Antigua Kiss (16 page)

Christie shook it out and held it up. As the pieces of tissue floated free, so did a folded sheet of paper on which, as it reached the floor, she could see lines of writing.

Tossing the mysterious mass of material on to a chair, she snatched up the paper, and read—It appears unlikely that you will have packed a dress for the dancing tomorrow night. This seems your style, and is guaranteed to fit. It also doubles as a skirt. Happy Christmas. A.

She picked up the fabric a second time. Before she had been holding it by the hem, she discovered. Knowing now that it was a dress, it didn't take long to find the right way of it.

And such a dress! She had never possessed anything like it, not even among the trousseau of pretty clothes she had taken with her to Guernsey on her honeymoon.

A voluminous swirl of pure silk, the dress which Ash had selected for her was cut in three tiers, the top one gathered by a double row of elastic, and the bottom one narrowly hemmed. The white flowers and leaves of the pattern were wax-printed on the thin silk. The effect was of moonflowers reflected at midnight in a pool lightly stirred by a breeze.

Quickly shedding all but her briefs, she lifted it over her head and wriggled it into position with the gathered top under her arms. Only then did she find that it had narrow strings of self-fabric to be tied in bows on her shoulders.

What luck that the shoes she had bought were slender-heeled black kid sandals, intended to go with the white dress she would have to have worn but for this one.

It also doubles as a skirt.
She undid the bows and transferred the top to her waist. Yes, with a black or white silk shirt, and perhaps a black velvet belt, it would make an equally attractive long skirt.

Looking down at herself, now naked from the waist up, she wondered if there might be somewhere at Heron's Sound where she would be able to brown herself from top to toe instead of still having pale patches.

She was glad Ash had referred to her breasts instead of using Mike's slang terms. She had never told her husband how much she disliked the words he used, with their subtly derogatory undertones. Perhaps it would have been better if she had. She seemed to remember reading somewhere that it was the small trivial pinpricks, the unspoken minor irritations which were the cause of most break-ups.

It was only when she took the dress off that she noticed the swing-tag, a slip of pasteboard decorated with a drawing of two palms with a building and four boats in the background. Beneath the drawing was
The Galley Boutique, Nelson's Dockyard, Antigua W.I.
The style of the dress was Stephany, but the price had been carefully crossed out.

How much had it cost him? she wondered. It was unquestionably silk; the fragile, diaphanous, floating silk of some Indian saris.

Now, whatever anyone else wore, even the rich Mill Reefers, she couldn't feel out of place, a sparrow among the hummingbirds.

The next morning, for the first time in years, Christie woke in a mood she had almost forgotten. This was how she had felt at eighteen—carefree, confident, eager to jump out of bed and begin an exciting day.

John, far from waking at first light, as Ash had forecast, was still asleep. Longing to see him open his presents, she kissed him awake.

'Happy Christmas, darling.'

For a few moments he remained sleepy. Then he saw his stocking hanging from the chair she had placed at the end of the divan.

Instantly, he shot up like a jack-in-the-box, his eyes large with anticipation.

When Ash arrived shortly before eleven, they were ready to go.

Earlier Christie had told John to be sure to thank his uncle for his present as soon as he saw him. The child needed no second prompting. He had already tried out the inflatable green and yellow crocodile, and had loved perching on its back with Christie pushing it from behind. It wouldn't be long before he could paddle it unaided.

'And thank you for the lovely dress, Ash. It's stunning . . . terribly generous of you,' she said, when her turn came. 'This is a very small present from John and me.'

He unwrapped the Liberty silk scarf which had been the only thing she could think of to buy for a man she scarcely knew, whose way of life was unknown territory to her in every sense. Because he had seemed to like blue—a navy silk dressing gown, a sky blue cotton shirt—she had chosen a scarf with a Paisley design outlined in navy on a silver-grey ground.

Whether he really liked it was impossible to tell. He gave every appearance of being pleased.

The drive to the Hathaways' house took about half an hour. Christie was wearing separates she had bought in a sale at one of the Jaeger shops two years before. But like most of their clothes, the button-through cotton skirt and the voile shirt printed to match had not dated.

The colours were black and cream which had looked rather dull on her in England but now, with her tan, had a new chic. Also she had left the two bottom buttons unfastened. She told herself this was because, when it was known she was going to do up Heron's Sound, she didn't want the word to go round that she had no sense of style.

While in the scent shop the day before, she had indulged herself with bottles of Madame Rochas talc and body cream. The cream gave her brown skin a silky sheen, and she looked with satisfaction at her legs and feet in the new black sandals. Probably she would be the only woman there with unpainted toenails, but at least her toes were straight and unblemished.

The Hathaways' front door was hung with a Caribbean adaptation of a Christmas wreath, made with glossy green leaves and scarlet hibiscus. Ash pressed the bell, and a few moments later the door was opened by a man almost as tall as himself, but about thirty years older, with steel grey hair and piercing blue eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles.

'Ash, my dear fellow—welcome!'

Their host gave him a hearty handshake, then turned to Christie, his shrewd eyes making a swift ten-second assessment as he put out both hands to enfold hers between his large palms.

'Mrs Chapman—a very merry Christmas to you. May I be permitted to use your unusual and charming given name?. Your parents were admirers of Bunyan's great work,
Pilgrim's Progess,
I presume?'

'Merry Christmas. With pleasure. My father was,' she agreed, smiling. 'But it's not read a great deal nowadays, so very few people recognise the source.'

'I would probably not have myself, except that I'm currently engaged on a ten-year reading programme which will cover all the greatest works of literature. I spend a great part of my life in airports and aeroplanes, and I use that time for what I call mentaljogging. More people should do it. No sense in keeping the body in trim and letting the mind go to seed.'

His accent, so Ash told her later, was that of a Bostonian. But his wife being English, he had incorporated many British turns of phrase into his speech.

He offered his hand to the child. 'Hi, John. Father Christmas made a double delivery for you last night. There's a big package with your name on it beneath the tree in our living-room.'

He ushered them into a wide hall opening into a very large room on several levels. The whole of one side was made of sliding sheets of glass, most of them doubled to leave large open spaces. Through this enormous window, perhaps sixty or seventy feet long, could be seen a beautiful garden descending in terraces to the beach.

A small blonde woman, perhaps in her early fifties, wearing a fuchsia pink housecoat, appeared.

'Ash, darling! Happy Christmas.' She lifted her arms invitingly, and he bent to give her a hug and kiss her on both cheeks.

Like her husband, Miranda Hathaway greeted Christie and John with great warmth. Indeed, all that happy day, and in spite of about thirty other guests to attend to, she felt they were keeping a special watch over her, so that not even for a few minutes should she feel a stranger at a party where everyone else knew each other.

At first John was shy of the other children, whose ages ranged from two to fourteen. Then a little girl of seven took him under her wing.

Christie continued to keep an eye on him, but she was amused to notice that Susie's manner towards him was as protective as that of a fussy elderly nanny.

Until a light lunch was served about two o'clock, the festivities centred round the pool. A number of people had only just arrived from England and had to cover-up between swims. Christie was glad she had passed that stage and, still liberally sun- creamed, could stay in the sun without danger. Although in fact most of the chairs and loungers round the pool were semi-shaded by the gently rustling fronds of the palms surrounding the paved area.

Ash came to exchange a few words with her from time to time, but mostly he chatted to the other men. The only women he paid much attention to were his hostess and Bettina Long, a greyhound-slender figure in a white bikini.

That night John was put to bed in a room which had been specially designed to accommodate the Hathaways' grandchildren. It had twelve built-in pinewood bunks. Tired out with activity and excitement, John was already half asleep when Christie kissed him goodnight. Above him Susie was also in bed, but with a book to read.

'I'll come and tell you if he wakes up and cries, Mrs Chapman.'

'That's kind of you, Susie. Thank you. But I don't think he will—he's exhausted. Goodnight.' Christie blew her a kiss, and departed to change for the evening.

She had been given a single room with its own shower room, but Miranda had asked her if, for changing purposes, she would mind sharing it with two other girls who were not house guests.

Christie had had her shower, and dried her hair with the dryer which belonged to the pretty cool blue and white bedroom before the other two joined her.

While Mara, from New York, was having her shower, Christie chatted to Kate who worked on a glossy magazine in London. Both were young married women, holidaying with their husbands who were connections of the Hathaways and who were using Ash's room to change in.

'I can guess where that came from,' said Kate, as Christie took her evening dress out of the wardrobe. 'The Galley Boutique, yes?'

'Yes.'

'I thought so. I remember when the woman who runs it was starting with a few bikinis. Now it's crammed with all kinds of super things.

It's one of the two best places for clothes on the island.'

'Which is the other?'

'The shop at the Long Bay Hotel which is over on the east coast by Devil's Bridge. The proprietor's wife is an American artist. You'll see her applique hangings, signed Laf, in several hotels. I bought a couple of her pen and wash drawings of buildings in St John's for our flat.

She also designs very good clothes. I'm wearing one of her dresses tonight.'

From another section of the wardrobe she produced a short scarlet dress of cotton voile splashed with white flowers. It was cut in three tiers of fullness, but not in the same way as Christie's, on which the tiers joined each other. Kate's were separate and flared, not gathered, each one trimmed with a narrow white edging.

'What are you wearing, Mara?' Kate asked as, wrapped in a bath sheet, the American girl joined them.

Mara showed them her green chiffon dress, and then Christie lay on her bed in her bra and briefs— fortunately one of her bras had detachable straps— and watched the other two sharing the wide dressing stool to put on their faces.

'No make-up for you, Christie?' asked Mara.

She hesitated. 'I left it behind. It doesn't matter— I don't wear much.'

'My dear girl, why didn't you say? Use mine. There must be something here which will do in an emergency,' said Kate, indicating her well-stocked make-up" case.

'Yes, have a look through mine as well. All my cosmetics are non-allergic, ifyou have that problem,' said Mara.

Wondering what had possessed her to distort the truth—it had not been a lie: she had left some unused cosmetics in London—Christie accepted their invitation to select from their joint resources.

It felt strange to be painting her face again; using an eye-shadow and mascara from Kate's box, and one of Mara's lipsticks. Her skin needed no embellishment. Always fine and clear, it now had the best of all cosmetics, a light but glowing tan.

But when she put on the black dress her mounting excitement ebbed suddenly.

'Oh ... I hadn't realised how transparent it is. It needs a slip, and I haven't got one,' she wailed. Last night she had not seen the dress in a full-length mirror with the light behind her.

'Don't be silly: it's
supposed
to be see-through. And what have you got to hide? Not a bulge anywhere, lucky creature,' said Kate. 'It doesn't show anything that all the men haven't seen already when you were in your bikini.'

'Except that somehow veiled glimpses always look a hell of a lot sexier than a clear view,' said Mara with a twinkle. 'It's a pretty dress on the hanger. With you inside it, it's a knock-out,' she added generously.

Christie gazed uncertainly at her reflection. Had Ash realised how revealing the dress was when he had bought it for her? Perhaps not, but if he had she was damned if she'd let him know that she was selfconscious. With a resolute lift of her chin, she fastened the golden sand dollars in her ears, and the necklace round her throat.

'Hey! What about scent? You must have some scent on,' exclaimed Katy. 'Try some of this. It's a classic which suits everybody.' She offered a bottle of Blue Grass.

When all three were ready, they left the bedroom together, but whereas the other two went directly to the living-room, Christie went to look in on the children.

Several more had joined John and Susie, and a good deal of noise was going on, but her nephew was soundly asleep.

'You do look pretty tonight, Mrs Chapman,' said Susie admiringly.

Half way back to the living-room, Christie caught sight of herself in a mirror, and she knew that she did look quite different from her everyday self.

A soft blend of olive green and silver eye-shadows, and brown mascara, made her eyes look larger and more sparkling. The curves of her mouth were accentuated by the apricot-rose lipstick, and altogether she had a lit-up-inside look about her.