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she had changed again. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were touched with fire. In some extraordinary manner she was alive in a way she simply had not been before. He lifted her in his two hands as easily as if she had been a child and kissed her.
    “Angel, you look good enough to eat,” he said as heput her down. “Let’s you and me go below for a drink and you can tell me all the news from back home.”
    For a moment I was forgotten as they disappeared down the companionway and Sørensen said, “So she is staying?”
    “Looks like it,” I said.
    “When do you want to start back?”
    “There’s no great rush. I’ll refuel, then I’ll have a shower and something to eat.”
    He nodded. “I’ll get you the evening weather report on the radio from Søndre tower.”
    He went into the wheelhouse and I dropped back into the whaleboat, started the engine and turned towards the shore feeling slightly depressed as I remembered the expression in Ilana’s eyes when Desforge had kissed her. Perhaps it was because I’d seen it once already that day when Gudrid Rasmussen had looked at Arnie, offering herself completely without saying a word, and I didn’t like the implication.
    God knows why. At the moment the only thing I could have said with any certainty was that in spite of her habitual aggressiveness, her harshness, I liked her. On the other hand if there was one thing I had learned from life up to and including that precise point in time, it was that nothing is ever quite as simple as it looks.
    I thought about that for a while, rather grimly, and then the whaleboat grounded on the shingle and I got out and set to work.
     
    I didn’t see any sign of Desforge or the girl when I returned to the Stella and I went straight below to the cabinI’d been in the habit of using on previous visits. It had been cold working out there on the exposed beach with the wind coming in off the sea and I soaked the chill from my bones in a hot shower for ten or fifteen minutes, then got dressed again and went along to the main saloon.
    Desforge was sitting at the bar alone reading a letter, a slight, fixed frown on his face. He still hadn’t changed and the blanket he had wrapped around himself in the whaleboat lay at the foot of the high stool as if it had slipped from his shoulder.
    I hesitated in the doorway and he glanced up and saw me in the mirror behind the bar and swung round on the stool. “Come on in, Joe.”
    “So you got your letter,” I said.
    “Letter?” He stared at me blankly for a moment.
    “The letter you were expecting from Milt Gold.”
    “Oh, this?” He held up the letter, then folded it and replaced it in its envelope. “Yes, Ilana delivered it by hand.”
    “Not bad news I hope.”
    “Not really—there’s been a further delay in setting things up, that’s all.” He put the letter in his pocket and reached over the bar for a bottle. “Tell me, Joe, how much longer have we got before the winter sets in and pack ice becomes a big problem and so on.”
    “You mean up here around Disko?”
    “No, I mean on the coast generally.”
    “That all depends.” I shrugged. “Conditions fluctuate from year to year, but on the whole you’re clear till the end of September.”
    He seemed genuinely astonished. “But that would giveme another six or seven weeks. You’re sure about that?”
    “I should be—this is my third summer remember. August and September are the best months of the season. Highest mean temperatures, least problem with pack ice and so on.”
    “Well that’s great,” he said. “Milt thinks they should be ready to go by the end of September.”
    “Which means you can hang on here and keep your creditors at bay till then,” I said.
    “They’ll sing a different tune when I’m working and the shekels start pouring in again.” He seemed to have recovered all his old spirits and went behind the bar and poured himself another drink. “You flying back tonight, Joe?”
    I nodded.