Cover

Title

Mary Nickson

Dedication

To my grandchildren:
Arabella, James and Geordie,
Hermione, William and Freddie,
Octavia and Charles
with great love and gratitude for their friendship
and shared laughter

About the Author

Mary Nickson has three children and having lived in Yorkshire for many years, she now lives in Perthshire, Scotland. She is also the author of The Venetian House and her website address is www.marynickson.co.uk

Also by

Also by

FICTION

(Writing as Mary Nickson)

The Venetian House

(Writing as Mary Sheepshanks)

A Price for Everything

Facing the Music

Picking up the PiecesOff-Balance

NON FICTION

The Bird of My Loving – a personal response
to loss and grief

POETRY

Patterns in the Dark

Thinning Grapes

Kingfisher Days

Dancing Blues to Skylarks

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to all those who have generously helped me with information and encouragement during the writing of this book, especially Steve Blaylock, Belinda Cox, Hilary Johnson, Nicolas and Diana McAndrew, David Nickson, David and Squibbs Noble, Marshall Roscoe, Alice Sheepshanks, Susannah Tamworth and Stephen Wade.

Special appreciation to my agents Sara Fisher and Sarah Molloy and my editors Kate Elton and Georgina HawtreyWoore. Thank you for having faith in me.

Part One

Luciana

Chapter One

If she lay with her eyes half-closed, Luciana discovered she became invisible – invisible that is to all except the child. She was uncomfortably aware that the child not only observed her, but was in no way fooled by her. But she doesn’t know I’m in disguise, thought Luciana. None of them know that.

Carlos would have known, and she sent him a venomous message. You should not have left me, she told him. It was always understood that you would look after me. Always. You have reneged on our agreement, and I do not even know where you are.

There were new arrivals at the hotel. The small plane that flew them from the larger island had arrived earlier, sliding along the strip of tarmac that served St Matt’s for a runway, as casually as a duck skids along the surface of water, though pilots had to be careful there were no goats lying on the airstrip. The drive up to the Old Sugar Plantation took ages because the road was rough in places, the better stretches suddenly coming to such an abrupt end that speeding was foolhardy, but anyway the taxi drivers who plied their trade between the airport and the island’s hotels usually drove their battered cars with the animation of a funeral cortège. Urgency was not a state of mind with which the population of St Matt’s was familiar.

The Old Sugar Plantation sprawled on the side of the densely wooded volcano, which was really all the island consisted of, so that from the air it looked like a green pimple on the face of the Caribbean ocean. Stella and Mike Burrows had bought the place in a seedy condition, but were in the process of turning it into one of smartest small hotels in the West Indies . . . or rather Stella was. Since she had more than enough drive for two, Mike saw no reason to exert himself. He came in for enough criticism from his wife whatever he did, so it suited him better to be berated for indolence than to be yelled at for making mistakes.

Luciana could hear Stella doing her welcoming routine now. Stella’s voice was sweet and sour like a Chinese meal – especially when she caught Mike having one of his little siestas. She liked to insist that she treated all her guests as if they were personal friends, though she was more successful at doing this with the titled or famous than with those who she did not consider added to the tone of the place.

‘Come and have a lovely refreshing drink. I’m sure you both need it. Your first drinks are on the house,’ cooed Stella, leaving no doubt that the next ones would be on the bill, and through the nose as well.

Luciana watched through half-closed eyes. She could tell from the sugar content of Stella’s voice that the new arrivals were highly prized, as she herself had once been, though she knew that she had become a sad disappointment, insisting on dining at a table for one and resisting all efforts to draw her into a group. Still, she supposed Stella prized her name on the guest list.

‘Patsy and Colin will be thrilled to see you – such a sweet couple, we’re loving having them here,’ said Stella to the new arrivals.

This was a lie. Luciana had heard Sir Colin Fowler, the young, prosperous but already slightly fleshy-looking husband in question, complaining about everything it was possible to complain about, and a good deal more besides. Luciana imagined that his charm factor was not as enlivening as the weight of his wallet: his pretty, pouting American wife looked bored out of her mind for much of the time, and they had committed the ultimate tiresomeness in Stella’s eyes – they had brought a child with them. Luciana guessed Stella had no more liking for children than she had herself. Not suitable for the very young or the infirm, the hotel brochure stated firmly, on no very obvious grounds as regards the safety of the terrain, but certainly reflecting the owners’ preference.

Accommodation for guests was in wooden bungalows scattered about the luscious gardens, and painted in primary colours to resemble the shacks of the local villages. The resemblance ended with the colour. In the villages whole families lived in one room, but at the hotel each bungalow contained a luxury bathroom and double bedroom where the decor smacked more of Sloane Square than the Lesser Antilles. It was all very tasteful, and every day fresh flowers were put on the glass and wicker dressing tables: a sprig from one of the brilliant bougainvillaeas that rioted everywhere, a spray of plumbago, perhaps, or a single, floating hibiscus flower. Mattie and Hazel who cleaned the rooms made beautiful confections with a joyful disregard for colour scheme.

‘I expect you’d like to see your rooms,’ said Stella. ‘We’ve put you near Colin and Patsy. They’ve gone down to the beach in our courtesy minibus but they’ll be back soon . . . Mike, have you asked Sam to collect John and Delia’s luggage?’ Stella was a great one for instant Christian names. The delightful relaxed atmosphere of a private house-party read another quote from the brochure, which Stella had written herself. Mike was on to his second frozen daiquiri, and his eyes had settled on Delia’s thrusting bosom.

‘Mike? The luggage . . . dearest,’ Stella jogged him.

Luciana let the heat sink into her bones as she lay on a sun-bed by the pool. When Stella and the new arrivals had gone, she flopped into the blue water and swam slowly up and down, watched only by the child, whose gaze was as inscrutable and unblinking as a lizard’s. What am I doing here, thought Luciana, among these people who mean nothing to me. Oh, Carlos! Where are you? Come back to me!

Chocky, chocky, chocky, sang a pearly-eyed thrasher from the frangipani tree. Chocky, chocky. Later there would be a different species of thrasher clustered round the bar, whose eyes would not be pearly, but glazed by rum punch.

Soon guests who had been away for the day started to drift back. There was much loud laughter and kissing as the Fowlers returned and greeted their friends.

‘Darling! Heaven to get here! What a blissful place!’

‘Honey, it’s just so good to see you both! Thank goodness you’ve arrived! We’ve been just pining to see you. Most of the other folk here are real boring and geriatric. There’s a crazy old Italian contessa – who’s rumoured to be fabulously rich but is just so disagreeable it’s not true – and some naff types from England – no kindred spirits at all.’ Their loud confident voices showed a complete disregard for anyone else’s presence.

‘Where is Marnie-Jane?’ asked Delia. ‘We heard you’d had to bring her?’

Patsy pulled a face. ‘Would you credit it? We’d planned for her to be in the States with her father but he’s on his second honeymoon so he ratted on the arrangement. Luckily with so many staff about we don’t have to bother about her too much.’

Luciana and the child were both listening, but both were invisible; Luciana because of her closed eyes, and the child because she was hidden under a bush. Humming-birds darted to and fro, black for a moment and then brilliantly green as they caught the light. A donkey rivalled the braying round the pool. Chocky, chocky, sang the thrasher, and the trade wind set the palm trees clattering and rustling. It was very hot. Presently both Luciana and the child slipped away – but no one noticed either of them go.

They were in fact headed in the same direction, though the child, Marnie, followed her own mysterious route, slipping from bush to bush and avoiding the main paths. They both went down below the tennis courts, through the fruit plantation, where mango, papaya and soursup trees were carefully cultivated to give guests the illusion that the hotel provided all the delicious breakfast fruit, though in fact much of it was imported from markets in Florida. Wonderful ice-cream, made from the huge, prickly soursup fruits – sometimes weighing as much as six pounds each – was one of the specialities of the hotel. At the bottom of the plantation, glamour stopped abruptly. A ramshackle gate made of sticks and bits of old wire led to rubbish heaps and piggeries, both of which smelt terrible. Luciana was making for the rough path that led down to the sea, though it was a long walk and most people went to the beach by car or by the free minibus, which the hotel provided every half hour. Marnie had a meeting with Kenneth, the pig-man. He could carry a bucket of swill on his head and never spill a drop, and he had other talents too, which she was learning from him.

Cattle egrets tiptoed among the rotting rubbish, their freshly laundered surplices faintly sinister against the filth, like well-to-do priests in a slum area. The volcano was shrouded in cloud: it would probably rain later.

Luciana walked along the dusty track until she came to the viewpoint above the beach. She stood on a rocky outcrop and looked down. Far out beyond the reef the ocean was navy blue and great rollers frothed and plumed, white against the sky. Where smaller waves broke along the reef, vivid colours, from emerald and turquoise to orange, flashed a contrast to the patches of black shadow, as if a rainbow had been smashed to pieces on the coral. It made perfect camouflage for the huge, colourful parrotfish, which nosed secretly among the pools. You had to watch for a long time before you could pick them out, but most people didn’t bother to look, programmed only, Luciana considered, to move between the bar and the stretch of beach where the hotel had its private umbrellas and deck chairs.

But I am alone, she thought, and it doesn’t make any difference whether I am here by myself, or surrounded by people. I am always alone now.

Pelicans were diving for their evening meal, the waddling ungainliness of their on-shore deportment transformed to extraordinary speed and grace as they hit the water with the accuracy of guided missiles, angling their hinged wings to steer them exactly to the fish of their choice. Goats bleating in the distance and the occasional crowing of a cock were the only noises to be heard above the hiss of the sea, but memories rang angry bells in Luciana’s head. She gazed down, feeling her hair blowing in the wind. All her life, her beauty had been so much a part of her that she had always taken its effect for granted – and it had certainly always had an effect. It was like having royal blood – it made a difference to the way people treated you. She had never felt the anxiety to please that is the lot of plainer women. Even in her present, strange disguise she did not doubt the echo of her beauty’s potency. The invisibility conferred by old age would have amused her if she could have shared the joke with Carlos, and a spurt of anger at his defection left her feeling weak and breathless so that it seemed as if the sun no longer warmed her but consumed her. She turned away from the sea and started to walk painfully back along the track, each step an effort.

She saw Marnie in the clearing near the pigpen, and this time it was Luciana who observed.

The child was absorbed in some strange ritual, circling round a pile of stones – stamping, dipping and swaying as though taking part in a ceremonial dance. With her was Kenneth, the pig-man. We have something in common, thought Luciana: we are all three outcasts – I, because the only person I care about has abandoned me; Marnie, because the people who should care about her don’t, and Kenneth because he is a freak.

Presently the child ceased her rhythmic movement and saw Luciana. She stopped and stared at her, like a wild animal scenting the air for hostility; weighing up potential danger. Then, slowly, she came over to her.

‘I shouldn’t go talk to my mom today if I was you,’ she said conversationally. It was the first time they had addressed each other.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Luciana.

‘She’s in a grump today,’ said the child. ‘Oh, brother! Is she in a grump!’ And she rolled her eyes, as one well used to the unaccountable grumpiness of grown-ups, but none the less affected by it. They fell into step together.

‘You don’t like my mom, do you?’ asked the child.

‘I hardly know her,’ said Luciana indifferently, ‘so I have no reason to dislike her.’

‘But all the same I figure you don’t like her,’ said the child. ‘I can tell by the way you screw your eyes up when you see her coming. Like this,’ and she lowered her own lids, leaving a slit open so that she could continue walking without tripping up. ‘You don’t like her, do you?’ she persisted.

‘Not much,’ said Luciana, not given to sparing the feelings of others, but amused and intrigued in spite of herself.

‘Nor I don’t like her either. Sometimes I think I hate her. I used to love her but I don’t love her any more. Do you hate a lot of people?’

Luciana considered. ‘Not many,’ she said, discovering something surprising. ‘I used to be a great hater, but I can’t be bothered now. It’s too tiring.’

Marnie threw her a pitying look. ‘I like hating. It makes me feel hot inside, like eating chillies. It’s feeling kinda hollow that scares me. When I feel hollow I’m feared I might disappear and no one would know. Kenneth knows a lot about hating. You should ask him if you’ve lost the knack.’

They walked through the orchard, leaving the rubbish tip to the sanctimonious egrets. Tiny quail doves skittered along in front of them. The skinny child with her pale face and straight hair bore no resemblance to her blonde curvaceous mother and Luciana was irritated to feel a certain comradeship with her. I must not get involved, she thought. She only wished to nurse her own grievance and pick around its scab, so that it had no chance to heal. She certainly didn’t want to bother with anyone else’s emotions, let alone this rather waifish child’s.

Nevertheless, as they came back into the garden and met Mattie and Hazel who’d been putting fresh towels in the bungalows, she felt an unwelcome sympathy for Marnie when Mattie said: ‘Oh, Mar-nie-Jane! Your ma been yellin’ for you. She sure is mad at you! You better come ’long now else she give you big trouble!’

Mattie and Hazel loved Marnie, but they also loved drama, and they swept her off with them, moving as gracefully as a pair of gazelles. The people of St Matt’s were mostly tall and elegant; even Kenneth, balancing his pig pails, became beautiful when he walked – provided of course that you couldn’t see his face.

Luciana returned to her bungalow. This was the hour for most of the hotel’s female guests to settle down to serious efforts at beautifying themselves before the evening’s socialising began, so there were few people about. Soon a terrible screaming could be heard. Sir Colin and Lady Fowler, the ‘sweet couple’ so prized by Stella, occupied the nearest bungalow to Luciana’s and it was not the first time she had heard the piercing wails of the child, though whether they were due to rage or misery, fear or simply temper, as her mother claimed, she had no way of knowing. Her own pain seemed more interesting. Other guests had complained of the screaming, but Stella, who was not going to risk upsetting a baronet, had only enquired with false solicitude if Marnie was unwell and needed medical attention.

‘She’s just playing up,’ pretty Patsy had shrugged. ‘I don’t intend to have my vacation wrecked because we’ve had to bring her along with us. She’s a spoilt brat who’s been indulged by her father. I’ll go sort her out right now.’

Luciana lay on her bed. She opened a book but decided to enjoy a session of self-pity instead.

When it was time to go over to the main building for dinner she walked slowly along the path that wound through the garden towards the big house. The paths, which were all made of raised flat stepping-stones to keep the elegantly shod feet of guests dry when heavy rain came down, were lit at intervals by low-standing fluorescent lamps, which attracted toads by the score. Every evening, as soon as dusk fell and the lights were switched on, the toads appeared as if by magic, shambling purposefully towards the lamp of their choice – like elderly gentlemen crossing St James’s Street for dinner at their club, Luciana thought. Later they could be seen squatting motionless, waiting to be served with a succulent fly – no doubt as enjoyable to them as a glass of vintage port.

The wailing had ceased, but as Luciana passed the neighbouring bungalow she could hear muffled sobbing, as though the child was weeping under the bedclothes, and this stifled sound was infinitely more distressing than the louder screams had been.

All was darkness. Luciana contemplated going to investigate the cause of such despair. After hesitating for a moment she tried the handle of the door, but it was locked. When she rattled it, she thought she heard a gasp from inside and the sobbing stopped abruptly to be followed by a complete, unnatural silence as though someone were holding their breath. ‘Marnie?’ called Luciana softly. ‘Marnie, are you in there?’ There was no reply.

Luciana gave herself a bracing little mental shake and thought better of her impulse to investigate. She was not used to having her heart rent – only broken – and as she turned away she found the sensation as persistent and uncomfortable as indigestion. She walked firmly on towards the main building; towards cocktails and glitter and a four-course dinner, though the echo of the child’s misery remained in her head in the most disconcerting fashion. She found herself stopping and straining her ears to listen long after it would have been possible to hear any but the loudest sound.

Old memories stirred in Luciana of a child long ago who had also been terrified of the dark, but she thrust such intrusions aside, and, like the toads, headed resolutely for bright lights and the enticement of food.

Chapter Two

During the day, at the Old Sugar Plantation, a bar operated by the pool, serving delicious light snacks and salads as well as drinks, but in the evenings exotic cocktails were served in the Great Room, which Stella had furnished with beautiful antique colonial furniture. On the walls there was an impressive display of buy-your-own-ancestor type portraits in heavy gilt frames, their expressionless faces disfigured by cracked varnish. If anyone exclaimed on a likeness to herself or Mike, Stella felt she had arrived. She fluttered from guest to guest in a vivid blue silk jumpsuit, her dark hair tossing about her shoulders. There were those who wondered if Stella’s ancestry was a little more mixed than the bogus Anglo-Saxon family portraits suggested; she had her hair expensively straightened and took care to let it be known that she’d been educated at an exclusive English school. There was talk of well-heeled relations who had lived for generations in Gloucestershire but also of a raven-haired beauty of a Portuguese grandmother – which explained her own dramatic dark colouring.

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