Текст книги "Eagle in the Sky"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

Соавторы: Wilbur Smith
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David was sitting amongst a group of young Australians who wore souvenir

sombreros and passed goat-skins of bad wine about, the girls squealing

and chattering like sparrows.  One of them picked on David, leaning

forward to tug his shoulder and offer him the wine-skin.  She was pretty

enough in a kittenish way and her eyes made it clear that the offer was

for more than cheap wine, but he refused both invitations brusquely and

went to fetch a can of beer from one of the vendors.  His chilly

experience with the girl in Paris was still too fresh.  When he returned

to his seat the Aussie girl eyed the beer he carried reproachfully and

then turned brightly and smiling to her companions.

The late arrivals were finding their seats now and the excitement was

escalating sharply.  Two of them climbed the stairs of the aisle towards

where David sat.

A striking young couple in their early twenties, but what first drew

David's attention was the good feeling of companionship and love that

glowed around them, like an aura setting them apart.

They climbed arm in arm, passed where David sat, and took seats a row

behind and across the aisle.  The girl was tall with long legs clad in

short black boots and dark pants over which she wore an apple-green

suede jacket that was not expensive but of good cut and taste.

In the sun her hair glittered like coal newly cut from the face and it

hung to her shoulders in a sleek soft fall.

Her face was broad and sun-browned, not beautiful for her mouth was too

big and her eyes too widely spaced, but those eyes were the colour of

wild honey, dark brown and flecked with gold.  Like her, her companion

was tall and straight, dark and strong-looking.  He guided her to her

seat with a brown muscled arm and David felt a sharp stab of anger and

envy for him.

Big cocky son of a gun, he thought.  They leaned their heads together

and spoke secretly, and David looked away, his own loneliness

accentuated by their closeness.

The parade of the toreadors began, and they came out with the sunlight

glittering on the sequins and embroidery of their suits, as though they

were the scales of some flamboyant reptile.  The orchestra blared, and

the keys to the bull pens were thrown down on to the sand.  The

toreadors capes were spread on the barrera below their favourites and

they retired from the ring.

In the pause that followed David glanced at the couple again.  He was

startled to find that they were both watching him and the girl was

discussing him.  She was leaning on her companion's shoulder, her lips

almost touching his ear as she spoke and David felt his stomach clench

under the impact of those honey golden eyes.  For an instant they stared

at each other and then the girl jerked away guiltily and dropped her

gaze, but her companion held David's eyes openly, smiling easily, and it

was David who looked away.

Below them in the ring the bull came out at full charge, head high, and

hooves skidding in the sand.

He was beautiful and black and glossy, muscle in the neck and shoulder

bunching as he swung his head from side to side and the crowd roared as

he spun and burst into a gallop, pursuing an elusive flutter of pink

across the ring.  They took him on a circuit, passing him smoothly from

cape to cape, letting him show off his bulk and high-stepping style, and

the perfect sickle of his horns with their creamy points, before they

brought in the horse.

The trumpets ushered in the horse, and they were a mockery, a brave

greeting from the wretched nag, with scrawny neck and starting coat, one

rheumy old eye blinkered so he could not see the fearsome creature he

was going to meet.

Clownish in his padding, seeming too frail to carry the big armoured man

on his back, they led him out and placed him in the path of the bull,

and here any semblance of beauty ended.

The bull went into him head down, sending the gawky animal reeling

against the barrera and the man leaned over the broad black back and

ripped and tore into the hump with the lance, worrying the flesh,

working in the steel with all his weight until the blood poured out in a

slick tide, black as crude oil, and dripped from the bull's legs into

the sand.

Raging at the agony of the steel the bull hooked and butted at the

protective pads that covered the horse's flanks.  They came up as

readily as a theatre curtain and the bull was into the scrawny roan

body, hacking with the terrible horns, and the horse screamed as its

belly split open and the purple and pink entrails spilled out and

dangled into the sand.

David was dry-mouthed with horror as around him the crowd blood-roared,

and the horse went down in a welter of equipment and its own guts.

They drew the bull away and flogged the fallen horse, twisting its tail

and prodding its testicles, forcing it to rise at last and stand

quivering and forlorn.  Then beating it to make it move again they led

it from the ring stumbling over its own entrails.

Then they went to work on the bull, slowly, torturously, reducing it

from a magnificent beast to a blundering hunk of sweating and bleeding

flesh, splattered with the creamy froth blown from its agonized lungs.

David wanted to scream at them to stop it, but sick to the stomach,

frozen by guilt for his own part in this obscene ritual, he sat through

it in silence until the bull stood in the centre of the ring, the sand

about him ploughed and riven by his dreadful struggles.  He stood with

his head down, muzzle almost touching the sand and the blood and froth

dripped from his nostrils and gaping mouth.  The hoarse sawing of his

breathing carried to David even above the crazed roaring of the crowd.

The bull's legs shuddered and he passed a dribble of loose liquid yellow

dung that fouled his back legs.  It seemed to David that this was the

final humiliation, and he found he was whispering aloud.

No!  No!  Stop it!  Please, stop it! Then the man in the glittering suit

and ballet shoes came to end it, and the point of the sword struck bone

and the blade arced then spun away in the sunlight, and the bull heaved

and threw thick droplets of blood, before he stood again.

They picked up the sword from the sand and gave it to the man and he

sighted over the quiescent, dying beast and again the thrust was

deflected by bone and David found that at last he had power in his

voice, and he screamed:Stop it!  You filthy bastards.  Twelve times the

man in the centre tried with the sword, and each time the sword flicked

out of his hand, and then at last the bull fell of its own accord, weak

from the slow loss of much blood and with its heart broken by the

torture and the striving.  It tried to rise, lunging weakly, but the

strength was not there and they killed it where it lay, with a dagger in

the back of the neck, and they dragged it out with a team of mules its

legs waggling ridiculously in the air and its blood leaving a long brown

smudge across the sand.

Stunned with the monstrous cruelty of it, David turned slowly to look at

the girl.  Her companion was leaning over her solicitously, whispering

to her, trying to comfort her.

She was shaking her head slowly, in a gesture of incomprehension, and

her honey-coloured eyes were blinded with weeping.  Her lips were apart,

quivering with grief, and her cheeks were awash, shiny with her tears.

Her companion helped her to her feet, and gently took her down the

steps, leading her away blindly like a new widow from her husband's

grave.

Around him the crowd was laughing and exhilarated, high on the blood and

the pain, and David felt himself rejected, cut off from them.  His heart

went out to the weeping girl, she of all of them was the only one who

seemed real to him.  He had seen enough also, and he knew he would never

get to Pamplona.  He stood up and followed the girl out of the ring, he

wanted to speak to her, to tell her that he shared her desolation, but

when he reached the parking lot they were already climbing into a

battered old Citroen CV.  loo, and although he broke into a run, the car

pulled away, blowing blue smoke and clattering like a lawn-mower, and

turned into the traffic heading east.

David watched it go with a sense of loss that effectively washed away

the good feeling of the last few days, but he saw the old Citroen again

two days later, when he had abandoned all idea of the Pamplona Festival

and headed south.  The Citroen looked even sicker than before, under a

layer of pale dust and with the canvas showing on a rear tyre.  The

suspension seemed to have sagged on the one side, giving it a rakishly

drunken aspect.

It was parked at a filling station on the outskirts of Zaragoza on the

road to Barcelona, and David pulled off the road and parked beyond the

gasoline pumps.  An attendant in greasy overalls was filling the tank of

the Citroen under the supervision of the muscular young man from the

bullring.  David looked quickly for the girl – but she was not in the

car.  Then he saw her.

She was in a cantina across the street, haggling with the elderly woman

behind the counter.  Her back was turned towards him, but David

recognized the mass of dark hair now piled on top of her head.  He

crossed the road quickly and went into the shop behind her.  He was not

certain what he was going to do, acting only on impulse.

The girl wore a short floral dress which left her back and shoulders

bare, and her feet were thrust into open sandals.  But in concession to

the ice in the air she wore a shawl over her shoulders.  Close to, her

skin had a plastic smoothness and elasticity, as though it had been

lightly oiled and polished, and down the back of her naked neck the hair

was fine and soft, growing in a whorl in the nape.

David moved closer to her as she completed her purchase of dried figs

and counted her change.  He smelt her, a light summery perfume that

seemed to come from her hair.  He resisted the temptation to press his

face into the dense pile of it.

She turned smiling and saw him standing close behind her.  She

recognized him instantly, his was not a face a girl would readily

forget.  She was startled.  The smile flickered out on her face and she

stood very still looking at him, her expression completely neutral, but

her lips slightly parted and her eyes soft and glowing golden.

This peculiar stillness of hers was a quality he would come to know so

well in the time ahead.  I saw you in Madrid, he said, at the bulls.

Yes, she nodded, her voice neither welcoming nor forbidding.

You were crying So were you.  I Her voice was low and clear, her

enunciation flawless, too perfect not to be foreign.

No, David denied it.

You were cryin& she insisted softly.  You were crying inside.  And he

inclined his head in agreement.

Suddenly she proffered the paper bag of figs.

Try one, she said and smiled.  It was a warm friendly smile.  He took

one of the fruits and bit into the sweet flesh as she moved towards the

door, somehow conveying an invitation for him to join her.  He walked

with her and they looked across the street at the Citroen.  The

attendant had finished filling the tank, and the girl's companion was

waiting for her, leaning against the bonnet of the weary old car.  He

was lighting a cigarette, but he looked up and saw them.  He evidently

recognized David also, and he straightened up quickly and flicked away

the burning match.

There was a soft whooshing sound and the heavy thump of concussion in

the air, as fire flashed low across the concrete from a puddle of

spilled gasoline.  In an instant the flames had closed over the rear of

the Citroen, and were drumming hungrily at the coachwork.

David left the girl and sprinted across the road.

Get it away from the pumps, you idiot, he shouted, and the driver

started out of frozen shock.

It was happy fifth of November, a spectacular pyrotechnic display, but

David got the handbrake off and the gearbox into neutral, and he and the

driver pushed it into an open parking area alongside the filling station

while a crowd materialized, seeming to appear out of the very earth, to

scream hysterical encouragement and suggestions while keeping at a

discreet distance.

They even managed to rescue the baggage from the rear seat before the

flames engulfed it entirely, and belatedly the petrol attendant arrived

with an enormous scarlet fire extinguisher.  To the delighted applause

of the crowd, he drenched the pathetic little vehicle in a great cloud

of foam, and the excitement was over.  The crowd drifted away, still

laughing and chattering and congratulating the amateur firefighter on

his virtuoso performance with the extinguisher, while the three of them

regarded the scorched and blackened shell of the Citroen ruefully.

I suppose it was a kindness really, the poor old thing was very tired,

the girl said at last.  It was like shooting a horse with a broken leg.

Are you insured?  David asked, and the girl's companion laughed.

You're joking, who would insure that?  I only paid a hundred U.  S.

dollars for her.  They assembled the small pile of rescued possessions,

and the girl spoke quickly to her companion in foreign, slightly

guttural language which touched a deep chord in David's memory.  He

understood what she was saying, so it was no surprise when she looked at

him.

We've got to meet somebody in Barcelona this evening.  It's important.

Let's go, said David.

They piled the luggage into the Mustang and the girl's companion folded

up his long legs and piled into the back seat.  His name was Joseph, but

David was advised by the girl to call him Joe.  She was Debra, and

surnames didn't seem important at that stage.  She sat in the seat

beside David, with her knees pressed together primly and her hands in

her lap.  With one sweeping glance, she assessed the Mustang and its

contents.  David watched her check the expensive luggage, the Nikon

camera and Zeiss binoculars in the glove compartment and the cashmere

jacket thrown over the seat.  Then she glanced sideways at him, seeming

to notice for the first time the raw silk shirt with the slim gold

Piaget under the cuff.

Blessed are the poor, she murmured, but still it must be pleasant to be

rich.

David enjoyed that.  He wanted her to be impressed, he wanted her to

make a few comparisons between himself and the big muscular buck in the

back seat.

Let's go to Barcelona, he laughed.

David drove quietly through the outskirts of the town, and Debra looked

over her shoulder at Joe.

Are you comfortable?  she asked in the guttural language she had used

before.

If he's not, he can run behind, David told her in the same language, and

she gawked at him a moment in surprise before she let out a small

exclamation of pleasure.  Hey!  You speak Hebrew!  Not very well, David

admitted. I've forgotten most of it, I and he had a vivid picture of

himself as a ten-year-old, wrestling unhappily with a strange and

mysterious language with back-to-front writing, an alphabet that was

squiggly tadpoles and in which most sounds were made in the back of the

throat, like gargling.

Are you Jewish?  she asked, turning in the seat to confront him.  She

was no longer smiling; the question was clearly of significance to her.

David shook his head.  No, he laughed at the notion.  I'm a

half-convinced non-practising monotheist, raised and reared in the

Protestant Christian tradition_a__ Then why did you learn Hebrew?  My

mother wanted it, David explained, and felt again the stab of an old

guilt.  She was killed when I was still a kid.  I just let it drop.  It

didn't seem important after she had gone.  Your mother, Debra insisted,

leaning towards him, she was Jewish?  Yeah.  Sure, David agreed.  But my

father was a Protestant.  There was all sorts of hell when Dad married

her.  Everyone was against it, but they went ahead and did it anyway.

Debra turned in the seat to Joe.  Did you hear that he's one of us. 'Oh,

come on!  David protested, still laughing.

Mazaltov, said Joe.  Come and see us in Jerusalem some time.  'You're

Israeli?  David asked, with new interest.

Sabras, both of us, said Debra, with a note of pride and deep

satisfaction.  We are only on holiday here.  'it must be an interesting

country, David hazarded.

Like Joe just said, why don't you come and find out some time, she

suggested off handedly.  You have the right of return Then she changed

the subject.  Is this the fastest this machine will go?  We have to be

in Barcelona by seven.

There was a relaxed feeling between them now, as though some invisible

barrier had been lowered, as though she had made some weighty judgement.

They were out of the city and ahead the open road wound down into the

valley of the Ebro towards the sea.

Kindly extinguish cigarettes and fasten your seat belts, David said, and

let the Mustang go.

She sat very still beside him with her hands folded in her lap and she

stared ahead when the bends leapt at them, and the straights streamed in

a soft blue blur beneath the body of the Mustang.  There was a small

rapturous smile on her mouth and the golden lights danced in her eyes,

and David was moved to know that speed affected her the way it did him.

He forgot everything else but the girl in the seat beside him and the

need to keep the mighty roaring machine on the ribbon of tarmac.

Once when they went twisting down into a dry dusty valley in a series of

tight curves and David snaked the Mustang down into it with his hands

darting from wheel to gear leaver, and his feet dancing heel and toe on

the foot pedals, she laughed aloud with the thrill of it.

They bought cheese and bread and a bottle of white wine at a village

cantina and ate lunch sitting on the parapet of a stone bridge while the

water swirled below them, milky with snow melt from the mountains.

David's thigh touched Debra's, as they sat side by side.  He could feel

the warmth and resilience of her flesh through the stuff of their

clothing and she made no move to pull away.  Her cheeks were flushed a

little brighter than seemed natural, even in the chill little wind that

nagged at them.

David was puzzled by Joe's attitude.  He seemed to be completely

oblivious of David's bird dogging his girl, and he was deriving a

childlike pleasure out of tossing pebbles at the trout in the waters

below them.  Suddenly David wished he would put up a better resistance,

it would make his conquest a lot more enjoyable, for conquest was what

David had decided on.

He leaned across Debra for another chunk of the white, tangy cheese and

he let his arm brush lightly against the tantalizing double bulge of her

bosom.  Joe seemed not to notice.

Come on, you big ape, David thought scornfully.  Fight for it.  Don't

just sit there.  He wanted to test himself against this buck.  He was

big, and strong, and David could tell from the way he moved and held

himself that he was well coordinated and self-assured.  His face was

chunky and half ugly, but he knew that some women liked them that way,

and he was not fooled by Joe's slow and lazy grin, the eyes were quick

and sharp.

You want to drive, Joe?  he asked suddenly, and the slow grin spread

like a puddle of spilled oil on Joe's face – but the eyes glittered with

anticipation.

Don't mind if I do, said Joe, and David regretted the gesture as he

found himself hunched in the narrow back seat.  For the first five

minutes Joe drove sedately, touching the brakes to test for grab and

pull, flicking through the gears to feel the travel and bite of the

stick, taking a burst of power through a bend to establish stability and

detect any tendency for the tail to break out.

Don't be scared of her, David told him, and Joe grunted with a little

frown of concentration creasing his broad forehead.  Then he nodded to

himself and his hands settled firmly, taking a fresh grip, and Debra

whooped as he changed down to get the revs peaking.

He slid the car through the first bend and David's right foot stabbed

instinctively at a non-existent brake pedal and he felt his breathing

jam in his throat.

When Joe parked them in the lot outside the airport at Barcelona and

switched off the engine, all of them were silent for a few seconds and

then David said softly, Son of a gun!

Then they were all laughing.  David felt a tinge of regret that he was

going to have to take the girl away from him, for he was beginning to

like him, despite himself, beginning to enjoy the slow deliberation of

his speech and movements that was so clearly a put on and finding

pleasure in the big slow smile that took so long to reach its full

bloom.  David had to harden his resolve.

They were an hour early for the plane they were meeting and they found a

table in the restaurant overlooking the runways.  David ordered an

earthenware jug of Sangria, and Debra sat next to Joe and put her hand

on his arm while she chatted, a gesture that tempered David's new-found

liking for him.

A private flight landed as the waiter brought the Sangria, and Joe

looked up.

One of the new executive Gulfstreams.  They tell me she is a little

beauty.  And he went on to list the aircraft's specifications in

technical language that Debra seemed to follow intelligently.

You know anything about aircraft?  David challenged him.  Some, admitted

Joe, but Debra took the question.

Joe is in the airforce, she said proudly, and David stared at them.

So is Debs, 'Joe laughed, and David switched his attention to her.

She's a lieutenant in signals.  .  'Only the reserve, Debra demurred,

but Joe is a flier.

A fighter pilot.  A flier, David repeated stupidly.  He should have

known from Joe's clear and steady gaze that was the peculiar mark of the

fighter pilot.  He should have known by the way he handled the Mustang

If he was an Israeli flier, then he would have flown a formidable number

of operations.  Hell, every time they took off, they were operational.

He felt a vast tide of respect rising within him.

What squadron are you on, Phantoms?  Phantoms!  Joe curled his lip.

That isn't flying.

That's operating a computer.  No, we really fly.  You ever heard of a

Mirage?  David blinked, and then nodded.  Yeah, said David, I've heard

of them.  'Well, I fly a Mirage.  David began to laugh, shaking his

head.

What's wrong?  Joe demanded, his smile fading.  What's funny about that?

I do too, said David.  I fly a Mirage.  It was no use trying to get hot

against this buck, he decided.  I've got over a thousand hours on

Mirages.  And it as Joe's turn to stare, then suddenly they were both

talking at once – Debra's head turning quickly from one to the other.

David ordered another jug of Sangria, but Joe would not let him pay.  He

repeated for the fiftieth time, Well, that beats all, and punched

David's shoulder.  How about that, Debs?  Half-way through the second

jug, David interrupted the talk which had been exclusively on aviation.

Who are we meeting, anyway?  We've driven across half of Spain and I

don't even know who the guy is.  'This guy is a girl, Joe laughed, and

Debra filled in.

Hannah, and she grinned at Joe, his fiancee.  She is a nursing sister at

Hadassah Hospital, and she could only get away for a week.  'Your

fiancee?  David whispered.

They are getting married in June.  Debra turned to Joe.  It's taken him

two years to make up his mind.

Joe chuckled with embarrassment, and Debra squeezed his arm.

Your fiancee?  asked David again.

Why do you keep saying that?  Debra demanded.

David pointed at Joe, and then at Debra.

What, he started, I mean, who, what the hell?  Debra realized suddenly

and gasped.  She covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes sparkling.

You mean – you thought -?  Oh, no, she giggled.  She pointed at Joe and

then at herself.  Is that what you thought?  David nodded.

He is my brother, Debra hooted.  Joe is my brother, you idiot!  Joseph

Israel Mordecai and Debra Ruth Mordecai, brother and sister Hannah was a

rangy girl with bright copper hair and freckles like gold sovereigns.

She was only an inch or two shorter than Joe but he lifted her as she

came through the customs gate, swung her off her feet and then engulfed

her in an enormous embrace.

It seemed completely natural that the four of them should stay together.

By a miracle of packing they got all their luggage and themselves into

the Mustang with Hannah perched on Joe's lap in the rear.

We've got a week, said Debra.  A whole week!  What are we going to do

with it?

They agreed that Torremolinos was out.  It was far south, and since

Michener had written The Drifters, it had become a hangout for all the

bums and freaks.

I was talking to someone on the plane.  There is a place called Colera

up the coast.  Near the border.  They reached it in the middle of the

next morning and it was still so early in the season that they had no

trouble finding pleasant rooms at a small hotel off the winding main

street.  The girls shared, but David insisted on a room of his own.  He

had certain plans for Debra that made privacy desirable.

Debra's bikini was blue and brief, hardly sufficient to restrain a bosom

that was more exuberant than David had guessed.  Her skin was satiny and

tanned to a deep mahogany, although a strip of startling white peeped

over the back of her costume when she stooped to pick up her towel.  She

was long in the waist, and leg, and a strong swimmer, pacing David

steadily through the cool blue water when they set out for a rocky islet

half a mile off shore.

They had the tiny island to themselves and they found a pitch of flat

smooth rock out of the wind and full in the sun.  They lay side by side

with their fingers entwined and the salt water had sleeked Debra's hair

to her shoulders, like the coat of an otter.

They lay in the sun and they talked away the afternoon.  There was so

much they had to learn about each other.

Her father had been one of the youngest colonels in the American

Airforce during World War II, but afterwards he had gone on to Israel.

He had been there ever since, and was now a Major-General.  They lived

in a house in an old part of Jerusalem which was five hundred years old,

but was a lot of fun.

She was a senior lecturer in English at the Hebrew University in

Jerusalem and, this shyly as though.  it were a rather special secret,

she wanted to write.  A small volume of her poetry had already been

published.

That impressed David, and he came up on one elbow and looked at her with

new respect, and a twinge of envy, for someone who saw the way ahead

clearly.

She lay with her eyes closed against the sun, and droplets of water

sparkling like gems on her thick dark eyelashes.  She wasn't beautiful,

he decided carefully, but very handsome and very, very sexy.  He was

going to have her, of course.  There was no doubt in David's mind about

this, but there seemed little urgency in it now.  He was enjoying

listening to her talk, she had a quaint way of expressing herself, once

she was in full flight, and her accent was strangely neutral, although

there were faint echoes of her American background now he knew to look

for them.  She told him that the poetry was merely a beginning.  She was

going to write a novel about being young and living in Israel.  She had

the outline worked out, and it seemed like a pretty interesting story to

David.  Then she started to talk about her land and the people who lived

in it.  David felt something move within him as he listened, a

nostalgia, a deep race memory.  Again his envy stirred.  She was so

certain of where she was from and where she was going – she knew where

she belonged, and what her destiny was, and this made her strong. Beside

her he felt suddenly insignificant and without purpose.

 sunlight and looked up at him.

h?  He shook his head but did not answer her smile, and she became

solemn also.

She studied his face carefully, with minute attention.

The sun had dried his hair and fluffed it out, and it was soft and fine

and very dark.  The bone of his cheek and jaw was sculptured and finely

balanced, the eyes very clear and slightly Asiatic in cast, the lips

full and firm, and the nose delicately fluted with wide nostrils and a

straight graceful line.

She reached up and touched his cheek.

You are very beautiful, David.  You are the most beautiful human being I

have ever seen.  He did not move, and she ran the finger down his neck

on to his chest, twirling it slowly in the dark body hair.

Slowly he leaned forward and placed his mouth over hers.  Her lips were

warm and soft and tasted of sea salt.

Her arms came up around the back of his head and folded around him. They

kissed until he reached behind her and unfastened the clasp of her

costume between the smooth brown shoulder blades.  She stiffened

immediately and tried to pull away from him.

David held her gently but firmly, murmuring little soothing noises as he

kissed her again.  Slowly she relaxed and he went on gentling her until

her hands went to the back of his neck again, and she sighed and

shuddered.

His hands were skilled and expert, masterful enough to prevent

rebellion, not rough enough to panic her.  He pushed up the thin

material of her costume top and was surprised and enchanted with the

firm rubbery weight of her breasts and the big dusky rose-brown nipples

which were pebble hard to his touch.

It was shocking, completely foreign to his experience, for David was not

accustomed to check or denial, but Debra placed her hands on his

shoulders and shoved him with such force that he lost his balance and

slid down the rock, grazing his elbow and ending in a heap at the

water's edge.

He scrambled angrily to his feet as Debra came up with a fluid explosive

movement, fastening her costume as she did so.  A single bound of her

long brown legs carried her to the edge of the rocks and she dived

outwards, hitting the water flat and surfacing to call back at him.

I'll race you to the beach David would not accept the challenge and

followed her at his own dignified pace.  When he emerged unsmilingly

from the low surf, she studied his face a moment and then grinned.

When you sulk you look about ten years old, she told him, which was no

great exercise of tact and David stalked back to his room.