The White Pearl by Kate Furnivall

tracked the blunting of his baby appearance and the sharpening of what would become
     his adult features: his jaw, his brow, the width of his nostrils. She told herself that if she watched him closely like this,
     it would never come as a shock when suddenly he stood before her as a young man, legs the length of his father’s. The child
     hidden away deep inside him.
    She lifted the net and kissed his damp forehead, brushing the strands of hair from his face. ‘Sleep tight, sweetheart,’ she
     whispered and stroked his chest. It was a habit she couldn’t break out of, this feeling for the feathery beat of his heart.
     She crept out of his bedroom and when she reached her own, Nigel was sitting on the bed removing his socks. He had nice feet,
     smooth and elegantly shaped.Which was just as well because his lower legs and lower arms were about all she got to see of
     his person, these days. For a moment she wondered what he would do if she walked over to him and started undoing his shirt
     buttons. Flap her away probably, the way he flapped at moths that sneaked in through the shutters.
    ‘I didn’t think much of that Fitzpayne fellow,’ Nigel commented. ‘Don’t like his ideas.’
    Connie sighed and stretched out on her side of the bed, arms aboveher head. The murmur of the fan on the ceiling was as incessant as the rain.
    ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I didn’t take to him. But he’s a friend of Johnnie’s, so we couldn’t exactly throw him out on his ear,
     could we?’
    Nigel grunted and departed into his dressing room. She raised both legs straight in the air. Her skirt tumbled around her
     hips and she enjoyed the pleasure of having naked thighs, the breeze from the fan brushing against them, warm as someone’s
     breath. She closed her eyes.
    ‘Constance, I don’t think you should employ that native boy.’
    ‘Why ever not?’
    ‘No good will come of it.’
    She could hear him puffing, his breath strained. He performed fifty press-ups every night in his dressing room.
    ‘Nigel, I just want to help them. After what I did, it’s the least I can offer.’
    ‘It wasn’t your fault, Macintyre said so. You don’t owe them anything.’
    She said nothing. Her hand stroked the curve of her calf and the soft underside of her knee.
    ‘Better not to get involved, old thing.’
    Old thing.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and jumped to her feet. She walked over to his dressing room and leaned against
     the door frame. He was forcing himself through his press-ups, elbows shaking now, his cheeks vermilion. A vein clicked in
     and out at his temple.
    ‘Nigel, what if he’s right?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘That Fitzpayne fellow. What if the Japanese do come down through the jungle from the north? We’ll be right in their path.’
    ‘There’s no chance …’ he struggled to straighten his arms, ‘… of that.’
    ‘But shouldn’t we be prepared? Just in case. I mean …’
    ‘No need.’
    ‘But it seems to me that …’
    ‘Don’t fret so.’
    She bit her tongue and waited against the door frame while he finished his exercises. God, she needed a cigarette. She always
     did when she was annoyed. Nigel eventually stood up and headed straight into the bathroom, splashing water around like a hippo.
     It was the same every night. When he emerged, wrapped in his silk robe, she was still waiting. He looked at her and frowned.
    ‘Let it go, Constance. The Japs have no backbone and no aircraft worth a damn against our Brewster Buffaloes. They don’t stand
     a chance and they know it, so don’t get yourself upset about it. People like Johnnie know what they’re talking about. Take
     no notice of Fitzpayne and his like. They’re spineless.’ He patted her shoulder and climbed into bed, lowering the mosquito
     net around himself like a bridal veil.
    Connie perched on the edge of the bed. ‘But we should still be prepared.’
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Constance, even if by the remotest chance they did somehow