‘Ah, you travel alone. Perhaps you are lonely, yes? Allow me to make a suggestion. Every night we have a cabaret in the Arjuna Room, very friendly, very informal. Lots of Balinese dancing, very happy for our guests. There will be many young people there. Perhaps you like me to put you at a table with some other tourists so you can make friends?’
Emma winced inwardly. The last thing she wanted was to sit with a group of total strangers in a holiday mood. But the clerk was so earnest, so genuinely anxious to help that she felt she owed him some kind of explanation.
‘Er…that’s very kind of you,’ she said, inventing wildly, ‘but I’m rather tired from the plane trip and in any case I probably won’t be alone for long. My husband may be arriving later in the evening, so I’d rather stay in my room and wait for him.’
‘Of course, of course, madam. I understand. I will look out for him.’
Well, you’ll be looking for a long time, thought Emma as she took the key with a wry smile. But when a bellboy in a black sarong, vividly printed scarlet shirt and batik headscarf came forward to take her bag, she felt her spirits lift unexpectedly. As she followed him along the highly polished teak floors through a maze of corridors, the depression of the last few months began to ebb away from her. Perhaps it had been a good idea to come on this trip, after all. With a shock she realised that it was the first holiday she had taken since she left Richard.
The bellboy opened a glass door leading to the outside of the building and ushered her on to a shady veranda. Once again she experienced that heady waft of warm, moist, tropical air. Her companion’s sandals scuffed softly on the crazy paving of the path as he led her between low, clipped hedges that bordered a garden filled with ginger lilies, hibiscus and frangipani bushes.
“There, madam,’ he said, pointing to a building directly in front of them. ‘That is your bungalow. And the closest swimming-pool is just through the stone gateway on the right.’
In spite of being called a bungalow, the building in front of Emma was actually two storeys high and built in the traditional native style. It had a high gabled roof covered in orange pantiles, the walls were covered in orange rendering with inset panels of carved grey stone and the shady verandas both upstairs and downstairs were scattered with invitingly deep, cushioned bamboo chairs. She found her thoughts turning immediately to long, cool, fruity drinks clinking with ice.
‘Come in, come in,’ urged the bellboy, smiling. ‘Nice and cool inside.’
It was nice and cool. The air-conditioning purred softly and the room that met her gaze was tastefully furnished and welcoming. Against the neutral cream walls hung vividly coloured Balinese paintings of landscapes and mythological scenes. A Barong mask with intricately decorated gold ears, bulging eyes and monstrous teem grinned wickedly above an ornately carved teak drinks cabinet. The actual furniture was minimal—a comfortable lounge suite covered in green batik, a couple of bamboo coffee-tables and a bamboo dining suite. But behind a magnificently carved wooden screen the bellboy pointed out a tiny, fully equipped kitchen. Then he led her up the stairs to the bedroom.
Here the memories were so sharp that they were almost a physical pain. As she looked around every detail seemed to be etched vividly in her memory. The two vast beds with their exuberant bedspreads writhing with brilliant tropical flowers, the paintings of courting egrets on the walls, the carved dressing-tables and wardrobes were all unbearably familiar. Even the bathroom with its gold taps and green marble fittings was a poignant reminder of the past. All the same, as the bellboy deposited her suitcase and pointed out the various features of the room to her she tried to smile. Yet the only thing she wanted now was to be left in peace, alone with her memories.
‘Thank you very much,’ she said at last, gently cutting him off by handing him a five thousand rupiah note. ‘If you could have some iced juice and fruit sent over to me soon, I’d be grateful.’
When his thanks had died away and the door downstairs had closed quietly, she was finally free to stop keeping up appearances. Kicking off her shoes with a sigh of relief, she delved into the thick chignon at the back of her head, yanked out the hairpins and felt her long hair tumble loose around her shoulders. Then, driven by another of her absurd impulses, she wrestled her suitcase up on to the bed and rummaged inside it. At last she found what she was looking for and laid it out on the bedspread. With shaking fingers she pulled off everything—her expensive French suit with the gold brooch on the lapel, her silk tights, hand-embroidered underwear, pearl necklace and gold pearl drop-earrings. Then she picked up the long, wrap-around batik dress which Richard had bought her on their honeymoon. It was a smoky blue colour with a halter neck, no back whatsoever from the waist up, a long, swirling skirt and a red starburst of colour like the explosion of a supernova on the front. The smell of the sandalwood chest where she had kept it all these years rose faintly to her nostrils as she tied it around her. Picking up a hairbrush, she attacked her hair with long, jerky, tugging strokes, but flung the brush aside before she had finished. A small, stark smile distorted her lips as she walked slowly across to the dressing-table mirror.
‘You haven’t changed much, Em,’ she said to her reflection.
But the cynical narrowing of her eyes and the wry pursing of her mouth told her she was wrong. Oh, in one way it was true. With her wavy, dark hair cascading around her shoulders and her petite, almost adolescent figure, she still looked much like the nineteen-year-old girl Richard had married. Her pale, creamy skin was still fresh and unlined, while her small breasts were little more than a gentle swell beneath the thin fabric of her dress. Yet in other ways she was a woman, and an embittered woman at that. Her eyes, yellow-flecked at the centre and deep green around the outer edge of the irises, stared back at her with their habitual wary expression. And there was an indefinable tension in the whole carriage of her small, neat body.
‘Oh, damn it!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why did I do this? I should have known there was no going back.’
Tearing off the gauzy Balinese dress, she opened the bathroom door and flung it down on the floor. Perhaps a shower would freshen her up and stop her being so ridiculously gloomy. After all, this holiday was supposed to be fun. A last fling, a chance to enjoy herself before the dreary, humiliating task of declaring herself bankrupt.
With a determined gesture, she slammed the door to the bedroom, turned on the taps and stepped under the shower. Deliberately she let it run quite cool, so that when she stepped under it she let out an involuntary squeal of shock. But after five minutes under that cool, invigorating hail, a sense of well-being began to invade her. I won’t think about Richard any more, she told herself forcefully. I’ll just relax, unwind and soak up the sun and the atmosphere. After that, I’ll be in much better shape to tackle my problems.
Closing her eyes, she lifted her face to the downpour of cool water and shuddered luxuriously. Mmm, she was feeling better already. She turned off the taps, groped for a thick, fluffy towel and stepped out of the shower stall. As she wrung the water out of her hair, she thought she heard the distant sound of a door closing downstairs. Probably Room Service with the snack she had ordered. Well, she had better make herself decent in case the maid came upstairs. Rubbing herself briskly, she pulled on the flimsy Balinese dress, gave her hair a final wipe and dropped the towel. Then she opened the door, stepped into the bedroom and suffered a shock so appalling that her heart almost stopped.
‘Richard,’ she moaned.
It was him. Really him. Not some lunatic figment of her imagination like the fantasy on the bus, but a real, solid, breathing human being. As tall and broad as he always had been, with the same sun-streaked, curly blond hair, tanned skin and vivid blue eyes. But different. Oh, God, how different! He was still devastatingly goodlooking, but there was a harshness about him that the younger Richard hadn’t had. A brooding quality of power and authority that radiated out to meet her with devastating force. Like Emma, he was dressed in the sort of casual clothes they had worn on their honeymoonin his case thin beige shorts and a beige and tan batik safari jacket which revealed his muscular legs and forearms. Yet the resemblance to the man she had once loved with all her heart ended with the clothes. In all other ways this was a stranger, who stood grim