desired by insatiable scuba divers, anxious to follow in the fabled footsteps of the master, Jacques Cousteau.
The more astute business people set about creating homes for the wealthy visitors and banks for their money, away from the prying eyes of the taxation beast that ravaged their assets back home.
The ‘seventies saw an unparalleled, condominium construction boom on Grand Cayman that threatened to turn the glorious Seven Mile Beach into a writhing concrete snake.
Every major financial institution had watched these developments with keen eyes and after they had dipped their toes into the inviting waters, they decided to dive headlong into the establishment of the western hemisphere’s most sophisticated and secretive financial market.
Not surprisingly, undesirables soon took advantage of the confidentiality of the private banking system, flying in on their personal jets to deposit vast sums of cash in their secret accounts. This gave an effective way of laundering their ill-gotten gains with the added advantage of avoiding tax. The Caymanian government became wise to these tricks and passed a series of laws that required depositors to prove the validity of their cash. In drug-related investigations it then became possible to enforce the divulgence of the suspected baron’s account details.
Although not openly discussed, it has become extremely fashionable for the more privileged members of our society to have private accounts at one of the five hundred or so banks registered in Georgetown, the capital, which does not even cover a square mile. Foreign-owned, private shell companies soon outnumbered the population, which at last count in 1989 stood at 25,000, only 1500 of whom do not live on Grand Cayman, mainly in favor of Cayman Brac. A mere handful occupy the sleepy Little Cayman.
With the advent of the telex machine, the Cayman Islands boasted more machines per capita than any other country in the world.
Bewildered by this sudden and relentless development of their once peaceful land, many Caymanians still view most foreigners with a justifiable caution.
One foreigner who had almost forged total acceptance was the late Sir Richard LeRice, Joe’s father. In the late ‘sixties, Richard LeRice, a civil engineer, had been one of several professionals dispatched to the Caymans by the Foreign Office in answer to a plea for assistance from the islands’ government. They desperately needed help from the motherland in establishing an efficient bureaucracy to leash the impending expansion. Richard LeRice became so dedicated to the people with whom he had worked alongside, that he was invited to stay on as a consultant to the government even after his Foreign Office contract had expired.
After a knighthood in 1975, Sir Richard was killed in a tragic plane crash two years later when engine failure forced his Cessna into the sea during a routine six mile ‘hop’ between the two smaller islands, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Floating debris yielded a wallet containing a few sodden banknotes and a photograph of his wife and son. On the back a fading inspiration could just be made out.
“Richard, to yourself be true.”
No body was found and it was probably fitting that a man so vibrant in life should not have been seen in death; reduced to a flaccid corpse, planted into a hole in the ground and watered by a river of diplomatic tears. A memorial was erected to him on Cayman Brac.
After the accident, a fifteen year old Joe and his mother returned to England permanently. Joe’s young life had been spent commuting between public school and his father’s job, but he clung quietly to the memories that he had collected in the Cayman Islands and he promised himself that one day, he would return.
In 1980, the year in which his mother died from cancer, and not helped by a broken heart, Joe had almost dropped out of university and decided to spend some time in the islands, amongst the memories of his youth.
Still reclining, he recalled that visit which was to shape the course of his life and bring him back forever to this Land That Time Forgot.
The seeds for his return had been planted in his adolescence. During that time of his life, Joe had found someone whom he enjoyed being with; she was a pretty, Caymanian girl, whose different culture had given her a set of homely values that were in refreshing contrast to manufactured, teenaged Britain.
Joe was determined not to be one of the millions who carried fond recollections of their childhood sweethearts through their compromised lives. Having tried as hard as he could, he could not forget that honey-brown girl whose face was firmly imprinted on his soul.
On returning to Cayman Brac, Joe had been pleasantly surprised to find out that Rachael Downing had not married, as so many young island girls seemed to do. Instead, she had embarked upon several correspondence courses in a bid to further her career with local government. Impressed, yet guilty for harboring his own plans to drop out of university, Joe had decided to struggle through the final year of his studies before returning. Many nights of passionate love beneath the bright, Caribbean moon ensured that they would both have something to look forward to.
If his future was to contain Rachael, then it would have to be in the Cayman Islands and Joe knew that he had to find a career to preserve those conditions. He did. After a small wedding, he had used the last of his inheritance money and bought a plot of land on Grand Cayman. With Rachael’s help he had secured a loan to build a house on it. He had worked on the site every day spending hours helping, even after the workmen had long since gone home. He had sold the property for a healthy profit and over the next five years, he had built up one of the most successful property development companies in the Cayman Islands. In fact, this evening was one of their first in the brand-new house that Joe had built for his wife.
Joe turned his admiring gaze towards Rachael as she lay just a few yards away. As she slept, her hair cradled her face in a pillow of auburn, and Joe spent a few minutes appreciating the part that she played in his happiness. She and Joe were so different that their relationship served to strengthen the theory that opposites attract.
Rachael had achieved a respectable position with the legal department of government and could easily have followed her father into politics, but there were more important things on her mind. Rachael’s greatest desire now was to hear the patter of tiny feet, perhaps a couple of pairs.
Joe found these thoughts stimulating and with a naughty grin he concluded that if Rachael had not yet conceived, it was not for lack of trying. Just imagining making love to his wife, Joe became aroused and played out the scene in his mind.
The sun was slowly sinking below the waves and like a drowning artist, it painted its last skyscape. In a breathtaking spectrum of colors that ranged from a rich yellow to a deep blood-red, skillfully blended on Nature’s blue canvas, it submerged in a fleeting flash of green and was gone.
This seemed to be the signal for hungry mosquitoes to emerge from their inactivity and search for their precious food, blood; preferably human. With the high-pitched whining of the first unwelcome insect in his ear, Joe decided to rescue his wife from the impending raid. Moving his six-foot frame quickly, he scooped his wife’s warm body into his wiry arms and smiled reassuringly at her as she awoke, pleasantly surprised at reality commencing where her dream had just left off.
“Mmm. Kidnapped by a horny pirate,” she teased, “Don’t tell my husband.”
“I promise,” whispered Joe. Rachael winked at him, drawing a smile from her captor. As well as being the gateway to her sensuality, her eyes were unique to look at. Their shape was slightly oriental, a legacy from a Chinese great-grandmother and the pupils were lost in an animated sea of green whose waters it would take a lifetime to chart.
Joe maneuvered himself and his prize between their two recliners and strode past the kidney-shaped pool to the patio door. Enjoying his firm grip, Rachael slid the door open from her vantage point so that Joe would not have to put her down. A cool wave flowed over them. The central air-conditioning had performed perfectly and the formation of goose pimples on Joe’s tense arms sped him to the bedroom.
Joe set Rachael down gently on their bed, her arms still wrapped around his neck. She did not want to let go and Joe came forward to kiss her in appreciation of this. They slid under the solitary top sheet and turned to face