Thai Horse

Hatcher tried to think of a way to describe the difference between the exotically alluring Daphne and the naturally beautiful Ginia. Finally he said, ‘She does not take a man’s breath away as you do.’ Not exactly true, but a permissible white lie.

‘You are diplomatic with time,’ she said with a smile. ‘Does she understand you as I did?’

‘She doesn’t know anything about my past.’

‘Or your friends?’

‘Or my friends.’

‘And will you ever tell her?’

‘I suppose someday, if it seems proper.’

‘Do you love her, Hatcher?’

That stopped him. These were questions he had never asked himself; now Daphne was forcing him to deal with them.

‘That would be something new for me, eh, Daffy?’ he answered, avoiding a specific response. ‘The kind of love you’re talking about has been missing from my life for a very long time, if it was ever there at all.’

‘It was there, Hatcher. You never let anyone see that side of the coin, but I got a peek a few times. And China says you are two people. The man we all see and the man nobody sees. Does Ginia see that other man?’

‘I think that’s the only one she does see.’

‘Then she is very lucky.’

‘I still seem to be doing the same old things.’

‘There is a difference. There was a time when you seemed to . . .‘ She hesitated, trying to find the right word.

‘Enjoy it?’ He finished the sentence for her.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Enjoy it.’

‘Perhaps. But nothing is accomplished by looking back. What’s done is done.’

He took her cheek in the palm of one hand and turned her to him.

‘I love you, Daphne. You have never escaped my thoughts. But I never thought of us in any settled-down kind of way. That kind of sharing? Hell, neither one of us ever seemed to want that.’

She looked away. Speak for yourself, she thought, but she said nothing, and Hatcher realized that in trying to be honest he had hurt her. To him, the relationship with Daphne had been like a long one-night stand for both of them, a wartime romance with no future and no permanent commitment. Now it was too late. He had made another world for himself, a world so different from hers that there could be no place in it for her, no hope of a permanent relationship between them. Life on his island would bore her to death. Besides, he had once cut his ties with this dark and dangerous world, the world of Daphne, China Cohen, Harry Sloan and the Ts’e K’am Men Ti, a world that was her whole existence. Now he had to cut those same ties again.

‘You are right, we were never interested in that kind of sharing,’ she said, and saved him the pain of hurting her even more.

As they cruised silently through the mouth of the Macao Runs the lights of Hong Kong twinkled to their left. He stared at them as they grew closer and the skyscrapers took shape in the darkness.

‘I will get off first,’ she said. ‘They know where to stop.’

‘Daphne

She put her fingers to his lips.

‘We have said and done it all, Hatcher,’ she whispered. ‘You will not be back this time. But I know in my heart that it is as painful for you as it is for us. Choi qui see yong qup haipon.’

The Chinese said it well: ‘Killing the past scars the soul.’

339

THREE

Set honour in one eye and death i’ the other, And I will look on both indifferently.

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Act 1, Scene 2

THE JUDAS FLOWER