The Forever Girl

  The question did not seem to interest him. He shrugged.

  “Well, have you?” she pressed.

  “Maybe. It’s stupid.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think it’s stupid. You mix your blood. That makes you blood brothers. Lots of people do it.”

  He shook his head. He was still avoiding her gaze. “They don’t.” He paused. “Name one person who’s done it. Name them.”

  “Lance Bodden. He’s a blood brother with Lucas Jones. He told me. He said they both cut themselves and then put the blood together. In the palm of their hands. He said there was lots of blood.”

  “You can get things from that,” he said. “You get the other guy’s germs. There are lots of germs in blood. It’s full of germs, especially if you’re Lucas Jones. He’s dirty.”

  She did not think there was much of a risk. “Blood’s clean. It’s spit that’s full of germs. You don’t mix your spit.”

  “I wouldn’t be a blood brother anyway,” he said. “Not me.”

  She hesitated. “We could be blood brothers – you and me.”

  Now he looked at her incredulously. “You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not. We could be blood brothers. Not with lots of blood – just a little. We could use a pin – pins don’t hurt as much as knives.”

  This was greeted with a laugh. “But you’re a girl, Clover. We can’t be brothers. You have to be a boy to be brothers.”

  She blushed. “Girls and boys are not all that different.”

  He shook his head. “They are.”

  Her disappointment showed. “They can be friends. Best friends even.”

  He rose to his feet. “I have to go. Sorry.”

  “Because of what I said? Because you don’t want to be blood brothers?”

  “Not that. I’ve got to go home – that’s all.”

  He began to climb down the ladder. From above she watched him. She liked the shape of his head. She liked his hair, which was dark blond and a bit bristly up at the top. Boys’ hair seemed different, but she could not put her finger on the reason why it seemed different. Could you tell if it was just a single hair you were looking at? Could you tell under a microscope?

  He reached the bottom of the ladder and looked up at her. He smiled. She loved his smile too. She loved the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled. She loved him. It was a strange feeling – a feeling of anticipation, of excitement. It started in her stomach, she thought, and then worked its way up. She slipped her hand under her T-shirt and felt her heart. You fell in love in your heart, she had heard, but she was not sure how you could tell. Could you feel your pulse and count it? Was that how you knew?

  Teddy was keen.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve often thought that people round here are hiding something.”

  “There you are,” said James. “So what we have to do is just make sure that everybody round us is okay. We check up on them first, and then we move on to other people. We’ll find out soon enough who’s a spy and who isn’t.”

  “Good idea,” said Teddy. He looked puzzled. “How do you do it?”

  “You watch,” Clover explained. “Spies give themselves away eventually. You note where they go. You have to keep records, you see. And you take photographs. I’ve got a camera.”

  “Me too,” said Teddy. “For my last birthday. It has this lens that makes things closer …”

  “Zoom lens,” said James knowingly. “Good.”

  “And then we can load them onto the computer and print them,” said Teddy. “I know how to do that.”

  “We can begin with your dad,” said James casually. “Just for practice.”

  Teddy shook his head. “No. Why begin with him? Why not begin with yours?”

  James glanced at Clover.

  “All right,” she said. “We don’t have to start with your dad, Teddy. We can start with mine. Or even my mum. My dad’s out at the office most of the time. We can start with my mum.”

  “Doing what?” asked Teddy.

  Clover put a finger to her lips in a gesture of complicity. “Observation.”

  6

  He was there when she reached the bar, which is the way she wanted it to be. If she had arrived at the Grand Old House first then she would have had to sit there, in public, looking awkward. George Town was still an intimate, village-like place – at least for those who lived there – and somebody might have come up to her, some friend or acquaintance, and asked her where David was. This way at least she could avoid that, although she realised that this meeting might not be as discreet as she might wish. People talked; a few months previously at a tennis club social she had herself commented on seeing a friend with another man. It could have been innocent, of course, and probably was, but she had spoken to somebody about it. Not that she had much time for gossip, but when there was so little else to talk about … And in due course she, and everybody else who had speculated on the break-up of that marriage, had been proved right.

  She should have said no. She could have said that she had to get back to the children – they had always provided a complete excuse for turning down unwanted invitations. Or she could have suggested that he called at the house for a drink later on, and she could then have telephoned David asking him whether he could get back in time because George Collins was dropping in. And David would have told her to explain to George about his meeting and that would have been her off the hook – able to entertain another man at the house in complete propriety. But she did not do this, and now here she was at the Grand Old House meeting him without the knowledge of her husband.

  She tried to suppress her misgivings. Men and women could be friends these days without threatening their marriages. Men and women worked together, collaborated on projects, served on committees with one another. Young people even shared rooms together when they travelled, without a whiff of sex. It was natural – and healthy. It was absurd to suggest that people should somehow keep one another at arm’s length in all other contexts simply because their partners might see such friends as a threat. The days of closed, possessive marriages were over; women were no longer their husbands’ chattels, to be guarded jealously against others.

  That was a rationalisation, though, and she was honest enough to admit it to herself. She wanted to see George Collins because he interested her – it was as simple as that. She thought, with shame, of how different it would have been if it were David she was meeting for a drink; she would have felt nothing. Now something had awakened within her – she had almost forgotten what it was like, but now she knew once more.

  He was sitting some distance away from the bar, at a table overlooking the sea. When he saw her come in, he simply nodded, although he rose to his feet as she approached the table. He smiled at her as she sat down.

  “It’s been a hellish day,” he said. “And alcohol helps. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.”

  She made a gesture of acceptance. “I’m sure you don’t overdo it. But I suppose, being a doctor …”

  He completed the sentence. “Makes no difference. None at all. Doctors are as weak as the rest of humanity. The only difference is that we know how all the parts work, and we know what the odds are.” He paused. “Or I used to know them. You’d be surprised at how much the average doctor has forgotten.”

  She laughed. Talking to him was pleasant – so easy. “But everybody forgets what they learned. I learned a lot about art when I was a student. I could rattle off the names of painters and knew how they influenced one another. Nowadays, I’ve forgotten everybody’s dates.”

  He went off to order her a drink at the bar. While he was away she looked around the room, as naturally as she could. There was nobody she knew. She relaxed.

  They raised their glasses to one another.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thanks for coming at virtually no notice. I thought that you’d have the children to look after.”

  “They’re with the maid. They love going to her house. She spoils them.”
>
  He nodded. “Jamaican?”

  “Yes.”

  “They love children. They …” He stopped himself. “Or does that sound patronising?”

  She thought it did not. “It’s true. It’s not patronising in the slightest. Complimentary, I’d have thought. Italians love children too.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, but … white people can’t really say anything about black people, can they? Because of the past. Because of the fact that we stole so much from them. Their freedom. Their lives. Everything.”

  “You didn’t. I didn’t.”

  He looked into his glass. “Our grandparents did.”

  “I thought it was a bit before that. How long do people have to say sorry?”

  He thought for a few moments before answering. “A bit longer, I’d say.” He paused. “After all, what colour are the people living in the large houses and what colour are the people who look after their gardens? What colour are the maids? What does that tell us?”

  She thought: yes, you’re right. And then she thought: David would never say that. Never. That was the difference.

  “We had a Jamaican lady working for us,” he said. “She was with us until a year or so ago. She was substitute grandmother. The kids still miss her.”

  “They would.”

  There was a brief moment of silence. He took a sip of his drink. “That poor woman …”

  “Bella?”

  “Mrs Rosales.”

  “Yes, Bella.”

  He looked up at the ceiling. “It makes my blood boil.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “I assume that her employers know what’s what. I assume that somebody told them what she needed.”

  “I believe they did. I only heard about it from Margaret – the woman who helps me. She implied that they just couldn’t be bothered.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “It could be too late, you know. She may have to lose the leg anyway.”

  “Well, at least you’ll have tried. This person in Kingston – who is he?”

  “He’s a general surgeon – an increasingly rare breed. He does anything and everything. He used to be in one of the big hospitals in Miami but he retired early and went off to this clinic in Kingston. They’re Lutherans, I believe. Missionaries. People like that still exist.”

  “Do you think he’ll be able to help?”

  He nodded. “I phoned him just before I came here. He says that he’ll see her tomorrow. We took the liberty of booking her on the Cayman Airways flight first thing. I’ve got my nurse to go round and let her know.”

  She told him that she would reimburse him for the flight, and he thanked her. “It’s not all that uncommon, you know,” he said.

  “Infections like that?”

  “Yes. But I meant it’s not uncommon for people to let their domestic workers fend for themselves. I see those people every day of the week. Filipina maids, any number of Jamaicans, Haitians – the lot.”

  She said that she had heard about the way he helped. “It’s very good of you …”

  He brushed aside the praise. “I have to do it. It’s my job. I’m a doctor. I’m not a hero or anything like that. That’s not the way it is, you know. You just do what you were trained to do – same as anybody.”

  She watched him. She could tell that he was uncomfortable talking about his work, and she decided to change the subject. Although they had known one another for years, she knew very little about him. She knew that he was British, that Alice was Australian, and that they kept to themselves much of the time. Apart from that, she knew nothing. She asked him the obvious question – the one that expatriates asked each other incessantly. How did you end up here?

  He smiled. “The question of questions. Everybody asks it, don’t they? It’s as if they can hardly believe that anybody would make a conscious, freely made choice to come to this place.”

  “Well, it’s what we all think about, isn’t it?”

  He agreed. “I suppose it is. In so far as we have any curiosity about our fellow islanders. I’m not sure if I find myself wanting to know about some of them.” He hesitated. “Does that sound snobbish?”

  “It depends on which ones you’re thinking of.”

  “The rich ones,” he said. “I find their shallowness distasteful. And they worship money.”

  “Then it doesn’t sound at all snobbish. And anyway, we all know why they’re here. It’s the others who are interesting – the people who’ve come from somewhere else for other reasons. Not just because they’re avoiding tax.”

  He looked doubtful. “Are there many of those?”

  “Some people come for straightforward jobs. David did.” She felt that she had to defend her husband, who was not as obsessed with money as many of the others were. He was interested in figures, and there was a difference.

  He was quick to agree. “Of course. I wasn’t talking about people like David.”

  She decided to be direct. “So how did you end up here?”

  He shrugged. “Ignorance.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of what I was coming to. You know, when I saw the advertisement in the British Medical Journal, the ad that brought me here, I had to go off and look the Caymans up in the atlas – I had no idea where they were. I thought they were somewhere in the South Pacific, you know. I thought they were somewhere down near Samoa. That shows how much I knew.”

  “So you took a job?”

  “Yes. I had just finished my hospital training in London. I was offered the chance to go on to a surgical job, also in London, but somehow I felt that to do that would be just too obvious. All too predictable. So I looked in the back pages of the BMJ and saw an advertisement from the Caymans government. It was for a one-year job in the hospital – somebody had gone off to have a baby and there was a one-year position. I thought: why not?”

  “And so you came out here?”

  “Yes. I came to do a job, which I did, and then I met Alice. My job at the hospital came to an end but I applied for a permit to do general practice and I got it. The rest is history, as they say.”

  She smiled at the expression. The rest is history. That meant things that happened – everything that happened. The moss. The acquisitions. Children. Inertia. Love. Despair.

  She looked about her. A group of four people – two couples – had come into the bar and had taken their places at a table on the other side of the room. They were locals – wealthy Caymanians who had what David called that look about them. They did not carry their wealth lightly. She thought she might have seen one of the women before somewhere, but she could not be sure. People like that kept to themselves, to their own circles; they disliked the expatriates, only tolerating them because they were useful to them; they needed the banks, and trusts, and law firms because without them all they had were mangrove swamps, some beaches, and a reef.

  George had said something to her that she had missed while being distracted by the newcomers.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “I said: how long are you and David going to stay?”

  She sipped at the drink he had bought her: a gin and tonic in which the ice was melting fast. She shrugged. “Until he retires. Which will be … heaven knows. Another twenty years? Fifteen?” She put down her glass. “And you?”

  “I’d leave tomorrow.”

  She was surprised, and her surprise showed.

  “Are you shocked?” he asked.

  “No, not really. It’s just that I thought you were so … so settled here. I’ve always imagined that you and Alice are happy.”

  For a moment he said nothing. She saw him look out of the window, past the line of white sand on which the hotel lights shone, into the darkness beyond, which was the sea. Then he said, “I only stay because these people – my patients – depend on me. It’s an odd thing. I could say to them that I was packing up and leaving, but somehow I can’t bring myself to do it. Some of them actually rely o
n me, you know, and that wouldn’t be easy. So if you said to me: here’s your freedom, I’d go tomorrow. Anywhere. Anywhere bigger than here. Australia. The States. Canada. Anywhere that’s the opposite of a ring of coral and some sand in the middle of the Caribbean.”

  She stared at him. “You’re unhappy?” She had not intended to say it, but the words slipped out.

  “Not unhappy in the sense of being miserable. I get along, I suppose. Maybe I should just say that I’d like to be leading another life. But then, plenty of people might say that about their lives.”

  She looked at his hands. She thought they were shaking. No, perhaps not.

  “And Alice?” she said.

  He looked back at her. “She’s not too unhappy,” he said. “She doesn’t like this place very much – she’s bored with it. But in her case, there’s something else that is far more important. You see, Alice is completely in love with me. Completely. Not as most wives are with their husbands – they’re friends, they rub along together out of habit and convenience. With her, it’s something quite unlike that. She lives for me. I’m her reason. I’m her … well, I suppose I’m her life.”

  She whispered now. Nobody could hear them, but the intimacy of the conversation dictated a whisper. “And you? How do you feel?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I wish I could give you a different answer, but I can’t. I don’t dislike her, but I’m not in love with her. Not like that.”

  “Like me,” she said.

  For a moment he did not react, and she wondered whether he had heard. In a way, she hoped that he had not. She should never have said that. It was a denial of her marriage. It was an appalling thing to say. David had done nothing to deserve it – but then Alice had done nothing either. They were both victims.

  Then he spoke. “I see,” he said. “That’s two of us, then. Trapped.”

  7

  David came home from the office at nine-thirty that night, which was two hours after Amanda had returned from the Grand Old House. She had collected the children from Margaret’s care and settled them in their rooms. They were full of pizza and popcorn washed down, she suspected, with coloured and sweetened liquids. But they were tired too: Clover had played basketball with Margaret’s niece and Billy had exhausted himself in various energetic games with the dogs. They took no time to drift off, and were both asleep by the time she went down the corridor to check up on them. She liked to stand in the doorway and watch her children as they slept, her gaze lingering on the faces she loved so much. That evening she stood for longer than usual, thinking of the stakes in the game she had started. One ill-thought-out, impulsive act could threaten so much: in flirting with adultery she had thrown her children’s futures onto the gaming table, but it was not too late. She would stop it right there, before anything else happened. All she had done was to sit and talk with another man, a doctor to whom she had delivered a patient, who had suggested a drink at the end of a difficult day. That was all. There had been no discreet assignation on the beach; no furtive meeting in a car; they had not so much as touched one another. And nobody had seen them anyway.