Pact without desire Read online

  Colouring hotly at the insolence, Sara resorted to sarcasm. 'Perhaps that remains to be seen. I dare-say you have a calendar and can add?' she insinu-

  ated, knowing that the retort would increase Isabel's hostility, but unable to resist making it.

  Without apparent contrition, Isabel said 'Sorry' and rose to leave. But she had another shot to fire. She said, 'I daresay Rede wasn't a bit sorry we met at the Lotus Room that night. He could have been looking forward to flaunting his new bride at me. Though I daresay he hasn't told you that every year I've been out here on vacation he's dogged me like my shadow?'

  Sara said calmly, 'No. All I heard from Cliff was that Rede introduced you and gave his blessing to your marriage.'

  'Yes, well,' Isabel shrugged, 'making the best of losing out to Cliff, of course. But I did rather suspect he wouldn't have told you. Makes things rather awkward for us all round, doesn't it? You and Cliff, Rede and I—really, an onlooker couldn't be blamed for suspecting the men to be up to a bit of wife-swapping, could he?'

  Sara did not reply and let her go on this exit-line. Her last salvo had confirmed Ina Belmont's gossip, but Sara made herself deny its rankling. Mere gossip and Isabel's own boasting of conquest— need they add up to threat? She wouldn't let them!

  Ina Belmont had made no empty promise of giving a party on Sentosa Island, once a fortress, now being developed as an exdusive resort. Ina issued her invitations for an evening affair—swimming in the lagoon, a barbecue supper on the beach and danc-

  ing at the golf dub-house until the last ferry left for Singapore.

  `Do we go?' Sara asked Rede, passing Ina's card to him.

  He glanced at the date. 'I can't. You do,' he said. 'Why not you?'

  'I'm flying to Rangoon on business the day before, and I shall be away overnight. But you'd like to go, wouldn't you?'

  'Alone?'

  'You can go with Ina, or Lim can drive you to the ferry and you can join the crowd there. You'll have met a good many of the people Ina will have asked, so you needn't be alone for long.'

  'I'd rather be going with you to Rangoon. I suppose I couldn't?' Sara ventured.

  Rede shook his head. 'Strictly stag, I'm afraid. An only-just-in-the-balance advantageous deal for teak, and none of us are taking along feminine distractions. Another time, another trip perhaps. Not this.'

  Dressing for a party which included swimming, a picnic and indoor dancing offered problems. Sara chose a ballet-length dress of emerald Thai silk with a matching knotted kerchief for her head, wore flatties on bare feet and put high-heeled strapped sandals into her beach-bag with her swimsuit. Lim drove her to the ferry-stage where, as Rede had predicted, other people she knew were going over at the same time. They were fortunate in the weather. There had been no rain that day; the air was still

  and warm, and the sun, a glowing ball of fire, had gone down from a doudless sky, now a great arch of darkness above Sentosa's woods and landscaped parks and palm-fringed white sands.

  After a time in the water Sara did a lazy crawl-stroke away from her group, then turned to float, blissful and relaxed in a silence broken only by the distant chatter of the people on shore. She allowed her thoughts to fantasise—she was happy, she had no problems; Rede, flying unexpectedly from Rangoon, would come to find her; they would swim side by side, he would be kind and understanding, and afterwards---

  There was a beat of limbs disturbing the silk of the water behind her. Someone was following her up and it was not Rede. It was Cliff. He trod water beside her and when she turned over and began to swim shorewards, he turned with her.

  'I saw you strike out away from the others,' he said.

  Pointedly, 'Yes, I wanted to be alone. Where is Isabel?' she asked.

  'Helping Ina at the barbecue. Rede isn't with you?'

  'No, he's away.' From the shallows Sara paddled over to where she had left her towel and bag, but when she sat down to dry her feet and legs, Cliff came to sit beside her.

  'Please, Sara—this is the first chance I've had! Or rather, the first I've dared to take—'

  `To say what?' she put in coldly.

  'To ask about Forrest, of course. How it all happened about him. He'd asked me who you were at my wedding, but I never thought he was serious about getting to know you, and now Isabel has convinced herself you only married him to spite me, and came out here to make trouble for her. But that's not so, is it? You had little enough time for it, but you and Rede did fall for each other in a big way? You are in love with him, Sara?'

  Sara burned her boats. 'Yes,' she said.

  Cliff sighed with apparent relief. 'And from the way he showed you off to us, I'd say there's not much doubt about him. But Isabel believes I still hanker a bit for you, and that you'd like to have me as well as Rede, as a kind of fringe benefit.'

  'Not any more. Or she shouldn't,' said Sara.

  'What do you mean—not anymore?' Cliff queried.

  'I've told her myself that I've finished with you; that she has nothing to fear from me.'

  'Oh— ! ' To Sara's wry amusement he loked almost offended by the bluntness of that. He added with a shrug, 'Well, that's the way it goes, I suppose. Though perhaps Isabel is right, and you didn't take long about putting Forrest in my place.'

  The conceit of men I thought Sara. 'Give or take a day or two, just about as long, I daresay, as it took you to put Isabel Carbery in my place,' she told him with the quiet assurance of having had the last word. She stood then, picked up her bag and would have moved away. But he stopped her

  with a hand on her arm.

  'Fair enough,' he said. 'But there's something else with Isabel. She's restless and disappointed with my job at Temasik, and she thinks you've persuaded Rede to keep me down.'

  Sara scoffed, 'That's absurd! I've no influence with Rede at all in the firm. Anyway, you've been out here only about three months.'

  'That's what I tell her—that it's early days yet,' Cliff agreed. 'But she maintains that you'll see I never get kicked upstairs at Temasik, and she's doing her best to push me into joining a chap we've met, George Merlin, an orchid exporter in a big way. He's here tonight. I'd like you to meet him, so if you stick around at the barbecue I'll introduce him to you, if I may?'

  'If you like,' Sara agreed indifferently. But he stopped her as she turned away once more.

  'Nothing of all this to Rede, of course, Sara?' he urged.

  She gave him her promise with a brief nod.

  Ina Belmont was a born hostess, keeping, it seemed, a dozen eyes open to see that the food was ready on time, that all her guests were served and that no one was left without a companion or two for more than a few minutes. In fact it was she who brought George Merlin to Sara, along with one of her cooking aides bringing the miracle of a bombe surprise dessert for both of them.

  George Merlin was something of a puzzle. His brushed-back hair was iron grey, but he had the

  body and easy movements of a much younger man, was handsome if, as Sara didn't, you liked the male model type, and he spoke with a very faint accent which she could not trace.

  Spooning admirably firm ice-cream from beneath its blanket of warm meringue, 'How is it done?' he asked Sara.

  'I think speed is the answer,' she told him. 'You slam meringue over the ice-cream and shoot it into and out of a hot oven before the ice-cream realises it's supposed to melt. And then you serve it pronto before it can.'

  He nodded. 'I see. I must get Katin, my cook, to try it,' he said, and then, 'Won't you tell me about yourself? Though of course I know already that you're the lovely young wife Rede Forrest brought back from his last trip to England. And so?'

  Apart from that, and that she was fascinated with Singapore, there seemed little enough to tell him about herself, and she turned a similar question to him. 'You export orchids, a friend tells me,' she said.

  'A friend?'

  'Cliff Iden.'

  'Ah, Cliff. Yes, we send them all over the world, with Thailand our only rivals in
the size of business we do. If you're interested, you should let me show them to you, growing, some time. May I do that?' he asked.

  'I'd like that.'

  'Then quite soon? Tomorrow even? It's some

  way upcountry from the city. Do you drive a car?' 'No, but—'

  'Then I'll call for you at about noon and we'll lunch. Unless you're engaged in the morning, and would rather make it later?'

  But Sara said No, she would prefer the morning, as she was expecting Rede home in time for dinner. For a moment she had hesitated about accepting the invitation, but she had no other plans for the day and Rede couldn't mind her being driven into the country to see a wealth of orchids growing in the mass.

  Ina was as efficient in shepherding her guests into the lounge and bar of the golf clubhouse and persuading them to dance as she had been in organising their supper out of doors. Sara danced a few times and talked with people she knew. She was not in Isabel's neighbourhood at all, and Cliff only cornered her briefly on the return ferry.

  'Isabel didn't want to meet you, but I saw you'd corralled George Merlin under your own steam,' he said.

  'Ina introduced us,' Sara corrected.

  'Oh well, as long as you've met him—but don't let on to Rede that I'm putting out feelers in his direction, will you?'

  'I thought I'd already promised you that,' she said.

  George Merlin drove north out of the city along the Bukit Timah road, and far sooner than Sara thought

  there was open enough country for orchid plantations he turned up a drive leading to a white bungalow facing a swimming pool across a wide patio bordered by flower beds.

  'Welcome to my house,' he said as he stopped the car.

  Surprised, Sara said, 'Oh ! I thought we were

  going out to your orchid fields?'

  He looked concerned. 'Did I give you that impression?'

  'I thought so.'

  'I'm sorry. I meant to show you my private display of some of the rarer varieties which I grow here in my gardens. I should have made myself more dear—I export orchids, I don't raise them on a commercial scale. That's done on farms over on the mainland, too far inland to have taken you today. No, we'll have lunch, if Katin has done her stuff, and I'll show you the garden afterwards. You would like a drink out here on the patio?'

  Sara got out of the car, disappointed and more than half convinced she hadn't misunderstood his promise, but that she had been misled. He left her to go into the house, where he summoned someone by dapping his hands and speaking in Malay. She wondered about his wife, but his possessive 'my cook', 'my house' suggested he was a bachelor. Katin was the only woman's name he had mentioned, and she, following him back on to the patio carrying a tray of drinks, was a young Malay girl.

  She was short and plump, with her race's raven

  hair cut in a short bob and a fringe above her eyes, beady as jet buttons. She wore a Western mini-dress of scarlet cotton, flaunting generous bare thighs and legs the colour of black coffee. She had no smile in answer to Sara's as she put down the tray with a clumsy thump, and then set up and laid another table with three place-settings. After a brief 'Meet Katin', without introducing Sara to her, her employer ignored her and talked to Sara until she returned with three covered soup-bowls and, to Sara's surprise, sat down at table with them.

  She said nothing. As if she were not present George Merlin explained, 'Katin can speak English, but only when she chooses,' and a few minutes later addressed her in Malay, apparently complaining of the soup. It was certainly tepid and tasted like cabbage-water, but Sara was acutely embarrassed when Katin flushed darkly, snatched up all three bowls and flounced back into the house with them. They did not return, the soup reheated. Instead a dish of rice and tough veal fillets arrived, to be served by Katin with a defiant clatter of implements which to Sara's ears said, 'Take that and like it—or else ! '

  But there was further bewilderment in store for her when, after the deplorable meal, Katin brought coffee. As she passed his cup to him George Merlin put an arm round her at about the level of her brief skirt and drew her to him. She leaned against him, simpering, until he said something teasingly, when she frowned, tossed her head and marched away.

  George Merlin laughed. 'If she has a fault, my little Katin, it's that she's appallingly jealous,' he remarked.

  -Jealous?'

  'Of any woman within range. In this instance, of you.'

  'But—? Well, I thought you said she was your cook?' Sara questioned.

  'And housekeeper, in which office she's slightly less competent than as a cook. But as what might be called companion of the bedchamber, she's--! ' He broke off and set the fingers of both hands to their thumbs in a gesture expressing excellence.

  Sara blushed. 'I'm sorry. I didn't understand,' she muttered.

  He said quickly, 'I've embarrassed you. But why? You're not so naïve, surely, that you're shocked?'

  'I am—surprised.'

  'You should congratulate me, rather, on the isolation here which makes for discretion in itself. Men in the city in the same situation are forced to keep a wife or a hag of a chaperon as a cover-up to allay the talk of their friends. Very hampering, that. I count myself lucky.'

  `Do you know any men in the same situation?' Sara challenged him.

  He shrugged his despair of her. 'Oh, my dear, realy ! You can't be ingenue! that ' He broke of to

  listen to the sound of a motorised bicycle ticking

  over, and a minute or two later Katin spun down

  the drive and out of sight. 'Katin, registering high

  dudgeon in the usual manner,' he commented easily. 'She goes back to her village to cry on the shoulder of one of her many relatives, and depending on how much she decides I should be punished for entertaining you, she may or may not return tonight.'

  'She—sleeps here?'

  'Of course.'

  Sara had had enough. She stood up. 'May I go to see the orchids now, Mr Merlin? After that, perhaps you'll drive me back?'

  'With pleasure.'

  Certainly his display of orchids rivalled any that she had seen. It ranged through all the colours of the spectrum and innumerable shapes of blossom. Sara lingered for nearly an hour, expressing wonder and admiration, though when she asked her host if he chose and cultivated them personally, he disclaimed responsibility.

  'I employ experts,' he said. 'So I expect near-perfection, and am content, as in my admiration of other forms of beauty, to regard myself merely as a connoisseur.'

  As he spoke, his bold glance over her figure pointed his meaning and did the same again when they returned to the patio and he said, 'I'd suggest we use the pool before you go, if I'd thought to ask you to bring a swimsuit, or if anything of Katin's chubby measurements would fit anyone as slender as you.'

  Disliking the innuendo and deciding that a little of George Merlin's suavity went a very long way

  with her, Sara declined hastily, `No. You're kind to think of it, but I really must go. May we now?'

  But he demurred, 'Ah--well, that makes for difficulty, I'm afraid. As Katin has deserted, and I'm expecting a man to call on business, I ought not to leave until he comes. Once he does, I can despatch him quite quickly. But a little while longer, do you mind?'

  Annoyed though she was, there was nothing Sara could say, and they sat talking desultorily while, as time spun out, her patience did likewise. Once she ventured, 'Perhaps I could catch a bus?' But it seemed there was no bus route within miles. 'Call a taxi from the city, then?' Not necessary at all. By now his colleague was bound to be on his way.

  Sara refused tea but accepted an iced mandarin juice. In passing the glass, his hand went over hers and pressed it. He said, 'I wonder that your husband shouldn't have taken you to Rangoon with him. So soon to leave his young bride for a night— for shame! '

  Sara gazed fixedly into the amber-gold in her glass. 'Rede is on a business trip with other men,' she said. 'He couldn't take me.'

  'Even at the risk of
leaving you to the mercies of wolves like me?'

  She lifted her eyes and looked straight at him. 'You're very frank, Mr Merlin. Are you a wolf?' she asked.

  He laughed cynically. 'My dear, we all are at the sight of prey we fancy, and given the opportunity

  to hunt it down!' He added as if upon reflection, 'Even a husband suffering grass-widowerhood for one night in Rangoon could find himself tempted,' to the nastiness of which Sara could not trust herself to reply, and the grotesque situation of being forced to sit there beside him went on.

  It was at the point when she had decided for certain that the expected caller was a myth and the delay a ruse to keep her, that a car sounded in the drive and her companion managed an `Ah, here's my friend at last,' with a satisfaction which did not ring true.

  There was no reason why it should have done, for the car drawing up was no stranger's. It was Rede's, and it was Rede who crossed the patio his face a study in pent annoyance. He nodded briefly to George Merlin and answered Sara's exclamation of his name with, 'We closed the deal more easily than I expected, so I caught an early plane.' He turned to her host. 'You will excuse my wife now? I'd like to take her home.'

  George Merlin said easily, 'Of course, and though I'm sorry to be frustrated in taking her myself, thank you for loaning her to me for the day.'

  He followed them to the car and bade Sara a suggestive au revoir. With one hand on the steering-wheel and the other closing the door on his side with a bang, Rede demanded, 'And what did that crack mean? Are you going to see him again?'

  'Of course not,' she denied. 'I don't think he can

  help being pseudo-gallant. But I found him quite odious.'

  Rede glanced quickly her way. 'Unexpected perception. But how come you let yourself get involved?'

  'How did you know where I was?' she countered.

  'When I got home and found you were out, I rang Ina to see if you were with her. She said that, as you were both on your own at her party, she had introduced Merlin to you and he'd told her later that he was taking you out to lunch.'