The perfume of love (rain-bi)

chapter 25

while she was standing by herself, gazing down into the valley-like creater, lee yong brought her a polystyrene beaker filled with black coffee. he stayed beside her to drink his own coffee.

"I'm afraid i erred on the early side. we could have set out twenty minutes later and had less standing about."

"it doesn't matter, yong. we're all well muffled up. i feel sorry for some of the others."

jenna noticed that jihoon had produced a hip flask and was lacing joanne's coffee with brandy or possibly rum. she was smiling up at him. before he added a generous dash of the spirit to his own beaker, he gave her the attractive grin he usually reserved for older women.

they were ideally matched, thought jenna, with a sinking feeling. two of a kind. clearly joanne was a match for him in more ways than holding her own with him in conversation. it was a pity she had a failed marriage behind her, but perhaps the one most at fault had been her ex-husband.

".... won't be long now" remarked yong, breaking into her reverie.

with a guilty start, she realised she had completely switched off and poor yong had been talking to himself, except for the last few words.

as she could see that he knew this, she hastened to apologise.

"I'm so sorry, yong. for a minute or two i was miles away."

he looked at her kindly. "if this is your first long trip, i expect you sometimes feel homesick. i know i did on my first voyage. it was an exciting time, but there were moments, i remember, when i felt a long way away from....."

he broke off and they both remained silent as the edge of a great red-gold orb began to emerge, as if from the depths of the pale, pearl-coloured ocean they could see beyond and below the far rim of the crater.

A hush fell over the people... fifty or sixty of them now... who, from all parts of the island, had converged on the look-out to see the sun take possession of the eerie dead-planet world within the crater.

for the next few minutes all eyes would be fixed on the fiery ball of distant heat as it came fully into view; or so jenna thought, as she turned her own gaze towards jihoon and joanne.

as she expected, joanne was intently watching the sunrise, but it was a disconcerting surprise to find that jihoon wasn't. he was looking directly at jenna, with an expression of annoyance, not to say anger, on his face.

she looked away, startled and hurt by that glare of black disapproval. was her mere presence among them an irritation? was he furious with himself because, for one evening, he had softened towards her and, the next day, allowed his sex hunger to overrule his better judgment?

it was some time before the sun had risen high enough to penetrate the crater, and by then many of the watchers were too chilled to want to linger until it reached the crater floor, several thousand feet below the rim. they began to disperse.

"i think we might move on up to the Observatory, yong" said jihoon, coming up behind them.

his expression was no longer angry, but, even addressing his second-in-command, he spoke with a certain curtness.

"a good idea" agreed yong, turning away.

jenna would have followed him, but jihoon said, "let me get rid of that for you" and took the empty polystyrene beaker from her hand.

"thank you"

as he tossed it, with his, into a letter container, she noticed joanne had fallen into conversation with the elderly Americans whom he had helped earlier on.

"i thought you had gloves" jihoon remarked, as jenna blew on her bare hands.

"i lent them to Mrs Walters. she has no pockets" she said stiffly.

"give your hands to me"

to her amazement, he seized them and began to massage them. at first she was too dumbfounded to react. for perhaps half a minute she submitted to having the warmth restored to her fingers by the strong stroking movements of his. then the feel of his thumbs circling her palms became too much to bear.

she snatched her hands free and said hoarsely, "they're fine now." she thrust them back into her pockets.

it was almost a repetition of what had happened on the quayside a few days before. they stood, less than an arm's length apart, jenna's height dwarfed by his, her firm chin lifted defensively.

but this time it wasn't desire that burned in jihoon's slate-grey eyes. it was anger; a wrathful glint in which she could read, all too plainly, his impulse to shake her.

she removed the temptation by uttering another cold, "thank you" and walking away.

a couple of hours later, after stopping on the way down to look at the strange and rare silverword plants which were peculiar to the highlands of Maui and Hawaii, they had a picnic breakfast in a meadow sheltered by a grove of tall eucalyptus trees.

joanne had been told that the uplands of Maui were where many of the proteas bought by flower arrangers in the United States were grown.

"I'd like to buy some. have we time?" she asked jihoon.

it was jenna's impression that the four men had been rather bored by the visit to the protea gardens. she was surprised when, on returning to the car, joanne had another request. she had heard of a shop in a place called Paia which sold early examples of aloha shirts. she wanted to see what they were like and perhaps buy one as a souvenir.

talking about this, later in the day, to her sister, jenna said, "joanne kept them hanging about in Paia for almost an hour while she and i looked around the dress shops. it didn't seem to worry her that they had nothing to do there."

"it wouldn't. American women don't have the same hang-ups we have. in Korea we're brought up to believe that it's okay for us to be bored out of our minds watching whatever sports we like, or listening to interminable discussions about whatever subject it is like politics or investments for example, but we must never expect men to sit through a fashion show or listen to feminine chit-chat."

"that was true of father's generation, but is it still?" jenna said doubtfully.

"alot of women are interested in politics and, if i had any money, I'd be interested in investments."

"Okay, so there's more overlapping of interests than there used to be" hana conceded.

"but if what I'm saying isn't true, why did you feel worried about keeping them waiting this morning? i don't suppose they minded propping up a bar for an hour. I'll bet jihoon didn't. any boredom he suffered will be more than offset by the undivided attention he gets from joanne in her cabin" she added, with a laugh.

jenna tensed."what do you mean?"

"don't be naive! i could see what was going to happen the moment she came on board. and why not?" said hana, shrugging. "perhaps sleeping with her will make him less supercilious"