Free Three Views of Crystal Water by Katherine Govier Page B

cases. They took them away and buried them; no one knew where, but James heard a report they’d gone by in bullock carts toward the jungle.
    James’s father sat and fumed in his beach house. He made his son’s life hell, carping on about his schoolwork and having him write out algebraic equations. That made James anxious to go home to England, but his father wouldn’t abandon his oysters.
    Then they had a visitor. A man came riding along the beach on his horse, a military man who, like many of the soldiers in Ceylon, had taken an administrative post in the local government. Add to that he gambled a little in the pearl market. His name was Avery McBean.
    They’d all met before. He hailed them and then he jumped down off his horse. And who was behind him in the saddle, but that overdressed girl with her pout. Except now she was fifteen and on the cusp of beauty and thought herself even grander than once she had. James hated her on sight. She did not move from the saddle; she was six feet up on the horse and probably couldn’t. The conversation took place like that, with the girl watching from above.
    ‘We’ve impounded the tin-lined cases,’ said McBean. ‘We had to build new lids, for which incidentally, we’ll charge you. The exciting news is that we found pearls in there just as beautiful and just as big as you’d find elsewhere. However they are the property of the government. And you’re in a deficit situation, Lowinger.’
    After the ranting and raving settled down, McBean offered friendly advice. He had figured out the system. You’d not see him buying up lots of unopened oysters. The only smart thing was to buy from the small independent boatmen who will wash a small quantity of the oysters themselves.
    ‘They’ll do you every time,’ said McBean, infuriatingly calm with his Scottish burr. ‘They see that the English are greedy and their greed makes them desperate and a desperate man has little success outwitting molluscs or little wiry brown men.’ The English, he said, as if he were somehow in a different category.
    ‘Thank you very much,’ said the senior Lowinger, ‘but you are wrong.’
    ‘Aye, if you say so,’ said McBean easily. ‘You’ll find out the wisdom of my words, sooner or later.’
    And the girl sat like a princess on her steed. She smirked down on James. Neither child nor woman, she was something alarmingly in between. He squirmed. He went pale under his hot red face. She parted her perfect lips and stuck out her tongue at him. Then she giggled and rolled her eyes at her father. James smiled, uncertainly.
    McBean got on his horse and whirled around.
    She looked back over her shoulder and blew James a kiss.
    He would never be free of her.
    Vera hated to see her grandfather in his bed. For years she had heard people reassuring Belle that since the old man had been all over the world, he’d come home safe and sound and end his days with her. It was what you were supposed to do when you led a life of great danger. ‘He’ll likely die in his bed.’
    Therefore, Vera thought bed was the most dangerous place for him to be. She tried to drag him out of it, in the morning. Some days he would shake his head, and go limp, as if all the energy had drained away under the sheets. She would jump on top and rumple up the sheets, prodding him, until he roared for her to go away. He would not come out of his room before she left for school, and those days were not good days for algebra and geography. Vera would worry about him and race to the streetcar for Homer Street as soon as the bell rang for the end of classes. When she burst in the door, her eyes would go first to Hinchcliffe’s facefor any clue of mishap, and then to her grandfather’s office door. He’d be in there, a little pale, perhaps, and sinking into his chin. On the way to coffee she would hold his arm at every step he took.
    But on other mornings he gamely shook her off with the lion’s roar she wanted, and said he’d be