‘There won’t be a company without you,’ he’d sulked.
‘Of course there will be. You just have to find the right talent, that’s all.’
‘You’ll be bored to tears in six months. You’ll be begging to come back.’
She’d laughed so loudly at that, he’d looked affronted; but she knew he was wrong. She had plenty here to occupy her. She’d started teaching French, biology, mathematics and history in the school. She helped Therese in the clinic. She watered the orchids around her family’s expanded tomb, and had planted more. She talked constantly on these visits, telling her sister and her parents everything that was happening in Eden. And often she’d talk out loud to Emilia, too, just walking around the village or along the beach, so that people thought she was slightly mad. Her hard certainties about death had softened. She hadn’t found God so much as rediscovered the childhood awe of nature that she’d mislaid for a time, too busy mining it for nuggets. Adam had been right: We don’t believe because we think. We believe because we love.
She’d made him a second pledge that day in the church in Tsiandamba when she’d kissed him on his brow. Eden would remain the sanctuary he’d created, whatever it took. She’d lie awake at night, watching the moon-shadows in the eaves, her hands folded behind her head, making plans to bring him honour. She still didn’t know why he’d turned on her during her teenage years, but she’d put that behind her. All that mattered was that he’d felt the shame of it, and had wanted her forgiveness. She’d given it with her whole heart.
With her renewed respect for nature had come a rekindling of her eagerness to learn. Knowledge for its own sake. Her chance to contribute something solid and lasting to the world. She planned to pick upon some obscure local endemic (a toad, perhaps, or maybe a millipede; something small and a little bit ugly) then study it intensively for the next ten years, writing papers on it that only twenty-seven people would ever read, and only fifteen would understand.
She was happy.
When Titch was gone, when even his dust trail had resettled, she took Michel down towards the beach. She was crossing the track when she saw Pierre hurrying towards her, waving for her attention, great dark pools of sweat on the underarms of his blue shirt. ‘You said voavy for the roof, yes?’
‘That’s right.’ She’d hired him to supervise the building of the new Emilia Kirkpatrick schoolroom, not least to feed him enough money that he’d leave the reef and the wreck alone.
‘Jean-Luc says cassave is better,’ he said. ‘Cheaper, too.’
‘Fine. Cassave it is.’
‘Good.’ He stood there for a moment or two, mopping his brow, gathering his breath. He crouched a little to chuck Michel under his chin, then glanced up at Rebecca. ‘More like Emilia every day.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Rebecca.
‘Therese ask me to give you a message,’ said Pierre. He stood to his full height again, gazed at her in a slightly unsettling way he’d developed these past few weeks. It was nothing she could rebuke him for, avuncular and fond rather than lustful, akin to the way he gazed upon his children when they’d done something to make him proud. ‘She says yes, this afternoon is no problem.’
‘Great,’ nodded Rebecca. ‘Thank her for me.’
He turned and walked away, raising his right arm in acknowledgement. Michel stirred, stretched his arms, yawned. His eyes opened briefly, then closed again, a soft smile on his lips. Her heart twisted as she looked down at him. She still hadn’t decided what to tell him about his parentage. A small part of her yearned to keep him entirely for herself, though the far larger part was ashamed that she could even contemplate such a profound betrayal of her sister.
She was far from the first to face such a dilemma, of course. An extraordinary number of people, after all, went their entire lives without ever for one moment suspecting they weren’t the biological child of the man and woman they’d always taken it for granted were their parents.
Titch had known about her gambling. That had been a surprise. Apparently everyone had known. He’d thought that maybe it was why she was so reluctant to come back, and so he’d assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem; she could join some group, get the best counselling money could buy. She’d laughed again and assured him that gambling wasn’t a problem, that she hadn’t even thought of it in weeks. And it was true.
Something cramped in her stomach. She placed her palm flat upon it. The days since her last period kept ticking by, and still nothing. And she’d felt distinctly nauseous this morning. Not sick, exactly, but certainly queasy. There was an unopened test kit in Emilia’s cabin, but it was still way too soon, she couldn’t risk losing her hope just yet. Sometimes the possibility so overwhelmed her, she had to do something to distract herself until it went away.
There was one final thing that Titch had failed to grasp, however many times she’d tried to explain it. It was this: even if she did go back, she wouldn’t be any use to him. She’d succeeded on television because the fire of evangelism had blazed within her. She’d been so certain that she knew the truth about how life worked that she’d needed to convince the world of the rightness of her vision. But the fire inside her had since gone out. It had gone out during her search for Adam and Emilia, when she’d come to realise how magnificently more complex the world was than her perception of it. And, worse, she was glad of this.
It had happened barely two hours after she’d consigned Daniel to the deeps. She and Pierre together had carried Emilia from the boat back to the lodge. Pierre had tried his best to console her, to tell her that she’d done nothing wrong, that she had to be strong for when the police came to talk to her, as they surely would, and ask what had happened to the missing Englishman. For all their sakes, she mustn’t implicate herself. What good would confession do now?
She’d known he was right, but it had been unbearable all the same, to pretend that Daniel hadn’t existed, that his life had meant nothing, that she’d have no penalty to pay. It had been too much for her; she’d run out of the lodge, out of Eden, down the track to the beach, using the heaviness of the sand to exhaust herself, make herself too weary to grieve. But then she’d glimpsed something far out in the lagoon, and yes, it had been a man swimming with long, measured strokes towards the shore, a black-and-yellow pack upon his back; and something had crumpled inside her as she’d realised that Daniel hadn’t let go of her ankle so that she might live. No. He’d let go of her to get at the re-breather and the small tank of oxygen in the dive-bag she’d tied to his ankle.
She made her way between the last of the spiny trees on to the soft white sand. The Yvette was already through the pass; she’d be back at her mooring within a couple more minutes. Daniel had been out to check the wrecksite was still secure, in preparation for the return of Miles and his other former MGS colleagues. Now that they’d secured new funds from the Chinese government and other investors, and had bought off Ricky and his triad friends, they were hoping to get in several weeks of salvage before the weather turned. He glanced shorewards, saw her, stood and waved. She waved back. He reached the mooring buoy, leapt down into the water to secure the Yvette to it. She couldn’t wait any longer, she splashed out to meet him, soaking her trousers. Michel sensed his father, he grew fractious. Rebecca passed him across and instantly he soothed.
‘Your friend left yet?’ asked Daniel.