The House on Flamingo Cay (4 page)

CHAPTER TWO

SARA woke at six. A fortnight ago it would have seemed wonderful to stay drowsing beneath the clothes with no breakfast preparations or hurried bed-making to worry about. Now, because there was no necessity to get up, she felt wide awake and eager to begin the new day.

Angela had told her that tea and biscuits would be brought to their room at eight, so there was a time for an early swim before the resort came to life. This time, Sara left a note on the locker.

With her swim-suit under her clothes and a towel in a red canvas beach-bag, she moved quietly along the corridor and down the wide main staircase. Two colored women in bright print dresses were dusting and polishing the balustrade. They returned her shy “Good morning” with friendly beams.

The hotel did not have its own pool, and Mrs. Stuyvesant had said at dinner that everyone went over to Paradise Beach on Hog Island. But there was no one about in the reception hall to tell her how to get there, although a notice showed the way out to the sea-front.

While looking for someone of whom to enquire the way, she wandered up towards the little jetty where she had sat the day before. The trim white launch with
Flamingo
painted on the bow was still moored to the bollard. So the grey-eyed stranger was still in Nassau, she thought, with an odd thrust of excitement.

“Looking for a ferry to the beach?”

With a startled drawing-in of breath, Sara swung round, her eyes widening as she saw who had spoken to her. It was like the genie emerging from the lamp—she had been thinking of him and, suddenly, there he was.

“The hotel boat service doesn’t start till seven, but I’m just going over for a dip. You can come with me,” he offered.

“Oh ... thank you very much.”

He took her beach-bag and, with a hand on the edge of the pier, vaulted easily into the launch. Then, having stowed her bag and his own, he turned to help her down. And, for the second time, as he swung her to the deck beside him, Sara felt those strong warm hands on her waist.

Twenty minutes later, in the banana yellow bikini which Angela had insisted she should buy in preference to a modest dark one-piece, Sara ran over the sand and into the sparkling green water. She swam for about half an hour, vaguely aware that the man from the Out Islands was quite close by, but absorbed in the physical delight of diving and floating and skimming in the warm clear depths.

By the time she came out, her companion was sitting on the beach, a flask of hot coffee wedged in the sand beside him.

“Oh, that was heavenly!” Sara said, pulling off her cap. “No wonder this is called Paradise Beach.”

He handed her a beaker of coffee and, suddenly conscious of the brief cotton suit clinging wetly to her body, Sara quickly sat down and draped her towel round her shoulders.

“Why is the sand so pink?” she asked presently, sifting a handful through her fingers.

“It’s crushed coral.” He lit a cigarette and leaned on his elbow, facing her. “You must have had a mermaid in the family. That’s a pretty powerful crawl for a girl.”

“I learnt to swim very young and I love it,” Sara said, smiling. “Actually I’m badly out of practice. Since we moved to London, I’ve hardly swum at all.”

He shared the rest of the coffee between them. “I think it’s about time we introduced ourselves. My name is Stephen Rand.”

“I’m Sara Gordon.”

“Sara ... it suits you,” he said thoughtfully. “In spite of the bikini and the nail varnish, you have a rather demure air.”

Her cheeks warmed, but she tried to sound casual. “Demure sounds positively Victorian.”

“I meant it as a compliment. In Nassau one tends to get a surfeit of blasé sophistication.”

“Do you come here often? I thought you lived in the Out Islands?”

“My home’s on Flamingo Cay, but my livelihood’s here in Nassau.”

“Flamingo Cay—what a lovely name for an island. I’ve never seen a flamingo, except in films, of course.” A recollection made her smile. “Would you describe them as ‘cute’ birds?”

His eyebrows went up. “Certainly not. They’re extremely elegant and haughty.”

Without thinking about discretion, but simply because she felt like sharing her amusement, Sara told him about Mrs. Stuyvesant and some of her droll effusions. It gave her a curiously intense pleasure when he threw back his head to laugh at the description of the Lyford Cay sea-gardens as ‘Neptune’s jewel box’.

“I don’t mean to sound unkind. She’s really a very good sort,” Sara added quickly. “But I can just imagine her ‘doing’ Europe in three weeks flat and feeling terribly cosmopolitan and knowledgeable.”

Stephen Rand chuckled. “I know the type—all too well,” he said wryly. “Incidentally, the best way to see the sea-bed is to get right down to it. There are cruises out to the reefs and, with a helmet and an air-pipe, you can wander about half the day. As a matter of fact, there’s a reef-roving boat going out from your hotel this afternoon.”

“Oh, good. I’ll go.” Then Sara remembered the lunch-date Angela had made. “Oh, bother—I can’t after all. I’ve got to have lunch on some vast American yacht. What a pity.”

“You can go another time. The sea floor is there for ever, but the big yachts come and go.”

“All the same, I’d much rather go down a reef.”

He got to his feet, his tanned skin bronze in the sunlight. “Time we were getting back or your sister will wonder where you are.” He held out a hand to help her up.

“I left her a note.” Sara collected her belongings. “I think I’d better change, if you can wait a minute. The hotel may not approve of people in wet suits.”

“Right. I’ll stroll ahead.”

It took only a few minutes to dodge behind a palm and peel off the wisps of damp cotton. Sara hoped she would feel less conspicuous in them by the time she had acquired a decent tan.

When she rejoined him, Stephen was also dressed. He must have pulled his drill slacks over his wet swimming shorts. Somehow she couldn’t imagine him in the formality of a lounge suit.

“If you want to swim again tomorrow, I’ll be coming over about seven,” he said, when they were in the boat again. “Most people spend half the night in clubs, so the beach isn’t crowded until later.”

“Thank you very much, for the ferry and for the coffee.”

“It’s been my pleasure.” His smile had a hint of mockery. “I gather you’ve stifled your qualms about making friends with strange men. Yesterday afternoon you seemed a bit suspicious of me.”

“It’s always a consideration,” Sara said evenly.

“What reassured you? My honest face?” he asked, laughing.

“I suppose I just took the risk,” she answered candidly. “After all, with a lift in a boat, one can always jump over the side and swim for the shore.”

“I believe you’d do it, too,” he said amusedly. “I’m beginning to think you’re more the Out Islands type. One of these days, when you aren’t booked up with the yachting fraternity, I’ll take you over to my cay and you can practice what they taught you in the Girl Guides.”

Sara laughed. “I never got further than the Brownies—but I’d love to visit your cay. Does it really belong to you?”

He nodded. “You could lease one yourself if you wanted to. Providing there’s fresh water, and you don’t mind n diet of fish and lobsters, you could live for practically nothing in a nice little palm-thatch shack.”

“I wish I could,” Sara said dreamily. “But once my money runs out—” She broke off sharply, her cheeks flaming. In an attempt to cover the slip, she said hurriedly: “It sounds idyllic, but I suppose one can never escape civilization indefinitely. It would be nice to shelve some of the dreary things, but I’m not sure that I could live alone for ever, or without books and music.”

“Oh, naturally you’d find a mate before you marooned yourself,” he said gravely. “You could take the books and a gramophone with you.”

“If you think it’s such a good idea, why don’t you stay on your cay all the time?” she asked, smiling. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her gaffe, or, if he had, had not been curious about it.

Stephen shrugged. “Like you, I’d need a companion. So far, I haven’t found a girl who wants to do the laundry in a creek and cook over a camp fire. They’re a decadent lot. They all seem dependent on washing machines and pressure cookers.”

They had reached the pier, and this time, after he had swung her up on to the planking, she was able to fasten the mooring line correctly.

“See you tomorrow, then,” he said, handing up her beach-bag. “Have fun with your affluent Americans.”

It was five minutes to eight when Sara got back to the bedroom, and Angela was still asleep. It was only as she threw away her scribbled note that Sara remembered Stephen saying something about them getting back before her sister wondered where she was. As she rinsed her swim-suit in the hand-basin, she tried to remember having mentioned Angela to him. But she was almost certain that she had not, so how could he possibly have known?

A young West Indian chambermaid came to call them. As well as tea and biscuits, there was a bowl of oranges, already peeled and divided, the juicy segments arranged on a bed of green leaves.

Sara had thanked the maid and was pouring the tea, when Angela stirred and woke.

“Mm, this is certainly life!” she said with luxurist satisfaction as, pillows heaped behind her, she nibbled a sugary shortbread.

“I’ve been out for a swim,” said Sara.

“Good heavens—at this hour? But you were always rather a Spartan.”

“The water was almost tepid.”

“All the same, I think I’ll keep my swim-suit dry. The best of caps always seem to leak, and salt water plays hell with one’s hair,” Angela said firmly. She could swim well enough to save herself from drowning, but she had never shared Sara’s love of bathing and preferred to ornament the beach.

They were the first to arrive on the terrace and had almost finished breakfast before anyone else appeared.

“What shall we do this morning? Look round the shops?” Angela suggested, as they lingered over their coffee.

“All right.”

“What time are we going to this yacht?”

“Oh, about noon. I think I’ll wear pants and a shirt. It won’t be at all formal.”

So they spent the morning investigating the shops, the open-air straw market having more appeal for Sara than the fashionable boutiques along Bay Street. Clothes, mostly British-made, were far more expensive than in London, but there were a great many specialist scent shops and the prices on the pretty crystal flasks were much lower than at home. Angela bought herself a flask of
Bahamour,
which the salesgirl said had been specially created for the islands. Then, further along the street, she discovered that real tortoise-shell was also quite inexpensive, and bought a matching cigarette case and holder.

Sara was content with a shady sombrero from the bustling Rawson Square market which saved her wearing sun-glasses.

The Pillbakers’ yacht was anchored off Love Beach on the north-west side of the island, and Conrad drove them over in a hired Cadillac coupe. Angela sat beside him, and Sara shared the back seat with Mrs. Stuyvesant, now in a girlish beach-dress and jangling charm bracelets.

A West Indian lad was waiting to take them out to the yacht by dinghy, and as they neared the imposing craft they could hear laughter and squeals and splashing coming from the seaward side of the boat. It sounded as if about twenty people were having a boisterous water-game, and Sara thought wistfully of the quiet reef-roving trip which she had to forgo for this.

However, it appeared that most of the visitors had been paying a cocktail call and were now on the point of departure so that, eventually, there were only five people left under the gaily striped awning. There was stout, jovial Mr. Pillbaker in a Palm Beach shirt and yachting cap, tiny kittenish Mrs. Pillbaker, their husky blue-eyed son, Joe and the girl who had been responsible for most of the squeals, a pretty vivacious teenager called Dolores. And there was also a man named Peter Laszlo, who had the physique of a Greek discus-thrower but a cynical and dissipated face, whose presence was unexplained. He had a slight mid-European accent, and Sara noticed that although, throughout luncheon, he was charmingly attentive to all the other women, he never once spoke to Angela.

In spite of Angela’s prediction, Joe Pillbaker was no more interested in Sara than she in him. About four o’clock, when the party showed no signs of breaking up, and she thought no one was likely to miss her for a while, Sara swam off by herself. It was only about sixty yards to the beach and she sat in the limpid shallows, her arms round her updrawn legs. The wind had dropped for a time and the sea was glassy still. In the lee of the yacht the water looked almost violet.

Sara had closed her eyes and was resting her cheek on her knee when a sudden splashing made her look up. Peter Laszlo was wading in to her.

“The Americans bore you, Miss Gordon?” he asked, returning her smile.

“Oh, no! I like them. I—I just felt like coming over here.”

“May I join you? Or do you prefer to be alone?”

“Please do,” she said politely.

He unzippered a waterproof packet in his shorts. “You don’t smoke, I think,” he said, taking out cigarettes. When he had lit up, he sat down in the water beside her.

It was Sara who broke the silence. “What part of Europe do you come from, Mr. Laszlo?”

“I was Hungarian,” he said, without expression. “Now, I am what you might call a wanderer.”