37 Hours. J.F. Kirwan

class.

      She stared out the window as the taxi trundled down cobbled boulevards towards the airport. She thought about last night, looked again at her flashy dive watch and the first class tickets. Not bad. Not bad at all.

      But there was one thing missing. The man she’d not seen for two years, whom she’d frequently sworn to forget because he’d abandoned her – but she couldn’t seem to forget him. And so she wondered.

      Would he come?

       Part Two

      Anspida, South China Sea

       Chapter Six

      The sand was already scorching hot at nine a.m. Nadia ran on the balls of her feet from her hut to the white sand beach down by the jetty, and let the warm crystal water lap over her toes.

      ‘Breakfast’s up,’ Dominic shouted, one of three dive instructors working on the island you could walk around in twenty minutes.

      She half-ran, half-hopped to the main building, an open timber affair with a tall thatched roof supported by sturdy beams. Four long wooden tables and benches were filling up with divers, some already wet, others waiting for the ten o’clock shift. Many of them were Japanese, and Yukio, a dive instructor from Okinawa, breakfasted with them on the local rice dish, nasi goreng. It smelled good, and though it was more like lunch than breakfast, Nadia grabbed a plate and sat at the corner of a table.

      She devoured the noodle-chicken-vegetable melange, washed it down with coconut water, and ordered an espresso. The only luxury item she’d seen on the island was a professional Lavazza coffee machine. She might have two. After all, it was her birthday.

      She left the rest of the group – half of them sleepy from jet lag or late-night banter, the other half excitable from the morning’s plunge into the South China Sea, which had the most varied fish life in the world. She would wait, just in case he arrived. Besides, she needed to digest.

      She nabbed one of the hammocks strung between two palm trees, their fronds swaying in the gentle breeze. Not easy climbing aboard while holding an espresso, but she managed it. Closing her eyes, the smooth cup at her lips, she inhaled the Arabica aroma mixed with the salty tang of the ocean. Small sips rolled over her tongue, warming her throat. She rocked slowly. Dappled sunlight danced on her eyelids.

      Bliss.

      She opened her eyes and gazed beyond the dive hut to the forest. She’d explored it yesterday, just before sunset. A challenge. Dense foliage, a dozen shades of green, roots and thorny bushes, the sound of the sea lost after only twenty metres, replaced by the loud buzz of invisible, bloodthirsty insects. After wading through fifty metres, her shins covered in small scratches and bites, she was almost lost. But she ploughed on, rewarded on the other side of the island by a close encounter with a huge green turtle as it lumbered up the soft sand slope to dig a hole and lay eggs.

      She’d watched it from a distance until it grew dark and the mosquito shift came to feast on her, despite having plastered her skin with repellent earlier. The turtle struggled, terribly weary judging by its slow, jagged digging movements, but it never stopped. Nature imbued its progeny with an incredible will to prolong the species. She walked beside the turtle as it lumbered down to the sea, and clapped as it floated and then disappeared beneath moonlit waves. By the time she’d walked around the beach back to the dive centre, she’d missed dinner, and didn’t care.

      In the hammock, she turned her head back towards the emerald sea that shifted to cobalt blue farther out in the depths. She heard the distant whine of an engine. Shading her eyes, she searched for the boat – not so easy with the sun low in the sky, flashes of white skittering across the wave-tops. It was the same speedboat she’d arrived on, a sleek five-metre affair with a rectangular orange canopy to stave off the sun, a single powerful engine at the rear. Several passengers. Her breath shallowed. One of them stood out from the others. At the prow. Only a silhouette, but his broad-shouldered swimmer’s physique gave him away. She rolled off the hammock and stood under the shade of the palms.

      She thought about running to the jetty to greet him. But she was still pissed off with him. No visits, no letters, no communication whatsoever. He was probably with someone else, married for all she knew. After all, it hadn’t been a big romance. Made love three times, had a couple of deep conversations. Not a relationship. Barely an affair. A fling, that was all.

      He disembarked, and saw her. He handed his holdall to one of the locals, and walked straight towards her.

      As he approached, she folded her arms. ‘Nice of you to drop by,’ she said. But he didn’t slow down. He came right up to her, took her head in both hands and kissed her, hard, urgent, passionate. The opposite of Sergei, who had been seductive, smooth, confident.

      She came up for air. ‘You have some explaining to do.’ But her body was already reacting to him. The chemistry between them burst alive, and was kicking. But her anger was there, too.

      ‘Why didn’t you come to see me?’

      ‘Later. Here’s what matters. I haven’t made love to anyone since the day you were taken away.’

      She eyed him. Was it true? She searched those deep blue eyes.

      Damn. She’d been looking forward to a storming row, him being guilty, begging her to forgive him. And now this? He’d been faithful, whereas she’d slept with Sergei less than forty-eight hours ago… She felt her face redden with embarrassment. She hoped he’d mistake it for sunburn. But she realised it touched her – if he wasn’t lying about it. No one had ever cared about her that much. She needed time to work out how she really felt about it, but sensed that time was the one thing that was in short supply.

      ‘Where’s your room?’ he asked.

      Unbelievable. But at least now she was on more familiar ground. ‘What, the hammock isn’t good enough?’

      He took her hands, held them behind her back with one hand and kissed her throat, his chest brushing against her breasts, while his other hand held the back of her head. He nudged her back towards the hammock. Cheering erupted from one of the breakfast tables. The Brits, naturally.