The Colonel's Daughter

by Rose Tremain

  ‘Why don’t you go off and have a game of golf, George?’ Beryl suggested.

  George smiled. ‘I can’t play with myself, Beryl.’

  Beryl placed her two hands comfortingly on her stomach and tried to breathe deeply. A novice at the Wakelin All Saints Yoga for Beginners, she had learned that pain can be relieved by mind control allied to correct breathing.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, George. I don’t know whether it was the shark or Monica’s cocktail, or just simply me. I didn’t take to that Weissmann, did you?’

  ‘Just rest, Beryl.’

  ‘I’m alright to talk. I wouldn’t want to be Brewer, would you?’

  ‘He’s changed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be at the beck and call of a spoilt person like that.’

  ‘Brewer doesn’t seem to mind. And anyway, we don’t know him, Beryl. I expect art connoisseurs are a difficult lot.’

  ‘Do go and play golf, dear. I’m sure you’ll find someone to give you a game.’

  George got up and crossed to the bed. ‘Going to have a bit of a sleep, then, are you?’

  ‘I think I will.’

  ‘Good boat, wasn’t it? Imagine owning that.’

  ‘Too powerful for me. Too built up.’

  ‘Built up?’

  ‘Well, it was just one deck put on top of another, put on top of another, wasn’t it? No line.’

  George looked fondly at Beryl. There were moments – not very many – when his abiding sense of his wife as a humdrum woman suddenly parted like the Red Sea and another (sensitive, sharp-witted) Beryl came striding through. This was one such moment.

  ‘Rest, love,’ he said gently, and touched her forehead with his finger, as if offering her a benediction.

  Beryl closed her eyes and seemed, in that instant, asleep. George tiptoed out of the room and quietly closed the door. He walked to the balcony window of the sitting room and stared longingly at the golf course. Above it, behind the palms, the sky was flat and grey – a peculiarly English sky – and the wind was blowing hard. The sun hadn’t been seen after they’d sat down to lunch at River Kingdom, and the journey home through choppy water had been disagreeable. Weissmann had left the boat with only a nod to George and Beryl, saying anxiously to Brewer, ‘There may be a storm. Make sure the mooring is very safe.’

  George had no sense of any impending storm, but the golf course was clearly deserted. Palmetto people only played golf in the sunshine. Or else they knew that a storm was coming, they read signs that George was unable to decipher, bought their evening griddle steaks and drew their heavy curtains.

  It was warm in the room. George opened the sliding balcony window. The parasol had been closed and only the fringe moved slightly with the wind. George sat down at the table and rubbed his eyes. Too much has happened, he thought, in the space of time I had reserved only for an arrival. The extraordinary early morning joy, the girl with her damp breasts and her disdain, the ride in the Cadillac, the boat trip, lunch, Choots, tiny glimpses into worlds and lives he would never know; he was left with a feeling of stifling confusion. ‘I need time,’ he said aloud, ‘I need more time.’

  He began to soothe himself with the comfort of the coming days and weeks. Hot, quiet days spent with Beryl on the golf course, lunches at the pool, shopping for gifts for Jennifer in the famous shopping malls, a day trip to Miami beach . . .

  George sat back, folded his arms. He was tired, he now recognised. The time change had suddenly hit him. He closed his eyes, heard the wind fill his head. Why had no one mentioned the presence of the wind? Then, on the edge of sleep, he heard his own voice announce with sudden and absolute certainty: ‘They’re gone.’ His eyes snapped open. He stared down, tracing each concrete foot of the balcony on which he sat. He felt nauseous, drained. He ran a moist hand through his thick hair. ‘They’re gone.’

  He got up. The maid had moved them, had she? She had put them back in the louvered cupboard or propped them up by the door? He crossed the sitting room, entered the kitchen. They weren’t by the door, they weren’t in the kitchen. He was sweating now, drenched in sweat. He would have to wake Beryl or risk waking her by opening the wardrobes. He opened the bedroom door quietly. Beryl was asleep, nose gasping at the ceiling. George moved stealthily to the cupboards, pulled them wide open, gazed at his lightweight clothes, Beryl’s cotton dresses, their mingled pile of new shoes, recognising that what he was feeling was fear, a drenching of fear such as he couldn’t remember since, as a timid boy, the secret mouldering apple store in his toy cupboard had been crushed to pulp by his mother’s suicidal rage, dinky cars and lead soldiers, cigarette cards and painted matchboxes lying ruined and stained in brown rot.

  ‘Beryl . . .’ he said tightly.

  Beryl moved but slept on, snoring gravely.

  ‘Beryl . . .’ George heard the choke in his voice and knew it for a suppressed scream. ‘Someone has stolen my golf clubs.’

  Beryl didn’t move, but opened a bleary eye and looked at her husband. ‘George,’ she said, alarmed, ‘are you crying?’

  *

  The black security guard shifted his massive frame on the high backed chair and turned towards the chain-locked side door of his booth on which George had tremblingly knocked.

  ‘Come round to the window!’ yelled the guard. He touched his gun with a wide finger, let a signal for dangerous and immediate action ripple through his chest and arms. George’s rowan head appeared at the booth glass.

  ‘Can I see your pass, Sir?’

  George fumbled for his wallet, into which he had carefully put his pass and Beryl’s.

  ‘I’ve come to report a theft . . .’ began George.

  ‘Security pass, please,’ snapped the guard.

  George laid the pass on the little counter, wanted to comment that the guard had seen him not one hour ago as Brewer drove them home in the Cadillac, but refrained from saying this and waited patiently while the guard examined his (by now familiar, surely?) photograph inside its piece of transparent plastic.

  ‘Theft, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’ George cleared his throat. ‘I left my golf clubs on my balcony . . .’

  ‘We don’t get theft at Palmetto. You better have another search.’

  ‘I have searched. The golf clubs are not in my apartment.’

  ‘You got insurance?’

  ‘Yes. I have a policy with Norwich Union . . .’

  ‘Okay, this is one for the PVC Office. Take minimum two IDs down to 3125 Oranto Boulevard and state the exact nature and time of the theft. All unsecured property, however, is disclaimed for responsibility purposes by Palmetto Village Security and balcony property is deemed unsecured for this purpose.’

  ‘What?’ said George.

  ‘All unsecured, that is open or balcony property is disclaimed for responsibility purposes by PV Security.’

  ‘You mean Palmetto is not responsible?’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Then I don’t see the point of these passes and all the security regulations. If you can just let a thief walk in and steal my golf clubs . . .’

  ‘You tell the PVC Office, Sir.’

  ‘And what will they do?’

  ‘You got two IDs?’

  ‘Yes. What will the Palmetto Office do?’

  ‘Question you, Sir.’

  ‘Question me! Look, I was out all day. I returned at four thirty p.m. to find my clubs missing. That’s all I can tell them. But I am not exaggerating when I say that those clubs cost me almost a month’s salary. I want them found and the thief caught!’

  George realised that he was shouting. Fatigue, he thought, and fear have made me deaf to my own voice. The guard was staring at him with interest, the stare of a man watching a zoo-caged animal. He avoided the stare and turned to walk away.

  Behind him the PALMETTO GARDENING van had appeared like an apparition, soundless and unseen. George stopped and stared at it. His hand, still clutching his wallet, was shaking. The girl tugged on the hand
brake, unfolded her willowy body from the cart and strode to the booth. In the strong wind, her hair was whipped around her face, hiding it from George. ‘Everything conspires,’ he heard himself whisper, not knowing precisely what he meant. He watched without moving as the girl waved her security pass at the guard, heard the guard say, ‘Hi, Cindy. Get home before the storm, Uhn?’ George’s eyes moved to the skimpy vest. He saw that her nipples were dry.

  ‘Hello,’ he said quietly.

  The girl turned. The wind caught her hair, lifting it back from her face. She reached up and held the hair and looked down at George. He noticed for the first time how very tall she was.

  ‘Oh . . .’ she said.

  George clutched his wallet, willed his body to stop shaking. I’m ill, he thought, and the girl began it. He tried to smile at her. Rested, refreshed and at peace with himself – on some other day – he could have said, ‘Don’t misunderstand the kind of man I am. I only asked your name because I prefer everything to be known and unambiguous. Although I find you extraordinary and might allow myself the luxury of erotic fantasising around your milky breasts and your eyes as grey as the sky, I would never presume, that is I would never be so vain as to suppose you would give me anything of yourself . . .’ Instead, he said nothing at all, saw the girl glance anxiously from him to the cart full of tools to the guard who was smiling at her, his massive presence transfigured by the smile.

  ‘Not many takers,’ mumbled George.

  ‘Pardon me?’ said the girl quickly.

  ‘For the pool,’ said George, indicating the dense cloud above them.

  ‘Oh,’ said the girl, ‘I guess not.’

  And she was gone, springing back into the cart, waving at the guard, who waved back, and driving off down the clean grey road that led to the freeway.

  *

  The storm came rolling in on a sky blacker than dusk. Beryl made tea. The pains in her stomach came and went.

  George sat on the sofa and listened to the vast, moving sheets of rain exploding against the sliding windows, felt the building shudder in the body of the wind.

  Two thoughts chased each other round his brain which felt squeezed and bruised: Weissmann’s boat is adrift and sinking in the storm; the girl stole my golf clubs, stowed them and hid them among her shiny garden tools, and will sell them to buy things for her baby . . .

  Beryl came in and looked at George. ‘Change your mind and have some tea, George,’ she said.

  But no, he didn’t want tea. ‘I’m beginning to think, Beryl,’ he said, ‘that we never should have come.’

  A sudden spasm of pain rose in Beryl’s stomach and she sat down on the sofa beside George with an ungainly bump.

  ‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ she said with as much energy as her voice could muster, ‘you’re usually the optimist.’

  ‘It was one of the gardeners,’ said George.

  ‘One of the gardeners what?’

  ‘Stole my golf clubs.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any gardeners.’

  ‘I have. Women.’

  ‘Well,’ said Beryl, placatingly, ‘as soon as the storm’s over – tomorrow morning – we’ll go down to the Palmetto Office and get it all sorted out.’

  She understands nothing, thought George, nothing, nothing. Things cannot now be ‘sorted out’ because they are irrevocably altered. I have, in no more than twenty-four hours, encountered worlds that I do not understand. The girl is one world, the girl and her crime and the guard who is not interested that a crime has been committed against me. The other world is Weissmann, whose voice challenged me, yes challenged me at the entrance to some cave or echoey place and in that cave were all the songs and sufferings of a continent and the rich, rich owners of the wealth of that continent that I do not, nor will ever possess nor understand. I have, in a trice, simply understood my own profound and unchangeable insignificance.

  Answering voices placated, denied: you said you wanted ‘recovery from mediocrity’. You cannot ‘recover from mediocrity’ unless you understand the nature of that mediocrity. You have now begun to understand. At sixty, it’s not too late to make a start, just as autumn is not merely a dying off, but as the leaves fly, hard new buds form already and wait for April . . .

  ‘I suppose,’ said Beryl suddenly, ‘we should have bought steak or something for the griddle. You’ll be hungry later on.’

  But they weren’t hungry and didn’t eat. The wind howled and screamed in the mosquito wire. On the balcony, the table fell over and the parasol went flying off into the night like a javelin. The pain in Beryl lessened and she got out the cards. George agreed blankly to play Gin Rummy and silently won every round till the lights went out and Beryl gave a little scream. Almost simultaneously, the telephone rang and George fumbled his slow and terrified way to the kitchen to answer it. Beryl found a table lighter, which clicked up a minute yellow flame. Holding this, she came and stood by George’s side.

  The voice on the line sounded far away. Jennifer, thought George, it’s Jennifer. Something’s happened in England.

  ‘Jen?’

  ‘What?’ said the voice.

  ‘Is that you, Jen? This is Dad.’

  ‘George? It’s Monica.’

  ‘Oh, Monica . . .’

  ‘Brewer thought we ought to ring, just to make sure you’re okay. It’s quite a bad storm. Have your lights gone?’

  ‘Yes. They just went.’

  ‘We’re still okay in Boca Raton. Poor you. What a welcome to Florida! Would you like Brewer to come over and get you in the car?’

  ‘No, no,’ said George, ‘we’re fine. But what about the boat?’

  ‘The boat?’

  ‘Weissmann’s boat. It’ll be adrift, won’t it?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think so, George. Why should it be?’

  ‘In the storm . . .’

  ‘Brewer will have taken care of it.’

  ‘I think it’s gone, Monica. I think it’s drifting and breaking . . .’

  There was a long silence at Monica’s end of the telephone. George was aware that he was breathing petrified shallow breaths. Beryl’s face, lit by the tiny lighter flame, stared at him aghast. She reached out and gently took the telephone receiver from him.

  ‘Monica,’ she said, ‘this is Beryl.’

  ‘Oh, Beryl,’ said Monica, relieved, ‘what’s the matter with George? Is he afraid of the storm?’

  ‘No,’ said Beryl, ‘I don’t think it’s that.’

  ‘What’s happened, Beryl?’

  ‘Well, he’s just a bit upset because his golf clubs have been stolen.’

  ‘Stolen? At Palmetto? It’s not possible, Beryl. Palmetto’s like Fort Knox.’

  ‘Well, I know, but there you are. He left them on the balcony and they’re gone. They were brand new.’

  ‘Is he certain, Beryl? Has he looked everywhere?’

  ‘Oh yes. Everywhere.’

  ‘Well, I’m amazed. I never heard of anyone stealing anything at Palmetto . . .’

  ‘No. Well, I dare say there’s always a first time.’

  ‘Anyway, tell him not to worry. He can have Brewer’s. Brewer hardly plays any more. No, honestly, he’s too busy with Weissmann’s empire. I’ll bring them round in the morning.’

  *

  With Brewer’s golf clubs, scarcely less new and shiny than his own, and with the passing of the storm, the month began to settle down. The parasol lost in the storm was replaced, and religiously every morning George and Beryl breakfasted under it, like the people in the Palmetto brochure.

  They were never again invited aboard Weissmann’s boat, nor did they glimpse the Picasso in his hallway. But they spent some time in the bungalow Brewer and Monica had recently bought at Boca Raton, struggling to find the superlatives with which to admire Brewer’s Seafarer Cocktail Cabinet, fitted out with mock compasses and other nautical pieces of brass entirely unfamiliar to them, and Monica’s polystyrene rock, dyed green and brown (like army camouflage, George noted privately
) over which a recycled waterfall trickled continuously into a tiny circular swimming pool.

  ‘Doesn’t it all make you want to stay for ever?’ said Monica one morning to Beryl, as they wandered the expensive shopping malls in search of presents for Jennifer and her new husband. Beryl caught a glimpse of herself in the shop window they were passing; her skin was lightly tanned, her hair had been reshaped by Monica’s pet hairdresser, Giani, obliterating all its former resemblance to the Queen’s.

  ‘Well, I think I’ve changed,’ said Beryl, ‘and that’s probably a good thing. I think at our time in life, you need a little jolt like this – something different – to put everything in perspective. But George and I are happiest where we are. I don’t think Florida is quite right for us, not like it’s been right for you and Brewer.’

  ‘But Wakelin All Saints, Beryl, it’s such a backward little place.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Oh, I know that.’

  ‘And you said George won’t even get to be manager. Now, I’m sure Mr Weissmann has strings enough out here to fix George up with something. I mean, money isn’t a dirty word out here like it is in England. And if you’re in money, Beryl, as George is . . .’

  ‘Oh, he’s not “in” it, Monica. I think to be “in” money, you’ve got to have some, and George has never had any, only his salary.’

  ‘Well, he knows money.’

  ‘No. I don’t think he “knows” it, either. He just went into the bank because he thought it would be safe.’

  ‘Safe? Safe from what?’

  ‘Oh, you know, Monica. Sort of from the world.’

  *

  The world spins faster here, George decided. Storms and hurricanes arrive in moments; flowers on the Palmetto squares come out and die in a day; by the pool, my towel is dry and stiff in half an hour. And people disappear. The girl. Weissmann. I look for the girl every day. I’ve seen her little cart dozens of times, but she’s never in it or near it. One morning, I woke early and thought I was lying on her, my mouth on her milky breasts, my hand holding fast to her hair, like a rope. I got up and went to look for her. But I found a young man vacuuming the pool and she was nowhere. Probably she’s run away, knowing she committed a crime.