Blood Rules

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Blood Rules Page 11

by John Trenhaile


  “… one hundred and twelve, one hundred and thirteen …”

  You got to be quite an expert on ceilings if you were seventy-six and determined to keep fit. If you were twenty-six and attractive you knew your ceilings too (and your four-posters, come to think of it), but that was different.

  “… one hundred and forty-five, one hundred and forty-six…”

  Her cheeks were puffed out and red, everything ached, the arthritis she refused to acknowledge was hell-bent on revenge. The heart, also, was not wonderful. Nevertheless, she expected obedience from her lean old body, and her lean old body complained but complied.

  Celestine let her legs crash to the carpet with a bump. You were supposed to lower them in ladylike fashion, but “Merde!” she cried.

  She had flown in from New York a few hours ago, arriving earlier than scheduled but still too late to make a surprise call on Robbie and Colin before they left Oxford. No matter; she would catch up with them in Melbourne, as originally planned. Flying did not worry her: seven hours from the East Coast, another twenty-five to look forward to; it was all in the game. But she relished this break in her favorite manor-house hotel, and a good workout was just what the doctor ordered.

  Hearing a knock on the outer door she got up. This took time, certainly more time than it had taken when she was in her twenties and used to inconvenient postcoital knocks on doors, but things were less urgent now, the consequences of not springing into the nearest wardrobe less severe. As she passed out of the bedroom she caught sight of her reflection and was not displeased: the hair somewhat disorganized, perhaps, and the turkey neck, well… but pink leotards continued to do interesting things for Celestine, those thighs still shot all the way up to la derrière; oh, how she longed to be taller….

  “Come in, my dear.” She stood to one side with an eighteenth-century court gesture of welcome that was still going on when Marjorie put the tray down on a table by the mullioned window, with its view of that wonderful garden. Celestine was very fond of Marjorie, one of her surrogate granddaughters. She had honorary families all over the world, but here in England she only had Marjorie. For some reason the country was like that—one hotel, one restaurant, one friend, one “granddaughter.”

  Marjorie was an under-manageress, and she knew what Celestine liked. She liked honey, wheat-meal toast, and ginger spice cake served with Earl Grey at four o’clock. Celestine expected to see two of everything on the tray, because she required Marjorie to stay, eat a good tea, and, above all, chat. The hotel could spare Marjorie for this purpose. Hotels frequently did things for Celestine and then had to spend hours with the auditors trying to think why on earth they’d done them. She’d devoted an entire career to suborning other people; she could have made a modest success of some little sideline, like a division of General Motors or one of the lesser Soviet republics perhaps, but had preferred to have fun instead.

  “Pour,” she commanded. “I’m drier than a menopausal kangaroo’s pussy.”

  Marjorie spilled tea. “Oh, please don’t start,” she begged, suppressing a giggle.

  “But it’s in my phrase book!” Celestine protested. “If it’s good enough for the Government Tourist Office"— she rapped on the sideboard—"it’s good enough for me. I adore to speak Australian. It’s so—” she paused, searching for the right word—“gentile.”

  Celestine disappeared into the bedroom, to emerge a moment later carrying her perfume sprayer. It was made of cut glass and trailed a long tube connected to a rubber ball. Tube and ball were clad in silk, with the bulb additionally boasting a gold tassel. The reservoir contained Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass. None of her intimate circle could believe this. They would press her to admit that the wonderful breath of fresh air which heralded her entrances was inspired by Calèche, or Chanel No. 5, or this, or that; but to Celestine these were just ridiculously overpriced scents. Blue Grass was a personality all by itself, a lover to whom she had stayed faithful for years.

  “Have a squirt,” she suggested matily, before proceeding to go at Marjorie as if she were a hapless fly and the spray contained Flit.

  “I love that perfume,” Marjorie said. “Your signature. You spray Blue Grass on our curtains, don’t you.”

  “Of course,” Celestine said, with a broad wink. “It’s my way of checking how often you dry-clean them. And of reminding you that it’s my room. Anyway, what’s happening in your world? That delectable Austrian chef you were seeing?”

  “Went to visit his mother in Innsbruck and hasn’t been heard of since.”

  “What a fool. But then mothers… ah, well.”

  Marjorie shrugged. “Life goes on. I got a rise, the government upped taxes; that’s it, really. Quiet, you could say. Everyone’s on about the hijack, right now.”

  Celestine spread butter on a slice of toast, topping it off with a rich drizzle of honey. “Hijack?”

  “It’s just been on the telly, the Bahrain hijack. Some Arabs pinched a TriStar today and downed it in South Yemen.”

  Celestine hurriedly put down her toast. “Bahrain … where was this plane going?” “Malaysia. K.L.”

  She mentioned the airline and Celestine jumped up. “My God, what flight number? NQ oh-three-three—was it NQ oh-three-three?”

  “I can check for you. Why, Mrs. Hanif, you look ill, can I get you—”

  “Just tell me one thing.” Celestine’s voice was hoarse. “Were there any casualties?”

  “They don’t know, but the plane landed safely.”

  Celestine dropped into her chair. “When did this happen?”

  “Just an hour ago. I’ll put the radio on; there should be a news bulletin any minute.”

  “Yes. Do that, will you?”

  Her breaths came in fast, short gasps. She was fond of Colin, but Robbie she adored. If anything had happened to her great-grandson …

  While Celestine waited for the news to begin she smoked a menthol cigarette. She allowed herself five a day at specific times, and this one did not fit into her schedule, but since some instinct warned her that she would be smoking a lot from now on, that did not worry her.

  “I warned him,” she said unexpectedly. “I told him not to advertise it.” “

  Sorry?”

  “My grandson-in-law, Colin. I told him there was too much publicity about his trip to Australia. Lecturers going away to teach aren’t news. Yet I read about him going, twice. I warned him. I—”

  The time signal put a stop to her recriminations. The BBC led with the hijack. Details of the flight were given, along with a rough breakdown of the passengers by nationality. The pilot was congratulated on a remarkable feat of flying. No one knew who the hijackers were, although they had asked for an Iranian television crew to be sent by helicopter to monitor the hijack and this, coupled with a demand for the release of some Iranian prisoners of war, was taken as a clue to the identity of the perpetrators. There were no reports of any injuries, let alone fatalities. At home, the prime minister said in the Commons today—

  Celestine switched off the set and turned to Marjorie. “I have to make a call,” she said in a clipped, businesslike fashion. “You stay there, dear, I may need your help in a moment.”

  She picked up the phone and dialed a very long number from memory. The other party answered at once. “Feisal. Mother.” She spoke in Arabic. A pause. The pause alone told her much. “How wonderful to hear your voice, Mother.” “This hijack.”

  Pause number two, even more informative than the first. “So you’ve heard.”

  “Who’s responsible?”

  “Oh … who ever knows these days, Mother?”

  “Who?”

  “Hezbollah.” The voice at the other end had turned sulky. “Who the devil cares?”

  Hezbollah, the Party of God, acting on behalf of Iran … Abu Nidal? No.

  “It’s her,” she snapped. “Leila.”

  For a long moment the line echoed with hollow resonance, a little like the sea heard from the depths of a c
ave. Then came a series of clicks … and the hum of disconnection.

  Celestine slammed down the phone, lifted her shoulders until they were almost touching her earlobes, and allowed them to fall again.

  “I must go,” she said. “My grandson-in-law and his son were on that flight. Marjorie, be a dear; get me on a plane to Larnaca. I’m not fussy which airline, as long as it leaves today.”

  “I’ll fix it. And Mrs. Hanif, I’m so very sorry.”

  “So am I, dear, so am I.”

  Sorry I was born: the words echoed in her mind as Marjorie closed the outer door to the suite. Sorry I spawned this hell breed. No, don’t think about any of that. Pack. Do it quickly, do it now.

  As Celestine folded her clothes she worked out the odds. Everything depended on Colin, that good man. Robbie wouldn’t understand, but Colin would. He was vulnerable. He was defenseless.

  The phone rang. “BA to Larnaca,” Marjorie said. “Eight-fifty, gets in at three-ten tomorrow morning, local time. It’s the best I could do.”

  “It’s the best. Marjorie, one more thing: phone Qantas and cancel tomorrow’s reservation for Melbourne.”

  As Celestine locked the last case she would have given all she owned, not excepting her life, cheerfully, thoughtlessly, in exchange for the comfortable knowledge that Colin still had the gun she’d given him.

  JUNE 1974: BEIRUT

  It was all of ten years ago, in June of 1974, that she’d handed her gun over to Colin.

  After lunch the weather turned cool with a belligerent breath of wind off the Mediterranean threatening rain in a sulky, unpredictable kind of way. Celestine walked up and down the garden of Kharif, her house at Yarze, incessantly smoking menthol cigarettes, in that era not yet self-rationed, and wondering if the man would bring her great-grandson to see her.

  The porticoed villa was a magnificent example of its kind: an old Levantine house, with lead tracery windows and narrow stone columns adorning its balconies. Ever since she’d been exiled to the hills by a son not prepared to set aside part of each day to receive her salutary advice, it had felt empty. Not lonely—Celestine did not know what it meant to be lonely—but it cried out for parties, as in the good old days: skiing on Mount Sannin in the morning, followed by a bouillabaisse lunch at Lucullus on the Avenue des Français, with a sparkling sea visible through the restaurant’s great glass windows framed by palm fronds, then swimming at the Hamman Normandie until it was time to change for the Casino Liban, or listening to Farouz in some nightclub off Hamra … that was Beirut. The real dream, as she liked to call it: le vrai rêve. Then the house had been alive, humming like a well-oiled, much-loved machine, a Rolls-Royce engine perhaps, twenty-four hours a day. Now, it slumbered. It needed shrill young voices raised in play to rouse it again.

  Celestine paused to finger a small orange, almost ripe on the bough, then decided against picking it. This used to be such a naughty house, once. Young girls would come for the weekend and go away again minus a vital part of their childhood. Adulteries flowered alongside the garden’s purple anchusas, altering lives forever; young people discovered surprising truths about their sexual preferences; people fell in love. She tapped the orange, suddenly whacked it with her fist, smiled not altogether happily. Yes, those days were gone.

  A peculiarity of this house was its acoustics. Sometimes the noise of a car by the quarry would arise without warning, sounding very close, only to fade away to silence. This happened now. Celestine raised her head. The Citroën’s distinctive rattle: Azizza must be almost home.

  Celestine entered the house, pausing on her way through the study to put out her cigarette in a sturdy confection of Arabian brass, already stuffed with half a day’s intake. She opened the front door in time to see a sky-blue Citroën Dyane ease to a halt in the driveway and stall, violently, when Azizza forgot to let out the clutch. Behind it came a green Fiat compact. For a moment Celestine was aware of nothing except the smell of warm petrol and the sound of metal as it yawned and stretched. Then the Fiat’s offside rear door opened. Oddly enough, no one appeared. Instead, the door closed again. Seconds afterward, a small figure appeared around the back of the car. Seeing Celestine, it stopped. Then, evidently reassured, it started forward again. Celestine heard other doors opening and slamming, was conscious of two adults, but ignored them. Very slowly she lowered herself into a crouch.

  A boy, dressed in white shorts with a black belt and gold buckle and a faded red T-shirt. His sandy hair, sun-bleached but still streaked with darker shades, was cropped short on top and left long at the back, in wisps that overrode his collar; absurdly, her first thought on seeing her great-grandson was that this style must be making him hot, how careless of Leila….

  “Hello,” she said softly. “Hello, Robbie.”

  He came up to her, a fearful frown sullying his face, and raised a clenched fist to his brow. He used his knuckles to wipe beads of sweat away, revealing a plump little arm not yet filled with muscle, its white-and-red skin flecked with tiny spots. His face was rounded like the arm, as if that, too, required a filling; the sun evidently troubled him, for his eyes were two chips narrowed against its light. What scarlet lips he has, she said wonderingly to herself. What perfect little hands….

  “’Lo.” He unclenched the fist but not the frown. Then, as if the information processed via invisible antenna proved satisfactory, he held out his hand to be shaken. It felt warm, a little moist, and it was tiny, so tiny, he was only four years old, but something about the spontaneous gesture breathed trust into Celestine like a bubble of oxygen.

  “Are you my great-grandmother?” he inquired, in a pleasantly musical voice, low-pitched, much lower than she’d expected.

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  She placed her hands on his miniature shoulders. “Why so astonished, little chum?” “My mother’s … father’s … mother?” “Yes.”

  His mouth formed a great 0, revealing diminutive, absolutely white teeth, sharp and ridged. Without trying to free himself from her gentle embrace, he leaned backward, as if to give himself a better view. “You must be very, very old,” he said slowly, delivering the result of some inner debate. “Very. I am a dinosaur.”

  For a long moment they surveyed each other in silence and immobility, smiles prepared behind the scenes but not quite ready to play. Then she swept him up into her arms with laughter in which other voices joined.

  “You are Colin Raleigh,” she said to the man who had come around the front of the car and was standing a few feet away.

  “Yes. So pleased to meet you at last, after hearing so much about you.”

  Celestine laughed. “I’ll bet.”

  She liked his tousled look, for his thick hair was still standing up from the draft of air through the window, some of it falling in tendrils across his sun-broiled face, and it softened him. She could sense that he was sometimes tough, sometimes hiding his fear beneath a brittle shell, yes, but often just tough. And was he—the thought made her squeeze Robbie’s legs without meaning to—was he hard on the boy? Leila could take care of herself, but Robbie … Celestine would have no mercy for those who brought their anger to bear on him.

  Somehow, during this brief exchange, she had managed to hitch Robbie onto her shoulder. He kept his hands clasped around her neck, head thrown back as if he could not quite believe what he saw when he looked at her. Those wet cherry lips were smiling, though, and he rested against her in perfect trust. It was one of those magic bonds that took seconds to form and a couple of lifetimes to mature. Both of them, in their vastly different ways, seemed to know this.

  “Do you want to go to your papa?” she asked him. But he shook his head, smiling a teasing smile at his father before burying his head in the hair behind her ear, whence he could peek out to ensure that Colin, though not quite wanted, was not quite absent either.

  “What a marvelous house,” Colin said as she led the way inside.

  “It’s good,” she agreed. “But it needs
life. I’m glad you could come.” “

  I was intrigued.”

  “Frightened, perhaps?” She had taken them right through the house, into the garden, and was finding a comfortable place for herself and Robbie among the cushions on her sofa swing, beside the marble-lined pool. Colin stood with hands in pockets, looking down at them. His smile tautened as he heard her words.

  “Azizza was … unexpected.”

  “Where did she catch up with you? Masser?”

  “Yes.”

  Celestine plumped Robbie down on a particularly fat cushion and asked him, “Did you like the cedars?”

  “Cedars?” He squinted up at her. “Do you mean those big old trees?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head from side to side, pouting his lips.

  “They are very old. More than a thousand years old, like me. And like most old things, they can be boring. Were you bored?”

  “Yes. I wanted to go to the beach. But Mummy was busy.”

  At that Celestine and Colin exchanged amused looks. She hoped he approved of her sending Azizza to trail them, for without such a stratagem she would never have been able to penetrate Feisal’s defenses and bring her great-grandson here. Did Colin know, she wondered, how much she longed to see Leila too? Why hadn’t she come; why was she “busy"?

  Ah, of course: Leila and Colin must have quarreled. And with the answer to the earlier questions came another doubt: would those two be able to stay the course? Looking up at Colin now, Celestine found it impossible to guess.

  “Were you surprised when Azizza introduced herself?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But you trusted her—after a week or so with Feisal, I’m surprised.” “

  She was different.”

  “Do sit down, please.”

  Colin lowered himself into a wicker chair set at an angle to the sofa, thus forbidding Celestine sight of more than his profile.

  “In what way, different?” she asked.

  “Your letter. And Azizza, she … she looks one in the eye, I suppose.”

 

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