by Carol Gregor
'Well I can!' she cried bitterly. 'Easily.'
'All right, then. Let's agree we'll have no arguments. And no more talk about going back to Nairobi tonight. OK? Just take my word for it that you are a very welcome guest, and let's settle in.'
He stayed holding her firmly until she slowly nodded, then he dropped his hands and began to drag a mattress on to the veranda. Quietly she fetched her basket of clothes and his bag, and put them by their separate beds. Cal was somewhere in the back of the house, starting up the hot-water system. She slipped off her shoes and padded around on bare feet, finding the bathroom and the kitchen. The house smelled of heated wood, and the boards of the shaded veranda were warm under her feet.
Cal came back. He had stripped off his T-shirt and wore only shorts. She fought not to look at his body. The body she knew so well, she thought, every intimate detail. He was whistling, something she'd never heard him do before. 'Do you like it?'
'It's lovely!'
He nodded towards the beach. 'There's nothing like a swim to freshen up after a long journey.'
She looked longingly at the blue water. 'I've got no bathing costume.'
'It doesn't matter. I could guarantee you'd be alone. No one comes down here.'
'What about you?'
'I won't look.'
'I didn't mean that. I meant are you going to swim?'
He shook his head. 'I'm convalescent, remember?
Starting that generator wore me out for the rest of the day.'
Her eyes opened in surprise at his new willingness to be frank about his condition, but he affected not to notice. 'Off you go.'
'I ought to make that tea.'
'No, I've just noticed, it's nearly sundowner time. When you come back I'll fix us both something long and strong.'
'Do you think that's wise?'
'You mean in my condition?'
'No, I mean in our condition,' she said bluntly. 'Remember what you said about the waving palms?'
He gave her a long, bewitching smile. 'Malaria shuts down all your systems pretty effectively, Frankie. This is probably the one night of the year when I can guarantee your virtue with impunity.'
It was more than an hour later when she walked back towards the house through the palm trees, languorous from the tropical sea. She paused as Cal came into view. He was sitting on his mattress on the veranda, a straw hat tipped over his eyes, his back against the wall, and his legs sprawled before him. At first she thought he was asleep. Then she realised he was methodically dusting and cleaning his camera lens, and listening to a tape on a personal stereo as he did so.
He was so utterly absorbed that she allowed herself the luxury of feasting her eyes on him. She saw his strong shoulders and the bronzed flatness of his stomach, the play of his sure hands and the muscled length of his legs.
When she had tended him in his illness, sponging away the sweat of his fever, she had disciplined herself to have a medical detachment to the lines and planes beneath her hands. Now, though, her memories rose up and her blood beat at the knowledge of the sculpted lines of his body, the way the chest narrowed to slim hips and firm buttocks and a powerful manhood. She had no first-hand comparisons, but she knew enough to know that he was beautiful, and that she ached for him in every atom of her being.
'Oh!' She groaned softly and her hand tightened, longing to know the feeling of his body beneath her palm, but all she felt was the coarse roughness of palm tree bark beneath her fingers.
She walked back to the house, Cal looked up as her shadow fell across him. She waved to him, lost as he was in his private, musical world, and mouthed that she was going to have a shower. She felt hot and sweaty, and wished she had something floating and cool to wear instead of her shorts.
She padded into her room. By the bed was a carved sea trunk, and she opened it. Inside were spare sheets, cushions, and some beautiful lengths of printed cottons. She knew what they were. She had seen African women wearing them as sarongs, twisted above their breasts, of using them as slings to carry their treacle-eyed babies on their backs. She selected one in the colours of the sea and the sand, and twisted it around her slight figure. Then she fluffed out her hair to dry, and went to find Cal.
He looked up and pulled down his earphones. 'You've gone native.'
'Do you mind? I found it in the trunk.'
His eyes went all over her figure, very dark. For a moment she thought she must have done the wrong thing.
'I'll take it off if you want; I shouldn't have plundered your things --'
But he shook his head. 'Don't. You look stunning. It's just that it belonged to an old girlfriend of mine. It gave me a strange turn seeing you like that.'
An old girlfriend. So this was not such a bolt-hole after all. 'I'll take it off.'
'No, don't. She was someone I was with years ago. And she never meant much to me anyway.'
'Does anyone?' The blurted words fell rudely in the space between them before she could bite them back. He squinted up at her, under his hat. She held her breath, steeling herself for his anger. But he only said, 'You tell me. You spoke like someone who knows the answer.'
Her chin lifted at the challenge. 'I don't know. You certainly seem perfectly self-contained and --' she faltered '—and after what you've seen, you're probably. . .' Her words tailed away.
'Hardened? Cynical?'
'Yes. I suppose so. Anyway, that's what you as good as told me the other night.'
He laid his camera lens back in its case. She watched the movement of his hands.
'If it's true, it's hardly surprising. After all, I can either look at you standing there now and see a lovely young girl, perfect in every detail, or I can see the blood and guts you would make if you happened to be blown up by a land-mine, or the haggard, haunting figure you would turn into if you happened not to eat for a month or so --'
'My father saw all those things too, but he didn't cut himself off from life. Just the opposite. He knew how fragile and temporary everything was, so he wanted to reach out and grasp every moment with both hands.'
'I'm not your father!' Cal looked sharply up at her, then down. 'Although I often wish I had been!'
'What?' She blinked, unsure that she had heard the words she thought she had heard. 'What do you mean?'
There was a long silence, and then, smiling a strained smile, he began to lever himself up. 'This is much too heavy a conversation for my fragile condition. I'll make us some drinks. Why don't you listen to that?' He nodded at the stereo. 'I always find Mozart very restorative.'
He came back with a clinking pitcher. 'Vodka and tonic, with lots of fresh lime. I reckoned the quinine would be good for me.'
'Quinine?'
'In the tonic. It isn't just chance that the old colonials were so partial to gin and tonic, you know.'
'No, I didn't.' She sipped her drink. It was icy fresh and delicious. She drank more, wanting to blot out the puzzle of his muttered words, because she knew he would not explain them.' I ought to think about supper. I see there's a box of food in the kitchen.'
'My housekeeper left it. I ordered it before I went down with malaria. And you don't have to think about anything. Stop behaving like a fussy housewife and enjoy your drink and the sunset.'
He sank down next to her on the mattress. She could feel the heat of his skin. She drank deeply, and the cold liquid made a little explosion of fire in her empty stomach, making her feel free and careless. 'I can't win with you. One moment I'm an innocent little virgin, the next a fussy housewife.'
He took a draught from his drink, then held the glass loose in a dangling hand. 'You realise, of course, that the former probably wouldn't apply any more if we'd had to huddle together in that poachers' tent for more than one night,' he said, matter-of-factly. 'We'd have had to have found some way to keep warm.'
Frankie remembered distinctly the feeling of his body, hardened against her.
She giggled. 'You realise, of course, that I wouldn't have exactly minded --'
'It wasn't a good idea.' He slanted her a glance. 'It isn't now. It never will be.'
'So you've said. I'm losing track of the number of times.'
'For heaven's sake, Frankie, be sensible. You could end up pregnant, for one thing!'
'That's just an excuse—and a dishonest one!'
'What do you mean?'
'I had to look through your things when you were ill, to find your pills.' She blushed, but held his gaze.
It took a second or two for her meaning to sink in. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. 'I first packed my travelling-kit more than a decade ago, when I was a very impetuous young man! I'm ashamed to say that it hasn't been properly unpacked since. I'm sure the "things" to which you so delicately refer passed their expiry date years ago. I certainly wouldn't ever choose to put them to the test.'
Frankie eyed him doubtfully, and he mocked her with a raised eyebrow. 'Don't tell anyone, though, will you? It would absolutely ruin my image!'
'I think your image is robust enough to stand a few knocks.' She looked wistfully out to sea. 'You've filled hundreds of inches in the gossip columns in your time. It's ironic, really, when you think about it—us being here like this, and you such a known womaniser.'
'Taking women out doesn't always mean taking them home, at least, not in my book.' He looked at her. 'When I come home from an assignment I find it's better to keep busy. If I sit at home thinking --' He shrugged. 'That way madness lies.'
'So you go out and about on the town. And you're never short of a beautiful woman to hang on your arm.'
'Breadth if not depth,' he said lightly.
She sighed. 'It's not surprising, really, with your looks, and your name.'
'I don't know about that. What I have discovered is that there are some women who seem to love the scent of danger. War groupies --' his voice twisted '—who hang around as if they're hoping to smell cordite on my clothes!'
'They've only seen the films.' She thought about Mike. 'They don't know what it really means.'
He took in her words in silence for a moment, then he said, 'Tell me what else you found in my luggage?'
'A letter,' she confessed. 'It fell out of a book. I didn't mean to read it, but then I did.'
'And?'
'And it made me wonder if you're quite as hard-bitten as you like to pretend.'
He swallowed deeply on his drink, and scanned the sea for a long time before he answered, 'If you're looking for a heart of gold, forget it.'
'A redeeming feature or two would be quite enough.'
Cal looked at her sharply. 'You mean, you really think I'm that bad?' He drank again, and when he spoke his tone was lighter. "Then you must only want me for my body.'
She grinned, despite herself. 'Your body is very nice—as I discovered when I had to play nurse the other night. As to whether you're that bad, I don't know the answer. All I know is that the letter was a surprise to me.'
He was silent for a time. Then he said, 'I make a lot of money out of what I do, money that I don't have much use for. I give some to an orphanage in India, that's all.'
'Some? Or a lot?'
'It's all relative. What is some to me, is a lot to them. Anyway, I like the kids. Some of them come from the most appalling backgrounds, yet they seem to bob up smiling. And the nuns are saints. There's no other word for them.'
'So human nature isn't all bad?'
'I never said it was. I've just seen rather too much of the negative side --'
'For your own good,' she finished, unaware that she was speaking.
He smiled. 'If you say so, Nurse.'
She smiled back at him. 'I'm sorry I read it, though. I shouldn't have.'
'Forget it. I would have done the same.' For a time they were silent, both staring out towards the dark sea. Then she said, 'That was the orphanage in the film, wasn't it? The television film about you. It showed you with the children. I remember how you crouched down in the dust and showed them your camera. Your face looked different when you talked to them.'
'You saw it, that ghastly film? I tried to stop them making it, but they were determined. It made me look a hero, but I'm not. I'm just someone who happens to be there when things happen.'
'What sort of things?' Her voice grew sharper, remembering his muffled outbursts in the night.
'All kinds of things, things you couldn't dream of. Most of them I try to forget, once I've finished the job in hand.'
'But you don't forget, do you? You have troubled dreams.'
'Do I? You seem to know a lot about it.'
'When you were feverish—'
'When anyone is feverish, they have lurid dreams,' he cut in swiftly. 'It's all to do with the body temperature.'
'Yours must be worse than most. Do you remember them afterwards?' She held her breath, wondering what he would say if he did, whether he would explain his terrible cries. But he only looked deep into the bottom of his glass and, after a long moment, he said smoothly, 'No, not a thing. Not a single thing.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
That night Frankie slept for hours and hours, and woke the next day to the faint wash of the sea and a springing sense of well-being.
At once she wrapped her sarong around her, and stepped out into the glittering morning. Cal lay asleep on the veranda, a sheet over his hips, and the brown length of his back bare. One arm was flung above his head and his hand lay open, the fingers uncurled and trusting. It seemed that his dreams had been peaceful, and she was glad for him.
The sea was as warm as a bath. She swam for a long time, relishing the idyllic scene. Then she rewound her sarong, and began to walk back to the house.
Cal was coming down to the beach, a towel round his hips. Last night's sleep had driven the last traces of pallor from his face, and he seemed completely restored to health.
'Are you going in? It's lovely.'
'Mmm.'
His eyes flickered over her damp hair and thin cotton clothing. Immediately her body began to beat for him, and she knew with a sinking heart that, with him restored to full health, sexual tension would rise up and snap at their heels like a vicious dog once more. Last night's companionable truce was already a thing of the past.
Their eyes met and sparked with the knowledge that they both shared.
'I'll make us some breakfast,' she said, and went quickly on, but she could not resist stopping and watching his distant figure as he threw off his towel and sauntered naked into the sea.
She had to leave. She knew she had to. Everything here, from the luscious papaws she was slicing for breakfast to the enchanting whisper of the tropical ocean, was a feast for the senses. It heated her blood and stirred her pulses until she ached for Cal with a need that was close to despair. There was no way she could stay with him here, alone, if he did not take her into his arms. And yet he wouldn't. She knew he wouldn't. A cessation of hostilities was the most he would give her.
She vowed to tell him at the first good opportunity, yet all morning he sat absorbed on the veranda, painstakingly restoring his camera equipment to order. She discovered a shelf full of books on photography, and retreated with them to a distant part of the garden where, behind the screen of a large flowering bush, she loosened her sarong to her waist and let the sun colour her skin.
Hours passed in a hum of crickets and a gentle wash of waves.
'Are you learning anything?'
Cal came strolling barefoot round the bush. She sat up suddenly.
He regarded her small breasts with their delicate nipples quite openly, and they tightened and peaked instantly in response to his look. His eyes went to hers as he saw the effect he had on her. 'I don't want to be personal, but the sun's very hot now. I wouldn't want you to get sunburned in sensitive places.'
'I was lying on my stomach—until you came along.'
'I would have knocked, but I Couldn't find the door.'
She stood up, and pulled up her sarong. He watched her frankly as she tied it. 'It seems
a pity,' he observed, crooking his mouth. 'Going topless is a way of life in Africa. But under the circumstances --'
'Quite.'
Damn him! she thought savagely, marching ahead of him back to the house. How could he stay so cool and collected when he knew exactly what he did to her with just one glance? Why wasn't he tempted just to take her in his arms? Or did he get some sort of perverse kick from this painful sexual teasing?
He followed her. She whirled round.
'I want to go back to Nairobi, Cal. As soon as possible! Preferably now!'
She banged into her bedroom, and came out again dressed in her shorts and T-shirt.
'What a very tempestuous girl you are,' he said. 'If it's not one thing it's another. Anyway, "now" is a bit hard to arrange.' She glared at him, her eyes a green fire of anger.
'Look, if it's because of what I just said, I was only teasing.' His eyes went over her face. 'I'm trying to keep the atmosphere light.'
'The atmosphere isn't light! It hasn't been for days! It probably never will be! And you know it. You might be able to keep up the pretence, but I can't!'
His expression tightened, all warmth fading from his look. 'Of course I know it! Why do you think I was so keen to come here alone in the first place? But since I couldn't make it, and since I'm painfully aware of how much I owe you for what you've done for me over the past couple of days, I'm trying my damndest to keep things pleasant! However, since it obviously isn't enough, then you're right. You'd better go.'
'You don't owe me a thing. I did what I would have done for anyone, even a sick dog!'
'Charming!' He dashed a hand through his hair, scowling at her.
'Just find me a telephone, and I'll fix up a flight.'
'There's no need for that; I was going into Mombasa anyway this afternoon. You can come with me.' He walked away across the veranda to stare out at the sea. 'It's probably of no interest to you at all, since you clearly want as little as possible to do with me, but I've been thinking about your pictures. I have a friend in Mombasa who's a photographer. He's got his own darkroom. I planned to run off some of my poaching films, and I thought you might like me to print up some of your stuff, to see what you've come up with.'
