‘How are you feeling?’
‘I don’t know.’ She turned then and he saw that she was not as composed as he had thought, but rather dazed. ‘I feel I’ve lost something but I don’t know what. Certainly not him ... not him.’ The repetition was charged with a disconcerting mixture of bewilderment and satisfaction.
Christopher felt ill at ease. Her stillness seemed to him unnatural. He took her hand and said, ‘Let’s walk.’
They moved down the steps, avoiding outcrops of sempervivum and thrift, and into the garden proper. It was already very hot and the air was thick with the thrum of bees foraging among pink lavender and borage.
His future with Suhami was overwhelmingly on Christopher’s mind. Had the fact of her father’s death not arisen, he would have tried to discover how she now felt about leaving the commune. For it seemed to him that it was above all the presence of Ian Craigie that had held her there. Perhaps, even now, she would choose to stay. If that proved to be the case he would stay too for he was determined not to give her up. They sat down on a tiny circular lawn. A Catherine wheel of silver thyme and camomile.
‘How’s your mother taking it?’
‘She doesn’t know. Will told me first. He thought I’d be better able to handle things. I’ll break it to her when we go back. Or this afternoon. It’s not as if there’s any hurry ...’
‘Is it true they were unhappy?’
‘They always seemed so. I can’t imagine anyone being anything else living with him.’ She turned, her expression strained. ‘Perhaps we’ll get like that.’
‘Never, ever.’ Christopher smiled, greatly encouraged by the ‘we’. ‘Other people’s lives. This is you and me. This ...’ he placed his hand on the back of her neck, brought her close and kissed her. ‘Is you ...’ his lips still hovered on her own, ‘and me.’
He was upset by her lack of response. Just the day before she had danced in his arms, almost ecstatic. He reached in the pocket of his jeans and tugged out a flat box wrapped in magenta tissue.
‘I bought these for your birthday. Before I knew who you really were. Then I felt I couldn’t offer them.’
‘But you were wrong.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who I really am.’ The box lay in her lap, ribbon looped around her finger. ‘That’s what the Master said we should find out. That’s what matters isn’t it, Christopher? Everything else is shifting sand.’
‘You can do the philosophical bit when you’re ancient. There’s no answers to the big questions anyway. Open your present.’
Suhami put the earrings on, delicate sprays of filigree, trembling little pearls. She turned her head this way and that.
‘You’re like a lovely temple dancer. Ahh, you’re so pretty Suze.’
She hung her narrow head, surrendering gravely to disbelief. Not protesting as pretty girls usually do.
‘What can I say to you?’ he despaired. She lifted her slender shoulders and laughed with humorous resignation. ‘Yesterday in the byre -’ he tried again.
‘Yesterday you saw how I used to be. Frightened, desperate, grabbing at happiness, at people. Frantic in case I was left alone. I can’t live like that any more Christopher, I just can’t. And I won’t.’
‘But there’s no need to be frightened. I’d never leave you -’
‘You say that now, perhaps it’s true. But people are no different from all other forms of life in that they’re changing all the time.’
‘That’s a bit pessimistic.’
‘No, it’s realistic. Obvious. Change is the only constant and I don’t want to live in fear of it.’
‘What about faith and hope?’
‘I’m not sure they’re relevant.’
‘That sort of stoicism’s for old men on the battlefield. Or neurotics. Afraid to start any sort of relationship in case it goes wrong. Ending up lonely and half-alive like -’
There was a long silence. The bees thrummed louder than ever. One of the fish jumped in the pond and plopped back. A breeze sighed. Suhami said, ‘I shall never end up like my mother.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re angry aren’t you?’
‘Of course I’m angry. I can see our future disappearing down the drain.’
‘You haven’t understood.’
‘I don’t think you know what you do want.’
‘I want ...’ She recalled that single moment of illumination in the Solar. The Master’s words when they had talked together only twenty-four hours ago. His powerful conviction that beneath the restless tangled surface of her life lay all she would ever need to comfort and sustain her. ‘I want something that doesn’t come to an end.’
‘Everything comes to an end. Lesson One, Stoic’s Handbook.’
‘No, there’s something. It can be discovered and called on. I know that’s true. The Master called it the pearl of great price.’
How very unoriginal of him, thought Christopher. He reached forward and took hold of her plait, teasing out the soft hair that smelt of frangipani into a silky fan. ‘Why can’t we discover it together then? I’m interested in these matters too, you know. Why do you think I’m here?’ He tugged her closer. ‘We could go on a retreat for our honeymoon if you like.’
‘Honeymoon.’ Behind the word a flash of longing. Encouraged, Christopher pressed on.
‘You don’t have to be in a religious community to live a religious life. There are plenty of lay people who make room for prayer and meditation. Exist quietly and harmlessly. Why can’t we be like them?’ Suhami frowned. She seemed uncertain, a little confused. ‘Don’t you think in any case esoteric knowledge is written on the wind? If you’re facing the right direction on the right day, fine. If not ...’
Suhami gave a half smile. She quite liked that way of putting it. It echoed the Master’s proposition: that the pursuit of the dream was not only useless but counterproductive.
Christopher returned the smile double, triple, manifold. His own was quick and bright; full of confidence. He had time on his side. And youth. And passionate determination. Surely in the end she would be his.
Returning to the house they found a confab going on in the kitchen. Everyone sat round the deal table making hay with Uncle Bob’s Treacle Delights whilst absorbing pungent distillations from the Arabica bean. After the proper expressions of surprise and pleasure at the sight of these secular delicacies, Suhami and Christopher helped themselves to coffee and shared the last biscuit. The conversation was about Trixie but directed at Janet who sat well back in her chair, looking more than a touch at bay.
‘Are you sure,’ Arno was asking, ‘that you got nothing intelligible out of her at all?’
‘She must,’ argued Heather, ‘have said something that made sense.’
‘People having hysterics don’t make any sense.’
The scene in question had been chewed on for nearly an hour and Janet was getting sick of it. The others had taken over the distressing and frightening episode in just the bustling and concerned way they seized on every opportunity for service. They didn’t seem to know the difference, Janet thought crossly, between benign interventions, bossiness and bullying. Mind you, it could be said she’d bullied Trixie pretty violently herself, though that had not been her intention.
When the shouting had started, Janet had rushed across the room calling out ‘Don’t, don’t!’ and stupid things like ‘It’s all right’. Then she had seized Trixie’s shoulders, or tried to. But Trixie had wriggled and wrenched herself free, flailing her arms wildly, striking Janet on the side of the neck and making non-stop fear-filled shrieks. Her mouth was opening and closing like a fish and her blank eyes stared. It was the eyes, Janet thought afterwards, that made it possible for her to do what she had done - for there was no trace of Trixie in them at all.