Antigua Kiss (5 page)

'By all means.' He stood up.

Christie couldn't find fault with his manners.

'Thank you for cooking that delicious dinner,' she said, with formal politeness, 'Goodnight.'

'Goodnight, Christiana.'

She had a feeling his eyes were amused as he watched her walk out of the room.

She did not oversleep a second time, and it was she who cooked breakfast for him next morning.

'Are the things which you'll need for this trip— suitcases, summer clothes and so on—going to strain your budget?' he asked her. 'If so I'll be pleased to contribute to your expenses in bringing John out to me.'

'Thank you, but that won't be necessary. I already have several cases.'

'As far as clothes are concerned, one light dress should be enough.

You can buy the rest in Antigua where cotton dresses are worn all the year round.'

When the time came to say goodbye, he swung John up in his arms and held the child perched on one forearm.

'Goodbye, John. See you soon. Take good care of Aunt Christie till I see you again, won't you?'

He kissed the boy's cheek, and John hugged him, plump arms round his uncle's strong neck. Then Ash lowered the boy to the floor and turned to take his leave of her.

'See you at the end of next week. I'll be waiting to meet you at the airport. Goodbye, Christiana.'

She forced a smile, but her silver-grey eyes were nervous. She had an uneasy feeling that, merely to tease, he might bend down and kiss her as well. But he only shook hands.

The days which followed his visit were busy ones. Margaret ran up one dress for Christie; she herself made another.

She completed her Christmas shopping, buying the little things to put in John's stocking, and two larger presents for him. At Margaret's suggestion she bought a gift to give to Ash. It would be merely a gesture. She could feel no liking for the man who had swept in and out of her life with the force of a hurricane, leaving desolation in her heart.

One evening before their departure she spent reading a book, borrowed from the Public Library, about her nephew's future home.

Antigua, twelve miles by sixteen, was the largest of the Leewards, she learned. The other islands in the group were Nevis, St. Kitts, Montserrat, Barbuda and Anguilla.

Although small, they have a monumental past,
she read.
Around them
raged many historical naval and military battles.

Christie lifted her gaze from the page, a troubled frown between the delicately marked eyebrows which, like her long lashes, were several shades darker than her hair.

And if I don't like what I find, and don't think John will be happy, another battle will rage between Ash and me, she thought.

For although he had discouraged her from attempting to resist Ash's superior claim to the child, her solicitor had added that, if Mr Lambard's life style could be shown to be at all irregular, then she would be on stronger ground.

Christie had been apprehensive that the eight-hour- long flight across the Atlantic might prove too exacting a test of her small nephew's usually good behaviour.

She need not have worried. From the moment they boarded the huge aircraft which had ten seats in each row, separated by two gangways, he was as quiet and contented as some of the other children on board were restless.

Luckily they had been allocated side seats, and she put him in the one next to the window from which, once they were airborne, he was able to gaze in wonder at the sunlit world above the clouds.

This limitless snowscape was the view for several hours, during which time they were served first with drinks and then with lunch.

After lunch the stewardess handed out headsets to those who wanted to hear the inflight movie or listen to music. On her own, Christie would have watched the film, of which she had an excellent view because each section of the cabin had its own screen on the wall of the central blocks which housed the many well-equipped washrooms.

But as John was too small to see over the seats in front of them, and too young to enjoy an adult film, she paid for one set of earphones so that he could listen to the Junior Jet Club Show, a programme specially for children.

This lasted an hour, and before it was over he had curled up and fallen asleep with his thumb in his mouth and his other arm cuddling Sammy, his toy baby seal.

Very gently, Christie removed the headset without disturbing him and was able to hear the dialogue of the last part of the film.

When it was over she leaned across John to open the shutters over the porthole which passengers had been asked to close for the film show.

Now, outside, the shining white snowfields had given place to a deep blue ethereal lake on which floated hundreds of royal icing islands.

The service of afternoon tea roused John from his slumbers to find another plastic tray on the folding down table in front of him, this meal including a packet of his favourite digestive biscuits.

'I like flying, don't you, Aunt Christie?' he said, as she helped him to unwrap his scone and spread it with blackcurrant jam.

'Yes, I do,' she agreed with him, smiling.

No doubt seasoned travellers, such as his uncle, found nothing extraordinary about air travel. To her it still seemed a miracle that four hundred people, tons of luggage and the food for a three-course meal as well as this light snack could be wafted miles into the air and sped across a vast ocean which had once taken weeks to traverse.

She had already put back her wrist watch to five hours behind London time, because when they arrived it would still be mid-afternoon in Antigua's time-zone.

Thinking about landing, and of the man who would be there to meet them, she began to feel tense and keyed-up. She told herself it was merely the excitement common to all holidaymakers on nearing their destination, but deep down she knew her own feelings were more complex than the happy anticipation to be seen in the eyes of the people around her.

Half an hour before touchdown she changed John's sweater and long pants for the cotton tee-shirt and shorts she had brought in her hand luggage.

She herself had travelled in a pleated skirt with a thin blouse under a cardigan. Earlier, after the Captain had announced that the temperature in Antigua was eighty degrees, she had been to a washroom to remove her tights.

'Look . . . look . . .!' John exclaimed excitedly when, bare-legged, she returned to her seat.

Christie bent her head close to his and had her first glimpse of Antigua, a low-lying, brown-coloured island in an indigo sea paling to turquoise near the shore. As the aircraft descended towards the runway, she had the impression that most of the buildings on the island were roofed with red corrugated iron. Then the great wheels touched down and her first flight was over.

In spite of being forewarned, she was unprepared for the heat which enveloped them as they descended the steps from the cool cabin to the hot tarmac. Not everyone was leaving the aircraft which soon would fly further south to Barbados and Trinidad.

In the open there was a pleasant breeze blowing, but once; inside the low buildings of Coolidge International Airport—not as large or impressive as its name suggested—the heat became really uncomfortable for anyone wholly or partially dressed for the English

.climate.

Queueing to have her passport examined, Christie looked about for Ash. He had not been outside among the people congregated behind a wire fence, waving and calling to friends and relations. Nor was he anywhere to be seen on the other side of the immigration officers'

desks where porters were waiting to carry baggage out to the taxis she could see through the outer doorways.

'How long you stayin', ma'am?'

She returned her attention to the uniformed Anti- guan behind the desk. 'Nearly four weeks.'

A few moments later she was being asked by a porter to indicate her cases among the pile being unloaded from a trailer.

By the time she had passed through the Customs section there was still no sign of Ash. As she was wondering what to do, someone said,

'Mrs Chapman?' and she turned to find a tall and very glamorous young woman in a scarlet sun-dress looking down at her.

'Yes . . .'

Before she could say any more, the girl turned to the porter and told him to carry the cases to a white sports car.

As he moved towards it, she introduced herself. 'I'm Bettina Long.

Ash asked me to meet you. He's not here at present, but he'll be back in a day or two.'

Taking no notice of John, who was holding tightly to Christie's hand, she added, 'If you don't mind we won't hang about. I've had to shut up the shop, and there's a woman staying here this week who usually comes in to browse about this time of day. She's been spending a lot of money, so I don't want her to find the place closed. I run the boutique at the Turtle Creek Cottage Colony, which is where you'll be staying until Ash returns,' she explained.

As Bettina led the way to her car, Christie looked admiringly at the brown-satin smoothness of her shoulders under the shoestring straps of her bright red dress. Her dark hair, obviously long, was at present wound up in a coil held by two scarlet combs and adorned with a spray of red flowers. She would have been two or three inches taller than Christie in bare feet, and her height was accentuated by a sophisticated form of espadrille with high rope- covered wedges and long red tapes criss-crossed around her slim ankles.

She made Christie conscious that the synthetic lining of her own skirt was clinging uncomfortably to her legs, and of the pallor of her skin, and John's, compared with this girl's gorgeous tan.

'The child can sit in the back,' said Bettina, after tipping the porter who, in spite of the heat, was wearing a woolly hat pulled down over his hair.

The large number of Antiguans who wore some kind of headgear—shady straws, old-fashioned felt trilbys, or gaily coloured cotton headties knotted at the back of the head, not under the chin as in England—was among Christie's first-impressions of the island.

'I expected you to be much older . . . middle-aged in fact,' was Bettina's first remark, during the drive.

'Is that how Ash described me?'

'No, just my impression . . . from the fact that he said you were a widow, maybe.'

'You say he's not here. Where is he?' Christie was not sure whether she was relieved or disappointed at having their next confrontation postponed for a few days.

'In Montserrat. A friend of his there is in some kind of trouble—he didn't go into details when he rang up to ask me to meet you. He sent a message that you were to be particularly careful not to sunbathe except before nine and after four. You'd be amazed how many visitors don't take the warnings seriously and end up looking like lobsters and feeling like hell. Even ten minutes of midday sun here can fry anyone with a skin as white as yours,' said Bettina. 'If you haven't brought a beach cover-up and a tee-shirt for swimming and snorkelling, you'd better buy some from me. Ash won't be pleased if he comes back to find you with burns. It's something he's very strict about with his passengers.'

'What happens to them while he's away? Or has he none at the moment?'

'Oh, yes—it's the height of the season. But he doesn't sail
Sunbird
single-handed, and his crew can cope for a short time.'

They had left the airport behind and were motoring through open country which reminded Christie of films of the African bush. In places the dry grass was shaded by small, flat-topped trees which later she learned were acacias. An unfamiliar breed of cattle, some of them severely emaciated, were grazing the roadsides, trailing long chains behind them. Many of the beasts had a white egret for a companion.

'In general the roads here are terrible,' said Bettina, avoiding a rut in the much-patched macadam.

But the poor condition of the surface didn't cause her to reduce her speed. Turning to smile over her shoulder at John who was perched between the two up-ended suitcases, Christie wondered if Bettina always drove as fast, or only because she was in a hurry to re-open her boutique.

Was she Ash's girl-friend? she wondered.

Aloud, she asked, 'Do you live at the Cottage Colony?'

'Yes, it suits me. I'm not domesticated. Cooking bores me.

Housework—no, thanks! Living in a hotel is ideal. Apart from fixing breakfast, which is only black coffee and fruit juice, I don't have to lift a finger. The maids clean the cottage, and I have lunch by the pool and dinner in the restaurant. That's if I don't have a date to dine in St John's or at one of the other hotels.'

They were approaching a village. Most of the houses close to the road were built of wood, gaily painted in colours such as sky blue, bright pink and turquoise which would have looked garish in England but here had a gay, fresh appearance.

The houses were all single-storey, and few were much larger than a good-sized European garage while many were tiny, like garden sheds. But on the outskirts of the village and farther away from the main road there were new, more spacious block-built bungalows with white wrought iron grilles across the windowslind fenced gardens.

The gardens of the small habitations merged with each other and were full of tropical trees and shrubs ablaze with bright flowers. The only ones Christie knew by name were the purple and red bougainvillea, and the long-stemmed scarlet hibiscus.

People sitting on porches or grouped in the doorways of small shops watched the white car go past, and some waved. Christie and John returned these greetings, but Bettina ignored them and caused the elder of her passengers more than one anxious moment by not slowing where children were playing or hens were crossing the road.

Beyond the village the sound of the sports car's hooter scattered a herd of goats. They had no one with them and, when Christie expressed surprise at the absence of a herdsman, Bettina shrugged and said it was not at all unusual.

'I've no idea,' was her answer to the question as to how the goats'

owner knew where to find them. She gave the impression of taking little interest in the flora and fauna of the island.