When he got back to Discovery, he didn’t whisper a word to Ravenna. He went below to change his clothes and when James came in, muttering about “those damned Americans,” Paul couldn’t resist saying something.
“Do you know what they’re doing over there?” he asked, and he dropped his rain-soaked trousers, didn’t wait for James to acknowledge the question. “They’re all gettin’ off on Ravenna, that’s what. They’re all trying it on with her, every last bleedin’ one of ‘em, and if I hadn’t kept my wits about me, I’d be in the orlop right now.”
James looked up from beneath furrowed brows. “You started a fight? Because you’re jealous?”
“No I’m not jealous,” Paul said, digging through his clothes for another pair of trousers, “but it just makes me sick, the things they’re saying about her. I mean, you should hear it. One fellah, he said he fancied Ravenna could suck the brass off a pistol’s butt. I almost decked him.”
James didn’t comment. While Paul pulled on his trousers, he noticed how James stood there all sullen and serious, as if guilty of imagining the very same thing. Does he think I’ll deck him as well? Paul wondered, because he knew—had known for months—how James felt about Ravenna. The guy was attracted to her; James couldn’t deny it, and yet he couldn’t understand it, either. Paul had tried explaining it to him—how Ravenna didn’t see James as a brother; how in fact they weren’t siblings at all, and if James found himself drawn to her, it was only because Ravenna, having never had a boyfriend, couldn’t help reacting to James’s attention.
Now he probably pictured her fellating a firearm. No wonder the fellah looks guilty. “Listen,” he said, pulling on a dry shirt, “I know you’re tryin’ it on with her, and that’s OK, I’ve no problem with that. She’s always gonna be my girl, isn’t she? It’s just the people who don’t love her, who can’t even see how innocent she is and how something like sayin’ they’d want t’ball her or whatever, it’d completely destroy the trust I’ve built up and—”
“You’re talking about the Americans?”
“Do you know what would’ve happened if she’d heard those fellahs?”
“She’s less fragile than you think, my friend.”
Where he sat on his sea-chest, Paul nodded. He pulled on his socks, remembering Tahiti and how she’d tried to entice him with those silky legs, the shapely curves of her slim little hips. If she’d known what I was thinkin’ then, or even what goes through m’mind during an ordinary working day…
“It’s just…I don’t want her to find out what completely selfish, sex-crazed bastards men are, y’know?” Paul sniffed, reached down for his boots. “Not until she’s more comfortable with the whole thing, not until we’ve had a chance to really work it out. It’s taken me too long to earn her trust, and I wouldn’t want t’lose it, not when we’re so close to gettin’ there.”
James leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets. “So you do intend to end this? When we reach her island?”
“That’s the general idea. It’s what she’s wanted all her life, yeah? Me an’ her and a bunch of seagulls?”
“Better seagulls than American sailors.”
Paul shook his head in disgust, pulled on his boots. “Jem, you should’ve heard the things they were saying. I swear you would’ve mopped the deck with ‘em.”