disfigurement, taught confidence to the girl.
She learned to trust him implicitly as he grew to anticipate her needs.
She learned to step out boldly beside him, knowing that he would guide
or caution her with a light touch or a word. Her world had shrunk to
the small area about the cottage the jetty within which she could find
her way surely. Now with David beside her, her frontiers fell back and
she was free to move wherever she chose.
Yet they ventured ut together only cautiously at first, wandering along
the lakeside together or climbing the hills towards Nazareth, and each
day they swam in the green lake waters and each night they made love in
the curtained alcove.
David grew hard and lean and suntanned again, and it seemed they were
complete for when Ella asked, Debra, when are you going to make a start
on the new book?
she laughed and answered lightly. Sometime within the next hundred
years. A week later she asked of David this time. Have you decided
what you are going to do yet, Davey? just what I'm doing now, he said,
and Debra backed him up quickly. For ever! she said. Just like this
for ever. Then without thinking about it, without really steeling
themselves to it, they went to where they would meet other people in the
mass.
David borrowed the speedboat, picked up a shopping list from Ella, and
they planed down along the take shore to Tiberias, with the white wake
churning out behind them and the wind and drops of spray in their faces.
They moored in the tiny harbour of the marina at Lido Beach and walked
up into the town. David was so engrossed with Debra that the crowds
around him were unreal, and although he noticed a few curious glances
they meant very little to him.
Although it was early in the season, the town was filled with visitors,
and the buses were parked in the square at the foot of the hill and
along the lake front, for this was full on the tourist route.
David carried a plastic bag that grew steadily heavier until it was
ready to overflow.
Bread, and that's the lot, Debra mentally ticked off the list.
They went down the hill under the eucalyptus trees and found a table on
the harbour wall, beneath the gaily coloured umbrella.
They sat touching each other and drank cold beer and ate pistachio nuts,
oblivious of everything and everybody about them even though the other
tables were crowded with tourists. The lake sparkled and the softly
rounded hills seemed very close in the bright light. Once a flight of
Phantoms went booming down the valley, flying low on some mysterious
errand, and David watched them dwindle southward without regrets.
When the sun was low they went to where the speedboat was moored, and
David handed Debra down into it. On the wall above them sat a party of
tourists, probably on some package pilgrimage, and they were talking
animatedly, their accents were Limehouse, Golders Green and Merseyside,
although the subtleties of prommciation were lost of David.
He started the motor and pushed off from the wall, steering for the
harbour mouth with Debra sitting close beside him and the motor burbling
softly.
