‘I told you. I wanted -’
‘You wanted, you wanted. Can’t you just once in your life simply do what someone else wants. Is that so impossible? ’ She broke off and turned away, her hands covering her face.
There was a long silence. Guy, deeply distressed by this rapid and alarming descent into animosity, bowed his head. He recognised that it was all his fault. What matter that this opportunity to meet with his daughter had been set up by strangers? He had been given the chance - that was what counted. And, finding himself in a strange milieu, had assumed hostility and snatched the operational reins into his own hands. He thought, I’ve ruined everything, and immediately quenched the idea. One false step didn’t mean disaster.
He looked at Sylvie, still with her back to him. The thick blossomy plait had fallen forward, leaving the defenceless hollow at the nape of her neck clearly visible. This at least had not changed. It seemed as tender and snappable as it had when she was very young. The executioner’s deadline he had once heard it called and was as chilled as if the trade had been his own. He stumbled into speech again.
‘I’m afraid I’ve done the wrong thing but it was only because I wanted so much to see you. And now I have I don’t seem able ...’ His throat closed on an excess of helpless, remorseful longing.
The rigid line of his daughter’s back slackened. Suhami was already experiencing a sense of shame at her uncontrolled outburst. This was not what she should be about. What was the point of all her meditations, of struggling to walk in the light and send out loving rays to all sentient beings if she could not even welcome a single one of them with courtesy. Her father was a hateful man but she must not hate him. He had done her immeasurable harm but she must not seek revenge. The Master had counselled her to this effect and she knew that he was right. To harbour malice damaged only oneself. Her father was to be pitied. Who in the whole world loved him? But I - Suhami took a long and consoling breath - I have known love. From the Master, friends here, Christopher. I have been nourished and comforted. Should I not be kind in my turn? She turned and faced him. He still looked bullish but post-picador, his chin sunk on his chest.
‘I’m sorry too. You mustn’t think ...’ She struggled to find something honest to say. ‘Everyone is intrigued at the thought of meeting you.’
Guy responded quickly. ‘And I’m looking forward to meeting the Craigies.’
‘The ...?’ Suhami looked puzzled then laughed as if he had said something really witty. ‘Oh - it’s not like that.’ She lifted the plait, letting it fall once more down her back. ‘It’s not like that at all.’ Then she picked up the tray. ‘I must take this to the Master.’
‘Won’t it be cold?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
Guy realised then that they had only been in the kitchen a few minutes. In fact it was barely ten since they had met in the hall. Ten minutes to roller-coaster through a meeting that had obsessed his every waking moment for days.
On the steps, she turned - indicating the glassed-in door by the Wellingtons. ‘You can go out that way. I don’t know if you’d like to look round the gardens? Or there’s a library.’
‘I think I’ll go and dump my bag and have a shower. I’ve booked into a hotel.’
‘A hotel?’
‘I decided to stay over. I thought it might not be convenient here. I don’t want to be any trouble.’
Suhami stared at him for a moment then smiled. The smile was prompted solely by amused surprise at the idea of her father not wishing to be any trouble, but Guy saw it as uniquely and transparently affectionate. All his previous confidence, vanquished by anger and distress, surged back. Everything would work out. All he had to do was play it her way. He could manage that. He would agree with everything and like everybody, and if he didn’t he would dissemble. As he watched his daughter leave, Guy felt quite proud as if he had pulled this impossible achievement off already.
Sylvie would see that he could change and perhaps eventually would be able to acknowledge that his love for her was true. Excited and hopeful, he made his way past the old stove and wellies and out into the sunshine.
Chapter 5
‘There’s someone on the terrace.’ Trixie moved her cheek on the windowpane. It made a soft squeaky sound but the man did not look up. ‘I suppose it’s Suhami’s father.’
Janet crossed over and, hand pressing lightly on Trixie’s shoulder, also looked down. Trixie moved away saying, ‘He looks like a gangster.’
He did a bit. Chunky enough head-on, foreshortened, Guy was practically cuboid. The bloom on his jowls, mauvey-grey directly after shaving, was now the colour of hot-house grapes.
‘And what a foul suit.’ So, eagerly allying herself, did Janet dismiss the Gieves & Hawkes double-breasted silk and mohair. She observed the powerful, surprisingly shapely head covered with dark curls squatting on wide, meaty shoulders. He seemed to have no neck at all. ‘I bet he wears a toupee.’
‘Course he doesn’t.’ Trixie dropped into a green flock armchair swinging her legs over the side. She was wearing a thin nylon housecoat and little else. ‘I think he looks rather virile actually. A bit like that strange man in your book. The minnator.’
‘Minotaur.’ Too late Janet could have bitten her tongue.
‘Should have been a teacher.’ Stitchings of malice pointed up the subtext. Dusty blackboard, scornful or indifferent pupils, lonely nights marking careless home-work. Lengthy unappreciated preparations for the following day. ‘Always picking people up.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What do you want anyway?’
‘I came to borrow some cotton.’
The truth was that Janet just loved being in this room, even when Trixie was not present. Sometimes she thought she preferred those occasions. She could be more herself then. Relax. Drink in the heady atmosphere: face powder, perfume, cheap hairspray, a bowl of roses. Once she had smelt cigarette smoke. This commingling of scents produced a slumbrous ante-bellum atmosphere with a base note of sweet decay. The roses were illicit. Garden flowers were meant to be cut only on special occasions and then displayed in public rooms where everyone could share them. But Trixie always did as she liked, banking accurately on the communal reluctance to criticise.
Janet pulled open a drawer and pretended to look for the cotton. She disturbed a peachy satin slip, gossamer tights and some garments made of oyster satin that she had once referred to as cami-knickers. An archaism she was not likely to repeat. The second drawer held two boxes of Tampax and several half-cup wired lace bras.
‘You won’t find what you’re looking for in there.’
‘No - how silly.’ Janet’s long bony face crimsoned and she dropped the filmy skimp like a burning coal. ‘I meant to put it on Arno’s list.’
One day, she thought, when I come in for a plaster or an aspirin, a tissue or a safety pin, she’s going to challenge me and say that she knows I really want none of those things. That I am here simply to breathe in the air that she exhales. Or touch the things that touch her skin.
‘I can’t get over those muscle-packed shoulders.’ There was always a curl of anticipation in Trixie’s voice when she planned some unkindness. Janet recognised it now and braced herself. ‘I wonder what he’s like in bed.’
What does she expect me to say? What can I say? Laugh it off? Make some all-girls-together joke? ‘There’s only one way to find out?’ But of course, if I could do that, she’d never have asked the question.
Pictures flared in Janet’s mind. Pale delicate limbs twined around swarthy, hirsute rutting masculinity. Hands gloved by black hair, roaming, probing. Thick blunt fingers squeezing tender breasts, knotting honeyed curls. Nauseous, near to tears, she glanced across at the armchair and caught a stone in the sling smile.