Death in Disguise (28 page)

Hearing the news of Gamelin's death, Christopher went searching for Suhami. Her room was empty and he finally discovered her on the terrace leading to the herb garden. May had tried to dissuade him from searching, saying, ‘She needs to be by herself. To take things in.'

Suhami did not turn as he approached but continued to stand motionless like a pillar of salt. He studied her profile. She looked very calm, wrapped in her own thoughts as tightly as the sari enwrapped her slender figure.

‘How are you feeling?'

‘I don't know.' She turned then and he saw that she was not as composed as he had thought, but rather dazed. ‘I feel I've lost something but I don't know what. Certainly not him…not him.' The repetition was charged with a disconcerting mixture of bewilderment and satisfaction.

Christopher felt ill at ease. Her stillness seemed to him unnatural. He took her hand and said, ‘Let's walk.'

They moved down the steps, avoiding outcrops of sempervivum and thrift, and into the garden proper. It was already very hot and the air was thick with the thrum of bees foraging among pink lavender and borage.

His future with Suhami was overwhelmingly on Christopher's mind. Had the fact of her father's death not arisen, he would have tried to discover how she now felt about leaving the commune. For it seemed to him that it was above all the presence of Ian Craigie that had held her there. Perhaps, even now, she would choose to stay. If that proved to be the case he would stay too for he was determined not to give her up. They sat down on a tiny circular lawn. A Catherine wheel of silver thyme and camomile.

‘How's your mother taking it?'

‘She doesn't know. Will told me first. He thought I'd be better able to handle things. I'll break it to her when we go back. Or this afternoon. It's not as if there's any hurry…'

‘Is it true they were unhappy?'

‘They always seemed so. I can't imagine anyone being anything else living with him.' She turned, her expression strained. ‘Perhaps we'll get like that.'

‘Never, ever.' Christopher smiled, greatly encouraged by the ‘we.'

‘Other people's lives. This is you and me. This…' he placed his hand on the back of her neck, brought her close and kissed her. ‘Is you…' his lips still hovered on her own, ‘and me.'

He was upset by her lack of response. Just the day before she had danced in his arms, almost ecstatic. He reached in the pocket of his jeans and tugged out a flat box wrapped in magenta tissue.

‘I bought these for your birthday. Before I knew who you really were. Then I felt I couldn't offer them.'

‘But you were wrong.'

‘Yes.'

‘Who I really am.' The box lay in her lap, ribbon looped around her finger. ‘That's what the Master said we should find out. That's what matters isn't it, Christopher? Everything else is shifting sand.'

‘You can do the philosophical bit when you're ancient. There's no answers to the big questions anyway. Open your present.'

Suhami put the earrings on, delicate sprays of filigree, trembling little pearls. She turned her head this way and that.

‘You're like a lovely temple dancer. Ahh, you're so pretty Suze.'

She hung her narrow head, surrendering gravely to disbelief. Not protesting as pretty girls usually do.

‘What can I say to you?' he despaired. She lifted her slender shoulders and laughed with humorous resignation. ‘Yesterday in the byre—' he tried again.

‘Yesterday you saw how I used to be. Frightened, desperate, grabbing at happiness, at people. Frantic in case I was left alone. I can't live like that any more Christopher, I just can't. And I won't.'

‘But there's no need to be frightened. I'd never leave you—'

‘You say that now, perhaps it's true. But people are no different from all other forms of life in that they're changing all the time.'

‘That's a bit pessimistic.'

‘No, it's realistic. Obvious. Change in the only constant and I don't want to live in fear of it.'

‘What about faith and hope?'

‘I'm not sure they're relevant.'

‘That sort of stoicism's for old men on the battlefield. Or neurotics. Afraid to start any sort of relationship in case it goes wrong. Ending up lonely and half-alive like—'

There was a long silence. The bees thrummed louder than ever. One of the fish jumped in the pond and plopped back. A breeze sighed. Suhami said, ‘I shall never end up like my mother.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You're angry aren't you?'

‘Of course I'm angry. I can see our future disappearing down the drain.'

‘You haven't understood.'

‘I don't think you know what you do want.'

‘I want…' She recalled that single moment of illumination in the Solar. The Master's words when they had talked together only twenty-four hours ago. His powerful conviction that beneath the restless tangled surface of her life lay all she would ever need to comfort and sustain her. ‘I want something that doesn't come to an end.'

‘Everything comes to an end. Lesson One, Stoic's Handbook.'

‘No, there's something. It can be discovered and called on. I know that's true. The Master called it the pearl of great price.'

How very unoriginal of him, thought Christopher. He reached forward and took hold of her plait, teasing out the soft hair that smelt of frangipani into a silky fan. ‘Why can't we discover it together then? I'm interested in these matters too, you know. Why do you think I'm here?' He tugged her closer. ‘We could go on a retreat for our honeymoon if you like.'

‘Honeymoon.' Behind the word a flash of longing. Encouraged, Christopher pressed on.

‘You don't have to be in a religious community to live a religious life. There are plenty of lay people who make room for prayer and meditation. Exist quietly and harmlessly. Why can't we be like them?' Suhami frowned. She seemed uncertain, a little confused. ‘Don't you think in any case esoteric knowledge is written on the wind? If you're facing the right direction on the right day, fine. If not…'

Suhami gave a half smile. She quite liked that way of putting it. It echoed the Master's proposition: that the pursuit of the dream was not only useless but counter-productive.

Christopher returned the smile double, triple, manifold. His own was quick and bright; full of confidence. He had time on his side. And youth. And passionate determination. Surely in the end she would be his.

Returning to the house they found a confab going on in the kitchen. Everyone sat round the deal table making hay with Uncle Bob's Treacle Delights whilst absorbing pungent distillations from the Arabica bean. After the proper expressions of surprise and pleasure at the sight of these secular delicacies, Suhami and Christopher helped themselves to coffee and shared the last biscuit. The conversation was about Trixie but directed at Janet who sat well back in her chair, looking more than a touch at bay.

‘Are you sure,' Arno was asking, ‘that you got nothing intelligible out of her at all?'

‘She must,' argued Heather, ‘have said something that made sense.'

‘People having hysterics don't make any sense.'

The scene in question had been chewed on for nearly an hour and Janet was getting sick of it. The others had taken over the distressing and frightening episode in just the bustling and concerned way they seized on every opportunity for service. They didn't seem to know the difference, Janet thought crossly, between benign interventions, bossiness and bullying. Mind you, it could be said she'd bullied Trixie pretty violently herself, though that had not been her intention.

When the shouting had started, Janet had rushed across the room calling out ‘Don't, don't!' and stupid things like ‘It's all right.' Then she had seized Trixie's shoulders, or tried to. But Trixie had wriggled and wrenched herself free, flailing her arms wildly, striking Janet on the side of the neck and making nonstop fear-filled shrieks. Her mouth was opening and closing like a fish and her blank eyes stared. It was the eyes, Janet thought afterwards, that made it possible for her to do what she had done—for there was no trace of Trixie in them at all.

Janet hadn't meant to hit so hard. The palm of her hand still stung. She must have pulled her arm right back for, when the blow connected with Trixie's cheek, the girl staggered two steps sideways and fell against the wall. It worked though, just like it always does in the movies. Trixie immediately stopped screaming, understanding came back into her eyes and a huge red patch flared on her cheek. Then the others arrived and Janet was pushed into the background.

Outside on the landing, trembling, gripping the gallery rail, she repeatedly relived the moment of violence. Previously sure she had acted on desperate impulse (anything to stop those awful, soulless cries), now other more complicated motives threaded their way into her consciousness. If she was honest she had to admit that the connecting moment had not been entirely without a certain satisfaction. Even a vengeful satisfaction. How terrible! Janet felt sick with shame at this insight. She had been unaware that her dry and profitless love cloaked hostility. Trixie was right to reject her friendship. She became aware that Arno was regarding her anxiously and forced a smile.

Actually Arno's anxiety, and there was a lot of it, was pretty widely distributed. The fact that his gaze happened to alight on Janet was almost by the way. The largest object of his concern was, of course, the murder. Like most of the others, he believed Gamelin responsible and couldn't decide whether the man's death was a good thing or a bad.
Good
if the police also agreed that he was guilty, as that would remove the need for a trial and all the attendant publicity.
Bad
if they were not sure, for that would mean the investigation dragging on, and doing even greater damage to the community than had already been done.

Then there was this extraordinary business with Trixie. Arno had been very disturbed by the wild intensity of her reaction to Guy's death. He was not at ease with the inexplicable or with sudden explosions of emotion, especially those that seemed to have no logical launching pad. After all, she'd hardly known the man. Even the lightning realisation, on hearing the sound of Janet's single hand connecting so forcefully with a curved cheek, that he had at long last solved his koan, did not console. It simply threw the loss of his dear teacher into more painful perspective as he recognised with what joy he would have hurried to break the marvellous news. Arno turned back into the conversation—where it seemed Heather was expressing aloud the first of his concerns.

‘If only we knew what happened between them yesterday.'

‘Confucius he say to know is to know that to know is not to know,' said Ken. He spoke in his ageless-wisdom voice and lifted the skin at his temples to make almond eyes.

‘No wonder he was confused,' replied Janet.

The previous evening's tragedy was not touched upon. Perhaps the feeling was that any sort of speculation would be rather crass with Suhami, who was now swishing spinach round the sink, being present. Heather proffered a consolatory thought-brick.

‘I was meditating in the orchard this morning. Sitting oh so still and oh so quiet calling down the yellow flame of Cassiopeia as it's Saturday and you'll never guess what happened?' The table waited, all agosh. ‘A beautiful bee settled on some clover near my hand. A real Mr Bumble. He stayed and stayed, whirring his little wings just as if—and you can call this pneumatic synthesis if you like—but just as if he was trying to tell me something. Well, eventually I thought nothing ventured nothing gained, so I reached out and he actually let me stroke his furry back with my tiniest finger. Wasn't that incredible?'

May said, ‘What do you think he was trying to transmit, Heather?'

‘I think—and I mean like this is pretty earth-centred, OK?—but my perception of the situation was that the Master's transmutation having been so recent, etheric wisps of his astral body must still be about. Why couldn't said Mr Bumble have traces on his wings? Because what I was getting from that dear small furry creature was the most overwhelming sensation of comfort.'

‘That could very well be,' said May. ‘Certainly, if he was able, that is what the Master would wish to impart.'

‘Perhaps,' said Suhami, now wringing out green leaves in a tea towel, ‘the bee was the Master. A reincarnation.'

Ken and Heather exchanged amused glances. Ken spoke. ‘I hardly think that a supreme arahat, after a life of devoted service to his fellow man, is going to reincarnate as an insect.'

‘So you can buzz off for a start,' whispered Christopher, who was packing the spinach in an iron cauldron, and Suhami laughed.

‘Heather's right,' said May, ‘about left-over matter. I felt it myself this morning. There was a crowd of Elohim chattering away beneath my window. We must watch out for mischief. There's nothing they like more than hitching a ride on the aura. Ah well…' she pushed back her chair, ‘it's nearly twelve. I must go and run Felicity's bath. Do you think you could take over the main course for lunch, Janet?'