Becoming Strangers Page 17

  'That's conditional.'

  'That's all there is, conditional love.'

  'Why did you ask me for help?'

  He was sitting with a hand around each kneecap. She placed a hand on each of his. He didn't move, he wanted to be touched, to be held in one place, he wanted to submit to someone else's life, their needs.

  'That kind of hope doesn't die,' he admitted, 'not really, no matter what your mind tells you. Or your experience. That's the human conundrum.' He looked away, across to the store, and saw the heavy old woman accompanying a suited old man out to his car. He could hardly walk, and his hand kept saluting an invisible friend. She sat him down in the back of the car and he passed out with his legs hanging outside the open door. She brushed herself down and went back inside.

  'I know you are dying,' she said.

  'Oh.'

  'Bill told me this.'

  'How does he know?'

  'Your wife told him.'

  He emitted a breath through his nose, it was almost a cynical sort of laugh, he didn't know whether he was peeved or nervous. More bad news to come, he thought, for sure.

  'Do you love your wife?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Does she love you?'

  He shook his head. 'I've no idea.'

  'Would you like to go to Paris with me?'

  He ran his hand over his face, to give himself time to answer her. 'I would, but it's not possible.'

  'Why not, Jan, what have you got to lose...?'

  'It's more you I'm thinking of,' he said. 'I take morphine every day now and they say when you do that it is just a matter of time.' He looked down at the church steps upon which they sat and registered the location as a wry thought.

  'When time is short, it is easy to love, I'm sure that we can.' He was amazed at her honesty. He looked at her and saw the otherness of her face. Before he'd seen her as a Chinese woman who was unlike her kind, soft and original, now he looked at her again and saw how oriental she was to him with her blunt expression full of candour and sense, she was watching him, gauging him. 'And then when you are gone, I will have been loved. I will have been loved without conditions. You will be able to do that, I think.'

  Seeing that his face was in disarray, she pressed her point home. 'This will be a highest love, because you are dying.'

  'Oh Laurie,' he blurted out, standing up, shaking the dust of the church steps from him, 'if I wasn't dying or if you didn't know I was...'

  'No,' she said, with a wrinkle forming between her eyebrows, 'this is the way it is meant to be.'

  He got up and paced around in a circle, mimicking the lone car that he saw going around the roundabout. He didn't know what to make of this, he felt sore inside, as if he had been taken advantage of. This was sudden, suddenly. If he went along with his faith, faith in the kind of person he had perceived her to be, then he would grasp her real meaning. She was offering him love; she was saying she could love him, after all. He stopped to look at her. She was sat like a teenager, hugging her skirt so as not to show her underwear. She smiled up at him with the canny readiness a young girl offers a schoolteacher in anticipation of good grades.

  'Well?'

  'Let me think about it. There is so much to think about.'

  48

  'YOU COULD HAVE KNOCKED,' said Adam, securing his towel.

  'What is it, what's going on?' Jason was asking from the doorway. He saw Adam's head, 'I knew it...' He made to come in, but with an arm outstretched, Burns said quickly to him, 'I cannot allow you to come in, Mr Ryder.'

  'What is it, what is it?' Jason asked again.

  Suddenly a great sob rose up from Annemieke and turning to her, both Adam and Burns saw her with the sheets pulled up around her, crying. 'Real tears,' thought Adam. Her shoulders started to shake and her teeth chattered. Both men stood stock-still looking at her. Adam thought of her at the pool with her glasses up and down and her arch looks. Bitch, he thought. Burns turned to look at Adam with savage accusation in his eyes.

  'Oh, don't lay it on so thick,' Adam said to her.

  'Mrs De Groot,' said Burns, 'you'd better tell me what's going on here. You're very upset and I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions, but this doesn't look like a happy scene...'

  Jason stepped into the room and stood alongside Burns with his arms folded across his chest.

  'It's obvious what's been going on,' he said, turning squarely towards Adam.

  'I asked you to remain outside,' said Burns. 'Now, Mrs De Groot...'

  She nodded quickly and wiped her eyes on the white sheet.

  'I don't really know,' she said. 'I had a drink or two, and Adam offered to see me back to the room, I wasn't feeling well. My husband is very sick.' A new crop of sobs burst forth and Burns rushed to soothe her, saying, 'It's all right,' a few times until she had control of herself enough to go on.

  'Anyway, I suppose I went to bed, and the next thing, this man is on top of me.' She screwed up her eyes and wiped her face with her hands, dragging lines of mascara down her face.

  'He has raped her!' Jason said.

  'Bullshit,' said Adam, 'she asked me to have sex with her...'

  'So a sexual act has taken place,' said Burns, you admit that...'

  'Oh God!' Annemieke wailed.

  'She asked me to,' Adam repeated, feeling tears pricking his own eyes, 'the crazy bitch offered to pay me for sex...'

  'That's not likely,' said Jason dryly, turning to put a hand on Burns's arm. 'You need to call the police.'

  Burns stood still.

  'Call the police.'

  'No,' Burns said, freeing his arm from Jason's grip. He walked over to the door and closed it gently, then he came back to them, frowning.

  'We need clothes on, we need to calm down and we need common sense,' he said, addressing the three of them. 'Then we'll meet in my office and if anyone wants to change their story, that will be fine. This will remain completely confidential.'

  'This woman has been raped!' said Jason. He looked at her with disgust. 'She probably needs medical attention,' he added quietly.

  'Yes, I suppose so,' said Burns.

  'You don't want to get sued...' Jason said.

  'But a half-hour won't change that.'

  'Evidence,' Jason said with a hiss, 'samples, swabs...'

  'He admits he had sex with her,' Burns pointed out.

  'She asked me to,' said Adam once more. 'Why else would I have had sex with her?' Annemieke stopped sniffing and opened her mouth as if to say something.

  She shut it fast. Slow as molten lava, the hardening of her chin continued over the landscape of her lower face, engulfing her nose first and moving on, forming a single rock-face.

  'We'll take a half-hour on it,' said Burns. In a half-hour it might all just go away. He'd have time for a drink. 'Now, not a word to anyone, any of you.' He went to the door to usher out Adam, then stepped into the bathroom to take a robe from it. 'Here, cover yourself up with this, then you'd better grab your clothes.'

  'I don't know what your problem is, fellow,' he said as they walked towards the elevator, 'but you like trouble. I don't know what went on in there, but I've got an idea. I saw you two together last night. I'm not running a knocking shop here.' When the elevator doors opened the old lady and her young black beau stepped out. He was carrying a string bag containing newspaper-wrapped souvenirs. 'We'll have a proper English tea down at The Regal, later,' she was saying to him.

  Meanwhile Jason was standing back from the bed, his eyes still averted, his mouth turned down at the corners as if it had tasted something sour. 'If you're okay, I'll be going, there's not much a man can do. I can ask Missy to come by if you like.'

  'No,' said Annemieke brusquely, 'please do not.'

  Jason nodded and made for the door. He'd never liked the woman.

  49

  THE GROUP STOPPED at a beachfront restaurant on their way back down to the resort, took teas and coffees and some cake and then continued driving down the western coast of t
he island. They remarked how the local people made use of the vast resource of the sea, washing in the waters daily, clothed. George and Dorothy told them how they'd seen this in first light down at the beach every day.

  'Fancy keeping their clothes on,' said Dorothy.

  'Och, just because you're a seasoned skinny-dipper,' said Bill, 'you mustn't judge others by your own wantonness, Dorothy.'

  'I'm surprised their clothes don't shrink,' she'd gone on. 'Still, I don't suppose they wear woollens much.'

  Laurie and Jan had exchanged looks and laughed. Gazing out of the window, watching the local people watching them moving at a snail's pace through a hamlet, Jan considered again what Laurie had said: a higher love, because he was dying. One peculiar comment should not serve to change his opinion of a person. Of what importance was the dying factor, primary or secondary? Did it matter? He was after all dying, it was a fact. He was too cynical. It was an offer of love. He might once have been a believer, he might still. He caught Bill's eye in the driving mirror.

  Dorothy began to whisper to Laurie, loud enough for them all to hear, 'I say, he was a terrible show-off to the Vicar. Telling him all about his war, you know.' She rolled her eyes. Laurie smiled. George, who could not turn around on account of his bad back, sighed.

  'I can hear you.'

  'He wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.'

  'Give it a rest, dear,' George said, impatiently.

  "Course, we all know what he was doing in his war. Trying to get off with Italian girls.'

  George's neck was immobile, his hands moved to steady himself, one on the window frame, the other on the dashboard. Bill started to speak, 'I'm sure he had your picture...'

  'I don't think the Vicar liked me,' Dorothy was going on, tapping Laurie's arm. 'Do you know, he didn't give me the time of day, not so much as a how do you do. These men stick together...'

  Jan was uncomfortable; the car seemed very small suddenly. He heard George sigh once more, this time with anger. Bill put a hand on the old man's arm and gave it a pat.

  'I always get left out of everything. But that's our lot, us women, isn't it?' Dorothy went on. Laurie said nothing, she murmured a little, indistinctly, giving sympathy without agreement. Out of the hamlet, the car went at a brisker pace through the countryside and there was a breeze.

  'He likes to show off, that's his trouble. Likes the sound of his own voice.' She gave a little false laugh.

  It was too much for George, who did his level best to turn in his seat but was constrained by the seat belt. Almost gagging, he spat out, 'Hark who's talking, you silly old cow.'

  Jan dipped his head so as not to see. Laurie reached for his hand and squeezed it. He returned the pressure.

  'I'll tell you what went on in there. We was having a nice time. The Vicar was talking to you more than half the time. He must have heard you say the same thing three times, about how your girls were both at university. Three times. It was all I could do not to stop you going on like that. Carol was at Southampton umpteen years ago. Jeanette, well, she must have left Bristol in 1971. Every time he and I got to exchange a few words, up you pop with the same load of old codswallop. How you can sit there and say them things about that nice man, I can't fathom. I don't know.'

  'That's right,' she said, 'show me up in front of everyone.'

  He took a deep breath.

  'You show yourself up,' he said grimly, 'don't need me to do it, my dear.'

  Laurie interupted, Another glorious day, is it ever grey...'

  'I'll be gone soon enough,' Dorothy went on.

  'Yes, all right, we've heard it all before,' said George, making a sudden laborious half-stand and shifting his sitting position.

  'Won't be long now.'

  'No, won't be long.'

  They fell silent. When they reached the resort, Bill pulled up alongside reception and said he'd let them all out there then park the car. Jan stepped round to open the door for Dorothy.

  'Oh, thank you, young man/ she said with affected pleasure, and from the way she looked at him Jan could not tell whether he was a stranger to her or whether she was playing. Holding her underneath her forearm he took her up the steps. Glancing back, he saw George sitting still, rigid in fact, inside the car and so when Laurie joined them, he proposed they take Dorothy out by the pool for a lemonade.

  'It's hard,' Bill said.

  'Yes,' George replied, looking ahead of him. 'I'll come with you. To park the car.'

  'There's something wrong with her, George.'

  'I've got to face up to it, I know that.'

  'There's no point in treating her like, well, like she's normal but just being unreasonable. Do you follow me?'

  'What would you do, then?' George asked, turning to face Bill, chewing down on his teeth as Bill had noticed he did when he was in any way emotional, as if he were trying to stop his feelings, to check them.

  'I don't know, my friend. You should ask a doctor that when you get home.'

  George nodded. 'Get her on some pills, I expect/ he said.

  'Maybe.' Bill put the car into first and they moved off around the courtyard towards the parking area.

  'It's going to get worse, you know, that's what the doc said.'

  The Lord won't give us more than we can bear, George.'

  They pulled into a space and, slowly, George opened his door and using both hands hauled himself out of the car. 'My bloody back,' he said, by way of explanation.

  50

  'MR DE GROOT?' The manager stepped forward from his office, briskly, 'Might I have a word, in private?'

  Jan looked surprised and uncertain; he was still holding Dorothy by one arm. He turned to both ladies. 'Can you excuse me for a few minutes?' he asked, directing his question at Laurie.

  'Yes, you've been very nice, thank you,' Dorothy piped up, and she and Laurie continued towards the front terraces.

  Burns stood, back against his dark wood door, waving Jan inside. He closed the door behind him and offered Jan a seat.

  'Mr De Groot,' he said, heading quickly for his own chair, 'we've had a very nasty incident while you were out.'

  Jan raised his eyebrows, 'Oh yes?'

  Burns licked his lips and gave a half-smile. 'Your wife, Mr De Groot...'

  'She is all right?'

  'Well, no, I suppose not. She has been sexually molested.'

  A small smile tugged at one side of Jan's mouth.

  'This is not a funny joke, Mr Burns?'

  'No. Call me Steve.'

  'But what has happened? I thought she was with the Americans today? Was it one of them?' Jan leaned forward and Burns was grateful for the man's self-control. He applied himself to the subject of his wife's assault with an almost academic concentration.

  'Yes, certainly. She's fine, first of all. The incident has just occurred. She is in your room. I asked her to come here when she is ready.'

  'Is that possible? Is she not hurt?'

  'She seems fine,' Burns said, then corrected himself, 'externally, um, physically, I mean. Psychologically I suppose it's another matter...'

  'Yes, yes,' said Jan. 'Who did this?'

  Adam Watts. A casual employee here. You know him.'

  'Yes, I do.' Jan sat back in his chair. He looked at the reproduction explorer maps framed on the walls behind Burns. Maps of Africa, with the edges deliberately burnt and tatty. He thought of the young man with his long dirty blond hair and easy-going smile. 'But I cannot believe that he is capable of such a thing,' Jan said, removing his spectacles and blinking. He wiped the dust of the road from his eyes and put his spectacles in his pocket. He looked very tired indeed. Burns thought of the morphine.

  'Would you like a drink, Mr De Groot?'

  Jan shook his head.

  'And yet my wife says he raped her? How? When?'

  'This lunchtime. We walked in on them. You see, Mr Ryder came up to me saying she had failed to join them that morning and the phone was off the hook. He thought it was suspicious and would I chec
k on her, so we went up and I knocked and entered. Anyway it seems as if she had a couple at lunchtime, drinks that is, and he took advantage of her. When she was sleeping.' He added, 'She wasn't feeling well, our barman tells me, and so she went back to her room to sleep, with Adam Watts accompanying her. Perhaps he was just walking her back on account of her feeling a bit rough.'

  Jan lowered his head to look down between his feet at the floor.

  Burns was looking at him, a pen horizontal to the desk between two forefingers and thumbs. Jan rubbed his brow and gave a long sigh, shaking his head.

  'What is one to make of this, Mr Burns?'

  Burns hesitated.

  'I would understand if you wanted to press charges...'

  Jan stretched his lips and shook his head again, 'I shouldn't think so, Mr Burns. I should talk with my wife...'

  There was a knock at the door and a woman's voice said, 'I have Mrs De Groot with me, Sir.'

  Burns stood up and wiped his clammy hands on his khaki rear. 'I asked Amanda to go and see how she was doing and bring her here when she was all set. I would like to hear her side of the story.'

  'Sure,' said Jan, his head continuing to nod like the bough of a tree under heavy rain. Comforted by his own rhythm, Jan was still nodding when he felt his wife's hands on his shoulders. He rose slowly and embraced her, stroking her hair and feeling the damp through the chest of his shirt. He said nothing, but patted her to the same tempo of his nodding. When they pulled apart from each other, he asked her if she was all right and she shook her head.

  'Oh, Jan,' she said, 'I feel so dirty...'

  Jan hushed her and took her back into his arms, looking at Burns, looking at the maps on the wall, looking at the papers on the desk.

  'What are we going to do?' she asked her husband.

  'Shhh,' he murmured, and he had in his mind the image of holding a pillow over her face and whispering sweet words as he did so.

  Burns blushed. He cleared his throat and gathered the few papers he had on his desk to find a notepad.

  'Perhaps we should establish what actually happened first,' he said, chancing upon a pen.

  He indicated the other chair and Annemieke took her place alongside her husband.