Sleeping Tiger

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  She said, “Do you love me?” but he could not answer, so she said instead, “Do you like me? Do you want me?”

  He took her arms from his neck, and pulled himself free, and was left sitting, holding her forearms as though they had been fighting.

  She began to laugh. Her resilience and her good-humour were two of the good things that he had always liked about her. She said, “Why, I believe you’re punch drink.”

  He got up and went to find some cigarettes, and behind him Frances pulled herself off the sofa, and ran her fingers through her hair. She said, “I must patch myself up before I go back to Rudolfo. He’s old-fashioned, you know, about so many things. Mind if I used your bedroom?”

  “Go ahead,” said George, and switched on the upstairs light for her.

  She ran up the steps, the heels of her sandals slapping on the wooden treads. She was singing the song that had been tormenting him all evening, and still it did not have any words, and then, as though someone had switched off a radio, the teasing tune was stopped, and Frances was silent. The silence caught at George, as surely as though she had suddenly screamed. He stopped prowling, and pricked up his ears like a suspicious dog.

  Presently, Frances came down the steps again, with an expression on her face that he could not begin to decipher. He said stupidly, “What’s up? No comb?”

  “I don’t know,” said Frances. “I didn’t look. I didn’t look farther than the bed…”

  “The bed?” He was completely mystified.

  “It couldn’t be a joke? Not another example of that peerless British sense of humour?”

  He realised then, to his horror, that she was really angry. Beneath the careful control of her voice was the tremor of an incipient explosion.

  “Frances, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The girl. Your daughter. Selina. Whatever you like to call her. You know where she is? Not in London. Not even at the airport at San Antonio. She’s up there…” She pointed a shaking finger and her control, like an overstretched rubber band, suddenly cracked. “In your bed!”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, go and take a look. Go on up and take a look.” He did not move. “I don’t know what’s going on here, George, but I didn’t hand over a considerable amount of pesetas just to find that little tramp back in your bed again…”

  “She isn’t a tramp.”

  “… and if you’re going to try and give me some sort of an explanation, it had better be good, because I’m not going to swallow a second load of hog wash about losing luggage and thinking you were her long-lost daddy.…”

  “It was true.”

  “True? Look, you bastard, who do you think you’re kidding?” She was shouting at him now, and it was the one thing that made him mad.

  “I didn’t know she’d come back…”

  “Well, kick her out now…”

  “I’ll do no such thing…”

  “Right.” Frances swooped to gather up her handbag. “If you feel inclined to set up house with that mealy-mouthed little tramp, that’s O.K. by me…”

  “Shut up!”

  “… but don’t involve me in a complicated scheme to protect both your reputations, because as far as I’m concerned, they’re simply not worth protecting.” She made for the door and flung it wide, turning back to deliver a final broadside, as she did so, but the effect was slightly spoiled by the entrance of Pearl, erect and dignified. She had been outside the door waiting for someone to let her in, and when Frances did just this thing, entered with a faint mew of appreciation and thanks.

  “You’d better go,” George said, as calmly as he could, and Frances said, “Don’t bother; I’ve gone!” and pausing only to give Pearl a vicious kick in passing, she was out of the door, and slamming it so hard behind her that the whole house shook.

  In a moment the quiet night was torn asunder by the sound of the Citröen being brutally started and driven up the hill in bottom gear at a speed that set George’s teeth on edge.

  He stooped to pick up Pearl. Her feelings were hurt, but there was no further damage, and he sat her gently on her favourite cushion on the sofa. A slight movement above him made him look up. Selina was standing, her hands on the rail of the gallery, watching him. She was wearing a white nightgown with blue ribbons framing the neck, and she said, anxiously, “Is Pearl all right?”

  “Yes, she’s all right. What are you doing here?”

  “I was in bed. Asleep.”

  “You’re not asleep now. Get something on and come on down.”

  A moment later she descended from the gallery, bare-foot, but tying the ribbons of a ridiculous white silk negligee that matched the nightgown.

  He frowned and said, “Where did you get those?”

  Selina came across the floor towards him. “My suitcase had come. From Madrid.” She smiled, as though he should be pleased, and he was forced to resort to sarcasm.

  “So you did get as far as the airport?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And what happened this time? The flight was cancelled? There wasn’t any room on the plane? Pepe had a puncture?”

  “No, none of those things.” Her eyes were so wide that the blues were entirely ringed with white. “I lost my passport.”

  “You what?” To his annoyance it came out as an incredulous yelp.

  “Yes, it was most extraordinary. You know you asked me, before I left, if I had my passport. Well, it was in my bag then, and I don’t remember opening it again, but when I got to the airport and I was buying my ticket and everything, I opened my bag. And it had gone.”

  She looked at him to gauge his reaction to this piece of information. George’s reaction was to lean against the back of his sofa and maintain a monumental calm.

  “I see. So what did you do then?”

  “Well, I told the Guardia Civil, of course.”

  “And what did the Guardia Civil have to say?”

  “Oh, he was most kind and understanding. And after a little, I thought I’d better just come back here and wait until they found it.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The Guardia Civil.”

  There was a small silence, while they watched each other. Then George said, “Selina.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know what the Guardia Civil do to people who lose their passports? They throw them into jail. They intern them as political prisoners. They let them rot in dungeons until the passports get found again.”

  “Well, they didn’t do that to me.”

  “You’re lying, aren’t you? Where did you put that passport of yours?”

  “I don’t know. I lost it.”

  “Did you leave it in Pepe’s car?”

  “I tell you, it’s lost.”

  “Look, Junior, in Spain passports aren’t things you play games with.”

  “I’m not playing games.”

  “Did you tell Pepe about the passport?”

  “I can’t speak Spanish, how could I tell him?”

  “You just got him to bring you back?”

  She looked disconcerted, but only said, bravely, “Yes.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “About eleven.”

  “Did we wake you up when we got in?” She nodded. “Then you heard most of our conversation?”

  “Well, I did try to put my head under the blankets, but Mrs. Dongen has a very carrying voice. I’m sorry she doesn’t like me.” There was no comment to be made on this, and she went on, in social tones that would have done credit to her grandmother, “Are you going to marry her?”

  “Do you know something? You make me ill.”

  “Is she married?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What happened to her husband?”

  “I don’t know … how should I know? Maybe he’s dead.”

  “Did she kill him?”

  His hands seemed, suddenly, to have taken on an independent personality of their own. They
itched with the desire to take Selina and shake her till her teeth rattled, to box her ears, and slap that smug expression off her face. George slid his hands into his pockets, and balled his fists against these purely primitive instincts, but Selina seemed innocent of the turmoil that was going on within him.

  “I suppose it was rather annoying for her, finding me here, but she wouldn’t stay and listen to any explanations. She just kicked poor Pearl.… It would have been much more fair if she’d kicked me.” She looked George straight in the eye and he was shattered by her nerve. “She must know you very well. To talk to you like that, I mean. Like the way she did to-night. She wanted you to make love to her.”

  “You’re asking for trouble, Selina.”

  “And she seems to think that you’ll never write another book.”

  “She may not be wrong at that.”

  “Aren’t you even going to try?”

  George said, slowly, “You mind your own bloody business,” but even this did not deter her.

  “It seems to me that you’re afraid of failing before you’ve even made a start. Mrs. Dongen was right; you’ve been cast in a classic mould, one of those no-good expatriate Englishmen” (here Selina gave a startling imitation of Frances’s drawl) “who do nothing so gracefully. I suppose it would be a pity to spoil the image. And after all, what does it matter? You don’t need to write. It isn’t your living. And as for Mr. Rutland, what is a broken promise? It doesn’t count for anything. You can break your word to him just as easily as you broke it to the girl you were going to marry.”

  Before he could think, or control himself, George’s right hand had escaped from the prison of his pocket and he had slapped her face. The sound of the blow was as loud a crack as the explosion of a bursting paper bag. The ensuing silence was painful to a degree. Selina stared, incredulous but curiously unresentful while George rubbed his stinging palm against his side. He remembered that he had never got those cigarettes. He went to find them now, to take one out and light it, and he was horrified to see how his hands were shaking. When at last he turned around, he realised, to his horror, that she was trying not to cry. The thought of tears, and the subsequent recriminations and apologies, was almost more than he could bear. Besides, it was too late to start apologising. He said, impatiently, but not unkindly, “Oh, go on, buzz off!” and when she turned and fled, in a flurry of long bare legs and white silk, back up to his bed he called after her, “And don’t slam the door,” but the joke was a sour one, and fell as flat as it deserved.

  11

  It was late when he woke. He knew by the angle of the sunshine, by the reflected water-shadows on the ceiling, by the gentle sounds of sweeping which indicated that Juanita was cleaning the terrace. Instinctively tensed against the hangover which he knew was going to hit him, George reached for his watch, and saw that it was half past ten. He had not slept so late for years.

  He moved his head carefully from side to side, waiting for the first stab of his well-deserved agony. Nothing happened. Pushing his luck, he tried rolling his eyes and the sensation was in no way painful. He turned aside the red-and-white blanket, and cautiously sat up. It was a miracle. He felt quite normal; better than normal, bright and alert and full of energy.

  Gathering up his clothes, he went to shower and shave. As he scraped away at his face, the tune of last night came back to him, but this time it had words, and he realised, too late by now, why Frances had been so annoyed with him for whistling it.

  I’ve grown accustomed to her face.

  She almost makes the day begin.

  Well, he asked his sheepish reflection, and how corny can you get? But when he had dressed, he went and dug out his old record-player, and rubbed the dust from the Frank Sinatra disc, and put it on.

  Juanita had finished scrubbing the terrace, and now, hearing the music, she laid down her brushes and came in, her wet brown feet leaving marks on the tiled floor.

  “Señor,” she said.

  “Juanita! Buenos días.”

  “The Señor has slept well?”

  “Too well, perhaps.”

  I’ve grown accustomed to the tune

  She whistles night and noon.

  “Where is the Señorita?”

  “She has gone out to the Señor’s boat, to swim.”

  “How did she get there?”

  “She has taken the little boat.”

  He raised his brows in mild surprise. “Well, good for her. Juanita, is there any coffee?”

  “I will make some.”

  She went to draw a bucket of water, and George realised that he felt well enough to want a cigarette. He found one, and lit it, and then said, cautiously, “Juanita?”

  “Sé, señor.”

  “An Americana stayed at the Cala Fuerte Hotel last night…”

  “No, señor.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Juanita was in the kitchen, putting on a kettle. “She did not stay, Señor. She drove back to San Antonio last night. She did not use the room at the hotel. Rosita told Tomeu and Tomeu told Maria, and…”

  “I know; Maria told you.” But Juanita’s news filled him with a shameful sort of relief, although the thought of Frances hurtling back to San Antonio through the night in that lethal bomb of a car, gave him the shivers. He prayed that nothing had happened, that she had not had an accident, was not, even now, trapped in some distant ditch with the car on top of her.

  With the air of a man cornered on all sides by trouble, he scratched the back of his neck, then went out on to the terrace to search for his other headache. He took his binoculars and focused them on Eclipse, but although the dinghy bobbed peacefully at her stern, there was no sign of Selina.

  It was, however, a beautiful day. Just as bright as yesterday, but cooler, with a good sea running in from the harbour mouth. The pines tossed their spicy heads in the breeze, and small waves slapped cheerfully on the slipways below him. He was filled with pleasure by every prospect. Blue sky, blue sea, Eclipse dipping serenely at her moorings, white terrace, red geraniums, all dearly familiar, and yet, this morning, magically fresh. Pearl was sitting on the end of the jetty, consuming a delicious morsel of fish-offal she had found; Frances was back in San Antonio, and Juanita was making him a pot of coffee. He could not remember when he had felt so well, so hopeful or so optimistic. It was as though he had been living for months in the murky gloom of a potential storm, and now the storm was over and the pressure had lifted and he could breathe freely again.

  He told himself that he was a heel, that he should be grovelling in a pit of self-hate and remorse, but his sense of physical well-being was too much for his conscience. All this time he had been leaning, with his hands flat, on the wall of the terrace, and now, when he straightened and stood up, he saw that his palms were chalked with white-wash. His automatic reaction was to wipe them clean on his jeans, but all at once his attention was drawn to the convolutions of his own fingerprints, outlined in the white-wash and as delicately drawn as a microscopic chart. A chart of himself, unique to George Dyer, just as the life he had led, and the things he was doing now, were unique.

  He was not especially proud of himself. He had, over the years, hurt and offended too many people, and last night, the climax of it all, did not even bear thinking about. But none of this could take away from his present elating sense of identity.

  I’ve grown accustomed to her face.

  The record ended and he went inside to turn it off. As he shut the lid of the player he said, “Juanita.”

  She was spooning coffee into his jug.

  “Señor?”

  “Juanita, did you know that Pepe, the husband of Maria, had taken the Señorita to the airport yesterday afternoon?”

  “Sí, Señor,” said Juanita, but she was not looking at him.

  “Did he tell you that he brought the Señorita back again?”

  “Sí, Señor. All the village knows.”

  It was inevitable, and George sighed, but perseve
red in his interrogation.

  “And did Pepe say that the Señorita had lost her passport?”

  “He did not know that it was lost. Just that she did not have it.”

  “But she told the Guardia Civil at the airport?”

  “I do not know, Señor.” She poured boiling water into the coffee jug.

  “Juanita…” When she did not turn, he laid his hand on her bare forearm, and her head swung round, and to his amazement he saw that she was laughing at him, her dark eyes bright with amusement. “Juanita … the Señorita is not my daughter.”

  “No, Señor,” said Juanita, demurely.

  “Don’t tell me you already knew.”

  “Señor,” she shrugged, “Pepe did not think that she was behaving like your daughter.”

  “How was she behaving?”

  “She was very unhappy, Señor.”

  “Juanita, she is not my daughter, but my little cousin.”

  “Sí, Señor.”

  “Will you tell Maria? And tell Maria to tell Tomeu, and maybe Tomeu will tell Rosita and Rosita will tell Rudolfo…” They were both laughing. “I did not tell a lie, Juanita. But I did not tell the truth either.”

  “The Señor does not need to worry. If she is a daughter or a cousin…” Juanita shrugged enormously as though the question were too trivial for consideration. “But to Cala Fuerte, the Señor is a friend. Nothing else matters.”

  Such eloquence was foreign to Juanita, and George was so touched he could have kissed her, but he knew that this would have embarrassed them both enormously, so instead he said that he was hungry, and, feeling companionable, he joined her in the kitchen to look in the bread jar and find something that he could smother in butter and apricot jam.

  As usual the bread jar was full and had been replenished on top of the old bread. He said, reproachfully, “Juanita, this is very dirty. The bread at the bottom has got a blue beard.” And to prove his point, he turned the crock upside down and emptied all the bread out on to the floor. The last mouldy crust fell out, and then the sheet of white paper with which Juanita had lined the bottom of the jar, and finally a slim, dark-blue folder.