Sweet Seduction (5 page)

Six

Giles looked amused. "Sharks can bite too. Think of those teeth."

"I shall keep well away from any."

Giles took a step towards her. He seemed to be tightly sprung with what might be unleashed anger, although she saw no reason for it. But when he put out his hand, it was only to tilt her chin with a finger. Then he brushed his thumb lightly down her slim neck to the hollow of her throat, touched a tendril of hair. It produced a sensation that left Kira powerless to move or speak.

"Such pretty eyes," he said abruptly. "But a hard heart."

With a curt nod, he dropped his hand and strode away towards the beach and the sea, back rigid as a ram-rod. Tissues of clouds fluttered in the now azure blue of the sky. Boats bobbed at anchor, sailing yachts loomed on the horizon like coloured rags.

Kira watched his departing figure in a turmoil of emotion, waiting for the thudding of her pulse to calm down. She was relieved to see him go. Giles was too much of a threat. Yet her body longed for him to touch her again. She wanted to be touched by a man. She tried to suppress her wanton thoughts.

It must be the sun, the jet-lag, the relaxing charm of a natural and beautiful island, she told herself. It was destroying her protective armour. But she knew that was not the complete truth. If she had met Giles Earl on a crowded Underground train on the coldest, dampest day in London, her reaction to him would have been exactly the same.

"I could even sort of love him one day," she said half aloud, with a sudden amazing elation. A smile broke across her face. It was like a burst of sunshine on a wintery morning.

The waiter, coming to clear the table, thought the smile was for him.

"Have a nice day, Miss Reed," he said, beaming. "Don’t worry, be happy."

Kira had a nice day. The unhurried pace of the island took hold of her, held her fast in its magic by the feet. She found the morning gone and all she had done was to make a couple of phone calls.

Next to cricket, telephoning was the second most popular pastime on the island. Perhaps there was another, but it wasn’t logged. Local calls were free and this meant that half the population were on the phone to the other half most of the day. If a Barbadian home did not have a telephone, then the place of work provided one and here it was that waiters, shop assistants, hotel staff made their social calls. Everyone else had mobiles. No-one seemed to mind if it kept everyone else waiting.

She discovered that bus fares were a uniform sum regardless of distance, and the buses into Bridgetown stopped right outside the drive of Sandy Lane. She would have no trouble getting round the island if she could get
on one of the crowded vehicles.

She ordered visiting cards – plain and simple – from a firm of local printers. They would be ready in twenty-four hours and she arranged to collect them the following day. She would be fit to face Bridgetown after a day of sunbathing, leisurely swims and an early night.

Kira could not help noticing the British ways and traditions that had survived and blended so well with the distinctive Bajan character. British place names – Worthing, Hastings, Christchurch – but so different from the counter resorts at home. The three hundred years of British occupation had left an aura of old world courtesy and industry which was a surprise and delight to jaded visitors from abroad. Traces of elegant Colonial days were everywhere.

It was the rainy season so Kira found that the beaches were not crowded. She could easily find a quiet, tranquil spot all to herself. She had only to walk northwards, away from the line of hotels whose guests did not seem to wander far from the pool.

The beaches had a life of their own. The vendors trudged the sand, flat-footed, plying their various trades with infinite patience and good humour. Melon women carried trays of fruit on their heads.

Kira was apprehensive when approached by a young man with a Western-style briefcase. He had a red rag tied round his arm. Was he selling insurance? He went down on his haunches on the sand beside her and opened the case. The base and lid
was a display unit with coral necklaces and bracelets in every possible colour and size.

"No charge to look, miss," said the young man. "My name is Moonshine. Today I have special bargains."

He draped the pretty necklaces from his fingers, dangling them in front of Kira. He wore opaque mirrored sunglasses that reflected her own face, oddly curved like mirrors at a funfair.

"Fifty dollars this one," said Moonshine, picking out a string of delicate pink and white coral. "But thirty to you."

Kira sighed. She hated saying no.

"They are very pretty," she agreed. "But this is the first day of my holiday and I don’t want to buy anything yet."

"Your first day? So how do you like Barbados so far," said Moonshine, taking off his glasses. It was obviously a signal that ended his selling patter. He was a handsome young man with smooth skin and crisp, glistening hair.

"I’m going to like it very much," said Kira, putting Giles to the back of her mind. "I haven’t had much chance to look round but everyone is so nice."

"You must go to the East coast, to the Scotland district. The sea is magnificent, rollers this high. I surf there but it is very dangerous. You should not swim there."

"You have a very unusual name."

"Moonshine is my nickname. Everyone has nicknames on the island."

"How did you get it?"

He threw back his head and laughed. "Now that would be telling. Perhaps it’s the sunglasses."

He closed his case and stood up, grinning. "Now you have a good day and don’t get yourself burnt in the sun, lady. It’s very strong. And when you want to buy a necklace, remember Moonshine. I see you on the beach. So long."

He moved off to the next potential customer. Time was money and Kira guessed he had to make the day’s quota of sales before he could relax.

During the day she was also offered – at numerous times – sarongs, fresh pineapples, carved figures and her hair braided. There were no long faces when she did not buy. The vendors were happy to have a chat and then leave her alone. She did buy a sarong; a cheerful primrose number splashed with riotous flowers. She wrapped it over her black swimsuit and saw the sense of it.

"It’s lovely," said Kira.

"You want two?" said the woman, quickly onto a second sale.

Kira shook her head. It had been simple last night to find her grandfather’s name in the telephone directory; Benjamin Reed, Fitt’s House, Fitt’s Village, St James. It was not far from where she was now, apparently. She could probably walk it if she had any sense of direction. But it needed a lot of courage to face the man who had left his only daughter to starve.

There was a balmy trade wind blowing off the sea, taking the oppressive heat out of the sun. But Kira was careful to put a shirt over her shoulders. Barbados was the most windward of the Windward Islands group, and Kira realised why it was possible to live there without air-conditioning. The first British settlers, quick to note the cooling winds, had built their houses to face them and constructed windmills to harness the power for their sugar mills. They used the same winds to carry their fleets back to England with their rich harvest of sugar and tobacco.

Kira found the beach bar she had noticed on her morning walk. If the owner took time to sweep the sand in front of his wooden bar, she reckoned he would have the same pride in the food he served.

The place was packed, mostly with people drinking rum punch at the bar. But the barman recognised her.

"So you’ve come back."

"I said I would."

"What would you like? A drink? Some food?"

"Yes, please. Can I have some sort of sandwich and a long, cool drink? Lemonade or something."

"Yes, ma’am. Coming up. Take a seat and I’ll bring it out to you."

She sat on a bench facing the sea, watching a catamaran with colourful striped sails skimming the waves, water skiers being towed by speedboats, windsurfers, a Jolly Roger pirate ship taking tourists on a cruise up the coast. Its red sails were full of wind, billowing, the faint sound of Bajan pop music floating to the shore.

The sandwich was inches high with sliced cold chicken and salad, the iced drink made with fresh limes. Kira did not think about safe drinking water, feeling sure it came from a deep island well.

"Thank you. This looks lovely."

"Best sandwiches on the West coast."

Later in the afternoon she changed into a simple black cotton skirt and striped top, tying her hair back with a scarf, and set out to find Fitt’s House. She looked casual and smart even if her clothes were from a London chain store. Tendrils of unruly chestnut hair escaped the scarf, tugged by the wind, framing a face which looked rested and glowing after only a few hours in the sun.

There were no pavements so Kira walked carefully, side-stepping over the deep drain at the roadside each time she heard a vehicle approaching. Cars, buses, carts, mopeds, bicycles passed her, all rattling and noisy, stereos blaring. She felt safer standing still till they had gone by. Rows of black faces stared and grinned at her from the bus windows, the pop music from the in-bus stereo deafening. They were interested in visitors, particularly those who chose to walk.

The traditional chattel houses were fascinating; so small, doll-like, with neat curtains at their windows and flowers by the centre door, and each one was different in some architectural aspect. As the family grew, they built a similar unit onto the back. In some homes the roof stretched back several units, going up and down at odd slopes.

She paused by a ramshackle house built of wooden planks with wide shutters and a red corrugated iron roof, a tottering veranda all round. It had been built on a rise of ground and a well-swept path led to the open front door. There seemed to be something special about the house because a woman in a brightly-coloured dress and straw hat was sitting outside and showing people in. Surely such a tumbledown place was not a tourist attraction? Kira went closer and read a notice nailed to a wall.

THIS IS THE HOME OF ANDRÉ LA PLANTE, FAMOUS

ARTIST. 1918-
1970. ALL VISITORS ARE WELCOME.

Kira went in, glad to be out of the heat for five minutes. She stood in the darkened hallway and realised that everything had been kept as it once was, as if it was still lived in by this André La Plante. The house was a capsule frozen in time.

She wandered through the rooms, looking at the ornaments and photographs and old copies of newspapers strewn on tables. His pipe was still by his chair, a faded patchwork cushion dented as if by the weight of his back. It was uncanny and Kira shivered for no reason.

The lean-to kitchen was almost primitive with an earthenware sink and a single cold water tap. Mrs La Plante, if there had been one, had had to cook on a kerosene stove and her pots and pans were battered and ancient. Kira looked with interest at the contents of the larder, the packaging outdated and brown-stained.

She went out into a backyard and followed other visitors into another open-sided wooden building. This was the artist’s studio and the walls were hung with his paintings. An easel stood in the sunlit doorway, a half-finished painting on display, his paints and brushes still on a high table at the side.

Kira took a closer look at the paintings. They were vibrant and full of colour and light, mostly native pictures, every aspect of the island and its people. One canvas in particular caught her attention. It was of a young girl, about sixteen or seventeen, running through the waves, sarong wet, her hair flying. He had caught the enthusiasm for life on her radiant face.

"That was his daughter," said another house custodian, from her rocking chair by the entrance to the studio. "Dolly La Plante, when she was a young ‘un. André was always painting her. Pretty thing but a headstrong handful of trouble, I’ve been told."

The woman grinned, her teeth large and berry-stained. She went on talking, gossiping, glad to have an audience, but Kira was hardly listening, her attention transfixed on the painting of Dolly La Plante.

*
* *

Dolly ran along the beach, kicking up the powdery white sand with her bare feet. Her hair was flying and her loose cotton dress falling from one shoulder. She clambered over a rocky peninsula into the next bay, which was quieter
and had not yet been developed.

She’d heard there were plans to build hotels all along this part of the coast. A tourist boom was predicted for Barbados now that the war was over and there were more flights from Europe and America. She did not like the idea of the privacy of the beaches being invaded by foreigners, but on the other hand they might buy her father’s paintings. They were always short of money and a few sales could mean a new stove. She was sick of cooking on that old thing.

Not that it mattered, being poor white on Barbados. It was warm. There was plenty of cheap food in the market, and although their house was old and desperately needed repairs, it could withstand the rainy season with a few strategically placed buckets and that new stuff, plastic sheeting stretched across the leaking roof.

But Dolly dreaded another hurricane. Even now the wind rattled the doors and windows and sometimes lifted the red corrugated roof. Her father’s studio would not survive the first onslaught of a big wind. The wooden outbuilding would collapse card-like on its non-existent foundations.