Return to Mandalay (26 page)

After they had left Inwa they had driven back to the city
and down to the port. Eva thought that she might perhaps take the boat when she travelled to Bagan. It was a long journey but it would be a good opportunity to see some more of the real Myanmar on the way. She’d collected the departure information from the office on the portside and walked down to where Ramon was standing rather disconsolately on the muddy sand looking out to the Irrawaddy. A barge was moving slowly along the river. She could make out the logo on the hull. A peacock in blue and gold.

‘One of Li’s boats,’ he said.

She watched as it motored past. They had a lot to answer for.

*

‘Shall we go?’ Ramon asked now. He escorted her to the car, swung the passenger door open for her to get in and closed it behind her. He went round to the driver’s side and climbed in. For a moment, he leaned in close. ‘May I say that you look beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘I love that you wear our traditional
longyi
.’

‘Thank you.’ Eva smiled back at him. Yesterday, their outing together had been a bit fraught, this evening, perhaps they could both forget their troubles for a few hours, relax and enjoy.

In his Western clothes, Ramon seemed so different, almost not part of this Eastern landscape to which she had already become acclimatised. It unsettled her slightly and she looked away, out of the window, as they drove alongside the dark still waters of the moat.

‘How do you feel about our country now that you are wearing our clothes?’ Ramon teased. ‘Are you getting used to it yet?’

‘I think I am.’ She was getting used to the white heat that lay so heavy on the city, to the constant thrum of the air-conditioning, to the heavy rain that was still falling once a day without warning, tumbling from the sky and turning the dust to mud. She was used to the hooting and bell-ringing of endless streams of motorbikes, trishaws, bicycles and cars and the street sellers squatting on broken paving slabs beside rickety stalls, frying noodles, rice and fish, sorting heaps of crimson chillies, lentils and tiny peanuts, and peeling giant
pomela
fruit, while the fragrances of dried fish, cloves and anise rose thick and pungent in the warm air. She was getting used to it and she was loving it. Myanmar, with its vivid colours of landscape and
longyi
, its raucousness and its calm, its intense flavours and fragrances, was a country of extremities. No wonder its people liked to smile. Many of them were poor, yes, but perhaps they were rich in the things that mattered more: in spirit, in their quality of life. After the grey November days she had left behind in the UK, Myanmar was like a hothouse bloom. ‘It’s everything I hoped for,’ she told Ramon. ‘And more.’

‘Good.’ Ramon nodded as they drew up outside the restaurant. He glanced across at her. ‘There is just one thing missing,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

He got out of the car and came round to her side to open
the door. Eva took the hand he offered to help her out and felt the weight of the warm air settle over her once again.

Ramon turned to a boy selling flowers on the street corner, handed over a few notes and was given a string of tiny white blooms in return. Eva had seen similar street sellers at the temples; the Burmese bought garlands of flowers and fruit to lay at the feet of the resident
nats
of the pagodas and shrines. Nats, who must be charmed and appeased. In Myanmar almost everything had one.

‘Jasmine.’ Ramon held the blossoms out to her.

Eva sniffed. ‘Wonderful.’ She didn’t care if he was trying to charm or appease her. Their scent was like honey, it sweetened the night air.

‘May I?’ And before she could even wonder what he was doing, he had moved behind her and she could feel his hands on her hair, which she’d worn loose tonight, deftly weaving the flowers through, as if she were a bride. ‘There.’ He stood back to survey the effect. ‘Now you are a perfect Burmese lady.’

She laughed and put her hands to her hair. He had a gentle touch. She could feel the furry softness of the tiny white flowers and smell their scent, far superior to any bottled perfume.

‘Shall we?’ Ramon indicated the restaurant.

‘Of course.’

A boy pulled the door open and Eva felt the light pressure of Ramon’s hand on her back as he followed her inside.

She looked around. ‘What a fabulous place.’ It was colonial
in decor and style. The high ceiling had decorative cornicing and a teak staircase with a polished banister rail rose gracefully on the left side of the room. The walls were painted white, there were fat teak pillars from floor to ceiling and people sat in cane and wicker chairs at wooden tables laid with white linen cloths. The bar in front of them was a sheet of solid black granite.

Ramon spoke to a waiter who led them to their table.

‘I wondered, would you like to visit my factory tomorrow morning?’ he asked her when they were seated. ‘Or do you have more antiques to inspect?’

Eva laughed somewhat warily. That was a tricky subject. She picked up the creamy linen napkin by her plate and spread it on her lap. ‘I am seeing some more,’ she said. ‘But not till the afternoon. So of course I’ll come. I’d be delighted.’ Myint Maw had telephoned her earlier today at the hotel with the news that some more items had become available. ‘They very good,’ he had said. ‘You come see tomorrow 3 p.m., yes?’ But Eva couldn’t help wondering where they had suddenly appeared from. She had put in a quick call to Jacqui before she’d come out tonight, but she’d had no idea either.
Go and see them
, her boss had advised,
take care and keep me informed
. Eva had spent the day wandering around the markets and antique shops of Mandalay, but had purchased very little. It seemed that to buy anything of quality, it was indeed a case of who you know. Jacqui was right then to stress the importance of their contacts.

They both studied the menu. A jug of iced water had been
put on the table by the immaculately dressed waiter and she poured them both a glass. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing the furniture you design and produce,’ she said.

He smiled warmly and she was reminded of that moment when he’d first opened the door to her at Pyin Oo Lwin. It transformed his face and she couldn’t help noticing that he was attracting admiring looks from other female diners.

‘We should order some wine,’ he said.

‘Wine?’ Eva was a little surprised.

‘But, yes. There is a reputable vineyard just outside Mandalay.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. It is run by a Frenchman.’ His green eyes gleamed. ‘They produce an excellent pinot noir which I recommend we try.’

The food was Chinese, and they ordered river prawns which arrived nestling in a ginger salad with sesame seeds, chicken with peanuts and fish steamed with lime along with various vegetable side dishes and rice. And Ramon was right. The wine proved to be delicious.

Conversation flowed easily between them, but although they talked about styles of furniture and wood, about English antiques and even about British colonialism, they hadn’t yet touched on the subject that had come up at Inwa yesterday.

While they were waiting for dessert, Eva leaned closer towards him. ‘I had no idea that the Li family also owned a furniture company,’ she said. She tried to keep her voice nonchalant; this would certainly be another touchy subject.

Ramon ran a finger around the rim of his wineglass. He had allowed himself only one glass, she noted. After a moment, he looked up. ‘Not just furniture,’ he said. ‘Statues, too. Wooden models, Buddhas, you name it. If they can make money out of it, they will produce it.’

‘So they have a factory here in Mandalay? A showroom?’ Eva wondered if she had already unknowingly visited it.

‘Eva …’

Their dessert arrived, semolina cake with fresh coconut milk, a Burmese speciality, Ramon told her. Eva tasted it. It was very different from the unpalatable and bland substance she remembered from school.

‘I’m not asking where it is,’ she protested.

‘Very well.’ He dipped a spoon into the pudding. ‘Then, yes. They do have a showroom – a shop – and there is a factory behind.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘But you must promise me …’

‘Yes?’ She adopted her most innocent look.

‘That you will stay away.’

Eva finished up her dessert. ‘How can I go there, Ramon?’ she asked. ‘I don’t even know where it is.’

They had coffee and Eva was surprised to see, when she looked at her watch, that it was almost midnight.

‘I will take you back to your hotel,’ Ramon said. He had paid the bill already and pretended to be offended when she offered a contribution.

Outside, the darkness enveloped them, but the air was balmy and still. Eva was aware of the scent from the jasmine
in her hair. And of Ramon, as he opened the door of the car and she slid silently into the leather interior.

*

At the hotel, he walked her towards the foyer. But just before they reached the swing door, he drew her to one side. ‘Thank you for coming to dinner with me tonight, Eva,’ he said. His voice held a low intimacy. Gently, he touched her hair.

‘You mustn’t worry about the company, Ramon,’ she said. She took a step closer, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sure it will survive the competition and end up even stronger and more successful than before.’

‘I have misjudged you, Eva.’ He looked deep into her eyes. ‘I thought you had come here to interfere, cause trouble and upset my grandmother all over again. But that is not true. You have only come here for the sake of your grandfather. I wanted to blame you for all sorts of colonial wrongs. I was mistaken.’

Eva waited. The tension was palpable between them she felt as if she were balancing on a knife edge.

‘In a day or two, my grandmother will be coming here to Mandalay,’ he murmured, drawing her closer, whispering into her hair. ‘And when she does—’

‘Eva!’

She spun around. Who would know her, here of all places?

A blond head and broad shoulders. An air of suave confidence. Klaus was halfway through the swing doors of the hotel. ‘Hey, Eva! Hello!’

She felt Ramon stiffen beside her and take a step away.

‘Klaus. Hello. I did try and phone you.’ Eva forced a welcoming smile. She wasn’t unhappy to see him, but his timing was atrocious. What had Ramon been about to tell her, she wondered. And what had he been about to do?

‘I have only just checked back into the hotel. I was away for a few days, on business.’ He came up to her and kissed her lightly on both cheeks. ‘Sorry. I am interrupting, I think?’

Eva could imagine how it had seemed. ‘Not at all,’ she said politely. ‘This is Ramon. Ramon, Klaus, we met in Yangon.’

The two men shook hands. Klaus’s non-committal smile seemed friendly enough but Eva sensed Ramon’s wariness. ‘Yangon?’ he echoed.

‘We met in a café.’ Klaus chuckled. ‘And then I dragged Eva off to see the Shwedagon and to dinner.’ He made it sound, she thought, like some sort of willing abduction. ‘I wondered what had happened to you.’ She saw him take in the
longyi
, the Burmese slippers, the jasmine in her hair. ‘I see you have settled in, for sure.’

She smiled. ‘That’s true.’

‘So what have you been doing since we last met?’

She wouldn’t know where to start. ‘I went to Pyin Oo Lwin,’ she said, ‘and met Ramon and his family.’

‘And have you purchased many wonderful antiques?’

Eva wished he hadn’t put it quite like that. ‘I’ve seen some interesting artefacts, yes,’ she said.

‘Good. And I have the name of that contact I mentioned.’

‘You will excuse me?’ Ramon cut in. ‘I will leave the two of you to talk.’

‘Oh, but …’ Eva realised she didn’t want him to leave. Not now, not like this.

‘No, no.’ Klaus gave a playful little bow which seemed to irritate Ramon still further. ‘It is I who interrupts your evening. We could meet tomorrow morning, Eva, if that is convenient? We can talk then.’

‘Of course. Let’s have coffee in the hotel bar. Will 10 a.m. suit you?’

‘Perfect.’ And Klaus gave a salute of farewell as he strolled away.

‘I’m sorry.’ But Eva realised as she looked at Ramon’s face that the moment was gone. Could he possibly be jealous, she wondered.

Ramon frowned. ‘I recognise that man,’ he said.

‘Klaus? Where from?’

‘I am not sure.’ Ramon strode to the swing door and opened it for her. ‘And now, Eva, I must say goodnight.’ He took a card from his jacket pocket. ‘The address of our factory,’ he said. ‘For tomorrow.’

‘Thank you.’

Eva wondered why she felt disappointed. Why did she feel she was on the brink of something, standing on a kind of dizzy edge and that the something kept being snatched away from her? From the hotel foyer, Eva watched him drive away with mixed feelings. She was drawn to him, yes, but she wouldn’t allow herself to get emotionally involved. There was absolutely no point. And she was glad she was meeting
Klaus tomorrow. Another contact would be useful from the Emporium’s point of view. And she’d had another idea about how to retrieve the stolen chinthe. This would give her an excellent chance to put her plan into action.

Rosemary took a deep breath. ‘Dad?’ she said. ‘I’ve been wondering.’ Was he up to talking about it? Would he even remember? He was usually at his sharpest in the mornings, but …

‘What, love?’

‘Why did you tell Eva all those years ago that she could come and live with you?’

‘When, Rosie?’ There was the confusion again, the vulnerability that stopped her from being angry with him. But there were things she had to talk about, things she had to find out before it was too late.

‘When I was planning to go to Copenhagen with Alec.’ She willed him to understand. ‘She was only sixteen. Why didn’t you talk to me about it first?’

‘Ah.’ His gaze rested on her face for a moment as if he couldn’t quite remember who she was. Then it drifted towards the window and the hydrangea bush outside – still flowering, though the blooms were faded and edged with brown.

Rosemary waited. She should be patient with him. Give him time. Nick used to make Christmas wreaths from the hydrangeas, the ivy and the holly in her parents’ garden.
He was good at that kind of thing. Their Christmas tree at home had never been decorated with neat silvery trinkets like Rosemary’s mother’s tree. It had cones Nick had spray-painted with Eva, stained glass lanterns and angels from the workshop, Eva’s own cotton-wool bearded Father Christmas with the lopsided grin. Soon it would be Christmas again, she thought. And what then?