by Will Adams
‘It was only after Mama died. She was everything to him.’
‘No reason to take it out on you.’
‘No.’
‘And it was just you, right? He never went after your sister?’
‘Not Emilia, no. He absolutely doted on her. He did fall out very badly with Pierre, I remember; but they made that up in the end.’
‘And what about after you left for England?’
‘That was the end of it. He only ever got angry when he was drunk, you see; and he never touched another drop after I left.’
‘You believe that?’
‘Emilia vouched for it. She wouldn’t have lied; not about that.’
‘Is that why you never came back? Scared you’d set him drinking again?’
‘I made him unhappy,’ she said. ‘It’s a horrid thing, making someone you love unhappy.’
‘Why would you make him unhappy?’
‘I don’t know. Not for sure.’ They crossed a slender thread of stream. Two Malagasy women, their fine African faces covered in yellow masks to keep their complexions pale, gathered dried washing from its far bank. ‘The only thing I could think of was that I looked quite like my mother when she was my age. Some of the things he shouted, it was like he was shouting at her.’
‘Angry at her for dying,’ suggested Daniel. ‘Taking it out on you?’
‘Grief isn’t always logical, you know,’ she said. ‘Besides, I was a poisonous little brat. I knew how to push his buttons.’
‘You were fourteen years old.’
Tears sprang into her eyes; she turned away to wipe them. ‘We argued a lot,’ she said. ‘He made me go to church. I hated church. I didn’t believe in God, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have wanted to worship him after he’d taken Mama. And it offended me that Papa did. He’d raised us to think like scientists. Religion always seemed so… cowardly.’’
‘So you taunted him about his faith until he got drunk and came after you?’
A greybeard was walking towards them down the road, carrying a green turtle on his shoulder. Rebecca shook her head at him as she passed. It was illegal here to kill turtles of any species, to hunt their eggs or sell their shells or meat, but no one paid any attention. Turtle killing was still a great event in some of these communities. They’d sacrifice them on mangrove altars, offer libations to their ancestors for future success, not realising that each one they killed made their future success less likely. ‘He didn’t really believe,’ she said. ‘Not really. It was a way of keeping Mama alive, you know?’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘I know.’
‘He had this expression: “We don’t believe because we think. We believe because we love.” I didn’t understand what he meant back then.’
‘You do now?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve learned I’m not perfect either.’ She looked across at him. ‘I’m going to find him, you know. I’m going to find them both.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he assured her. ‘And if you need any help…’
‘What?’ she smiled. ‘Apart from driving all the way to Tulear with me to help bring back my boat?’
‘Yes,’ he said seriously. ‘Apart from that.’
‘Thanks,’ she nodded. ‘I might just take you up on that.’
II
It took Boris far longer than he’d anticipated to find a suitable rendezvous spot for his meet with the gun dealer, and he returned to the hotel in a foul mood that quickly grew worse when he saw Davit’s empty porch, then heard the unmistakeable creaks coming from inside his cabin. ‘Davit!’ he yelled, pounding on his door. ‘Open up, damn you.’
‘One minute,’ called out Davit.
‘Now!’
There was scuffling. The door opened and Davit appeared, a towel around his midriff. ‘Can’t this wait?’
‘No.’ Davit was trying to block his view of the bed, but Boris still caught a glimpse of Claudia lying beneath a rumpled white sheet. He felt an unexpectedly sharp twinge of jealousy; he’d been looking forward to enjoying her himself. ‘I told you to watch out for Knox,’ he said. ‘Can’t you do a damned thing right?’
‘Relax, boss. I know where he is.’ He came out on to the porch, closed his door behind him, picked up the guidebook. ‘This place called Eden. Claudia says the track is still closed from the last cyclone, so we can’t drive down; but it should be easy to hire a pirogue.’
Boris thought about it as he read the brief write-up. Taking a pirogue would leave him dependent on other people, which he hated. It would mean leaving a trail a mile wide too. On the other hand, his mission would be far easier in a secluded nature reserve rather than here or on a salvage ship. He glanced along the beach at the wooden boat turned turtle on the sand. With the outboard engine in reception, a tent and some other supplies from the camping store, he and Davit could easily pretend to be a couple of hikers off for a night or two in the spiny forest. But first they needed that boat. ‘Get your girlfriend up,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a job for her.’
III
Knox and Rebecca crossed a fat river on a long bridge and then were in Tulear, a large town of ramshackle housing and broken roads. Thin men hauled gaudy rickshaws while young women lounged at enticing angles against the walls. Knox waited outside with Zanahary while Rebecca went in to see her lawyer, give him the insurance documentation for her father’s boat so he could have the port captain release the Yvette into their possession.
The paperwork took its own sweet time. It was twilight by the time everything was sorted. They drove out to the harbour, a man-made island at the end of a kilometrelong promontory. The Yvette was moored against its wall, its deck a good three feet beneath the jetty. Knox jumped down; Rebecca, too. Her ankle turned as she landed; she would have fallen had he not grabbed her forearm. ‘Careful, now,’ he said.
He took his time inspecting the boat. They’d need to leave before dawn to reach Eden by nightfall, so he needed to familiarise himself with it now. It had its own inboard, but it was a sailboat first and foremost, designed to be handled from the stern. He opened the main hatch, clambered down into the hold, looked over the engine, propeller shaft, bilge pump and retractable centreboard. There was enough diesel for a couple of hours cruising, though not enough to get them all the way back to Eden. The water tank had a hook glued to its backside, a bunch of keys dangling from it, presumably spares for the lodge. Back on deck, he inspected the anchor and then the bench lockers. Orange life-jackets; flares and a flare gun; a boathook; coils of synthetic rope; an inflatable life-raft. There was dive-gear too. A pair of snorkels and masks, a couple of boxes of home-made lead weights, a scuba tank with a red-tag to indicate it was filled with air; a wet-suit, a buoyancy-control device and a regulator. There were also biscuits, canned foods, bottles of water, soft drinks and beer. All valuable stuff, yet not taken.
The bridge was set down in the deck, but offered good views on all sides, though the windows were scratched and tired. It was better equipped than he’d expected, too, with VHF radio, GPS and sonar, a compass in a brass binnacle and a varnished wooden wheel. He turned on the GPS, hoping to find a record of the boat’s movements around the time Adam and Emilia had gone missing, but either it hadn’t been turned on that day or the information had since been deleted. The bridge was too cramped for a map table, so Adam had instead rigged a corkboard to a system of pulleys that could be raised when needed, then lowered out of sight again. A chart of the Eden reefs was currently pinned to it, protected by a sheet of acetate. It was marked not just with the usual depth lines and tidal information, but also with Adam’s own additions, Latin and Greek characters, zodiac signs and dates, some ringed or boxed or in triangles. There was no key to explain these symbols, however, and it was too dark to make them worth the study.
He unfurled the mainsail, checked the mast and rigging, then furled it back up again. A hatch opened on to living quarters. He climbed down a ladder into a cramped cabin with fold-away bunk-beds against one wall, a compact gall
ey on the other, with a fridge and cooker and a small cupboard filled with tinned food and condiments. A framed photograph on the far wall showed Emilia and her son Michel. A sliding door concealed the WC, washbasin and a large chest of medical supplies.
‘How much longer?’ asked Rebecca, climbing down to join him. ‘Only we should probably find ourselves a hotel.’
‘All done,’ he told her. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
NINETEEN
I
Boris had to wait to find out about the boat and outboard, because they both belonged to a local tour guide, and he was away for the day. He showed up during dinner, but only shook his head regretfully when Boris asked him to name his price. It wasn’t for sale, he assured him. His clients liked to go fishing and hiking and exploring the islands. Boris was welcome to rent it for a very modest sum, but this wasn’t just a boat, he must understand, it was his livelihood.
Boris wasn’t interested in a rental. He didn’t know how long he’d need it, or whether he’d want to come back this way; and there was also a fair chance it would get damaged or destroyed. Besides, it wasn’t his money. He fished out his wad, therefore, began slapping fiftyeuro notes down on the table. The tour guide trailed off and fell silent, licking his lower lip.
They dragged the boat into the shallows, rocked it this way and that to check for leaks. The outboard was an old Honda four-stroke, simple to fit, start and steer. Not ideal for long journeys, but perfectly adequate for burbling them down the coast, so they shook hands upon it, both happy with the bargain. Now all Boris needed was camping supplies. Oh. And his gun, of course.
II
Zanahary swore blind he knew the best hotel in town; the best at giving backhanders, thought Rebecca, when she saw it. But it was late and she and Daniel were both too tired to go hunting for anything better. What with her father’s Jeep waiting for her back at Eden, she didn’t need a hire car any more, so she thanked Zanahary and signed off on his paperwork. Then she and Daniel followed the concierge upstairs to neighbouring rooms, huge and grey with wire mosquito mesh over the windows, chunks of plaster gouged from the walls, wardrobes with neither drawers nor rails. ‘Fancy something to eat?’ asked Daniel.
‘I need to freshen up first.’ She hoisted her overnight bag on to the double bed. It creaked loudly beneath the modest weight, so she transferred to the single. She could hear Daniel pottering around next door. For some unaccountable reason she remembered how she’d stumbled on the Yvette’s deck earlier, and he’d caught her arm. ‘Careful now,’ he’d said.
Careful now, indeed!
These past few years, she’d grown accustomed to signing the cheques, taking the decisions, being the boss. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a whole day with a man whose help she needed, yet over whom she’d had neither authority nor leverage; and she wasn’t quite sure that she liked it. She took a shower, was drying herself off when Daniel knocked. ‘Ready yet?’ he asked.
‘Another minute.’
‘I’ll be downstairs.’
She spread her clothes out on her bed, wishing she’d given a little more thought to her packing this morning. She put on blue jeans and a ruby T-shirt, then did her make-up. The mirror was cracked and dull, and the light above the sink was infuriating, flickering for an age, then springing on abruptly, before breaking into flickers once more. She went out, locked up. Daniel was on a swing-bench chatting to a Malagasy woman with bleached-blonde hair and a turquoise tracksuit. Even as Rebecca watched, she got up on to her knees on the bench and whispered something in Daniel’s. He laughed and shook his head. She pulled an expression of mock affront then unzipped her tracksuit top, grabbed his hand and pressed it against her breast.
Sensations both hot and cold warred inside Rebecca. The cold ones won. Her heels slapped the bare concrete as she made her way down. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Still want something to eat, or have you found something better to do?’
‘This is Mimi,’ said Daniel. ‘I think she likes me.’
‘I’m sure she can be here when we get back, if you ask her nicely.’ It came out more tartly than she’d intended. He raised an amused eyebrow, which for some reason infuriated her. She led the way out of the hotel, waved down a taxi, directed the driver to an old haunt. They took a table on the terrace. ‘Drink?’ asked Daniel.
‘Not for me.’
Daniel went to the bar, returned with a large bottle of Stella Gold, ice-cold and sweating, its label peeling free. He poured them each a glass, offered his in a toast. ‘Your health,’ he said.
‘Don’t drink too much,’ she told him. ‘We’ve got an early start.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘That girl was just being friendly.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
A young waitress appeared at their table. She had shiny jet-black skin stretched so tightly over her cheekbones it looked as though someone had poked a straw through the back of her skull and sucked all the air out. She took their orders from a distance, as though nervous of touching them by accident. And when she walked between the tables, it was in an apologetic, sideways crouch, one arm in front, one behind, like a figure from an Egyptian tomb painting come to life.
A Malagasy band and dancers began performing. Their music was jangling, primal. Madagascar’s humpback topography meant the only station they could pick up on this coast twenty years ago was Radio Mozambique, so Tulear had developed its own distinctive sound, a blend of Malagasy and African. The men strummed furiously while their women wailed and jiggled their buttocks like jackhammers; press down on their shoulders and you could dig up roads. The crude, overt sexuality of their dance soured Rebecca’s mood even further. There was still no sign of their food. Their waitress finally appeared with a woven basket of baguette slices and a bowl of nuts. Rebecca’s hand hovered above them like a crane-grab in the fairground game, looking for rich studs of salt.
Daniel tore a chunk of white flesh from a baguette, tossed it on to the tiled floor behind her. She turned to look. A ring-tailed lemur was tethered by a long, thin black leash to the limb of a tree. They were delightful creatures, these shrunken kangaroos with their long, hooped black-and-white tails. They had springs in their legs; they bounced all over the place. This one was male; she could tell from the black packet of his crotch. He began bounding up and down with excitement at the sight of the bread, just out of his reach. Daniel got up, walked across, picked up the morsel, held it out. The ring-tail seized it in both forepaws, ate it greedily, then bounced exuberantly for more. Daniel laughed and tore off another piece, crouched low to lure the ring-tail on to his arm, his shoulder and finally on to his head. He looked across at Rebecca and grinned like a schoolboy who’d done something clever.
‘Don’t do that,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Lemurs aren’t domesticated. They’re not pets’
He took the ring-tail off his head, set him down. ‘He seems happy enough.’
‘And how would you know? An expert on Lemur catta, are you?’
‘That’s not exactly-’
‘Ring-tails are social animals,’ said Rebecca. ‘They need their own kind.’ Even to her own ears, her voice sounded unnecessarily strained. She was aware of other diners falling quiet around her, but there was something inside her that had to get out. ‘They need to groom and be groomed. They need their family. They need to be part of a group, not isolated by themselves and tied on strings for the amusement of moron tourists.’
He looked strangely at her as he came to sit back down. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘No,’ she said stiffly. ‘Evidently.’
A forty-year-old tourist with a paunch and thinning brown hair entered the restaurant at that moment, wearing leather trousers and a gaudy shirt, holding hands with a dazzlingly beautiful young Malagasy girl. You found plenty of Europeans like this in Madagascar. They couldn’t hack it back home, so they came out here, taking advantage of the pover
ty to hire themselves a succession of teen dolls and make out like they were studs. He took the neighbouring table, leaned back in his chair, shouted out for a carafe of red wine in a manner designed to let everyone know he was on cordial terms with the patron. He glanced across at Rebecca, looked her up and down with approval, then threw Daniel a smirk of congratulation, along with an inquisitive little raise of the eyebrow, as if to suggest they might want to try trading sometime.
Daniel sagged visibly in his chair, as though sensing trouble, but Rebecca felt only an icy calm. She said in a deliberately loud voice: ‘Did I ever tell you about the study of sex tourism we did when I was at Oxford?’
The man was clearly startled by her English. He pulled a self-deprecating face to acknowledge and apologise for his gaffe. Rebecca ignored him. ‘It was fascinating,’ she went on. ‘Did you know that men who pay for sex have shorter, thinner penises than normal men? That they masturbate more and earn less. And that they’re more likely to live with their mothers into their thirties.’
‘Come on, Rebecca,’ said Daniel. ‘Let it go.’
She frowned in feigned puzzlement. ‘It’s only a study,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d find it interesting. I’m sure you’d never use whores yourself. You’re not the type, after all. I’m sure that girl at the hotel was just being friendly, like you said. I mean, sex tourists are usually obese, ugly and of subnormal intelligence. And you’re not remotely obese.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Rebecca.’
Their neighbour looked a little sick too. He leaned across, his voice low. ‘I think maybe I make offence,’ he said. ‘I am sorry if this is-’
‘Not at all,’ Rebecca assured him. ‘I’m just telling my friend here about a study I did at university.’ She turned back to Daniel. ‘Where was I? Yes. Did you know that sex tourists are twice as likely to be bald as normal men, and that they suffer disproportionately from premature ejaculation? It’s quite true. And not-as you might think-because they pay by the minute and are too cheap to hold back. No. It’s because they’re socially inadequate, very low-status, I mean full-blown omegas. They usually only ever have the chance for opportunistic sex, when the-’