down while I give Will a hormone shot I hate you, Angel. She had to
laugh, even in her anxiety.
Dearie, every night for the past month you have tried to set him on fire
with your dulcet silvery voice - and we haven't even passed 'GO' and
collected our first $200. I know, Angel. I know. It seems to me,
sweetie, that it's time now to cut out the jawing and to ignite him with
that magic little tinderbox of yours. You mean right there in the
departure lounge of the airport? She clapped her hands with delight,
then struck a lascivious pose. 'I'm Sam - fly me! I Hop, poppet there
is a taxi on the wharf - he's been waiting an hour, with his meter
running. There is no first-class lounge in Cape Town's DF Malan
Airport, so Nicholas sat in the snake-pit, amongst the distraught
mothers and their whining, sticky offspring, the harassed tourists
loaded like camels with souvenirs and the florid-faced commercial
travellers, but he was alone in a multitude; with unconscious deference
they allowed him a little circle of privacy and he used the Louis
Vuitton briefcase on his knee as a desk.
It occurred to him suddenly how dramatically the balance had swung in
the last mere forty days, since he had recognized his wave peaking, but
had almost not been able to find the strength for it.
A shadow passed across his eyes, and the little creased crows foot
appeared between them as he remembered the physical and emotional effort
that it had taken to make the Go decision on Golden Adventurer, and he
shivered slightly in fear of what might have happened if he had not
gone. He would have missed his wave, and there would never have been
another.
With a small firm movement of his head, he pushed that memory of fear
behind him. He had caught his wave, and he was riding high and fast.
Now it seemed that the fates were intent on smothering him with
largesse: the oil-rig for Warlock, Rio to the Bravo Sierra field off
Norway - then a back-to-back tow from the North Sea through Suez to the
to the new South Australian field, would keep Warlock fully employed for
the next six months. That was not all, the threatening dockyard strike
at Construction Navale Atlantique had been smoothed over and the
delivery date for the new tug had come forward by two months - At
midnight the night before, a telephone call from Bach Wackie had
awakened him to let him know Kuwait and Qatar were now also studying the
iceberg-to-water project with a view to commissioning similar schemes;
he would have to build himself another two vessels if they decided to
go.
All I need now is to hear that I have won the football pools, -he
thought, and turned his head, started and caught his breath with a hiss,
as though he had been punched in the ribs.
She stood by the automatic doors, and the wind had caught her hair and
torn it loose from its thick twisted knot so that fine gold tendrils
floated down on to her cheeks - cheeks that were flushed as though she
had run fast, and her chest heaved so that she held one hand upon it,
fingers spread like a star between those fine pointed breasts.
She was poised like a forest animal that has scented the leopard,
