An Unsuitable Wife

* * *

The weather turned against them over the next few days. It was windy and wet, and they had a few exhilarating sails both clad in yellow rain-jackets, but when the wind rose to above twenty-five knots they sought protection in a secluded anchorage and spent two nights there until the weather eased. They were to turn into two of the happiest days Sidonie had known for a while, for several reasons. For one thing he cut down an ancient set of overalls for her and together they clambered down beneath the floorboards and inspected every part of the boat’s machinery minutely and she was able to exhibit her knowledge of diesel engines and run her hands lovingly over the Gardiner as well as attend to it where required. She was also able to squeeze into impossibly small spaces, spaces he couldn’t get into, and it was she who discovered the bilge pump that was not operating properly and was able to take it apart and fix it.

And although he didn’t say a lot she could see from the wry look he occasionally directed her way that she sometimes amazed him, sometimes amused him.

Then there were the evenings when the wind was howling through the halyards but they were snuggly battened down and he commenced his cooking lessons. They seemed to get into a routine. They showered and changed then she perched on a stool on the other side of the island bench from him and under his direction chopped, peeled and prepared. That was all she did the first night but she listened minutely as he explained what he was doing—pot roasting a piece of blade beef, sealing in the juices by searing it first then laying it on a bed of the vegetables she’d done with a little bit of liquid, seasoning and some red wine and setting it to simmer covered until done.

‘Very healthy and economical,’ he commented, pouring her a glass of wine.

‘Why?’

‘Well, you’re cooking everything in one pot on one burner and none of the goodness of the vegetables is lost because you use the liquid it’s cooking in as a thin gravy.’

‘I would never have thought of that. How do you know so much about it? Are you self-taught?’

‘More or less.’

‘That’s what I thought I could be,’ she said with a grimace. ‘It obviously didn’t work in my case.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Once some of the basics become clear to you, you could surprise yourself.’

But it was the next night that he surprised her. This time they were cooking the sweetlip he’d caught earlier; he’d shown her how to fillet it, how to make a light batter and they were intending to pan fry the fillets in olive oil. The wind had dropped but it was raining heavily, the lamps were on, and for the first time she’d left her hair loose to dry after getting caught in a shower while she’d checked that the anchor was holding; it was simply parted on the side and hanging to her shoulders. It was almost dry as she concentrated carefully on the potatoes she was slicing for chips. And when she looked up once it was to find him staring at her with a faint frown.

Her eyes widened. ‘Something wrong?’

‘No. Why on earth do you always scrape your hair back in a pigtail or a bun?’

She put a hand to her hair self-consciously. Its colour was fine, the palest gold in fact, its texture strong and vibrant, but left to itself the ends curled riotously. ‘Isn’t it a terrible mess?’

‘The kind of mess women pay fortunes to induce in their hair,’ he said ironically.

Sidonie stared at him, her lips parted. ‘Are you sure?’ she said after a moment.

His blue eyes roamed her face and she could see a kind of wry exasperation in them as he said, ‘Don’t you ever look at other women?’

‘Of course. Well, I must, mustn’t I?’

‘Then how come you’ve failed to realise that you have an almost perfectly oval face, beautiful eyes, skin like pale velvet, an amazingly stern little mouth when you want it to be but pink and inviting at other times—and that heavy mass of lovely hair just as it is sets it all off to perfection while the way you had it scraped back didn’t do much for you at all?’

Sidonie’s eyes almost fell out. ‘You’re joking!’

He grimaced. ‘I’m not. It may not be what you see on the pages of Vogue, although if you didn’t bite your nails that could help, but it’s a big improvement on Sidonie Hill as you normally present her to the world.’

‘But...but there’s the rest of me.’

His lips twisted. ‘I can’t see a great deal wrong with the rest of you either,’ he replied prosaically.

‘Well, I’m not terribly well-endowed if you must know.’

‘That could be a matter of opinion,’ he commented. ‘You actually have a rather coltish grace.’

‘I...I don’t know whether I should believe you,’ Sidonie said, her brow furrowed in a mighty frown.

He shrugged and looked amused. ‘Why don’t you test it out, then?’

‘How?’

‘Just leave your hair the way it is, for starters. Try not to be too serious when you’re around boys—it might help to sound a little less learned—I’ve already mentioned your clothes, and if you could relax, who knows?’ He turned away and reached for the oil.

Sidonie stared at his back and was possessed of the strangest impulse, which manifested itself in what she said. ‘At twenty-three aren’t I bit grown-up for boys?’

‘You look about sixteen at the moment,’ he said drily.

She bit her lip. ‘Well...but the problem of being too serious and learned-sounding—might that not appeal to older men?’

He turned back and looked more amused. ‘Once again, who knows?’

‘How old are you, Mike?’ The words were out before she could stop them and once out the implication was deafening and she blushed vividly but being Sidonie immediately attempted some rationalisation. ‘I mean, as an older man yourself, do you find me boring and too learned? I just thought it might give me some sort of guide. However else it may have sounded,’ she said lamely, and not entirely honestly, she realised.

The amusement left his eyes; she saw it go and flinched inwardly. Yet he said normally, even whimsically, ‘Definitely an older man; I’m thirty-six...’ he paused ‘...and too old for you, friend Sid.’ But he held her grey gaze in a level look for a moment before gently prising the knife out of her fingers and briskly slicing the last potato into chips.

She took a breath then said with all the hauteur she could muster, ‘That could be a matter of opinion too—speaking purely academically.’

He was unmoved. ‘So it could. Speaking generally as well, but not in this case.’

She couldn’t help the slightly crestfallen look that came to her eyes but if he noted it he made no comment as he put the chips in the hot oil.

And all she could think of to say was, ‘I see.’ But then she leant her chin on her hands thoughtfully, looking genuinely puzzled, and said, ‘If I were to assure you I had no designs on you at all—which shouldn’t be that hard to believe after the way I carried on a few days ago—could we continue this discussion on an academic level?’

An unwilling smile twisted his lips and he murmured, ‘The mind boggles but I have no doubt you’re going to pursue it to the death so I guess I have little choice. What is it you’d like to know, Miss Hill?’

She tried to marshal her thoughts into order as her father had always trained her to do when confronting a scientific problem and said at last, ‘Well. If as you said I’m not quite the rather ordinary, plain person I took myself for, does it mean you have a preference for tall, statuesque brunettes?’

‘Not necessarily. It merely means, and you should understand this, Sid—’ he glinted a blue glance at her ‘—that there has to be a certain kind of chemistry between a man and a woman that’s a subtle, mysterious thing and is the reason why a man will fall in love with one girl and not ten others who may be equally as beautiful if not more so. And vice versa.’ He laid the fillets of sweetlip carefully into the pan.

Sidonie grimaced. Then she said carefully, ‘Point taken. On the other hand it crossed my mind to wonder if there wasn’t more to it in your case. And by that I mean, on the scale of averages, most men of your age are either married or have been married.’

‘True,’ he conceded, quite unperturbed. ‘But I can assure you that I’m perfectly normal.’

Sidonie’s lips parted and her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ she said flusteredly. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of some deep unhappiness associated with falling in love that had come your way.’

‘Sidonie...’ he stopped what he was doing to look levelly across at her ‘...that is the kind of daydream impressionable sixteen-year-old girls are notorious for indulging in.’

A wave of colour stained her cheeks as their gazes held and for one horrifying moment she wondered if he was right. Then her natural obstinacy reasserted itself, although obliquely, and she shrugged her slim shoulders gently and said wryly, ‘Oh, well, I’ve told you all about me, I thought you might like to tell me a bit about you, that’s all. But naturally I’ll respect your wish for privacy. Would you like me to do the salad?’

For a moment he returned her innocent gaze then he muttered inaudibly beneath his breath and said, ‘No. Come and watch the fish and observe the temperature I’m cooking the chips at, but promise me one thing—you won’t ever attempt to cook chips on your own. That way you could burn the boat down.’

The fish was delicious but dinner was a slightly strained affair until Sidonie said, ‘I’m sorry, Mike.’

He lifted an eyebrow at her and looked sceptical.

‘No, I am. Could I explain to you what really made me so maddeningly inquisitive?’

He sighed. ‘Do you have to?’

‘I think so. I don’t like to think we’re not friends now so I’ve turned it all over in my mind and decided it’s probably only human nature of the feminine variety to feel a bit piqued when you receive a compliment such as you gave me but nevertheless delivered in such a completely disinterested as well as uninterested way.’

‘I see,’ he said gravely.

‘But my ego has recovered, I—’

‘Do assure me,’ he broke in solemnly but she could see the glint of laughter in his eyes.

‘Yes.’ And she smiled wonderfully at him with both relief and gratitude in her eyes. ‘Can we be friends again?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

They remained friends for about a day and a half but it was a growing cause of concern for Sidonie that, while what she’d told him about feeling piqued was undoubtedly true, what she’d told him about her ego being recovered was not. Added to this she became more and more curious about him and vaguely aware that there was a lot to Mike Brennan that absolutely intrigued her and reinforced her feeling that there might be some mystery about him too. Because, although he was mostly an easy person to live with, there were times when she got the feeling that he withdrew totally. And there were times when she watched him handle the boat or the sails and knew not only that he was a master mariner but kept feeling there had to be more to him... Why? she wondered several times. And answered herself, Well, perhaps it is because he’s such a master mariner yet it’s in a very educated way; he’s so scientific about the weather and navigation and a lot of other things—maybe he was in the navy once? Then one afternoon she saw him watch a plane fly over them towards Hamilton Island, and got the strangest feeling he knew all about it too.

So it was safe to say she became quite puzzled and concerned, and finally in a way that hit her rather like a sledgehammer despite making him even angrier, if anything, than he’d been over her failed dinner.

CHAPTER THREE

IT STARTED out a beautiful day and they had a glorious sail and then about mid-afternoon dropped anchor for the night at Nara Inlet, a long finger of turquoise water surrounded by the steep, tree-clad cliffs of Hook Island and echoing with birdsong.

‘We can do one of two things,’ Mike Brennan said. ‘Go ashore—there’s a good walk and some Aboriginal cave paintings—or we can have a swim.’

Sidonie’s eyes lit up. ‘Why don’t we do both?’

‘You’re very energetic, Sid,’ he said, glinting her a lazy smile.

‘I love exploring.’

‘I might have known. OK, get some exploring gear on. We’ll swim when we get back.’

The walk was wonderful, although steep and rock-strewn. Sidonie wore one of her two pairs of shorts, navy blue, with one of her new T-shirts, bright yellow, and her hair bundled into her floppy white hat. As a precaution, Mike insisted she smother herself with insect repellent although he didn’t bother himself, and after they’d landed he found her a sturdy stick just in case of snakes.

‘I feel like—Dr Livingstone,’ she confided.

‘Then I suppose I’m Mr Stanley.’

She looked him up and down; he had on khaki shorts, old sandshoes, a much washed khaki shirt and his red bandanna. ‘You look much more like the descendant of an Apache chief; however, lead on, Mr Stanley, sir!’

He did, with a lightning grin—and was able to demonstrate quite an amazing knowledge of the local flora; he pointed out to her Hoop pines, Pandanus palms and much more as they climbed steadily. And every now and then as the path strayed towards the edge of the cliff they got a bird’s-eye view of Morning Mist anchored in the waters below.

They had a break at the cave with the Aboriginal paintings and Sidonie was entranced. It was more an overhang of rock than a cave, fenced off and with a boardwalk erected. It was cool and dim beneath the rock and as she stared at each little image scratched into the surface and faintly coloured with pigments made from berries and the earth she got a feeling of timelessness that stayed with her for the rest of the walk.

‘You’re quiet, Sid,’ he said when they stopped in the rocky bed of a dried-up waterfall.

She looked around at the hot, silent bush and said intensely, ‘I’m feeling. And I think it’s an experience I’ll treasure forever.’

He squatted down and rinsed his hands in one of the few pools of water left. ‘Want to share it?’

She sat down on a smooth boulder. ‘This land is so old, isn’t it? That’s what I’m feeling, an ancient, timeless sort of...looking back. This is the kind of place that really steeps you in it—do you feel that?’

He took a moment to reply, then, ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself; yes, I do. It happens to me every time I come here.’

‘I’m so glad,’ she said simply. ‘It makes it even more—significant—oh!’ She jumped as a sulphur-crested cockatoo erupted out of a tree, squawking stridently.

Mike Brennan laughed and held down his hand to her. ‘Noisy devils, aren’t they? I think we’ve come as far as we can go—shall we get back for that swim?’

* * *

Back in her cabin, Sidonie considered two things—the fact that she couldn’t swim properly and the fact that this was the occasion she’d purchased not one but two bikinis for. She’d been turning over in her mind for the last couple of days whether to tell him about her lack of aquatic ability in case the need should ever arise but had balked at the thought of exposing yet another deficiency. She had hoped that the gentle few strokes of dog paddle she was capable of would take care of all such cooling-off occasions as might arise.

It now struck her that it wasn’t that simple off the back of a yacht and this was demonstrated further as the boat rocked and water splashed, indicating that Mike had just dived into the lovely waters of Nara Inlet.

She swallowed then stood up determinedly. She was hot and dusty but faint heart had never won anything and she donned the red bikini, glanced at herself briefly, raised a surprised eyebrow because she didn’t look too bad, and went aloft.

All that was to be seen of Mike was a dark head bobbing in the water some distance away and she thought, Good, I can get this over and done with before he comes back. So she climbed down the metal stern ladder that was riveted to the boat, discovered herself still a foot above the water, hesitated poised with one foot and one hand off the ladder, but the decision was taken literally out of her hands as a powerful dinghy shot past, throwing up a wake that rocked Morning Mist and caused her out of surprise to lose her single hand-hold and topple into the water.

I don’t believe this but I’m drowning, was the next coherent thought that came to her as she entered a green-filtered world, rose to the surface once, choking and coughing, only to sink again with the awful feeling that the water was actually pressing her down and she’d never see the light of day again. But only moments later, although her lungs felt like bursting, a pair of strong arms gathered her up and she and Mike Brennan broke the surface together.

‘You idiot,’ he yelled right into her ear, ‘what the hell are you doing? Trying to drown yourself?’

She coughed and retched. ‘No. But I can’t swim...’ And she slumped against him.

She had vague recollections after that of him slinging her over his shoulder in a fireman’s grip, somehow climbing the ladder with her and depositing her on the deck then bending over her and applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

‘I’m fine,’ she said groggily after a few minutes. ‘I don’t think I swallowed any. Thank you very much—’

‘You blasted, bloody little fool,’ he broke in, sitting back on his heels. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t swim?’

‘I can swim a bit—’

‘For that matter, why did you ever come on a trip like this, let alone ever set foot on a yacht, if you can’t swim?’

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