‘Hold on a second.’ He frowns, shaking his head, confused. ‘The meter fell out and you found …’
‘Her dad’s collection,’ Sheila repeats, ‘behind the meter. The whip, the medals, the rings, the wallet.’
She blanches. ‘I actually picked the thing up. I held it in my hand. There was the registration number …’
She shudders. ‘Valentine went mad when she found me holding it – I honestly had no idea at that stage. She came over all dark and full of self-loathing, talking about how bad she was, how she deserved to be unhappy, how she hated herself, how she was just like her father, all this stuff about his “legacy” and her love of the skin and how the paler the skin was the stronger the mark …’
Sheila shakes her head, exhausted. ‘I just wish you’d told me in the first place,’ she rounds off.
‘There was a wallet?’ Gene’s still all at sea.
‘The pride of his collection, apparently. A skin wallet. From a concentration camp.’
Gene stares at her for a few seconds, uncomprehending.
‘And this stuff was actually being stored …?’ he finally murmurs.
‘Behind the meter. In a little safe. Like a dusty, brick larder. You’re telling me you didn’t know?’ It’s now Sheila’s turn to look disbelieving.
‘Nope.’ Gene shakes his head.
She stares at him for a minute.
‘You look awful. Pale. D’you feel okay?’
He nods. Then he shakes his head again, his shoulders slumping forward.
‘I’ve done something terrible –’ he starts off.
‘Tea’s ready!’ Mallory yells up the stairs.
‘We’re on our way down!’ Sheila calls back.
‘Sorry.’ She stands up and moves towards him, frowning, concerned. ‘I’ve been so busy banging on about myself …’
She reaches up and softly touches his cheek then his forehead with the back of her hand. Gene’s mobile starts ringing from his jacket pocket in the hallway.
‘Warm,’ she murmurs.
He tries to tear his eyes away from hers but he can’t. He tries to swallow but he can’t. He feels his guilt leaking from every orifice. He is drenched in self-loathing.
‘Tell me!’ She gazes up at him, her eyes full of a sudden tenderness. ‘It can’t be all that bad, surely?’
‘Come on!’ Mallory calls. ‘Before it goes cold!’
Sheila doesn’t move.
‘I … I … I … I did a reading,’ Gene stutters, nauseous, ‘for Ransom’s assistant, and I ended up lying about what I saw.’
‘You mean a palm reading?’
Sheila withdraws slightly, shocked. Gene nods. Coward! he’s thinking. Quitter! Gutless ninny!
These insults whirlpool around him, every harsh consonant dressed – as though for combat – in jingling spurs.
‘But I thought …’ – she’s confused – ‘I thought you didn’t do that kind of thing any more – simply as a matter of principle.’
‘I don’t.’ Gene winces, listening to his phone ringing, the spurs jangling, half there, half absent, his tongue in ribbons. ‘But he begged me. We were stuck in traffic.’
‘Well I can’t pretend I’m not a little disappointed.’ Sheila limps over to a nearby chest of drawers, takes out some pants and a pair of tracksuit bottoms and starts to gingerly pull them on under her dressing gown. ‘I mean to do a reading in the first place, but then to lie about the results …’
‘There were just so many bad things about the hand’ – Gene struggles to focus, to defend himself – ‘a weak Line of Head, an interrupted Line of Life, his Line of Fate ascending to the Mount of Saturn – which is a really tragic sign at the best of times …’
‘So you lied.’ Sheila has her back to him. She’s taken off her dressing gown and is now putting on a bra. Gene idly watches her reflection in the dressing table mirror. Her nipples are the colour of drinking chocolate – beautiful – a pale, creamy, malted brown. He blinks.
‘So you lied,’ she repeats.
‘It reminded me of when I was a kid and I got presented with a tragic hand,’ he murmurs, ‘I’d always try and accentuate the positive no matter what.’
‘By lying,’ Sheila persists.
‘By improvising,’ he modifies.
‘Improvising?’ Sheila’s incredulous. ‘How, exactly?’
‘Well,’ Gene struggles to remember, ‘there was a car overheating nearby and the driver was pouring a bottle of water into the tank … I suddenly found myself telling him that there was a strong connection with travel and water on his hand – there was a tiny square near the Line of Life which made me think of …’
‘Travel and water?!’ Sheila snorts.
‘… of a lake, or some kind of … an enclosed expanse of …’
‘Hardly the world’s most imaginative scenario!’ Sheila pertly derides him.
‘But that was the awful thing!’ Gene confesses. ‘He lapped it up! He was ecstatic! It was exactly what he’d been hoping for! He told me how he’d recently become obsessed by this Mexican tycoon, an engineer who’s developed this system, this state-of-the-art treatment system for creating giant, crystal-clear lagoons.’
‘Lagoons?’ Sheila’s becoming a little overwhelmed by all this information.
‘He’d reached out to this man and he’d been offered some kind of work experience in Chile or Peru – I forget which – but he can’t drive and he was naturally nervous about such a radical change in direction at this stage in his career.’
He looks to Sheila for some kind of input but she’s momentarily preoccupied with adjusting her hair in the mirror.
‘Then he asked me if there was any prospect of … of romance.’
‘Romance?!’ Sheila echoes, amused by Gene’s use of the old-fashioned term.
‘His Line of Heart curved down from the base of the Mount of Jupiter,’ Gene explains, ‘which generally indicates a lack of perception – no judge of character – naivety – the prospect of great disappointment in love – so I said I thought he would find love, but in a completely unexpected way, in a completely unexpected time and place.’
‘Suitably vague and enigmatic,’ Sheila commends him.
‘Then not content with that, he asked me if he would ever marry or have a child.’
‘Please tell me you didn’t …’ Sheila’s wincing.
‘I just told him what the hand said.’
‘What did the hand say?’
‘There were no clear signs either way about marriage, but the hand definitely implied that he would have one child.’
‘Boy or girl?’ Sheila wonders, jaded.
‘The line was very faded so I guessed a girl.’
‘Was he happy with that?’
‘He went very quiet for a minute or so and then he said that he thought that the child Esther – Ransom’s manager – had just had, baby Prudence, was his child.’
‘What?!’ Sheila’s eyes widen. ‘They slept together?’
‘Once.’ Gene nods, turning slightly as his mobile phone starts ringing again from inside his jacket pocket in the hall.
‘Wow!’ Sheila’s still coming to terms with this revelation.
‘I know.’ Gene sighs.
‘No wonder you look ill.’ She laughs.
Gene doesn’t laugh.
‘That’s not why I look ill,’ he starts off, haltingly.
‘I’ve just accepted a job in the Caribbean,’ Sheila interrupts.
Gene stares at her, dumbstruck.
Chapter 12
Esther is propped up in bed, chatting away on her phone, looking worn but happy (and considerably less bulky), a newborn baby snuggled into the crook of her arm.
‘Girl!’ she’s saying proudly. ‘All a’ ten pound!’
This brief look of womanly contentment falters for a second when she espies her younger sister, Victoria, striding across the ward towards her, her face like thunder.
‘Me better go …’ she murmurs.
‘What up wid you all a sudden, Vicki?’ Esther hastily terminates the call.
‘Him happy now?’ Vicki follows up, still glowering. ‘Him gonna take you back? Huh? Now you done all his dirty work?’
She snatches Esther’s phone and inspects the tiny screen, holding it close to her face, trying to make sense of it.
‘Calm yourself!’ Esther hisses, glancing around the ward, embarrassed. Vicki tosses the phone on to the coverlet, disgusted, then proceeds to draw the curtain around the bed.
‘Me can’t believe you blabbed!’ she yells, once the rest of the ward has been neatly obliterated by a pale swathe of stiff fabric. ‘Me own sister!’
‘Blabbed where?’
Esther places a finger to her lips, scowling, to warn her sister from disturbing the baby.
‘Stuart Ransom! Where else?!’ Vicki bellows.
The baby opens its eyes, with a milky hiccup.
‘Blabbed how?’ Esther stutters, using her nightdress to pat the corner of the child’s mouth.
‘Me need a’ go!’ Vicki starts pacing, manically. ‘Me want a’ go, now …’
She leans over and tries to grab the baby.
‘Victoria!’ Esther exclaims, pushing her away. ‘You crazy?!’
‘You not hearin’ me, Esther!’ Vicki exclaims. ‘The man know about Israel! He find out about him son!’
Esther gazes at her, in stunned silence, then: ‘Na-ah.’ She shakes her head. ‘Na-ah.’ She shakes it again.
‘You ever met a girl call Jen in your travel?’ Vicki demands.
‘Jen?’ Esther’s bemused.
‘Blonde girl. Skinny. Work at the hotel?’
Esther’s uncomprehending. She frowns down at the baby as if – by some miracle – this tiny, newborn scrap might contain some of the answers.
‘Well she been minding Israel for the day,’ Vicki runs on, ‘took him to some drum class – some dance class – or so me thought. Turn out she took him to the golf course instead.’
Esther’s chin shoots up. Her eyes widen. ‘Wha’ happen?’ she asks, hoarsely.
Vicki shrugs. ‘Something and nothing.’
Esther leans over, wincing, and gently places baby Prudence into the crib by her bed.
‘Please tell me this some bad joke,’ she whispers.
Vicki shakes her head.
‘What Israel say?’
Vicki shrugs.
‘Who this girl?’ Esther demands. ‘Where she now?’
‘Boot a’ my car.’ Vicki crosses her arms, defensively.
Esther stares at her, brows raised. ‘What she doin’ there, Vicki?’
Vicki shrugs again.
‘You kidnap her?’
‘A’ push her in me boot, an’ a’ drove her here.’
‘You hurt her?’
‘Wha?!’ Vicki sucks her tongue.
Esther stares at her, warily, trying to make some loose semblance of sense out of the situation.
‘Him want custody, now?’ Vicki demands. ‘After fourteen long year? Tell me, Esther!’
‘Oh Lord!’ Esther leans forward on the bed, clutching on to her stomach like her belly is aching. ‘It all over – a’ screwed!’ she mutters. ‘A’ screwed now, for sure!’
The baby starts to wail, plaintively. Vicki goes to inspect it.
‘This him pickney, an’ all?’ she asks, pointing, wrinkling up her nose.
Esther shakes her head.
‘Then who this poor baby’s father?’ Vicki demands.
‘Nobody,’ Esther growls, ‘just some random fool.’
‘You got a fool for your baby-father?!’ Vicki sucks her tongue again.
‘Come down here a minute.’
Esther points to a chair by the bed, her expression grave.
Vicki doesn’t move.
‘PARK YOURSELF!’ Esther yells, slapping the seat.
Vicki sits, glowering.
‘Me got something me need to get off me chest,’ Esther starts off.
‘Me already know what you done!’ Vicki springs up again, with a glare.
‘You not know it all’ – Esther shakes her head, speaking softly, mournfully – ‘trust me.’
Vicki scowls and grudgingly returns to her seat.
‘All right …’ Esther prepares herself. ‘All right. So …’
She raises her eyes.
‘Everything okay in here, ladies?’
A cheerful, Irish nurse pops her head through the curtain. Both sisters turn and glower at her, in unison.
‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’
She rapidly withdraws again.
‘All right …’ Esther starts off, then falters, then laboriously clears her throat.
‘Spit it out!’ Vicki grumbles, instantly impatient. ‘Me not got all day, here!’
‘All right …’ Esther shields her eyes with her hand as she speaks. ‘Me never tell Ransom you was pregnant, Vicki,’ she murmurs.
Vicki frowns at her, not quite following.
‘Me never tell him. Ransom never knew.’
‘What?! Of course you tell him!’ Vicki springs to her feet again, sneering. ‘Of course you tell him! Him left money for the clinic!’
‘Them dollar was mine. Me never tell him. He never knew.’
Short silence.
‘Why?’ Vicki finally demands, still not fully comprehending.
‘We had plans – him and me – we two – then you happen along …’
She shrugs.
‘Plans?’ Vicki echoes.
‘Me had a bond wid him, Vicki, a relationship, a partnership. It was bigger than just …’ She shrugs again.
‘You hook up?’ Vicki’s breathless, winded, trapped in a foreign landscape between fury and heartbreak. ‘Gi bun wid him?’
‘Never!’ Esther shakes her head.
‘But you want to, though?’
Esther shrugs.
‘So how you scare him off?’
‘A’ tell him you was back with Jerrick Bailey,’ Esther smirks, ‘on the sly.’
‘One time!’ Vicki’s indignant.
‘Ha!’ Esther snorts, vindicated. ‘How come you so sure the pickney not his?’
‘Me get him to wear boots is how,’ Vicki clucks (appalled at her sister’s naivety).
‘You not got Ransom to wear ’em?’
‘He wear ’em.’ Vicki nods.
Esther slits her eyes. ‘You meddle with ’em?’
Vicki sucks her tongue, neglecting to answer. Instead she walks to the end of the bed and stares up at the ceiling.
‘Fifteen long year, Esther,’ she eventually murmurs, full of wonderment at the magnitude of her sister’s betrayal, ‘and not even a word ?’
‘A’ was wrong,’ Esther concedes, ‘but what him and me had was bigger, Vicki –’
‘Bigger than what?! His own pickney?!’ Vicki interrupts, patently astonished by her sister’s casual impertinence. ‘This how you apologize? Call it wrong?! That all?’
‘Him got a real talent, Vicki,’ Esther tries to explain, ‘we was a team. We stuck together through it all. Fifteen year. And who was it support the whole family, meantime? Who buy Mamma house? Who pay for Israel go to school? Huh? Was me, Vicki! Him and me!’
‘Hear yourself!’ Vicki squawks.
‘If a hadn’t been him it would a been somebody else, Vicki,’ Esther gently remonstrates. ‘You was bad news – no motivation – spoil everything for everybody. Bring shame on the family. You need to learn yourself a hard lesson. An’ ya did learn it. Because a’ what me done. Look there!’ Esther points, proudly. ‘See you now! See what you become!’
‘See me?!’ Vicki exclaims, amazed, then, ‘See yourself, sista! See what you become! Hear yourself, sista!’
Esther says nothing.
Vicki paces up and down for a few seconds, then pulls
up, sharply. ‘You tell Mamma?’
Esther shakes her head.
‘An’ him never know?’ Vicki repeats, still trying but failing to comprehend the full implications of this revelation.
Esther shakes her head.
‘Good Lord!’ Vicki’s thoroughly befuddled. ‘Now what the hell me suppose to do with that, huh?’
Esther shrugs.
‘Ransom never know him got a son,’ Vicki repeats, as much to herself as to her sister, ‘Israel never know him got a daddy. All because a’ what you done.’
‘True,’ Esther acknowledges (still no word of an apology).
‘Well, somebody sure gone and told him now,’ Vicki reasons, almost with a grim kind of satisfaction. ‘You must a let it slip somewhere, somehow.’
‘It all over, then,’ Esther murmurs, bleakly, still not willing to accept this possibility.
‘Best thing all round!’ Vicki remonstrates, softly.
Esther finally starts crying.
Vicki stands up and walks to the end of the bed, trying to get her thoughts in order. As she stands there, in confusion, a pair of hands start grappling with the curtains, trying – and failing – to find the gap. After thirty or so seconds the hands move lower, the curtain is lifted – from its base – and a bunch of flowers appears from under it, then a small, open box with a ring standing proud in it, then finally, a head.
‘Sorry – it’s me, it’s Toby, hi,’ Toby finally announces himself, still on his knees, patently surprised – and somewhat flustered – to see Esther’s sister glaring down at him. ‘This isn’t exactly …’ His eyes move from one devastated sibling to the other, then: ‘Marry me, Esther!’ he flutes, proffering the ring. ‘Let’s run away together! I know it’s my baby!’
Silence.
(S.P.I.C.E.! he’s thinking, his cheeks flushing a deep and unforgiving red, S.P.I.C.E.!)
‘Marry me, Esther!’ he repeats. ‘I think I’m in love with you. In fact …’ – he shuffles forward on his knees (the curtain still affixed to his shoulders like some kind of bizarre, chivalric cape) – ‘in fact I know I am, I’m sure I am.’
Vicki bursts into gales of hysterical laughter. ‘I know I am! I’m sure I am!’ she parrots, cruelly.
Esther gazes at Toby, astonished, for a full fifteen seconds then, ‘Stand up you damn fool!’ she sharply expostulates.
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