by Wilbur Smith
As her doctor had predicted, it all went forward naturally and rapidly. Although the baby was large and Isabella’s hips were relatively narrow, there were no complications. When the doctor called upon her from between her raised knees for a final effort, she thrust down with all her strength and then as she felt the enormous slippery rushing release within her she uttered a joyous and triumphant cry.
Anxiously she struggled up on one elbow and brushed the sweaty tangle of hair out of her eyes. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘Is it a boy?’ And the doctor held the skinny glistening red body high, and they all laughed at the petulant birth-wail.
‘There you are.’ Still holding him dangling by the ankles, the doctor turned the infant so that Isabella could see him better.
The child’s face was scarlet and creased, the eyelids swollen tightly closed. His hair was dense and jet black, plastered wetly over the skull. His penis stuck out half as long as her forefingers in what seemed to be, to Isabella’s partisan appraisal, a full and impressive erection.
‘It’s a boy!’ she gasped, and then with a chuckle of wonderment: ‘He’s a boy and a Courtney!’
Isabella was unprepared for the overwhelming strength of her maternal instincts as they laid her firstborn son at her a breast and he took her engorged nipple between his rubbery little gums and tugged at it with an animal strength that aroused sympathetic contractions in her distended womb and a deeper, more primeval pain in her heart.
He was the most beautiful creature she had ever touched, as beautiful as his father. In those first days, she could not take her eyes off him, often rising in the night to bend over his cot and examine his tiny face in the moonlight, or while he suckled, opening his pink fists and studying each perfect little finger with an almost religious awe.
‘He’s mine. He belongs to me.’ she kept telling herself, not yet able to overcome the wonder of it.
Ramón spent most of those first three days with them in the big sunny private room of the clinic. He seemed to share her fascination with the child. They discussed, as they had during the previous months, what names they would christen him. In the end, by a slow and painful process of elimination, they struck out Shasa and Sean from her side of the family, and Huesca and Mahon from Ramón’s side. They settled for Nicholas Miguel Ramón de Santiago y Machado. Miguel was a compromise for the Michael which Isabella had suggested.
On the fourth day, when Ramón came to her room in the clinic, he was accompanied by three sober gentleman in dark suits, all of them bearing important-looking briefcases. One was an attorney, another was an official from the State Registrar’s office and the third was the local magistrate.
The magistrate bore witness as Isabella signed the order of adoption, relinquishing her guardianship of Nicholas to the Marqués de Santiago y Machado, and he placed his official seal on the document. The birth certificate provided by the registrar showed Ramón as the father.
After the officials had toasted the mother and child with a large glass of sherry and left, Ramón took Isabella tenderly in his arms.
‘Your son’s claim to the title is secure,’ he whispered.
‘Our son,’ she whispered in reply, and kissed him. ‘My men, Nicky and Ramón.’
When Ramón fetched them from the clinic and brought them back to the flat, Isabella insisted on carrying Nicky up the stairs herself. Adra had filled bowls of flowers to welcome them.
She took the child out of Isabella’s arms. ‘He is wet. I will change him.’ And Isabella felt like a lioness deprived of her cub.
Over the days that followed an unspoken but nevertheless intense competition developed between the two women. Although Isabella acknowledged Adra’s obvious expertise in dealing with the infant, she found herself resenting the instruction. She wanted Nicky all to herself, and she tried to anticipate his needs and to get to him ahead of Adra.
The florid birth-tones of Nicky’s face soon faded into a peachy perfection, and his thick dark hair curled. When he opened his eyes for the first time, they were that exact same shade of pale green as Ramón’s. Isabella considered this one of the great miracles of the universe.
‘You are as beautiful as your father,’ she told him as she suckled him. At least that was one service that Adra could not render him.
In the months that they had lived in the village, Isabella had become a local favourite. Her loveliness and her easy engaging manner, her pregnancy and her sincere efforts to master the language had delighted the tradespeople and the stall-holders in the market-place.
In response to their entreaties, when Nicky was barely ten days old, she laid him in the pram and paraded him through the village. It was a triumphant progress, and they returned to the flat laden with small gifts and with their ears ringing with praises.
When she phoned home on Easter Day her grandmother asked severely: ‘What is so important in Spain that you cannot come home to Weltevreden?’
‘Oh, Nana, I love you all, but it is just impossible. Please forgive me.’
‘If I know you, young lady, which I do, you are up to no good and it wears trousers.’
‘Nana, you are an absolute shocker. How can you believe that of me?’
‘Twenty years of experience,’ Centaine Courtney-Malcomess told her drily. ‘Just don’t get into any more trouble, child.’
‘I won’t, I promise,’ Isabella told her sweetly, and hugged the infant at her bosom. Oh, if you only knew, she thought. He doesn’t wear trousers; not yet anyway.
‘How is the thesis going?’ her father asked, when he came on the line. She could not tell him that she had already submitted it, for that was her excuse for remaining in Spain.
‘Almost done,’ she compromised. She hadn’t thought about it since Nicky had come along.
‘Good luck with it.’ And then Shasa was silent for a moment. ‘Do you remember our talk, the promise you gave me?’
‘Which one?’ she procrastinated guiltily. She knew very well what he was referring to.
‘You promised that if you were ever in any trouble, any trouble at all, you wouldn’t try to go it alone, you would come to me.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Are you all right, Bella baby?’
‘I’m fine, wonderful, just marvellous, Daddy.’
He heard the ring of it in her voice and sighed with relief.
‘Happy Easter, my bright and beautiful daughter.’
With Michael it was a relief to let it all out of her. They were on the telephone for forty-five minutes, Málaga to Johannesburg, and she tickled Nicky to make him gurgle for his distant uncle.
‘When are you coming home, Bella?’ Michael asked at last.
‘Ramón’s divorce will be through by June, that’s definite. We will have a civil marriage here in Spain and the church wedding at Weltevreden. I expect you to be at both functions.’
‘Try to stop me,’ he challenged her.
They celebrated Easter dinner at their favourite seaside restaurant with Nicky’s pram parked at the table. The patron’s wife had knitted a jacket for the baby.
Adra was with them. She was part of their small family by now, and she wheeled the pram when they walked home to the flat. Isabella clung to Ramón’s arm. She felt very married and maternal, and as happy as she had ever been in her entire life.
When they arrived at the flat, Adra took Nicky away to change him. For once Isabella did not resent it.
In the front bedroom she lowered the shutters, and then came to Ramón.
‘It’s three weeks since Nicky was born. I’m not made of glass, you know. I won’t break.’
He was too gentle, too considerate for her mood. She had been without him for too long.
‘I think you’ve forgotten how to do this,’ she said, and pushed him over on his back. ‘Let me refresh your memory, sir.’
‘Don’t hurt yourself,’ he cautioned anxiously.
‘If anybody gets hurt around here, it is more likely to be you, my friend. Now, faste
n your seatbelt. We are ready for take-off.’
Afterwards, in the shuttered room, she lay against him in languorous exhaustion, their bodies sticking lightly together with the sweat of their loving and he said: ‘I have to go away for four days next week.’
She sat up quickly. ‘Oh, Ramón, so soon!’ she protested, and then realized that she was being possessive and unreasonable.
‘You’ll phone me every day, won’t you?’ she demanded.
‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll be in Paris and I’ll try to arrange for you to join me there. We will have dinner at Laserre.’
‘That would be lovely, but what about Nicky?’
‘Nicky has got Adra to look after him,’ Ramón chuckled. ‘Nicky will be all right, and Adra will love the opportunity to have him all to herself.’
‘I don’t know . . .’ she said dubiously. The thought of being parted from her wondrous achievement for even an hour appalled her.
‘It will be for one night only, and you have really earned a little reward. Besides, I need you, too, you know.’
‘Oh, my darling.’ His appeal touched her. Her flow of milk was copious. She could express enough to cover the feeds that Nicky would need during such a short absence. ‘Of course, I’d love to be with you. You are right. Nicky and Adra will survive a night without me. I’ll come as soon as you call me.’
‘The woman gave birth to her brat almost a month ago,’ General Joseph Cicero whispered hoarsely. ‘What has been the delay? You should have terminated the operation immediately. The cost has been out of all proportion!’
‘The general will recall that I am meeting the cost out of funds I have provided, not out of the departmental budget,’ Ramón reminded him quietly.
Cicero coughed and rustled the copy of France Soir which he held before his face. They sat side by side in a second-class coach of the Paris Métro. Cicero had entered the coach at the Concorde station and taken the seat beside Ramón. Neither of them had shown any sign of recognition. The rush of the train through the underground tunnel would foil any eavesdropper. Both of them used open newspapers to cover their face as they talked. This was one of their regular procedures for short meetings.
‘I was not referring only to the cost in roubles,’ Cicero wheezed. ‘You have spent nearly a year on this project, an incalculable cost to the other work of the department.’
Ramón was fascinated by the rapid course of the disease that was destroying his superior. It seemed that at every meeting Joseph Cicero had deteriorated visibly. It would not be much longer, months rather than years.
‘These few months of work will pay us back enormous dividends over the years and, yes, over the decades ahead.’
‘Work,’ snorted Cicero. ‘Stirring the honey-pot with your spoon. If that is work, how do you define pleasure, Marqués? And why are you prolonging termination month after month?’
‘If the woman is to be of the utmost value to us, then it is absolutely necessary that she bond to the child before we proceed to the next step in the operation.’
‘When will that be?’ Cicero demanded.
‘It has happened already. The fruit is ripe for picking. Everything is in place. I need your co-operation in the final resolution. That is why I chose Paris for this meeting.’
Cicero nodded. ‘Go on,’ he invited.
And Ramón spoke quietly for another five minutes. Cicero listened without comment, but grudgingly he admitted to himself that the plan was airtight. Once again, he acceded privately that his successor seemed to have been well chosen, despite the original prejudice he had fostered towards him.
‘Very well,’ he whispered at last. ‘You have approval to proceed. And, as you request, I will monitor proceedings at this end.’ Cicero folded his newspaper and stood up as the coach slid into the Métro station at Bastille on its silent rubber wheels.
As the doors opened, he stepped down on to the platform and walked away without looking back.
The notification from London University arrived the afternoon that Ramón left. It took the form of an express letter with the University’s coat of arms embossed on the flap of the envelope.
‘The Chancellor and the faculty members of the University of London take pleasure in informing Isabella Courtney that she has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University.’
Isabella telephoned Weltevreden immediately. There was little time-difference between Málaga and Cape Town, and Shasa had just returned from the polo-field. He was still in boots and breeches, and he took the call in the downstairs study whose french windows overlooked the field.
‘Son of a gun!’ he let out a whoop when she told him. Such an uncharacteristic display was proof to her of her father’s deep delight. ‘When will they cap you, darling?’
‘Not till June or July. I’ll have to stay until then.’ It was the excuse she had been looking for.
‘Of course,’ Shasa agreed immediately. ‘I’ll come over.’
‘Oh, Daddy, it’s such a long way.’
‘Nonsense, Dr Courtney, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Your grandmother will probably want to come with me.’ Strangely the prospect did not alarm her as it might have. She realized that it was probably the ideal occasion for both her father and Nana to meet Ramón, and Nicky. Centaine Courtney-Malcomess off her home ground was not such a daunting prospect as she was when installed in all the splendour and tradition of Weltevreden.
More than anything at that moment, Isabella wanted to share her joy in her achievement with Ramón, but he did not telephone that night, nor even the following day. By Thursday morning, she was almost frantic with worry. It was so unlike Ramón; usually he telephoned every day that they were apart.
When finally the telephone rang she was in the tiny kitchen in a heated argument with Adra as to how many cloves of garlic should go into the paella.
‘You would inject the stuff into your veins if you were given the chance,’ she accused in her now fluent Spanish.
‘We are making paella, not Irish stew.’ Adra held her ground, and then the telephone rang and Isabella dropped the spoon with a clatter and knocked over the chair in the hall in her haste to reach it.
‘Ramón darling, I was so worried. I missed your call.’
‘I’m sorry, Bella.’ The rich dark tones of his voice soothed her, so her own voice became a purr.
‘Do you still love me?’
‘Come to Paris, and I will prove it to you.’
‘When?’
‘Now. I have made a reservation for you on the Air France flight at eleven o’clock. They are holding your ticket at the airport. You’ll be here by two o’clock.’
‘Where will I meet you?’
‘At the Plaza Athénée. We have a suite.’
‘You spoil me, Ramón darling.’
‘No less than you deserve.’
She left the flat immediately. However, the Air France take-off was delayed by forty minutes. In Paris the baggage-handlers were working to rule, so she stood fuming and fretting at the baggage-carousel for almost an hour before her overnight case made its leisurely appearance. It was after five o’clock in the evening before her taxi pulled up in the Avenue Montaigne before the elegant façade of the Plaza Athénée with its scarlet awnings.
She half-expected Ramón to be waiting for her in the marbles and mirrored foyer and looked about eagerly as she came in through the revolving glass doors. He was not there. She paid no heed to the gaunt figure who sat in one of the gilt and brocade armchairs opposite the reception-desk. The man lifted his head of lank white hair and for a moment regarded her with strangely lifeless tar-black eyes. Then he coughed harshly and returned his attention to the newspaper he was reading.
Isabella crossed quickly and expectantly to the concierge’s counter.
‘You have a guest, the Marqués de Santiago y Machado. I am his wife.’
‘A moment, madame.’ The uniformed concierge consulted the guest-list, and then shook his head and
frowned as he started again at the head of the list.
‘I’m sorry, Marquesa. The Marqués is not staying with us at the moment.’
‘Perhaps he has registered as Monsieur Machado.’
‘I’m afraid not. We have nobody of that name.’
Isabella looked confused. ‘I don’t understand. I spoke to him this morning.’
‘I will make further enquiry.’ The concierge left her for a moment to consult the booking-clerk, and returned almost immediately. ‘Your husband is not with us, and there is no reservation for him.’
‘He must have been delayed.’ Isabella tried to look unconcerned. ‘Do you have a room for me?’
‘The hotel is fully booked.’ The concierge spread his hands apologetically. ‘It’s spring, you understand. I am desolated, Marquesa. Paris is overflowing.’
‘He must be coming,’ Isabella insisted brightly. ‘Do you mind if I wait for my husband in the gallery?’
‘Of course not, Marquesa. The waiter will bring you coffee and whatever refreshment you wish. The porter will guard your baggage in his store.’
As she moved towards the long gallery, which at the cocktail hour was the fashionable meeting-place for ‘le tout Paris’, the white-haired gentleman rose from his armchair. He moved stiffly with the gait of a frail and sick old man, but Isabella in her consternation did not even glance in his direction. Cicero went out into the street, and the doorman hailed a taxi for him and it dropped him in rue Grenelle. He walked the last block to the Soviet embassy, and the guard at the night-desk recognized him as he approached.
From the office of the military attaché on the second floor, Joe Cicero phoned a number in Málaga.
‘The woman is waiting at the hotel,’ he whispered huskily. ‘She cannot return before noon tomorrow. You may proceed as planned.’
A little before seven o’clock, the concierge came and found Isabella in the gallery.
‘There has been a cancellation, Marquesa. We have a room for you now. I have already sent your baggage up.’
She could have kissed him, but instead tipped him a hundred francs.
From the room, she rang the flat in Málaga. She hoped that Ramón might have left a message with Adra, now that the arrangements had so obviously gone wary. Although she let the telephone ring for a counted one hundred peals, there was no reply. That truly alarmed her. Adra should have been there; the telephone was in the hallway just outside her bedroom door. Isabella telephoned again twice more during the night, each time without success.