Meridian Days (9 page)

She frowned until halfway through the sentence and then, as understanding hit her, she regarded the half-eaten mess of her salad with downcast eyes.

"I arrived early," I said. "I saw you on the beach with the Director."

Her eyes were wide, frightened. She tried to regain her composure with a negligent shrug. "But you should have come along anyway. It might have stopped what happened later — I had a fainting fit. It happens sometimes."

"What did Steiner want?"

She regarded her plate again. "He asked me to leave with him," she murmured.

"Leave the island?" I asked. "Join him here on Main?" My tone was incredulous. Steiner had said nothing earlier about Fire's leaving
with
him.

Fire was shaking her head, still not looking me in the eye. She said in a voice so soft I had to lean forward to hear her words: "He wanted me to leave the planet with him next week, go with him to his next posting."

I stared at her; a rivulet of sweat ran down my neck and over my chest. I recalled Steiner telling me that all he felt for Fire was pity. I felt a surge of jealousy, and hated myself for it.

"But didn't he want Tamara to leave with him the other week?" I asked. "She refused... so he asked you?"

She shrugged. "Look—" she hesitated "-it goes back further than that. Five, six years ago he had a thing going with Jade. They saw a lot of each other, though Tamara did her best to put a stop to it. Then Jade... then she had the accident." She paused, then went on, "A year ago, after my father went missing, Steiner returned to the island. It was as if he felt personally responsible for what had happened to my father. Tamara hated him at first, but then... well, gradually she came to like him, maybe even to love him — at least that's what I thought then. After the event the other night, I know my mother was playing him along all the time."

I considered Steiner's strange obsession with the Trevellion women. I could understand any man's interest in Fire and Jade, but how anyone could be attracted to Tamara Trevellion was beyond me. "What do you think Steiner felt for your mother?" I asked.

Fire pushed out her lips, considering. "Oh—" she sounded tired, "at the time I thought he genuinely loved her. Maybe I was just hoping he might take the place of the father I'd lost. He took all the abuse that Tamara could throw at him, even though he remained, you know,
distant
. He seemed interested in her not as a person, but as an artist. He wanted to know all about her art. Then..." She lapsed into silence.

"Then?"

She shrugged. "He began to take an interest in me. Whenever he called in at the island he always insisted on seeing me for an hour or two. A couple of times he offered to take me shopping to Main, but Tamara wouldn't allow that."

"Perhaps he felt responsible for you, after the accident? Was he aware of how badly Tamara treated you?"

"He wasn't blind. He saw all that. It was as if he was trying to compensate for her spitefulness by being kind." She looked up. "He never touched me, nothing like that. But I still didn't like all his attention."

"I should have thought that after so long without affection..."

She shrugged, frowned. "I don't know. It was strange, weird, all his concern after so long without it from anyone. It was as if he
pitied
me for who I was — and I resented that. I didn't want his pity. Then, a few months ago, he suggested that I should go with him when he left Meridian. He painted a fine picture of all the wonders of the Expansion I'd be able to experience, insisted that I join him."

"But you refused?"

She trawled her fork aimlessly through the food on her plate. "I told him I couldn't possibly go — I needed treatment for my condition. He said that surgeons on Earth would be able to cure me completely, no more tests and monitoring. I'd be free."

"So... what stopped you?" I pressed.

"Tamara found out. She wouldn't let me see him, after that. And anyway, I don't think I would have gone. I don't really like him. He's too..." she searched for the word, "too
distant
, mechanical."

Then she looked up at me, popped a prawn into her mouth and chewed. She changed the subject. "Oh, have you found out what happened to Jade yet, like you said you would?"

My stomach felt as though it had suddenly turned to lead.

She saw my expression. "What is it?" Her voice faltered.

I wanted more than anything to tell her that I had forgotten to ask Doug Foulds, but the look of entreaty in her eyes would not allow the lie. I had to tell her the truth — but, of course, there were two versions of the truth. I had the urge to tell Fire the 'official' version of her sister's death, which ascribed the tragedy to an accident. But the danger of telling her the least harrowing scenario might be that Fire would demand the drug so that she could relive her part in the experience.

I had to tell her the truth.

"Well, Mr Benedict? What did the Inspector say?"

"I spoke to Doug Foulds yesterday," I said. "He didn't investigate the case — his superior did."

"So he doesn't know what happened?"

I hesitated. "He looked up the records and gave me the outline of his superior's report."

"And?"

I avoided her eyes. "This might be hard for you to take—"

"I want to know the truth, Mr Benedict."

"Very well." I paused, wondering how to phrase it. "Tamara was working with Jade on a laser sculpture in the glade you took me to the other evening. When the accident happened, your mother called in the then Inspector to investigate. He found out what happened — but Tamara didn't want the true version of the tragedy to be known. He released a report which stated that Jade fell into the sculpture and died instantly..."

She stared at me. "And the truth?"

"The truth, according to the report, was that Jade walked in the sculpture voluntarily. She took her own life."

Fire looked stricken. She was slowly shaking her head. "No... no. She wouldn't have done such a thing. Why would she do
that
?"

"I'm sorry, Fire."

She gripped my hand imploringly. "Is it possible that the Inspector got it wrong — that it
was
an accident, after all?"

"Fire..." I didn't know where to begin. My mouth was suddenly dry. I took a long drink of beer and looked anywhere except into her green, beseeching eyes.

"Fire, you were the only witness to what happened. You were there when Jade — when she did what she did. The Inspector questioned you, and you told him what you had seen."

Fire just stared at her plate, open-mouthed with shock.

"It's obvious why you blocked it from your mind, why you can't recall what happened. Can't you see that?"

"I just can't believe that Jade took her own life," she murmured.

"Perhaps if I get you a copy of the official report. We could return to the clearing one evening and go through your statement. Perhaps that might bring something back—"

"There is an easier way," she began.

"Fire..."

"Let me have the frost, Mr Benedict. I want to relive the experience. I couldn't take it back then because I was young and close to Jade. I'm older now. I know what happened to her — but I want to
see
it."

"I couldn't allow that. It might be far too dangerous. You blocked it originally for a reason. To experience it now might be more than you could take. Imagine the terror of reliving her death a second time."

"I survived it once, Mr Benedict. I want the memory of what happened!"

"It's more than just the memory. You'd relive the actual event. You'd be fifteen again, loving Jade, and when she... when she died, you'd feel all the horror that you experienced the first time. God knows what it'd do to you."

"You just can't imagine the hell of not knowing."

"But you
know
what happened." I was exasperated. "What more do you want?"

She stared at her fingers. "I just want to satisfy myself, that's all."

"Fire, I'll get a transcription of your statement. If we go through it, over and over, perhaps something might return. It'd be safer than taking frost. Please believe me, I'm on your side. I just don't want to see you hurt." I attempted to take her hands across the table, but she drew them away.

She looked up. "So you won't give me the drug, Mr Benedict?"

I shook my head. "I can't."

She was silent for a long time, staring blindly at the table-top. I could not help but recall what Tamara Trevellion had said the other night, that Fire was using me, with the implication that she would drop me if she got what she wanted, or did not...

Then Fire did a surprising thing. She reached across the table, took my hand and squeezed. "Hey, Mr Benedict — don't look so down, okay?" She shrugged. "I understand why you won't let me have the stuff. Maybe you're right. Perhaps I should try to recall what happened some other way." And she smiled so genuinely that I was ashamed of the suspicion Tamara Trevellion had planted in my head.

I recalled what Fire had told me, that the work of art Tamara and Jade had been working on was now exhibited at a museum on Main.

"If you like," I said, "perhaps we could visit the museum here sometime, see the piece your mother and Jade created? You never know, it might help."

"That'd be great." Her tone was enthusiastic, but I could see the doubt in her eyes.

Behind her, the last of the crates was being manoeuvred into position on the back of the low-loader. Tamara Trevellion was going through various documents with the store manager. She initialled the final receipt, then began looking around, presumably for Fire.

I asked quickly, "What are you doing over the next couple of days?"

She shrugged. "Not much. Why?"

"How would you like to go gliding with me?"

"I'd love to." From delight at the prospect, her expression turned glum. "But Tamara wouldn't let me."

"Do you have to tell her? Couldn't you just sneak off for a few hours?"

Fire sighed. "And face her anger when I got back?"

"Aren't you accustomed to it by now? Wouldn't it be worth it? Have you ever been gliding before?"

She shook her head, tracing a pattern on the table-top. "I've never even flown before. Do you own a glider?"

"A two-berth model. I bought it when I first arrived — I went out every week in the early days. We could set off early one day, come here and visit the museum."

Fire remained staring at the water pattern she had made with her finger. "It's impossible, Mr Benedict. You don't understand what Tamara might do when I got back."

"Withold your treatment?" I laughed. "Fire, perhaps the reason she's so cruel is that you put up with it. Perhaps if you stood your ground, fought back—"

"You don't understand—" a whisper. "Do you know what she did to me last month, when I accidentally dropped one of her crystals? She gave me the nightmares."

I almost laughed. "The...
what
?"

"I don't know how she does it. Maybe she puts something in my food or drink. Then when I go to sleep, I dream that I'm in the sea near Darkside and it's nighttime and a fish like a shark is attacking me, tearing me to pieces. It's always the same dream, and it always comes after I've done something wrong."

"Your mother," I said, "is a monster."

"I hate her so much that I pity her, Mr Benedict."

I stared at the disconsolate girl for a while before saying, "The only thing that keeps you with your mother is your illness, right?"

She gave a grudging nod.

"What would you say if I arranged an appointment with a specialist here on Main?"

She shrugged. "What good would that do?"

"Well, you might find out exactly what's wrong with you. You have only Tamara's word for it that your treatment is expensive. For all you know, it might be relatively cheap. If that were so..."

"I don't know," she began.

"What have you got to lose? If you could be treated by an independent doctor, at moderate cost... That would mean you'd be free. You could live anywhere you liked."

"Anywhere? Anywhere at all?"

"Anywhere. What do you say?"

"I'm frightened. I've never defied Tamara before."

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life imprisoned on the island with your mother?"

Tamara Trevellion had spotted us and was approaching along the tree-lined boulevard.

"Here she comes," I said. "Brace yourself."

Trevellion paused before our table. I knew it was only in my mind, but her sudden presence seemed to reduce the temperature by twenty degrees. I was repulsed by the sight of the sucker— fish swarming over her body.

Beside me Fire shivered, shrank into herself.

"So here you are, Fire," Trevellion snapped. "Benedict — you obviously go to inordinate lengths to arrange a rendezvous."

"We met by accident," I said. "I had no idea you were here."

Trevellion lowered herself into a seat at the table, arranging her frills and fronds as she would the fine silk of an expensive gown. She transferred her attention to me. "As it happens, Benedict, you are the very man I need to see."

I stared at her, suspicious. "I am?"

"For a long time now I have been wanting to add to my menagerie of native Meridian fauna. At the event the other day I asked Abraham Cunningham if he might procure me a sand lion. For reasons of his own, he declined to do so. Nonetheless, I still desire a specimen. I was wondering..." she gave me what I took to be a calculating look, "would you be prepared to capture me one and deliver it to my island?"

Fire burst in, "No, you can't, Bob! It's too dangerous!"

Trevellion turned a cold gaze on her daughter. "Be silent! This is Mr Benedict's decision."

I wondered why Trevellion had singled me out as the one person, after Abe, suited to capturing a lion. I considered everything Abe had told me about the animals. In any other situation I might have told the woman what to do with her request.

"Fire's right," I said. "It's a very dangerous job."

"And one for which you would be amply rewarded," Trevellion said.

"I don't want payment," I said. "That is, monetary payment."