Becoming Strangers Read Online Free PDF

scattered with wedges of lemon. George swallowed hard and led the way, applying himself single-mindedly to each silver platter and composing a heap of food on his plate, which he set about as soon as he had placed it on the table. He ate fast and did not speak.
    Annemieke sat back from her own plate and waited a moment before raising her glass and saying, 'Santé.' George looked up at her; the few bristles that were his moustache were wet. 'Good health,' he said.
    'Eat up, dear,' George placed a hand on Dorothy's elbow. She looked at the plate to which she'd helped herself and turned her fork over on the tablecloth, once or twice.
    'The oysters are wonderful, Dorothy, did you have some?' asked Annemieke.
    'No.'
    'What did you take?'
    'I don't know.'
    Each of them looked up from their dinner and at her. George said quickly, his voice moving over the rough edge of anger.
    ''Course you bloody well know what you got.'
    'I can't think of it, though, the word. The name,' she said, and her fork was trembling in her hand so much that she put it back down.
    'They're prawns, your favourite, what we get down at the seafront, every week,' he sighed loudly and exclaimed, 'Gordon Bennett!'
    'I'm getting old.'
    Annemieke looked at her husband, but failing to catch his eyes, she dabbed her mouth and said to Dorothy, 'So, this is your first time in the Caribbean?'
    'Yes.'
    'And for us, no. We have been in the region many times. The Florida Keys, Mexico, and we've been to St Martin and to Trinidad too, before it was so popular, before any of them were, well, what they are now ... package deal places ... we take a long-haul holiday every year, sometimes twice, besides of course the short stays in Europe. But, yes, we like to go to upscale resorts as it's only for a week or so. I think we have deserved those few weeks. I wish we had done so much more, seen more. But Jan's work has taken first place.
He sees himself as contributing to the good of mankind. I say to him, it's car rentals, my dear. My boys have seen the world and I see the difference in them. I think that it is good for one, morally, to travel.'
    'How's that?' asked George.
    Annemieke paused and took a sip of her wine.
    'It expands the senses, the intellect and, well, culturally, borders and so on.'
    Jan topped up all of their glasses and nodded.
    'I wouldn't know,' said George, 'we're homebodies. I like my own sort as a rule and I think it'd be better for us all if we stayed put, kept to our kind.'
    Annemieke looked at her husband again, but Jan, feeling her eyes on him, kept his face lowered and began to chew a new mouthful with steadfast rhythm.
    'Mind you,' George went on, 'I had a terrific time in Italy during the war. But that was special circumstances. The usual rules didn't apply.'
    'Oh, for a world without usual rules,' said Annemieke.
    'There must be rules, dear; even when there aren't rules, there are rules, and then it's just the more confusing. Better to be straight. Honest.'
    'There are rules, but you can choose whether you want to follow them or not...' started Dorothy. She was amazed to see that the Belgian woman flushed, her rouged cheeks rose like dough, her mouth fell slack and spare as a large man approached the table and bade her 'Good evening.' He turned to all of them with a nod and a smile.
    'Hello there,' said Annemieke, 'nice to see you
again. Jan, this is ... I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name.'
    'Bill Moloney.' The man extended a hand to Jan and raised it next in a salute to both George and Dorothy. 'Well, I'll not hold you up,' he added.
    He sat at a single table, at a remove from them, and signalled his salute again as Annemieke looked over, then later, catching Annemieke's awkward glance, he raised his glass and in a loud voice said, 'Your health!'
    The men responded eagerly.
    'It's his own he ought to worry about. I met him at reception. Remember I mentioned him to you, Jan? I think he's interested in me. Sorry,' she said with a small shrug.
    'Sex.