A Wide Berth

by Stella Whitelaw

  The brandies and coffees arrived together. I needed the coffee more than I needed the alcohol. I was surprised to see that my hands were still shaking. Mentally I was coming out of the shadows, but my body didn’t agree.

  ‘I’m going to recommend to Head Office that you are relieved of all duties,’ said Judith, stirring in rather a lot of sugar.

  ‘I seem to have heard that before,’ I said. ‘Pierre suspended me recently.’

  She ignored me. ‘You’ve been on a roller coaster of physical maltreatment and the body can only take so much. There was the hurricane, then the raiders and being shot and now this attempted assault. You need rest and recuperation. I think you should fly home from Barbados, our next port of call.’

  ‘It would certainly be wonderful to get home,’ I said with longing. ‘My own bed, my own things, my own view.’

  ‘You are going to have some bruising,’ she added, eyeing my throat with professional briskness. ‘Wear a scarf or something.’

  I shuddered. ‘No scarf, thank you.’

  ‘Sit there and enjoy your coffee,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes.’

  I did as I was told. There was a faint background of music in the bar and it was enough to almost send me to sleep. I was sleep deprived. Small flakes of heaven seemed to fall on to me, lulling me in to peace. It was easy to imagine myself miles away, anywhere — a desert island, perhaps in the Seychelles — with waves washing a gentle shore.

  ‘It might have been longer than five minutes.’

  ‘I’ve arranged everything,’ she said, sitting back down. ‘You’re flying back from Barbados, business class, so you’ll have enough leg room for those long legs. That is, if your arm continues to heal. If not, then it’ll be an air ambulance.’

  ‘No way,’ I said emphatically. ‘I’m not going home in an air ambulance.’

  ‘And I’ve arranged for you to have an escort, someone to carry your suitcase, that sort of thing. Wheel you about.’

  ‘I refuse to be wheeled about.’

  But I could not be really angry with Judith. She was being incredibly kind, organizing my departure, smoothing everything over. I only had to survive the night. We’d be in Barbados tomorrow morning.

  ‘Are we ever going to find out who shot at me with a sawn-off shotgun?’

  ‘Not unless they confess. My bet is that it was Edmund. He thought you were getting too close. He wanted to put you out of action for a good while. If it had hit a bone, your injury would have been more serious. But he missed, of course.’

  Home. I was flying home tomorrow. I could hardly believe it.

  *

  We went as a party to the spectacular show that evening. There was Judith and Ted Sullivan, Daniel Webster and Romanoff Petrik, Debbie and Gary, Fiona and Angus MacDonald. Bruce Everton had gone, with his detainees. I barely had time to say goodbye. It was a distant wave from the deck.

  We’d shared a table at dinner and we were now ready to be entertained.

  I wore a dress I hadn’t worn before. It had to have one airing before its return to the suitcase. It was a vintage cream satin dress, circa 1935, cut on the bias, that folded round like layers of whipped cream and still didn’t crease. It had a label from a fashion house in Paris, long since gone. My sling blended.

  Daniel cut up my food for me. Romanoff poured the wine. Gary had to leave early. He had work to do, he said.

  It was a great show, plenty of singing and dancing and an imported comedy duo that were really funny. But the star of the show was Pierre Arbour. Unintentionally, of course. He came on to present the show, smooth-talking the introduction, hogging the microphone for a full five minutes. Some of his words were slurred.

  Then as he turned to leave, he tripped. No one could see what he tripped over. I think it was his own feet. He sprawled across the stage and when some stage hands rushed on to help him up, blood was pouring from his nose, all down his immaculate white ruffled shirtfront.

  To add to his discomfiture and the amusement of the audience, he had split his tight trousers. And his bikini pants were the same colour as his gushing blood.

  Debbie winked at me. ‘Gary said that he’d had more than one too many,’ she said. ‘Gary was counting, but Pierre wasn’t. Of course, Pierre never counts when someone else is paying.’

  He would never live it down. His career was as good as over.

  25. Barbados

  At six a.m., the Countess Aveline sounded ‘stand by below’ three miles from our berth at Barbados. Fifteen minutes later, I heard the pilot coming on board to navigate us through the breakwaters to our berth.

  We were not far from Bridgetown with all its shops and Cheapside Market and the Careenage, the busy inner harbour. Everyone had to see Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s life-size bronze statue. It was only a short taxi ride into the town. Before the huge new commercial docks were built, one could have walked it.

  A stewardess came to help me pack. I had slept well after the show. Very well. I had closed the show amid loads of applause and cheers, and apparently some of it had been for me. I thought it was for the dress.

  I was halfway in to my periwinkle-blue casual trouser suit, when there was a knock at my cabin door. My head was submerged in the bloused top. I heard Judith’s voice outside.

  ‘Your medical escort has arrived, Casey. You’ll be all right now on the flight home. There’s someone here to take care of you.’

  ‘Ask her to wait outside a moment,’ I said, struggling. ‘I’m not quite dressed.’

  But the door opened slowly. I felt my skin prickle. I knew who it was before he came in. It was that wonderful sixth sense that would play forever in my mind. He stood in the doorway just as I remembered him, tall and good-looking. He was smiling that funny smile and watching my mouth. The desire to touch him was so strong that I had to try and distance myself.

  ‘How do you like your morning?’ asked Dr Samuel Mallory, fresh from the medical centre of the Countess Georgina. I found out later that she had been cruising the Caribbean, close by us.

  ‘I’m beginning to like it very much,’ I croaked. My throat still hurt. ‘Do you still want me to call you Sam?’

  ‘Sam will do fine.’

  ‘I’ve bought you a wooden duck,’ I added.

  ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted.’

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