I watched Professor Tubman walking across the shimmering sand, looking like a stereotypical American tourist in shorts and a boldly patterned shirt. I had no desire to talk to him, as I had come to Doug’s bar with the intention of seeking some peace of mind. It was easier to feel optimistic while sitting under a palm tree looking out at a brilliant blue sea. Some of my friends were lounging on the beach, while others chatted and drank at the tables. As the Professor approached, the chat among the students died down and some turned back to their books.

He drew up a chair next to me and deposited two cans of beer on the table. “Have a beer on me, Carrie. I’m sorry I was hard on you the other day.”

“ Maybe I can work even harder.”

He shook his head. “You’ve got a lot of ground to make up. Are you determined to qualify?”

I looked down at my beer. “Medicine’s what I want to do. The only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”

He reached out a chubby hand and pressed mine. “I don’t like to see a lovely girl like you unhappy.”

I took another sip of beer and wondered what to say.

He leaned towards me until I could feel his breath on my cheek. “Of course, there is a way to improve your grades.”

“Is there?”

“ I would reconsider my marking if you slept with me.”

I almost dropped my glass. The sweat trickled down his plump pink face and his shirt strained across his belly. “You’re joking.”

He shrugged “It’s up to you. But if you want decent marks…”

I hurried to my feet and collected my bag. “I’d better be going.”

“Let me know. You know where I am.”

I fled back to the campus in a state of confusion. I could hardly believe what I had heard. Was this the way things worked at the University of the South Caribbean? Professor Tubman had lectured us on the importance of an ethical approach to study and practice, condemning plagiarism and fiddling the results of experiments. I scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry.

At first, the idea of selling myself to that man for the chance to get my degree revolted me. I looked at myself in the mirror and regretted my looks. ‘Dark and sultry’ people had called me but it seemed that life would have been simpler if I had been ugly. Then I started asking myself what really mattered to me.

I had been brought up to think that, if I worked hard and behaved myself, I could do great things, but it just wasn’t working out like that. I had missed the grades I needed to qualify for medical college in the States. When my parents scraped together the money to send me to the University of the South Caribbean, I had promised that I would do everything I could to get a good degree. Everything. I couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing my parents. By the end of the week I had made up my mind.

The weather was so hot and humid on the evening of our assignation that my skin was running with sweat by the time I stepped out of the Professor’s car. He lived on Breakwater Point, a long sweep of rocky land which separated the Atlantic from the Caribbean. He was in expansive mood, gesturing at the white painted bungalows nestling among bougainvillea.

“Anyone who’s anybody in the university lives here. That’s the house of Dean Menzies – Old Meany I call him. I loathe the man. He thinks he’s better than us because he went to Oxford.”

“And what do I call you? Professor’s a bit formal.”

He smiled, showing a set of large and even teeth . “Most people call me Walt.”

We sat on the patio of his house, drinking white wine. As Walt regaled me with stories of his childhood in Texas, I watched a mass of dark cloud building over the sea and a line of foaming white surf appearing on the horizon.

“One of my sailing friends told me there was a hurricane coming,” I said.

He laughed. “You don’t need to trouble your head about that. We don’t get them here. They always miss St James.”

However, by the time we had drunk the wine, the wind was howling across the point, breaking small branches from trees and tossing aside flower pots.

“I reckon it’s time to go in, ” he said with one of his toothy smiles.

He showed me into the bedroom, where a large, plain Shaker-style bed stood in the centre. As he unbuttoned my blouse, I wondered how many other female students had passed that way. I lay on the bed, enduring his embraces until, at last, he fell asleep.

I couldn’t sleep but listened to the wind screaming through the trees and the Atlantic breakers crashing on the rocks at the foot of the promontory. The wind gathered force until the whole night howled and shook like some fiend on the loose. I could hear shingles flying off roofs and trees cracking. When the roof started shaking, I nudged Walt awake.

“What the hell’s happening?”

“You’re just about to lose your roof.”

He jabbed at the light switch but nothing happened. “Damned island. Nothing works here.”

I fumbled in the dark to find my clothes. With a last crack the roof lifted off and I heard it crash somewhere outside. The remaining windows broke and it sounded as if a mass of debris had fallen into the room.

“Under the bed,” Walt ordered. “That won’t move in a hurry.”

I joined him and we cowered together as the wind raged around us. A pile of bed linen and clothes was blown in round us and, for a moment, I thought we would suffocate. The bed creaked but didn’t move and we lay there uncomfortably for hours.

It was light by the time the wind finally eased. I wriggled out from under the bed, followed by Walt, who was still naked. His normally pink face was almost grey.

“Hadn’t you better dress?”

I realised he was trembling and I gathered together some clothes from the piles that lay across the room. When he had dressed, I led the way outside, picking my way over broken glass. Outside, the landscape had turned from green to grey. The palms and frangipani trees lay in broken heaps, along with lamp posts, overturned cars and smashed roofs. The roof of Walt’s house lay in pieces some way further down the hill.

I could hardly recognise the place, but I wandered in the direction of the road with Walt following in silence. A tall, grey haired figure, who I recognised as Dean Menzies, was making his way across the debris.

The Dean looked at us and raised an eyebrow. “Are you all right, Walt? And who’s the young lady?”

As Walt stood, with his mouth open, like some kind of fish, it occurred to me for the first time to feel sorry for him.