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her own feelings were more complex than the happy anticipation to be seen in the eyes of the people around her.
    Half an hour before touchdown she changed John's sweater and long pants for the cotton tee-shirt and shorts she had brought in her hand luggage.
    She herself had travelled in a pleated skirt with a thin blouse under a cardigan. Earlier, after the Captain had announced that the temperature in Antigua was eighty degrees, she had been to a washroom to remove her tights.
    'Look . . . look . . .!' John exclaimed excitedly when, bare-legged, she returned to her seat.
    Christie bent her head close to his and had her first glimpse of Antigua, a low-lying, brown-coloured island in an indigo sea paling to turquoise near the shore. As the aircraft descended towards the runway, she had the impression that most of the buildings on the island were roofed with red corrugated iron. Then the great wheels touched down and her first flight was over.
    In spite of being forewarned, she was unprepared for the heat which enveloped them as they descended the steps from the cool cabin to the hot tarmac. Not everyone was leaving the aircraft which soon would fly further south to Barbados and Trinidad.

    In the open there was a pleasant breeze blowing, but once; inside the low buildings of Coolidge International Airport—not as large or impressive as its name suggested—the heat became really uncomfortable for anyone wholly or partially dressed for the English
    .climate.
    Queueing to have her passport examined, Christie looked about for Ash. He had not been outside among the people congregated behind a wire fence, waving and calling to friends and relations. Nor was he anywhere to be seen on the other side of the immigration officers'
    desks where porters were waiting to carry baggage out to the taxis she could see through the outer doorways.
    'How long you stayin', ma'am?'
    She returned her attention to the uniformed Anti- guan behind the desk. 'Nearly four weeks.'
    A few moments later she was being asked by a porter to indicate her cases among the pile being unloaded from a trailer.
    By the time she had passed through the Customs section there was still no sign of Ash. As she was wondering what to do, someone said,
    'Mrs Chapman?' and she turned to find a tall and very glamorous young woman in a scarlet sun-dress looking down at her.
    'Yes . . .'
    Before she could say any more, the girl turned to the porter and told him to carry the cases to a white sports car.
    As he moved towards it, she introduced herself. 'I'm Bettina Long.
    Ash asked me to meet you. He's not here at present, but he'll be back in a day or two.'

    Taking no notice of John, who was holding tightly to Christie's hand, she added, 'If you don't mind we won't hang about. I've had to shut up the shop, and there's a woman staying here this week who usually comes in to browse about this time of day. She's been spending a lot of money, so I don't want her to find the place closed. I run the boutique at the Turtle Creek Cottage Colony, which is where you'll be staying until Ash returns,' she explained.
    As Bettina led the way to her car, Christie looked admiringly at the brown-satin smoothness of her shoulders under the shoestring straps of her bright red dress. Her dark hair, obviously long, was at present wound up in a coil held by two scarlet combs and adorned with a spray of red flowers. She would have been two or three inches taller than Christie in bare feet, and her height was accentuated by a sophisticated form of espadrille with high rope- covered wedges and long red tapes criss-crossed around her slim ankles.
    She made Christie conscious that the synthetic lining of her own skirt was clinging uncomfortably to her legs, and of the pallor of her skin, and John's, compared with this girl's gorgeous tan.
    'The child can sit in the back,' said Bettina, after tipping the porter who, in spite of the heat, was wearing a woolly hat pulled down over his hair.
    The large number