He turned, clearly expecting her to join him and exclaim with delight.
‘How lovely,’ she said, doing her best to be enthusiastic when all she really wanted to look at was the plumbing.
‘There are always birds. They are…’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry. You’ve had a long journey and you must be very tired.’
It seemed that she was going to have to work on that one.
‘I’ll be fine when I’ve had a wake-up shower,’ she assured him. ‘Something to eat.’
‘Of course. I do hope you will find time to go out in a canoe, though. Or on one of our guided bush walks?’ He just couldn’t keep his enthusiasm in check.
‘I hope so, too,’ she said politely. Not.
She was a city girl. Dressing up in a silly hat and a jacket with every spare inch covered with pockets to go toddling off into the bush, where goodness knew what creepy-crawlies were lurking held absolutely no appeal.
‘Right, well, breakfast is being served in the dining area at the moment, or I can have something brought to you on a tray if you prefer? Our visitors usually choose to relax, soak up the peace, after such a long journey.’
‘A tray would be perfect, thank you.’
The peace would have to wait. She needed to take a close look at the facilities, see how they measured up to the plans in the file and check that everything on Serafina’s very long list of linens and accessories of every kind had arrived safely. But not before she’d sluiced twenty-four hours of travel out of her hair.
‘Just coffee and toast,’ she said, ‘and then, if you could spare me some time, I’d like to take a look around. Familiarise myself with the layout.’
‘Of course. I’m at your command. Come to the desk when you’re ready and if I’m not in my office someone will find me. In the meantime, just ring if you need anything.’
The minute he was gone, she took a closer look at her surroundings.
So far, they’d done more than live up to Marji’s billing. The bed was a huge wooden-framed super king with two individual mattresses, presumably for comfort in the heat. It still left plenty of room for a sofa, coffee tables and the desk on which she laid her briefcase beside a folder that no doubt contained all the details of what was on offer.
Those bush walks and canoe trips.
No, thanks.
Outside, there was the promised plunge pool with a couple of sturdy wooden deck loungers and a small thatched gazebo shading a day bed big enough for two. Somewhere to lie down when the excitement got too much? Or maybe make your own excitement when the peace needed shaking up—that was if you had someone to get excited with.
The final touch was a second shower that was open to the sky.
‘Oh, very “you Tarzan, me Jane”,’ she muttered.
To the front there were a couple of director’s chairs where you could sit and gaze across the oxbow lagoon where the family of elephants had the same idea about taking a shower.
All she needed now was the bubbly, she thought, smiling as a very small elephant rolled in the mud, while the adults used their trunks to fling water over their backs. Kids. They were all the same…
Looking around, she could see why Celebrity was so keen. People were crazy about animals and the photographs were going to be amazing. But, while the place had ‘honeymoon’ stamped all over it, she wasn’t so sure about the wedding.
It had required three aircraft to get her here and the possibilities for disaster were legion.
She shook her head, stretched out cramped limbs in the early morning sunshine. She’d worry about that when it happened and, after one last look around, took herself inside to shower away the effects of the endless journey, choosing the exquisitely fitted bathroom over the temptations of the louche outdoor shower.
She was here to work, not play.
Ten minutes later, having pampered herself with the delicious toiletries that matched the ‘luxury’ label, she wrapped herself in a snowy bathrobe and went in search of a hairdryer.
Searching through cupboards and drawers, all she found was a small torch. Not much use. But, while she had been in the bathroom, her breakfast tray had arrived and she gave up the search in favour of a caffeine fix. Not that David had taken her ‘just coffee and toast’ seriously.
In an effort to impress, or maybe understanding what she needed better than she did herself, he had added freshly squeezed orange juice, a dish of sliced fresh fruit, most of which she didn’t recognise, and a blueberry muffin, still warm from the oven.
She carried the tray out onto the deck, drank the juice, buttered a piece of toast, then poured a cup of coffee and stood it on the rail while she ruffled her fingers through her hair, enjoying the rare pleasure of drying it in the sun.
It was her short punk hairstyle as much as her background that had so scandalised people like Marji Hayes when Sylvie had first given her a job.
Young, unsure of herself, she’d used her hair, the eighteen-hole Doc Martens, scary make-up and nose stud as armour. A ‘don’t mess with me’ message when she was faced with the kind of hotels and wedding locations where she’d normally be only allowed in the back door.
As she’d gained confidence and people had got to know her, she’d learned that a smile got her further than a scowl, but by then the look had become part of her image. As Sylvie had pointed out, it was original. People knew her and if she’d switched to something more conventional she’d have had to start all over again.
Admittedly the hair was a little longer these days, an expensively maintained mane rather than sharp spikes, the nose stud a tiny amethyst, and her safety pin earrings bore the name Zandra Rhodes, who was to punk style what Coco Chanel had been to business chic. And her make-up, while still individual, still her, was no longer applied in a manner to scare the horses.
But while she could manage with a brush and some gel to kill the natural curl and hold up her hair, the bride, bridesmaids and any number of celebrities, male and female, would be up the oxbow lagoon without a paddle unless they had the full complement of driers, straighteners and every other gadget dear to the crimper’s heart.
Something to check with David, because if it wasn’t just an oversight in her room they’d have to be flown in and she fetched her laptop from her briefcase and added it to her ‘to do’ list.
She’d barely started before she got a ‘battery low’ warning.
Her search for a point into which she could plug it to recharge proved equally fruitless and that sent her in search of a telephone so that she could ring the desk and enquire how on earth she was supposed to work without an electrical connection.
But, while David had urged her to ‘ring’, she couldn’t find a telephone either. And, ominously, when she took out her mobile to try that, there was no signal.
Which was when she took a closer look at her room and finally got it. Fooled by the efficient plumbing and hot water, she had assumed that the fat white candles sitting in glass holders were all part of the romance of the wilderness. On closer inspection, she realised that they were the only light source and that the torch might prove very useful after all.
Wilderness. Animals. Peace. Silence. Back to nature.
This was hubris, she thought.
She had taken considerable pleasure in the fact that Marji Hayes had, through gritted teeth, been forced to come to her for help.
This was her punishment.
There had been no warning about the lack of these basic facilities in the planning notes and she had no doubt that Marji was equally in the dark, but she wasn’t about to gloat about the great Serafina