Authors: Judith Stephan
“Looks fine to me. All’s safe, and snake-free,” Stratt said with mock bravado. “But there are a few huge, hairy spiders …” And the he saw her face and added, “Just kidding.”
“But, Stratt … something could come in when I’m sleeping.”
“Like me?” he joked.
“Be serious,” she said.
No,” he said firmly, “you can’t get paranoid on me now – nothing’s going to come in here. I have lived here for most of my life and nothing has come for me in the night.”
“Well, how did that snake get in here then?” she asked, as if she had just proved an argument.
“Probably this morning, when they cleaned the rooms,” he answered, “It’s cooler inside than out there in this heat … it just wanted a bit of shade.”
He turned deliberately to leave.
“Stratt, will you stay a little while?” Shilo pleaded.
“Why?” he asked grinning.
“Okay, so I’m a chicken… nothing else. Remember I come from England: we don’t have strange and dangerous creatures creeping into our rooms at night… ”
“I’ll stay, but only for a little while,” he agreed, and he made himself comfortable in the wicker armchair, “although some might consider me a strange and dangerous creature … and I came a-creeping in here a few nights ago.”
“Very funny … and that’s different,” she smiled. “Shall we order from room service?” she said, trying to sound more cheerful, “How about some coffee and sandwiches?”
“Coffee and sandwiches? That’s slumming it. What about some strawberries and champagne?” Stratt joked.
She picked up the telephone and chirped in her old, formal manner: “Would you please send some champagne and strawberries to Ms. Delucci’s room? … Sparkling wine? That will be fine.”
Stratt laughed: “I was only pulling your leg,” he said, “you know, champagne and strawberries?… Garden parties at Buckingham Palace?… Wimbledon? I suppose I was sort of mocking you. I thought that was what you English ladies ordered … not coffee and sandwiches. That’s very Plebian. Very common.”
“Well, don’t be too surprised, we English ladies actually can eat and drink anything if we put our minds to it," she smiled.
Stratt did not want to be seen by the waiter from room service as rumours would flow thick and fast through the staff, so when their order arrived, he stood guiltily in the bathroom. He found himself straightening his hair and practising a seductive smile in the mirror over the sink... Once again, he had to ask himself what on earth he thought he was doing. This is not going to work, he told himself over and over again.
Remember Iris. Remember Iris. Don’t get hurt, Stratt. Iris. Iris.
“What’s with all this subterfuge?” Shilo asked when he came out.
“I don’t need to be seen right now with you. We have a policy that we are not to fraternize with the guests, just like you have one not to fraternize with the help.”
“But this is innocent, isn’t it?” she asked
“To us … but what will they think? Stratt seen in Ms Delucci’s bedroom late at night … ordering champagne and strawberries? What would you think if you were the waiter?”
Stratt opened the bottle professionally and poured each of them a glass.
“Rule Britannia!” he chirped, and Shilo collapsed into more giggles.
“You know,” she admitted with the valour of alcohol, “You’re not so bad after all. In fact I’m beginning to quite …” She halted herself. What was she doing? She must not tell him that she liked him.
Shilo sat on the corner of the bed nearest Stratt’s chair.
“Like me? Oh, really?” he said raising his eyebrows playfully and grinning widely.
“Don’t mock me,” she muttered, “you really are quite a nice young man.”
There was an uneasy silence as their eyes met. Then Stratt forced himself to look down. These uncomfortable stares were going to lead to trouble.
Remember Iris
.
Stratt leaned forward, his champagne flute held in his fingers lightly between his knees. He was so close to her … He could smell her perfume and if he reached out he could touch her and this worried him. He was too close for comfort.
Remember Iris
.
“Is there someone special back in England? A boyfriend?” he said, scrambling for a distraction.
“Not really. I was dating a Viscount, but only because my parents wanted me to… in fact we were really just friends. We used to play together as children. It was convenient because we frequented the same places and mixed with the same people. It was sort of an arrangement.”
“What the hell is a Viscount – it sounds awfully important?”
“Oh nothing really – it’s sort of a nobleman less important than an earl or count and more important than a baro
n
.
”
“More important than a lady?”
She laughed and said with forced congeniality, “Nobody is more important than a Lady.”
Stratt laughed: “I gathered that!”
Although he had made light of this connection back home, she scolded herself for trying to make excuses for her poor relationships … but she did not want him to think she was overly involved with anyone, and she had this urge to empty her heart out. Perhaps if she had admitted she was seeing someone, he might lose interest. This all had nothing to do with him and yet Stratt was so easy to talk to. He did not expect her to be anything she was not.
“A Viscount?” me mused. “I’m impressed. What does a Viscount have that we mere mortals do not?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she breathed seductively. “What about you? Have you got anyone special in your life?”
There was a moment of silence. Then he spoke, his voice echoing some deep, never-to-be forgotten sadness:
“I was in love once – some time ago.
But she couldn’t live out here in the bush. I tried to move into town but I couldn’t bear it because this life is who I am. She eventually had an affair with someone else… several someone elses I am led to believe. You actually remind me of Iris a bit…”
“Oh yes? How? You think I am unfaithful?” Shilo asked popping a strawberry dipped in icing sugar into her mouth.
A drop of strawberry juice rolled onto her chin. Stratt leant over and wiped it off without thinking, and then licked it off his finger. The implications of this erotic, yet unthinking, gesture were huge. Shilo felt a thrill pass through her. And again, by touching her, he felt the electricity pass between them and found difficulty in wrenching his eyes away from hers.
Stratt paused, and she could see some internal struggle going on. He was staring at her with a very serious expression on his face, and she began to feel uneasy. She thought he was struggling with the memories of Iris and had no idea he was wrestling with his feelings for her. Scolding himself for being so stupid and making himself so vulnerable to be hurt.
“Let me tell you about Iris… She was the daughter of a famous plastic surgeon. She was also very beautiful, she was funny, … maybe it’s the just the life she was used to … the high society socialising, shopping, parties, gala evenings and charity balls, media interest … there’s none of that here.”
“You must think I’m terribly shallow,” Shilo interrupted, her voice ringing sour.
“I didn’t mean that, Shilo, you know that. You are just different from me. You need different things. Not everyone can live miles away from civilization … from basic amenities like hospitals, shops … I mean look at you … you are not meant to be exposed to this violent sunshine we have here, for example,” he reached out and gently touched her sunburnt shoulders and a thrill past through both of them again, “… you have a skin that was meant for a cold climate. I tan, you burn. We are just so different.”
“You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what I need,” said Shilo defiantly.
“I do,” he breathed, “I know you better than you think.”
Again their eyes locked and neither was capable of looking away. So he rose from the chair, and crouched before her, one hand on her leg. He looked up into her face.
“I just meant that some people need to be near civilisation and others don’t. You do and I don’t…. Iris did and I didn’t. I don’t want to be hurt again. You and I both know what’s happening here. Me and you … I can feel it, you can feel it, can’t you? It just can’t happen, though. It can never work. As I said before, we’re too different. We want different things. And you are going to eventually leave …. And then ….”
He looked into her large eyes and she stared straight back defiantly. Her hair was cascading over one shoulder, he could smell her floral perfume, and he so badly wanted to kiss that rosebud mouth and crush her to him. And suddenly he knew he had to leave.
“Listen,” he said, standing up, “I really have to get up early tomorrow morning. I better go. There are some buck to inoculate and a water pipe to be fixed near a watering hole.”
“Don’t go, Stratt,” she said softly. “Stay here … I’m afraid.” She really wanted to tell him she wanted him, but it would have just been too hard when he declined.
“I can’t stay,” he said, “because I can’t promise that I will be a good boy if I do. I’m sorry. I just can’t let this happen.”
He bent down and kissed her lightly on the top of her head, popped a large, succulent strawberry into his mouth, picked up two more and left the room.
“Stratt,” she whispered, but he had gone.
Shilo lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. What on earth was happening to her? She had wanted him to hold her and kiss her, and she could sense he did too. He had admitted it. Maybe she had just had too much alcohol tonight. She had never felt this way with Charles. She had been repulsed by the thought of sexual intercourse with him or anyone else, memories flooding back of Bill Moffat every time. When they had attempted to have sex (that’s all it was a mechanical thing, not making love) she had just lain there, counting the seconds until it was over. Never feeling aroused, never enjoying it, never feeling fulfilled. It always ended in disaster with Charles storming out, calling her frigid and a cold fish. He didn’t know about Bill Moffatt … and what trauma and fear that experience had instilled in Shilo. What effect it would have on every relationship she ever had from that point on. And she was not going to tell him either. She did not trust Charles enough to share that dark secret. And yet she felt so aroused in Stratt’s presence. She wanted to be loved and touched. She wanted him so much. But he was right; they were too different. But why, then, did she want him so badly? When he had spoken of Iris, she had seen his internal struggle, that he had been hurt before and she just wanted to hold him and tell him everything would work out. She wanted to kiss him all over, smell his masculine smell, run her fingers through his hair … she had never felt that way with Charles or any other man. Charles was simply convenient. But she must always remember who she was and who Stratt was and where they both came from.
*
As Stratt lay on his king-sized bed in his suite on the upper storey of the main building, his mind wandered uncontrollably back to Shilo in her room. He had left her room so suddenly, but he had to … the urge to make love to her had been so urgent, so all-consuming that he would have been powerless to stop himself if he had stayed. What on earth was happening to him? It shouldn’t happen. It mustn’t happen. He had hoped he was immune to love after Iris. But something deep and very real was happening to him, and he had to stop it now before it was too late. There was no point exposing himself to more hurt and heartache... she knew and he knew that in a month or two she would be returning over the sea to England. She would be gone forever. He definitely had to cool it. Shilo and Iris were too much alike. He made a conscious decision: She was just to be another guest, and she was to be treated as such. He drifted into a turbulent slumber with the echoes of hyenas in his ears.
*