The House of the Scissors (11 page)

No other man had ever been so close to her and she only gradually became aware of the dangers of her position. She made a soft sound of protest, escaping his searching hands with an effort that cost her dear. Only then did the full extent of the injury to her ankle make itself felt. She tried to stand, but she couldn’t. She fell to her knees with a frightened gasp of agony.

“I—I’ve hurt my ankle,” she said piteously.

Immediately he was kneeling beside her, his arm about her waist. “Let me see, darling. Hold on to me!” She was only too glad to do so. Looking down at him, she could see the way his hair grew out of his scalp, and wondered at herself when her heart turned over merely because she was seeing him from a new angle. How could she go back to England, just as if nothing had happened? How could she live without him?

“I think you’ve broken something in your ankle,” he said at last.

“But I can’t have done!”

He stood up, supporting her against him. “Don’t look like that, Arab, or I shall have to kiss you again, and we would be much better employed getting you to the hospital.”

“You don’t understand!” she agonised. “They might put it in plaster! How can I do my job with a great lump of plaster on one foot?”

Lucien’s eyes twinkled with silent laughter. “You won’t be able to!” he answered with such scant sympathy that she tried to free herself of his restraining arm, uttering a cry of agony as she set her foot to the ground.

Arab burst into tears, sobbing her heart out against his chest. “They’ll send me back to England on the first available plane!” she sobbed. “And I’ll never see you again!”

“Would that be so bad?” he teased her gently.

Pride forbade her to tell him exactly how awful that would be. “Or Hilary!” she went on quickly. “I
like
it here, you see, and I like your house. It would be dreadful not to be able to finish the collection against that gorgeous background.
Anyone
would look terrific with all that carving—and those ceilings! I thought it was going to put me several rungs up the ladder of success!”

His arms, which had been supporting her in such a satisfactory manner, stiffened and the look of amusement left his face.

“I suppose that is important to you?”

She nodded enthusiastically. How could she say that she didn’t care a rap if she never stood in front of a camera again; that she never had cared much, but it had been an escape from a dead-end office job that she had hated. It was only when she had come to Malindi that she had begun to look on her job with new eyes. If it had brought her to such a beautiful place, it was worth everything!

“I see. I didn’t know that so much ambition burned in your breast. I took you for a simple girl with’ simple tastes—”

“Dull, unexciting, and easily flattered!” she finished for him.

His arms fell away from her entirely. She made a desperate effort to gain the support of the wall, letting out a wail of agony as her foot touched the ground.

“Oh, Lucien!” she wailed. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to help me!” She turned to face him, aware that she must look a mess, with coral rag dust in her hair and on her face and the traces of tears still on her cheeks and reddening her eyes. “Please, Lucien!”

“When are you going to be twenty-one, Arab?” he asked in a funny, tight voice.

“In a couple of weeks.” What had that to do with anything? she asked herself. She would be back in England by then, just as she and her parents had planned. Her mother had refused to pay any attention to the fact that one came of age at eighteen nowadays. Twenty-one was the traditional age, she had informed her daughter roundly. It was the age when a young man had been considered strong enough to bear the weight of full armour and to take on the responsibilities that had gone with it. It was the age when one had lived in the world long enough to have decided the way one was going to live and not have too many ready-made opinions. Arab sniffed. It was to have been a happy, family party and now—But it was best not to think of now. Now was endless ages without even seeing Lucien. It had been bad enough before, but now, after he had kissed her, he had aroused such a storm of emotion that the mere touch of his hand was enough to set her heart hammering and her knees trembling.

“It isn’t very long to wait,” he said. “Nothing to look so tragic about.”

“No,” she agreed.

Lucien sighed and produced his handkerchief again, mopping up her face exactly as though she were the child he thought her. “Blow!” he commanded her. She laughed, taking the handkerchief from him and wiping her face herself.

“T-twenty-one isn’t quite the same as being eleven!” she stammered.

He pushed her hair back behind her shoulders and smiled. “I’d noticed,” he said. “I think we’d better get you to the hospital, Arab, before anything worse befalls you.”

“Nothing worse could!” she mourned. She took another experimental step. “I can’t walk at all! What am I going to do?”

“I’ll carry you.”

She blushed. “You can’t. I’m much too heavy for you to—I mean, it’s a long way back to the car.”

He grinned. “I have to admit that my kind of work doesn’t make one a weight-lifting champion, but I’ll manage somehow.” He swung her up into his arms and she was immediately afraid that he would find out how badly she wanted to stay in his arms for ever.

“I’m too heavy,” she said, her voice shaking.

He set her down on the crumbling wall of the house. “I’m afraid you are for me to carry you that way for very far. I’ll have to use what I believe is known as a fireman’s lift—”

“I won’t do it!” she said flatly.

“Darling, you have no choice.” His amusement was very hard to bear, but before she had the chance to object further, he had grasped her firmly round the waist and had thrown her over his shoulder. “Don’t wriggle, or I’ll drop you!” he warned her.

“I’m not doing
anything
!” she wailed.

He laughed with such a total lack of feeling for her predicament that she took a swipe at him with her closed fist. He responded with a sharp slap on her bottom that brought the tears back into her eyes. “Now will you keep still?” he roared at her.

She scarcely dared to breathe lest she provoke him further. It was a bitterly uncomfortable journey, with the blood rushing into her head. When she shut her eyes it was a little better. At least she could no longer see the rough ground swaying below her. She tried to ease her weight a little, but Lucien’s hold prevented her, and after a while she gave up the attempt.

“What about Hilary?” she asked him.

“I’ll come back for her when I’ve put you in the car.” To her surprise his voice sounded quite normal. She felt quite indignant that she had so little effect on him. He wasn’t even panting!

“Lucien—”

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry to have spoilt everything.”

He was silent. He must have been walking quicker than she had thought, for a few seconds later they came out of the trees and into the car park. Lucien pulled open the door of the car and lowered her on to the front seat, keeping one hand behind her knee to support her foot until she could ease it into the space in front of her.

He stood there for such a long moment, looking at her, while she wriggled with embarrassment, uneasily aware that the ready colour was moving like a tidal wave up her face. She refused to meet his eyes, staring down at her fingers as she knotted them together on her knee. He touched her cheek with gentle fingers, turning her face towards him, his lips fastening on hers.

It was a long kiss. She shut her eyes and put her hands up behind his neck, holding him close. The taste of his mouth was ecstasy and she felt cold and weak when he stood up straight again.

“You didn’t spoil anything, little one. We’ll find an answer somehow.”

But she shook her head, determinedly looking the other way as he turned and left her, going back along the path towards the ruined town in search of Hilary.

Hilary came running back ahead of her uncle. She clambered into the back seat of the car, her eyes dark with concern. “Oh, Arab, how
awful
for you! Lucien says it hurts like anything and that you’ll have to have your foot in plaster. We can all write our names on it for you. If Mummy were here, she could do a nice drawing as well. She does beautiful drawings of everything in her letters to me. They’re really good, because you can see exactly how the people live, and things like that. Perhaps Lucien would write something in Arabic for you. He could write your name, and his own, and mine as well!”

“I don’t know that there’s any equivalent of my name in Arabic,” Arab said, wincing away from the pain in her foot.

“Arabic is written phonetically,” Hilary told her importantly. “Lucien says so. It looks pretty too.”

“Hadn’t we better wait until she gets the plaster on her foot?” Lucien said firmly, getting into the driving seat.

“But, Lucien,
everybody
writes on their plaster when they break something!”

“She may not have any plaster. She may not have broken anything at all. It might be no more than a bad sprain.”

Arab bit her lip. She knew that to be wishful thinking and her misery was complete. If it were a sprain, she could go on with her work, taking off the bandage for the few seconds it took for the camera to capture her image. There was
no
way that a hulking great mass of plaster could be hidden, however, and Sammy would be simply furious!

The hospital was a small building not far from the harbour. Arab had never noticed it previously. She peered out at it thinking that it looked deserted, when an African in a white, flapping coat came out to the car.

“
Jambo
,
bwana. Habari
!”

Lucien responded in kind and then went on to tell him about Arab’s ankle. “Is the doctor here?”

The African shook his head. “It is Sunday,” he answered.

“We’ll come inside,” Lucien decided, taking command with all his usual arrogance and self-confidence. “I’ll give the doctor a ring from there.”

The African brought out a wheel-chair that must have been left behind by some patient from a previous century. He grinned happily at Arab, patting the seat invitingly. Arab made a movement towards getting out of the car, but she was saved from having to put her foot to the ground by Lucien lifting her bodily out, placing her gently in the waiting chair. His gentleness made her want to cry again. She bit her lip harder than ever. Whatever was the matter with her, crying at the slightest thing, when she
never cried
! She
despised
people who wept all over people! She despised herself for the unaccountable weakness that engulfed her.

The inside of the hospital was fresh and clean. The African wheeled her in to the surgery, drawing the chair up in front of the window so that she could look out at the flowering shrubs outside. When he went out, he left the door open, and went and stood beside Lucien, anxious to help him as he telephoned for the doctor. Arab listened to the conversation, but she could understand very little of it, for most of it seemed to be in Swahili.

She turned her head and saw Hilary standing nervously outside.

“Come in and talk to me,” she suggested to her.

Hilary came up beside her, lounging against the open window. “I don’t like the smell,” she complained.

“It’s only disinfectant,” Arab told her.

Hilary went on twitching her nostrils. Arab wondered if she ought to send the child back to the car, but she didn’t like to interfere when Lucien was there and well able to look after his own niece.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” she asked the child, determined to divert her attention.

Hilary nodded. “The doctor’s coming now,” she answered. “He came from Europe somewhere before the war. His English is funny.”

His English was decidedly odd. He was a small, round man, with very little hair and a lot of gold in his teeth. But he was kind and his hands, as they examined her ankle, were very gentle.

“It is break!” he announced, and smiled reassuringly round the room. “There is displaced bone. Necessary put right. Then plaster. I do it now.”

Lucien’s dark eyes met Arab’s. “Are you ready?” he asked her.

She swallowed. “Will you hold my hand?” she asked him, not caring if he thought her silly at that particular moment.

“I’ll hold your hand!” Hilary offered. “And I’ll talk to you all the time.” She put her hand quickly in Arab’s, her face quite as pale and wan as the patient’s. “Lucien can hold your other hand,” she added in a strangled voice.

The ordeal was over in a matter of minutes. A single wave of pain travelled up Arab’s leg, bringing a gasp to her lips. It subsided into a dull ache and she felt able to breathe again. It wasn’t Hilary who talked to her, though, it was Lucien. He spoke from a great distance and she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying, which confused her.

“You’d better come home with us,” he said. “Ayah can look after you.”

“But I can’t!” she protested.

His eyes laughed at her. “I’m hardly going to seduce you, my love, while you’ve got that on your foot. Anyway, Sandra will be back later on. So do you think you could do as you’re told without a long argument?”