One Night Of Love

‘Too early to tell,’ Dyan said off-handedly. She remembered her earlier flare of emotion, and wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to discuss Oliver, but Russ obviously did, so she said, ‘How does he strike you?’

‘Different from the ones we usually get. Not standoffish, but he doesn’t immediately try to be one of the guys, same as some of them do. I think he’ll be OK.’

Russ wasn’t a talkative man. Close to fifty, he was an American who had spent most of his life at sea, and loved it. Dyan had never seen him panic whatever the weather, probably because he had a great respect for the ocean and its sudden, dangerous changeability. And he was never irritated by the days of sailing up and down, searching the sea-bed, or dismayed by the orders she gave him to take the boat into tricky positions: close to barrier reefs or near to cliffs that towered over them. He was a seaman through and through. And a good judge of men; if he said that Oliver was OK, then that meant a great deal.

Leaning back, companionably drinking her beer from the can, Dyan wasn’t at all sure of her own opinion on Oliver. Her hopes about him had been raised too high to start with, then dashed too low. But that had been mainly her own fault, she realised. It had been a mistake to be so pleased at the thought of finding an unprejudiced man; if she’d been more wary, then she wouldn’t have been so disappointed to find that he was just as chauvinistic as the next man. So, she thought pensively, maybe it would be a good idea to look at him afresh. Start again from the beginning, so to speak. Taking a sip of drink, she pictured Oliver in her mind, remembering her surprise at his comparative youth and good looks when she first saw him. And she smiled to herself as she recalled how it had been important to find out whether or not he was married. Not that she particularly believed in marriage; she’d been disillusioned about that in the past, but she had to admit she’d been glad when Oliver had made it quite clear that he was unattached.

‘You’re smiling wider than a Cheshire cat,’ Russ remarked mockingly. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘My next leave,’ she told him, knowing him well enough to be pert.

But he wasn’t deceived. ‘Watch your step with this guy,’ he cautioned. ‘Remember the last time.’

The glow faded from her face. ‘You don’t have to remind me,’ she said shortly.

Putting a hand on her knee, Russ leaned forward to look into her face. ‘I just don’t want to see you hurt again. Are you over that bum?’

She nodded. ‘It was nearly a year ago.’

‘Good.’ Russ waved an admonitory finger at her. ‘But you be careful. You know how susceptible you are to English guys. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you to go for a red-blooded American.’

Dyan laughed. ‘Like you, I suppose?’

‘Sure, like me.’

As, like Barney Starr, Russ had treated her like a daughter since she’d known him, Dyan knew that he was kidding as usual. Bending forward, she planted a kiss on his weathered cheek and said, ‘I could never find anyone half as sexy as you, Russ.’

He laughed, enjoying the game they played, but someone gave a polite cough behind her and they both looked round to see that Oliver had come up to them.

Russ finished his drink and stood up. ‘Time I was going back to the bridge.’ He gestured to the chair he’d been using. ‘Here, take a seat.’

Oliver thanked him and sat down beside her. Dyan was intrigued to see that he had changed into shorts. Compared to the rest of the crew, his skin was pale, but it was by no means lily-white. His legs were strong and muscular, as if he played a lot of sport, and, thankfully, not too hairy. There were one or two members of the crew who looked one step up from a gorilla. Some girls might like that, but Dyan found it a turn-off.

‘Did you find out anything?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Hopefully we’re in luck. The pop star has bought another boat, did so almost immediately, in fact—evidently it isn’t good for his image to be without a yacht—and he kept on the captain and the original crew. It seems they rescued him when the Xanadu went down, so he’s grateful to them for saving him to make more, and yet more music,’ he said with a mock groan.

‘Does he have his life insured with you?’ Dyan asked in some amusement.

Oliver grinned back, ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘You should be glad, then.’

‘Have you ever heard his so-called music, Dyan?’

‘I think there are probably a couple of his cassettes on board,’ she admitted.

‘Then, please, I beg of you, don’t play them when I’m around, or they’ll end up over the side,’ Oliver said feelingly.

She laughed delightedly. ‘I’ll tell Russ to give a top priority order to the crew.’

Joe came out on the deck carrying two tall glasses on a tray. ‘I thought you might like a martini,’ Oliver told her.

Usually Joe just brought up cans of cold beer, but these glasses were frosted and there was ice and lemon. He had evidently been given specific instructions. Dyan took one, hoping Oliver hadn’t seen the empty beer can under her chair. He must, she thought, be used to living in a very civilised style.

‘Thanks, that was thoughtful of you.’

‘I had an ulterior motive,’ he told her.

‘Oh?’ She gave him a half intrigued, half wary look.

‘Yes. I thought you might get thirsty telling me that long story of how you come to be in charge of “this expedition, this ship and these men”, if I remember your words correctly.’

‘Oh, dear, was I as bad as that?’ Dyan gave him a guilty look, but there was also amusement in her green eyes.

‘Much worse,’ Oliver returned and leant back comfortably. ‘So?’

Dyan hesitated, wondering why he wanted to know. Was it out of genuine interest—or was he still checking up on her? Hoping it was the former, she said, ‘I’ve always been fascinated by the sea. When I was small we had a house near the coast. My father loved to sail and he taught me. But I didn’t want to just sail on it, I wanted to find out everything about the sea: what made the tides and the storms, what lived in it, what was down on the sea-bed. So, as soon as I was old enough, I went to college and studied oceanography.’

‘And did well, obviously.’

She admitted that with a small shrug. ‘There are four branches of oceanography. I studied all of them, but specialised in marine geology and marine ecology.’

‘What are the other two?’ Oliver asked, his eyes full of interest.

Dyan liked the way he seemed to give her his whole attention when he listened; his eyes stayed on her, he didn’t look away as people often did when she talked about her work. ‘They are the study of the physical, and the chemical components of sea-water. Marine ecology concerns the plants and animals you find in the sea, and marine geology is the study of the structure, features and evolution of the ocean basins.’ She paused. ‘I hope that didn’t sound too much like a lecture.’

‘No, it didn’t. I suppose, in your job, you find the latter discipline the most useful?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did you go to college?’

‘Oxford first, then I came over to America, to California for a year.’

‘And then you applied for the job with Starr Marine?’

‘No.’ Dyan shook her head. ‘First I took an engineering course so that I’d understand about lifting gear and weight ratios, that kind of thing.’ She frowned. ‘Why are you shaking your head?’

He didn’t answer directly, instead saying, ‘Are there many women in this business?’

‘I suppose you mean out at sea, actually supervising a salvage operation?’ Not waiting for him to answer, she said, ‘I’m the only one in Starr Marine at the moment, but there are other women coming into the job in other companies.’ She gave him a direct look. ‘Are you thinking that I’m the token woman, taken on to keep the Equal Opportunities Board happy?’

He gave her a lazy kind of look. ‘Are you?’

Perhaps Dyan should have been annoyed by that question, but she had just noticed how long and thick Oliver’s eyelashes were. She paused, having to gather her thoughts again, then decided to say teasingly, ‘Maybe I am. You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?’

‘I’m always reading that, to get anywhere in a man’s world, a woman has to be twice as good at the job than the average male,’ he commented. ‘And somehow I don’t think Barney Starr would risk his reputation by taking on someone who isn’t competent to do the work just to please a pack of officials.’

‘If that was supposed to be a compliment, it was so subtle that it hardly came across.’

Oliver laughed, his eyes arrested, and Dyan knew, with a surge of pleasurable excitement, that he was intrigued by her. But the warmth of the feeling brought her up short; after the last time, when she’d been so badly hurt, she had sworn off men. And Russ hadn’t had to warn her to be careful, she had known herself that falling for the wrong man was a big mistake. But how was she to have known that Crispin had just been using her for sex, that he had lied when he said he wasn’t married?

Taking a mental grip of herself, Dyan pushed the memories back into the deepest recess of her mind; not all men were the same, they weren’t all two-timing swine. But when you’d been hurt once—well, then you were always far more cautious in the future. So she put the brakes on where Oliver was concerned, and said in a calm, almost businesslike way, ‘How about you? How did you get into your job?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘Much the same way as you. University and then one or two special courses. But insurance is humdrum compared to this. Have you taken part in many exciting salvage operations?’

So he didn’t want to talk about himself. Through modesty, she wondered, or something else?

‘Quite a few,’ she answered. ‘Especially when I was working my way up through the company. My first job was to help raise an oil-rig.’ She started to tell him about it, making it sound interesting—because it had been interesting, and exciting at moments when it got dangerous. Again he listened intently, so Dyan went on to tell him of other salvage projects that she’d been involved with, ending, ‘But once I’d served my apprenticeship, so to speak, and took on jobs of my own, they’ve all been wet salvage, like this trip.’

“‘Wet salvage”?’ Oliver’s eyebrows went up.

‘Oh, sorry. Dry salvage is when you have to rescue a vessel that’s still afloat; wet salvage is when it has already sunk.’

‘I see. And where is your base?’

‘In London. But I’m not there very often.’

‘But you have a place to live when you’re not at sea?’

Dyan hesitated briefly, then said, ‘I have an aunt who lives in Highgate, near the cemetery where Karl Marx is buried, and she lets me have a room.’ She didn’t tell him about the flat that Crispin had rented for her, where she’d lived with him in the assurance that he loved her, that they would be married one day. And which she’d walked out of the moment she’d found out that he had lied to her all along. But that was getting on dangerous ground again. ‘Do you live in London?’

‘Yes, I have a flat in Chelsea.’ For the first time he opened up a little, saying, ‘But my parents live in the country and I escape there as often as I can.’

‘Do you ever go sailing?’

‘I haven’t done much,’ he admitted. ‘Mostly on holidays. I did some when I was out in the West Indies before, when I learnt to dive.’

They talked sailing and diving for a while, and Dyan found Oliver a good conversationalist. When he opened up on a subject he made it interesting and often amusing, but she sensed that he had barriers which he wouldn’t let down lightly. But then so had she; not just barriers but stone walls with red warning signs all along the top of them.

But, when she eventually went down to the ops room to check the log, Dyan had to admit that the couple of hours she was on deck with Oliver had been the most pleasant she’d spent for quite some while. And not only because she’d enjoyed talking to him; being a woman, she’d known instinctively that he found her attractive. Whether he, as a man, had known the same about her, Dyan wasn’t so sure. She’d tried not to give him any encouragement, to put out any vibes. Once bitten had made her more than twice shy, and there was no way she wanted to go rushing headlong into another relationship, another love affair. She had thought herself head over heels in love the last time and had been much too precipitate, given herself to Crispin too soon. So she had vowed to be careful in the future, to make her head rule her heart. But her head, unfortunately, couldn’t keep her stupid heart from feeling excited and full of hope.

The rest of that day and most of the following two were spent mostly in Oliver’s company, although Dyan made sure that Russ or some other member of the crew were often with them, or else she spent an hour or so alone in the ops room. She didn’t want Oliver to think that she was monopolising him, although it was mainly the other way round; he sought her out. This was natural enough as he was a sort of guest on board and she was his host on the company’s behalf, but she knew it was more than that. The smile he gave her, his eyes warm and interested, wasn’t the same smile that he gave to anyone in the crew. And when she changed for dinner in the evenings into one of her new dresses, his appreciative glance told her a great deal.

But Dyan also had her reputation with the crew to consider and didn’t want to get herself talked about, so she was circumspect and would often call Hal or someone over to join them as they sat out on the deck or in the rest-room after dinner.

Late in the afternoon of their third full day at sea, they motored quietly into the harbour at Antigua to pick up the other four members of the crew. But here they met the first snag of the voyage. One of the divers they were to pick up had been involved in an accident on the way to meet them. Dyan went ashore with Russ and Hal to visit him, but found that he wouldn’t be fit to work for at least a month.

The three of them had a conference after they left the hospital.

‘It could be a month before we find the boat we’re looking for,’ Hal pointed out. ‘He could join us then.’

‘Or we could find it straight off. We need a full complement of divers on this job. I’m going to call Barney and have him fly someone else out to us,’ Dyan said decisively.

‘It will mean staying in Antigua for a couple of days,’ Russ warned her.

‘Well, that can’t be helped. I’m not going to risk this lift without enough men.’

So, instead of immediately putting out to sea again, they found themselves having to wait at one of the most lively tourist resorts in the Caribbean.

‘Will it be OK to let the guys go ashore tonight?’ Russ asked her.

She nodded. ‘I don’t see why not. It will be some time before we’re back on land again so they might as well make the most of the delay.’

Russ made the announcement to the men as soon as they got back to the ship. He gave them no warnings about keeping their mouths shut, or not getting drunk, because these were all well-paid, responsible men, who wanted to keep their jobs. He knew they could be relied on to enjoy themselves without getting into trouble. The men gave a cheer and went off to get ready to go ashore. Even the cook got the evening off.

Afterwards, Oliver came over to Dyan. ‘Have you been to Antigua before?’

‘Oh, yes, several times.’

‘Then perhaps you know somewhere good where we can eat?’ He gave her one of his slow smiles. ‘That’s if you’ll have dinner with me, of course?’

Dyan felt her heart flutter a little, but she said offhandedly, ‘Thanks. We may as well keep each other company, I suppose.’

An amused glint came into Oliver’s eyes as he said smoothly, ‘Of course.’

Dyan went to change, unable to stop the zing of excitement bubbling in her veins. She brushed her hair into a loose mane around her head, put on make-up, and a cream dress that accentuated her tan and clung in all the right places. Looking at herself critically in the mirror, Dyan saw that she was looking her best, and deliberately stifled mental reminders that she wasn’t out to encourage Oliver. Well, tonight was time out; tomorrow she would be back to normal again.

Oliver was waiting for her in the rest-room, wearing a white dinner-jacket and dark trousers, smart but casual clothes. He turned round as she came in and his eyes widened very satisfactorily. ‘You look—stunning,’ he said as he let out his breath. Then he grinned. ‘You ought to be a fashion model. No one in the world would ever think that you’re in charge of “this expedition, this ship and these men”.’

‘Aren’t you ever going to let me forget that?’ she asked, laughing.

‘Well, I certainly won’t.’ He paused and added teasingly, ‘And one day maybe I’ll tell you why.’

Intrigued, she immediately became terribly feminine, giving him a wide-eyed look. ‘Tell me now,’ she coaxed.

Taking her hand, Oliver laughed. ‘Oh, no. Come on, let’s go ashore.’

Dyan reported to Russ first, telling him where she could be found in case of emergency, noting that the three crewmen who had come aboard that day were standing watch.

They took a cab to a nightclub that served some of the best West Indian food in the Caribbean. It was an unusual place, with a straw roof and rows of tables in tiers above a dance-floor that looked too big for the room. A steel band played while the customers ate; music to dance to between courses. They had a couple of piña coladas served in tall glasses with fruit falling out the sides while Dyan described the dishes on the menu for Oliver. He made several witty, outrageous, comments about the dishes which made her laugh, and she suddenly felt intensely happy.

Oliver, too, seemed much more relaxed, and he deliberately set out to amuse and entertain her. She had thought him good company before, but here he seemed to come into his own, to be the kind of companion a girl dreamed about. And it became clear why when he leaned across the table after they’d given their order, and took her hand in his as he said, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever really been alone with you. There are always so many other people around on board the ship.’

‘Yes, I suppose there are,’ Dyan agreed lightly, trying to decide whether or not to take her hand away.

‘Mostly because you seem to invite people to join us,’ Oliver said, watching her.

She didn’t try to deny it, but said, ‘Do you mind?’

‘Yes. They cramp my style.’

Her eyes came up to meet his at that. ‘Oh! Really?’ she said in surprise, not quite knowing how to take it.

His mouth curved in amusement. It was a very sexy mouth, now she came to think about it. ‘Really,’ he assured her gravely.

She took her hand away. ‘I suppose you’ve had plenty of practice, back in London,’ she said on an offhand note.

‘Ah.’ Oliver leant back in his chair. ‘I think we’ve reached the moment when you’re supposed to say, “But I know nothing about you”.’ He imitated a girlish voice, overdoing it, making her give a gurgle of laughter.

‘Am I? I didn’t realise we’d reached that moment.’ The laughter was still in her eyes but there was a question in her voice.

‘Oh, yes, I think so.’ He gave her one of his laconic smiles. ‘Now, where shall I begin? I’m thirty-two. Educated and civilised at a public school, knocked into shape and a career at university—Cambridge in my case. The only son of terribly respectable parents…’ His voice was flippant, but now his eyes settled on her face. ‘And I’m what you might call experienced, but definitely heart-free.’

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