‘But you’re here,’ he said, thinking she couldn’t be keeping other people’s nightmares at bay if she was out of the house.
‘Jean’s watching rugby on television,’ Lily said, and that faint smile returned again. ‘There are limits on neighbourliness. Come on. It’s better outside and maybe we need to talk.’
So they left. It was cooler outside, the ocean breeze making the night lovely.
‘Do you want to go to the beach?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Wait here for a minute.’ She was gone for three or four minutes and when she returned she was carrying a basket. ‘Dinner,’ she said. ‘I can see a lie when it rises up and bites me, and you saying you’d eaten on Lai was a great big lie, Dr Blayden.’
‘It might have been,’ he admitted cautiously, and she chuckled, a lovely, throaty chuckle that he’d almost forgotten but when he heard it again… How could he have forgotten?’
‘Egg and bacon pie,’ she told him. ‘Sushi rolls. Chocolate éclairs.’
‘You’ve been cooking!’ He was astounded, and she chuckled once more.
‘How little you know of this island. The currency here is food. I’m the islanders’ doctor, therefore I have more food than I know what to do with. This week the island’s cooks have been working overtime. There’s not a family affected by this tragedy that doesn’t have an overstocked pantry.’
‘Great,’ he said, because he couldn’t think what else to say. He followed as she led him to the path down to the beach. There was enough light to see by, enough light for Lily to choose a spot on the sun-warmed sand, spread a rug and then plop down on her knees and unpack. As he didn’t follow suit, she looked up at him.
‘What?’ she demanded.
And he thought, What indeed? He didn’t have a clue.
The tide was far out. The sand was soft and warm and the moonlight made the setting weirdly intimate-a picnic rug in the night with this woman whom he’d known so well seven years ago but not known since.
He was still in his uniform, heavy khaki. He felt overdressed.
‘You could take your boots off,’ she suggested, as though she’d read his mind, and he smiled and sat and hauled his boots off, and that made it more intimate still.
‘Eat,’ she ordered, and that was at least something to do. Actually, it was more than something. Whoever was doing Lily’s cooking knew their stuff.
‘You don’t need army rations while you’re here,’ she said. ‘Help yourself to my fridge.’
‘I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be here.’
‘Sam was saying. I talked to him today while you were away. But we have fifteen islanders still in hospital with injuries that need rehabilitation. Sam’s thinking we’ll have to airlift them out.’
‘They’ll hate it,’ Ben said, who knew enough of the island mindset by now to realise such an airlift would create major problems. For patients like Henri who’d need further reconstructive surgery, the islanders would consider evacuation regrettable but reasonable. But if the patient was slowly recovering and all they needed was supervision and rehabilitation…
‘I can’t cope if we don’t,’ Lily said, and he heard a hint of despair behind the words.
‘You won’t have to. We’ll work things out. Maybe some of our medical staff can stay.’
‘Presupposing here’s no crisis anywhere else in the region.’
‘There is that. But, Lily-’
‘You’ll be wanting to talk about Jacques,’ she said dully, changing the subject as if she couldn’t bear talking about the last one. ‘Everyone wants to talk about Jacques.’
‘I don’t especially.’ He knew he sounded cautious. Hell, he was cautious. If she hadn’t wanted to talk about evacuating the injured, how much more difficult would it be to talk about Jacques?
‘I’ve been talking to your intelligence people,’ she muttered bleakly. ‘Intelligence…that’s more than I have.’
He still wasn’t sure where to go with this. ‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ he tried, and she responded with anger.
‘Easy for you to say. You didn’t agree to marry someone who turns out to have betrayed the whole island.’
‘He’s a smart man, Lily. It wasn’t just you he conned.’
For the essentials had been worked out by now. It must have been no accident that Jacques arrived on the island just after the council had decided not to sell their oil. Maybe they could be persuaded to change their minds. But no one had been persuaded, and Jacques’s attempts to drum up political change had been met not just with apathy but with incomprehension. Then Jacques and whatever political power was behind him must have decided to take over by force. They must have thought no one would notice the distress of such a small island.
But the thugs sent to carry out the operation had been idle for too long, aching for a fight. Maybe Jacques had argued for more time, for better trained men. The hostages said that Jacques had been appalled at what had happened, knowing such bloodshed must have been bound to cause international response. But that didn’t help Lily, who was staring out at the darkened sea, her face bleak and self-judging.
‘You loved him?’ he asked, and anger resurfaced.
‘What do you think?’
‘I guess you did if you agreed to marry him.’
‘He was here for three years before I agreed.’
‘That’s a pretty long courtship.’ He wasn’t sure where she was taking this, but he didn’t know where he was going either, so he may as well join her.
‘He was great to Benjy,’ she said, and some of the anger faded. ‘He was smart and funny and kind. He transformed the island’s financial situation. He worked so hard…’
‘While he tried to persuade you to sell the oil.’
‘That was the only thing we disagreed about. Six months ago, when he was given the final knock back, he just exploded, telling me the islanders were fools, they were sitting on a fortune and if they didn’t want it, others did. He was just…vitriolic.’
‘And then?’
‘Then he just seemed to accept it,’ Lily said. ‘He stopped haranguing our politicians and just focused…well, on being nice again. On being…perfect.’
‘So you agreed to marry him.’
‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ she said. ‘After you.’
He drew in his breath. It had to be talked about some time. It had to be now.
‘Ours was a great friendship,’ he said softly, and then watched as her anger returned.
‘Is that how you think of it? As a friendship?’
‘Don’t you think that?’
‘I loved you, Ben,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve never thought anything other than that. I broke my heart when we went our separate ways.’
There was a moment’s silence while he thought that through. For the life of him he couldn’t think what to do with it. She’d loved him? Had he loved her? He’d been a kid, he thought, a useless kid just starting out on the adventure of life.
He hadn’t known how to love a woman. He still didn’t know.
‘You should have told me about Benjy,’ he said finally, and it sounded lame even to him.
‘You wouldn’t have wanted to know. You think back to what you wanted then-to be in the middle of every hot spot this world had to offer. Where did a child fit into that?’
‘I would have…’ He paused and she answered for him.
‘What, Ben? Sent him a cheque at Christmas and a signed photo of his daddy doing brave and daring things all over the world?’
‘That’s not fair.’
She hesitated. For a moment he thought she was going to make some hot retort, but in the end she didn’t.
‘No, it’s not fair,’ she agreed at last. ‘And you’re right. I should have told you. Any number of times over the last seven years I’ve thought you should know, but…’
‘Were you afraid I’d come?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe that was it. But I’m over it.’
She was over loving him? That was good. Wasn’t it?