The Paper Marriage

by Flora Kidd

  “Been taking lessons in how to be a husband?” she teased lightly.

  “Always show an interest in what your wife has been doing while you’ve been out for the evening.”

  Although he grinned his appreciation of her remark, the tired troubled expression returned to his face as he took the book from her hand and glanced at it.

  “I wanted to find out more about the area where my father disappeared,” she explained. “Do you think we could talk about the last time you saw him?”

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Yes, please. We’ve had so little opportunity for private conversation. There’s always been someone else here, or you’ve been away.”

  “I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that the reason why we’ve had little chance to talk to each other in this house is that we don’t share a bedroom. Seems to me we said quite a lot when we were at Eva’s,” he remarked dryly. “All right, let’s go and sit on the patio. It’s a fine night. You go ahead and I’ll bring something to drink. Talking is thirsty work.”

  On the table in the patio a candle flickered in a crystal bowl. Its warm golden fight turned the secluded area into a place of enchantment, casting shadows on white walls, glinting on facets of crystal glass, lending a warm amber sheen to the rum in the bottle which Owen had brought. The fragrance of the unseen shrubs whose English names never ceased to fascinate Brooke - Queen of the Night, the temple tree and Poor Man’s Orchid — combined to add to the enchanted atmosphere. In such a place the rum-based fruit drink which Owen handed to her might turn out to be an aphrodisiac dispensed by a magician, concocted specially with the aim of changing indifference and coolness into love and warmth. Therefore it must be sipped with caution, thought Brooke fancifully, as she raised the cut-glass tumbler to her lips.

  “I suppose Miguel has shown an interest in that last meeting I had with Tony,” said Owen curtly, attacking first and destroying the romantic atmosphere.

  “Yes, he has,” replied Brooke cautiously, realizing that his bad mood had not evaporated at all.

  “You’ve been seeing a lot of him. Too much,” he stated.

  The reprimand made her jump. Her band shook and liquid spilt on to her dress.

  “But you said I should ask him about continuing the search,” she objected. “And once you said that you didn’t expect me to avoid him just because he isn’t friendly to you any more.”

  He considered her answer before replying, gazing down at the liquor in his glass and then sipping it slowly as if he also distrusted its effects.

  “That’s true, I did,” he conceded. “But I didn’t think you would go overboard and see so much of him. Every day for the past week, I’ve been told.”

  “Who told you? Stella?” she countered.

  “Amongst others, yes,” he replied. “It’s surprising how many people have noticed that Senora Meredith was at the concert with Miguel Perez or saw her wandering around the National Pantheon with him and even attending a bullfight in his company. Did you enjoy the fight?”

  “No. It was horrible, and I had to leave because I felt sick.” “Serves you right for going with a man who isn’t your husband,” he jeered softly.

  “Oh, you make it all sound as if ... as if ... ”

  “As if you’re having an affair with Miguel,” he put in wickedly. “Well, are you?” He didn’t sound angry or jealous, just curious. Stella must have had a good time telling him to-day, implying probably that she had discovered that his new wife was in love with another man.

  “No,” she said. “How can you think that? I haven’t known him very long.”

  “You haven’t known me very long, yet you’re married to me,” he said.

  “And that’s why I wouldn’t - couldn’t live in your house, be a mother to your child, take your name, draw on your bank account, couldn’t do all that and ... ”

  “Be unfaithful to me,” he mocked, his amusement breaking through at last and showing in his low laughter. Brooke glanced at him sharply. He had leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and in the candlelight she could see the laughter in his eyes.

  “Oh, you devil!” she flared, as she realized he had been teasing her in order to find out about the truth of her dealings with Miguel, and he laughed again.

  “Well, now we’ve straightened that little matter out,” he drawled, leaning back in his chair again, “let’s talk about that last meeting I had with your father. What do you want to know?”

  “Did he ever say anything about me?”

  “Not much. He is, as you know, a very reticent man, and I’m not very chatty myself. When we talked it was usually about drilling or geology, all technical stuff. Oh, I knew you existed, but I’d no idea where you lived. We never discussed our private fives, so he had no idea that I had relatives living there.”

  “So he didn’t leave any message with you for me?”

  “No. But he did give me a package to take care of.”

  “A package? What was in it?”

  Owen did not reply at once, so she looked at him. He was watching her with narrowed eyes. Meeting her glance, he smiled faintly and said succinctly,

  “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “He just gave it to me and said, ‘Take care of this for me in case anything happens to this ’copter!’ They’d been having trouble with the engine of the helicopter. I tried to persuade him to wait until another one was sent down, but he wanted to finish the survey and go back to Britain. He said he was tired and wanted to retire and grow roses.”

  Brooke found that her throat was suddenly dry and tight. The flame of the candle blurred before her eyes as she saw it through a sheen of tears.

  “Do you still have the package?” she asked.

  “No. When I heard that he was missing I forwarded it to the address which was on it, to a Senorita Margarita Morillo at an apartment in the Villa Rosa, Avenue Bermudez, Caracas.”

  “But that was where he had an apartment,” exclaimed Brooke. “Was she a neighbour of his?”

  “Probably - and possibly a little more than just a neighbour,” he said quietly.

  “I see. Does she still live there?”

  “I’ve no idea. She acknowledged the note I sent with the package and that was all. I haven’t met her,” he replied. Then leaning forward, he added with sudden urgency, “Don’t pass judgement on him, Brooke. Just because a man loses his wife his needs don’t stop, and it’s possible to love more than once in this life, as my own father would tell you.”

  “I’m not judging him. I’m surprised, that’s all. He never mentioned her in his letters to me.”

  “Parents don’t have to share all their secrets with their children any more than children have to share their secrets with their parents,” he murmured. “Did you tell him about Kevin?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she admitted.

  There was a brief silence during which Brooke tried hard to adjust to a new image of her father. Then she remembered the question Miguel had suggested she should ask Owen.

  “Do you know in which direction he intended to go in the helicopter?” she said.

  “He was going to look at a mountain called the Magic Stone by the local Indians. Often the Indian names are a direct clue to the geological formation of the rocks, and I’ve been wondering if Tony and his party were attacked by the local tribe who don’t particularly want their way of life and culture disturbed. That’s happened more than once in this country.”

  “You mean the Indians have killed people?”

  “Yes, with bows and arrows. Sometimes they hold them as hostages.”

  “But that’s fantastic!”

  “It’s a fantastic country,” he remarked. “It always has been, and it’s attracted men from all over the world. You might tell Miguel when you next see him of my suggestion that Tony may have been attacked.”

  “You don’t mind if I see him again, then?” she queried.

  Owen finished his drink and se
t the glass down on the table before answering.

  “As long as you don’t overdo it. I don’t take kindly to my relatives and colleagues telling me that my wife is often seen with another man when I’m away,” he said with a touch of bitterness.

  “But surely a woman can have friends, men friends outside her marriage, without onlookers drawing the wrong conclusions,” complained Brooke. “You met Stella Cordoba last week for lunch and I assume that you’ve seen her again today, and yet although you were seen no one has commented on it and I haven’t objected.”

  “Who told you I had lunch with Stella last week?” he asked.

  “She did herself. She was here yesterday. Didn’t she tell you when you saw her today?”

  “I didn’t see her to-day. She telephoned me at a damned inconvenient time. Why did she come here yesterday?”

  “She came to suggest that our marriage should be annulled. She said it should never have taken place and that you’re regretting it,” said Brooke in a cool crisp voice. “Are you, Owen?”

  “I haven’t had time to find out yet,” he ground out savagely. “But I think we’d better get one thing clear before we go any further. Although I’m quite willing to go along with the idea that neither of us should assume that we have rights where the other is concerned, I don’t like anyone trespassing on my preserves. Nor do I like other’s assuming rights which should be mine.”

  The atmosphere was suddenly electric. Feeling danger flickering all around her like forked lightning, Brooke put down her empty glass, swung her feet off the lounger on which she had been reclining, and stood up.

  “No one has or will do,” she said in a low furious voice. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that none of the gossip about Miguel and myself would have happened if you and he were still friends, if you hadn’t wronged him in some way in the past? If only I knew what you’d done I might be able to understand better.”

  “He thinks quite erroneously that I took something away from him which he considered belonged to him. There’s no need for you to know any more details,” he replied coldly.

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t I know? Oh, don’t you ever share anything, Owen? Don’t you ever tell anyone how you feel? Perhaps after all you don’t have any emotions!”

  Words poured out of her, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, until Owen sprang to his feet, grasped her rudely by the shoulders and shook her into silence. Dumbfounded by her own inexplicable behaviour, Brooke stared up at him. Then she began to mumble an apology, but she didn’t get very far because her breath was cut off by a brutal kiss which bruised her mouth. It went on and on, and she could do nothing as she was held in a tight embrace.

  His hold slackened a little, the quality of the kiss changed and, as she became aware of its message, Brooke slipped out of his hold and moving quickly placed the small table between him and herself. He moved to follow her, his leg caught against the curved-out leg of the table and it toppled over.

  Glass crashing to a stone floor as the flame of the candle was suddenly extinguished made an ear-shattering sound which seemed to resound, echoing back from the stone walls. In the awful silence which followed the noise, they faced each other across the debris as a light was switched on in the house and they heard footsteps coming along a passage.

  “Oh, hell!” said Owen Meredith furiously and concisely.

  “El Toro,” murmured Brooke, her voice choked with laughter as she suddenly saw the funny side. “The bull in the china shop.”

  Then as he moved towards her threateningly she turned and ran into the house, passing a muttering Pilar, attired in a flowing dressing gown with her stiff dark hair in rollers, on her way to see what or who had caused the noise.

  In the half-lit dimness of her bedroom Brooke leaned against the door catching her breath. As she recalled the subtle change in Owen’s kiss she was tempted to lock the door. But what would be the use of that? A man like Owen wouldn’t be stopped by locked doors. He would stand outside and bellow until she would be forced to unlock it out of consideration to others. No, it would be difficult to stop Owen if he really wanted to follow her in here.

  There was excitement in the thought. She lunged away from the door. Hurriedly she slipped out of her clothes and into her nightdress. In the bathroom she cleansed her face and brushed her teeth. From there she flitted to the open screened window of her room, through which came the unmistakable sound of Pilar’s harsh voice scolding in Spanish.

  Brooke grinned. There was no doubt in her mind as to whom Pilar was scolding. Precious Estaban crystal had been smashed and the housekeeper had no hesitation in letting the culprit know her wrath, even though he was now a grown man and not the little boy she had once scolded. Owen would not be able to stop that flow of invective easily. He wouldn’t want to kiss Pilar.

  In bed she lay on her back listening for footsteps. They came at last and her heart began to pound. But they went past her door.

  Another door was opened and slammed shut. A few seconds later water gushed from taps in the bathroom. Not until that sound stopped and the line of light beneath the bathroom door had gone and all was quiet did Brooke let her breath out on a long sigh.

  As she turned on to her side to go to sleep she wondered drowsily at the depth of her disappointment.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The cable car, full of sightseers, swung above a deep green valley which cleft the slopes of Mount Avila, the highest mountain in the range surrounding the city of Caracas. It had stopped to wait for a descending cable car to pass it on another loop of wire.

  From where she was sitting on the front seat of the car with three other people, Brooke gazed down at the thick forest which clothed the sides of the valley. Tall dark pine trees, stiffly angular in shape, thrust upwards to the sunlight from out of a tangle of birch and other deciduous trees. The sight of them surprised her, accustomed as she was by now to the sub-tropical plants and trees to be found in the parks and gardens of the city, and reminded her that the higher the car went up the mountain the colder the temperature became.

  Far below, the city shimmered in a sunlit haze, its tall towers looking like so many ice-cream confections; white, cream, coffee and chocolate-coloured. Whole sides of buildings blazed with reflected light where glass took the place of concrete. Beyond the city the opposite side of the ring of hills were toy-like and smoothsided, uniformly purple.

  The cable car lurched. The movement, slight but ominous, caused a wave of excitement to run through the passengers. Girls and women shrieked. Men laughed. Their laughter was taunting, serving as a disguise for their own apprehension. To be so high up, hanging over a steep-sided valley from wire rope slung between pylons, was a nerve-tingling experience.

  A hand, olive-skinned with long tapering fingers, touched Brooke’s where it lay on her lap.

  “You are not afraid. You do not shriek like the other women,” observed Miguel softly.

  She turned to smile at him.

  “I’m enjoying the view too much to be frightened. It really is spectacular. I wish I had my camera with me,” she said.

  “Then you are glad you came with me?”

  “Of course I am. I’m always interested in new experiences. This must be something like flying in a small plane.”

  To her surprise his face, always expressive of his emotions, lit

  p.

  “Ah no, nothing is ever like that. That is superb, wonderful. You have never been up?”

  “No, never.”

  “Then you should ask Owen to take you and show you how to fly. Maybe I shall take you myself. He and I learned to fly together.”

  “You must have done a great many things together,” she remarked gently.

  “Yes, many - swimming, skiing, sailing, diving, girl- watching.” His sidelong glance was impish. “All the things that wealthy young men do everywhere, until Owen’s father insisted that he go to work and learn the hard way, as he had done.” His voice took on a sarcastic tone.

  “I gather tha
t you don’t approve of learning the hard way,” said Brooke.

  “I just fail to see what good it has done Owen, that’s all,” he murmured.

  She glanced down at the hand which was now holding hers lightly, as if he had forgotten he had reached out to take it. His hand was long and slim; the hand of an aristocrat, of a poet and a dreamer, all of which she now knew him to be. How different it was from the hands which had gripped her shoulders and had shaken her last night - Owen’s hands, big and muscular, the hands of a man who had been sent out into the wilds to drill for ore in his youth; a man who was down-to-earth, practical, and sometimes a little clumsy.

  The sound of glass shattering on a stone floor echoed through her mind and laughter welled up within her as she remembered the incident. She wished now that she had stayed on the patio instead of running into the house like a frightened schoolgirl. If she had stayed she could have shared her laughter with him, and also shared the blame for the broken glasses, as she stood by his side to face Pilar’s anger.

  But she had not stayed and this morning Owen had been coldeyed and withdrawn as he had sat opposite to her at breakfast. Even Megan had noticed his withdrawn manner and had commented on it in her uninhibited childish manner, to receive a sarcastic set-down from her father which had brought tears to her eyes. About to rebuke Owen for his boorish behaviour to the child, Brooke had also been silenced by a slow hostile glance which had made her pulses leap as she realized that her relationship with Owen had entered a new phase. Since the episode in the patio they were both much more aware of each other.

  The cable car started up again with a rattle and the sightseers cheered their relief. As the other car swung by them they all waved to the passengers in it who waved back. At the terminus they stepped out of the car into a crowd of people waiting to descend, and walked along a wide passage, past a shop selling postcards and mementoes to a doorway which led out on to a terrace, part of the hotel which was built on the mountain top.