Born Out Of Love

Logan’s long, narrow fingers slid effortlessly round the wheel. ‘Quite well,’ he replied, after a moment’s pause.

Charlotte forced herself to go on. ‘I believe Madame Fabergé’s husband is working here on the island. Does he work with you, by any chance?’

Logan turned to look at her and for a moment their eyes met and held. But the coldness in his was chilling and she looked away as he answered: ‘Madame Fabergé’s husband is dead, Mrs Derby. I thought you knew that.’

For a moment, Charlotte’s brain spun dizzily. She tried to remember what it was Mr Lewis had said, and she could almost swear that he had told her that her employer’s husband was living and working at Avocado Cay.

Grasping the frame of the open window for support, she said faintly: ‘I didn’t know that, Mr Kennedy. How could I?’

Logan shrugged. They had been descending a steep slope for some minutes, and below them stretched the serried ranks of a plantation of some kind. Thick leaves disguised their fruit, but Robert recognised the fleshy green fingers beneath.

‘Hey, they’re bananas,’ he cried excitedly. ‘Rows and rows of banana plants!’

Logan gave him an inscrutable smile, his benevolence fading when he again encountered Charlotte’s troubled gaze. But he went on to explain that this was the only crop grown in any quantity on the island. They had an unusual amount of rainfall, he explained, and its hilly contours were not suitable for acres of sugar cane. The island was not overly populated either. Apart from the village they could see ahead of them, and Avocado Cay, the small township of San Cristobal was its main settlement.

The village was a thriving community, with weatherboard houses and stores fronting a narrow main street. Charlotte saw the schoolhouse and beside it the Episcopalian church, the churchyard incongruously ordered among such tropical disorder. She wondered how many other white people lived on the island. She had seen mostly black faces.

Logan was instantly recognised, and their progress was slowed by his casual exchanges with passers-by. Occasionally, someone would approach the car to take a look at the newcomers, and once a child clung to Logan’s open window, cheekily demanding when he was going to be taken sailing again.

‘You ought to be in school, Peter,’ Logan retorted, smiling to take the edge off the reproof, and in the moments before his features hardened again, Charlotte glimpsed the man who had awakened her to an awareness of her own femininity.

‘Will I go to school there?’ asked Robert, as the outskirts of the village were left behind, and they passed beneath the hanging branches of a belt of thickly rooted trees.

‘That depends,’ Logan replied quietly, and Robert, seizing on something else he had heard, went on:

‘Do you sail, too? What kind of a boat do you have?’

Charlotte licked her dry lips. ‘Perhaps you could explain why you thought I should have known Madame Fabergé’s husband was dead,’ she suggested tautly, ignoring Robert’s impatient sigh.

Logan reached forward and pulled a case of cheroots from the glove compartment, expertly flicking the pack until his lips could fasten round one slender stem and withdraw it. Then he felt in his pocket for a lighter, and applied the flame to its tip before replying.

‘Surely the conditions of employment were made clear to you, Mrs Derby,’ he said at last.

‘Yes.’ Charlotte endeavoured to keep the nervous tremor out of her tone. ‘I was sent here to take charge of Madame Fabergé’s small son and daughter.’

‘Philippe and Isabelle. Yes, I know.’

‘Then you must also know that I would assume Madame Fabergé had a husband. Why else would she be living in such an—an out-of-the-way place?’

‘Is that how you see San Cristobal? As an out-of-the-way place?’

Charlotte sighed. ‘Are you denying that, too?’

‘I am neither admitting nor denying anything, Mrs Derby,’ he returned smoothly.

Charlotte controlled the almost overwhelming desire to scream her frustration at him, and continued carefully: ‘You know that San Cristobal is hardly the usual haunt of a widow with two children, Mr Kennedy.’

He frowned. ‘No,’ he conceded at last, with what she felt was deliberate provocation. ‘But don’t dismiss these islands too lightly, Mrs Derby. They, like the great rain forests of my own country, make me acutely aware of my own minute contribution to the scheme of things.’

Charlotte breathed a sigh. ‘Mr Kennedy, I do not require a lecture on my own insignificance. I accept that. All I wondered was why Madame Fabergé should choose to live here.’

Logan’s nostrils flared. ‘Pierre Fabergé died of yellow fever six months ago in the Amazon delta!’ he stated grimly.

‘I’m sorry.’ Charlotte moved her shoulders in a gesture of regret. ‘I—I gather you knew him.’

‘He was my best friend,’ replied Logan harshly. ‘Lisette—his wife—had no one else.’

Now Charlotte understood. And with understanding came a feeling of withdrawal that had nothing to do with cool common sense. It was easy to see how Mr Lewis had confused the issue. Madame Fabergé’s husband had no doubt been a marine biologist, too. That would account for his friendship with Logan. And because of Logan’s occupation, it had been assumed that he was her husband.

‘You—Madame Fabergé lives with you?’ she ventured faintly, and was rewarded by a contemptuous glare.

‘Do not judge everybody by your own standards!’ he retorted cruelly, and it was fortunate that Robert chose that moment to distract their attention by pointing out the ocean ahead of them.

The road emerged from the trees above dunes of fine coral sand, where creaming waves spread a necklace of white lace. The sand looked pure, and unblemished by human endeavour. Before them lay the calm waters of the lagoon, deepening perhaps to no more than twenty feet, and beyond, maybe a couple of hundred yards out from the shore, the surging waters of the ocean tore themselves to pieces on the barely submerged crenellations of a reef.

‘Gosh!’ Robert was briefly speechless as he stared at a scene that was straight out of a travelogue, and then he shook his head as he turned to Logan again. ‘Is the water warm?’

‘Is seventy degrees warm enough for you?’

‘Seventy degrees!’ Robert hunched his shoulders disbelievingly. ‘Man, that’s warm!’ Then he sat up as signs of habitation signalled their proximity to their destination. ‘Where’s the lagoon? Is it far from the beach?’

Logan shook his head. ‘That’s the lagoon, Robert. The calm waters before the reef.’

‘Is it? Is it really?’ Robert was excited. ‘But why is it called a lagoon? I thought that was a lake or something.’

Logan hesitated. ‘Without the protection of the reef, these waters would be accessible to the biggest and most dangerous fish in the Caribbean.’

‘Sharks!’ said Robert, not without some satisfaction, and Charlotte shivered.

‘Yes. Sharks,’ agreed Logan flatly. ‘But barracuda, too.’

‘Have you ever tangled with a shark, Mr Kennedy?’ Robert asked eagerly, and Charlotte saw Logan’s mouth turn downward at the corners.

‘There are many types of shark, Robert,’ he told the boy quietly. ‘And not all of them are dangerous. The largest fish in the sea is a whale shark, and it’s quite harmless.’ He cast a strange look in Charlotte’s direction. ‘But some sharks—like some women—are unpredictable, and until you learn to recognise the species, you should leave them alone.’

Avocado Cay was a collection of dwellings bordering the ocean. Here and there, attempts at cultivating gardens had been made, but the rioting undergrowth and off-shore winds had almost defeated them. They were verandahed buildings, mostly, with corrugated roofs, set in clearings between flowering shrubs and ubiquitous palms. A few goats grazed on the outskirts of the village, and hens scattered before the wheels of the station wagon. They could smell the sea, its sharp salty tang coming strongly through the windows of the vehicle. The clarity of the air was startling, and only the blown spume on the reef misted the distant horizon.

Logan drove through the village, following a narrow track which led down through a belt of palms and eucalyptus trees almost to the water’s edge. Ahead of them, Charlotte could see the roofs of several single-storied buildings, and beyond, a wooden landing jutting out into the lagoon where a sailing ketch was moored. It all looked very beautiful and very peaceful, and without the presence of the man beside her, she would have felt a greater sense of relief.

‘Is this where we’re going to live?’ demanded Robert, voicing the question which had trembled on his mother’s lips, and Logan nodded.

‘Yes. That bungalow directly ahead of us belongs to Madame Fabergé.’

‘And where is our house?’ Robert persisted, but Charlotte again intervened.

‘I expect—Madame Fabergé will explain where we’re going to stay, Robert,’ she told him quellingly, avoiding looking at the man beside her. Then: ‘Now what are you doing?’

Robert grinned. ‘Taking off my sandals. I can’t wait to try the water.’