Good Lord, Mater, Shasa exclaimed. I didn't realize Blaine was sailing today, I thought he would be going later with the others, he broke off . He had felt his mother's grip on his forearm tighten and the quick catch of her breath as she saw Blaine.
They have arranged this, he realized with a flare of amazement. 'That's what her excitement was. And at last it dawned upon him. You never think it of your own mother, but they are lovers. All these years, and I never saw it. The little things, insignificant at the time but now full of meaning, came crowding back. Blaine and the mater, damn me blind! Who would have thought it and conflicting emotions assailed him. Of all men in the world, I would have chosen him, in that moment he realized how much Blaine Malcomess had come to stand in the place of the father he had never known, but the thought was followed instantly by a flush of jealous and moral indignation. 'Blaine Malcomess, pillar of society and government, and Mater who is always frowning and shaking her head at me, the naughty little devils, they have been raving away for years without anybody suspecting! Blaine was coming towards them. Centaine, this is a surprise! Mater was laughing and holding out her right hand to him.
Gracious me, Blaine Malcomess, I had no idea you were on board. Shasa thought wryly: What marvelous acting! You have had me and everybody fooled for years. The two of you make Clark Gable and Ingrid Bergman look like a pair of beginners! Then suddenly it didn't matter any more. The only thing that was important was that there were two girls following Blaine as he came towards Centaine.
Centaine, I'm sure you remember my two daughters. This is Tara and this is Mathilda Janine, Tara. Silently Shasa sang the name in his head. Tara what a lovely name. It was the girl he had glimpsed on the boat deck, and she was only one hundred times more stunning than he had hoped she might be.
Tara. She was tall, only a few inches below his own six foot, but her legs were like willow wands and her waist was like a reed.
Tara. She had the face of a madonna, a serene oval, and her complexion was a mixture of cream and flower petals, almost too perfect, yet redeemed from insipid vacuity by the smoking chestnut hair, her father's wide strong mouth and her own eyes, resilient as grey steel and bright with intelhgence and determination.
She greeted Centaine with the correct amount of deference and then turned to look directly at Shasa.
Shasa, you too remember Tara, Blaine told him. She came out to Weltevreden four years ago. Was this the same noisy little pest? Shasa stared at her the one in short skirts with scabs on her bony knees who had embarrassed him with her boisterous and childish capers? He could not believe it was, and his voice caught in his throat.
How good to see you again, Tara, after so long. Remember, Tara Malcomess, she cautioned herself. Be controlled and aloof. She almost shivered with shame as she remembered how she had gambolled and fawned around him like a puppy begging to be patted. What a callow little beast, I was. But she had been smitten by a crush so powerful at first sight of him that the pain of it still lingered even now.
However, she managed to display the right shade of indifference as she murmured, Oh have we met? I must have forgotten, forgive me. She held out her hand. Well, it's pleasant to meet you again, Shasa? 'Yes, Shasa, he agreed, and he took the hand as though it were a holy talisman. Why haven't we met again since then? he asked himself, and immediately he saw the answer.
It was deliberate. Blaine and Mater made damn sure that we never met again in case it complicated their own little arrangement. They did not want Tara reporting back to her mama. But he was too happy to be angry with them now.
Have you made your table reservations? he asked, without relinquishing her hand.
Daddy is sitting at the captain's table, Tara pouted lovingly at her father. And we are to be left all alone. The four of us can sit together, Shasa suggested quickly.
Let's go and talk to the Maitre. Blaine and Centaine exchanged relieved glances, it was all going exactly as they had planned, with one twist they had not foreseen.
Mathilda Janine had blushed as she shook hands with David Abrahams. Of the two sisters, she was the ugly duckling for she had inherited not only her father's wide mouth but his large nose and prominent ears as well, and her hair was not auburn but ginger carrot.
But he's got a big nose too, she thought defiantly, as she studied David, and then her thoughts went off on a tangent.
If Tara tells him I'm only sixteen I'll just die! The voyage was a tempest of emotions, full of delights and surprises and frustrations and agonies for all of them.
During the fourteen days of the passage to Southampton Blaine and Centaine saw very little of the four youngsters, meeting them for a cocktail beside the ship's pool before lunch and for a duty dance after dinner, David and Shasa each taking a turn at whirling Centaine around the floor while Blaine did the same to his daughters. Then there would be a quick exchange of glances between the four young people and they would make their elaborate excuses before all disappearing down into the tourist class where the real fun was, leaving Blaine and Centaine to their staid pleasures on the upper decks.
Tara in a one-piece bathing costume of lime green was the most magnificent sight Shasa had ever laid eyes upon. Her breasts under the clinging material were the shape of unripe pears and when she came from the pool with water streaming down those long elegant limbs, he could make out the dimple of her navel through the cloth and the hard little marbles of her nipples, and it took all his control to prevent himself groaning out loud.
Mathilda Janine and David discovered a mutual zany and irreverent sense of humour, and kept each other in convulsions of laughter most of the time. Mathilda Janine was up at four-thirty each morning, no matter how late they had got to bed, to give David raucous encouragement as he made his fifty circuits of the boat deck.
He moves like a panther, she told herself. Long and smooth and graceful. And she had to think up fifty new witticisms each morning to shout at him as he went bounding past her. They chased each other around the pool and wrestled ecstatically below the surface; once they had managed to fall in locked in each other's arms, but, apart from a furtive pecking kiss at the door of the cabin that Mathilda. Janine shared with Tara, neither of them even considered carrying it any further. Although David had benefited from his brief relationship with the Camel, it never occurred to him to indulge in the same acrobatics with someone as special as Matty.
Shasa on the other hand suffered under no such inhibitions. He was vastly more sexually experienced than David, and once he had recovered from the initial awe of Tara's beauty, he launched an insidious but determined assault on the fortress of her virginity. However, his rewards were even less spectacular than David's.
it took him almost a week to work up to the stage of intimacy where Tara would allow him to spread suntan oil on her back and shoulders. In the small hours of the morning when the lights on the dance floor were dimmed for
