The Lion Tamer’s Daughter (27 page)

“Eddie's going to see this Monsieur Albert this evening, and he's going to tell him straight out that we don't trust him, and that we've got to be absolutely sure that there's no way he can do anything to harm either of the girls. Eddie's got it into his head that he's going to try and make off with one of them by some sort of conjuring trick—he is a conjurer after all, so he's going to insist on there being someone from our side in the room the whole time—Keith if he can't find a grown-up who fits. If the man won't accept Keith then we'll know he's trying to cheat us, because Keith's perfectly genuinely on the cusp of Sagittarius and Capricorn. I've realized what that's about, by the way. We're almost on the cusp of Leo and Virgo now, and the girls were born almost on the cusp of Arles and Taurus, and that makes a perfect triangle—I think it's called a trine, and it's supposed to be very significant—I don't remember why. So at least it wasn't something Monsieur Albert just made up as an excuse for not having Eddie.

“The other thing he's going to insist on is that we've got to be able to seal the room off completely, so that no one can get in or out from the moment it starts till it's over. Apparently there are two little rooms at the top of the two stairs—that's on either side of the big room, like lobbies. The doors lock, so we won't be able to interfere. Eddie's going to go over the whole place again this evening, and measure everything, and make sure there aren't any secret doors or compartments and so on. I must say I don't see how the man could possibly imagine he could get away with something like that. Surely the other girl … Anyway, if he turns us down over any of that Eddie's going to call it off … I'm sorry, Melanie—I think we'll have to … God, I wish this was over. I'm absolutely sick with worry. I don't think I want any lunch.”

“I do,” I said.

“Me too,” said Melanie. “I'm really hungry.”

It was strange. A few minutes before she'd been so jittery it almost hurt to watch, and now she'd calmed down completely. She'd barely seemed to register what Mum had been saying about calling things off if Monsieur Albert wouldn't agree, and now she lay on her bed and looked at the ceiling while Mum unpacked enough to change her shoes and so on.

“They must have landed by now,” said Mum as she got her things together for going out.

“A wee while back,” said Melanie. “They're in the terminal now, showing their passport. There's a bairn behind them, crying.”

“If you could do that on the stage you'd make a fortune,” said Mum, but she sounded cross about it.

We went out and found a store and bought long French loaves and butter and cheese and peaches and Coke, and made ourselves a picnic in the shade of some trees in a hot little square with a dribbling fountain in the middle. Then we went off to find the clothes, with Melly drifting along in a kind of happy daze, letting herself be pushed and shunted round this enormous superstore while we looked for absolutely mirror-image dresses. Everything seemed to have a little logo on one side, or a pocket, or something. At last we found two bright yellow shift things with zips at the back. Melanie just glanced at them and said, “Yuck,” but Mum and I went over them inch by inch looking for some way of telling them apart.

“I suppose they'll do,” said Mum. “Only I wish they weren't so hideous.”

We were trying on sandals and Melanie had hold of my shoulder while she balanced on one leg getting her heel right in the other foot, when she froze. Her nails dug into me like claws.

“Ouch!” I said. “You needn't do that!”

She didn't hear me. She stuck there, except that her head turned slowly as if she was watching something extraordinary going along the next aisle. Then she relaxed.

“What was that about?” I said.

“They were driving by,” she whispered. “In the road just out there.”

From then on, for the rest of the day, she was a quite different sort of dreamy, quiet, smiling, doing little dance steps while she walked, breaking off in the middle of something she was saying for a few seconds and then carrying on, as if she'd just said hello to a friend who'd passed by. Mum paid for the clothing and went off to talk to Janice and Eddie while Melanie and I walked slowly back to the hotel along the shady side of the streets, turning off to look at anything that seemed interesting. Melanie too. Being interested, I mean—even more than me. It was as if she kept saying, “Look! Look!” to somebody I couldn't see was there.

We stopped at a cafe and had what was their idea of tea—in a glass, just hot water, with your own tea bag which you put into it, and no milk, but French milk is disgusting anyway. Then we got a bit lost, so we weren't back at the hotel until only just before Mum. I'd been expecting problems, in fact I thought Eddie might have persuaded Janice to call the whole thing off. I mean she saw things almost the same way as he did. But no.

Mum told me about it while Melanie was in the shower.

“She'd already told him she thought we had to go ahead,” she said. “Before I got there, I mean. She says Melly might crack up completely if we don't. She's worried, of course, but she's a bit more down-to-earth about it than I am. She says the only thing that matters is that the girls are convinced this is the right way for them to meet, and it makes no difference if Monsieur Albert's a complete charlatan. In fact what would be worrying would be if he wasn't. She says he can't really expect us to believe there'll only be one of the girls left at the end of it, that's just mumbo jumbo, and of course they'll both be there and he'll claim he was talking metaphysically, or something, but it's worth letting him see he's not going to get away with trying anything like that. And tomorrow morning she's going to look for some sort of paging gadget for you to have on you, so that you can call us the moment you think there's anything wrong.”

“All right,” I said.

“You're sure, darling. You'd say, wouldn't you?”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

Actually I didn't know what I felt. All this was making me pretty anxious. I couldn't think properly. One side of me agreed with Eddie and Janice, that Monsieur Albert was a crook, a con man, and all he was probably after was the money, though he might try something nasty with the girls and it was up to me to stop it. That's what my brain said. But another side of me—well, I'd spent so much time with Melanie, and I minded so much for her and about her, and she was so sure that this thing mattered more than anything else in the world … well, I believed that too. I had to.

Not just that. I was actually praying that Eddie didn't find someone else with the right birthday. I was scared stiff, but I wanted to be there. Me and no one else.

We waited for it to get a bit cooler, but it didn't, so in the end we went out and had supper at a restaurant in one of the main squares, with tables out on the pavement. Just being with Melanie now was like being on some kind of wonderful high, she was so happy, bubbling and chatting, and then going dreamy for a few minutes, and then coming back to us and telling us what Melly and Janice were up to. I could almost feel them, Melly and Melanie, swooping to and fro between their two bodies like the swifts swooping and wheeling against the evening sky.

“I don't know if I can bear this much more,” Mum whispered to me at one point. “It'll be so agonizing if it all goes wrong.”

“Not much longer now,” I told her.

But it was. It was forever. The night was forever, and the morning longer, and the afternoon longer still, and I'd look at my watch thinking that would be another twenty minutes gone and it was maybe three. The heat made it worse. It was almost as if time had sort of melted, like a road melts on really hot days, and everything stuck to it as it went along.

Eddie came round soon after breakfast. He talked to Mum alone for a bit. Melanie seemed to have gone all sleepy. She said she didn't want to talk or think because she was getting herself ready. She seemed perfectly happy, but we didn't want to leave her alone, so I waited with her until Mum came up and told me that Eddie hadn't found anyone else and he needed to tell me what I'd got to do.

I went down feeling nervous as hell and we sat in a dark, hot little bar smelling of last night's smoke and drink while he explained.

“I saw him again yesterday evening,” he said, “and I got most of what we wanted. I wasn't expecting the lot. The chief thing I didn't get was that he wouldn't hear of anyone waiting in the two lobbies at the top of the stairs. The whole of that floor has to be free of irrelevant astral influences, believe it or not. At least the bastard's consistent. But we can wait on the landings below, and we can see the top of the stairs from there, and that's pretty well as good. I've got a French colleague coming from Marseilles to give a hand, so that means there will be two each side. And I've been over the whole place again, measuring up, and I'd bet my life there's no other way out.”

“He didn't mind?” I said.

“Didn't turn a hair. Amused, if anything, but he doesn't give much away. The other thing he wouldn't stand for was me taking you round there this morning to show you the layout. More astral contamination, of course. Best I can do is a sketch map. I made him take me through the whole process, as far as it concerns you. This wasn't just so that I could check it out. It's so that if he tells you anything different you'll know he's up to something. And he is. I'm still dead certain of that.”

He unfolded a piece of paper and showed me his sketch. It was not quite square, with two smaller squares on the corners on one of the long sides, leaving a space like a fat T. This was the main room. The small squares were the two lobbies, with stairs leading up to them.

“Right,” he said. “There are four good windows, so there should be plenty of light. Once the proceedings have begun, Albert will be at this end here, where I've written ‘A,' and you will be here at ‘K,' behind the mirror. I haven't seen the mirror, but he says it's a bit under three feet wide and about five foot six high. He wanted to put you right down here by the bottom window, but I insisted that you must be able to see him throughout the proceedings. He didn't like it, but in the end he agreed on condition that once things are under way you keep absolutely still and don't do anything to distract him. By the way, I haven't told him that you'll have a pager, assuming Janice can find one.

“When you first come into the room, take a good look round. Apart from the mirror there'll be only what's already there—that's to say this stack of chairs in the corner and this table here. The tablecloth hangs down a few inches. If he's moved it or changed it so that it prevents you from seeing under it except by lifting it up, object. That's the only hiding place I can see in the room, and I think it's too obvious for him to consider. There are little balconies outside the three main windows. Take a look out and check there's no one on them.

“When you're satisfied, tell him, and he'll then go through the procedure with you. I've told him that you understand simple French, provided he speaks slowly and clearly. All right? Now this is what he says is going to happen.

“Sunset is at eight-forty-six, local time. A few minutes before that he'll tell you to fetch the girls. You come to this lobby here, go to the top of the stairs, and beckon to Melanie to come up. You don't speak unless you have to. Trish and my French colleague will wait on the lower landing. Once Melanie's in the lobby you lock the outer door and blindfold her with the cloth she'll give you. You then go and call Melly from the other lobby. This way, you'll be able to see Albert from the top of the stairs all the time he's alone in the room with Melanie, and you can signal to me if you think everything's OK. You lock that door—don't worry, I'll bring a jimmy—and blindfold Melly.

“You go back into the main room and wait for Albert to tell you to bring the girls in. You do that, Melly first, and stand them-back to back here, in front of the mirror, where I've put these crosses. He's seen what they'll be wearing, but he'll check them over and go back to his chair. When he signals to you to remove the blindfolds you do so, and go back behind the dotted line. He'll signal again, and you tell them to turn round. After that you keep complete silence. The girls will do what they are compelled to do, he says, whatever that means.

The upstairs room at the Orangerie

“The mirror has a leather cover, fastened with two buckles at the back. He'll ring a bell three times, twice for you to undo the two buckles, and the third time for you to remove the cover. You fold it and put it on the table and you then move to K and stay there, until—”

“Will I be able to see the girls from there?” I said.

“No, you won't. I couldn't shake him on that. This was the best I could get. He says it's not to stop you seeing the girls, but so that they aren't distracted by seeing you. They mustn't be aware of anything except the mirror. But you'll be able to see him and everything else except that narrow section of the room, and I don't see what he can get up to from where he is. That window is three storeys up a sheer wall with a busy square outside. That curtain will be closed, by the way, but he's leaving the other two open for light.