Stephanie Read Free

want to. He was dynamic and wickedly attractive. Also he was funny. Most of her boyfriends, of whom only two had been more than friends, were too young and too solemn for her. She had a light, quick-firing intelligence which Errol’s agreeable sophistication exactly matched. Within two weeks they were lovers and they met whenever they could arrange it. (He was often out of England.) But this trip, this holiday together, was, as it were, the first public announcement.
    He had not hesitated to invite her, although he said it was against ‘company rules’. He was clearly deeply smitten – ‘besotted’ was his word – and could not pass up such a chance. She had accepted in the first place for the simple personal reason that she wanted to be with him, but the excitement of visiting India was a strong secondary incentive.
    So it had happened, and it had been a wonderful two weeks’ enjoyment without a future or a past. There was already something between them more than the sexual urge, strong though that was. They sparked each other off, sometimes with brief quarrels, but always, it seemed, the sparks were flying without real anger – and laughter at the end. A true relationship was beginning.
    All the same, though she lived a free and easy life, she didn’t particularly fancy herself as a home-wrecker. Errol’s reassurances to the contrary still left her feeling uncomfortable. Just now and then when she was alone she thought about it.
    â€˜Morning, miz,’ said a voice. She rolled over and sat up.
    It was the thin little Goan they had spoken to before. Though there were virtually no beggars on the beach, there was a persistent procession of people trying to sell you something, from bananas and soft drinks to saris and carpets, from copper and brass trinkets to jewellery and mosaics. Errol had a cheerful but immensely firm way of getting rid of them in the shortest possible time, but he had consented to look at this young man’s tray and fumbled over a ring and a brooch or two before sending him on his way.
    â€˜Sir coming?’ said the young man, looking at her and then hopefully at the hotel.
    â€˜Not this morning, Krishna.’
    â€˜Good rings,’ said Krishna, showing the jewellery of his teeth. ‘Very good, very cheap. See? Look this. Beautiful brooch.’
    â€˜Thank you. I’m just going to swim. And I wouldn’t want anything unless Mr Colton were here.’
    â€˜Thank you. I’m just going to swim. And I wouldn’t want anything unless Mr Colton were here.’
    â€˜Sir come later?’
    â€˜Not today, I think. Perhaps tomorrow.’
    â€˜You like take one back for him, see? This. See this. Suit you, miz. Beautiful stone, eh?’
    â€˜Beautiful, yes. But not today. Thank you, Krishna.’
    The young man lingered in a way few of them dared to linger when Errol was around. Stephanie got up and shook the sand off her towel. Two Goan girls had come up unnoticed and were sharing a corner of her shade, squatting, whispering together and smiling at Krishna. Stephanie folded her towel and hung it on the raffia roof of the sunshade. Then she walked towards the sea. After a few yards she stopped and turned to look at the hotel. The sun wafted in her face, burned her feet; the surf was hissing as it crawled in over the sand. Krishna was walking back, starting the long trek towards his village; the girls still squatted whispering to each other.
    What had she left there? A paperback, a pair of sunglasses, a cotton hat, a thin wraparound dress, a purse with a few rupees in it. If they went, they went; but she didn’t think they would. The Goans were known for their honesty as well as their good manners. She plunged into the sea with a crow of delight.
    A half-dozen Indian women were bathing near her still wearing their saris. What price emancipation?
    When she came back twenty minutes later the girls had gone as if they had