Antigua Kiss (7 page)

At lunch they were joined by Bettina, who asked if she might share their table. Christie had the distinct impression that until she entered the restaurant and saw them sitting there, Bettina had forgotten their existence and was not too pleased to be reminded of it.

But she made some effort to be affable, although from time to time, after asking Christie a question, her pale eyes would slide away to one of the other tables, making it clear she was not greatly interested in the answers to her enquiries.

Not wishing to bore her, Christie changed the subject to clothes, asking Bettina if the ones she was wearing were locally made.

'No, these are imported from Singapore,' said the other girl, glancing down at her wraparound skirt and cotton top. Both were bright sky blue, wax-printed with white flower motifs round the hem of the skirt and on the sleeves of the top.

'This shaggy bag is local—and rather fun, don't you think?' she asked, indicating the shoulder bag she had put on the empty fourth chair.

It was made from scraps of bright cotton in many colours and patterns. As Bettina ruffled them with her long, red-lacquered fingertips, Christie could see that each scrap was a narrow rectangle about four times the length of its width, stitched half way along to a backing and then folded double.

'These are a development of the rag rugs which the island seamstresses used to make from the scraps left over from dresses,'

Bettina explained. 'I think they're nicer than most of the straw bags on sale. They're nearly all spoilt by having
Antigua
worked on them. Not chic!'—with a slight grimace.

'And your jewellery—that's very unusual,' remarked Christie, glad to have hit the other girl's wavelength.

'Have you never seen sand dollars before?' Bettina's fingertips went to the thin gilded discs attached to a chain round her neck, and matched by smaller disc ear-rings. 'In their natural state they're white shells, extremely brittle. These have been gold- plated. You'll find them on sale in most Caribbean resorts, and in New York too. I'm surprised you haven't seen them in London.'

'I don't live in central London so I don't very often go to the top fashion stores. Hardly ever, in fact,' Christie explained.

'Really?' Bettina looked astonished, as if she couldn't imagine anyone living in the purlieus of a city, far from the best stores and boutiques.

'You must take some back with you. They're not expensive. Would you like to come and look round the shop? It's a quiet time now, after lunch.'

They accompanied her back to her shop which was small but artistically arranged with a glass- topped counter in the centre to contain the more valuable pieces of costume jewellery, and rails and shelves round the walls for the dresses and accessories.

'No word from Ash yet, I'm afraid,' said Bettina, as she changed the sign on the door from
Closed
to
Open,
'I thought he might call me last night, but he must have been too busy.'

Christie didn't like to say that he had rung her, in case Bettina might be piqued. With a murmured injunction to John not to touch, she had a look round, seeing many things she would have liked to add to her own very basic holiday wardrobe.

However, she knew it would be foolish to buy anything which had no place in her real life, and few of these attractive resort clothes were really suitable for England, even in a heatwave.

They were designed for people who could afford several holidays a year in places where the sun shone every day and the nights were warm and balmy. But when, once this trip was over, would she ever have the chance to wear an ankle-length emerald gauze beach wrap, or a backless black and white evening dress?

'You have marvellous taste, Bettina, but I'm afraid I'm not going to be the kind of customer for whom you were hurrying back yesterday,'

she said frankly. 'Did she come in as you expected?'

'Yes, but only to bring back a skirt she had chosen the day before and then decided she didn't like. They're tiresome old bitches, a lot of the women who stay here, and whatever they wear doesn't make them look any less haggish.'

Christie glanced up from bending over the jewellery counter to see Bettina studying her own reflection in the full length mirror.

'You'd look wonderful, whatever you wore,' she said sincerely.

The other girl shrugged. 'Perhaps, but it's maddening to sell super clothes to people who look nothing in them. Oh, here she comes now.

You'd better go.'

As a stout older woman entered the shop, and John and Christie left it, she heard Bettina say sweetly, 'Hello, how are you today? Did you have a good time at the Casino last night?'

Not a happy person, Bettina, Christie thought as they strolled back to the cottage. I do hope she isn't Ash's girl-friend. She wouldn't be kind to John. He would be a nuisance in her eyes.

* * *

On the fourth morning after their arrival, when Christie took off her nightie before going for her early dip, there was a perceptible difference between the flesh covered by her bathing suit and the rest of her. At last, if only very slightly, she was beginning to brown.

Whereas one or two recent arrivals who had tried to hasten the process had only succeeded in achieving painful red patches.

There had been no further calls from Ash, either to herself or to Bettina. Although she disliked having to admit it, she found herself beginning to feel some impatience for his return.

That morning she was able to swim two hundred strokes without being even mildly puffed, and she knew that already this open-air life she was leading had exercised neglected muscles and improved the tone of her skin.

Surprisingly very few holidaymakers came down to the beach before breakfast. This morning she had it to herself until, on the third and final lap of her walk, when the breezy sunshine had already dried her arms and legs, she saw a man leave the gardens and cross the beach to the sea's edge.

At first, from a distance, she took him for someone staying at the Colony. And then he turned in her direction, and his height and something about his bearing made her catch her breath slightly. But it couldn't be Ash, not at this hour. Surely it couldn't.

That it was Ash, she knew for certain when he raised an arm and waved to her. What was he doing here so early? He must have flown over last night. Even so, seven o'clock in the morning seemed a peculiar time to call on her. For all he knew, she might be enjoying sleeping late, as most of the other guests seemed to. Unless . . . unless he had spent the night at the Colony, in Bettina's cottage, and had come to the beach merely to swim, not expecting to find Christie up yet.

As these thoughts were going through her mind, the distance between them was lessening, and her heart was beginning to beat in quick, nervous thumps.

During his stay at her flat she had been aware of the strength of his tall, lithe body. Now, as he strode towards her wearing only the briefest of briefs, the pattern of muscle from his broad shoulders down to his hips made her think of a suit of bronze armour. He was as splendidly built as any of the young Antiguans who came to the beach at this hour to exercise and swim before work.

Her mind shied away from a mental picture of Ash and Bettina, both naked, in a narrow bed. For the rest of the way, until they were within speaking distance, Christie averted her gaze and pretended an interest in the goats which were grazing on the open land outside the boundary of the gardens surrounding the Colony.

'Good morning. I didn't expect you to be about for some time yet.

Most people, having adjusted to Antigua time, tend to like to "lie in",'

were his first words.

'But this is the best time of day. I love it down here before breakfast.'

Only after this preliminary exchange were they close enough to shake hands, and the warm, firm clasp of his fingers sent a curious tremor down her spine.

She would have withdrawn her hand quickly, but his strong grip forced her to wait until he ended the contact, and this he did not do until he had looked her up and down, and said, 'You've been sensible, I'm glad to see. By the end of the week you'll be a very nice colour.

Already you've lost that sickly look.'

'Sickly! I may have been white, but I wasn't unhealthy,' she protested.

'Wait till you go back, and see if you don't agree that people with white skins look sickly. You've been in already, I see. Will you join me in another dip?'

Christie shook her head. 'I must go back and fetch John for his bathe.

He wakes up later than I do, but he has a swim before breakfast.'

'Okay. I'll see you presently.'

Ash turned to sprint into the sea for a flying header which flung up a shower of spray. He came up with his face to the sun, black hair glistening and teeth very white as he grinned at her. 'This is the life!'

Yes, for a favoured few, she thought as she turned away. But not many can live like this. Even the Antiguans themselves could not all remain in their birthplace. The maid who serviced the cottage had spoken of a cousin in London, and a sister who had gone to America.

A life in the sun, surrounded by beauty and peace, was almost everyone's pipe-dream, but one very seldom realised.

'And not by me, that's for sure,' Christie murmured aloud, as she dabbled her feet in one of the troughs of salt water in which guests were asked to rinse their feet to reduce the amount of sand going into the Colony's drains.

She found John feeding crumbs to greckels and sparrows, with an apricot-breasted Zenaida dove bobbing about outside the verandah until her arrival made it fly off.

When they returned to the beach, Ash seemed to have disappeared.

Then she saw him far out in the bay, halfway to the deep-water reef where a line of white breakers marked the great barrier of coral between the indigo of the ocean and the lighter colours of the protected water. Even when she had the stamina to swim as far as that and back, she doubted if she would do so. There might be no danger in it, but she had overheard snorkellers speaking of barracuda and kingfish, and she did not fancy the idea of being far from the shore with a large fish close by.

While she inflated John's armlets, she watched Ash returning with the steady, slow-motion strokes of the powerful, experienced swimmer.

With him she would feel safe out there, but she wouldn't be able to keep up with him.

'Here comes Uncle Ash,' she told John, as she put on the armlets.

The little boy ran into the water and, completely fearless, began a strenuous dog-paddle in the direction of the man surging towards him.

His enthusiastic splashing did not carry him far, but he was well out of his depth by the time his uncle stopped swimming and, in a single movement, stood up with the child in his hands.

'Hello, boy. How are you?'

He kissed him and lifted him high before swinging down with a rapid, water-chute motion which made Christie gasp with dismay until she saw that John loved it.

He was shrieking with laughter, and shouting, 'Again . . . again!'

Ash obliged him with three more upswings and rapid descents. The last time, he said, 'Close your mouth and hold your nose,' so that when he let go of the boy, although John was swamped for a moment, he didn't swallow any water and survived the experience still beaming.

'Have you got a mask and some flippers?' Ash asked him.

John shook his head.

'Later on we'll go into town and buy some for you—and for Aunt Christie too, if she likes?' Ash gave her an enquiring look as she came into the water to join them.

'Isn't he a bit small for snorkelling? Shouldn't he learn to swim first?'

'Snorkelling will teach him to swim. Like a ride, John?'

Ash crouched so that John could climb on his back, then set off with a leisurely breast-stroke.

Following a few yards behind them, Christie could not deny that the easy, demonstrative way in which Ash had greeted his nephew had been rather touching. A woman might be able to put on an affectionate manner towards a child, but she did not think men were as adept at playing a part—or not in relation to small fry. Either they were genuinely good with children, or they were not. Clearly Ash was good.

But even if, temperamentally, he might be well suited to the role imposed on him by his brother's death, there remained a problem.

Like her, Ash had his living to earn. He couldn't give all his time to the child, and he didn't have a wife who could do so. Only a succession of girl-friends who, if Bettina was a sample, were unlikely to want a child included in their relationships with him.

'Are your friend's troubles sorted out now?' she asked, as they came out of the water.

He shrugged. 'For a while. Not permanently, I'm afraid. I doubt if anything can mend a marriage as far on the rocks as his is. It's a pity: they're both nice people, just totally unsuited to live together, particularly in the testing conditions of a small yacht. Everyone else could see it wouldn't work from the word go. But they were in love, and love overrules common sense. Or would you disagree?'

'No . . . no, I think love does blind people, not only to other people's shortcomings, but to their own.'

He gave her an intent glance which made her wish she had not enlarged on her answer. To her relief he did not pursue the subject, but said, 'Will you join me for breakfast in the restaurant? As you know, I like to start the day with something more substantial than the orange juice and coffee which is all you have here, I daresay.'

And all you would get at Bettina's cottage, she thought, as she said, 'A little more than that, but nothing substantial. Why don't you collect us when you're ready? About what time are you thinking of leaving for town?'

'The shops in St John's are open from eight until noon, and again from one until four. We'll leave here about nine, if that suits you?'

'Perfectly, but I should have thought, after being away for some days, you would have had more important things to do than taking us shopping for snorkelling kit.'

'No, I've managed to arrange my affairs so that, providing no more unforeseen emergencies crop up, I can give a good deal of my time to showing you the places of interest. See you both later.'