“Are you here for any particular reason?”
“Oh, yes, I came to see you.”
“Well, wouldn’t it be a good idea to come down off that ladder?”
She did so. She stood up, obviously very stiff, and descended a step at a time, trying to push her hair back from her face. After Frances Dongen, and all the other suntanned young ladies at San Antonio, she looked very pale, with straight fawn-coloured hair that hung to her shoulders and a fringe to her eyebrows. Her eyes were blue, but shadowed with tiredness. He thought that she was too young even to be pretty.
He said, “I don’t even know you … do I?”
“No. No, you don’t. I hope you don’t mind my just walking into your house.”
“Not at all.”
“The door wasn’t bolted.”
“It doesn’t have any bolts.”
Selina smiled, thinking perhaps this was a joke, but it apparently wasn’t, so she stopped smiling, and tried to think what to say next. Subconsciously, she had been waiting for him to recognise her, to say “Who do you remind me of?” or “But, of course, I’ve met you before, some time, somewhere.” But none of these remarks was forthcoming, and she found his appearance disconcerting, with no suggestion of the bright-eyed, clean-cut young officer who had been her father. She had expected him to be very brown, but she had not realised that his face would be so lined, or his dark eyes so bloodshot. The fact that he needed a shave not only hid the clean line of his jaw and the cleft of his chin, but added to his villainous appearance. Furthermore he did not seem in the least pleased to see her.
She swallowed, “I … expect you’re wondering why I’m here.”
“Well, yes, I am, but I’ve no doubt that in time you’ll tell me.”
“I flew here, from London … this morning, last night. No, this morning.”
He was visited with a horrible suspicion. “Did Rutland send you?”
“Who? Oh, Mr. Rutland the publisher. No, he didn’t, but he did say that he wished you’d answer his letters.”
“The devil he did.” Another thought occurred to him. “But you do know him?”
“Oh, yes, I went to see him and ask him how I could find you.”
“But who are you?”
“My name’s Selina Bruce.”
“I’m George Dyer, but I imagine you know that.”
“Yes, I know.…”
There was another silence. George, despite himself began to be intrigued. “You couldn’t be a fan? You couldn’t be the Organising Secretary of the George Dyer Fan Club.” Selina shook her head. “Then you’re staying at the Cala Fuerte Hotel and you’ve read my book?” She shook her head again. “This is like Twenty Questions, isn’t it? Are you famous? Are you an actress? Do you sing?”
“No, but I had to see you, because…” Her courage left her. “Because,” she finished, “I have to ask you to lend me six hundred pesetas.”
George Dyer felt his own jaw sag with astonishment, and hastily laid down the glass of soda water before he should drop it.
“What did you say?”
“Do you have,” said Selina, sounding very clear and highly pitched, as though she were talking to someone suffering from deafness, “six hundred pesetas you could lend me?”
“Six hundred!” He laughed. He laughed without mirth. “You must be joking.”
“I only wish I were.”
“Six hundred pesetas! I don’t have twenty pesetas!”
“But I must have six hundred, to pay the taxi-driver.”
George looked around him. “Where does the taxi-driver come into it?”
“I had to get a taxi from the Aeropuerto to Cala Fuerte. I told the taxi-driver that you would pay him because I hadn’t got any money. My wallet was stolen at the Aeropuerto, while I was waiting to see if they could find my luggage.… Look.…” She went to pick up her handbag, and show him the two clear-cut edges of the handles. “The Guardia Civil said it must have been a very experienced thief, because I didn’t feel a thing, and it was only my wallet that was taken.”
“Only your wallet. And what did your wallet contain?”
“My traveller’s cheques, and some British money, and some pesetas. And,” she added, with the air of one determined to make a clean breast of it, “my return ticket.”
“I see,” said George.
“And the taxi-driver is waiting now, at the Cala Fuerte Hotel. For you. To pay him.”
“You mean, you took a taxi from the Aeropuerto to Cala Fuerte to find me in order to pay the taxi fare. It’s crazy.…”
“But I’ve explained.… You see, my luggage never came.…”
“You mean, you lost your luggage as well!”
“I didn’t lose my luggage—they did. The air line.”
“That’s jet travel for you. Breakfast in London, lunch in Spain, luggage in Bombay.”
“It got to Barcelona; but they think it must have been sent to Madrid.”
“So,” said George with the air of an efficient quizmaster doing a re-cap, “your luggage is in Madrid, and your wallet has been stolen and you want six hundred pesetas to pay your taxi fare.”
“Yes,” said Selina, delighted that he at last grasped the situation.
“And what did you say your name was?”
“Selina Bruce.”
“Well, Miss Bruce, delighted though I am to have made your acquaintance, and naturally distressed to learn of your run of bad luck, I still don’t see what it has to do with me.”
“I think it has a lot to do with you,” said Selina.
“Oh, you do?”
“Yes. You see.… I think I’m your daughter.”
“You think…”
His first reaction was that she was insane. She had to be. She was one of those lunatic women who go round insisting they’re the Empress Eugénie, only this one had a fixation about him.
“Yes. I think you’re my father.”
She wasn’t insane. She was entirely innocent and she really believed what she was saying. He told himself that he must be rational. “What ever gave you that idea?”
“I have a little photograph of my father. I thought he was dead. But he has the same face as you.”
“That’s bad luck on him.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t bad at all.…”
“Have you got the photograph?”
“Yes, it’s right here.…” She stooped to pick up her bag again, and he tried to reckon how old she was; he tried to remember, to decide, in a frenzied life-and-death sort of way, whether there could be the slightest chance that this dreadful accusation might be true. “It’s here … I’ve always carried it around with me, ever since I found it, about five years ago. And then when I saw the photograph on the back of your book…” She held it out to him. He took it, not taking his eyes off her face. He said, “How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
Relief made him feel quite weak. To hide the expression in his face he looked quickly down at the photograph that Selina had handed him. He did not say anything. And then, as Rodney had done when Selina first showed it to him, George Dyer carried it over to the light. After a little, he said, “What was his name?”
Selina swallowed. “Gerry Dawson. But the same initials as you.”
“Could you tell me something about him?”
“Not very much. You see, I was always told that he was killed before I was born. My mother was called Harriet Bruce, and she died just after I was born, so my grandmother brought me up and that’s why I’m called Selina Bruce.”
“Your grandmother. Your mother’s mother.”
“Yes.”
“And you found this photograph…?”
“Five years ago. In a book of my mother’s. And then I … was given Fiesta at Cala Fuerte, and I saw your photograph on the back, and it seemed to be the same. The same face, I mean. The same. The same person.”
George Dyer did not reply. He came back from the open door, and gave her back the photograph. Then he lit
a cigarette, and when he had shaken out the match, and placed it, dead centre, in the middle of the ash-tray, he said, “You said you were told he was killed. What do you mean by that?”
“Because I was told that. But I’ve always known that my grandmother didn’t like him. She never wanted him to marry my mother. And when I saw the photograph, I thought perhaps there’d been some mistake. That he hadn’t been killed at all. That he’d been wounded or something, lost his memory. That did happen, you know.”
“But not to your father. Your father is dead.”
“But you…”
He said, very gently, “I’m not your father.”
“But…”
“You’re twenty. I’m thirty-seven. I probably look a great deal more, but, in fact, I’m only thirty-seven. I wasn’t even in the war—not that one, anyway.”
“But the photographs…”
“I have an idea that Gerry Dawson was a second cousin of mine. The fact that we look alike is one of those freaks of heredity. In fact, I think we probably weren’t all that alike. The photograph of your father, and the picture on the back of my book, were taken years apart. And even in my hey-day, I was never as good-looking as that.”
Selina stared at him. She had never seen a man so brown, and someone needed to sew a button on his shirt because it was open right down, so that you could see the dark hair on his chest, and the sleeves of the shirt were rolled up to just below his elbows, as though he couldn’t be bothered to make a proper job of them. She felt curious, as though she would have no control over anything her body might choose to do. Her legs might buckle, her eyes fill with tears, she might even start hitting him, as he stood there, telling her that he wasn’t her father. That it was all true, and Gerry Dawson was dead.
He was still talking, sounding as if he was trying to be kind. “… sorry you’ve come all this way. Don’t feel too badly about it … it’s a mistake that could easily be made … after all…”
There was a lump in her throat that ached, and his face, so close to her own, began to blur and swim as though it was sinking into the bottom of a pond. She had been far too warm, but now, suddenly, she was freezing cold, her arms and her back and the very roots of her hair were crawling with goose pimples. He said, and he seemed to be speaking from a great distance, “Are you all right?” and she realised to her shame that she was not after all going to faint, nor attack him in rage, but simply dissolve, ignominiously, into tears.
6
She said, “I suppose you haven’t got such a thing as a handkerchief?”
He hadn’t, but he went and fetched a large box of Kleenex and thrust it into her hands. She pulled one out and blew her nose, and said, “I don’t think I’m going to need them all.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure.”
“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. Cry, I mean.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
She took another paper tissue and blew her nose again. “I’d been waiting so long. And it was suddenly so cold.”
“It is colder. The sun’s gone. There’s been another storm warning. Here, come and sit down.”
He put a hand under her elbow and propelled her to the gargantuan couch, and because she was still shivering, pulled the red-and-white blanket down over her knees and said that he would get her some brandy. Selina said she didn’t like brandy, but he went just the same, and she watched him, behind the counter of his little galley, finding a bottle and a glass and pouring her a drink.
When he brought it back, she said, “I really need something to eat.”
“Drink this first, anyway.”
The glass was small and thick, and the brandy neat. Selina shuddered. When it was finished, he took the empty glass, and, on his way back to the galley, kicked up the ashes in the fireplace and tossed on another piece of driftwood. The ashes rose and fell again, coating the fresh piece of wood with grey dust. Presently, as Selina watched, there was a glow of red and a tiny flame.
She said, “You don’t even need to use bellows … it’s burning up already.”
“They know how to build a fireplace here. What do you want to eat?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Soup. Bread and butter. Cold meat. Fruit.”
“Have you got some soup?”
“A can.…”
“Isn’t that a nuisance?”
“Less of a nuisance than having you in tears.”
Selina was hurt, and said, “I didn’t mean to.”
When the soup was heating, he came back to sit on the edge of the hearth and talk to her. “Whereabouts do you live?” he asked, reaching for a cigarette, and lighting it with a spill from the fire.
“In London.”
“With your grandmother?”
“My grandmother’s dead.”
“You don’t live alone?”
“No. There’s Agnes.”
“Who’s Agnes?”
“My Nanny,” said Selina, and immediately could have bitten out her tongue. “I mean … she used to be my Nanny.”
“Isn’t there anyone else?”
“Yes,” said Selina. “There’s Rodney.”
“Who’s Rodney?”
Selina’s eyes widened. “He’s my … lawyer.”
“Does anybody know you’re out here?”
“Agnes knows I was coming.”
“And the lawyer…?”
“He was away. On business.”
“Then there’s nobody to worry about you? To wonder where you are.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s something.”
The soup in the pan began to bubble. George Dyer went back to the galley to find a bowl and a spoon, and Selina said, “I like your house.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. It’s got a nice feeling, as though it just happened. As though it wasn’t ever planned.”
She thought of the flat in London where she and Rodney were going to live when they were married. Of the time and the thought that was being put into the carpets and the curtains and the right lighting and cushions, and the wastepaper baskets, and the kitchen and the pots and the pans. She said, “I think that’s the way a house should be. It should evolve. Like the people who live in it.” George Dyer was pouring himself out a whisky and soda and did not reply. She went on, “You have to have some things, of course, a roof over your head, and a fire, and … I suppose, somewhere to sleep.” He came back from the galley, carrying the bowl of soup, with a spoon sticking out of it, in one hand, and his drink in the other. Selina took the soup bowl and said, “How did you get the bed up into the gallery?”
“In pieces. We put it together up there.”
“It’s very large.”
“In Spain it’s called a Matrimoniale. A marriage bed.”
She was slightly embarrassed. “I couldn’t think how you’d got it up there. I … I shouldn’t have looked, I’m sorry, but I wanted to see everything before you came.”
He said, “What are you going to do now?”
Selina looked down at her soup, stirring it. It was vegetable soup with alphabet noodles floating around it. She said, “I suppose I’d better go home.”
“With no ticket and no money?”
“If I could borrow some, I could go back to San Antonio with Toni in his taxi. And I could catch the next flight back to London.”
George said, “I really was telling you the truth when I said I hadn’t got that six hundred pesetas. One of the reasons I went to San Antonio yesterday was to pick up some cash, but there’s been some delay at the clearing bank in Barcelona, and at the moment I’m cleaned out.”
“But what am I going to do about the taxi-driver? I have to pay him.”
“Perhaps Rudolfo at the Cala Fuerte will help us.”
“It seems a lot to ask.”
“He’s used to it.”
“It isn’t just the six hundred pesetas for the taxi. I’ll have to buy another air ticket.”
“Yes, I know.”
The soup was still too hot to drink. Selina stirred it again, and said, “You must think I’m the most awful fool.” He did not deny this, and she went on, “Of course I should have written or something, but I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting for a reply.” He still made no comment, and she felt she must try to justify herself. “You’d think that you’d get used to not having a father, particularly if you’d never known him. But I never did get used to it. I used to think about it all the time. Rodney said I had an obsession about it.”
“It’s not a bad thing to have an obsession about.”
“I showed Agnes the photograph on the back of your book, and she was struck all of a heap, because you look so like my father. That’s what really made me come, because Agnes knew him very well. And I wouldn’t seem quite so stupid if I hadn’t had my wallet stolen. Up to then I’d done quite well. I caught all the right connections, and it wasn’t my fault my luggage got sent to Madrid.”
“Did you never travel on your own before?” He sounded incredulous.
“Oh, yes, heaps of times. But only on trains going to school and things.” Something in his expression compelled her to be entirely honest. “And then there was somebody to meet me.…” She shrugged. “You know.”
“No, I don’t, but I believe you.”
She began to eat the soup. She said, “If my father really was your second cousin, then we must be related.”
“Second cousin once removed.”
“It sounds terribly remote, doesn’t it? And rather royal. Did you ever know my father?”
“No, I never knew him.” He frowned. “What did you say your name was?”
“Selina.”
“Selina. Well, if I ever needed proof that you’re not my daughter, there it is.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’d never saddle any girl with a name like that.”
“What would you call her?”
“A man seldom imagines daughters. He only thinks of a son. George Dyer Junior, perhaps.” He raised his glass to this mythical son, finished his drink and set down the glass. “Now, come on, eat up that soup and we’ll go and find the taxi-driver.”
While he piled the soup bowl and the glasses into the sink and fed the hungry Pearl, Selina washed her hands and face in the sink in his bathroom and combed her hair and put on her stockings and shoes again. When she emerged, he was out on the terrace once more, his cap on the back of his head, watching the harbour through his binoculars. Selina came to stand beside him.
Sleeping Tiger Page 7