Artifact

Artifact Page 14

Peta was pleasantly surprised when Simon called her before leaving Miami to ask her to pick him up at Grenada's Point Saline Airport and transport him and his equipment to theAssegai . Given the fact that she had made it so clear that she believed he was risking his life to dive again, now or ever, she had thought he would slip quietly onto and off the island.

Simon was one of the last people to debark. He looked pale and tired.

"How was your flight?" Peta asked.

"Fine until we landed. The pilot must have had a hot date the way he stopped short on the runway."

"I guess he didn't want to taxi very far. Lord knows there's no lack of runway. The Cubans saw to that."

Simon laughed. "As I recall, they were building it long enough to handle bombers. That's one of the real reasons why our forces took the revolution seriously, no matter what the president said about the medical students."

Nodding, Peta said, "Eventually they took it seriously, but not before a lot of good people were killed. Arthur was almost one of them." She stopped talking and waited for the sudden wave of nausea to pass. Simon was respectful enough not to try to say anything more.

When his gear was loaded and they were pulling out of the airport, Peta said, "I'm going to keep trying to talk you out of this madness, you know."

"I know, but I'm going to do it anyway, so you might as well stop nagging me about it."

"If that's how you feel, Simon, why did you let me know that you were coming?"

"Tell you the truth, I don't know. Maybe I really did want you to talk me out of this." He looked at her and sighed. "Or maybe I just wanted to have the most beautiful woman in Grenada chauffeur me around. Not doing too much else with women these days, not even the ugly ones."

"That's hard to believe," Peta said, though in fact she did believe him.

Simon changed the subject. "I'd like to see the Rex Grenadian," he said, referring to a large resort near the airport, one of the newest on the island. "Could we stop in for a drink?"

Peta hesitated. Simon's color was awful. Positively gray. "You probably shouldn't be drinking."

"You're not my nursemaid," he said. He sighed again, loudly. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you." He thankfully paused a moment while she negotiated one of the dangerous roundabouts along the two-lane strip of concrete called the Maurice Bishop Highway, and headed down the side road that would lead them to the nearby resort.

When they were safely driving through the small patch of palms and mahoganies that separated the northern beaches of Point Saline from the airport, Simon said, "It's about Arthur. I didn't have a chance in New York to tell you how sorry I was, not really. We're sailing tonight. I'd like to talk about him a little. Have a chance to - "

"You'll have Frik around. You can do that with him." Instantly she was angry with herself for her tone.

"Frik doesn't believe in mourning the dead."

"You're right. I'm sorry. I guess it was my turn to get snippy." Peta swerved to the left to avoid a water truck heading back to the main road, and turned onto the Rex Grenadian's driveway.

The resort fronted on two beaches. One of them had no name that she could recall. The other was Parc a Boeuf Beach. Where they had found such an ugly name for so magnificent a stretch of sand was a mystery to Peta and everyone else. The hotel was frequented mainly by rich Americans; the Europeans preferred to be on Morne Rouge Bay or Grand Anse Beach. The Rex boasted a man-made, lushly landscaped three-acre lake, complete with aesthetically placed islands and waterfalls, as well as three restaurants, and an attentive staff.

All in all, it was an excellent facility for the traveler who was looking for a place to enjoy the tropical climate without having to interact with the people who actually lived there. Because it was too expensive to be a local hangout, it was not so Grenadian that you couldn't shut your eyes and imagine yourself on almost any tropical island.

Sitting at the resort's poolside bar, staring out over the Caribbean, Peta listened to Simon talk about his memories of the man she loved. She didn't nag him again about the dive or the drinking. It was obvious that he was feeling his own mortality very acutely.

A couple of hours later, she delivered a considerably more mellow Simon into Frikkie's hands.