‘So what’ll happen to them now?’ he asked. Only once the question was out did he realise its unfortunate implication. He winced and held up a hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘It’s okay,’ she assured him. ‘I need to think about it.’ She looked around, as though seeing it through different eyes. ‘I’ll certainly keep it going,’ she told him. ‘My father and Emilia would want that. But I’m not coming back. My life’s in England now.’
Knox nodded. ‘It should be easy enough to find someone to run a place like this.’
‘Harder than you might think. Managing a nature reserve is bloody hard work. People dream about places like this, but it’s not all sunshine and reefs.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Her words reminded him of the promotional leaflet, however. He passed it to her.
‘Oh.’ Her face fell. ‘So you’re moving on, then?’
‘Not unless you still want me to.’ He pointed to the picture of the sailboat. ‘I was just wondering, is this the boat you were telling me about last night? Your father’s, I mean. The one you want to collect from Tulear.’
She glanced down at it. ‘Yes. Yes it is.’
‘A flat-bottomed sloop,’ he told her. ‘Not quick, but a piece of piss to handle. And I’d need someone who knows the reefs, of course. Or the passes between them, at least.’
She looked up at him in surprise. ‘You can sail?’
‘Sure,’ he told her. ‘I’d imagined it was bigger. But something like that, no problem.’
Rebecca nodded slowly. ‘I know the reefs,’ she said. ‘It’s been a while, but I don’t suppose they’ve moved.’
III
Davit was sitting on his porch watching half-heartedly for a pirogue with a Western Union logo on its sail when Claudia came around the corner of his cabin. ‘Hey!’ he grinned. ‘There you are.’
‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Here I am.’
‘Any luck?’
‘Sure.’ She climbed up on to his porch, sat upon the balustrade and swung her legs. ‘I ask my friends. They say this pirogue belongs to Thierry and Alphonse. They say they take two foreigners with them, a man to Eden, a woman on to Tulear.’
‘Eden?’ asked Davit.
‘You have a map?’
Boris had hired himself a motorbike after breakfast, had headed off on some mysterious errand; but he’d left his guidebook on his porch. Davit fetched it now, opened it up to a regional map as he returned. Claudia came to stand beside him when he sat back down, leaning against his thigh. Braids spilled like a bead curtain over her face as she looked down. She pointed away to their south. ‘This is my orphanage I was telling you about,’ she said.
‘And Eden?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Her finger moved with deliberate slowness, stretching out the moment. ‘This is Eden here.’ Her leg felt gloriously warm against his own. He glanced up at her. She scooped her braids back behind her head with her left hand. ‘You like a massage, maybe?’ she said.
‘You give massages?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘Yes. I give massages.’
He glanced around. There was still no sign of Boris, and with Knox in this Eden place, there seemed little point watching out for him. Besides, what harm could a massage do? ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That would be great.’
‘I get my oil.’
He went inside, stripped down to his shorts, lay facedown upon the bed. Claudia came back in, took hold of the door. ‘Open or closed?’ she asked.
‘Open,’ he said.
She knelt beside him and set to work on his neck and shoulders. Her fingers were weak compared to the sports massages of his rugby-playing days, but it was pleasant all the same. She tapped his shoulder; he turned on to his back. The mosquito net glowed around them in the halflight, lending a certain medieval grandeur to the moment. She massaged his chest and arms and thighs, then sat herself at the far end of the bed, took his foot and set it against her chest, the better to work his ankle. He could feel the warmth and softness of her breast against his sole. His foot tugged down her top a little way, revealing a glimpse of nipple. She gave him a look of mock reproach and adjusted herself, then ran her thumbs hard down his metatarsals, as though trying to empty a tube of its toothpaste. ‘Is nice, yes?’ she murmured.
‘Very nice,’ he agreed.
She slid her hands up past his knee to his thigh. She did it again, and then a third time, going a little further on each occasion. He felt that strange numbness of mind setting in, the kind that made men forget about things like shame and consequences until it was too late. ‘How old are you?’ he asked; and his voice sounded like it was coming from far away.
‘Twenty-three,’ she told him. ‘You want to see my card?’
‘No,’ he said.
She nodded and set down his leg, then went to close and bolt the door. Then she walked back towards him, stripping as she came.
EIGHTEEN
I
Rebecca was ransacking her father’s desk for insurance documents when Zanahary arrived in the Mitsubishi, her belongings in the back. They brought everything indoors, packed overnight bags for themselves, locked up and set off south for Tulear. She took the wheel herself, Daniel alongside her and Zanahary on the flatbed behind, where he could smoke all he wanted. ‘That stuff I told you last night,’ she said, once they were on their way. ‘It was in confidence, yes? You won’t write some dreadful feature on me?’
‘Of course not,’ Daniel assured her.
‘My father’s very highly respected. I’d never forgive myself if that got out.’
‘I already gave you my word,’ he said. He selected a cassette tape, turned the volume down low. ‘I’ll tell you something, though: if anyone had treated me like that, I wouldn’t be so worried for their reputation.’
‘It was only after Mama died. She was everything to him.’
‘No reason to take it out on you.’
‘No.’
‘And it was just you, right? He never went after your sister?’
‘Not Emilia, no. He absolutely doted on her. He did fall out very badly with Pierre, I remember; but they made that up in the end.’
‘And what about after you left for England?’
‘That was the end of it. He only ever got angry when he was drunk, you see; and he never touched another drop after I left.’
‘You believe that?’
‘Emilia vouched for it. She wouldn’t have lied; not about that.’
‘Is that why you never came back? Scared you’d set him drinking again?’
‘I made him unhappy,’ she said. ‘It’s a horrid thing, making someone you love unhappy.’
‘Why would you make him unhappy?’
‘I don’t know. Not for sure.’ They crossed a slender thread of stream. Two Malagasy women, their fine African faces covered in yellow masks to keep their complexions pale, gathered dried washing from its far bank. ‘The only thing I could think of was that I looked quite like my mother when she was my age. Some of the things he
