The Takamaka Tree (7 page)

“This is Sandy,” said Daniel, hoping the simplest introduction would be sufficient. But George Webb was sniffing out something irregular, and Sandy knew what he was thinking. She hated him for it. His eyes were devouring her quite differently to Leon’s open admiration.

“Live here? Does she? In the bungalow…?”

He was pumping her hand, holding on to it far too long. “Very pleased to meet you indeed, my dear,” he said, producing a sentence of extraordinary length for him. He was captivated by her honey skin, her blowing tawny hair, the golden flecks in her eyes. “Ah…Sandy. Very nice.”

Sandy withdrew her hand with difficulty. There were red marks where he had crushed her fingers. Would Mahé be populated with hundreds of George Webbs? It made her feel sick. She turned instinctively towards Daniel, to reassure herself that he was still tall and clean with deep, candid eyes and hands that were gentle.

Leon was coming across the beach laden with heavy khaki rucksacks. He humped them off his shoulders and they rolled over the veranda floor. Leon looked sullen. Sandy had never seen such an expression on his face before. Perhaps Bella’s relations had been telling him something about George Webb.

The skinny newcomer went down on his knees and started to struggle with the straps on one of his haversacks. He was already perspiring a lot from his walk in the sun. It was running off him, dripping onto the bare boards which Bella had polished so lovingly with coconut husks under her feet. Sandy was mesmerised by the droplets. They were like fat running off cooking meat.

“Sandy like sweeties,” George was saying eagerly. “Sugar sweeties. Nice fruit gums. Candy. Turkish delight.” He fished out a crumpled box of fruit pastilles, his face flushed with victory. He shuffled forward on his knees, hopefully offering the box, and overbalanced, his hand grabbing Sandy’s leg in an attempt to save himself from falling.

In an instant, a big black hand clamped down on George’s wrist and wrenched his grip off Sandy. Leon’s yellowed eyes glinted with hatred.

“Miss-Sandy belong Mr. Kane,” he snapped. Then he flung off the captured hand as if it were a discarded banana skin, and walked away. His bare black skin glistened in the sunlight, and the muscles in the boy’s shoulders decided George against making a fuss.

“Er, well, I never.” He scrambled to his feet, pulling up his socks. Now he did not know what to do with the sweets and they were an embarrassment.

Sandy still said nothing. Leon’s announcement hung in the air. She could see George did not know what to make of it, although his mind was working on it.

“Sandy is my wife,” said Daniel coldly, “and she does not like sweets.”

“Sorry, old boy. Just thought…you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” said Daniel. “And you’d better take some salt tablets. You look dehydrated. You’re not used to the heat yet.”

Daniel deliberately hurried things now. He did not want Sandy changing her mind. It was better that she did not have time to think.

Leon would not let her wade through the shallows to the boat. He picked her up with a kind of fierce protectiveness and carried her out. He was very strong and she was feather-light in his arms. He wanted to look after her. He dreamed of taking her to his grandfather’s thatched house on the beach of Anse Boileau, and catching fish from the sea for her, and putting fresh flowers in her hair.

Sandy climbed unsteadily over the wooden planks that served as seats in Leon’s boat. She could not believe this was happening. But they were leaving. A cloud of sooty terns rose in the sky, dipped and wheeled southwards.

The water was very blue and clear. She could see the sandy floor of the sea, and the purple and green parrot fish swimming slowly into the caverns of the reef. A vague-eyed butterfly fish hovered, not quite sure which way to go. The tiny demoiselles darted in and out with flashes of brilliant blue.

Daniel heaved himself in, rocking the boat. Sandy clutched the side. They were moving, gliding smoothly over the water. They were leaving La Petite. It was already an island, awash with waves, the fringe of palms guarding the lonely sands, their coral paths lost to sight, the bungalow disappearing among the shadows and the leaves.

Someone helped her climb aboard the schooner, and she walked across the simple deck and looked the other way. Somewhere out there was the secret to herself. First Mahé, and then this England.

Bella was already seated on a canvas deck chair, her arms folded, resigned to the journey. Most Seychellois are bad sailors, and moving between their islands was an agony. She closed her eyes once Sandy was aboard. Bella was going to suffer and she preferred to suffer in private.

Daniel came and stood beside Sandy, watching the island shrink. It was much cooler out at sea, and their shirts flapped as the wind filled the sails of the schooner.

“It’s not the only island in the world,” said Daniel, catching sight of her face. “There are other beautiful places. You’re very young. You’ll get to see many of them.”

Sandy nodded, mutely. Desolation swept over her. He put his arm around her waist and gave it a friendly squeeze.

“Cheer up,” he said encouragingly. “Everything is going to be exciting. Think what we may discover about you: you might be rich, or famous or important.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, she said, almost waspishly. “I’m nobody, and anyway I don’t want to know.”

He did not pursue the subject. She was upset about leaving the island. It was the only safe place she knew, the only home. He was wrenching her away to a total unknown and new kind of life. No wonder she was frightened.

“You won’t leave me, will you?”

“No, I won’t leave you,” he reassured her. “Not until you tell me to go.”

She was crying, silently. La Petite was just a low mound of green on the horizon. Tears blurred a last glimpse of the island. She strained her eyes but even the smudge disappeared into the skyline.

“Never. I’ll never tell you to go.”

But he did not hear her. He had moved away to the stern. Leon was fishing, trailing two lines from the back of the schooner. He was catching fish faster than he could haul in the lines. Daniel went to help. He was glad of the distraction. It took his mind off the weeks ahead.

Leon was standing in the stern, stripped to the waist, his arms rhythmically pulling in the line, taking off the fish, tossing the line back into the streaming wake. He was tall and dark and stern. In the last few hours, his face had taken on a maturity which had not been there before. He had a dream princess, a golden princess to take care of,
to protect. He would lay down his life for her.

“You’ll be glad to get back to Mahé,” said Daniel.

“Yes, Mr. Kane.”

“What are you going to do? Have you got a job?”

“It’s not easy,” said Leon. “Work is hard to find. My father has not worked for three years. But I am strong. I hope to get work on a building site.”

“I’ll try and help you find something. I’ll make some enquiries before I go back to England.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kane.” Leon digested the news and hesitated. “Is…Miss-Sandy going to England?”

“Probably,” said Daniel, casually. “It all depends. Circumstances in Mahé may mean a change of plans. But for the moment, I expect she will be coming with me.”

Leon nodded, but he did not understand a word. England meant nothing to him. It was just somewhere a long way away with a Queen with a crown on her head. It was far more important that Sandy should stay on Mahé.

“Good fish,” he grinned suddenly. “Make money for toddy.”

“Rot your guts,” said Daniel.

It was a vivid, extravagant sunset, but Sandy hardly glanced at the radiant sky. Someone brought her a mug of strong coffee. It was the first coffee she had tasted, or remembered tasting. Daniel had not included any in the provisions he had taken with him to La Petite.

Sailing did not worry her. It had a curiously soothing quality. Daniel was relieved. He had half expected the trip to trigger off a memory of her accident, but she remained silent.

They sailed on through the darkness, the fish attracted by the light from the big lamp swinging from the bow of the schooner. Daniel found a thin jersey in his luggage and put it around Sandy’s shoulders. She was almost asleep. They passed dark shapes in the night and Daniel named other islands in the Seychelles group.

“And they are all just as beautiful as La Petite,” he said.

Some of the islands had a few isolated lights—a new beach hotel or a planter’s house powered by a small generator imported at great expense. Even Mahé, the main island of the group, was poorly lit. A few lights twinkled up in the hills, but the main mass of lights came from the new harbour development in Port Victoria. Only the odd street lamp illuminated the rest of the town, and the old quay was a gloomy, spooky forest of swaying masts.

The schooner came into the harbour under engine power. It puttered through the smooth dark water, navigating the channel through the reefs. The lamp spread an arc of light on the oily surface.

There were no formalities. It was not that sort of harbour. Sandy stepped ashore and stood on the quay. It was like a dream. The darkness, the unreal brightness of the sulphur lighting ringing the new harbour, the sultry warmth captured by the black mass of the granite hills and rocks. Somewhere she heard laughter.

The taxi drove through the darkness on a road lined with rocks and palm trees to the Reef Hotel on Anse aux Pins. Sandy did not look at anything in the cool foyer, but let Daniel guide her up some stairs and along a balcony which ran the whole length of the back of the one-storeyed hotel. He put a key into the door of Room 27, and gently pushed the reluctant girl into the room.

He pulled back the sheet on one of the beds and smiled.

“Now this is really a bed,” he said. “You’ll think you’re sleeping on a cloud. Off with your flipflops…”

“Are you sharing this room?” Sandy asked stiffly.

“Now don’t go all prim and modest. Yes, I am. I had to tell the receptionist that we were newly married and that your details had not yet been added to my passport. If you really object, I will go downstairs and see if they have a second room…”

“No, don’t leave me!” said Sandy, immediately alarmed by the thought of being left alone.

“Don’t worry, I’m quite used to sleeping outside.”

He picked up a couple of pillows and a coverlet, and with a brief glance of longing at the empty second bed, slid open the glass door to their private balcony.

Sandy was soundly asleep when Daniel crept through the room early the next morning. He allowed himself the luxury of a quick shower in the well-fitted bathroom, pulling on a pair of fawn slacks and a white tee-shirt. He had a shock when he caught sight of his face in the bathroom mirror. His beard was thick, dark and bushy, and his hair lay in damp curls on his neck. He looked like a wild man out of the jungle. It demanded a scissor job, but he had more important things to do first.

He found the headquarters of the Marine Charter Association. Their clubhouse was on the waterfront next to the modern white yacht club.

Daniel explained to a steward of the association that he was trying to find out if some friends were in the Seychelles. He knew they planned to charter a boat to do some fishing.

The steward was most helpful. Yes, they kept a record of all charters. Yes, of course, Daniel was welcome to look through the book to find his friends.

The early morning sun streamed in through the window of the simple wooden room. Daniel turned the pages casually, his eye skimming down the names of the craft, all painstakingly entered in perfect copperplate writing. Suddenly he came upon the name he was looking for.

“Ah,
Sun Flyer,”
he said, “isn’t that the yacht that’s missing? I heard something about it on the radio.”

“Sad business. Disappeared without a trace. Most mysterious. I reckon they must have hit a sudden squall, or had a fire aboard. They could have been swept off course, and it wouldn’t be the first time a boat has drifted right across the Indian Ocean.”

“But there was an air search?”

The old sailor nodded. “But the Indian Ocean is a big place. Like trying to find a pin in a haystack.”

Daniel glanced more carefully at the entry.
Sun Flyer
had been chartered by a Mr. Paul Webster. It had a crew of four—skipper, cook and two deckhands. Also on the passenger list were a Miss Gabrielle Webster and a Mr. Ralph Fellows.

“Don’t suppose they’ll ever find out what happened,” the man went on, sucking on his pipe. “Crying shame about the young couple though. They’d only just got engaged.”

“Miss Webster and Ralph Fellows?”

“Yes. Pretty thing the daughter was…”

Daniel closed the book and handed it back. “Thank you,” he said. “But my friends aren’t here.”

He stepped outside into the sunshine. Gabrielle Webster. Was that the name of his sea waif?

Chapter Four

It was so quiet and still that Sandy thought she must be asleep. She was in that uneasy no man’s land between sleeping and waking, when the mind is clear of dreams but not yet taking on any thoughts of the day ahead. How smooth the sheet felt on her skin.