My Friend Sandy (My Friends...) by Duncan Jane

Author:Duncan, Jane [Duncan, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: azw
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2015-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

TWICE arrived home in the middle of the following forenoon and when I heard him shouting to Clorinda for beer, I left my sewing and ran on to the verandah.

‘I’m drier than a wooden god!’ he greeted me. ‘Cripes, what a morning!’

‘What happened? Did you get the turbine here all right?’

‘Yes, but I’ll never be the same again. . . . Thanks, Clorinda. Bring a bottle for the Missis and another one for me. . . . These negroes give me the willies – how half of them weren’t either killed or drowned this morning I don’t know. Life and limb are held very cheap in this island. I’ve never seen so much all hell and no notion in my life. That’s better.’ He finished the first bottle of beer and began to open the second. ‘And how are you? Anything been doing?’

He was standing, legs astride, in mid-floor with the glass of beer in his hand, looking at me. There are certain moments that fix themselves in the mind, clear-cut and in every detail. His face, tanned by the sun, had the reddish dust from the gorge road sticking in the sweat in every groove, his eyes glittered brilliant blue and his teeth brilliant white as he grinned at me, and his shirt was sticking to the sweat on his chest and shoulders.

‘A pretty trick you perpetrated last night,’ I said.

‘No trick at all, anywhere, my pet. All strictly above board and on top of the table.’

‘You made me feel a bit of a fool, Twice, when Sashie came in and repeated what you had said.’

‘You’d been a bit of a fool, hadn’t you? No sense in being one if you don’t feel it.’

I sat down and said: ‘No. I suppose not. Logical, aren’t you? I didn’t mean to play the fool, Twice.’

‘I realize that. People usually don’t.’

‘You don’t feel you might have mentioned to me, sort of, that Don was thinking along those lines?’

‘I’ve tried to mention it, sort of, several times along these last eight months or so, but you never seemed to take it in. . . . I did a fair amount of thinking too, last night, when I discovered that the Coyote had left the hotel as soon as I arrived.’

‘So you decided to send Sashie?’

‘It was that or come myself. You still don’t seem to have a full grasp of the situation. If I had come myself, I’d probably have throttled him. I know he’s a fair size and well put together, but he hasn’t my weight and, if you don’t mind my saying so, my sort of temper or, and this is vulgar, my feeling of possession.’

‘Twice, I’ve been worrying you – making you unhappy?’

‘I have been worried and a little unhappy at times, but I know you didn’t intend that. If I’d thought you did, I’d have come here myself last night. As things were, I thought Sashie would get you out with more dignity and tact. I confess to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.