrapped casually around his hips. ‘Have you finished in the bathroom?’
He seemed very relaxed, unperturbed by the abrupt way she had left the water. Freya regarded her reflection dubiously. In spite of a hat and sunblock, her nose was burnt, but the rest of her face glowed and her eyes looked very green. What if her confession spoiled the atmosphere between them again? She couldn’t bear to go back to the way they had been yesterday, but she couldn’t go on like this either. No, it was time for the truth.
Slipping into a silky cotton sundress that Lucy had assured her was the latest in boho chic, she tucked her damp hair behind her ears and went out to wait for him on the verandah.
It was dark by the time Max came out of the shower. The beer and sandwiches arrived at almost the same time, and he carried them out to join her, setting the plate down on the low table in front of them and handing Freya a deliciously cold beer.
He sat down in the cane chair next to hers. Desperately nervous, Freya pretended to drink, but she didn’t think she would be able to swallow. There was a long silence, broken in the end by Max.
‘Have you tried Dan again?’ he asked as if with an effort.
‘No.’
‘No?’ He turned to her, his eyes suddenly alert. ‘Why not?’
Freya took a breath. ‘I wasn’t quite
honest with you this morning,’ she said. ‘Dan had left a message on his machine. He’s away for at least ten days.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Max after a moment. He sounded as if he was picking his words carefully. ‘It must have been a blow. I know you had your heart set on seeing him.’
She smiled crookedly as she shook her head. This was it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I did for a while, but I realised weeks ago that it didn’t mean anything.’ She looked down at the beer bottle in her hand. ‘You were right. Dan was just a fantasy.’
‘You must have felt something or you wouldn’t have come all this way.’
Freya didn’t answer. After starting so well, her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth.
‘Freya,’ said Max quietly. ‘Why did you come?’
The night whirred around them and a warm breeze caressed her face with the scent of the sea and the sun and the heady fragrance of the frangipani tree at the foot of the verandah steps. ‘Isn’t this reason enough?’ she countered with difficulty.
‘Is it?’
She turned her head slowly to face him. He was watching her, his eyes strangely anxious in the dim light from the room behind them.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘No, you’re the reason I came. I wanted to be with you, even if it was just for a little while.’
The raucous rasp of the insects was deafening in the reverberating silence that stretched between them, on and on until Freya could bear it no longer.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking away. ‘I didn’t want to embarrass you. I know it must sound incredible after the fuss I made about Dan, but this…this is real in a way he never was. I thought I wanted him. I was stuck in a rut, and I wanted to change my life, that’s all.’
Her smile twisted. ‘And my life did change, but not because of Dan. It changed when you came home. When I fell in love with you.’
‘You’re in love with me?’ Max found his voice at last. He sounded so strange it was impossible to tell whether he was pleased or horrified.
‘Yes,’ said Freya. What else was there to say?
