CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

The sun was hot and yellow in a clear blue sky. Sparks of light, struck from the metal of the plane's wing, dazzled Delia's eyes and she looked away quickly, down to the expanse of Brazilian jungle far below, which spread like a cloak of rough green tweed over the land as far as she could see.

She still had no idea of what the jungle would be like. In her imagination it had always been a hazy, steamy jumble of dark dripping trees hundreds of feet high, completely impenetrable and inhabited by strange dark-skinned people, colourful exotic birds and slithery snakes.

Her arrival in Brazil had been quite official. She had been met at Rio de Janeiro's international airport by a group of people from the government department in charge of Indian affairs and had been installed in a luxurious bedroom in a huge hotel overlooking the famous Copacabana beach where she hadn't been able to sleep a wink all night because of the perpetual roar of traffic passing up and down the Avenida Atlantica.

Next day she had travelled with Professor Claudio Rodriguez, an anthropologist who worked as a liaison officer for the tribal protection service to Brasilia, and this morning at eight they had left the capital city of sparkling towers in this sleek silver plane. Now, several cups of sweet black coffee later, Delia was almost at her destination, Posto Orlando in the centre of the big jungle park which had been reserved for the primitive tribes of the Brazilian Indians.

She should be full of excitement and eagerness because she was about to visit places which many people would like to visit, but instead she was suffering from an attack of cold feet as she realised suddenly just how afraid she was of snakes, spiders and creepy-crawlies.

'We shall be landing in a few minutes. You had better fasten your seat belt,' said Professor Rodriguez, leaning across to speak to her. He was a swarthy middle-aged man with round dark myopic eyes behind thick-lens glasses. Although shy, he had been kind and Delia tried not to show her distaste for the smell of garlic on his breath when he spoke to her.

The seven-seater Air Force plane made a bumpy landing on a rough air-strip which sliced through virgin forest. As she stepped down from the plane Delia had a glimpse of beehive-shaped huts with roofs made from palm fronds. A group of semi-naked Indians, all men, had come to greet the plane and standing with them was a squat grey-haired, grey-bearded man dressed in creased cotton shorts and shirt, a tall handsome younger man also dressed in shorts and shirt and, surprisingly, a shapely Brazilian woman with long black hair tied back simply at the nape of her neck and the most gorgeous golden tan Delia had ever seen.

The grey-haired man came forward, took Delia's hand in one of his and then to her great surprise pulled her into his arms and gave her the Brazilian abraco, an embrace which involved kissing her on both cheeks.

'Welcome, welcome at last,' he said in English. 'It is good to see the daughter of my old friend Frank Fenwick. I am Luiz Santos. May I present my nephew Manoel Santos, who is a sociologist working here with the tribes, and his wife Rita.'

Shaking hands with the handsome shy Manoel and his wife, Delia glanced about her cautiously to see if Edmund was among the group of people. There was no sign of him.

'You are looking for Edmund?' queried Luiz, his dark eyes twinkling. 'I expect he is at the infirmary attending to the patients there. I can assure you I have kept our little secret and didn't tell him that the journalist who was coming to interview us was you. I haven't even told Rita and Manoel,' he added with a chuckle of mischief.

He told them now, quickly in Portuguese. They both looked amazed and then very amused, and Rita suddenly lost her shyness to exclaim in American-accented English: 'But Edmund is going to be so surprised too. We have been discussing what you would be like and he has made us laugh with his idea of a hard-boiled quick-talking woman journalist. We never expected anyone as pretty and feminine looking as you. And of course we had no idea he had a wife.'

'How is he?' asked Delia, not hesitating to betray her concern for Edmund to these pleasant, interested people. 'I .shall tell you as we walk along to the village,' said Luiz, who had been talking to Professor Rodriguez and issuing instructions to the Indians to help with the unloading of supplies from the plane. 'Come, it is not good for you to be standing out in this heat when you are not yet accustomed to it.'

Taking her arm, he guided her along a path between tall stems of thick grasses with edges as sharp as flick knives to follow a battered jeep which had been loaded with her baggage and boxes of medical supplies and which had brown-

skinned Indian children clinging to it like monkeys. 'Edmund is much better than when I first wrote to you, I am glad to say,' murmured Luiz. 'But he is still too thin and he tires easily. He needs a rest, but he's determined to finish the work he came here to do and he won't go even to Brasilia or Rio for a change until it's done. I've tried to persuade him without success. Perhaps you will succeed where I have failed. Sometimes a wife, especially one as pretty as you are, can influence a man when all else fails.'

Delia gave him a startled sidelong glance. How little he knew about her relationship with Edmund !

'If he didn't tell anyone he had a wife how did you find out about me?' she asked.

'That was easy. When he turned up here at the post after walking from the site of the crashed plane he was so ill, raging with fever, I thought it was necessary to inform someone other than the organisation which sent him. I looked among his possessions and found his passport. As you know, at the back of it is a list of people, relatives or friends who can be contacted in case of emergency. Your name was at the top of the list with the address. I decided it was an emergency and wrote to you,' he explained.

His letter to her had come as both a surprise and a shock. It was the first news she had had of Edmund since he had dropped out of her life over sixteen months ago. Her first reaction had been to book a seat on the next plane flying to Brazil because the longing to see Edmund and to take care of him while he was ill had been overpowering.

Then she had remembered the circumstances of their last meeting and the fact that although they were married they were to all intents and purposes separated, and she had hesitated.

Anxious about him yet not knowing what course of action to take, she had worried. Worry had caused sleeplessness and once again she had.fallen into that terribly depressed apathetic condition which had overcome her when she had realised Edmund had left her and had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth. She had become careless and absent minded at her work, and Ben Davies had noticed.

One day when he was taking her to task for the mistakes she had missed when editing an article submitted to the magazine she had broken down in his office and all her worries about Edmund had come tumbling out. His feet on his desk, puffing at his pipe, his grey eyes shrewd behind the smoke-screen, Ben had listened to her with surprising patience. When at last she finished he studied

her silently for a while obviously considering the situation.

You want to go and see him, don't you, girl?' he said in his slow Welsh drawl.

'Yes, I do,' she had confessed. 'But I don't see how I can go all that way. And I'm afraid that if he knows I'm coming he'll move on, disappear again ...'

But he's not going to know you're going to Posto Orlando,' he had interrupted her curtly, and she had stared at him in surprise.

But how . . .?' she had begun, and had stopped when he smiled at her.

'You're going to see Luiz Santos, not Edmund,' he had: continued. 'I'm promoting you here and now to the position of a contributing editor to the magazine.

It's your first chance to follow in your dad's footsteps as a writer of geographical articles. By now you should know what we want and how to go about getting it. Of course you'll have to take Luiz Santos into your confidence a little and tell him that on no account is he to tell Edmund you're coming. I'll write to him also to tell him you're going to do a series of articles on that reserve for the tribes which he runs for the Brazilian government and remind him of the last time our representative visited him. I think you'll find he'll be very obliging when he knows you're Frank Fenwick's daughter. He and your dad thought along the same lines.' Ben had paused and sucked for a moment on his pipe, then had cocked an eyebrow at her. 'Any idea what Edmund has been doing out there?'

'According to Mr Santos he's been doing a tour of observation for an international organisation which is concerned with raising money for the provision of medical and other supplies for primitive people. The plane in which he was travelling crashed in the jungle and he was missing for a few weeks. He found his way to the Post where Mr Santos -has his headquarters and is very ill,' she had replied.

'Humph,' Ben had grunted. 'Malaria, I expect. Oh, don't look so anxious, girl. He'll get better and by the time you fly out he'll be up and about. Now let's think. Who could he be doing the survey for?' He snapped his fingers. 'Got it! For O.S.P.P.' He reached for his phone. 'I'll get in touch with them and find out. They might also be interested in any articles you can write about the tribes. Now how soon can you be ready to leave for Brazil?'

And so the arrangements had been made and now she was' here, walking towards a clearing where there was a collection of wooden and concrete huts, her heart hammering with anticipation at the thought of meeting Edmund and the sweat trickling down the backs of her legs under the pale green cotton trousers she was wearing.

It seemed that the arrival of the Brazilian Air Force plane with supplies was a social occasion. In a room in one of the wooden sheds Luiz and Rita passed round small cups of the thick sweet coffee which Brazilians apparently drink all the time to the pilots, the steward of the plane and Professor Rodriguez. In the doorway curious Indians crowded. They were tall muscular men with mahogany-coloured skin. Some of them had long black hair hanging down to their shoulders and wore woven brightly-coloured headbands to keep it in place. Others had their hair cut very short in circular fringes round their heads. Some wore tattered clothing. Others were almost naked and had painted their bare torsos and their broad-nosed, high-cheek boned faces with a thick orange-red paint.

When the brief spontaneous party was over, Luiz escorted the pilots, steward and Professor Rodriguez back to the plane and Rita took Delia to show her where she would sleep.

'Do you speak any Portuguese?' Rita asked, as they left the room and walked out into the yellow-bright humidity of the clearing and across the hard-baked reddish earth in the direction of another wooden shed built within the shade of some tall eucalyptus trees and banana palms.

'I tried to learn some before I came, but didn't have much time to pick up more than a few simple phrases,' replied Delia. 'And so far I haven't been able to understand what anyone has said to me in the language, so it's just as well some of you speak English or I'd be in terrible trouble. Where did you learn English ?'

'At home. My mother is from the United States and spoke to us all in English from the time we were little children,' replied Rita. 'But you'll learn more of our language now you are there just by sitting with us and listening when we talk.

I'll translate as much as I can to you. Edmund can speak Portuguese quite fluently now. Here we are.'

They went up a short flight of wooden steps on to a long verandah which had several doors opening on to it. Rita walked to the end of the verandah and opened the last door.

'This is Edmund's room,' she said. 'You and I were going to share the room next to it and Manoel was going to move in here with Edmund, but since you're Edmund's wife that won't be necessary now,' said Rita, smiling, her eyes glinting with amusement. I'm sure you're not going to object to sharing a room with your husband.'

'No, no of course not,' said Delia quickly, but she wondered what Edmund would say.

The room was dark and stuffy because the window was screened by heavy wooden shutters. It was spotlessly clean and was furnished with two truckle beds festooned with white mosquito netting. A doorway in the corner led to a small lavatory which had a rusty shower and a wash basin with taps.

Delia's two travelling bags had already been placed in the room. She noticed the room was strangely bare of articles.

There was only a travelling bag similar to her own on the floor at the end of one of the beds and it was fastened with a small padlock.

'We never leave anything lying about or our baggage unlocked,' explained Rita. ' It isn't that the people here are thieves in our sense of the word. They are so used to sharing everything with one another that they just assume that what is our theirs too. And don't expect too much privacy either, Look.'

Turning, Delia was surprised to see they had been followed into the room by several Indian men who were all staring at her and her baggage. Some of them stepped for- ward to touch her and she had to control an immediate desire to step away from them as they fingered the material of her blouse, touching her hair and admired the gold medal-lion she was wearing on a golden chain round the neck.

'They expect you to give them presents.' said Rita. 'Do you have any?'

Delia opened one of her bags and at once all the men crowded round her expectantly. She took out a bag of wrapped toffees and gave one to each of them. Grinning happily, they left the room, shedding toffee papers on the floor.

'I expect you'd like to wash, comb your hair and change your blouse before seeing Edmund,' said Rita considerately.

I'll be in the next room. Tap on the door when you're ready.

The wash in tepid water made Delia feel much better and she changed the blouse she had been wearing for a cotton halter top, wishing she had a lovely copper tan like Rita's.

The paleness of her skin made her feel curiously naked as she walked beside the graceful long-limbed Brazilian woman back across the clearing to a large barn-like building with a roof but no walls. Hammocks swung from tree-trunks which supported the steeply pitched roof of palm fronds. Luiz and

Manoel were both lying in the hammocks smoking cigarettes and talking.

'I hope you have your notebook with you,' said Luiz cheerfully to Delia as he slid out of his hammock. 'I'm going to show you round the Post now. You realise, I hope, that this isn't the only centre in the reserve, which covers an area of several thousand kilometres of the interior. But this post, called after my father, Orlando Santos, who conceived the idea of having a reserve where the tribes could be brought and would be able to live in their customary way without too much interference from white settlers, is the most important and it is here that we have the hospital. People who are ill in any of the outlying villages can be flown into here and looked after in the small infirmary. Small operations can be performed there. In fact we are very proud of it.'

The hospital was in a concrete building and the thickness of its walls prevented it from becoming too hot inside. In the large room which was its entrance hall and storage place a young Brazilian nurse looked up from the supplies she was

unpacking. Luiz introduced her to Delia and asked her several questions in Portuguese. She answered and gestured to one of the doors on the other side of the hall.

'This way,' said Luiz. 'As I had thought, Edmund is here.

We have been very glad of his presence because the doctor we had here had to go home on leave. Most of the doctors are usually volunteers from the medical schools in Sao Paulo and Rio and some of course from other countries like your

husband.'

The nerves of Delia's stomach crawled as they walked across to the doorway and she had to force herself to appear cool and nonchalant in spite of the sweat which had broken out on her brow and the palms of her hands.

The room they entered was long and was furnished by two rows of metal cots. Several of the cots were occupied by patients and by the one furthest away from the door a man was bending over the patient obviously examining him while another older nurse stood by.

A shaft of sunlight slanting in through a high narrow window, picked out glints of gold in the man's brown curling hair which had grown so long that he had confined it with a coloured headband like the ones Delia had seen some of the Indians wearing. A thin white shirt and a pair of frayed shorts which were really cut off jeans showed off the nut-brown colour of his sun-tanned skin.

As she and Luiz approached the bed Luiz spoke quietly in Portuguese. The man looked up sharply, his eyes flashing blue against the tan of his face. His glance shifted from Luiz to Delia and widened in surprise. His lean face seemed to go

pale, but he said nothing, only stared.

''By God!' exclaimed Luiz. 'You're a cool one, Edmund.

Do you not recognise this young woman?'

Edmund was recovering his poise rapidly. His gaze steady on hers, he smiled slightly a little ironically. Hands clenched at her sides as she controlled a surging desire to fling herself at him and put her arms around him, Delia made her trembling lips smile back.

'Hello, Delia,' he drawled in his pleasantly-pitched soft voice. 'I won't pretend this isn't a surprise.' He glanced at Luiz and frowned. 'I thought you were expecting a journalist on today's flight.'

'This is she,' said Luiz dramatically. 'Your wife. She has come to interview us and when she goes back to England she will write articles about us for her magazine.'

'Is that true?' queried Edmund, looking at Delia again with his eyes sharpening with interest, but, unable to trust her voice, she could only nod. 'Good for you,' he went on. 'Congratulations on getting the assignment.'

'Thank you,' she whispered, thinking that whatever other faults Edmund might have no one could ever accuse him of being ungenerous. He had always shown an interest in her work at the magazine and had encouraged her in her ambi-tion to be a writer like her father had been. 'How are you, Edmund?' she asked, aware,of Luiz watching them. As Luiz had said, Edmund was too thin, but his eyes were clear and his skin looked healthy.

'Well enough,' he replied indifferently, and turned his attention to Luiz again. 'Why didn't you tell me Delia was coming here?' he demanded.

'I ... I ... asked him not to,' Delia put in quickly. 'I'll explain why later.'

'Yes, yes, all the talking between you can fee done later,' said Luiz easily. 'We'll leave you now to finish what you were doing, Edmund. I'm just showing Delia round the Post. It is important that she sees everything in the short time she is here.'

As she left the room Delia longed to look back to see if Edmund was watching her, but she didn't because she decided that if she did she would betray to him that she wasn't as cool and collected as she was trying to appear.

Outside the infirmary the heat hit like a blow again and she hurriedly put on her sunglasses.

'I cannot understand,' Luiz exclaimed, shaking his grey head from side to side. 'You and Edmund, you meet and you do not embrace. Anyone would think you are not pleased to see each other. Are you not pleased to see Edmund?'

'Oh, yes, very pleased,' gasped Delia, who was having to cope with all sorts of confusing emotions but was glad she was able to say something without lying. She had been pleased to see Edmund again. She had been more than pleased, she had been overjoyed, and it was having to keep that joy under control which was giving her trouble now. 'But you see we ... we're not accustomed to showing how we feel in front of strangers,' she muttered, realising she had to make some attempt to explain.

'Aha. Now all is as clear to me as light,' said Luiz, much to her relief. 'I had forgotten that the English are shy about showing their affection for each other in public. The real reunion will come later, when you are alone together in your room. And that is how it should be, perhaps. Come now, I shall show you the hut of Kuru tribe which-at present is living here at the Post. You must realise that each-tribe is different in its habits and customs. Really they are not tribes so much as small nations, each one possessing different characteristics, in the same way as Europeans are different from each other. You understand?'

He led her into one of the beehive-shaped huts, indicating to her that she should lower her head to enter the narrow curved opening. After the brilliance of the sunlight outside it was very dark and even when she had removed her sunglasses she had difficulty in accustoming her eyes to the dimness.

But it was cool inside and the air smelt fresh and sweet.

After a while she was able to make out two woven hammocks swinging from the sides of the walls. Only two Indians were in the hut, a man and a woman who were sitting on the floor cooking fish in a black pot over the embers of a fire, the smoke of which escaped through a hole in the dome-shaped roof.

When they left the hut they walked slowly back to the open barn, Luiz talking all the time, pointing and explaining. For Delia the heat and humidity were like a thick blanket coming between her and everything, blurring outlines and details and she was finding it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying. Every step made her break out in sweat and her throat felt very parched, so that when Luiz. suggested that she rested in one of the hammocks in the shelter while he went to talk to the chieftain of one of the outlying villages who had come into the Post to see him she was very glad.

There was no one else in the barn to show her how to get into one of the hammocks. Going up to one of them, she noticed that it was closely woven from strips of tough- looking cloth not unlike hessian and was almost wide enough for two people to lie side by side. She sat down nervously on the side of it, hoping it wouldn't collapse and deposit her on to the floor when she eased herself into it.

Take your, shoes off when you lie in a hammock.' Edmund's voice was terse and commanding and she glanced up in surprise. He walked past her to the next hammock, kicked off the canvas shoes he was wearing and swung himself into the woven bed. Bending down, she unlaced the canvas base-ball boots she was wearing and which she had bought in Brasilia at the. suggestion of Professor Rodriguez as the best footwear for the jungle, and pulled them off, wondering how she was going to get them on again because, during her walk round the village, her feet had swollen with the heat.

Once she was in the hammock she found lying there very pleasant. A breeze wafted through from the river which she could see beyond the curve of a green bank. The water widened into a pool which was edged by sandy, beaches and looked very inviting. On the other side of die pool there was no jungle but a stretch of bright yellow-green savannah dotted with small trees, like a park. Huge white and yellow butterflies the size of small birds kept swooping across the surface of the river and nearer at hand three green and yellow parakeets chattered and squabbled as they perched on the ropes which supported the hammocks.

But there was no peace after all. Mosquitoes zoomed about her head and began to nibble at her skin so that she had to slap at them.

Plonk! A packet of cigarettes landed on her knees followed by a box of matches. She looked round at Edmund. One bare leg and foot dangling over the side of his hammock, he looked thoroughly relaxed as he swung idly to and fro. Through the pale grey haze of cigarette smoke which drifted about him his blue eyes glinted at her with familiar derision.

'Smoking is the only way to keep the flies off unless you fancy covering yourself with the red paint the Indians use,' he said. 'Didn't anyone tell you to bring a supply of cigarettes with you?'

'Yes, but they're in my luggage,' she replied as she selected a cigarette from his packet and lit it awkwardly. She had never smoked and now the smoke caught in her throat, making her cough and causing her eyes to water. As she spluttered and choked she could hear him laughing.

How unkind he was, she thought miserably. It was strange that a man like him who had such compassion for the maimed and the sick, who felt so deeply about the less fortunate people of the world, could be unkind to her when he was supposed to love her. But perhaps he didn't love her and never had done, at least not in the way she had always wanted to be loved by him.

'Did you know I was here?' he asked her when she had finished coughing and had wiped her eyes. 'I didn't know where you were until I received a letter informing me as your next of kin that you'd turned up here after being missing in the jungle,' she parried warily, keeping in mind that he didn't know Luiz had written to her. 'Oh, Edmund, why didn't you keep in touch? Why didn't you tell me you were coming to Brazil?'

He gave her a puzzled glance and was silent for a few moments, still swinging idly in the hammock and blowing act smoke.

'Quite honesty I didn't think you were interested or would give a damn where I'd gone,' he replied coolly, at last.

'The last time I saw you I seemed to remember you were sorry I'd come back to you and that I'd spoiled everything for you by being there. Then you slammed out of the flat.

When you didn't return I assumed you had meant what you said, so I left.'

She hadn't meant it. She had gone back later, contrite and humble and ready to make up, but he hadn't been there. At first she hadn't been able.to believe Peter when he had come to tell her that Edmund had left her after only thirteen months of marriage. It was something which happened to other women, not to her. Then the reality of the situation had hit her, destroying her happiness and her self-confidence in one harsh blow as she realised she had created the situation by her own behaviour.

'I'm surprised to hear we're still married,' Edmund continued coolly, interrupting the flow of her thoughts, 'I'd have thought you'd have divorced me by now and would be married to Peter.'

'But I couldn't divorce you,' she replied in a small strained voice. 'I didn't know where you were.'

'That didn't have to stop you,' he retorted. 'I'm sure a slick lawyer like Pete could have arranged it all for you very conveniently.'

'He said he could, but . . . but ... I asked him not to,' she muttered.

'Why?' How hard and cold he sounded, she thought miserably.

'B . . . because I wasn't sure ... I couldn't be sure ... I didn't know.' Her voice faded away to silence. In the face of his hostility she lost the courage to explain.

The sound of laughter drew her attention. A family of Indians were running past on their way to the river pool. The man, long-limbed and muscular, led the way and the woman followed him with five prancing, darting brown-skinned children. Watching them, Delia felt envy stir within her. How she wished such carefree happiness was hers!

Edmund's hammock rocked violently as he left it and shuffled his bare feet into his canvas shoes. He's a bit of a hippy. Likes to go off and live in the jungle with primitive tribes, Aunt Marsha's description of him echoed through her mind. In his frayed shorts and worn-out shirt with his curling hair confined by the Indian headband he fitted the description well. Possibly living here he had found what all hippies said they were searching for—peace, simplicity in the way of living and the minimum of possessions.

He came across to stand beside her hammock and looked down at her with critical assessing eyes.

'You look as if the heat is getting to you,' he commented. ''Would you like to go swimming?' 'Is it safe to swim in the river here?' she asked. It's fast flowing and clean. There might be a few stingrays hiding in the sand on the bottom, so don't stand still in the water, always keep your feet moving. I have my swimming briefs on under my shorts. If you'd like to go and change I'll meet you back here in about ten minutes. Do you know where your luggage is?'

'Yes, in your room. Rita arranged for me to sleep in there,' she said without looking at him. 'I hope you don't mind.' 'Why should I?' he countered carelessly. 'Now go and change, and don't forget to keep your shoes on coming down to the water. The grass and the ground everywhere is full of ticks and jiggers.'

Outside her room a group of Indians were sitting on the floor of the verandah. They stood up and followed her into the room when she unlocked the door, and for a moment Delia felt complete panic. Should she shout for help? Then she noticed they were pointing to her bags and remembered the sweets. Taking the packet out, she gave them one each and they left immediately, grinning and nodding their heads.

She closed the door and locked it from the inside, but while she was changing into her bikini she saw that they were peering at her through a Crack in the shutters and they, were still there waiting for her when she stepped outside and they followed her back to the barn where Edmund was waiting for her.

'I see you have a group of admirers,' he mocked as they walked down to the strip of sand edging the river pool.

'It's the toffees I've brought that they admire, not me,' she replied. 'Talbot's Toffees,' she added with a grin, watching him pull off his shirt and drop his shorts to the ground.' His time in the jungle and the subsequent illness had fined him down. There wasn't any fat on him at all and the bones of his rib-cage gleamed white through the tanned skin.

'Which sort?' he asked casually.

'The round ones with the white creamy centres. Can you tell me why the Indians like sweets so much?'

'It's because very little of what they eat is sweet. They don't use sugar and not many of them have fresh fruits. Don't give all those toffees to them, I wouldn't mind having some myself.'

He ran off into the water and Delia followed him, feeling a lift of spirits because she was with him and they were doing something which they both enjoyed—swimming.

The water was cool, and fresh. Parakeets flew above her head and butterflies landed on her wet shoulders. A hidden bird whistled among the trees and there was no sign of the stingrays about which she had been warned.

Floating on her back, Delia was startled by shouting. A group of mahogany-coloured Indian boys ran into the water suddenly and surrounded her, jumping, splashing and somersaulting around her. They swam like brown fish and had a rubber ball which they batted to one another with their hands. One of them batted the ball to her. She tossed it back and at once she was part of their game and so was Edmund. Dog-paddling and diving, splashing and laughing, they played at water polo in the green and blue dappled water as if they hadn't a care in the world.

At last, breathless but happy, Delia walked out of the water to flop down on her towel on the sand. She felt refreshed, and although the noonday heat was very oppressive she didn't feel as thick-headed as she had when lying in the hammock.

She watched Edmund walk up the slanting sand to-wards her, the symmetry of his long legs "'set off by the white bikini briefs he was wearing. He sat down on the towel beside her stretching his legs before him and supporting himself on his arms which he stretched behind him. 'It isn't as good as swimming in the sea, but it's better than not swimming at all,' he commented. 'I thought often about the sea when I was lost in the jungle, half mad with insect bites and foul with sweat. I used to think about swimming in it and being cleansed by its saltiness.' 'Was it bad, being lost?' she asked.

'The worst part was the crashing of the plane and the realisation afterwards that I was the only survivor,' he re-plied in a low voice. 'Once I'd come to terms with that there was only one thought in my mind, and that was to find my way to this place as soon as I could. Fortunately the compass in the plane wasn't damaged and I had a good idea of which direction I should go.'

'How long did it take you to walk here?'

'Luiz tells me that it was about three weeks.' He shrug-ged.. ' I had no idea of time and I was lucky. It's taken some people about two years to walk out of the interior.'

'Who was with you in the plane?'

The pilot and two other people sent out with me by O.S.P .P. to assess the current situation of all the Indians living this country, the ones in the cities as well as those still living in primitive communities or in this reserve. We were coming back here from Fenenal to finish the last part of the survey. What made it worse was that none of us had wanted to leave Fenenal. We'd had a fantastic time there living with two tribes.' He paused and flopped back on the towel, lifting an arm to shield his eyes from the sun.

'With Ingrid and Neil both dead I'm the only one left of the team to finish the survey.'

Delia glanced sideways at him, her cars tuned to every change in his voice. He sounded despondent.

'Were Ingrid and Neil also specialists in tropical diseases?' she asked cautiously,

'No. Neil was an anthropologist from the States and Ingrid was a sociologist, from Sweden, I believe. She was the most amazing person I've ever met.' Again he paused, then added so quietly that she only just heard, 'I still can't believe I'll never see her again.'

Delia quivered in reaction to that whispered cry from the heart. She wanted suddenly to know what the woman had been like. In her imagination she pictured a tall, blonde Amazon walking about fearlessly in the jungle and attracting Edmund's admiration.

She looked at him. He was very close to her, centimetres close, so that she had only to move her fingers slightly and she would touch his hard sinewy thigh. The need to touch him became an ache low down in her stomach. Now she could see his skin wasn't as clear as she had thought. It was marred by numerous insect bites. But where it was clear and softly furred with golden glinting hairs ...

Shaken by the imperative desire to smooth her hand over the curve of his thigh in an intimate suggestive caress, Delia sprang to her feet. At once Edmund looked up at her from under the shade of his hand.

'What's the matter?' he demanded sharply.

'Nothing ... I ... I just thought I'd go back and put on some clothes. It's very hot sitting here,' she muttered. 'Can I have my towel, please?'

He came to his feet in one smooth movement, lifting the towel with him and handing it to her.

'I'll come with you. I need a clean shirt,' he said.

On the way to the hut where their room was they met Rita coming to tell them that lunch was ready.

'Why didn't you tell us you have such a pretty wife?' she said teasingly to Edmund, and looked a little puzzled when he didn't reply but walked past her as if he hadn't heard.

To Delia's relief there were no Indians lingering in front of the door to the room ready to follow her in and demand sweets or to peer at her while she changed her clothes. But Edmund was there, stripping off his briefs without any inhibitions before searching through his bag and finding a clean shirt and shorts.

Keeping her eyes averted from him, Delia opened her bag, laid it on the bed and took out another pair of cotton pants and another cotton blouse. Becoming aware that, as he zipped up his shorts, Edmund was watching her, she bund-led the clean clothing under her arm and marched off to the lavatory, determined to change in there, guessing he would he laughing at what he had once called her 'unnatural modesty'.

There was a very small mirror above the wash basin and when she had dressed she peered into it. Her fine dark brown hair was a wet tangle and she had difficulty in dragging her comb through it. In the mirror a pair of black-lashed greyish green eyes set in a thin elfin face regarded her critically. They noted that her pink and white complexion was already acquiring a sunburn and that there was a sprinkling of tiny golden freckles across the bridge of her small neat nose.

She returned to the bedroom. Edmund was sitting on the edge of the bed which she had considered was hers. He was reading a newspaper which he had spread out. She recognised the paper as being one she had brought from Britain thinking he might be interested in reading it. The fact that he had it meant he had been in her luggage.

For a moment she felt angry and she wanted to tell him that he had no right to go into her bags without her permission. But the anger died down as she realised that to object would be a waste of breath. Like the Indians he believed in sharing everything. What was hers was his and what was his was hers, and the attitude had nothing to do with him being married to her.

He looked up and his glance, deeply blue, roved over her slowly.

'Rita is right. You are pretty. I'd forgotten how pretty,' he observed, and at once she was confused as she felt pleased because he still considered her to be pretty and irritated because he had forgotten and admitted frankly that he had. 'But Ben Davies must be out of his mind to send you out here to get a story,' he added.

She was tempted then to tell him that she was there because Luiz had invited her to come and see him, her husband, but there was still a hint of hostility in his attitude which made her hesitate.

'Why shouldn't Ben send me?' she countered. 'I've worked for him long enough to know what he wants in the way of an article. I've served my apprenticeship. He had to give me my chance some time.'

'I realise that, and I'm sincerely glad he has given you a chance,' he replied. 'But he could have sent you somewhere else, somewhere which wouldn't have made such demands on you physically. This sweltering jungle isn't the place for you.'

'I can't see why it isn't,' she protested. 'Other women have come here and lived here. You've just told me about the sociologist who was with you in Fenenal. If she could travel about in the jungle and live with primitive tribes so can I.'

Ingrid was exceptional,' he replied quietly, and looked down at the newspaper, seemingly more interested in it than he was in talking to her.

'Meaning that I'm not, I suppose,' she said in a choked voice, feeling jealousy of the dead woman awaken slowly and painfully within her.

'Not in the same way,' he said ambiguously, and the paper rustled as he turned a page.

I don't believe it's anything to do with the jungle,' she accused wildly. 'You don't want me here because you don't want me.'

'What' I want has nothing to do with it,' he replied roughly. 'You shouldn't be here.' Disappointment because this reunion with him was so

lacking in warmth and welcome and jealousy of a woman she didn't know and would never meet fused together in one overriding explosion of anger.

'Oh, you were always the same!' she flared. 'You never wanted me to enter this part of your life. Manoel Santos has his wife with him, but you've never wanted me with you had to stay behind in England. I was just a convenience, a woman you could sleep with when you came back because you didn't like sleeping alone, to stay with until you got 'explorer's itch" again. You didn't really want a wife, and I've often wondered why you bothered to marry me . . .' Her voice broke and she had to jam her teeth into her lower lip to stop it from trembling. The tears she had vowed he would never see beaded her long eyelashes and her soft breasts rose and fell under the thin cotton shirt with the tumult of her feelings.

Edmund moved suddenly from the bed, coming to his feet with a lithe violence which was familiar and made her step backwards hurriedly, a purely instinctive defensive action. He noticed and his mouth twisted at one corner.

'It's all right, I'm not going to touch you. Some things I may have forgotten about you, but I haven't forgotten the way you reacted the last time I touched you,' he said between taut lips. 'I haven't forgotten either why I married you, but you seem to have done. Now if you're ready we'd better go and have some lunch.'

Stepping past her, he strode over to the door, yanked it open and walked out into the blinding yellow sunlight. Snatching up her handbag, Delia blinked away her tears and hurried after him, realising that she had no idea where the eating house was. With shaking hands she locked the door and ran down the verandah. By the time she caught up with him in the middle of the unshaded compound she was soaked with sweat again and her heart and head were both pounding after her hurried dash in the heat of the day.

They entered another long wooden hut near the barnlike building and where Luiz, Manoel, Rita and the two nurses were already sitting at a table with the chieftain who had come to visit Luiz.

Rita looked up, smiled in her friendly way and patted the empty place on the wooden bench beside her.

'Come and sit by me,' she suggested to Delia. 'You look flushed and hot. You haven't yet learned to take everything slowly.'

Delia sat down and a plate was passed to her and Rita told her to help herself to rice and beans from a big bowl.

'This is manioc,' she explained, spooning some glutinous-looking gruel for another large bowl on to the small heap of rice. 'It's made from a root which grows in the jungle. It's the staple diet of the tribes. Help yourself to one of the limes lying on the table and squeeze the juice into the water in your glass. You'll find it a very cooling drink as well as being necessary to, your diet. We have very little fresh fruit.'

Everyone seemed to eat quickly as if very hungry and Delia found the food surprisingly tasty. Afterwards there were more glasses of coffee and of course cigarettes to keep the persistent mosquitoes away.

'And now a siesta in your room,' said Rita as they rose from the table and went outside into the humid heat again.

'When you've rested you're to come with Manoel, Edmund and me to a nearby village where an old man is ill. It will be interesting for you to see another tribe and how different they are from the one which lives here.'

Although she was glad of the chance to rest Delia found it was difficult to sleep, partly because the room was hot and airless and partly because of the confusion of her feelings. Edmund hadn't come to lie on the other bed and she couldn't help thinking it was because he didn't want to be with her. Thinking of how they had snarled at one another before lunch it wasn't surprising, she thought miserably. Oh, why had she come? What had she expected? An instant and ecstatic reconciliation in the same way she had found instant and ecstatic love two and a half years ago when she had first met him?

Too much time and distance had come between them for that to happen. He wasn't the same. He was a cool, wary stranger to whom she was bound in wedlock. Was it possible he thought she was different too?

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