‘These go on and on,’ Harry said as the man eventually left the stage to rapturous applause. ‘Won’t end until sunrise.’
‘Can we try and find the trader you told me about?’ Belle asked, anxious to get on with it.
‘Don’t want to see more?’
‘My head’s pounding. It’s the noise.’
‘No problem. The man lives locally.’
‘He’s not here?’
Harry frowned. ‘I gave you that impression?’
‘Look, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just go?’
‘Of course.’
They shuffled away from the dense group of people who were standing at the back, and then retraced their route, eventually pausing at a network of alleyways where Harry glanced about him, twisting his mouth from side to side.
‘Are we lost?’ she said, beginning to feel something was wrong. Fearing a recurrence of her previous panic, she hesitated.
He shook his head. ‘Looks so different in the dark. I could have sworn this was the right place.’
As he stepped into narrower and gloomier alleys, she remembered Harry had been drinking. Did he even know where he was headed?
She followed him round a sharp bend and on to a wider alley, more like a street, and there he stopped in front of a grubby-looking house like all the others. ‘I think this is it.’
He called out in English and a man replied, telling them to enter. Belle’s hunch that something was wrong increased and she hesitated.
Through the open doorway she could see the room within was simply furnished with mats on the floor and one low table where an oil lamp threw the edges of the room into darkness. A single piece of patterned fabric, slung across the room from two hooks on the wall, clearly divided the space. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom Belle was able to make out the paraphernalia of food preparation piled up on another low table. This did not seem like the home of a prosperous jade dealer.
And then she saw the man himself.
The dark-eyed, heavily moustached man sat cross-legged on the floor wearing a simple black shirt and matching Western trousers.
‘No,’ she said, suddenly certain. ‘I’m not going in. Take me back to the hotel, Harry. Now.’
41.
Diana, Minster Lovell, 1923
Today is a special day as Simone and I are preparing to walk down the lane, not back to the village but away where it will be quiet. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but I am pleased with my progress. It’s enough that I am here and that I trust Dr Gilbert. Anyone would trust a man like him, wouldn’t they? And, after many sessions, during which we have been peeling back the years, I have started to knit my life back together. I do some work in my garden now. Only a bit of weeding and pruning but it makes me so happy I could weep for joy.
I cannot leave the doors unlocked, not yet, for fear that what is outside will worm its way inside and I will lose my sanctuary. Dr Gilbert would prefer me to work in the back garden while leaving the back door open, so I can observe if anything were to happen. But I worry something will sneak in, then fill up every nook and cranny of my home and I will not be strong enough to prevent it. I tell him it is my nightmare to be left alone and unprotected from all that is out there with no safe haven.
Nevertheless, I am improving. As well as encouraging me to take small steps beyond the house, he is also reducing the amount of medication I take, and I do believe there is a real chance I may one day be well again. We talk about everything, the doctor and I, including my shame over Douglas’s unfaithfulness in Burma. Up until now I’ve only dared share this with Simone, always told myself not to think about it. But how can you not think about something when it’s always there? For several of our meetings Dr Gilbert encouraged me to talk about what it had felt like. I knew, of course – the hurt, the fury, the impotence. At first, I was unwilling to say so, it seemed a weakness to confess, but when I finally did, I cried and cried. And when it was all over, and I dried my eyes, the shame had lifted as if by magic and I realized the true weight of the burden I’d been carrying.
As if a light had come on in my mind, I also came to see the shame should have sat fairly on Douglas’s shoulders and not on mine. But when we lived in Burma, if a husband strayed it was seen as the wife’s fault for not keeping her husband happy, and if he strayed while she was pregnant, well … men would be men. No wife ever spoke of feeling hurt or betrayed.
What interests me most about this process is the way the doctor asks me how I felt about something. Nobody has ever asked me how I’ve felt before, not even when I was a child or later when my mother died of the terrible influenza. Although I think my parents loved me in their way, as an only child I spent most of the time with my nanny. It was never my mother who comforted me when I fell and grazed my knee, or when I was sick and confined to bed. I only ever saw her for special outings, or when I was freshly bathed at the end of the day and dressed in my starched white nightdress and Nanny would bring me down to the drawing room to say goodnight.
Dr Gilbert even asked me what I would have said to my parents if I could have. I remained silent, but I knew. Love me, I would have said. Love me. But I didn’t want to say, didn’t want to make a fool of myself by weeping again. He asked how I had felt about the lack of love and I was shocked at how little I could really remember. I told him I had been loved. Nanny had loved me. The doctor suggested I visit my father as soon as I feel up to it and I might. Maybe there is a way to repair the sadness of the past. I should make the effort. It has been too long, though he writes a few times a year and I have invited him to stay at my cottage.
Ever since then I have been remembering more and more. And now, of course, I feel a devastating guilt in the pit of my stomach that my daughter, Annabelle, has experienced the same lack of love at my hands. I think of her jade-green eyes and coppery hair and realize I am missing her so much. He says we will talk of Annabelle soon and, although I’ve come to see how these sad and shameful things are better out in the open, I’m fearful too. The doctor tells me that when we do not face our inner darkness it has the power to make us very sick indeed.
So, because of all this, hard though the unravelling has sometimes been, my life has begun to feel real again. I have started to become real again and my heart swells with courage.
And now I must get ready for our walk. Simone has described it all. First, we shall walk uphill a little and then we will turn right and go down past the church and churchyard, through the remains of Minster Hall, and from there to the riverbank. She says it is a short distance and we shall be alone in the beautiful, comforting peace of nature. The doctor says nature heals, and I believe him.
42.
Belle next saw Harry at a typically English breakfast of tea, toast, bacon and eggs. He seemed pretty subdued as he asked if he could keep her company and, when she said that he could, he pulled out a chair and shuffled into it.
‘Sorry about last night,’ he muttered. ‘I must have got the wrong place.’
‘What were you thinking, Harry?’ she demanded, but he looked so disconsolate that although she’d been frightened by the sight of the so-called jade dealer, she decided to let it go.
Harry focused on his hands and then glanced up at her with a worried look. Belle felt the man was all nerves and growing more so as the trip progressed.
‘I have bad news,’ he said.
‘Oh? I hope it’s not too troubling.’
‘For you, I mean.’
She raised her brows.
‘I went to the station to book you a train ticket.’
‘That’s kind.’
‘We agreed I would.’
‘Indeed.’
He held his breath for a few seconds before he spoke. ‘There are no trains.’
‘What?’
‘Some of the tracks have been blown up further down the line.’
‘When will they be fixed?’
‘They aren’t saying. Could be some time, I imagine.’
�
�So, what do I do? Go back down the Irrawaddy?’
‘It’ll take two weeks.’
‘By which time I’ll have lost my job.’
‘My contact is going to do what he can to find out about the state of the tracks. My advice is to sit tight and we’ll hopefully hear something more tomorrow, though you might have to wait a while.’
Belle sighed. She did not want to sit tight. Mandalay was horrifically hot and the monsoon would be starting before too long. She didn’t relish being stuck here for days on end.
She headed for the lounge where she planned to remain for the rest of the morning, relaxing beneath the relative cool of a fan and in safety from whatever might be out there. She picked up a magazine and watched the guests coming and going, but it was a tedious and deadly dull morning so she found a book in the hotel lounge and went outside to the small garden. With a delicate ivory hand fan she swept away the flying insects humming in the torpid air and when she reached a small pool she watched white lilies floating on the surface and goldfish swimming beneath them. As for her search for her sister, she felt frustrated and sad. She’d often wondered how it would be if she were to meet her sister now, if she really was still alive. She’d wondered what she’d say, what her sister might have looked like, how they both would have felt. Would Elvira’s hair be like her own or more like their mother’s? Would she be taller or shorter than she was? Would her eyes have been green too? Well, she thought resignedly, I may never know, and in any case, Elvira might well be dead.
At least if she gave up the search it would leave her free to concentrate on her career again. She was thinking about that and wondering about planning a new routine when she heard someone call her name. She spun round and couldn’t prevent a gasp of surprise.
‘Oliver!’
He nodded and remained where he was, looking unusually stiff and hesitant.
‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m here because you didn’t call me back. I left two urgent messages with Harry Osborne.’
She felt confused by the deluge of mixed emotion. She had felt such a burst of happiness at hearing his voice, yet she couldn’t forget how they’d parted. ‘How did you know I was here?’
‘Tried all the hotels until I found the right one.’
She narrowed her eyes as she searched his face and hoped her feelings weren’t too obvious. He gazed back at her with those candid blue eyes of his and she couldn’t deny the attraction, even after everything. Tanned and strong, he remained very still. Even though she fought against it, she felt herself soften. She itched to run her fingers through his unruly hair and then pull back his head so that she might caress his neck … She reached out a hand but then withdrew it.
‘Nobody said you’d called,’ she said in a tight little voice.
‘I left a message with Harry the morning you arrived, and then another. I phoned the reception and, as it happened, he was at the desk both times, so knowing you and he were together they passed the phone to him. I emphasized how critical it was and left my number for you to call me immediately. He said he’d pass it on straight away so I waited.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘Was lucky to get a fast overnight train.’
‘I didn’t know there were fast trains.’
He smiled. ‘Rare beasts, but they exist.’
She frowned. ‘But how? The tracks have been blown up.’
‘Not on the north-bound line.’
‘Did you see anything? Of the damage, I mean?’
He grinned. ‘Nope. May have nodded off.’
‘Why are you here, Oliver?’
They were interrupted by Harry entering the garden.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Oliver whispered before striding across to Harry. ‘Now look here, Osborne,’ he said. ‘Belle tells me you didn’t relay the messages I gave you.’
Harry looked cornered. ‘Didn’t I? Thought I had.’
‘You know damn well you didn’t.’
Harry twisted his hat in his hands and glanced over at Belle. ‘I am so sorry. They went clean out of my mind. I had so much to attend to, you see.’
Oliver looked annoyed but didn’t speak.
‘Look, why don’t you let me make it up to you?’ Harry continued. ‘I know an excellent Chinese restaurant. It’s where I was hoping to take Belle for a meal, but why don’t we all go? Shall we say midday? My treat.’
Oliver raised his brows at Belle, who nodded.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But it’s one hell of an oversight.’
‘Yes, sorry, I do realize.’ Harry put his panama hat on his head and smiled nervously. ‘Well, now. I just need to make a phone call. Do forgive me.’
Belle wasn’t sure if he was still apologizing for not passing on the message or for having to leave to make a call.
Once Harry had gone Oliver stepped over to Belle. ‘I wanted to apologize too.’
‘Well, this does seem to be the morning for it,’ she said with a smile, unable to conceal how pleased she felt that he was there.
‘I was clumsy … back then. Truly, I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I want to say you’re so much more to me than a story.’
‘And you expect me to believe you?’ she said, although in a gentler tone than before. Despite a nagging voice in her head, she so wanted to have faith in him she felt sure it must be written all over her face.
‘I’m happy to help you and not print a word of it, if that will convince you.’
She stared down at the ground and there was a short silence while she thought about it. Then she looked up and as their eyes met something wonderful passed between them, making her feel so cared for she could not turn him down.
‘I am very much in need of a friend right now, Oliver. But I absolutely need to know I can trust you.’
He nodded solemnly.
‘In that case …’ she said, then pulled out the second anonymous note from her bag and passed it to him.
He read it and looked up at her. ‘Someone is trying to scare you. Do you trust Harry?’
‘Of course. He’s been very helpful. Though he took me to a weird place last night. Said it was a mistake.’
Oliver puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled slowly. ‘I wonder what’s going on?’
‘With Harry?’
‘No. I meant the note.’
She shook her head. ‘Well, they’ve succeeded in scaring me. I’ve been afraid of my own shadow since receiving it, even before, actually. I had a panic attack in the market.’
‘I’ve been worried about you. There’s been trouble in Rangoon and the word is it’s spreading, possibly to Mandalay.’
‘Tell me.’
‘The students have been rioting. It’s the second university students’ strike, this one triggered by the expulsion of Aung San and Ko Nu.’
‘And they are?’
‘Leaders of the Rangoon University Students Union. They refused to reveal the name of the author who’d written an article in their university magazine. It included a scathing attack on one of the senior university officials.’
‘They were expelled for that?’
‘The British reprisals for the riot have been ugly. As I said, the fear is it may spread to Mandalay, and soon. I phoned to warn you, but as you didn’t call back I took the train here. I needed to be certain you were safe.’
‘Shouldn’t you be back there reporting on it?’
He took her hand and she felt the warmth of his skin making her own tingle.
‘Already done, and there’s not much more to say at present. In any case, I wanted to see you, and now I’m here there’s no chance I’m going to leave you on your own. Whoever is trying to upset you will have me to deal with.’
At lunchtime Belle and Oliver met up with a very talkative Harry. He spoke about his job as they walked and told them of the dark recesses of Burma he still hadn’t surveyed. He then went on to tell them about Angela, what a kind person she was, blond
e and so petite but pretty with it. They’d met in London, married and travelled out to Burma together, though she hadn’t really wanted to come. He led them on foot through the thronging backstreets of Mandalay as he continued his monologue, sounding a little edgy. Belle wondered again about Harry’s nerviness, although she was becoming used to his odd ways. People were out conducting their business or smoking at little tea shops and food stalls. Belle smelt the dried fish stall before they even reached it and it was all she could do not to hold her nose. She paused beside a woman selling bowlfuls of odd yellow, orange and red things, looking for all the world like brightly coloured worms.
‘Sweets,’ Harry said, seeing Belle’s puzzled expression.
Beyond that, vegetables and beans were piled high in baskets. Then came a stall packed with nuts and roots. The place was noisy and a little intimidating, as the three of them were the only non-Burmese in sight. But Oliver held her arm, giving her a squeeze from time to time, reminding her of his promise not to leave her alone.
Eventually they reached a quieter, more rundown area.
‘Are you sure this is okay?’ Oliver said.
Harry nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, yes. Of course. It’s a little out of the way, but I have it on good form it really is the best.’
‘You’ve not been there before?’
‘No. But I am assured.’
Oliver shrugged. ‘If you’re certain.’
They carried on into a terribly seedy network of streets deep in the Chinese quarter.
‘Is it all right, do you think?’ Belle whispered to Oliver as Harry crossed the street and stood in front of what must be the restaurant.
‘I guess we’ll find out.’ He wrapped an arm around Belle’s shoulders and they followed Harry through the door.
Apart from themselves, the restaurant was deserted save for a lone barman.
‘Why so empty if it’s supposed to be so good?’ Belle said. ‘I don’t get it.’
The Missing Sister Page 21