The Last Tiger

  ‘Stop shouting.’

  ‘Why should I? You tell me that he’s been in our home, making me look like a total fucking idiot. Probably in our bed for Christ’s sake! And then you have the cheek to tell me to stop shouting? In my own fucking house!’

  ‘If he was in our bed then I wasn’t there!’

  ‘He’s been here. Over and over! Every night he’s there. In your fucking head!’

  Bee paled, ‘He didn’t come in. He has not been in our bed.’

  ‘So you say!’

  She now chose silence. There was little point speaking. She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her knees up under her chin, trying to be smaller, neater; a safe cocoon for her baby. Just in case.

  ‘How often has he been here?’

  ‘I’m not sure. A few times.’

  ‘A few? Is that three times? Four times? What do you mean by a few?’

  ‘‘Few’ means not many. It isn’t a number. I looked it up for my book.’

  ‘Don’t get cocky with me.’

  ‘I’m not. Maybe four times.’

  ‘Four times? You absolute bitch! You never were going to tell me, were you?’

  Bee couldn’t answer anymore than she could look. She was thrown back in time and it was all so depressingly familiar.

  ‘Give me your phone.’

  ‘I don’t know where it is.’

  ‘Your phone. Give me your fucking phone. Actually, forget it, I’ll get it. You stay there.’

  He was back in the kitchen before she could catch her breath.

  She cowered inside as she watched him scroll searching for messages, hunting for the evidence. There were none left, all carefully deleted, but still it was terrifying to watch.

  ‘Well, would you look at this, seems you have a new message. I’ll open it up for you, shall I?’

  Her heart felt as if it had stopped.

  Boyce was sitting close beside her once more, ‘What’s this?’ He took a moment to read it and then snorted.

  Bee took the phone and then after a deep breath read it aloud. ‘Great to see you. Baby felt wonderful. One kiss for you and one kiss for baby. Xx. He’s my friend, Ian, that’s all.’

  He looked at her now with a different expression. With evidence at hand, his anger and self-satisfaction consolidated into palpable intent, ‘So?’ he said, ‘Anything you would like to say?’

  Her voice wouldn’t come, only tears and a longing for someone to call at the door.

  ‘Say something.’

  She shook her head. There was no point.

  ‘Say something!’

  Again she shook her head, face wet.

  ‘Say something or I will make you.’ His voice shook, ‘I said speak to me or I will make you, you fucking bitch!’ He squeezed her face tightly, making her teeth dig in to her cheeks until she could taste metal.

  ‘It’s not like it seems.’ It was barely audible.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I love you.’

  *

  Bee’s head rested on her pillow. She stared at the ceiling. She was thinking that people were wrong to criticise other’s relationships for they never understood the whole picture. She would never tell anyone about what had happened because no one knew the real man like she did, and so naturally they would misunderstand and judge him. He was sorry now for what he had done, and to be fair, thought Bee, she had provoked him. When it was all over, when she was able, they had talked, she had explained, he had listened and accepted his error, she had forgiven him and understood his jealousy. Promises were made.

  What had happened was a reemergence of something hopelessly familiar, archived events Bee had deceived herself into thinking were nothing more than bad dreams that the passing of time had given the aura of reality. False memories. Almost. But the moment it happened all was real once more. As the blows landed, the phony excuses that had been so long out of service were summoned into her mind and she wondered if she deserved it, deciding that she did. On the floor she’d curled up into a tight ball, foetal around foetus, waiting for it to end.

  The bedroom door opened. Bee struggled and sat up.

  ‘I’ve brought you something.’ Boyce’s voice was kind. ‘Milky decaf coffee, and two of your favourite biscuits.’

  She smiled painfully and took the tray, uncertain how to tackle something as rough in texture as a biscuit. But it was the thought that mattered.

  ‘Stay in bed today, if you like, Angel. Take it easy. Here’s your laptop. In case you want to work.’

  She nodded, and he kissed her forehead.

  ‘Good girl. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  ‘You know, I have been thinking.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, ‘We need a break. We should get away for a bit, just the two of us, before the baby comes. After my meeting I am going to book up a trip, okay? Don’t ask where. It’s a surprise. We’ll go tomorrow. When you feel a bit brighter you can start packing.’

  ‘I am a bit sore to pack today.’

  He kissed her again, ‘Come on Bee. It’s really not that bad. I said I was sorry. And I am, terribly sorry for everything. I think you don’t know how much it hurts me, too. It’s not easy to see you like this, knowing…’

  ‘I know. I know. It’s okay. I’ll pack. Later. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Good. Take it easy. I have my phone if you need anything.’

  ‘Where will we be going?’

  ‘I said a surprise,’ he laughed, ‘but you’ll need your passport.’

  DEFINITE CONSEQUENCES

  ‘Why didn’t she do something about it sooner?’

  ‘I think she didn’t want to make a fuss, Pad.’ Felix sat in his son’s lounge, looking old. ‘But she made a fuss about everything else in life so why not this?’

  Patrick, a younger and still darker version of his father, was handing out drinks. ‘It was a good turn out. So many people at the church and the crem. She was incredibly popular. I just… I don’t know. Such a terrible waste of a life.’

  ‘No point dwelling on it, Son. She’s gone.’ Felix drained the entire tumbler of whisky in one mouthful. ‘Anyone for another?’

  No one accepted, so he pushed himself out of the comfy chair and left to find the bottle.

  Patrick turned to his wife. ‘He feels let down. He’s still angry with her, angry that she didn’t at least try and sort it out. Christ’s knows why she didn’t just DO something about it while she could. It’s so frustrating!’

  ‘He’ll be okay. It just takes time.’

  ‘I know. And maybe now the funeral is over he can start to find some peace.’

  ‘And you? What about you?’

  ‘Me? What can any of us do, love? I guess we hope there will come a time when the good memories take over from this…’ A sigh seemed to empty him. ‘I still find it so hard to believe.’

  ‘Where’s Bee?’

  ‘Bee? She’s in the kitchen with Tuan.’ Patrick scrutinised his drink as if it contained a secret. ‘You know the sad thing is that you and I, well, we’re at that age, aren’t we, when we know our parents are getting on, so it ought to be easier to deal with than it is. But it isn’t easy, is it? Because who comes after them?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean who dies after them? Us, that’s who, our generation. It’s very… God, I don’t know… it makes me feel so… so mortal and… well, to be frank it makes me feel bloody selfish, too. My mother is dead and all I am thinking about is that I move to the front of the queue. I’m next. There’s Dad of course…’ he offered a partial smile, ‘…but you know what I mean.’ Taking a final look at his glass he put it to one side and folded his arms, backside perched on the windowsill. ‘You’d have thought that bloody Ian would have come back to the house, too. I will never understand what it is she sees in him. Never.’

  ‘Not now, Paddy. Not with your mum barely gone. Work is work. At least he came to the funeral. Why don’t you go and s
ee if she’s okay?’

  Patrick glanced out of the window. ‘Can’t. I’ve missed her. Looks like they’re are going for a walk. Just look at her with that great big bump. Our little Bee all grown up and soon to be a mother; such a pity Mum couldn’t have hung on to see the baby. People do that sometimes, you know.’

  ‘I know love. Come here,’ she said, putting her arms around him. They stood in a comforting embrace, watching two figures wander away.

  *

  Felix had intended Nan’s funeral to be a quiet and private affair but many more people turned up than expected. When the service ended, Felix then pared the day back to what Nan had wanted, and only close family members headed home for the wake. Patrick’s younger brothers and their families had come and gone until only he, Bee’s family and Tuan were left to see out the remainder of the day.

  Death, inconsiderate of the living, had taken Nan two weeks before the date set for the wedding. Bee cancelled everything.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Tuan asked as they turned the corner and headed out of the close that had witnessed Bee grow from toddler on tricycle to pregnant woman, ‘Tough day?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘I heard that you postponed the wedding.’

  ‘I don’t even want to think about that.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. And it’s not only that I don’t want to think about, I actually can’t. Just like I can’t believe she won’t ever meet the baby. I thought people hung on for things like that. You know, you hear all the time about how terminally ill people make it to Christmas and die on the day, or die just after or on some other anniversary. Why couldn’t she wait for the baby?’

  ‘I guess she was just too ill. I know it sounds awful, and I know everyone keeps saying it, but it was a release.’

  ‘I suppose. Why didn’t she tell anyone, while there was still time? Poor Pappy.’

  ‘He seems very angry.’

  ‘He is. He told her to see a doctor ages and ages ago, but she never went. He doesn’t seem able to let go of the thought that she let it happen, and therefore she was selfish. At least, that’s what he makes out. Mum and Dad reckon he is actually angry with himself. He knows that if things had been the other way around, Nana would have frog marched him to the doctor’s door. Personally, I think that’s what bothers him the most. The fact that he didn’t do what she would have done and now she’s dead. But I think they’re right, too. He’s far angrier with himself than he is with her. And who knows what she was thinking of, why she left it for so long, but knowing Nana she was probably too busy to find time to go.’

  ‘People should talk more.’

  ‘Really?’ Bee’s voice was flat, ‘Is that so? I found out from Pappy that you are my new neighbour.’

  Tuan didn’t bother to respond to this, but shrugged and commented that he had heard from Char, who sent her condolences.

  It was Bee’s turn to shrug.

  They walked on in silence, both seeming thankful for their shared solitude. Since the night Tuan had spent sat on the wall, they had seen very little of one another, just the occasional dress fitting while Boyce chaperoned; waiting and observing under the pretence of reading a magazine, clearly determined not to leave them by themselves.

  *

  The finished dress was kept at Kinsman Hall. Tuan had taken up residence, filling the place with furniture and pictures, new and old. The nursery was beautifully decorated and furnished, and in it Bee’s dress adorned an antique dressmakers model ready for the day she would wear it.

  Misses P has also moved to the Hall, at a price, as had Wilson, and so life wore a familiar pattern but without the stresses and strains of living in a large city. No one claimed to miss London and Wilson soon grew used to the fact that the car needed a more regular scrub than it had. No more rinsing away a thin coating of city grime and enjoying a gentle polish. Cow muck and country mud required elbow grease.

  Two separate housewarming parties welcomed people to the new home, one for clients and another for family. Whilst clients had a raucous champagne fuelled black tie extravaganza, the family gathering had been small and informal. With the critical eye of Bee’s relations upon him, including what everyone came to realise was a very sick Nan, Boyce was duty-bound to attend and he spent the evening smiling through gritted teeth. Tuan enjoyed the spectacle of a man deeply uncomfortable in his presence, revelling in his power to offend. What greater compliment could there be, he thought, but to be loathed by the most loathsome man on earth? Equal, surely, to being loved the most by the person most loved? A pertinent compliment, he decided.

  ‘A good evening so far?’ he had asked, after following Boyce to the library, guessing the man was hiding out from Bee’s family, fed up with idle small talk. ‘Only you look a little uncomfortable. Everything okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Bee looks well, doesn’t she?’ he said, handing Boyce a glass of wine, ‘blossoming. Suits her, being pregnant, don’t you think?’

  ‘Suits you to lord it over everyone, more like.’

  ‘Ah. You don’t like me cornering you? In a library… when there is no one who can help you? Correction. In your case, no one prepared to help you?’

  ‘What? Piss of Tuan.’

  ‘You mean you don’t remember? You must. You and me, City Library? But perhaps what you remember is Bee.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘You. And young teenage girls.’

  ‘I’d watch what you’re saying if I was you.’

  ‘Would you?’ Momentarily, Tuan had stepped in front of Boyce, briefly blocking his route as Boyce made to leave. Then he stepped to one side and Boyce strode from the room. Felix had been watching from the open doorway.

  In his spare time, of which there was more than there had ever been, Tuan liked nothing better than watching Bee’s house through a telescope. He saw nothing wrong in it whatsoever. He had watched her on the beach and could see no difference.

  ‘Guardian Angel,’ he’d grunt at Misses P whenever she questioned his morals.

  ‘Peeping Tom,’ she always countered, quietly.

  Generally, though, when he wasn’t working or sitting in the window staring endlessly across the valley either with or without the aid of equipment, Tuan pottered quietly around the huge house. His nights were tranquil, spent slouched in his favourite room overlooking the valley, the same room in which he and Felix had heard the moan of ancient pipes. There he lounged, his telescope to one side, good book in lap, wine in hand; all lit only by the warm glow of a single brass lamp and the Moon when she streaked through curtainless windows. He would slouch in an easy chair, feet up on the window seat, reading and drinking, occasionally looking up to glance at Bee’s house. Misses P brought him all he needed and took away the empty plates. Sometimes she encouraged a more rounded approach to life than watching Bee and drinking, but mostly she said nothing.

  When he wasn’t studying Bee from afar he was watching her from the top of the hilly bank behind her house, or from a hiding place in the trees; even sidling along the outside wall and peering through any crack he might find in a blind or curtain. Once, when he was sure Boyce was away, he tried to see her but she looked so terrified it frightened him. She had cried. He could hear it through the glass of the kitchen window. After that he saw Bee only at the hospital, or via engineered visits with her family. What complaint could Boyce have if they were always chaperoned? Despite it all, however, he saw nothing of Bee’s real life.

  *

  ‘The baby must be due very soon.’ Tuan said, as they entered the park. Dressed entirely in black, as a pair they looked very elegant.

  ‘Four weeks.’

  ‘It suits you, pregnancy. You look very beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you. I don’t feel it.’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Bee smiled dully, ‘Well that depends on what it is.’

  ‘You once told me that t
he baby could not possibly be mine. I want to know what makes you so sure, assuming you still are. Are you? I need to know.’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this now?’ Bee saw a bench and sat down, the weight of her unborn child in her lap. ‘I’m knackered and it’s hardly a good day to ‘talk’.’

  ‘When else can we talk about it? You’re always surrounded, Bee, either by your baby friends, or your family, or that knucklehead following you about. This is the first time in ages it’s been just you and me. And I can’t think it’s going to happen again any time soon, can you?’

  Bee puffed a huge sigh and gently rubbed her swollen belly, ‘Tuan, you know it can’t be your baby.’

  ‘But why? You see, again you’re saying it like you said it then. As if I know it already, like there is something factual about it.’

  ‘Why do we have to talk about this now? It was Nana’s funeral not three hours ago.’

  ‘I told you Bee, when else?’

  She sighed. ‘Fine.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Why do you say it the way you do? Like you know. Like you actually know it is not mine?’

  ‘We both know, Tuan.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That it isn’t. That there is something factual about it; that this baby cannot possibly be yours. ‘

  ‘What are you talking about, Belle?’

  ‘Species.’

  ‘Species?’

  ‘Yes. You know what Giles said. To… to breed… animals have to be of the same species.’

  ‘Bee, you are joking aren’t you?’

  She paused. ‘No.’

  He rolled his eyes to the sky and let out a deep rumbling sigh. Then he shook his head and looked at her, squarely, black hair falling across his eyes. ‘What makes you say something like that? You’re saying I’m not human.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I didn’t say that. There have been all sorts of species of human. Obviously you are. Sometimes.’ A tiny smile twitched.

  ‘I don’t know at what point this happened, Bee, but I think you must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick and held on to it tight. Bloody hell. Either that, or your hormones have got a grip again.’

  ‘I’m fine. Just telling it like it is. You did ask.’