The perfume of love (rain-bi)

chapter 4

As the launch left the small marina and headed for open water, jenna forced herself to concentrate on admiring the view of lahaina and the mountains rising behind it. by now it was late afternoon, but the sunlight was still very bright and she realised that what she should have bought in the shopping mall was a pair of sunglasses. she had never needed them in seoul and unlike all her school friends, she had not been abroad for holidays.

this journey to the pacific was her first taste of foreign travel and she was determined to wring every ounce of enjoyment and interest from it.

"lahaina looks quite an old town, what kept it going before tourism?" jenna asked her sister, raising her voice against the sound of the outboard.

"I've no idea" hana had her back to the coast and wasn't looking at it over her shoulder. she was trying to prevent her hair from being blown about as the launch gathered speed.

it was Captain jung who answered jenna's question.

"lahaina used to be a whaling town, in the eighteen forties there'd be up to four hundred American whaling ships anchored in this roadstead"

jenna turned to look at him. the peak of a white-topped flat hat shaded his forehead and straight dark eyebrows. his short sleeved white open necked shirt had blue epaulettes on the shoulders. the visible part of his long legs, between his shorts and the white stockings turned over below his knees, were as brown as his sinewy forearms. his uniform had less braid than that of a senior naval officer, but he was the kind of man who didn't need braid to emphasise his air of command. there was something about him which in any clothes and any context would suggest a leader, a man endowed by personality and training with the ability to direct other people's actions.

jenna shifted her position to be within easier conversational distance of him. she ventured a smile before she said.

"it must have been wonderful sight.... a forest of twelve hundred masts. what is that old sailing ship lying near the small boat harbour?"

"she's Carthaginian, a replica of whaling brig which is used as a small museum"

his reply polite though it was somehow lacked the ring of real desire to share his knowledge. she sensed that without exchanging more than a few words with her, he had written her off as a girl of little intelligence unworthy of more than the basic minimum of attention.

jenna wasn't a vain girl. she knew that her looks were average. she wasn't a stunner like hana. at the same time she wasn't unhappy with her face or her figure, and her sense of self-worth certainly wasn't so low that she could accept being written off by a stranger on the basic of a few minutes acquaintance.

"thank you" she responded stiffly.

she turned away to look towards Ocean Wanderer and deliberately, remained sitting with her back to him until they came alongside the boarding ladder where a Hawaiian member of the crew was waiting to help them to step from the launch to the companionway.

when, from force of habit, jenna would have picked up her suitcase, Captain jung forestalled her.

"yeoung jo will bring your case for you"

yeoung jo was a tall man with perfect teeth exposed in a broad beam of welcome. it was one of the most radiant smile she had ever encountered, the more striking in contrast to the Captain's poker face.

before she put her small pale hand into the large tanning hand extended to help her, she noticed that yeoung jo was wearing the Ocean Wanderer T-shirt too, his big feet were bare. she didn't think he was Hawaiian but had no idea which other group of islands he might come from.

she had already seen that the ship had more than one deck. they arrived on board on the lower one from which a wide companionway with polished teck handrails led to the upper deck, a large part of which was covered by a blue awning.

"the crew live somewhere below. our cabins are on this deck, and we eat and relax on the top deck" hana explained.

"I'll show you your quarter, this way"

jenna wouldn't have minded had she found that her accommodation was one of the cabins with portholes just above the waterline. to be ushered into a twin-berthed deck cabin charmingly decorated in a cool and fresh combinatin of green and white was unexpected luxury.

"Oh... hana, how pretty... and how comfortable!" she exclaimed looking round at the clever use of space which gave plenty of storage for two people's belongings and no sense of being cramped, although the cabin was actually smaller than a bedroom.

"and how tidy you've become"she added teasingly.

"your bedroom at home was always in chaos.... remember? this is as neat as a pin. have you reformed or does someone keep it tidy for you?"

"i have a stewardess,naturally" said her sister.

"but i'm not sleeping in here. i'm on the starboard side. here is yeoung jo with your case... and Mrs lee to unpack for you"

Mrs lee was a small grey haired women in a neat navy overall with Ocean Wanderer embroidered in white on the breast pocket.

"good afternoon, miss i expect you'll be glad of a shower after your long trip" said Mrs lee

"if you'll give me your keys, I'll have everything unpacked and shipshape by the time you've finished in the bathroom. you'll find all you need in there, from a shower cap to a bathrobe"

"yes, i'm longing for a shower" jenna agreed

" but you needn't trouble to unpack for me, Mrs lee i haven't brought very much with me"

she saw hana frowning at her from behind the stewardess's back and gathered she had said the wrong thing.

"it's no trouble, miss kim. that's what i'm here for. but if you'd prefer to unpack yourself, I'll come back later and see if there's anything you want pressed, i'm very handy with an iron, and it doesn't do to leave creases in longer than necessary"

"thank you, that's very kind of you" jenna smiled warmly at her, sensing that from this motherly little woman she might receive much needed counsel on the ways of an alien environment.

"it's not kind of her, it's her job" said hana shortly, as soon as they were alone.

"you should have let her unpack for you. although on second thoughts if the rest if your clothes are like the things you arrived in perhaps it's better for her not to get close look at your wardrobe until we've done some more shopping. Mrs lee is a talker, and we don't want her telling other people that you turned up practically in rags"

"i'm sure she wouldn't dream of saying such a thing" jenna said

"not badly as that, but obliquely she might. i don't want her hinting to people that we haven't any money"

"it would only be the truth. we haven't" jenna said wryly.

"father's illness used up all his savings"

she longed to let go her feelings and to have hana hug and comfort her as she had when they were both children and if jenna had been hurt or frightened she had turned to her sister for mothering. but that was a long time ago, and already she sensed that in the years they had been apart hana had changed even more than her letters had suggested.

their reunion was too recent for either of them to behave as spontaneously and lovingly as they had once done. that close affectionate intimacy would revive given time. but jenna knew that this wasn't the moment for her to break down in tears and expect hana to take it in her stride.

with a great effort she managed to master her emotions and say huskily "but let's talk about all that later. i can't wait to dive into that shower! see you later"