Sugar in the Morning (14 page)

“Man, that’ll need a stitch!” she screamed at him.

“It’ll need mo
r
e than that!” he grinned back.

She wriggled a hand in under her voluminous skirts and brought out a needle and thread and kneeling beside him, proceeded to sew up his trousers, while the band played on.

I caught the bus to Garenage with plenty of time to spare. There were one or two other swimmers who had come running on board at the very last moment, but for the greater part the island was taken up exclusively with the Carnival and few people had the time to spare. The ride out to the beach took no more than twenty minutes, before we were deposited outside the gates of the American base which guards the shore from there.

As a beach it was not as favoured as the one at Maracas, but looking round I couldn’t see why not. I thought I had never seen such a clean beach as this one. Even the bases of the trees were neatly whitewashed and there were no empty cans, blowing newspapers, or any other litter such as I had somehow expected. Instead there was a glorious view, real sand, and a row of charming Nicaraguan cacao trees with pink flowers breaking out all over them.

From here I could see the two arms that the Island stretched forth towards the mainland, almost enclosing the Gulf of Paria. In the north were the Dragon’s Mouths, in the south, the Serpents, such narrow straits that the Gulf was practically a lake between them, totally protected from the Atlantic, an ideal bed for shrimps and other sea-foods, and a fine natural harbour.

That morning they had been loading bauxite from Guyana into barges at the loading plant half a mile along the coast, and the dust had blown over the water
in
yellow clouds, adding an enchantment to the endless blue reflection of the bright blue sky above. I stood and watched it for a moment, scuffing the sand between my toes, and half a dozen tangerine butterflies flew about my head.

There were a few other people already on the beach when our group came flying off the bus, running straight on to the sands, some of them stripping off their clothes as they went, to reveal brightly coloured swimming suits underneath, in their hurry to get into the water. I was in no such hurry. I was content to stand and stare, to watch the strong, spare figures of the young men and women as they sported themselves in the warm waters, their dusky features breaking into laughter as often as the waves lapped against the edge of the beach.

But there were others who were not swimming. I had not noticed the lone man who was lying in the sun not far from where I was standing, but he had noticed me. As I walked along the beach, he rose suddenly and almost tripped me up.

“Day-dreaming?” he asked me. “Was it a pretty dream?”

I tried to ignore him, but his voice called after me. “Man, I’m telling you, this isn’t a place to be alone!”

“He’s right, you know,
”
Daniel’s voice added behind me.

I turned on my heel, furious. Could he possibly have followed me here? It would be just like him! I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but, happily, common sense came to my aid and I realised that he could not possibly have known that I was coming here.

“Hullo, long legs,” he said with a grin.

“Hullo yourself
!”
I retorted.

He sat down on the sand and pulled me down beside him. “What are you doing here?” he asked me. “Escaping all the noise and confusion?”

I shook my head. “Not exac
tl
y,” I explained. “I wanted time to think though, and I think they’re having some kind of rehearsal for tomorrow.” I smiled faintly. “They’re all ready to go, aren’t they?”

“Why not? Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I find all the colour and the noise of the competing bands rather confusing.”

He laughed. “That’s the trouble with the English,” he said, “they don’t know how to relax—and they don’t know that when they’re beaten, they might just as well enjoy their defeat!” he added mysteriously.

“They would have lost a lot of wars if they had!” I answered crossly.

He grinned, not at all put out by my ill-humour. “But individual Englishmen fight their individual battles as if they were all great wars,” he commented drily. “Even Englishwomen are ungraceful in defeat!”

It occurred to me that perhaps he wasn’t really, talking about the English at all, but how he had managed to get my signature on the document that gave him access to the sugar plantation he wanted.

“I’m not sure that I am defeated
!”
I snapped.

He laughed aloud at that. “My dear long legs, you have a lot to learn about yourself, haven’t you?”

I looked him straight in the eyes. “Perhaps we both have,” I suggested. His eyes didn’t blink as I had expected that they would. He stared straight back at me and I could feel my anger with him dissolving into warm embarrassment. Quite suddenly, I didn’t think he had been talking about sugar at all, but about
us.
It was I who looked away, uncomfortably aware of the colour on my cheeks. I was almost thankful when a vision of Pamela came floating into my mind and I knew that he couldn’t have meant
that
at all! I swallowed nervously and looked away from him, across the sea, counting off the thickly wooded islands from one end of the horizon to the other.

“Is Pamela coming for the Carnival too?” I asked sweetly.

Daniel shrugged his shoulders indifferently, but I noticed that he was no longer smiling. “I think not,” he said. “She’s seen it all before.”

“So have you,” I pointed out, relieved to have found a much safer ground for our conversation.

“But I’m a
tru
e Trinidadian,” he mocked himself. “I can’t resist the noise and confusion, and sleeping in the park because there’s no time to go to bed, and—oh well, and everything about it. Pamela is an American citizen and I’m afraid that, secretly, she finds it all rather uncivilised.”

“Oh?” I tried to sound unconcerned, tried indeed to smother the quick sensation of triumph that rose within me when I saw that in this, at least, she had failed Daniel’s expectations. He was committed to Carnival and she was not!

He looked amused. “But you, I imagine, will be quite prepared to rough it in the park for a couple of nights?”

“We-ell,” I said doubtfully. He laughed out loud and after a while I found myself joining him. It was too ridiculous, and deep down I wasn’t in the least amused because I was beginning to wonder what I would not do to gain his approval. But I smothered the thought, refusing to face up to what it could mean.

“We ought to celebrate!” he said suddenly. “Aaron phoned me and told me that the deal was signed and sealed. I half expected you to be having a family party.”

I laughed grimly. “Some party! Wilfred doesn’t want to have anything more to do with sugar. Cuthbert seems
quite indifferent as to what happens, and my uncle wasn’t even there to tell!”

Daniel looked quite sad and I wondered why. “I’m here,” he said.
“
We
c
ould celebrate
!”

“You mean you could!” I said in a voice devoid of all expression.

There was a very long, almost unbearable silence, then Daniel said
:
“Tell me, why did you sign if you felt like that?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I thought it the best thing to do.” I thought for a minute. “Besides, there’s the house. It’s a lovely house, isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to live in a house like that.”

“And now you own it,” he reminded me.

I looked at him steadily. “Do I?” I said.

He leaned forward until his face was very close to mine. This was dangerous, I thought. Soon I’d be hoping that he would kiss me and then where would I be? Weren’t my affairs complicated enough? Life would be so much easier if I could dislike him and let him get on with things, without having unruly emotions popping up to confound me at every other moment. I looked away, wriggled to my feet and stood looking down at him, suddenly glad of every inch of my height. “I’m going to swim,” I announced.

He rose lazily to his feet and I couldn’t help thinking how gracefully he moved. “Okay, I’ll swim with you.

“You needn’t bother!” I said.

“It’s no bother.”

“Well, it is to me!” I shot back at him, goaded beyond endurance.

“So I see,” he said quietly. “I wonder why?”

He was impossible! I was quite sure of that! I ran straight into the sea and found it warm and very much to my taste. I was surprised to see that quite a number of people had come on to the beach since my own
a
rrival. There was a group of children playing tag on the silver sands and some more who were making use of the trade winds to fly their kites high over the trees. One of them I could see reflected in the still, idly-lapping waters of the sea, until I broke up the reflection by swimming through it, and watched it form again behind me as the waters stilled and became glassy once more.

Daniel was a much better swimmer than I. His arms clove through the water and he had caught me up almost without trying.

He grinned at me. “You’ll have to run faster than that
!”
he said smugly.

I flipped some water into his face and dived just in time to escape his vengeance. The water was glorious against my body and I felt free and knew that I was swimming better than I ever had before. I came up for breath and dived again, knowing that I was showing off and surprised to find that I was enjoying it so much. When I surfaced again, Daniel was still beside me, though, drifting with the ease of the born swimmer and keeping exactly where he wanted to be by the occasional flap of a hand or foot.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“You don’t know how much!” I exclaimed.

“Good,” he said casually. “We’ll go across the road and have a meal.” He swam quickly towards the shore, leaving me to follow as well as I could. By the time I had reached the sand and could feel the full force of the hot sun on my still-pale body, he was already rubbing himself down with a gaudily coloured towel.

I put my clothes straight on over my damp swimming-suit, knowing that I would regret it when the salt rubbed into my skin and became itchy, but there was nowhere on the beach where one could go
for privacy. Daniel was waiting for me when I hastily pulled a comb through my wet hair and tried to concentrate while I put on some lipstick and noted with annoyance that the sun had burned my face and that the powder I had with me was as white as flour against the new tan. I would have to do without, I thought, and I didn’t really care.

There was a little hotel just beside the beach. It had a shady terrace from which one could stare out at the sea and catch a glimpse of the Venezuelan coast in the distance. The menu was chalked up on a blackboard but was none the less quite sophisticated in the choice that was offered. I chose a curry of sea-foods which arrived, properly cooked in the authentic Indian manner, in enormous quantities, great piles of scampi, prawns and other fish, surrounded by splendidly dry rice that still had a bite to it. They wanted us to drink rum, but this I refused apologetically. I was already dizzy from the sun and the sea.

“We’ll have wine,” Daniel announced. “It’s been quite a day for you after all!”

“I suppose it has,” I agreed slowly. “But it seemed quite ordinary. I thought I’d feel different when I had actually signed on the dotted line. But I don’t. Does that make sense to you?”

“You’ve thought about it all too much,” he suggested gent
l
y.

I forced a smile. “It’s possible,” I agreed wryly.

He leaned back in his chair and studied my face ove
r
the top of his glass. “Won’t you trust me, Camilla?”

I was at a loss to know what to say. “I do trust you, more or less,” I managed. “Only I’d feel happier if I thought the Longuet place was going to make any profits. Why didn’t you buy it for yourself?”

He grinned. “I like nice neighbours,” he said.

I coloured slightly. “Mrs. Longuet didn’t think that the Ironsides made very nice neighbours,” I reminded him quickly.

“Perhaps she hadn’t noticed your beautiful legs,” he drawled. “Unlike
Mr.
Longuet,” he added with a touch of malice.

“Perhaps she didn’t think that one’s legs had much to do with one’s neighbourliness
!”
I retorted.

“It’s possible.”

“Meaning that you agree with her?” I pressed him.

“On the contrary, I like nice legs about me,” he assured me seriously, so seriously that I knew he was teasing me.

“I may yet set fire to your barns
!”
I warned him.

He looked amused. “I think not,” he said at last. “Any fires you light would be far more dangerous to my peace of mind—”

“I don’t know
what
you’re talking about!” I said flatly. “And I don’t think you do either!” I took a deep breath. “I can’t eat another bite of this curry!”

He signalled to the waiter to take it away and refilled my glass with the last of the wine. “Camilla my love, will you do something for me?”

I looked at him curiously. I had almost said yes before I had thought, but I still had my doubts about his motives. “It depends on what it is,” I said cautiously.

“Shall we cry a truce until the Carnival is over?” he suggested. His voice was soft and persuasive and there was nothing left of the superior arrogance that I had associated with him for so long.

“If yo
u
like,” I said shyly.

“Good.” He gave me a well-satisfied look. “Tell me all about your costume and I’ll tell you about mine. If they match, we could even dance together.”

“Patience is making mine,” I told him. “I think
Wilfred provided all the materials, but really, I haven’t
s
een it yet. What’s yours?”

“I’m a Tudor gentleman,” he said loftily. “I’m attached to the Harry Tudor Band.”

I chuckled. “Perhaps I’ll be Queen Elizabeth,” I said idly.

But he shook his head at once. “I don’t think your fates go hand in
hand,” he said mysteriously.

“That’s all you know!” I protested indignantly. “She wasn’t beautiful either, but she had magnificence, didn
’
t she? If you’re as tall as I am, that’s about as much as one can hope to achieve
!
”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” he said drily. His eyes filled with laughter, but he gave me no time to question him as to what it was that he had meant. He rose abruptly and calling the waiter over, he paid the bill, adding a great fat tip which opened the young man’s eyes until the whites showed all the way round the deep brown colour that usually hid his thoughts from the customers who frequented the hotel. “Thank
you,
sir!” he exclaimed with the broadest grin I had ever seen.

I stood on the edge of the verandah and took a last look at Venezuela and the thickly wooded isles that stood out against the yellow clouded sea. It was perfect, I thought. Everything about it was perfect.

“Come on,” said Daniel, “I’ll drive you home.”

I, turned and put my hand in his. “It was a lovely lunch. Thank you very much,” I said warmly.

He smiled, his eyes crinkling in the corners. “It will be better still tomorrow,” he prophesied.

Much better, I agreed to myself, and wondered how Pamela could think otherwise. It was very strange, I thought, for if Daniel had been mine, I’d have danced right through the Carnival beside him and gloried in it.

As it was I knew I would pretend all sorts of things to myself tomorrow, but pretending wasn’t the same thing in the cold light of day. I sighed and took my hand back from his. The salt from my costume added to my irritation and I stood there, scratching at my back while he brought round the car.