She had arrived to strangling tension. No screaming fights—that had made it strange. Only closed doors, low voices, a palpable air of fury and disaster. The abbreviated explanation was that Cyril had well and truly torn it up this time, might be sent down, could even be arrested, and needed something to straighten him out. These were not new sentiments, but this time there was an air of finality to it all; a new determination.
He disappeared a week later, for “a job with the state,” and the promise he’d be gone for a good long while.
“I…” The radio played footsteps, the creaking of a door. “Steenie, I’m not going to … I didn’t know.” She wanted to tell him she wasn’t like her father, but that was patently untrue. She had striven every day of her adult life to emulate his skill, his poise, to live up to his name. A name that was now poison, which Stephen would have to bear. “They never did get along,” she said, instead.
It was the wrong thing. “Like us.”
“I love you, Steenie.” It got her a sideways glance, which was all she could have hoped for. “All right, you’re a tangle in my reins. I won’t say you aren’t.”
His shoulders came up around his ears. “So you don’t like me.”
“Steenie,” she said, and wanted to put a hand on his bare foot where it lay, just inches from her hand. He should be wearing socks; it was too cold for skin. “I … I don’t think I know you well enough to answer that.”
“I’m your son,” he said, indignant.
“Do you like me?” she asked.
His mouth did something that reminded her neither of Jinadh, nor of herself, and the truth of what she’d said struck her squarely in the heart—he was becoming his own person. It was terrifying, and incredible; she had made and raised someone who had grown opaque to her. A stranger.
She opened one arm. Stephen peered at her skeptically, so she raised her eyebrows and said, “Don’t be a beast, beastie.” It was what she’d called him when he was probably too small to remember, when Stephen or even Steenie seemed too big a name for such a tiny thing.
Almost managing to look put-upon, he shifted across the sofa cushions so she could settle her arm around his shoulders.
“What’s the jail like on the inside?” he asked. “Are there bars and all?”
He wanted to know about Cyril, and of course he wouldn’t ask. He was a DePaul. Why come at anything straight-on?
“Dull,” she said, because she couldn’t stand to tell him what he wanted to hear. “Cold. The furniture is ugly.”
“Can I go sometime?”
“We’ll see.”
He made a small, assenting sound, and the weight of his head relaxed against her shoulder. The next time she looked down, he had fallen asleep.
She didn’t manage the same, and was still awake to say good morning when Magnusson came to stoke the coals.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
Aristide swept his hands across the recently cleaned desk of his hotel suite. He had forgotten what color the blotter was. Boxes and sealed envelopes were stacked against one wall. Some were bound back to Liso for Cross. Many he would consign to the incinerator. Or rather, consign to Daoud for incineration. Various bribes, rewards, and remunerations—a healthy chunk of his remaining funds—were among the ephemera, ready to be distributed as his needs required. He hoped he wouldn’t need most of it, but he did like to be prepared.
Daoud was taking inventory of the boxes in his little blue notebook, checking their labels against some list he had scribbled earlier, presumably while he packed. He kept his nose firmly pressed between the pages, eyes cast down. Tension made the air thick as set aspic.
Reaching the end of the row of boxes, Daoud made a last tick mark and pinched his book closed so fast the paper snapped. “That is everything,” he said. “You are well set to leave Amberlough City.”
“Good.” Aristide opened his jacket, and took out an envelope. “That’s for you.”
Daoud watched him from across the room, but made no move to come closer. His eyes grew cold, and a certain haughty lift came into his posture.
“Severance.” Aristide dropped it on the blotter—a very nice shade of sage green, really. “More than generous, I think, given the terms of your contract.”
“I am remaining with Cross-Costa, Aristide. You are not. I do not think it is your right to sack me.”
Familiar pain from a bad tooth plagued Aristide when he clenched his jaw. “Take the rotten money.”
“Why? To ease your conscience?” Daoud sneered. “I am not a whore.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Dramatic? I am not the one who is planning some sort of jailbreak—”
“Didi,” he said, because the pet name came more easily. He hadn’t realized, until then, how hard the dental consonants could crack against his teeth in anger.
Apparently, neither had Daoud. He stopped abruptly, and the blood drained from beneath his dark brown skin, leaving his face flat and hollow.
“You aren’t going to cry, are you?” Embarrassed, Aristide retreated to the firm ground of cruelty.
The notebook was out of Daoud’s hand so fast that at first Aristide didn’t understand what had struck the far wall. And then Daoud was in front of him, palms pressed to the desk, eyes decidedly dry and alight with fury. “What is wrong with you, Aristide?”
“Not a damned thing,” he snapped. “I know it was you who told Lillian about Frye. I’ll thank you not to run out to every society lady you see, begging them to take me on for the sake of charity.”
“Then do not act as though you need it! How many times this month do you remember putting yourself to bed? And the mischief you get up to … bhakchala, Aristide, if nobody looks after you, you will drown in your own sick.”
“And you think it should be you? Because you clearly find it so rewarding.”
“Nobody is going to do it for you in prison! And I doubt that Cyril DePaul will manage!”
“Lower your voice at once,” demanded Aristide, looking over his shoulder as though someone might have overheard.
Daoud snatched up the envelope between them. “I do not follow your orders anymore. Not if you truly wish me to take this.”
“You’ll take it and turn tail.” Aristide didn’t know when he had stood from his chair, but he suddenly realized he was towering over Daoud, talking down and at volume to a man who had never grown past his slight adolescence.
It deflated his rage somewhat, and made him, paradoxically, feel small. Sinking back into his chair, he let Daoud’s glare push him deep into the upholstery. Eventually, the strength of it even pushed down his eyes. Staring at his fingers, steepled before his lips, he spoke to the garnet on his pinkie.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The words dragged through him like barbed wire, but he pulled them out all the same. If this was the last time they ever saw one another … life had taught him the utility of closure. “Daoud, you’ve been very … useful to me.”
He laughed, one harsh exclamation, and said, «A convenience.»
«No.» Aristide assayed it in Porashtu though he was bound to fail. «A … a firm place. A great help. And a friend.»
“I expect an excellent reference,” said Daoud, and walked out the door.
* * *
“Ma’am,” said Magnusson, from the door to the second-story office—she had begun to inhabit it, as though sitting at a desk might translate to work, and pay. How Daddy would have blanched at the thought.
But Daddy hadn’t been quite the good example she had made him out to be. Never had been.
“Yes?” She looked up from the household accounts, which she had spread across the badly scuffed blotter. The previous tenants had left the desk, but taken or sold the leather seat and filing cabinets, so she had brought a dining room chair up for the moment.
“That young man is here to see you. Mr. Qassan.”
Odd. He hadn’t rung, and she hadn’t spoken to Aristide in some time. What could he be
after? “Bring him up, please.”
Daoud’s appearance did not inspire confidence: a coat thrown over his suit, but no scarf and no hat on his head. The weather was warming, slightly, but it had not grown so temperate. Bloodshot eyes at the center of a pinched face cemented her suspicion that he had not come bearing good news.
“Mr. Qassan,” she said, standing from her chair and realizing too late there was no other to offer him. “Perhaps we could repair to the library? It will be warmer there.”
He managed something between a nod and a shrug, then bit down hard on his lower lip and dissolved into tears.
Alarmed, Lillian froze for a brief moment before compassion got her across the room. Daoud was small in her arms, not much bigger than Stephen, and since she was in pumps, his head fit just beneath her chin if she stretched up a little way. Weeping took ten years off his age, and if she guessed right he had not yet reached thirty.
“Queen’s sake,” she said, rubbing circles on his back. “What’s happened?”
He tried to breathe, but lost it to a sob. She felt his fist close on the loose knit of her cardigan.
“Magnusson?” she called, over his head.
The discreet butler reentered her line of sight from his post to the side of the door. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Fetch some whiskey, will you? Mr. Qassan is, er … indisposed.”
By the time Magnusson returned with the liquor, she had got Daoud settled into the straight-backed dining room chair, and was leaning one hip on the corner of the desk. Magnusson poured two glasses and left the decanter.
“Now,” she said, once Daoud had gotten a swallow down his throat. “What’s the problem?”
He pulled an envelope from inside his coat and dropped it onto his knees. “Severance pay, of a sort. I … I am still employed by Cross-Costa, but Aristide…” His face crumpled.
Lillian drank her whiskey to give herself time and then, as tenderly as she could manage: “Threw you over?”
His free hand made a fist, grinding into the top of his thigh. «Nothing so simple as that.»
He was too far away to comfort easily with touch, and anyway, now he looked too proud. Lillian set aside her glass and pressed her fingers to her lips, half in thought and half in sympathy.
«I’m sorry,» she said, joining him in Porashtu.
He shook his head. «No, it was long past time. I needed … we needed to end it. Still, I should be furious. I am furious. But also, terrified.»
«Of what?»
«Ms. DePaul—»
«Lillian,» she insisted. They had been through enough for that.
«Lillian. He’s already done something very foolish for your brother … »
«And you think he is going to do something else.»
He closed his eyes, and she saw the lids were shiny with fatigue, stained purple and threaded with broken blood vessels. «I know he is.»
She waited. He was going to tell her, or he wouldn’t have come.
«When they take Cyril to the courthouse, Aristide has … I was not part of this. I only booked their passages, found room in a hotel. I rang up some of Pulan’s people, and put him in touch with—»
«Daoud.»
She saw him right his wobbling voice, steady his panic. «They’re going to run.»
“Sorry?” she said. Then, «Wait, no. Please, don’t tell me. I can’t … the fewer people who know, it is better.»
Roughly, he wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. “I apologize,” he said. «But I can’t talk to him anymore. And I needed to talk to someone. What do I do? I don’t know what to do.»
The edge of the desk pressed into the backs of her thighs as her weight sank into it. Defeated? Relieved? It was hard to tell the difference. «Why do you need to do anything?»
Daoud stared at her, poleaxed. «He’s … he’s going to be arrested.»
Guilt, exhaustion, but yes. Horribly, the feeling was relief. «Whatever he does now, it is not your concern.» Was she talking about herself? Not quite. Cyril had not planned this scheme. More, she was speaking to the sense of grasping, the need to steer the course of events according to her own map. «It will work, or it will not work. You cannot stop him. All you can do is … » She tapped one finger on the surface of the blotter, searching for the word. “React. That’s what you control. Your own reaction to events. Not him. Not the world. Only yourself.” Tears made tiny prickles of pain at the inner corners of her eyes.
“I hate that,” he said.
She laughed. “Perhaps we should found an association.”
Daoud sipped his whiskey, then spoke to it. «I don’t know what I’m going to do.»
«Do you want to go back to Porachis?»
He shuddered like a pony shedding flies. «Heaven’s eyes, for what?»
She shrugged. «I just thought to ask. Will you stay with Cross-Costa?»
«For now, though not forever. I don’t suppose you need a secretary?» He had the decency to put his hope behind a scrap of humor, so it didn’t look quite so naked.
«Even if I could afford it, I would not hire you.» He looked stung, and rightly so, but she put up a hand to stop him interjecting. «How old are you?»
«Twenty-seven.»
«And what have you ever done for yourself?»
«I pay my way,» he said. «And send money to my parents.»
She shook her head. «I am not talking about money. When you worked for Satri, I rarely saw her without you at her elbow. I imagine it was the same for Aristide.»
«It was my job.»
«Was it your job to drop down on him?» The Porashtu idiom had always struck her as needlessly vulgar, but she employed it now for effect and it worked. Daoud’s anger curdled into grief and shame.
«Did you love him?» she asked.
He drew a breath as if to speak, then shook his head. «It was … he seemed like he needed something to hold onto.»
«And you like to be useful, very much.»
«You make me sound pathetic.»
«I didn’t mean to.»
But he was shaking his head. «He told me that I wasn’t a challenge. And I think he’s right.» She saw him shove aside a fresh bout of weeping. «I’ll go,» he said, moving to discard his half-drunk whiskey on her desk. «I’m sorry.»
«No.» She put her hand to his glass and stopped him setting it down. «Please.»
«Why?»
She cast around the bare, chilly room for an excuse, but nothing convenient presented itself. That left her with the truth. «I said I did not want you as a secretary. But I would like to keep you as a friend.»
* * *
Daoud stayed for dinner, and made no comment on the quality of the food. In fact, by the end of the meal he seemed almost happy—to be speaking his own language again, as an individual at a table of equals, out from under the shadow of his erstwhile employer.
After Stephen went upstairs, ostensibly to study for his imminent reentry exam, they adjourned to the library for drinks and the welcome warmth of the fire. Lillian, who had been looking at the accounts when Daoud dropped in, mourned the last of a decanter of Tolishnaughcaul. That was an extravagance they couldn’t sustain.
«Will you go back to Sykes House tonight?» Lillian asked, watching Daoud navigate the complexities of the peated whiskey.
He cleared his throat. «I should. My things are there. And it is too late now to go looking for new accommodations.»
«We would offer you a place here,» said Jinadh, who had been briefly apprised of the situation. «Unfortunately, the spare bedrooms aren’t exactly inhabitable right now.» As in, they both lacked beds, and most other necessary accoutrements.
Daoud shook his head. «It’s all right. I’m a grown man; I shouldn’t mind.»
«If only that were how aging worked.» Jinadh tipped the rest of his whiskey back and then said, «Bad manners, but I’m afraid I need to get to bed. You two stay up as long as you like.»
«No, no.» Daoud stood, too. Lillian n
oticed he had not finished his drink. She was above pouring it back into the decanter once he’d gone, but certainly not above finishing it for him.
There was an awkward moment in which Jinadh and Daoud didn’t quite know how to say goodbye—Daoud put his hand out for a shake and interrupted Jinadh’s attempt at a cheek-to-cheek air kiss. If this had been an embassy ball or some other diplomatic occasion, Lillian would have blanched. But instead it gave her a spot of sorely needed mirth.
“Before you go,” she said, after Jinadh had left them, “I have a favor to ask.”
“Of course.”
“In the future,” she said, sweeping the library ladder from the corner, “you might ask what you’re agreeing to. I’ve avoided too many scrapes to count, that way.”
His laugh was rueful. “I will make a note.”
She lined the ladder up beneath the third decorative panel from the wall and climbed past empty shelves. Depressing a latch disguised as an ivy leaf, she released the panel from the wall to reveal a combination safe. “Hold this?” she asked.
Failing to hide his surprise, Daoud took the panel from her.
She spun the dial through its paces and the safe swung silently open to reveal a velvet box containing Grandmama’s medals, her mother’s diamond collar, and her parents’ wedding rings. If the previous occupants had found this safe, she imagined it all would have vanished along with the paintings and the furniture. She might have to sell the jewels herself, if fortune didn’t fill the family’s sails and soon.
Under the baubles was a small pile of papers. Her wedding contract, Stephen’s birth certificate, the deeds to Damesfort and to Coral Street. Beneath it all, in a plain brown envelope: a passport for Ambrose van Weill.
She slipped this free and locked the safe again, then climbed down and gave the little booklet to Daoud. He flipped the passport open to Cyril’s photograph: half starved and all wrung out.
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