Return to Mandalay (27 page)

‘She seemed so sad,’ her father said, just when Rosemary had thought he wasn’t going to reply at all. ‘She really didn’t want to go.’

Of course she didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. Abruptly, Rosemary got to her feet, went to stand by the window. Her arms were tightly folded as if she could squeeze it all inside. Some hope, she thought. She tried to relax. It was raining, huge drops splashing on to the path and the bushes, smattering the window pane. ‘Children never want to leave their friends,’ she said. She unfolded her arms, ran her fingers around the gold bangle on her wrist that Alec had bought her. ‘But they get used to it, that’s the point.’ She turned around. ‘She would have got used to it.’

Her father blinked up at her.

Yes, and perhaps you should have said this to him at the time
, thought Rosemary. How could she be saying it to him now? Look at him. He didn’t deserve it, it wasn’t fair.

‘I felt sorry for her,’ he said. He frowned. ‘I should have spoken to you first, Rosie, but—’

‘Sorry for yourself too, I should think.’ There, that was it, out in the open. After all these years. And if he dared to say:
I’d just lost your mother
, she’d … Well, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.

But he didn’t. ‘Perhaps you’re right, love,’ he said. ‘I hated the thought of you both going. My girls.’

His girls. Now that he’d admitted it, Rosemary wasn’t sure what there was left to say. He’d hated the thought of them both going. That was a bit different.

‘She was crying.’ His eyes slipped into that faraway look that she had begun to recognise. ‘She begged me. I said we’d have to talk to you first, but …’

‘You didn’t think I should have gone,’ she said. Outside, the wind was blowing through the trees. She could hear its soft whistle.

‘You had to do what you thought was right,’ he murmured.

‘But did you think it was right, Dad?’ Even to herself she sounded like a dog with a bone. ‘Did you think it was right?’ She came back to the bed and sat down beside him. He was her father. She supposed she was looking for some sort of absolution.

‘Aren’t you happy, love?’ he asked. He took her hand in his dry and papery grasp. Squeezed.

Rosemary looked down. She was as happy as she’d ever expected to be. But she wasn’t sure that it was enough. She wondered if Alec thought it was enough. ‘I wanted a new life,’ she whispered.

‘I know. I understand that. You went through so much, Rosie. You had to be strong.’

She stared at him. He seemed so … together, all of a sudden, so wise. ‘I wasn’t strong.’

‘But you were.’ And his voice held all the reassurance that her father’s voice had ever held. ‘You kept it together for Eva.’ He sighed. ‘No one could have asked for more.’

Except Alec, thought Rosemary. Except Alec and Eva and even Rosemary herself.

She patted his hand. She could see him tiring. And suddenly, everything that had happened back then, the fact that he’d offered to look after his granddaughter when she’d needed it, as if he hadn’t already done so much, took on a different dimension. He had done it because Eva felt sad. He had done it to help them, because Eva had needed him to.

Rosemary slipped out of the room to let him sleep. She thought of how he had been there for them both after Nick’s death, how he had pushed her into carrying on. She hadn’t seen it that way, not back then. But of course, he had done it out of love.

*

She phoned Alec after work, brought him up to speed on what was happening with her father. And, all the time, another part of her was listening to what she said, as if watching from the living room ceiling. They were so careful with one another, so polite. Neither of them mentioned Seattle. It almost made the watching Rosemary laugh.

‘Is what we have enough, Alec?’ she suddenly asked.

‘Sorry?’

‘Is what we have enough? For you? For us?’ That’s what
she had been thinking. So why not break the habit of the last thirty years and say it?

‘Not always,’ he said. She heard his breathing, calm, considered. ‘I thought it would be, but it’s not.’

And Rosemary remembered what she’d said to him when he’d asked her to marry him: ‘I don’t know if I can …’

‘Marry me?’ he’d asked.

‘No. I don’t know if I can give you what you want.’
I don’t know if I can give you a hundred per cent
, she had meant.
I don’t know if I can ever stop grieving, stop thinking about the first man I married. I don’t know if I can love you in the way you deserve to be loved
.

And Alec had said, ‘You don’t need to.’

‘What about you?’ Alec said now, as if they were having a conversation about the weather. ‘Is it enough for you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Seattle lurked like a shadow on the wall behind her.

‘Then perhaps it’s a good thing to have this time apart, Rosemary,’ he said more gently.

‘Yes.’ Because she was trying, wasn’t she, to let loose this constriction around her heart.

This morning, through the hotel, Eva had booked her river boat tickets for Bagan. Her departure was scheduled for four days’ time. It would be hard to leave, but she had more items to see for the Emporium and she was looking forward to visiting the famous temples of Bagan too. This would give her three full days there before she flew back to Yangon. She waited for Klaus in the hotel café. It was air-conditioned and slick, all black and chrome, a total contrast to the dusty streets of Mandalay.

Klaus arrived promptly at 10 a.m. He was dressed casually today in a blue short-sleeved cotton shirt and beige shorts and was carrying the same leather bag that she’d seen him with when they first met. His blond hairline was glistening with sweat. He must have been out already and Eva knew that, even this early, it was thirty degrees outside.

She greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks and waved at the seat opposite. ‘Sit down. It’s good to see you.’

‘And you.’

They ordered coffee and chatted easily about the sights of Mandalay until it arrived, strong and sweetened with condensed milk, as was the custom. He caught her eye and they both chuckled.

‘Here is the name of the contact I mentioned.’ Klaus placed a business card on the table between them. ‘I think he is a reputable trader. He may have some things that will interest you.’

‘Thank you.’ Eva glanced at the card and slipped it into her bag.

‘And now.’ He steepled his hands together and regarded her with a serious expression. ‘May I ask you something a little personal, Eva?’

‘Of course.’

‘Are you involved with the man I saw you with last night?’

That surprised her. ‘Romantically, do you mean? No, I’m not.’ Although she wasn’t sure she liked the question. She couldn’t help noticing the sweat still on Klaus’s brow from the heat outside, the damp blond hair pressing against his forehead. She felt like telling him it was none of his business, but perhaps he only had her best interests at heart. She took another sip of her coffee. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘And you met in Pyin Oo Lwin?’ His blue gaze searched hers.

It seemed an honest gaze. Eva hesitated. But she wouldn’t tell him the story of the chinthe. She remembered what had happened at the Shwedagon, her feeling that Klaus might be hiding something. She liked him, but she wasn’t ready to confide in him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘My grandfather knew his family when he was out here working in the timber industry before the war.’

‘I see.’ Klaus stroked his chin, which was clean-shaven and
smooth. He seemed to relax slightly. ‘But you do not know him well,’ he pressed.

‘Not really.’

He nodded and stirred his coffee. He seemed pensive, not quite the Klaus she had met back in Yangon.

Eva looked at the hand holding the spoon. The back of it was covered with a blond down of hair. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘It was just that you looked … close,’ he said. ‘And I was a little concerned.’

Close? It was, she thought, rather more complicated than that. And why should he be concerned? ‘Ramon’s family have a teak furniture business,’ she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘He runs the company but he’s still very hands-on from what I can gather.’ A master craftsman was always a master craftsman; it was his life.

‘Yes, I know his company.’ Klaus frowned.

‘You do?’

‘Yes. Look, Eva.’ He took a swig of his coffee. ‘Please forgive me for interfering. And I realise that we have only recently met. But I think you should know …’

‘Yes?’ She waited.

‘I do not fully trust him.’ He sat back in his chair.

Eva felt a cold and prickly sensation on the back of her neck. ‘For what reason?’ she asked.

‘He has dealings with a disreputable company,’ he said. ‘In what capacity I do not yet know. But I am certain that their business is not a legal one.’

‘And I’m certain that you’re mistaken.’ Eva finished her coffee and put her napkin to her lips. ‘Ramon’s company is independent. And totally above board.’

Klaus raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe not as independent and above board as you believe.’

Eva shrugged. Perhaps Ramon had decided to join forces with someone in an effort to get the company out of trouble. How would she know? And, come to think of it, how on earth did Klaus know his business dealings? ‘What does it have to do with you, Klaus? If you don’t mind me asking?’

He raised both hands in mock defence. ‘I have an interest in the company he is working with, that is all,’ he said. ‘Perhaps this Ramon is an innocent in—’

‘What company?’ Eva was getting a bad feeling about this.

‘Li’s Furniture and Antique Company,’ he said. He leaned back once more. ‘But you will keep that to yourself, I hope.’

Eva felt that hollow feeling of dread, right in the pit of her belly. ‘That’s impossible.’ She shook her head. And yet somewhere inside she was also conscious of a fleeting sense of inevitability. It was almost as if she’d known what he was about to say. Li’s seemed to be everywhere, lurking at the bottom of every ocean.

‘Nevertheless, it is the case,’ Klaus said. ‘I am sorry if that is a disappointment to you.’

Again, Eva shook her head. She thought of the dark expression on Ramon’s face when he had seen that boat at the port. It made no sense. No sense at all.

‘Sometimes, Eva,’ Klaus said, ‘we see only what we wish to see.’

Was that true? Eva frowned. ‘Where do Li’s operate from?’ she asked him. ‘Where’s this showroom of theirs?’ She pushed away her coffee cup.

‘You do not wish to know,’ he said.

But there he was wrong. Eva most definitely wished to know. And she was more than a little fed up with being fobbed off by everyone. ‘I’ll ask at reception then,’ she said. ‘They must have whatever’s the Burmese equivalent of Yellow Pages.’

Klaus leaned over the table towards her. ‘Please be careful, Eva,’ he said. ‘That is all I ask.’

She nodded, waited.

‘It’s on Thirty-Sixth Street,’ he said. ‘Just before the junction with Eighty-Fourth. Ask any taxi driver.’

‘Thank you, Klaus.’ But Eva was confused. Could this be why Ramon was warning her away from them? Because he actually had dealings with the company? She couldn’t believe it. But she would go there, she decided. At the very least she could see what the place was like, perhaps talk to someone or even start putting her plan into action. She didn’t have much time left and she had to do something. She wasn’t scared either. If you wanted anything doing you had to do it yourself. She owed it to her grandfather. And Eva was determined to find a way.

Of course, Lawrence could understand that Rosemary blamed him, about Eva.

He closed his eyes. That bloody ceiling. He hated that bloody ceiling. Sometimes it was close. Sometimes it was far away. Sometimes it stopped him from thinking, from remembering. And he wanted to be clear. So much, he wanted to be clear.

He hadn’t thought much about becoming a grandfather, not until after Rosie had met her Nick and he’d seen that love light in her eyes … ‘It won’t be long,’ Lawrence had said to Helen. She wouldn’t have it of course, told him he was a silly romantic fool. Perhaps he was. Perhaps that’s why he could see it.

Nick had come to him, a decent young man – no money, but honest and hard-working – and told him what they planned to do, how they’d manage, how he intended to build up a business from scratch. And Lawrence had felt only respect for him. ‘Good luck to you,’ he’d said. ‘Good luck to you both.’ And he knew there’d been a tear in his eye. That was the way things should be. Lucky Rosie.

When their daughter was expecting Eva, Helen had fussed
around like women do. And he had thought it wouldn’t make much difference to his life. A grandchild to spoil, that was all. He hadn’t realised Eva would make him feel young again, that as she grew a bit older, she’d want to listen to his stories of the old days, and listen open-mouthed with such a look of wonder in her dark eyes that he almost felt he was back there. He hadn’t imagined that he’d be asked to look after her in a way he’d never really ventured to look after his own girl, because now Helen tired so easily and wasn’t good with disruption and noise. He’d never dreamt he would feel such love.

So when Rosie took it in her head to remarry and leave West Dorset, well, he’d thought his heart would snap like a dry twig. His two girls. Something had happened with Rosie, she blamed him for something, she was still wrung out after Nick’s death. And when Eva, his lovely granddaughter, had come to him crying … What was he supposed to do? He could never say ‘no’ to her.

Lawrence shifted on to his side. God knows what time of day or night it was, because he didn’t.

Most of all perhaps, he hadn’t imagined that Eva would inherit from him his love of wood. The smell of it, sweet and deep in your nostrils, the darker rings of age and history, the feel of it, raw and sappy, smooth as satin on the inside, rough on the out. That there would be such a bond between them.

Upper Burma, January 1942

‘You are very quiet,’ Maya observed. She was wearing a cream silk
longyi
and it rippled as she rose to her feet and took
the empty bowl from his place. But Lawrence noticed she didn’t ask what he was thinking. Was it this that intrigued him about her? That she didn’t need to know what he was thinking? That in fact she might already know?