(Lots of thanks to Dawnj for her suggestions, editing, help and general support - all mistakes are mine.)
They met outside Nancy's little shop - the sort of place that sold everything you might want for food, and some practical things like matches and candles, and that was open most of the time.
Marguerite and Evelina had known each other all their lives; their parents had lived practically next door to each other. Marguerite had grown up with her mother and her brother, Rudy. Rudy, who had had a real education, had gone to the States, and she had never seen him again; he got killed when he was twenty-three. Marguerite's mother was in her late sixties, and she was considered quite a beauty by the male half of the population, but since her sixtieth she wasn't having any anymore.
Evelina was an only child who was raised by her father and mother together. They had sent her to the small international school on the island, and she was very well educated. Her parents had both died rather young, and Evelina had kept on their house as a holiday bungalow to be rented out. She usually had people in the holidays, sometimes for a fortnight, sometimes for three weeks - it supplied her with enough money to live on.
"How's life, Evie?" Marguerite said.
"Oh, fine, fine. The house has been rented for six weeks at one go!"
"Brilliant. Who are they?"
"I don't know. They're from England, Rita, not from the States."
"Oh wow - that's a far way off!"
Evelina nodded. "I hope they like it here," she said. "But if they don't..."
"Yes. But what if they don't turn up, like the last ones?"
Evelina shrugged and smiled. "Paid in advance," she said. "If they don't turn up I'll find new people. That would be really nice!"
Then Marguerite looked at her sharply.
"Evie," she said, "you're not pregnant, are you?"
Evelina smiled and nodded. She winked at Marguerite.
"Four months! I'll come some distance with you," she said, and linked her arm in Marguerite's. "Then I can tell you all about it."
Tim Palmer taught English at a local comprehensive on the Isle of Wight, and he tried his hand at creative writing sometimes. He'd always liked teaching, but when this school year ran to a close he felt completely fed up with everything. He'd had enough of teaching for the time being, his attempts at writing having come to nothing and he wanted a change of air. He thought about the south of France, but it didn't seem an environment that would be conductive to writing, not for him, and it was expensive. Moreover, most of his colleagues went to France and he definitely didn't want to meet them in his holidays. And he would miss the sound and the smell of the sea. He had lived on the Isle of Wight for all his life. When he'd left home he had found a house in Totland, close to the Needles, and he always enjoyed rambling on the crest of the cliffs, to the Needles and then on to Tennyson's Monument, and Freshwater Bay - the more he thought of it, the more he was convinced France was not a good idea.
Then he chanced upon an advert in the local paper for a holiday home on an island in the Caribbean. It was called Bougainvillea. There was a picture of the place, and it said it was on the quiet end of the island - just like his own home - and it immediately seemed exactly what he wanted. He made arrangements straight away and paid for a six-week stay. Good, he thought, just the place for me, in the tropics with the sea within walking distance, and palm trees, and quiet, and a totally different atmosphere form the daily grind he had wanted to escape from for some time.
He bought a relatively cheap ticket and when the holidays had arrived he went to Heathrow and found himself airborne on his very first day off. The plane touched down some ten hours later at a very small airfield, and after completing the formalities Tim took a tuk-tuk to the address he'd been sent. It was getting on for six in the evening when he arrived at Evelina's house.
She had expected a family - there were a big bedroom with a double bed and two smaller ones with single beds, and she raised her eyebrows when she saw there was a man alone.
Oh no, she thought, not one of those, please - but she handed him the key and gave directions to the driver, and told Tim to come and ask if there were anything amiss.
Then she went into the house, shaking her head - they did have single men coming to the island now and again, looking for cheap sex - there were a lot of prostitutes in the tourist area of the island; some even came looking for young boys. She hoped to God he wasn't one of those.
She needn't have bothered. Tim had had a few short-lived relationships, but both of them had come to nothing, and he had decided long ago that love was a very overrated emotion. He was good-looking and soft-spoken but he kept himself to himself, and the few women who tried to strike up some rapport with him found it impossible to make any dent in his armour.
It was only a ten-minute walk from Evelina's house to 'Bougainvillea,' and the tuk-tuk dropped him off in no time. Tim looked at the house with joy. It was peach-coloured, and there were a few large bougainvilleas and an African Tulip tree in the front garden. He paid off the driver and carried his luggage up to the front door. He unlocked it and went in. The house, built in the late nineteenth century, had high rooms and it felt relatively cool. He put down his suitcase and went around the house. It seemed very comfortable and well-equipped. Everything he could want was there - Evelina had even provided him with a huge bottle of purified water in an iron stand. He especially liked the big polished wooden table with a small reading lamp - the ideal place to get some writing done, he thought. He went around the bedrooms and decided he liked the big one best, got his suitcase and unpacked.
There was a folder on a sideboard with information on shops and sights, and he went to a nearby restaurant for dinner.
It had gone dark, and the restaurant proved a good place to sit and read - and the food was good, too.
When he had finished his dinner - fresh king fish and a salad - he went home. He suddenly felt very tired and he poured himself a drink from one of the bottles he'd bought in the tax-free at Heathrow. He took his drink out onto the veranda and sat listening to the night sounds while he sipped it. Then he went indoors. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
The next day he went shopping; then he went walking in the neighbourhood. He found his way to the beach and sat on a big rock for some time, staring out past the surf to the grey blue sea and the bright blue sky, with the sun on his back.
When he had satisfied his curiosity, he went back to the house and installed himself at the table. To his delight he didn't feel encumbered by all sorts of restraint; he started writing like mad, his head bubbling over with ideas. He grinned at himself a little - it had been a good idea to come here.
Tim developed a pleasant routine in the first few days - he worked all morning, took a break around noon in which he did some shopping or cleaning; then he worked some more until five when he'd go to the beach and stay there until the sun had gone down.
He went to the same restaurant every night. Linda, the proprietor, was a friendly woman in her mid-fifties, who smiled at the young Englishman and made him feel at home, and her food was brilliant. When he'd come in for the fourth time she asked his name, and Tim was happy to be greeted by name from then on.
Evelina couldn't make him out. He apparently had not come for cheap sex - he'd gone to town once, they told her, but he had returned within a couple of hours, alone - and he seemed to keep himself to himself. The lady who came to clean 'Bougainvillea' told her she usually found him writing, or reading, and she had seen him on the beach in the evening.
Tim had been staying in her house for a week when she ran into Marguerite again.
"Hi," she said. "Did your tenants turn up?"
"Yes - but there's only one, a man alone."
"Out for sex?" Marguerite said.
"No, apparently not. He only sits and reads and writes. I can't think why he came here at all."
"He doesn't go out?"
