At home, Chuck had not said much about the navy, no doubt because their parents were still angry with him for not going to Harvard. But alone with Woody he opened up a bit. ‘Hawaii is great, but I’m really disappointed to have a shore job,’ he said. ‘I joined the navy to go to sea.’
‘What are you doing, exactly?’
‘I’m part of the Signal Intelligence Unit. We listen to radio messages, mainly from the Imperial Japanese Navy.’
‘Aren’t they in code?’
‘Yes, but you can learn a lot even without breaking the codes. It’s called traffic analysis. A sudden increase in the number of messages indicates that some action is imminent. And you learn to recognize patterns in the traffic. An amphibious landing has a distinctive configuration of signals, for example.’
‘That’s fascinating. And I bet you’re good at it.’
Chuck shrugged. ‘I’m just a clerk, annotating and filing the transcripts. But you can’t help picking up the basics.’
‘How’s the social life in Hawaii?’
‘Lots of fun. Navy bars can get pretty riotous. The Black Cat Cafe is the best. I have a good pal, Eddie Parry, and we go surfboarding on Waikiki Beach every chance we get. I’ve had some good times. But I wish I was on a ship.’
They swam in the cold Atlantic, ate hot dogs for lunch, took photos of each other with Woody’s camera, and studied the swimsuits until the sun began to go down. As they were leaving, picking their way through the crowd, Woody saw Joanne Rouzrokh.
He did not need to look twice. She was like no other girl on the beach, nor indeed in Delaware. There was no mistaking those high cheekbones, that scimitar nose, the luxuriant dark hair, the skin the colour and smoothness of
Without hesitation he walked straight towards her.
She looked absolutely sensational. Her black one-piece swimsuit had spaghetti straps that revealed the elegant bones of her shoulders. It was cut straight across her upper thighs, showing almost all of her long, brown legs.
He could hardly believe that he had once taken this fabulous woman in his arms and smooched her like there was no tomorrow.
She looked up at him, shading her eyes from the sun. ‘Woody Dewar! I didn’t know you were in Washington.’
That was all the invitation he needed. He knelt on the sand beside her. Just being this close made him breathe harder. ‘Hello, Joanne.’ He glanced briefly at the plump brown-eyed girl beside her. ‘Where’s your husband?’
She burst out laughing. ‘Whatever made you think I was married?’
He was flustered. ‘I came to your apartment for a party, a couple of summers back.’
‘You did?’
Joanne’s companion said: ‘I remember. I asked you your name, but you didn’t answer.’
Woody had no memory of her at all. ‘I’m sorry I was so impolite,’ he said. ‘I’m Woody Dewar, and this is my brother Chuck.’
The brown-eyed girl shook hands with both of them and said: ‘I’m Diana Taverner.’ Chuck sat beside her on the sand, which seemed to please her: Chuck was good-looking, much more handsome than Woody.
Woody went on: ‘Anyway, I went into the kitchen, looking for you, and a man called Bexforth Ross introduced himself to me as your fiance. I assumed you’d be married by now. Is it an extraordinarily long engagement?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said with a touch of irritation, and he remembered that she did not respond well to teasing. ‘Bexforth told people we were engaged, because he was practically living at our apartment.’
Woody was startled. Did that mean that Bexforth had been sleeping there? With Joanne? It was not uncommon, of course, but few girls admitted it.
‘He was the one who talked about marriage,’ she went on. ‘I never agreed to it.’
So she was single. Woody could not have been happier if he had won the lottery.
There might be a boyfriend, he warned himself. He would have to find out. But anyway, a boyfriend was not the same as a husband.
‘I was at a meeting with Bexforth a few days back,’ Woody said. ‘He’s a great man in the State Department.’
‘He’ll go far, and he’ll find a woman more suitable than I to be the wife of a great man in the State Department.’
It seemed from her tone that she did not have warm feelings towards her former lover. Woody found that he was pleased about that, although he could not have said why.
He reclined on his elbow. The sand was hot. If she had a serious boyfriend, she would find a reason to mention him before too long, he felt sure. He said: ‘Speaking of the State Department, are you still working there?’
‘Yes. I’m assistant to the Undersecretary for Europe.’
