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‘It’s no exaggeration.’
‘So she did play hard to get?’ Megan couldn’t imagine Jaye’s parents ever having hesitated over making a commitment to each other. They seemed so right together.
‘Not that hard. She always left a forwarding address. After a while, they decided that it was a lot easier to just travel together. Then they settled here and I was born.’
‘Here? I didn’t realise...’
‘They came back to England to live when I was eighteen months old. I was born in this house.’ He gave the bedroom one last look, and then turned quickly. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’
Fifteen minutes later, Megan appeared on the veranda. She’d changed out of the chinos and blouse she’d travelled in and into a sleeveless blue dress that Jaye hadn’t seen before. She looked lovely, and the thought that she’d done this just for him brought a lump to his throat. Maybe he should have dressed for the meal too, instead of just changing his shirt.
They had coffee on the veranda, and just to set the tone, Jaye brought up the subject of the women’s centre. It was a delight to see Megan’s eyes shine as they discussed the plans and delved more fully into the possibilities that she and Ranjini were hoping to make into realities. Then a turn around the gardens, stopping to identify trees and plants and to dangle their fingers in the shaded pool, where koi nibbled at their fingers and a grey heron eyed them beadily from its perch on one of the rocks at the centre of the pond.
Lunch was set out on the veranda. It was easy to keep talking because Megan was easy to talk to—always interested in the world around her. And talk warded off the silence, where nothing else lay but passion.
‘You haven’t played carrom, then?’ Megan had asked him about the game that she’d seen Dinesh playing with one of the other men.
‘No. Does it always involve shouting at one another?’
‘No.’ Jaye chuckled. ‘The shouting’s an optional extra. It’s a bit like a combination between billiards and draughts.’
‘Oh. Do you have a set here? Can you show me?’
Her glistening enthusiasm hovered in the air between them. Jaye fetched the polished carrom table, setting out the pieces and letting her choose one of the striker pieces from the box.
‘This is so pretty.’ She turned the heavy piece, inlaid with a carved flower, in her hand. ‘What do I do with it?’
‘Flick it with your finger, like this...’ Jaye demonstrated with one of the other striker pieces. ‘The idea is to get all nine of your pieces into the pockets at the corners of the board, and then the queen.’ He indicated the red circular piece.
‘Right. I’ve got it. I imagine there are tactics.’
‘Of course. Concentrate on flipping the striker piece first.’
‘So you’re not going to employ your tactics first time around?’ She shot him a reproving smile. ‘Where’s the fun in letting me win?’
‘You think I’m going to let you win?’ Jaye had reckoned on doing so for the first couple of rounds at least.
She flipped her striker piece carefully across the board. Not quite enough to make much of an impression on the cluster of pieces in the centre of the board, but not bad for a first try. Then she leaned back, folding her arms.
‘Come on, then. Let’s see how it’s done.’
He won the first round, not as easily as he should have done, but Jaye laughingly declared himself out of practice. Megan’s teasing encouraged him to try his best and win the second round more definitively. By the third round it had become a pitched battle.
‘Uh...’ Jaye winced as she deftly pocketed one of her own pieces. ‘I’m going to have to watch your technique. Are you sure you’re not an expert, and you’re just suckering me in?’
‘I play a decent game of bar billiards.’ She grinned at him. ‘And if I were suckering you in, you wouldn’t know about it.’
‘Think so? I’m not such an easy victim.’ Jaye flipped his striker piece, missing the intended target completely.
‘Ha! Sure you’re not suckering me in?’ Megan took her turn, pocketing the Queen, and Jaye totted up the scores.
‘That’s twenty-four points to sixteen.’ He was still eight points in the lead, and the growing competitiveness between them made Jaye resolve to widen that gap in the next round.
‘All right.’ She rubbed her hands together, blowing on her fingers. ‘Next round I’m going to take you down.’
He broke away with an effort, getting to his feet and walking back to the lunch table to retrieve the full bottle of wine they?
??d ignored over lunch in favour of sparkling water. Maybe a drink would stop his head spinning.
