The Takamaka Tree (14 page)

“Aren’t we going to London now?” she asked breathlessly.

“No, I’m sorry, Sandy. London is going to have to wait. I know how awful this must seem to you, but something has come up and I can’t go to England yet.”

Sandy’s heart soared with happiness. They were not going to London. She did not care where Daniel was taking her now, so long as it was not to England.

The pilot of the helicopter, a short stocky Welshman called Dave Watney, helped Sandy up into the machine. Then he gave her a hearty kiss on the cheek.

“I hope it’s all right to kiss the bride,” he grinned at Daniel.

Daniel climbed into the cockpit and took the passenger seat beside Sandy. He helped her strap herself in, and after fixing his own seat belt, settled back with his arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sure my wife doesn’t mind at all,” said Daniel. “It’s all part of a very happy day. I hope we don’t leave confetti strewn everywhere.”

“It’ll soon get blown out of this machine,” the pilot shouted as he started the engine and the blades began to rotate. He spoke to the control tower requesting clearance for takeoff. “Hold on, here we go.”

Sandy felt as if her stomach were being left behind as the helicopter lifted off and immediately veered right, taking a wide sweep clear of the airport. Daniel’s arm tightened around her as he felt her body tense. He knew he was subjecting her to appalling discomfort, but he thought that physically she could stand it. Her weeks on La Petite had restored her health, if not her memory.

“You’re being marvellous,” he said in her ear. Then his mouth brushed her cheek like a butterfly.

“Can’t wait for the honeymoon, eh?” Dave Watney winked. “Mind now, you’ve found a tidy little hideaway. And I don’t blame you. Mahé is getting too crowded. All these package tours and tourists.”

Dave Watney was a talkative chap and pursued a conversation, if the shouting involved could be termed a conversation. Sandy said nothing, only aware of Daniel’s arm firmly around her and the breathtaking views below as they flew over the scattered islands. Dave Watney kept them informed as to the names of the islands, and they could see that many of them had a few houses, with boats tied up at small jetties. They passed over chartered schooners returning to Port Victoria for the evening, and Daniel thought of his unfinished enquiries about
Sun Flyer.
It was all going to have to wait.

They flew low over the sea, the sinking sun tipping the waves with an eerie light, the sleeping lagoons and reefs still visible despite the lengthening shadows.

“Will you be able to set us down?” Daniel asked. “There’s only one clearing.”

“I can put this thing down on a penny piece,” said Dave Watney confidently. “Just so long as there’s enough light. Taking off again is no problem, so don’t worry about that.”

“You could stay the night.”

“You’re joking, man. And spoil your honeymoon? I’d have it on my conscience. Besides, we’ve people coming to play Scrabble this evening. We’re great Scrabble fans.”

“Scrabble?” asked Sandy innocently.

“You remember, darling,” said Daniel quickly. “You’ve been asking me to teach you to play the game.”

“Oh—oh, yes, of course.”

Although La Petite looked so different from the air, Sandy recognised it immediately. All its beloved features: Bird Cliff, Fish Beach, White Sands, where Daniel had found her. His thatched bungalow looking like a dolls’ house, and Bella’s hut almost too small to see. She knew the clearing that Daniel referred to. It was where the palms had been felled to build his house, and it had been kept clear.

She did not understand for one moment why they were returning to La Petite, but it did not matter. Nor why she was suddenly a bride again. She touched his arm tentatively.

“Are you going to teach me Scrabble on our honeymoon?” she could not resist teasing.

The birds began to be disturbed by the approach of the machine. A flock of terns rose into the air, alarmed, and shrieking warnings to the others. It was like a cloud of snowflakes being blown into the air by a snow plough.

“Damned birds. Hope they keep away from my blades.”

He keeled the machine away from Bird Cliff and left them behind, still wheeling and protesting. It was light enough to see the clearing among the palms and he set the machine down in it as gently as if it were a feather.

The noise had been terrible, and as the sounds died away, Sandy felt as if she had been stricken deaf. The silence swelled in her ears. She hardly dared to say anything in case she could not hear it.

“This is going to give George Webb a surprise,” said Daniel.

Sandy’s happiness fell away. She had forgotten that odious man and that he was on La Petite. Her face was so readable that Daniel had to smile as he unstrapped his belt.

“Don’t worry, Sandy. George Webb will be only too pleased to be offered a holiday in Mahé. I don’t think he’s exactly dedicated to his work, once the novelty has worn off. I have an idea he will have been feeling the heat.”

Sandy scrambled out of the helicopter, and with a quick smile to the pilot, she ran, half stumbling through the trees down to the shore. White Sands, where it had all begun for her, where Daniel had found her. Somehow she was sure that her memory would come back to her where she had lost it, and not with the aid of advanced hypnosis or anything Dr. Lefanue had advised.

“You can keep your intravenous sodium amytal,” she cried out to the waves lapping around her feet. The sand was cold to her toes, but it felt good. Perhaps as soon as Daniel had got rid of the skinny George Webb, he would come for a walk with her along the shore.

It seemed Daniel was right about George Webb. His first intoxication for the place had rapidly worn off and he was melting away. In fact he was pathetically grateful at the prospect of being relieved of his post.

“Most kind,” he kept saying as he packed his few things. “Really is a job for a younger man. The heat, you know. All right on the Shetlands. That’s the place for me. Be back, though. Shan’t let you down. Couple of days. Right as rain. Can taste that iced beer,” he muttered, almost echoing Daniel’s own words.

He waved vaguely in Sandy’s direction. “Mrs. Kane, most kind. Old couple, hopeless. Too old—send ’em back.”

Sandy suddenly remembered it would not be quite the same. It would not be Bella and Leon, but that old crone and her husband, with his shock of white hair and moustache looking so strange with a shining black face.

“I shall be doing the cooking,” said Sandy.

This reminded George Webb of his stock of tinned foods. His mouth set into a waspish line. “What about my stuff? My corned beef and tinned soup? Cost a lot, you know.”

“I doubt if we’ll use it,” said Daniel, humping the man’s belongings onto the veranda. “But if it’ll set your mind at rest I’ll pay you for them. How about twenty-five pounds sterling? Then you can always bring some more provisions if you return.”

Sandy noticed Daniel said “if” and not “when”. Daniel had a lot of explaining to do, but it could wait. She helped to carry George Webb’s haversack out to the helicopter and wondered if he had been feeding his sweeties to the old cook.

“Is this thing safe?” George Webb asked anxiously as he climbed into the machine.

Dave Watney winked at Sandy. “Sleep tight.”

Daniel and Sandy ran clear, then watched as the blades started up, flattening every blade of grass within the compression area. The noise was deafening and Sandy pressed her hands over her ears, though she could not wipe the smile off her face.

The helicopter lifted effortlessly into the air, rolled a circle in a kind of farewell salute, then suddenly swerved away towards the mainland. In moments it was out of sight. Sandy turned to Daniel and flung her arms around him, pressing her head hard against his chest. She felt she could no longer contain her joy or her love for him.

“Oh Daniel, Daniel, thank you so much,” she whispered. “Thank you for bringing me back here, to this lovely island. I know I shall get better here. I was getting better, remember? Little things…”

Daniel’s hands gripped her shoulders. For a moment Sandy thought he was going to push her away, but with a sudden groan he pulled her close, holding her with a strength that almost pressed the breath from her body.

“Sandy, Sandy, what are you doing to me? You are turning my world upside-down.”

He tipped her face towards him and kissed her mouth with infinite gentleness. When Sandy opened her eyes, his face was very dark and close, but the sky behind his head was darker still with the bright stars of the Indian Ocean a celestial backcloth. There were bright lights in his eyes too, glowing with warmth.

He smoothed her hair away from her face, tracing the softness of her cheek and the downward curve of her neck.

“Perhaps I don’t want you to change, my little sea waif,” he said. “Perhaps I want you to stay like you are now, sweet and innocent and unworldly. Perhaps I’m a little afraid of the person you might be.”

“How could you be afraid of me? I won’t change. How could I? I must be the same as I am now,” she insisted.

Daniel would say no more. How could he tell her of the different kind of life Gabrielle Webster would lead, when he had just torn her away from that world? She was too close, too lovely, too warm and soft in his arms. He could only think of the lovely young woman he was growing to love.

They began to walk along the beach as Sandy had hoped, Daniel taking her hand. They did not talk much, for the evening was so peaceful and quiet after even the moderately busy Mahé. They were content to be back on La Petite and to be together.

Daniel cut a ripe coconut, bananas and paw-paw for their supper. It seemed a long time since their last civilised meal at the Reef Hotel. They turned their steps towards the bungalow, their pace slowing as they neared the end of their walk.

“Of course, some time, I would like to know why we have come back to La Petite,” said Sandy carefully.

He walked on without answering, and Sandy was beginning to wonder if she had angered him or if he had heard her at all.

“Sandy, I’m going to have to ask you to trust me,” he said at last. “I can’t tell you. At least, not yet. It isn’t safe for me to tell you, and I use that word deliberately. Something has happened which made it impossible for me to return to London just yet. There was nothing I could do but come back to La Petite. But you don’t have to stay. Telling Dave Watney that we had just got married was a ruse to get his help to fly us out here tonight. But I can arrange for you to go back to Mahé—perhaps you would like to stay with Dr. Lefanue and his wife. They were such nice people.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” said Sandy stubbornly. “If you are going to stay here, then so am I. I won’t be any trouble, I promise you. Just let me stay. Don’t send me to the doctor.”

They had reached the bungalow, and Daniel swung Sandy up onto the steps. He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her gently again.

“I want you to stay,” he said simply.

Sandy ran through the bungalow, afraid that her happiness would overflow and frighten off this new feeling between them.

“Oh, pipe smoke,” she exclaimed, throwing open the windows. “That horrid man smoked. It’s all over the place. I shall have to springclean everywhere tomorrow.”

She threw cushions and bed sheets out onto the veranda.

“One thing I have discovered from my brief stay in civilisation is that I cannot stand cigarette smoke.”

“I’m sure you were a non-smoker,” said Daniel, remembering her pale fingers when he found her on the shore.

“But where shall we sleep tonight?” she asked, unconsciously using the collective noun. “I can’t sleep on that mattress after old skinny legs has slept on it.”

“We can wash the cover tomorrow and refill it with fresh straw. It’s only a stuffed mattress,” said Daniel, amused by her sudden domesticity.

“But where shall we sleep tonight?” she insisted.

“Out on the veranda. These basket chairs are quite comfortable. I should know.”

Sandy crept up to him and slid an arm around his waist.

“But I thought this was supposed to be our honeymoon,” she murmured.

Daniel knew all along she was going to say something like that. He should not have kissed her. It had been a weakness, and yet there was something tangible that he would not admit to, did not want to admit to, after years of trouble-free bachelorhood. He struggled to retain his freedom and his independence. But this waif with her amber-flecked eyes and sturdy courage was twisting strings around his heart.

“You have been stargazing a little too intently tonight, young lady,” said Daniel, pulling the chairs out onto the veranda. George Webb had obviously been unable to stand the heat and had taken them indoors. “The chairs will do nicely.”

“But don’t you want to make love to me?” she said, summoning all her courage. She did not know how she managed to say it, but she had to. She had to know where she stood with this man who dominated her every thought and action.

“My dear Sandy,” he said. He seemed quite shattered. “It was only a ruse, I told you. A ruse to get Dave Watney to bring us out to La Petite tonight.”