CHAPTER THREE

      WOULD she have been different if she had led a normal kind of life? It was a question Lisa had asked herself over the years and she had never come up with a satisfactory answer.

      She was very self-contained, she knew that, just as she knew that most people found her aloof and far too composed for the sort of superficial small talk that made the world go round. Very few had glimpsed the lack of self-confidence behind the composure.

      Looking back now, she was old enough and mature enough to realise that this was the real disservice which her parents had unwittingly done her. They had given her variety but her only point of stability had been them, when in fact, at the age of eight or twelve or fourteen, she had needed much more than that. She had needed the stability of a circle of friends, people with whom she could try out her developing personality, learn to laugh without the ridiculous fear of somehow getting it wrong, discover trust without the limits of time cutting it short before it had had time to take root.

      When she found herself thinking like that, she never blamed her parents. She accepted it as a fait accompli. She had never lacked love; it had not been their fault that she had not been able to fall in with their never-ending travels from one place to another with the same thrill of possible adventure lurking just around the corner.

      Her father, a biologist, had been consumed with a seemingly never-ending supply of curiosity. Nature, in all its shapes and guises, had fascinated him. He would take on a job as gamekeeper to acres of wilderness simply for the satisfaction of exploring the minutiae of the forest life.

      Once, for eighteen months, he had worked on the bleak Scottish coastline and had indulged in a brief fling with marine biology, a love which had lived with him until he had died.

      That, she thought now, had been the worst time. She could remember having to catch the bus to school in weather that never seemed to brighten. She could remember the smallness of the class, the suspicion of the other children who had treated her with the unconscious cruelty of long-standing village occupants towards the outsider. It had been hard then keeping her chin up but in the end she had made some friends.

      Now she could see that it had done nothing for her social self-confidence.

      She walked towards the yacht and she could feel the muscles in her stomach tighten just as they had done all those years ago, every time she had walked through the doors of yet another school building.

      Everyone else had arrived. She could glimpse the shapes on the boat, the movement, and she hurried a bit more. Someone must have called out something to Angus, because he appeared from nowhere, half-naked, and came down to the jetty to greet her.

      The air of restless vitality that seemed to cling to him swept over her and she licked her lips nervously.

      ‘I hope I’m not late,’ she began, and he reached out and took the suitcase from her, smiling with that mixture of dry irony and knowing amusement that made her feel so gauche and awkward because it always seemed to imply that he was somehow; somewhere, laughing at her.

      ‘We have a timetable of sorts,’ he drawled, ‘but we’re under no obligation to stick to it. One of the great advantages of a holiday like this. We would have waited for you.’

      He turned towards the yacht and she followed him as he threw polite remarks over his shoulder and she made obliging noises in return.

      Her legs were feeling heavy and uncooperative, but she took a deep breath and clambered aboard the yacht behind him, allowing him to help her up but then withdrawing her hand as soon as she was there.

      From behind the relative protection of her sunglasses, she saw the small circle of people—his guests.

      The whole situation inspired the same churning, sinking feeling she had had as a child when she had had to stand up in class, the newcomer, and introduce herself. She made a show of smiling and was swept along on a tide of introductions.

      Liz, Gerry, their nine-year-old daughter Sarah, Caroline. They were relaxed, stretched out on loungers on the deck of the yacht, wearing their swimsuits and sipping drinks.

      ‘Now,’ Angus said, in that slightly amused, very assured voice of his, ‘I shall show Lisa to her cabin.’ He turned to her. ‘What would you like to drink? We thought we’d have a few drinks here and some lunch before we leave.’