The Forever Girl (7 page)

She would go back to the house and shower before going to the supermarket to stock up with provisions for the weekend. After that … She kept a diary near the telephone and she envisaged the page for today. There was something at six-thirty – one of those invitations that pointedly did not include dinner. She remembered the name of the hosts: the Hills. They were white Jamaicans who had got out when most of their fellow white Jamaicans had left, cold-shouldered out of the only country they knew, fleeing from the growing violence and lawlessness. There had been a diaspora – some had gone to the United States and Britain; others took the shorter step to the Caymans, where the climate was the same and political conditions kinder. They also fitted in better there: the Caymanians understood them and
they understood the Caymanians. The other expatriates – the Australians, the Americans, the British – were not sure how to take them. Here were people who seemed to have a lot in common with them but spoke with a West Indian lilt in their voice, who had been in the Caribbean for six or more generations. They were different.

There would be the Hills’ drinks party and then a cooling swim at home, followed by a movie that David would go to sleep in front of; and then the day would end. Another Saturday, like all the other Saturdays.

She watched the players on the court. It was getting too hot to play, really, even in December, and they were all slowing down, hardly bothering to run for the ball. Easy returns were missed because it was just too much effort to exert oneself sufficiently. The score wandered aimlessly.

“Far too hot for tennis, isn’t it?”

She looked round. George was standing behind her. He was dressed in a pair of khaki chinos and a blue T-shirt. She realised that she had never seen him in casual attire and had pictured him only in his more formal working clothes.

She laughed. “I played earlier. I’m glad I did.”

He drew up a chair and sat down. As he did so, she glanced along the veranda to see who else was there. There was a woman she knew she would see at the Hills’ later that day – she was very close to their hosts, a fellow Jamaican exile. There was that teacher from the prep school, the man who taught art, she thought, or was it gymnastics? She did not know the others, although she had seen them at the club before. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her, or to George.

“I didn’t know you played,” she said. She had never seen him
at the tennis club before.

He was holding his car keys and he fiddled with these as he replied. “I don’t. I was driving past. I noticed your car.”

She caught her breath. It was not accidental; he had sought her out.

He waited for a moment before continuing. “So I thought I’d drop by. I was going somewhere else.”

“Yes?”

“I sold the yacht and bought an old powerboat. It’s seen better days, but it goes. I don’t know if you’d heard.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I thought maybe James had mentioned something to Clover. He’s terribly proud of it.” He slipped the keys into his pocket. “They seem to spend a lot of time together, those two.”

“They’re very friendly. There’s a bit of hero-worship going on, I think.”

He smiled broadly. “Oh? Him or her?”

“Girl worships boy, I think.”

“Childhood friendships,” he said. “They might not find it so easy when they hit adolescence. Friendship becomes more complicated then.”

“Your boat …”

“Is nothing special. I can’t afford anything expensive. And it’s not a sailing boat like the one David and I went out in. It’s a knockabout old cruiser with an outboard that’s seen better days. It can get out to the reef and back, but that’s about it.”

She said that she thought that this was all one needed. “Where else is there to go?” she asked.

“Precisely.”

“Those great big monsters …”

“Gin palaces.”

“Yes. Why do people need them?”

He smiled. “They can go to Cuba. Or to Jamaica. But it’s really all about extensions to oneself, to one’s ego. Those are
look at me
boats.” He paused. “I was just heading over there. To the boat. Why not come and see it? We could go over to Rum Point. Or out to the reef if you liked.”

She had not been prepared for an invitation and it took her some time to answer. She should say no; she should claim, quite rightly, that she had to go to the supermarket. But now, in his presence, she found it impossible to do what she knew she should do.

“How long would it take?”

“As long or as short a time as you want. Fifteen minutes to get there. Ten minutes to get things going. Then forty minutes out and forty minutes in, depending on the wind and what the sea’s doing.”

She looked at her watch.

“What’s everybody doing?” he asked. She realised that this was his way of asking where David was.

“I think that Clover’s with James. Out on their bicycles, I think. Billy’s at that dolphin place with Margaret. David’s working.”

“Does he ever take any time off?”

“Sundays, usually. Otherwise … no, he’s pretty busy.” She looked at him. His eyes were registering pleasure at what she said.

“How about it?”

The sea was calm as they edged out into the sound. They had boarded the boat in the canal along which he moored it – a thin
strip of water that provided access to four or five rather run-down houses. Dogs barked from the bank as the boat made its way towards the sea; a large Dobermann, ears clipped, kept pace with them, defending its territory with furious snarls.

She pointed to one of the houses. “Who lives in these places?” she asked.

“You can tell from the dogs,” he said. “That Dobermann belongs to a man who owns two liquor stores, and a bar.” He made a calming gesture towards the dog. “Dogs are aspirational here. Like boats.”

She laughed. “That’s his boat there?” She pointed to a gleaming white vessel. A towering superstructure was topped with a bristling forest of aerials and fishing rods.

“Must be.”

Once in the sound he opened the throttle and the boat surged forward across the flat expanse of sea. The sky was high and empty of all but a few cumulus clouds on the horizon, off towards Cuba. The water was a light turquoise colour, the white sand showing a bare six feet below. Here and there, patches of undulating dark disclosed the presence of weed. In the distance, a line of white marked their destination, the reef that protected the sound from the open sea beyond. That was the point at which the seabed began to drop until, a few hundred yards further out, it reached the edge of the deep and fell away into hundreds of feet of darkness. The dive boats went there, dropping their divers down the side of a submarine cliff. It was dangerous: every so often divers went down and did not come up; nitrogen-drunk on beauty, they went too deep and forgot where they were.

It was hard to make oneself heard against the roar of the engine. He signalled to her where they were going, and she strained to
make out the break in the reef that provided a passage out into the open sea. A small cluster of boats congregated not far away – the boats that took people out to see the school of giant stingrays that swam into the sound to be fed by the boatmen. The rays, accustomed to people, would glide obligingly round the legs of swimmers, taking fish from the hands of the guides. They had taken the children there on numerous occasions – it was one of the few outings the island afforded – and the memory reminded her that she was a mother. She looked away, and thought:
I should ask him to go back
. She wondered why she had said yes to this. It was … what was the right word for it? Folly. That was it. Folly.

He had slowed the boat to negotiate the difficult passage between the outcrops of coral that made up the reef. It was a clear enough route, and everybody who took a boat out there learned it soon and easily enough. One had to line up several points and keep a careful eye on which way the current was flowing. One had to read the sea, which provided all the necessary signs, particularly on a calm day like this.

“Are you all right with this?” she asked as he steered them towards the gap.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve done it a few times. You have to watch out, but it’s simple enough.”

“I won’t distract you.”

She looked over the side of the boat. The water was shallow enough to stand in, she thought. There was weed, lines of drifting black. A large shell, she thought – a conch, perhaps; a blur of white against the sand. There was a flash of colour as a school of bright blue fish darted past. There was the shadow of the boat on the seabed below.

“There.” He had brought them through, and the reef and the breaking waves were suddenly behind them. He opened the throttle again to put water between them and the coral. The sea now was a different colour – a darker blue – and it was rougher too, with a swell bowling in towards them.

He throttled back, making the bow drop down. Then, glancing at a dial on the console, he switched the engine off entirely.

“We might as well conserve fuel. These big outboards are thirsty.”

She leaned back against her seat and closed her eyes. She felt the sun on her face; the breeze too. There was silence.

“It’s the peace, isn’t it?” she muttered, to herself as much as to him. “It’s the peacefulness.”

She opened her eyes. He was struggling with the catch of a small cool-box that he had brought with them.

“Somebody gave me a bottle of champagne,” he said. “A grateful patient.”

The catch shifted and the champagne was revealed. Two glasses nestled against the ice, alongside the bottle. She wondered why he had packed two glasses. He had had the cool-box with him when he had met her at the tennis club, but he would not have known that she was there. So this could not have been planned for her. For his wife? For Alice?

The cork popped, shooting up into the air to fall into the sea beside them. She watched it floating away on a swell.

“I didn’t mean that to happen,” he said. “I disapprove of people who shake champagne and pop the corks. It’s one of the biggest causes of eye injury there is.” He grinned. “Not that I’m a spoil-sport.”

He handed her a glass of champagne. “Here. For you.”

She took the glass, which was cold to the touch. She raised it to her lips. It’s too late, she thought. This is it.

He took a sip. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked.

“Mind what? Being here? Drinking champagne instead of being at the supermarket?”

He looked serious. “You don’t mind that I asked you?”

She shrugged. “Why should I?”

He was studying her reaction. “Because I can’t pretend that I didn’t hope that I would find you at the tennis club.”

For a while she said nothing. It thrilled her: she meant something to him. There was no dismay; just pleasure.

When she spoke the words, it seemed to her, came from somewhere else.

“I hadn’t envisaged this happening. But it happens, doesn’t it? It … well, it comes over one. I never thought it would. I never thought about it. It just happens.”

He nodded. “I hadn’t anticipated this either.”

“So what do we do?”

The question hung in the air.

“Do?” he said. “I hadn’t thought that far.”

“Neither had I.” She put down her glass. “Because we both have children to think about.”

“Yes,” he said. “And others.”

“By that, you mean …”

She thought that he did not want her to see his wince, but she did. “Alice and David.”

It was a mistake, she thought, to mention the names. They had not been present until then, but now they were. And there were only two glasses of champagne.

She drew in her breath. “I think maybe we shouldn’t take this
any further. I’m sorry.”

His mouth opened slightly. She saw that he was gripping the glass tightly, as his knuckles were white.
I’ve said the wrong thing. It’s entirely the wrong thing
.

“Is that what you feel?”

She nodded, and glanced at her watch. “I think it would have been nice. But it can’t be. It just can’t.”

“If that’s what you feel …”

“It is. I’m really sorry, George. I wish that I were free to say yes. I wish that. But I’m not. And I don’t think you’re free either.”

He looked down at the deck. “You’re probably right.” He drained his glass and put it back into the cool box. Then, picking up the bottle of champagne, he looked at it, held it up against the sun, and then poured it out over the side of the boat. She watched in astonishment, noticing the tiny bubbles, visible against the surface of the sea for a few instants before they disappeared.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

He replaced the bottle and took her glass from her.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” he said. “I’m the one who should apologise.”

“No. You don’t have to.”

He reached for the ignition. “I suggest we write the whole thing off to experience. That’s the civilised way of dealing with these things, I think.”

It could have been said bitterly, but she did not detect any bitterness in his voice. He was a kind man, she thought. He was exactly what she thought, and hoped, he was.

9

When George turned the key in the ignition, the outboard engine spluttered into life briefly, but did not catch. He attempted to start it again. Sometimes it took a second try for the fuel to get through; a small blockage, a bubble of air could starve the injectors of fuel but these would right themselves. This time there was no response at all. He looked down at the safety-cord – this was a small key-like device that operated against a sprung switch and had to be in place for the engine to fire. It was correctly slotted in. He tried once more, and again there was no response.

She had not noticed the first failure, but now she did.

“Trouble?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. It won’t start.”

“Are we out of fuel?”

He pointed to the gauge. “We’ve got at least ten gallons. Maybe more.”

“Perhaps you should try again.”

He reached forward and turned the key. There was complete silence.

“I can check the batteries. A lead might have detached itself.”