Merger By Matrimony

Destiny arrived at the wine bar, late but calmly resolved to sort out the problem with Callum and the wayward, puzzling effect he had on her, with the same calm determination that had always seen her through the thousands of minor crises that she had faced in her life. Crises of a more practical nature, but no less surmountable than the problem of Callum Ross. Which, anyway, was an inconvenience but hardly a crisis.

When she cast her mind back to their dinner the night before, she could feel her heart-rate speed up and that would never do.

Stephanie was waiting for her at a corner table of the wine bar. It was obviously a place to go with the fashionable crowd. Rows of men in business suits were lounging by the circular bar, idly drinking but more interested in who was walking through the door. Some of them were with women, who were also smartly dressed in well-tailored suits to match their well-tailored short haircuts. The tables were all occupied, mostly with groups of people talking loudly, gesticulating, and laughing.

The décor was very modern. Pale colours, wooden floor, large abstract paintings on the wall of the kind painted by some of her eight-year-old children on the compound. Just splashes of paint that looked as though some idiot had spilled his palette on a canvas and hadn’t been bothered about cleaning it up.

Stephanie stood up and waved and Destiny scurried over to the table and sat down.

‘It’s very crowded, isn’t it?’ She leaned forward and glanced around her, smiling.

Her stepcousin grinned. ‘I know. It’s brilliant, isn’t it? Callum hates crowds like this, but I love it. What’s the point making an effort getting dressed if no one’s going to be around to appreciate it?’ She was in a smoky blue fitted dress, very short, and her nails were painted the exact coral shade of her lipstick. This was Callum’s fiancée, Destiny reminded herself, and incidentally everything a man like him would want in a woman. Neat, attractive, vivacious, always smiling, always amenable.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Destiny admitted, breaking off to order some mineral water and a salad, taking the lead from Stephanie and remembering Callum’s reaction at her hearty appetite. ‘I can’t say that dressing up was something that happened much on the compound. No need.’ She grinned. ‘And no dressing-up clothes either, come to think of it.’

Which revived all the open-mouthed fascination that Stephanie had shown previously. Whenever she leaned forward her wavy brown hair swung over her shoulders, and she would flick it back by running her fingers through it and then tossing her head the way a horse tossed its mane.

She wanted to know everything about Destiny—her life, her education, what it felt like to live so far away from decent shops, what she ate, what she drank, whether she’d ever had malaria, what the people out there looked like, what her father looked like. When the subject came round to Henri, whose name had been mentioned casually, but had been picked up with the perceptiveness of someone well versed in the ways of relationships, Stephanie shot her a coy smile.

‘So there is more to life there than you let on!’ She giggled. ‘What does he look like?’

‘You’ve hardly touched your salad,’ Destiny said wryly, dodging the questions she could see hovering on the horizon. Stephanie obligingly stuck a couple of lettuce leaves in her mouth and continued to survey her stepcousin with a gleam in her blue eyes.

‘Okay. He’s about my height, brownish hair, specs, thinnish.’

‘Any more ishes to add to the description? What about sexyish?’

No, that describes your lover, was the thought that flashed through Destiny’s head, disappearing before it had time to take root.

‘Yes, well…’ she said vaguely.

‘I can see—’ Stephanie sat back and arched her eyebrows meaningfully ‘—that you’re overwhelmed by lust for this man.’

‘It’s too hot out there to get lusty.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Too sticky.’

‘Right. In that case, I’m surprised anyone has babies.’

‘Tell me about Callum,’ Destiny said, going red and rapidly changing the subject, which was greeted with another arch of perfectly bowed eyebrows, but Stephanie grinned and relented.

‘What about him?’

‘You must be very excited at the thought of getting married…’ Her salad had already settled in her stomach and steady hunger pangs were beginning to set in. How could anyone exist on a handful of shrubbery with a bit of black pepper on top?

‘Well, we’re not getting married. Least, not yet.’ The heart-shaped face suffused with delicate colour.