The Eunuch's Ward (The String Quartet) (25 page)

Also, the press were still around in great numbers. Their noses were telling them that there was something juicy afoot, but they were getting too little to support even their usual fabrications. Hugh made their life even harder. Ever since he’d decided to stay with us full time, he was taking mother wherever she needed to go in his chopper. Their direct request for a press release was answered only once. Ivan Prentice walked down to the gate and asked them to be patient. Mr. Ganis’ body hadn’t been even released for burial yet. His family needed time and privacy to come to terms with recent events. He was sure that Mrs. and Miss Ganis would be happy to issue another press release after the funeral.

‘Is it true that Steen Enterprises have taken over all Ganis’ business concerns?’ someone asked and Prentice thought it wise to throw them a bone.

‘In the light of the impending marriage, a merger was in process. Mr. Ganis was looking forward to unload many of his responsibilities to his future son-in-law. As you’ll appreciate, all the activities have been suspended for the time being. Thank you, ladies and gentleman.’ And with that, he turned back to continue working on the financial and legal mess with my mother. I was still under age so all that was required of me was to sign a power of attorney, authorising my mother to act on my behalf.

That left only Hugh.

He was staying here, flying to and from his offices every day, sometimes working in what was laughingly called The Library until early hours. It wasn’t that there were no books in the library. They were bought with the house. I had a look through them once. Seventy nine volumes of Rev. Joshua Percival’s Sermons put me off for life. Mother discovered several old housekeeping and cook books that, according to her, were very interesting, and, again according to her, some of them were first editions, well worth professional evaluation, but the interest stopped there.

Most days Hugh and I exchanged a kiss, and he kept his arm around my shoulders when we walked around the garden, but we slept in separate rooms and neither of us made even the slightest attempt to change that arrangement. I wasn’t even asking myself whether he still loved me. Who on earth could love anyone covered in filth and shame as much as I was? I should have found his continued presence at the house reassuring. In his wisdom Mungo Steen made his legacy independent from each other, therefore it wasn’t the money that kept him close, but I wasn’t even thinking that far. I never asked myself if I still loved him. Before all this happened, I had been fully immersed in love in all its forms. Now, I wasn’t sure what love was. I neither loved nor liked anyone, least of all myself. I don’t think that anyone with no liking for oneself can love anyone else. Of course, the best test of my feelings for him would be if he left. I could have been taking his constancy for granted. Once he wasn’t there, I’d know for sure. I’d be either upset or relieved.

The trouble was that I would have probably been utterly indifferent. Indifference is a form of self-defence and I was holding on to mine for dear life.

When I entered the library Hugh was on the phone. He looked up and smiled at me, ‘That’s fine, Peter. We’ll talk more about it tomorrow. I’ll be in bright and early.’

I wished I’d had an excuse for coming in, a good solid reason, like
the dinner is served
, or
I could use some help with moving my desk around
, anything, but I hadn’t so I just stood by the window looking at the roses, the raindrops on the petals glimmering in the sudden burst of sunshine.

‘Do you mind very much?’ he asked behind my back.

‘Do I mind being a Miss Ganis, after all that?’

He burst out laughing. ‘A very good way of putting it.’

‘Of course I mind.’ I turned away from the window and bowed theatrically, ‘Please meet my father, the eunuch.’ Straightening up again, I grinned at him. ‘A bit of an acquired taste, don’t you think?’

‘Don’t be such a brat, Nat.’

‘I can’t believe that my mother is still into him after what’s he’s turned into.’

‘As I’ve said, stop being so childishly judgmental. Love doesn’t alter when alternation finds, or whatever it was that the Bard said on the subject.’ 

Was that Hugh’s way of telling me that his feelings for me didn’t change now that turned out to be a child of the gutter?

‘Besides,’ Hugh continued calmly, ‘what was he turned into? A loving, deeply concerned father, as far as I can see. He tells me that he’d been searching for his attackers for years. He wasn’t getting very far before he made the link between the attack and Dr. Tanner’s clinic. Even then he wasn’t quite sure before Xango, Mungo I mean, practically lured him into one of his Chess Clubs and the two of them had a long talk. Mungo took Bakir to a decent clinic, the one that specialised in hormones. Apparently, Tanner had been pumping him full of estrogens, slowed down his thyroid gland... Actually, I’d better not try to sound scientific. I don’t think that even Bakir knows what’s been done to him. But, details were not of that much interest to Bakir at the time. What worried him was that Ganis... sorry, I mean...’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Ganis was a part-owner of Tanner’s clinic. A sleeping partner. Bakir only came to in his clinic. He had no recollection of any immigrant family. They may not have even existed. He may have been taken straight to Tanner’s.’

‘And from then on Bakir was acting as Mungo’s inside man?’

Hugh nodded. ‘He was very worried when Tanner was brought in for your virginity checkups. He practically never left your side ever since.’

‘I thought that was on my father’s orders.’ I didn’t know what other term to use for the nameless man. It was all too fresh.

‘Listen,’ Hugh dropped a couple of files into his briefcase, ‘how about I take you out to dinner tomorrow?’

‘Is that wise?’ Hartsfield House was my safe house. I would have happily lived on baked beans and water for the rest of my life rather than face the world.

* * *

It was very wise, as it turned out.

‘I think you’ll like this,’ Hugh said looking very smug.

I did. We ended up in France, at the same small coastal farm along the Côte d’Opale where Hugh had bought the cheese and seafood that he brought with him to the Sanctuary.

When on a farm, you eat as the farmers eat.

We were shown into the kitchen, with two large trestle tables under the right angle to each other. Both were already populated in the corner by a single party of about twenty. A local family and their visiting relatives, as we later learned. At the far end, an elderly man was reading a paper and dunking his bread into a bowl of stew. Opposite him was a woman, drinking wine out of a large, thick glass and picking at a plate of whitebait and fresh tomato in front of her. We never worked out if they were together or not. There didn’t seem to be any waiters around, but soon after we took our seats next to each other, away from the noise of the family party, a young man in a white shirt and black jeans brought us a carafe of wine, a jug of water, a bowl of dressed purple-coloured olives and a hot, fresh baton of bread. A minute later he came back with a few gasses.

Hugh poured a glass of water for himself.

‘I don’t mind if I do,’ I grinned, lifting the carafe.

‘Just one,’ he grinned back and pushed the smallest of the glasses to me. ‘Let’s place our order.’

I followed him to the business end of the kitchen. A middle aged man was stirring two clay pots at once on the top of an old aga, a woman next to him was opening oysters and arranging them on a few plates with wedges of lemon and small cubes of ice around the rim.

The couple greeted him as if they saw him yesterday. At their speed, I could only pick up a few words of French here and there. Foreign languages were not my strength at school. Must be hereditary, I thought. Just look at Bakir. After over twenty years in the UK he still struggled with his English.

‘Do we want fish soup?’ Hugh provided the welcome distraction from the depressing subject.

I shook my head.

‘Oysters?’

‘Yes, please.’

The French couple said something and laughed.

Hugh joined in, not as amused as them. ‘According to them, you seem to think that I can use all the help I can get.’

Out of politeness I smiled back at them. They probably said it to any man ordering oysters.

Apparently, we were in luck. The fish of the day, caught only a few hours ago, was turbot.

‘Grilled with truffles?’ Hugh translated the woman’s question.

I nodded with another smile.

If my mother was here, she would have asked for a recipe in decent French, then passed it on to the Boys or anyone else who was cooking on the day.

The deserts were displayed on another counter for diners to serve themselves.

When we returned to the table, my glass of wine was still there as I’d left it, but the carafe was gone, replaced by a jug full of some amber-coloured liquid.

‘The lad is new, he doesn’t know me or else he wouldn’t have brought wine at all. I can’t drink and fly, can I?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Freshly squeezed grape juice. From their own grapes.’

‘There are bits in it.’

Hugh removed a sliver of ice from his oyster and brought it to his mouth. ‘Woman-up, you wimp, and drink the ambrosia from the well when you can.’

‘Ambrosia is the food, nectar is the drink,’ I sneered childishly. ‘On Mount Olympus, at any rate.’

‘We must go there one day and check.’

The kitchen was rapidly filling up with people and noise. The boy who served us kept the door and windows open to dilute the smells and smoke from the grill. I had no idea where we put it all, and still ended the meal with a portion of apple strudel each. The same lad brought us a jug of thick cream.

‘My sister and her husband make all the sweets for the farm,’ he said proudly in very good English.

Before leaving, we followed the owner into the shop. The large, white-washed room was lined with large, deep sinks full of sea water and live fish swimming around. A couple of them contained Atlantic crabs, lobsters, and nets full of mussels and oysters.

The man pointed to the next room. ‘Freshwater. Mostly perch and eel today,’ he said in French that I actually understood.

‘What will we have?’ Hugh turned to me.

‘You choose.’ I slipped out. As soon as I reached the path I took off my sandals and ran the two hundred yards to the shore. There was a patch of fine soft sand extending into the sea and I rolled up my jeans up to my knees and waded in.

It was a night of full moon with just a few fluffy clouds floating across the shiny dome above me. The night was neither warm nor cold. Just fresh and clean, as was the sea. Cleansing. I filled my lungs with the healing air and let it out slowly, respectfully. Just a little further out, the moon was sprinkling the surface with sharp crystals. One by one, I took off all my clothes and threw them back to the shore. A few steps in, the sand stopped, gave way to larger stones. Millions of years of polishing made the pebbles kind to my feet. Once the seafloor disappeared from under me, I turned on my back and let the tide take me out.

* * *

I hadn’t fainted and I wasn’t asleep. I must have heard the roar of the engine, but it was probably a part of some story that I was floating through and I didn’t recognise it for what it was.

Hugh lifted me into the powerboat, rubbed me with something rough and warming, and wrapped me in a large woollen blanket.

‘The tide is very strong at this time,’ said the boy waiter in his competent English, as he turned to boat to the shore.

The woman from the restaurant was shielding my modesty with the blanket as I changed into my own clothes. She also made me pull on a soft woollen cardigan. All the clothes felt warm; she must have kept them by the fire when the boat went out to get me. Someone handed me a large mug of very sweet tea with a dose of rum in it. My teeth were still chattering so I had to try very hard to say Thanks and Merci as clearly as possible. There was a lot of hugging and kissing before Hugh loaded me onto the chopper.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said when we reached the full height and Hugh aimed the craft in the direction of the shoreline across the Channel.

‘As you bloody well should be.’

His voice came through the earphones harsh and metallic. I flinched as it whipped me across the face.

‘I didn’t think...’

‘No, you didn’t. You never do, do you, Sonata?’

‘It was so beautiful. So clean. I can’t go back to all the filth and depravity. I felt the slime seep in through my very pores. Now that I’m out of there I can see it more clearly, precisely for what it is. It’s not a safe house. More like a house of horrors.’

His breathing sounded angry through my earphones. ‘It’s all about you, isn’t it? What you can and what you can’t. About how you feel. What you’re going back to is more love and self-sacrifice on your behalf than most kids ever had. And don’t say that you didn’t ask to be born, it’s not worthy of you,’ he forestalled me with scary accuracy.

‘They could have run away.’ I was so angry that I could have killed him. ‘But, they didn’t, did they? Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the first time they turned against him was when he had nothing more to give?’