Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

‘What sort of fantasy?’ I asked a little warily.

‘Do you care?’ he countered. ‘I thought you were sure you weren’t going to enjoy yourself?’

I looked at the tarpaulin and remembered how thin my sleeping mat had looked. There was no way Phin would win this bet.

‘I am sure,’ I said. ‘Go on-tell me this fantasy of yours.’

‘We’re at work,’ he told me, his eyes glinting with amusement and something else. ‘You come into my office with your notebook, and you’re wearing one of those prim little suits of yours, and your hair is tied up neatly, and you’re wearing your stern glasses.’

‘It doesn’t sound much of a fantasy to me,’ I said. ‘That’s just normal.’

‘Ah, yes, but when you’ve finished taking notes you don’t do what you normally do. You take off your glasses, the way you do, but instead of going back to your desk in my fantasy you come round until you’re standing really close to me.’

His voice dropped. ‘Then you shake out your hair and you unbutton your jacket ve-r- ry slowly and you don’t take your eyes off mine the whole time.’

My heart was beating uncomfortably at the picture, but I managed a very creditable roll of my eyes.

‘It’s a bit hackneyed, isn’t it? I was expecting you to come up with something a little more exciting than that.’

The corner of Phin’s mouth twitched. ‘Well, I could make it more exciting, of course, but it wouldn’t be fair, given that you’re going to have to actually do this.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, a combative glint in my own eyes. Still, there was no point in pushing it. ‘So that’s it? Take my hair down and unbutton my jacket if-and that’s a very big if-I enjoy the next ten days?’

‘Oh, you would have to kiss me as well,’ said Phin. ‘As to what happens after the kiss…well, that would be up to you. But it might depend on how many other people were around.’

‘I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem,’ I said with a confident toss of my head. ‘So: hair, jacket, kiss for me if you win, and turning up on time for you if I do? I hope you’ve got a good alarm clock! This is one bet I’m deadly sure I’m going to win.’

CHAPTER NINE

BUT I lost.

The first night was really uncomfortable, yes, but in the days that followed I was so tired that my sleeping mat might as well have been a feather bed, I slept so soundly.

We spent the next ten days helping the villagers to finish the medical centre they had started a couple of years earlier but had had to abandon when they ran out of money to buy the materials. Somehow Phin had organised delivery of everything that was needed, and I didn’t need to be there long to realise what an achievement that was.

It was an eye-opening time for me in more ways than one. For most of the time it was hard, physical labour. It was hot and incredibly humid, and the closest I got to a shower was a dip in the river, but I liked seeing the building take shape. Every day we could stand back and see the results of our labours, and we forgot that our hands were dirty, our nails broken, our hair tangled.

When I think back to that time what I remember most is the laughter. Children laughing, women laughing, everyone laughing together. I’d never met a community that found so much humour in their everyday lives. The people of Aduaba humbled me with their openness, their friendliness and their hospitality, and I cringed when I remembered how dismissive I had been of their huts when I first arrived. When I was invited inside, I found that the mud floors were swept and everything was scrupulously clean and neat.

‘Why can’t you keep your house like this?’ I asked Phin.

The women particularly were hard-working and funny. A few of them had some words of English or French, and I learnt some words of their language. We managed to communicate well enough. I kept my hair tied back, as that was only practical, but I forgot about mascara and lipstick, and it wasn’t long before I started to feel the tension that was so familiar to me I barely noticed it most of the time slowly unravelling.

I learnt to appreciate the smell of the rainforest, the way the darkness dropped like a blanket, the beauty of the early-morning mist on the river. I began to listen for the sounds which had seemed so alien at first: the screech of a monkey, the rasp of insects in the dark, the creak and rustle of vegetation, the crash of tropical rain on the tarpaulin and the slow, steady drip of the leaves afterwards.

But most of all my eyes were opened to Phin. It was a long time since I had been able to think of him as no more than a bland celebrity, but I hadn’t realised how much more there was to him. He was in his element in Aduaba. He belonged there in a way he never would in the confines of the office.

Wherever there was laughter, I would find him. He spoke much more of the language, and had an extraordinary ability to defuse tension and get everyone working together, sorting out administrative muddles with endless patience. I suppose I hadn’t realised how competent he was.

I remember watching him out of the corner of my eye as he hammered in a roof joist. His expression was focused, but when one of the other men on the roof shouted what sounded like a curse he glanced up and shouted something back that made them all laugh. I saw the familiar smile light up his face and felt something that wasn’t familiar at all twist and unlock inside me.

At night I was desperately aware of him breathing nearby, and knew that he was the reason I wasn’t afraid. He was the reason I was here at all.

He was the reason I was changing.

And I was changing. I could feel it. I felt like a butterfly struggling out of its chrysalis, hardly able to believe what was happening to me.

That I was enjoying it.

It wasn’t all work. I played on the beach with the children, and helped the women cook. One of the men took us into the forest and showed us a bird spider on its web. I kid you not, that spider was as big as my hand. None of us thought of wandering off on our own after that.

Once Jonathan and I took a little boat with an outboard motor and puttered down the river. I felt quite comfortable with him by then. My mind was full of Aduaba and our life there, and I’d almost forgotten the desperate yearning I had once felt for him.

We drifted in companionable silence for a while. ‘It’s funny to think we’ll be going home soon,’ said Jonathan at last. ‘I’ll admit I was dreading this trip, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done.’

‘I feel that, too.’

‘It’s made me realise that I never really knew you before, when we…you know…’ He petered off awkwardly.

‘I know,’ I said, trailing my fingers in the water. ‘But I think I’ve changed since I’ve been here. I wasn’t like this before, or if I was I didn’t know it. I thought I was going to hate it but I don’t.’ I remembered my bet with Phin and shivered a little.

‘I know you and Phin are good together,’ Jonathan blurted suddenly, ‘but I just want you to know that I think you’re wonderful, Summer, and if you ever change your mind about Phin I’d like another chance.’

I stilled for a moment. How many times had I dreamt of Jonathan saying those words? Now that he had, I didn’t know what to say.

I pulled my hand out of the water. ‘What about Lori?’ I asked. It wasn’t that long since he’d been mad about her.

‘Lori’s back with her ex. It was quite intense for a while, but I think I always knew she was on the rebound, and now that she’s back with him I realise how close I came to making a big mistake.’

So I couldn’t use Lori as an excuse to say no, I thought, and then caught myself up. Excuse? What do you need an excuse for, Summer?

‘I know I didn’t appreciate you when I had you, but I can see now that you were so much better for me than Lori,’ Jonathan was saying. ‘We’ve got so much more in common.’