The first time Arrowsmith saw her she was selling swimwear on the beach at Simpson’s Bay near Castlemain’s place on St Martin. He observed her from a distance; she stopped from time to time deftly changing her swimsuit under a large beach towel, then returning to do the same stretch of beach in a kind of fashion parade for the women sunning themselves on the sand.
She carried a transparent plastic covered display rack for the various models and a chic holdall in which she meticulously transported her stock; no self-respecting female would buy what looked like a previously worn swimsuit.
She handled her customers in a business like manner. She was no poor girl trying to scrape a living from the tourists on the beach. It looked like a good business, her customers seemed to appreciate her advice and from what he could see the swimsuits were expensive with the tractations that went on in USA dollars, French francs and Dutch florins.
The locals seemed to know her and she exchanged friendly smiles and remarks with them though she gave short shrift to the single male tourist. The customer’s husbands or boyfriends got a different treatment, polite smiles, keeping the conversation to business and to how a certain swimsuit would look on their wife or girlfriend.
He discovered that she worked for a chic boutique nearby the beach, it was only natural to promote direct sales on the beach when the women’s minds were on swim wear and they probably enjoyed a moment’s break from sunbathing to do what all women loved to do, shopping for clothes!
It was she who started conversation with Arrowsmith in a small beach bar where he had stopped to take a fruit juice. She paused under the shade of the palm thatching to change the holdall from one shoulder to the other, glancing at him.
“Would you like to buy a present for your wife?” she smiled hopefully showing him the display rack of swimwear.
“I don’t have one,” he smiled a little ruefully.
“Your girl friend then?” she laughed.
“I don’t have one either,” he returned, feeling a little better about it.
“Unlucky you!”
He shrugged his shoulder.
“What about buying one for me?”
“A swimsuit!”
“No a drink!” she giggled at his stupidity.
“Sure, it must be hot in the sun.”
“It is, not too many customers today, it’s Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?”
“Yes, the tourists arrive at the weekend and buy new swimsuits for the beach, and on Thursday or Friday they buy them to take home, when they have any money left.”
He noted she had an accent and if he was not mistaken it was Russian.
“Where are you staying?” she asked inspecting him curiously.
“Up there,” he nodded towards Castlemains villa.
“The villa?”
“Yes.”
She was impressed and interested.
“Do you have any ladies staying with you?”
“No.”
“I just wondered in case they would be interested by these,” she said lifting the rack.
He bought her a papaya juice, which she drank quickly.
“What about you, do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
He mulled over that sipping his drink through the plastic straw.
“How about having dinner with me?” he asked hopefully.
She inspected him again.
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
She laughed.
“OK, I’ll met you at the villa at seven and we’ll see.”
She picked up her bags and continued along the beach without the least glance back.
Arrowsmith was perplexed, but not unhappy.
It was exactly at seven when she turned up wearing a white off the shoulder dress in wild silk and a finely knitted cardigan without buttons, her shoes gave her an inch or so more in height.
She was not too tall but the heels gave her appearance the final touch, that turned men’s heads. She wore glasses that she had not worn on the beach that gave her a slightly studious look. Her lips were full and she smiled easily displaying her well formed white teeth.
“Hi, here I am.”
“Welcome.” Tony smiled in pleasure.
“I forgot to ask your name, I’m Olga.”
“Tony.”
Olga was twenty-six her hair was tinted a very pale shade of red like many Nordic blondes, the opposite to England or France, where blondes were more fashionable.
Her figure was perfect, her dress displayed the smooth tanned skin of her shoulders, it was as though her body was covered with a fine elegant glove, she was in the full glow of youth and her natural unaffected laugh that put him at ease. Olga was a Russian from Riga in Latvia, part of an uncomfortable minority in the newly independent and nationalistic state.
She had studied linguistics at Lenin University an almost useless subject in the post-soviet world where she then lived. Her Latvian was fluent compared to that of her Russian parents. However, it was her English that enabled her to find a job with a Swedish bank, paid in solid Swedish kronas, which permitted her to live in comfort, protected from the vagaries of the weak currency of her country.
Olga’s boss, Margarita, a heavily built, forty five year old Swedish woman, was married, but had strong lesbian tendencies. She developed an infatuation for the younger woman, admiring her beauty and sympathising at her plight in the grim post Soviet economic situation.
At the end of Margarita’s contract in Riga she found a job for Olga at the bank’s headquarters in Stockholm. Two years in later Olga obtained a Swedish passport with the help of Margarita.
Margarita had two grown up children. She realised to her regret that her relationship with her protégé could not go on forever and wisely saw that Olga needed to build her own life.
Olga had carefully put aside her money in the hope of finding a warmer climate in which to settle, Stockholm was infinitely richer than Riga or Moscow, but it was still in the cold and snow.
The opportunity came during a holiday with Margarita in St Martin in the Caribbean. It had been one of Margarita’s visits to her Swedish friends on the island who were also customers of the bank. They owned several prosperous fashion boutiques, one of which was in Simpson’s Bay. They were part of the small Swedish community that lived on the island, descended from immigrants who had settled on St Martin in the nineteenth century as fishermen and who had long since made their fortune in business and tourism.
They had jokingly asked Olga to stay to help out in their boutiques, she accepted. The adopted her at once, she was pretty and intelligent and a friend of Margarita, who had assured them of her conscientiousness and honesty, qualities greatly valued by the protestant Swedes.
Olga had had little experience with men, Margarita had protected her at the bank, warding off would be suitors and ensuring that Olga frequented the right company, even outside of the business hours she kept.
Olga feared returning to Riga where the Russian minority was rejected in spite of the exhortations and threats from Moscow. She kept in close contact with her parents, who had both taught at the University of Latvia and had suffered in the successive economic crisis, losing their savings and seeing their already meagre salaries reduced to a misery. Olga helped by regularly sending enough money to supplement their wages enabling them to enjoy a better standard of living than their less fortunate colleagues.
By avoiding personal relationships in St Martin she had been sure of a quiet life, building up her savings and dreaming of the day she could set up a boutique of her own. Unfortunately, the island was extremely expensive and she soon realised it would be a long and arduous task to establish a business of her own.
The time had come for Olga to make an important decision for her future. Her relationship with Margarita had been rich in experience, but inevitably their relationship had evolved and she felt the need for a more conventional relationship. She knew she would always cherish her friendship w
ith Margarita, who had changed her life and who besides her parents was certainly the person for whom she held the greatest love and respect.
Her thoughts had gradually turned in another direction and she began to think of an old fashioned solution - a suitable man. There were plenty of men around, but it would have to be the right one, not a mere tourist on a package holiday, whose luxury hotel gave the appearance of affluence, but who was in reality nothing more than a bank or an office worker. Nor should she fall into the trap of a playboy or worse a married man.
It would have to be a kind man, a wealthy man, a stable man - that was a tall order - it would not be easy. But Olga was determined and once she had set her mind to a purpose she had that Russian tenacity and perseverance to see it through until she got what she wanted.
As she studied Pat Arrowsmith she realised that he was a suitable candidate and that she would have to win him over quickly before he disappeared.
She lived in a small one-room apartment in the town centre, a studio as it was fashionably called, the name did not change the reality, her sole companion was a Persian cat.
That evening she suggested a restaurant, which in any other circumstances could have been described as a romantic spot, but they were oblivious to the surroundings, they were only interested in each other, exchanging details of their lives without the least reserve. She told him of her family, of Margarita, and he told her his story, his past marriage, his pleasures as a lone bachelor, his business life.
They returned to the villa and where they embraced each other as though it were the most natural of things, as though they had always loved each other.
They lay in his bed, the smooth tight skin of her thighs and abdomen pressed against him, her head fell back and glancing down he saw the fine dark triangle of hair push eagerly upwards, before her full lips opened and softly pressed against his open mouth. Her warm delicate fingers reached down to grasp him and guide him towards her.
She was a willing but undemanding lover, she knew instinctively how to bring Tony to a deep and satisfying climax without the desperate or demanding struggle that he had known in some women. With Olga, Arrowsmith enjoyed a moment of sublime calm, escaping the stress that had entered into his life and that Castlemain always created in his wake.
Chapter 69
Erikkson’s Sideline
Offshore Islands Page 68
