The Last Tiger

  ‘So I did.’ He smiled.

  ‘Okay. Wait there and rest your legs for a minute, I’ll get you that beer.’ Bee could feel the effortless lift of her feet as if she were flying into the house.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said, striding back, ‘one beer.’

  ‘That was quick. Thanks. You look great, although that looks sore.’ He nodded to her arm.

  Bee pushed up her rolled sleeve, further revealing the bruise rather than hiding it. She’d discovered people were always more curious about hidden things. Less defensive meant less suspicion.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Oh, don’t ask! If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. You know how clumsy I am. Sore, though.’ She lengthened the sleeve, covering the mark entirely, ‘And I don’t look great. I look fat, but thanks.’

  ‘You do not.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What’s all this?’ She pulled a small roll of loose flesh from her stomach and held it out. Her jeans were revealed to have a soft knitted insert at the waist.

  ‘Bee, you’ve just had a baby.’

  ‘Not that recently.’

  ‘Yes, that recently. Don’t turn into one of those women obsessed with weight. You’ll soon be fit again. Best to do it slowly.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about Doctor Tuan. You’ve read up on these things, I suppose?’ Her laugh was overly animated. ‘Listen, I’ll just call Ian quickly. Don’t move. I can’t believe you are actually here.’

  ‘Go ahead. Tell him I said hello.’

  With the call quickly made, Bee began to relax. ‘What have you been doing with yourself?’ she asked. ‘Pappy said Misses P said you haven’t been out much.’

  ‘I haven’t.’ Tuan looked at himself, ‘I know I look a mess,’ he fiddled with his matted locks, ‘Sorry if I stink. I didn’t think. I mean… I haven’t…’

  ‘It’s okay. You don’t stink,’ she lied. ‘I’m just so glad to see you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Suddenly her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears, ‘Sorry. Just ignore me.’ She flapped a hand, waving him away, ‘It’s my hormones. I don’t need to tell you though, I’m sure you’ve read all about it.’ She sobbed a laugh.

  Tuan took the waving hand in his but she pulled back. ‘Don’t. Violet is upstairs.’

  ‘Can I see her? Just for a minute?’

  Bee was surprised, ‘See her? I didn’t think you’d want to.’

  ‘Of course I want to.’

  Wiping her tears away, she said, ‘She’s asleep… but okay, if you’d like. Take off your boots, though, they look rather wet.’

  ‘Sorry. The river wasn’t so easy to cross.’ He smiled as he pulled off his boots and poured a trickle of water from them. He left them on the short dry grass. Soggy trousers rolled up, he again brushed down his clothes.

  Bee led the way into the house and up the stairs until soon they were watching Violet sleeping in her cot. The baby lay on her back, short arms bent so that tiny soft fists rested comfortably beside her head. Her face was turned towards them, eyes closed but not tightly so; sparse blond lashes curling out from the smooth fat of the lid. The only sign of life was the almost imperceptible rise and fall of the blanket.

  ‘She is breathing, isn’t she? I can hardly see it, even with my eyes.’ Tuan whispered.

  ‘She is. But I know what you mean. Terrifying isn’t it? See that little mirror on the windowsill? Sometimes I use that to check, to make sure she is okay. Ridiculous really.’

  ‘No it’s not. I think I would, too.’ Tuan turned to leave, ‘She’s beautiful, Bee. Just like you.’

  ‘Always the flatterer. Come on, before my tea gets cold and your beer gets warm.’

  As they went back down the stairs, Bee’s heart filled with enough happiness to cloak her fear of Boyce and of life beyond Violet, for the time being, at least. She felt Tuan’s words completely, touched as she was by his sincerity. It would enable her to cope as she waited for things to get better. This extra parcel of happiness might get everything back on track. She would think of his words later, after he had gone, and relive the sensation again. It was nice to feel something positive that wasn’t Violet.

  Outside they shared the small bench, Bee perched on the arm, her nose growing accustomed to the sour smell of Tuan’s unwashed body, Tuan spreading across the seat. Kinsman Hall lighting up before them.

  ‘I see Misses P is taking advantage of my absence.’ He commented, pointing across the valley with an indistinct wave of the hand.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. It doesn’t matter.’ After a short pause he turned to Bee, ‘Listen, I am sorry I wasn’t there to see you, after Violet was born. It was just… you know… you can imagine… it was a real shock. I couldn’t trust myself.’

  ‘I understand. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘That’s very generous, and undeserved.’

  ‘You’re feeling better now, aren’t you?’

  Tuan nodded vaguely, the meaning unclear.

  ‘Will you call Pappy? He’s very worried about you.’

  ‘How is he? Any better?’

  ‘Better?’

  ‘About Nan.’

  ‘He’s much less bitter about it all now. I think he’s finding it hard living in the house though. I sometimes wonder if he’ll move.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll ever want to meet someone else?’

  ‘To be honest, I doubt he has thought about it. It’s such early days.’

  ‘And how are your mum and dad?’

  ‘Dad seems better about Nana, too, although he still finds it hard to talk about her sometimes. Mum still misses her terribly. It really shook them up. But I guess time is a great healer.’ She put her cup on the ground, ‘I love how long the evenings are in the summer, don’ t you? The days just go on and on, and even when it seems the sun has finally given in, it still isn’t dark. Not properly dark. Even now it’s not truly dark and look at the time; so much time in the summer.’

  But Tuan wasn’t listening. After swigging the entire contents of his beer down in one, he grabbed her hand. ‘Bee. I think you know how I feel about you.’

  She tried to pull her hand away but his grip was firm.

  ‘I love you. I want us to be a family. You, me and Violet.’

  It was not what she was expecting and it took a few moments for the statement to sink in. Despite her work – the novel that revealed her innermost feelings in truthful chains of letters hidden amongst fiction – Bee held an absolute fear of this moment. She knew that once spoken, words could never be recalled.

  She began her response, ‘Violet is Ian’s daughter. I can’t just walk away. I can’t take her from her father just because…’

  ‘Just because what?’

  ‘Just because you ask me to. I have a responsibility to them both. I think maybe… maybe you and me, maybe we missed our time.’ It stuck in her throat but it had to be said.

  Tuan did not comment, nor did he leave. He asked for another beer and when she returned asked her directly if she loved Ian Boyce.

  ‘Of course.’

  In her heart Bee knew it was a lie, but it was expected of her. She had always done what was expected of her: Pulau Tua, Whitegate, Ian Boyce, university, career, house, baby. If she confessed that she no longer loved the father of her child, the man who had supported her in all things, it would mark the beginning of the end. Always, she had tried to be independent and loyal, just as her parents had raised her, a person never to give up. After so much time and effort, she was not sure she had the strength to face change.

  ‘And do you love me?’

  Her cheeks reddened.

  ‘Well? Do you?’

  ‘I don’t need to say it.’

  ‘I want you to say it.’

  Bee refused to speak.

  ‘Then tell me that you don’t love me. Can you say that? Are those words you can manage? Tuan I do not love you.
’

  ‘I would never say that.’

  ‘Then tell me you do. If you tell me that you love me then I will go home and leave you in peace, to think. I won’t come back until you call me, I won’t force you into making any decision you feel uncomfortable with. But I need to hear the truth, Belle.

  ‘You don’t know what it has been like these past few months. Months… what am I saying? Years! Thinking of you and him, wondering if I have been misreading things, or if I’ve overlooked some signal. I am fed up with thinking about it, Bee, of trawling through the memories of my life, your life, our life, hunting down moments to analyse, to… to... pick apart in the hope of finding some deeper meaning. Always searching for that categorical answer to the question of whether you really do love me.’

  ‘I told you in London.’

  He seemed not to hear, set on delivering his monologue, ‘I spend all day, everyday, living in the past, reliving conversations in my head, reexamining those looks you give, you know the ones, when your eyes flash my way, just for me, just for a second, when no one else is looking. Do you know how they make me feel, those looks, assuming they are real, assuming it is not just part of some enormous fantasy? I feel them in here, twisting my insides, like some kind of lovesick teenager. All these years and I still feel it. But I can’t go on with it. It’s too hard. Look at me, Bee. I am a mess. I am growing older and older and feeling the passing of time like it is running through my fingers. I have wasted so much of that precious time, Bee. I want to know, one way or the other, do you still love me? Could you be with me?’

  Bee freed her hand from his and wrapped her arms about herself.

  He shook his head, smiling as if at some private thought, ‘Sometimes I feel like I have made it all up. Actually sometimes I think I would rather not know whether you still love me. The fantasy of it all is far easier to deal with than knowing the truth. At least, it was.’

  ‘So why ask.’

  ‘I have made up my mind. I want to know. Bee, look at me. Look at me. I have to know, one way or the other. That night, after the museum, you told me so much about how you felt, was it true? Did you love me as you said? Do you still love me? Could you still love me?’

  They were so close that she felt sure he would kiss her if she told him the truth. But still she thought of the doting father of sweet Violet. A man she feared.

  She took a breath. To speak the truth was a frightening prospect. To reveal again something so painfully personal, something that was so carelessly swept aside once before, was terrifying. But the time for lies had long gone.

  ‘I have always loved you,’ she said, not looking at him but at the lights of the Hall in the distance, ‘If you had spent less time chasing the likes of Chardonnay Williams you would have known I adored you from the very first time we met. You must have been blind, Tuan, not to notice. That night, after the museum, I told you so much about how I felt that I could hardly believe I was saying it. But you know what? I thought why shouldn’t I say it, where’s the risk now? I decided to give in to it, let it happen, finally let myself go. And then what did you do?’

  ‘It was unforgivable.’

  ‘It was perfectly forgivable, in the circumstances. But that doesn’t mean it hurt any less. I feel like all I have ever done is wait, Tuan. Wait for you to make the move, wait for you to give me a sign, wait for you to get over some girl you’ve gone mad for.’

  ‘I have never ‘gone mad’ for anyone other than you.’

  ‘You know, even at school I waited for you to get things out of your system, to let us both have proper teenage years so that we could have a decent life together without either of us feeling trapped, or resentful of our inexperience. I suppose in a way I wanted it for myself as much as for you, to be able to meet different boys and not dive headlong into something serious. I always sensed we would be together, so in a way it didn’t matter if we waited. You see what I mean? About waiting? Always waiting. At least that is what I tried to do, in my own way. Very sensible for a young girl, I suppose… too sensible. But after a while you stopped being interested, or that’s how it seemed. We let something sneak in while we were waiting, Tuan. Indifference perhaps. And so when Ian wanted more I thought, what the hell, he’s handsome, mature, he adores me, maybe I could be happy with him.’

  Bee looked at the beer in Tuan’s hand and the empty bottle at his feet. She would have to replace them before Boyce returned. ‘I fell in love with him. Not in the way I loved you… love you… but you and I were no longer a realistic prospect.

  ‘And then, bingo, as soon as I was settled, you started paying me all the attention I ever wanted, leading me to suspect you wanted me but never actually saying so. Never committing. I thought, okay, now you can’t have me, you want me. Thanks a bunch.

  ‘I fought it, in my own way. Tried to do the right thing by Ian, and then I realised it didn’t matter what I did, that I loved you so much, the whys and wherefores were irrelevant. You know the rest. I told you everything that night, and yes it was true, every word, and then you ran away and left me. But yes, as I said, in answer to your question I do love you. So now you can go.’

  Tuan stood up. He did not try to kiss her as she thought he might, but walked away. When he turned she saw a beaming smile. ‘I have loved you every second I have known you. No. That’s not true. I have loved you my whole life. That is a fact. The Moon is my witness. But I will keep my promise. You know where I live. I want you both,’ he nodded toward Violet’s bedroom window. ‘I love you, Bee.’

  She picked up the empty bottle and watched him for as long as she could through the darkening landscape, and before going inside buried the empty beer bottle at the bottom of the recycling bin. She could replace the two bottles from hidden stock kept for when Pappy visited, stored in Violet’s attic space. Boyce didn’t like him coming.

  EVER AFTER

  By the time Violet turned four, Bee had been slapped, punched or beaten so many times she had lost count. Boyce’s remorse became more obviously what it was, an empty habit, but still he cried with conviction. The tumour in their relationship had grown gradually, a steady expansion into the fiber of life, from a moment early on.

  In her heart, Bee knew the halcyon days reflected upon had never been; that to remember herself and Boyce as a carefree couple was nothing more than invention, a wishful fancy she herself had made feel real. And even this fantasy was a poor impression of what other people shared. Promises made always broken; private promises passing without a voice. Bee visited her family only when her skin was free from revealing marks and bruises, and rarely were they invited to the couple’s home, Bee fearing the atmosphere might be tangible. Only the haunted face seemed impossible to conceal.

  After the confessional talk with Tuan on that beautiful summer’s evening, she had almost left Boyce, but the sight of a happy Violet in her smiling father’s arms the following morning had rendered her incapable of carrying out the deed. And so it remained. Bee had gone to the Hall, but only to tell Tuan she could not leave.

  ‘I thought I had waited forever,’ she’d said, ‘but I know now that I can always wait longer. I told you, waiting is what I do best. Can’t you wait just a little longer?’

  Tuan was furious, especially so since she seemed to think they had time to spare. She may be young, he bellowed, but when was the last time she looked at him properly? He thrashed the furniture around him and stormed off, leaving Bee where he had marched her, outside on the doorstep with the great doors closed. For Bee, the fleeting visit had been extraordinarily painful and exacted a high price. Anne-Marie had seen her heading into the grounds of the Hall. Unwittingly she asked about it in front of Boyce. It was some time before Bee left the house again.

  *

  One sunny spring day Bee and Violet were playing in the garden when Boyce came home in a foul temper. Even before he got out of the car his mood was plain.

  Mother and daughter were laughing, playing picnics barefoot in the little flower filled
garden. Bee read his face but smiled brightly, hoping he might recognise what was important in life and join them, and not allow his mood to spoil everything. There was little left now of the man she had thought she had fallen in love with.

  ‘Is that new?’ he asked, without greeting, pointing at Violet’s tiny china tea set.

  ‘Yes, well… sort of. We went shopping this morning and bought it with the money Violet had for her birthday.’ Bee smiled.

  ‘Who on earth would give a four year-old money?’ he snapped. ‘I wish someone would give me money.’

  ‘Hard day?’ Bee ventured.

  ‘Not likely to be home this early if it was a hard day, Bee.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So who gave the money?’

  Boyce did not like, Anne Marie, who had given it. ‘My cousin.’

  ‘Where did you go to get the set?’

  ‘Just into town.’

  ‘How did you get there?’ ‘

  ‘She picked us up. Violet’s had a wonderful morning, haven’t you?’

  Bee no longer drove at all.

  ‘So it wasn’t that waste of space from your antenatal classes, I hope. Whatever she’s called. Rough as old boots.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Bee lied, but not as smoothly as other times. She noted a marginal altering of expression in Boyce’s face.

  ‘Good. I don’t want Violet mixing with that type.’

  ‘Snob.’ She said it lightly, affecting a small laugh, but regretted it. He wasn’t to be cajoled into good humour. Not today.

  ‘What did you say?’

  Bee picked up some toys and tidied a little. ‘My friend… she’s… an inverted snob. What’s that Violet? You’ve made Daddy a cup of tea? How sweet. Good girl.’

  With a bouncing ponytail, Violet ran over to give her father the little cup of water she had just poured. She tripped over the picnic blanket and the contents splashed over him, making it appear as if he had wet himself. She stopped and stared, then shrieked with laughter.

  The hand was swift, and after the slap, a rough shove pushed Violet to the ground. Bee was mortified. This was a new and unexpected turn. She swept the sobbing Violet into her arms and hugged her.

  ‘That,’ he yelled as he marched off to the house, ‘is what happens when you let her mix with morons from the village! I don’t want my daughter to see that slag or her filthy bastards again, understand? Or you. And stop fucking lying to me.’