An Abundance of Rain by Carol Drinkwater

Author:Carol Drinkwater [Drinkwater, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CB Creative Books
Published: 2014-04-29T23:00:00+00:00

By noon on Sunday it was sweltering at the beach. The welcome light breeze of the morning had entirely disappeared. After a swim, Khumar, Kate and Philippe returned to the house. They picnicked in the shade of several magnificently scented frangipani bushes in full white and rose bloom. Kate prepared the lunch and Khumar assisted her. She seemed more brittle than she had been the afternoon before. Yet he found himself even more drawn to her, more attracted by her vulnerability. Warmed by her beauty, he longed for her.

After lunch Philippe went inside to work in the shade and they were left alone together, seated on the terrace, cooled by the long shadows, staring into the afternoon heat.

'Shall we walk in the garden?' he suggested.

She nodded silently.

'What is the matter?' he quizzed. 'You seem upset.'

'I've changed my mind about staying on. I'm leaving with Philippe on Tuesday. Did he tell you?'

He shook his head. The news disquieted and saddened him. 'Why?' he asked her.

'I think he's right.'

'What about your father, and the Plantation?' he queried.

'Both you and Philippe agree that my fears about his death are groundless. . . and Philippe is right. We can't run the place from London. It has to be sold.'

By two o'clock it was time for him to leave.

'I'll take you,' she proffered.

He said his farewells to Philippe and she drove him in the jeep to the ferry at Loquaqua. He felt joyless yet calmed to be going on his way home. His solitary existence had numbed his sociability. Home, work, would tranquillise him. He was pained by his attraction to Kate. . .he felt a cruel irony. First there had been Rolande, and now Kate.

They arrived at Loquaqua early. 'Will you wait with me until I go on board?' he asked.

They decided to cherish the unexpected half-hour by strolling peacefully along the wharf and through its surrounding shacked lanes. It was an indulgence soon to be denied them both. Silently, as he lit a cigarette, Khumar chided himself for allowing such a situation to have arisen between them.

They set off side by side along the garbage-ridden quayside. Several Indians working, gathering scrap metal or sea-drift from around the waterside, recognised him and waved warm greetings. He smiled in acknowledgement, feeling championed by their enthusiasm.

'Isn't that Ami over there?' Kate said with sudden surprise, and a certain anxiety. It was the boy's appearance that had initially drawn her attention. Without knowing why, she felt inexplicably alarmed. Ami was looking unkempt, tattered even, but there was something else which from the twenty yards or so distance between them she could not make out. 'Is he in trouble? Shall I call him?'

Khumar stood hesitating for a moment, deciding whether they should call out to the boy who was tying up a small motorboat alongside a narrow wooden jetty.

'No, don't,' he said finally.

There was a sign above it which read: 'Boats For Hire', and then in smaller lettering, 'by the hour or the day'. Beside Ami was another Indian, sulued, naked from his waist upwards.

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