Connections (20 page)

“That's right,” said Chris. He had brown skin, brown hair, a straight nose and broad lips.

Fleur lay back in the boat, listening to the water lapping at its side, not thinking about the sharks which might be no further away than the end of the boat. A water-skier passed with a happy cry. Water slopped into the boat. Huge white birds flew overhead.

“You happy, Fleur?” asked Chris.

“It's heaven,” she said. She dozed, half listening to Chris and Hugh talking. What she heard confirmed her idea that their meeting had not been entirely accidental. Chris and Hugh had known each other for years and Chris was proposing to come to London to study law, which his parents did not want and could not pay for. Hugh and Chris were working on a scheme.

Down the coast they beached the boat and had fried chicken and beer on the beach. Hugh said, “Hope you don't mind missing out on the old fort in Bridgetown, Fleur.”

“You could have told me,” she said.

“I'm in a position—” he began.

“I'm not the kind of person those kind of people like,” Chris told her. “You know – I'm an ordinary fellow – I'm Bajan – I work in a garage, drive a taxi. If I came round they'd think I came to rob the house.”

“I'm a poor relation myself,” Fleur said. “I keep wondering when they're going to produce a big pile of mending or a sick relative for me to look after.”

“I didn't like to ask,” said Hugh. “How does all that work?”

Fleur explained about her mother and Dickie Jethro, adding, “I still don't know much about my father's family.”

“Will you be changing your name to Jethro?” Hugh asked.

The idea surprised Fleur. “No. What for?”

“It's an overdraft at the bank,” Hugh said bluntly. “So – what do you think, Chris?”

“Let's get a bus up to St Joseph.”

They boarded a crowded bus and went up narrow roads bordered by rolling canefields and green fields of agile, skinny sheep. They passed a donkey cart driven by a man in jeans and a big straw hat and two goats being driven by a little girl. A boy darted from nowhere to chase a chicken which ran across the road into a field. Outside a wooden house stood a girl holding a huge tortoiseshell cat. It became hotter and hotter in the bus; everyone was talking and laughing.

At a stop where there were a couple of houses, one with chairs outside, they got off and bought some drinks. “We'll go to the haunted house,” Chris declared. A narrow road, big enough for only one car at a time, led them to a gateway with pillars on either side. They walked up a wide, overgrown path bordered with trees, arriving at a vast colonnaded plantation house. They sat down on leaf-strewn steps outside a large, studded, locked front door and here they drank their cans of drinks. Then Fleur found herself alone. Chris and Hugh had drifted off. No need to ask why, Fleur thought, a little nervous, for she did not know who or what might be near her in the trees, or round a corner of the huge house which, she decided, was very likely to be haunted. However, thinking Hugh and Chris, no matter how urgent their private business, were not very likely to leave her in danger, she got out her book and began, philosophically, to read, looking up often to watch the birds flying up and down the drive between the bordering trees.

About half an hour later, and feeling lonely, she had read two chapters and Chris and Hugh emerged from the trees. No explanations were demanded by Fleur, or provided by them.

On the way back in the bus she felt disgruntled. At first she thought she resented being used by Hugh as a cover for his
reunion with Chris, then recognised it was, as much as anything, her own feeling of not having anyone of her own with her. She had been offered luxury, sunshine, white sands, blue sea – all the ingredients of a fabulous holiday – but she really wanted someone to share it with. She thought of Dominic, no doubt walking some muddy Irish lane, and then of Ben – ah, Ben.

She must have sighed because Chris, sitting next to her, asked, “Something on your mind?”

“Lost love,” she replied.

“Ah – that old thing,” he said. “Don't worry – lost love comes back.”

“Sometimes,” she said.

“And sometimes when it does you don't want it any more,” he told her. And, though it was so hot, she felt a chill run down her back.

They came back gently in the boat. Hugh and Chris parted on the beach and as they sweated up the hill beside the golf course under hot sun, Hugh asked, “Do you mind not mentioning Chris?”

“I wasn't going to,” she said.

“It's difficult for Chris, living here. Not all that easy for me.”

“I won't say anything,” said Fleur.

They sneaked past two people drinking at the far side of the terrace and dived into the annexe to wash and change for lunch, emerging to find the terrace full of people, all the resident guests and at least ten others Fleur had never met.

“Do come and look,” said Sophia coming up to her and taking her by the arm.

In the drawing-room Fleur saw through the doors, under bright lights on stands, a tall, thin young man and a very pretty, slender young woman with long, glossy hair sitting on a sofa together. His arm was over her shoulders, her head turned up towards him, in traditional wifely adoration. By the fireplace stood a photographer taking pictures of them, while on a padded stool at the couple's knees sat a well made-up, immaculately coiffed woman, her face turned to them, her legs neatly crossed at the ankle to one side. She had a notebook on her knee and a tape recorder stood on the floor
beside her. The photographer kept moving about taking pictures; the woman with the notebook looked up, enquiringly, listening.

Outside a very tall man in a white suit, his trousers held up with a striped tie, wandered up to Fleur and Sophia. “They don't hurry, do they? Incredible attention to detail.”

“We've had to put lunch back,” Sophia told him. “I'm so sorry, Joe. Can you bear it? This is Dickie's new daughter, Fleur. Fleur – Joe Cunningham-Roe, a true Bajan. How long have you been here for, Joe?”

“Don't ask me – it's timeless,” he said. “How do you do, Miss Jethro?”

“I think we can steal in,” Sophia said to Fleur. “Not you, though, Joe. You're too big.”

“That's all right. I've got a deal with Arthur to keep the drinks flowing in my direction.”

They stepped inside the drawing-room and stood to one side of the window, keeping out of the way, while outside on the terrace a small crowd assembled, looking in. It seemed surreal to Fleur, the people outside in bright sunshine looking in to see two others being photographed being in love.

The situation went, for her, from surreal to shattering when Sophia said, “So – what do you think of your brother in the flesh?”

She was speechless for a moment. “That's my brother? That's my brother in there?”

She peered at him, seeing the back of a dark-haired head and part of a long, pale face.

“I can't believe it,” Sophia said. “Zoe didn't tell you?” She looked to one side and saw her mother in the doorway of the drawing-room. “Fleur didn't know,” she said.

“I know – I felt dreadful when I remembered. It's all been arranged for so long I took it for granted we all knew. Do you want to come and have a drink, Fleur? It'll still be happening when you get back.”

As Fleur went off with Zoe she saw her father coming into the room through the doorway at the back, smartly dressed in a white suit, shirt and tie.

She took some wine and found Hugh Cotter at her side. “It's
Hello!,
isn't it?” she asked him.

“Looks like it,” he said. “I saw the interviewer at a chateau in France where I was trying to buy a picture. The host and hostess were an old rock star and his fourth wife, showing off their new baby. You know that's your half-brother in there, don't you?”

“They tell me so,” Fleur said. “I suppose the woman's his wife or girlfriend.”

“His wife, the former Lady Annie Saxby, former supermodel. I think the super is a bit of an exaggeration. You obviously don't read the right magazines.”

“Obviously.”

“Well, here you are now,” Hugh said. “Part of it all. ‘Mr Bobby Jethro and his wife Annie Saxby put their troubles behind them and look forward to a radiant future together.'”

Zoe overheard this and gave him a sharp look. “Bobby looked for you when he and Annie first arrived, but you were off scouring the countryside with Hugh,” she said to Fleur. “He was disappointed. So was Dickie.” She peered at Fleur. “I do hope you haven't got sunburned. Where did you go, Hugh? I sent Charlie off to find you, but he couldn't see you anywhere.”

“We took a boat, beached it and went up to Sugar Hill – that route,” he told her.

“What a strange choice,” she said. “It's absolutely primitive. How did you get there?”

“We took a local bus,” he said.

“I don't believe it. Really, Hugh, that's almost irresponsible.”

There was nothing Fleur could do to take the heat off Hugh, who was in any case being punished for his indiscreet remarks about
Hello!
magazine. She wandered back to the drawing-room window where people were still assembled, now gazing at the sight of Dickie Jethro standing by the marble fireplace near a huge arrangement of flowers on a side table, his arm round his son's shoulders. As they looked at each other the photographer moved
around them with his camera, while the interviewer remained with the young woman, Bobby's wife.

Fleur studied her half-brother. He was not very like her, or his father. As she looked she noticed her father pushing back the lick of hair which fell over his son's face and saw how he did not respond to this gesture in any way. So this was the boy whose photograph she had seen at school. He'd been about ten then, smiling, seeming happy and confident. But he didn't look like that now, she thought. He was trying, for the photographer, but he was not at ease. Still, she thought, who would be in the circumstances?

The session went on and she lost interest and went over to sit with Henry and Fiona Jones.

“How exciting,” she said.

“Pretty different from London, eh?” Henry Jones said.

Fleur had to agree, thinking of Dominic and Joe, and her job at the Findhorn Star. Henry Jones was regarding her steadily and she realised it was quite likely he knew a lot about her, perhaps more than she wanted. “Still, I suppose you've got plenty of friends in London.”

“A few. Though, as you say, it's—” She had a sudden vision of standing with Joe while Vanessa's coffin was lowered into the ground. “Different,” she weakly ended.

“So much of London is dangerous these days, isn't it?” Fiona Jones said in her flat voice. “Poverty-crime-homelessness. Do you see much of that where you are?”

Fleur, looking at the bright flowers on the terrace and all the well-dressed guests, said, “Some. It's unavoidable, I suppose.”

“Your father's involved in a new housing initiative,” Henry said. “He's looking into financing the rescue of sink estates in certain areas. There's an emphasis on units for the homeless. The Prime Minister's very interested in getting business support for social projects.”

“Sounds good,” said Fleur. “Once people have got housing everything else follows, like a job and staying out of trouble. My neighbours are like that. They were on the streets until they
got a flat. Then everything changed for them.” Two have lives and one's in the ground, she thought.

Henry Jones approved. “That's what the working party keeps hearing,” he said. “Are they friends of yours, these neighbours?”

“Sort of,” she said weakly.

The tall man, Joe Cunningham-Roe, was at her side. “Sorry to interrupt, Miss Jethro,” he said. “They want you for a photograph. Last-minute decision.”

“Me?” she said in astonishment.

“Will we ever get any lunch?” Fiona Jones said in a low voice.

Joe shot her a sympathetic look. He said to Fleur, “Apparently Dickie was saying how he'd just caught up with you after many years and suddenly they thought what a nice picture it would make. Come on, sing for your supper,” he encouraged.

“Oh—” said Fleur.

Sophia came up, “Do come, Fleur.”

“I don't think so,” she said.

“It'll be fun. People fight to get into these photographs, you know.”

Fleur was hesitant. She had the instinctive prejudice of people involved in the media against being at the other end of the camera. She was also getting tired of being this alien character “Fleur Jethro”, even though she'd decided it would be petty to make a fuss about it. She thought it would be equally petty to refuse to co-operate and that the sooner she agreed the sooner it would be over and everyone would get some lunch. Although snacks were being carried about on trays it was quite obvious the guests were becoming disconsolate about the delayed meal.

Therefore, a few minutes later she was in her stepmother's bedroom being given a rapid makeover by Sophia and Marie. Sophia buttoned her into a loose cotton frock which had cost an average person's weekly wages while Marie worked energetically on her hair with mousse and a drier.

Fifteen minutes later Fleur, in the white dress, skilfully made up by Sophia and with her hair prettily rearranged by Marie, was
on the terrace being photographed against blue sky, smiling and talking to her father, who was on one side, and then doing the same with the brother she had never met. She felt uncomfortable throughout. Afterwards she asked Marie to tell Zoe she had a headache and was going to rest in her room and sneaked out and across to the wing. She dozed, seeing the fields of cane they had come through on the bus, the flowing green hills, the lush forest around the old, abandoned house.

It was almost three hours later when Marie came in with a tea tray, woke her gently and said, “Mrs Andriades says she hopes you're feeling better. The early guests for the party are having drinks on the terrace before the party begins.”