Antigua Kiss (12 page)

Then he took her somewhere in his car, and they weren't seen again until the following morning. Naturally her poor grandparents were quite distraught with worry, as was Roger.'

'How did her grandparents know? Were they sitting up for her?'

'Roger woke them up to ask their advice.'

'It would have been more to the point if he'd stopped Lucy going off with Mr Lambard. I don't think alarming her grandparents, and advertising her indiscretion, was very sensible of him. He sounds rather feeble to me,' was Christie's reaction.

But although she felt obliged to take a defensive stance, inwardly she thought it contemptible of Ash to filch another man's girl in the manner described. It was one thing for him to amuse himself with sophisticates such as Bettina. The seduction of less worldly girls was a different matter altogether.

'What was the outcome?' she asked.

'The outcome was that the two young people quarrelled and broke their engagement. Roger flew home immediately. When Mr Lambard had the effrontery to call on Lucy, her grandfather refused him admission. Whereupon, I regret to say, Lucy behaved even more foolishly by packing her bags and announcing that she intended to spend the rest of her holiday with him.'

'And did she?'

'No. A few days later she, too, was on her way home—sent packing by Mr Lambard who, having seduced the poor child, very quickly grew bored and turned his attentions elsewhere.'

'I see. Well, I don't know that Mr Lambard's morals in relation to women have much bearing on his role as John's guardian,' Christie said guardedly.

'I'm sorry to say it's not only his liaisons which have made him

persona non grata
among people of integrity,' said Mrs Jones.

'Several years ago, before he was known as a libertine, some even more unpleasant rumours about him were circulating.'

Christie bit her lip and said nothing. Her instinct was to tell Mrs Jones that ancient rumours, probably with no foundation, were not of the smallest interest to her. But her common sense told her that Ash was almost a stranger. It might be wiser to listen to all the scandal attaching to him. Exaggerated it might be, but even gossip usually had a germ of truth in it.

'It was when he first came to Antigua,' Mrs Jones continued. 'He was befriended by Lady Anna Fitz-warren, the daughter of a duke and the widow of a distinguished statesman. She was old and extremely eccentric. She never mixed with the English community, and was only seen in St John's once a year when she signed the visitors' book at Government House. Young men do not cultivate old ladies, except with an eye to the main chance. When she died he inherited everything she possessed. It was thought by a number of people that he might have precipitated her death.'

'That I do
not
believe!' stated Christie. 'A rake . . . yes, that he may be.

A murderer—no! That's a slander I can't accept, and if you knew him personally, you wouldn't either, Mrs Jones.'

'I didn't suggest that he murdered her!' The babysitter looked put out.

'You said "precipitated her death".'

'Precisely. By which I meant he may have hastened it. It was well known that she . . . shall we say, raised her elbow. Mr Lambard encouraged that weakness which, at her age, must have been harmful.

Had he not done so, she might have lived several years longer.'

'It sounds all conjecture to me,' said Christie. 'One
fact
about Mr Lambard is that he has voluntarily taken on responsibility for the child in there. He could have avoided the job of bringing up John.'

'Perhaps if John's father was wealthy . . .'

'He wasn't—quite the reverse. Mr Lambard stands to gain nothing.

John will be a charge on his income.'

'I daresay he can afford it. He charges a fortune to the people who charter his boats.' Mrs Jones looked at her watch. 'It's time I was leaving. At least I've warned you, Mrs Chapman. I will only repeat that Mr Lambard is not a man in whom I would place too much confidence, were I in your shoes.'

After she had departed, visibly ruffled by Christie's failure to accept all her gossip as gospel, Christie went to the bathroom. She had left her nightdress and slippers there in order to get ready for bed without disturbing John. Not that he was easily disturbed. Tonight when she opened the blinds—the glass louvres were already open—and the room was flooded with moonlight, he did not stir. She bent over him and brushed a feather-soft kiss on his cheek.

Ash had told her to sleep on his offer, but already—and even in the light of Mrs Jones disquieting revelations—she knew she had no choice but to accept the job. She could not part from this small boy, except if she had no alternative. She had grown to love him too dearly to reject any chance to stay with him and watch him grow up.

No one could live without someone to love and be loved by. Even the cupboard love of a cat or the silent companionship of a dog was enough to keep an old person going. But Christie was young and she needed some form of human love. And John needed her. Not for long, and not too possessively. She would never allow herself to cling to him in the stifling way of some Women who, when the time came for independence, did not want to let their children go. But while he was small and defenceless—and in case some of his uncle's unsavoury reputation was well founded—she would stay and protect him.

How she would protect herself if Ash took it into his head to add her scalp to his belt, she was not sure. No doubt when she started to work for him the local busybodies would look askance at her, and perhaps she, too, would soon be
persona non grata
among the elderly members of the foreign community. If so, it couldn't be helped.

When Ash came to fetch her the following afternoon, he was wearing a pair of old jeans and a shabby tee-shirt.

'I assumed you wouldn't have any old clothes with you, so I brought you these. No point in dirtying % our good clothes,' he said, handing over a similar outfit.

The jeans are Bob's. Mine would be too long in the leg for you. His will be too big round the waist, but the belt will hold them up. The plimsolls are fives—I hope that's about right.'

'Just right.' She retreated to the bedroom to change.

The plimsolls were new. He must have bought them for her on his way to or back from English Harbour. The tee-shirt had the faded legend
1 survived Antigua Sailing Week
'79 printed across the chest.

Half a mile down the road from the Colony, there was something on the macadam which made Ash slow the car. Christie leaned out of the window to look at the large grey land crab which seemed to be looking at her, its eyes on the end of stalks, its huge pincer claw held still.

'Are they harmless?' she asked.

He nodded. 'Although I shouldn't care to wave my bare foot in front of it,' he said dryly, as he drove on.

'John has been trying to catch one of the small, sand-coloured crabs which live in the holes on the beach, but they're much too quick for him. Why do we need these old clothes? Is the house very dirty?'

'Pretty filthy. Nothing's been done inside yet. At present I'm having the drive cleared, and the worst of the potholes filled in on the approach road. I say "road"—it's only a dirt track. The drive was virtually impenetrable. I used to get in by a goat track between the Sound and the garden. That's how we'll get there today—hire a boat from the village and get there the back way, by water.'

'How old is the house? Do you know?'

'Not yet. Antigua's most valuable archives are preserved in London, and the deeds I have only refer to the first time the property changed hands. The earlier history is something I shall have to have researched.' He glanced sideways at her. 'You haven't asked me how much I propose to pay you?'

'How much?'

'Not as much as you're earning at present. At least not until the place is operational.' He mentioned a figure which, converted into sterling, was rather less than half her present salary. 'Plus your keep, and the use of a car. No fixed working hours. I'd expect you to work damned hard in the early stages. You can have until New Year's Eve to make up your mind. Then I want a firm yes or no.'

It was on the tip of Christie's tongue to tell him the decision was already made. Then she decided to wait.

She said, 'Talking of New Year's Eve, I'd forgotten it's almost Christmas. Somehow, in this glorious weather, it's hard to believe it's December.'

'On Christmas Day we've been invited to join a house party at the home of some Anglo-American friends of mine. There'll be other small children for John to play with, and I think you'll find the adults congenial.'

'It sounds fun.'

Ash stopped the car for the second time, and picked up the two boys who had been hopefully thumbing a lift. It was not more than two miles further to the waterside village which was their destination.

The boys said, 'Thank you very much,' and showed their beautiful teeth in farewell grins.

'They're not ruining their teeth with too many sweets and ice lollies,'

Christie remarked.

'No, but sometimes you'll see adults with teeth worn into points from chewing cane when they were children; and there's plenty of scope here for Dr Pritikin, or whoever is the current king of the diet gurus,'

answered Ash, with a discreet nod in the direction of one of the many heavyweight Antiguan matrons.

Christie had noticed that although the majority of Antiguan girls and young women were slender, with small waists and delicate wrists and ankles, many of the older women did have serious weight problems.

Ash took a small rucksack from the boot, and slung it over one shoulder. 'Cold drinks,' he explained.

A few minutes later she found herself seated in the bow of a small fishing boat with an outboard motor to propel it through the calm water.

The trip along the Sound gave her her first close- up of mangroves; strange trees growing out of the water and putting down leafless branches in the mud. The Sound was a stretch of water between the land and a number of small, barren islands. Behind the mangroves which fringed it rose a low hill covered with scrub. Presently, at a point where the mud was piled with conch shells discarded by fishermen who had used the mollusc for bait, Ash tied the painter to a mangrove and handed Christie ashore.

'I'll lead the way, shall I?'

He set off up a narrow path among the bushes, most of which if not thorny were prickly. She was glad of the serviceable denim protecting her legs. In a dress she would have been scratched.

Long dried and more recent goats' droppings showed how the path was kept open. It wended a roundabout route to the top of the incline where Ash waited for her to catch up.

'This is the boundary of the garden. One should be able to see the house from here, but Nature has been on the rampage for over five years, and the place is a jungle. That's why the house seems so gloomy. It won't once the trees blocking out all the light have been felled.'

'Did you hack this path clear?' she asked, following him along a corridor through dense greenery.

'Yes, and darned hot work it was.'

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the house loomed out of the vegetation engulfing it—a two-storey house, built of stone blocks, with shuttered windows.

'The front door is round the other side. This way.' He mounted a flight of stone steps leading up to a covered walk level with the first floor rooms. This had only partially been cleared of the creepers which had taken over while the house was unoccupied. It extended round two corners of the building to the side where another, more imposing double flight of stairs descended from the entrance verandah.

'Brace yourself for a pretty overpowering stench of mildew and neglect,' he warned her, as he inserted a large iron key in the lock of the tall double doors.

Christie crossed the threshold, then waited while Ash strode about opening sash windows and shutters. He had not exaggerated the smell. Her nostrils flinched from the rank air.

In the limited light admitted by the open shutters, the room where she stood was revealed as an anteroom to the large drawing-room beyond it. There, mice or rats had gnawed through the upholstery materials on the chairs and sofas, and the hard furniture was filmed and mottled with dirt and damp.

To anyone without imagination it presented a depressing spectacle.

But Christie had the ability to disregard the stained, dark-painted walls, the cobwebs hanging from the sconces, and the fungus growing on a skirting. She could see the room's fine proportions, and its possibilities.

Ash showed her all the principal apartments and two or three of the bedrooms, each of which had a fourposter bed, but without the canopies of such beds in old English houses. Here the posts were supports for mosquito nets.

'That's the famous Antigua Black pineapple, a recurring motif in early island-made furniture,' said Ash, tapping the part of a mahogany post carved with criss-cross grooves like the indentations on the fruit.

'What a strange chair!' Christie had noticed a low chair, its? flat mahogany arms extending far forward of the seat.

'A planter's chair,' he explained. He sat down, leaned back, and spread his legs to rest them on the projecting ends of the arms. 'A chair like this was for relaxing at the end of the day. Some of the hotels have beach chairs modelled on these chairs.'

By one of the beds hung a many-tailed whip with knotted ends. At the thought of its use on human beings, Christie gave a slight shudder.

Ash saw the reaction, and took the whip down from its hook. 'Not an ornament for a bedroom, or indeed any part of the house. I'll get rid of it. Historic items of this nature we can do without, but some things I do want preserved. For example, the old water filter.'

He showed her the apparatus he meant; thick stone bowls which dripped into each other and then into a water container, all enclosed in a cage of fine mesh.

'Where's the kitchen?' asked Christie.

'In a separate building. I'll show you.'

The squalor of the scullery and the small, blackened room containing an ancient cooking range under a soot-crusted chimney made her pull down the sides of her mouth.