The Englishman's Bride

‘Is that a waterfall?’

‘Probably,’ said Lisa, unexcited. ‘Nikolai and I have got a little one just above our cottage. There’s quite a big one about half an hour’s walk from the main hotel garden. We’ll go up there this evening, if you like.’

Kit sat back in her seat with a sigh of perfect pleasure.

‘Sun, sea and waterfalls,’ she said blissfully. ‘I forgive Tatiana for the cocktail dress. I forgive Tatiana for everything.’

But that evening they did not walk to the waterfall. That evening Lisa was locked in her room not speaking to anyone. And Nikolai, having welcomed Kit through gritted teeth, had gone back to his conservationists.

Kit looked into the ferociously formal dining room, thought of the little black and silver number that Tatiana had thrust into her bag, and decided that she would pass on dinner. On the other hand, while everyone else was dining she might be able to swim undisturbed in the delectable lagoon she and Lisa had explored earlier.

‘They have swimming stuff if you haven’t brought anything to swim in,’ had said Lisa, who knew her sister very well.

‘No. I have.’ It was not a bikini, in spite of Tatiana’s best efforts, but it would be just fine for swimming.

Kit had been terribly tempted. The water was turquoise. Little wavelets stirred but the sand bars held back ocean-sized waves. It had looked like heaven—except that there were three other people already swimming there. Kit did not take her clothes off in front of anyone, not even to swim.

‘Maybe later,’ Lisa had said with understanding.

And now, thought Kit, looking at the rapidly darkening sky over the lagoon, later had come. Everyone was eating, or getting ready to eat, or still locked in their conference. She could swim safe from fear of disturbance. It was irresistible.

She went back to her cottage and climbed into the one-piece swimsuit she had picked up at the charity shop. Then she pulled on an ankle-length cotton robe and went to plunge into her first tropical sea.

Philip Hardesty’s eyes drifted back towards the great open windows yet again.

Someone was swimming in the lagoon. From his seat on the podium, Philip could see the swirl of phosphorescence. The lone figure cut through the undifferentiated blackness of night sky and water with arc after arc of shooting stars.

It looked wonderful, he thought. Cool and airy and—wonderful.

His shirt seemed to be sticking to him. Unobtrusively—or at least he hoped it was unobtrusive—he ran a finger round the inside of his collar. If only he could loosen his tie.

The hotel conference room was unbearably hot. Even with the old-fashioned ceiling fans twirling at full speed, and all windows onto the terrace flung wide open, the air seemed to hover like a storm cloud. Of course, the television lights did not help, he thought fairly. He was always fair. It was his profession.

Just at the moment his profession required him to sit behind this array of microphones, telling half-truths in the hope that people believed them sufficiently to stop killing each other. So he dragged his gaze back from the lone swimmer and nodded courteously to the next journalist.

‘Your question, Herr Dunkel?’

He knew the man. He had faced him at Press briefings like this in three separate countries in the last year alone. His question was a good one. A German, the man had twenty years more experience than Philip.

But then, everyone in this room probably has more experience than I have, Philip thought. And I’m so tired.

For a moment his confidence faltered. But then he pulled himself together. Everyone was looking at him. If he didn’t have confidence in the peace negotiation that he was just putting in motion, who would?

And Dunkel’s question deserved an answer.

Philip took a moment to consider. Then answered swiftly and fluently, as he always did.

Beyond the French windows, the lagoon stretched and sighed. It beckoned him like a playful animal. Or a dark angel.

Philip ignored it and took another question.

And another. And another.

Until at last the Press conference was over and his local minder was steering him towards the banquet.

The next performance, thought Philip. More diplomacy disguising desperation, more half-truths. More hope against hope. More anger behind the smiles. More pretence. He felt deathly tired.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said to his minder, with that gentle courtesy that never faltered, no matter how many people were losing their tempers at the negotiating table. ‘I’d like a breath of air.’

The man switched stride. Philip stopped him.

‘Alone, if you wouldn’t mind.’

The man gave him a wide grin full of gold teeth, and nodded.

‘Bar is over that way,’ he said helpfully.

He gestured away from the lagoon towards a great circular swimming pool. It was floodlit and there was a thatched bar beside it. Philip thanked him. But he did not look at the well-illuminated path to the pool. Instead he looked longingly out to sea.

He nodded to the man and stepped through the French windows.

At once the tropical night embraced him. The air was hot and sweet, heavy with the scent of trumpet vines. He breathed it in, luxuriating.

Philip glanced up. The swathe of silent stars shimmered. There were millions of them, frosted droplets suspended from a gigantic spiral. He could see the sky turning…turning…He shut his eyes, dazzled.

In the big reception room behind him everyone was talking. It reverberated like a drum. Philip winced and opened his eyes.

I must get away, he thought urgently. Even five minutes would make all the difference.

A pebble-edged pathway skirted the gardens and led out to a sand bar that curved round the lagoon. He took it, walking quickly. The sounds of the busy hotel receded.

At the junction with the sand bar, he stopped and listened: cicadas, falling fruits, the soft lull of the water and his own breathing. No voices; no demands. He let out a long, savouring breath.

The lone swimmer was still out on the reef. Only now she was diving, her body curving into a pure arc before straightening to enter the water, taut as an arrow. Luminescence exploded around her. She bobbed up to the surface and pushed back her sopping hair.

Obviously she thought she was alone. She waved her arms above her head, laughing aloud. Then, quick and supple as an otter, she tumbled into a couple of mischievous somersaults. They set up a sparkling wheel of phosphorescence for a fraction of a second.

The whole picture was physical delight incarnate. Philip realised he was smiling.

He looked back at the hotel. He had to go back; the banquet was just another stage in the peace negotiations. He had to chair it, just as he had chaired the meeting for the last three days. Just as he would chair the next week’s round upon round of talks.

But the girl’s uninhibited game in the water reminded him that it was a long time since he had done anything for the sheer joy of doing it.

He turned his back on the talk and the banquet and went out along the palm-fringed spur of impacted sand. It curved round the lagoon like an embracing arm. As he walked he could see the stardust trail that the swimmer was making above the water. She was streaking back to land. They would reach the end of the sand bar at the same time.

Just five minutes, he promised himself.

The girl got there first. She must have heard his approach. She trod water, turning towards the sound.