The Red Pavilion (32 page)

‘We should have taken our clothes off — like at the lake,’ he said.

‘Why not? Let’s just stand out there.’ She began to pull her saturated clothing off and stepped out into the downpour.

‘Oh! lovely’ she shouted above the din. ‘Come on in — no, out!’

Alan pulled off his clothes and hung them on a chair which stood at the back of the verandah. He lifted his hands above his head and let the water stream over him, remembering the home-made shower at Rinsey when he had first dined in the house, first known Liz loved him.

They came together, letting the water stream over their entwined bodies. Liz had a mental picture of how they must look, how she could draw them, Art Nouveau style, sensual, with a background of wild Rousseau jungle. She would avert the faces so the picture could hang on the wall of their home, so only she and Alan would know the real significance.

All through the night their lovemaking was accompanied by the pounding beat of rain. But the morning dawned clear, gleaming with all the cleanness of a land new-scrubbed and polished by the storm. She felt him move from the bed, heard him go to the window, heard a faint gasp of amazement and, seeing her awake, he said in an awed voice, ‘Come and look!’

She knew by the dancing of the light from the window what he was seeing and went to stand, her arm around him.

Raindrops still hung sparkling in huge prismatic drops from every leaf and over the steaming track hovered a myriad gaudy butterflies, like a curtain screening jungle from beach, screening them from the world.

‘I wouldn’t have believed it,’ he whispered, ‘if I had not seen ... ’

‘It often happens after rain,’ she told him.

He stood and admired them as long as they remained, turning to her as the last few began to drift away, the wonder of it still in his eyes.

*

Four months later George and Blanche stood, arms linked, on the Jardine Steps of Keppel Harbour, looking up at His Majesty’s Troop Ship
Lanshire
. Having loaded its returning troops, officers, wives, nurses, other personnel and Liz, the ship was preparing to leave for the month’s journey home to England.

Both searched the ship’s rail until Blanche squeezed George’s hand. ‘There they are! Together, look! Under the fourth lifeboat from the front.’

They waved energetically back to Alan and Liz, who had obviously spotted them some time ago.

‘Goodbye, my love,’ Blanche called. ‘Goodbye! Give my love to Pearling. Let me know what’s happening there. All the news.’

‘They can’t hear.’ George shook his head at her efforts.

‘I know, I know!’ Blanche said, waving hectically.

The hawsers were slipped from the bollards, splashing down into the dock, and a tug moved in to nudge and nurse the troop ship out into the channel.

From the rail, pressed close by Alan’s side, Liz waved and waved, feeling unutterably separated from her mother as clear water appeared between boat and land.

Adrift. She felt she ought to try to explain to someone that life had somehow mixed up their journeys. She was the one who was supposed to stay and her mother to return.

Alan took her hand and held it very hard. It felt as if he brought her hovering heart finally aboard for the journey, anchored not to a place but to a person.

“What needest with thy tribe’s black tents, who hast the red pavilion of my heart?”

Liz was never sure whether it was she who whispered the words.