They were taken to a room overlooking the front garden and, once they were alone, Belle turned to him. ‘Just one room?’
‘Do you mind? I thought it’d be safer. I can sleep in the armchair.’
She thought about what to do.
‘Or I can ask for another room?’ he said.
‘Do your friends think … well, you know.’
‘Would it bother you if they did?’
‘A little. I wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea about us. About me.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve explained about what happened. They understand we need to stay together. He’s ex-military, nerves of steel and afraid of nothing, so exactly the right person to have on our side. It will be fine.’
‘All right.’ She paused, then walked across to him and touched his cheek. ‘We’ll both sleep in the bed.’
‘Maybe a bath first and something to eat?’
‘Maybe,’ she said and looked into his shining blue eyes, then reached up to kiss him.
The impact of what had happened to them and how close they had been to dying had flooded them both with a need for comfort and safety. Later, as they lay on the bed after their baths and the delicious supper he’d promised but she’d hardly been able to eat, Belle began to shake. Fear snaked through her again, reaching every part of her until it curled inside her chest. It felt like the massacre all over again. More than anything she longed to be held and told everything would be all right. But everything was not going to be all right. Not while she remained in Burma. And although Oliver did hold her tightly and she could feel his heart beating against hers, she also knew how badly he’d been shaken too. Then the tears began. It was delayed shock, he murmured, and she knew he was right because now the terror coursed through her, crushing her inside herself so she hardly knew who she was. She tried to speak but stuttered and stumbled over the words until she was gulping and choking and flapping her hands. He helped her to sit up and held a glass of water to her lips.
When she was calmer he asked if she was ready to talk about what had happened in Rangoon.
She looked at him in silence and then, at first haltingly, began to express her sorrow. She told him everything and all the fear she’d buried and never shared finally came flooding out. The atrocities she’d witnessed, the spilt blood, the animal brutality and wretched wasted lives, and then, gasping at the memory, she told him about the tiny baby she’d found alive. When she’d finished weeping, he stroked her cheeks and kissed her forehead with such utter gentleness.
‘I’m scared,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘What are we going to do?’
He took her hand in his and squeezed. ‘I don’t know. Let’s get some sleep and think about it tomorrow when we’re fresh.’
After breakfast the next morning they cycled through the cool leafy town under a pale-blue sky. Oliver pointed out the various British governmental houses and the homes of dignitaries involved in running Burma. She took it all in, wondering at the luxury of their homes compared with the tiny shacks of the local people. When Oliver once again voiced his belief that one day Burma would be for the Burmese, she agreed.
‘Not before time,’ he added with a nod. ‘The signs are everywhere.’
‘You mean the unrest?’
‘Yep. Right across the Empire. It’ll change, and soon.’
They stopped at a flower market lining the edges of one of the main thoroughfares. The air, awash with the delicate scent of purple and white flowers, filled Belle with an odd kind of bitter-sweet delight. They slipped into the huge botanical gardens where they found a tall shady tamarind tree to sit and lean against. As she studied the teak trees in the distance, Oliver explained how the British had been drawn to Burma because of teak. They’d needed it for the navy and it had soon become a growing source of revenue along with gold and rubies from the Shan States, and jade found in the mines of the far north. And after the British exiled the last king of Burma to India, everything had been there for the taking.
He tilted her chin up. ‘So. How are you feeling?’
‘Still awfully shaken.’
He nodded. ‘It might be best if I go back to Rangoon alone.’
‘And I stay here?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d rather come with you.’
‘Jeremy and Brenda would watch out for you.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Either that or we smuggle you down to Rangoon and sneak you on to an aeroplane.’
‘I’ve heard there are passenger aeroplanes now.’
‘Imperial Airways. Not many flights though. It takes eleven days to reach London.’
She thought about it.
‘If I knew who was behind the bomb, I’d know where to start.’
‘Who do you think it might be?’ she asked.
‘I think the whole thing may be political. In 1935 the Government of Burma Act ruled that Burma should be separated from British India. A new Senate and a House of Representatives would be created. Your friend Edward de Clemente is on the committee drawing up the final details of the constitution and the electoral rolls ready for general elections.’
‘I didn’t realize.’
‘Everyone involved in this transition has to be above suspicion for the recommendations to be acceptable. So, I would guess someone high up is feeling under threat because of you.’
‘And you think?’
‘A cover-up. That’s what I think. It’s obvious someone has concealed the truth about what happened on the day your sister vanished.’
‘Do you suspect Edward?’
‘Not specifically. It could be anyone.’
There was a long silence. Belle listened to the buzzing of flying insects and the sound of the breeze rustling the leaves overhead. For as far as the eye could see everything was green.
‘Let’s walk to the lake,’ Oliver suggested, and they wheeled their bicycles to another part of the park where swans slid across the silvery water.
‘Did I tell you the doorman at the Strand said his father heard a baby screaming in the night back in 1911? He was a watchman.’
‘A long time ago to remember.’
‘Well, there was no baby staying at the hotel and when he reached the back of the hotel he spotted a car racing away. The episode stayed with him.’
‘Did he report it?’
‘I think he was persuaded not to.’
‘Worth investigating.’
‘You think?’
He nodded.
‘In that case, I’m going back with you.’
‘It may come to nothing.’
She looked at him. ‘Oliver, I don’t think I can leave Burma until I know what happened to Elvira, and I’ve got my house to think about too. I can’t simply leave it to rot.’
‘You can’t go back to the hotel.’
‘No.’
‘Stay with me.’
She gazed at him. ‘What will people think?’
‘Despite the signs of scandalous goings-on here all the time, they will gossip and pretend to be outraged. Maybe some will be genuinely shocked, but in any case, your safety is the single most important issue right now.’
45.
Diana, Minster Lovell, 1925
I’ve lived as if my whole life has been defined by one moment in the garden in Burma. I want to scream out but that is not me, and then I wonder if it’s true. Maybe we all have one defining moment from which we can never escape?
The day I really do escape is a day like any other. The sun is attempting to shine through hazy clouds and I’m sitting in my usual chair.
I feel as if I’ll drown when he asks me to picture the day I lost Elvira. He tells me I don’t have to do it, but I know I must. I close my eyes. Time and time again I try but something keeps on stopping me, as if a solid wall prevents me from going further. I push against it, but it won’t give way. He says I’m trying too hard and encourages me not to focus on the pram at a
ll but to gently recall all the other lovely details of the garden. As I relax and begin to drift, the pretty summer house appears, although I don’t see myself inside it. Then other images begin to stream through my mind. And when I picture the orchid tree with its heart-shaped leaves and flowers of white and pink, and the huge canopies where the monkeys swung in the branches, I smile. I can see the luminous green birds, smell the beautiful scented flowers: roses in June and July, huge poinsettia bushes with bright red flowers in December and asters surrounded by delicate white butterflies in spring. Slowly I sink back into the past and it really is as if I’m there in Burma, sweltering in the humid air.
As if from a great distance I hear him ask what else I can see. I shake my head and feel my breathing quicken. Only the pram under the tamarind tree, I say.
Dr Gilbert does not speak again.
Then, when I feel I can’t bear to look any more, I’m felled by a blurred image. I squeeze my eyes even more tightly shut as I try to focus. Or not. I’m unsure which. The image sharpens, and I make out a woman dressed in black, hurrying away from the pram and carrying a bundle. It is over in a flash and I wonder if I’m imagining it, but then I see her again as she turns to check if anyone has spotted her and for the briefest moment I feel as if I know who she is.
It was not I who harmed my baby girl. It was not I.
I open my eyes and see Dr Gilbert smiling at me. Well done, my dear, he says. Well done.
46.
They were to spend one more night in Maymo, and Belle could tell something fundamental had changed. Their relationship had tilted, become subtly different. She felt self-conscious as she undressed before him in tongue-tied silence, head bowed, full of an unfamiliar mix of feelings. Hope? Anticipation? Maybe even a little apprehension? Perhaps having survived such a close escape together had made her more attentive to her deepest feelings, maybe the peaceful day they’d spent had cemented their bond, maybe it was because she’d finally been able to talk about the massacre in Rangoon. Or maybe it was all of those things. Whatever it was, she felt she had lost the ability to communicate in words and the air in the room was alive with unspoken need. From the start there had been a strong pull between them. Now he didn’t take his eyes from her and when she lifted her head and returned his gaze she saw the depth of longing there. Whatever it was that had drawn them closer, the time had come.
He undressed too and, as they stood naked before each other, it was as if, unguarded, they had tacitly agreed to unwrap their innermost selves, expose their flaws, their insecurities, their open desire. It wasn’t cold, but she shivered slightly and held out a hand to him.
In the bed he commanded her to lie still. She barely moved as he caressed her body and, as he did, she felt every moment with such heightened sensuality that, still holding back a little, it was like exquisite torture. Each touch of his fingers – on her neck, her breasts, her thighs, her mouth – electrified her. Each brush of his lips left her gasping. And then it changed again. As the intensity soared she felt herself releasing all the tensions and worries she’d been carrying for so long; letting go of the pain and fear too. Now she wanted him so much her mind dwelt on nothing else.
‘Make love to me now,’ she demanded, her voice urgent.
The sex itself was powerful, exhilarating, and it made her want to cry, though not with tears of sadness; these would be tears of liberation, and of joy, and then, before she’d realized what was happening, laughter began to bubble through her. It tipped and soared and became unstoppable. Such innocent, natural laughter she could not remember experiencing before. She felt childlike, free, like one of the birds she’d released at the Shwedagon Pagoda.
He laughed with her, then raised himself up on one elbow and searched her face, his focus absolute. ‘If you knew how long I’ve been wanting to do that!’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘How long?’
‘Umm.’ He twisted his mouth to one side as if considering. ‘Since the first moment I set eyes on you.’
She grinned and felt the thrill all the way through her still-tingling body.
‘Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?’
She dug him in the ribs. ‘If that was hurting, please can you hurt me some more?’
‘Right now?’
‘Uh-huh.’
He laughed. ‘You’re a hard task master.’
This time they took it incredibly slowly and afterwards he told her he loved her and he always would. She took his hand and kissed the tips of his fingers, then snuggled in close to him, exhausted, but with her mind at peace.
The next day Oliver stowed their luggage in racks above their heads on what turned out to be a train to Rangoon with no first-class carriages. They shared theirs with a few sleeping Indian men and, intermittently, different Burmese women transporting fruit and vegetables further down the line. Apart from the smell of their cheroots, it wasn’t too bad. But when a fish-seller joined them, Belle was forced to stand, wilting, beside a window so badly jammed it provided only the slightest hint of warm air. From there she could smell smoke from village fires and vendors cooking on charcoal beside the railway track. The smoke made her cough but was an improvement on nausea induced by the smell of fish.
Every hour or so hordes of vendors battered at the windows or traversed the aisles selling sticky rice and chilli noodle snacks. Why the train kept stopping and waiting, Belle and Oliver didn’t know. In some cases, it appeared the tracks were still under repair, but other stops remained inexplicable and nobody seemed able to answer their questions about the delay. Whenever they halted, Oliver insisted she keep close to him as thieves were known to haunt the wilder and more desolate stations, ready to slip aboard and steal from sleepy passengers.
Now she was over the initial shock caused by the explosion, Belle felt happy and relieved to be with him again, although she wished the circumstances could have been different. Deep in the core of her she felt his presence. That he’d saved her life meant everything and she leant against him, drinking in the smell of his skin and praying nothing more would endanger them. Oliver, however, seemed on edge, constantly surveying the people climbing on and off the train as well as gazing out at the platform at every stop. He wore sunshades and a straw hat, making it tricky for others to spot what he was doing, but she could feel the tension in his whole body. She eyed any newcomers too but when half a dozen police officers boarded she relaxed a little.
After an execrable 386-mile journey taking three days, far longer than it should have done, they arrived back in the damp, clinging heat of Rangoon and headed straight for Oliver’s apartment. With a sense of enormous relief, and no thought for what might lie ahead, they both lay back on his bed without even changing. He reached for her hand and immediately his breathing slowed. Belle, too exhausted to feel much, nevertheless knew what had happened between them meant something she’d secretly hoped for but had only ever vaguely understood. It had meaning, this relationship, meaning that spoke of the present, yes, but also of the future. And she knew the strength of the love between them would bring a completely different kind of life. She felt sure of that, if nothing else. Then she closed her eyes, curled into him and slept too.
Belle woke first to find they were wrapped in each other’s arms as if their bodies had known what their souls needed even if they had been too tired. She touched the stubble on his chin, enjoying the comfort, the closeness, his warm breath on her cheek, and when he opened his eyes he smiled at her. She kissed him hard on the lips and felt again his hardness against her body. As she traced the contours of his dear face with her fingertips she saw how beautiful he was, his skin golden and glowing, his eyes blue and full of feeling. They made love, gently at first, but ending with such passion it made her shout out. He covered her mouth softly to stop her and whispered to be quiet. When the rise and fall of her chest had returned to normal she wriggled out from under his embrace and slipped into the bathroom for a wash. All her clothes were dirty now, so she rinsed out a blouse and a long skirt
and hung them to dry above the bath.
When she emerged, her hair hanging wet and limp around her face, it was to see Oliver with his back to her, busily making coffee.
He twisted round when he heard her and smiled with such tenderness her heart literally missed a beat. To feel such love while in the grip of fear was beyond words.
‘Sorry, there’s no food,’ he said. ‘I’ll nip out and get something.’
‘I’m not really hungry. Coffee would be nice.’
‘Come here,’ he said, with an even broader smile brightening his face.
But suddenly harsh reality took over and with it the fear grew stronger. Her chest constricted as she whispered, ‘Someone tried to kill me.’ She remained where she was and inspected the floor. Anything not to have to think.
‘It will be okay,’ he said.
She raised her head to look at him. ‘Will it?’
He gave her a nod. ‘Come here,’ he repeated.
She walked over to him and he held her close, gently stroking her hair. ‘We are going to make sure it is all right. Together.’
She felt safer knowing he was there. This bond they shared was instinctive. It was an honest bond by which each declared to the other I know who you are and what I don’t know I want to find out. The words ‘a meeting of souls’ came into her thoughts and although it felt like a cliché, it was the truth.
When they set out for the Strand Hotel and began to tread the familiar streets, Belle felt a throb of anxiety. Although it was busy and people were everywhere, if someone wanted to trail them she knew it would be a moment’s work to slip unnoticed into the shadows. Oliver remained encouraging, but she feared another attack, worried every man they passed might be concealing a knife, or even a gun. She held tight to Oliver, but her eyes darted everywhere, and she was unable to corral her fears. Sensing her increasing unease, he steered her through the crowds and then quickly hailed a rickshaw.
The Missing Sister Page 23