warmth and serenity were a profound contrast to the storm of the previous night. «She loves Althaea, that's an emotion.»
Rousseau took a long swig, his eyelids drooping. «Crap. Loves nobody else, not even her own children.» He took another swig, the liquid running down his stubble. «Gave one away. Said she couldn't afford to keep it here. I pleaded, but she wouldn't listen. Damn ice woman. Never thanks me for what I do, you know. Kept Charmaine going, I have. All for my little Althaea, not her.» He started to slide over, the bottle slipping from his fingers.
Eason put out a hand to steady him. «Gave one what away?»
Rousseau only mumbled, saliva bubbling from his mouth. His eyes had closed.
«Gave what away?» Eason shook him.
«Twins. She had twins,» Rousseau sighed. «Beautiful twins.» Then every muscle went limp; he sprawled on the sand as Eason let go.
Eason looked at him for a long moment. Pathetic and utterly harmless. But he was a liability.
He scanned his retinal amps round the edge of the lagoon, searching for the tell-tale rosy glow that would reveal Solange watching him. All he could see was the black and grey of the tangled trees.
Rousseau was so drunk he didn't even react to having his head immersed in the water. Eason held him under for two minutes, then waded out and started to sweep away the incriminating tracks in the sand.
• • •
They held the funeral two days later. A dozen people attended from the neighbouring islands, staid men and women in sturdy clothes gathered round the grave. Althaea leant against her mother the whole time, sobbing softly. The ceremony was conducted by Lucius, a forty-year-old deacon from Tropicana's Orthodox Church, an archipelago-based sect which had split from the Unified Christian Church a century and a half earlier. He was a broad-shouldered, powerful man who captained the
Along with three men from the islands, Eason lowered the coffin he had built into the hole while Lucius led the singing of a hymn. The coffin came to rest on a bedrock of coral one and a half metres down.
After the mourners departed, Eason shovelled the rich loam back in, two of the men helping him. Nobody questioned his presence. He was the new labourer Tiarella had taken on, that was enough for them.
It started him thinking. He'd only possessed the most generalized notion for the future when he stole the Party's antimatter. Dump it harmlessly in interstellar space, start over somewhere else. No destination in mind, simply a place where he could live without ever having to watch his back.
Looking around, he didn't think he could find a more Arcadian location than the archipelago to live. It was just the lifestyle which was the problem, this vaguely sanctimonious poor-but-proud kick which the islanders shared. That and a snake which even hell would reject.
But changes could be made, or paid for, and snakes were not immortal.
The wake was a mawkish, stilted ordeal. Conversation between the islanders was limited to their fishing and the minutiae of large family genealogies. Althaea sat in a corner of the lounge, her mouth twitching in a kind of entreating helplessness if anyone offered their condolences. Even Tiarella allowed her relief to show when it limped to its desultory conclusion.
«I've arranged with Lucius for a picking team to visit us next month,» Tiarella told Eason after they saw off the last of the boats. «They'll be coming from Oliviera, that's one of the Church's parish islands about twelve kilometres away. They usually come about twice a year to pick whatever fruit is ripe. Some of the crop is handed round to other parishes, the remainder is sold to a trader in Kariwak and we split the proceeds.»
«Couldn't you find yourself a better partner than the Church?» he asked.
She cocked her head to one side, and gave him a derisive look. «It was the Church which looked after Vanstone when he was a boy, he grew up in their orphanage.»
«Right.» He gave up. Rousseau had been right, she was too odd.
«I don't accept their doctrine,» she said. «But they make decent neighbours, and they're honest. Oliviera also has several parishioners who are Althaea's age. Their company will be good for her; she deserves something to cheer her up right now.»
• • •
Both moons were in the sky that night, casting an icy light that tinted Charmaine's trees and foliage a dusky grey. Eason found Althaea arranging a garland of scarlet flowers on Rousseau's grave, a quiet zephyr twirling her loose mane of hair. The dark blouse and skirt she had worn for the funeral seemed to soak up what little light there was, partially occluding her with shadows.
She stood up slowly when he arrived, making no attempt to hide her dejection. «He wasn't a bad man,» she said. Her voice was husky from crying.
«I know he wasn't.»
«I suppose something like this was bound to happen.»
«Don't dwell on it. He really loved you. The last thing he'd want was for you to be unhappy.»
«Yes.»
He kissed her brow, and began to undo the buttons on her blouse.
«Don't,» she said. But even that was an effort for her.
«Shush.» He soothed her with another kiss. «It's all right, I know what I'm doing.»
She simply stood there with her shoulders slumped, as he knew she would. He finished unbuttoning her blouse, and pushed the fabric aside to admire her breasts. Althaea looked back at him, numb with grief.
«I can't make you forget,» he said. «But this will show you your life has more to offer than grief.»
He led her, unresisting, back through the unruly trees to his chalet.
• • •
The parishioners from Oliviera were a chirpy, energetic bunch. There were twenty of them, trooping down the jetty from
Eason had prepared a section of the island ready for them, determined the harvesting arrangement would be a prosperous one for both sides. It'd been a hectic, happy time for him since the funeral.
After the sun fell, Althaea would slip away from the house, returning night after night to the darkness and heat of his chalet. She was a sublime conquest—youthful, lithe, obedient. Taking her as his lover was sweet revenge on Tiarella. Replaced by her own daughter. She must have known, lying alone in her own bed as Althaea was ruthlessly corrupted in his.
By day, the two of them set about righting Charmaine. Eason renovated a rotary-scythe unit which fitted on the front of the mower tractor. He and Althaea took it in turns to drive the vehicle through the grove of citrus trees which was fruiting, blades hacking at the thick tangle of vines and low bushes, terrorizing the parrots and firedrakes. The chips were cleared away and piled high, making bonfires which burned for days at a time. Now they were left with broad clear avenues of trunks to walk down. That one section of island, two hundred metres long, stretching right across the saddle of coral between the lagoon and the ocean, was almost back to being a proper grove instead of a wilderness. Crooked branches still knotted together overhead, but all the fruit was accessible. Pruning could wait until later; his synaptic web didn't have any files on that at all.
«We'll need another boat to cope with the load,» Lucius said after they'd filled the
Eason tipped back the straw hat which Althaea had woven for him, and smiled. «Thank you. Can you get hold of another boat?»
«I'll put in at the cathedral island this evening, ask the Bishop to assign us a second. It shouldn't be a problem.»
