It was like balm for her chafed soul, being here, thought Anna: invoking these familiar names, certain of the fact that Clem Waterdine and Percy Medlicott would still know everyone’s business. These were names she never heard in London, or even in Ardington, which was really very close. They were Netherwood names, Netherwood people, as much part of the scenery as the towering headstocks of the collieries or the rows of terraced houses with front doors that were never used and back doors which were rarely closed.
She took Maya’s hand again and they moved on, checking off the familiar landmarks as they walked. The Hare and Hounds, where Amos used to keep a tankard all of his own; the cinder track to New Mill Colliery, where Amos worked for nearly thirty years – an impossible length of time, in Maya’s eyes; the little sweetshop where Maya had tasted her first sugar mouse; the school where Seth and Eliza had gone, and where Ellen went, after that last summer here. Then they reached the lane on to the common where the pony had kicked the Sixth Earl of Netherwood in the head and killed him, and then they passed the grassy hollow where Seth had fixed a rope swing on the bough of an elm (and there it was, still). After that, a short upward climb on rough grass peppered with cowslips and buttercups, and then the house was suddenly before them, its solid stone bulk as reassuring and inviting as ever it had been. If it was possible to truly love a building, Anna loved this one. She had lost her heart the moment she first saw it. Leaving it, for Amos and Ardington, had been a sadness that she’d hidden from everyone – even, to an extent, from herself – and nowhere that she had subsequently lived had come close to stirring in her the affection and esteem in which she held Ravenscliffe.
‘It’s sooty,’ said Maya.
‘Yes, well,’ Anna said. ‘If you stood in the same place year in, year out, you’d be covered in coal dust too. Come on, I think I can smell drop scones.’ She sniffed the air. ‘And strawberry jam.’
Maya, laughing, began to run, and Anna followed her across the final flat expanse of grass and flowers, and through the gate into the garden. When they reached the house they walked straight in, as if it were home.
Eve was there, and Ellen: a small reception committee, standing in the square hallway where the grandfather clock tocked as it always had, and Anna’s ochre walls still held their promise of warmth and comfort. The women felt a jolt of pure relief at the sight of one another, and they hugged with a silent intensity that, for a few moments, made the girls feel awkwardly superfluous. They eyed each other silently, honouring the wariness they both felt, put together again after so long an absence. They’d grown, but Ellen more so. She had on an old pair of Seth’s shorts – she had finally prevailed – and she’d talked Eve into cropping her hair. She was barefoot, and her feet were filthy. She had a sharpened twig pushed behind one ear, like a carpenter’s pencil, and from the pocket of the shorts dangled the elastic sling of a catapult. Her arms were folded and this gave her a belligerent air, on top of which her face bore an expression of disdain. Maya, in her blue travelling coat and cotton gloves, with her black patent buttoned boots and her white straw boater, looked like a different species.
Eve released Anna and bent down to take Maya’s face between her hands.
‘Look at you!’ she said. ‘What an elegant young lady you are these days.’
This sounded to Ellen dangerously like a reproach. She and her mother had already had a long, heated discussion about her appearance, which had ended with Ellen running away for an hour to punish her mother for trying to get her into a frock. She glared at Maya as at a traitor, and Anna, surmising in an instant what might have gone before, whipped off her daughter’s hat and coat, and tugged off her gloves, so that the impression of Sunday best was at least diminished.
‘Shall we go to our room?’ Maya said to Ellen. It was a brave gambit, under the circumstances; a fainter heart would have baulked under Ellen’s baleful gaze. But when they were little they had been inseparable: shared a room, shared a bed, even shared a chair at the kitchen table. They might have been glued together, and though everything had changed now, and Ellen seemed set on being a boy (and an unfriendly one at that), Maya stood firm, armed with and bolstered by all her happy memories. Her strategy paid off. Ellen nodded; together, and in silence, they went up the stairs, and when the bedroom door clicked shut behind them, Eve made a rueful face at Anna. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘She’s awkward these days. I just ’ave to mention a pinafore dress and she’s all black looks.’
Anna shrugged and smiled. ‘Then don’t mention pinafore dresses.’
‘But she looks like a boy!’
‘She looks like a tough little girl. No harm in that.’
It was so good to hear her again, thought Eve. So good to have her back in the house. They were in the kitchen now, called in at the insistence of the kettle on the range. Eve spooned tea into the pot, then poured in the boiling water, holding the kettle high so that the water hit the leaves with a flourish. This was how it was done here, where the rules and rituals of making tea were observed with the same fastidious devotion to duty as that of a priest preparing holy communion. Tea was offered as comfort for whatever ailed you: liquid nourishment for the soul. So the pot must be warmed; the tea must be loose – not caught up for convenience in muslin or mesh; the water must be actually boiling on impact with the leaves and poured from a certain height; the milk must follow the tea into the cup and never, ever, the other way round. In Russia Anna had drunk it strong and black, and heavily sweetened. Here, sugar was never offered, though there was always a cake or some other sweetmeat to counter the bitterness. Anna watched the process now, wondering how many pots of tea she had shared with Eve. Four a day, for three years? In any case, here was one more.
‘So,’ Eve said, stirring the brew in the teapot – the final ritual before pouring. ‘What’s gone on?’ Something had, she knew that much. This unplanned arrival, narrowly preceded by a telegram, suggested a small crisis in the Sykes household. Anna sighed and looked woebegone. ‘Amos doesn’t like any of my clients,’ she said. ‘He wants me to stand for Ardington council.’
It didn’t sound like the end of the world. Eve looked at her with mild amusement. ‘Really? As well as everything else?’
‘Instead of.’
‘Oh.’ This, Eve could see, was a difficulty.
‘He was so angry,’ Anna said. ‘So was I. We had a terrible row.’
‘Snap.’
‘You had a row with Amos?’ Anna, round-eyed, bewildered: still, sometimes, confused by the language.
Eve laughed. ‘Don’t be soft. Seth’s asked me to go to Jamaica, and Daniel won’t ’ave it.’ She poured tea into mugs through a metal strainer and when she added milk, the liquid turned dark terracotta, the colour of a house brick. She looked up at her friend, who stared back, suddenly quite distracted from her own woes. ‘Close your mouth,’ Eve said, ‘or you’ll catch a fly.’
‘Jamaica? He wants you to go to Jamaica?’ Anna was – in her Netherwood circle at least – the acknowledged world traveller, but it was beyond even her experience, this island in the distant Indies. Added to which, she had thought Seth safely ensconced in Bristol, at Whittam & Co., in an office, behind a desk. Truly, she was astonished.
Eve nodded. ‘Aye. And Daniel thinks it’s folly. So we’re at logger’eads, like you an’ Amos.’
‘And shall you go?’ Anna asked, ignoring the whys and wherefores and cutting straight to the chase.
Eve considered her answer. Daniel had asked her something similar, just this morning, and she hadn’t been able to answer because, between them, the subject was so clouded by recrimination that she couldn’t see the way forward. But now Anna’s simple enquiry had the effect of clearing Eve’s mind. Would she go to Jamaica? There was only one answer.
‘I shall,’ she said.
There. It was decided. She smiled at Anna, who smiled back, though a little uncertainly.
‘And you,’ Eve said. ‘Shall you stand for Ardington Council?’
Anna took a sip of hot tea, and looked at Eve over the top of the mug. ‘Not on your nelly,’ she said.
They both began to laugh; neither of them knew quite why, but there it was. They were helpless with it, and the release was exquisite.
‘Y
our problem,’ said Hugh Oliver, ‘is that you came to this colony believing yourself to be the new messiah.’
Silas regarded him unsmilingly. He didn’t reply. He tilted his face upwards, to feel the breeze from the ceiling fan. Hugh continued.
‘You believed you could raise Jamaica from economic ruin single-handed. You imagined yourself fêted by the Colonial Office for restoring the island to the Imperial firmament: Jamaica, brightest star of the British Empire.’
His arm spanned the sky in an arc, and he spoke a little louder than was necessary, drawing attention. They were perched on bamboo stools at the bar of the Mountain Spring Hotel – Hugh’s idea: keep an eye on the competition, he said – and around them American guests turned affable, enquiring faces in their direction. Hugh, who had arrived yesterday on the latest liner so that Silas might return to Bristol for a fortnight, was one of only two people in the world who could speak to Silas in this manner, but now, frankly, he was pushing his luck. They had worked together for ten years, and Hugh was, in truth, the firmer, steadier hand on the company tiller. And yet, thought Silas, he was not unsackable.
‘Interesting analysis, Hugh, but vastly wide of the mark. And if you don’t pipe down I’ll dismiss you, just as publicly as you’re trying to humiliate me now.’
‘Oh, steady on,’ Hugh said mildly. He’d felt the cold wind of Silas’s disapproval too many times to be much exercised by it. His barks were always worse than his bites. ‘I’m merely pointing out that even you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’
Silas looked away. Beyond the veranda lay the hotel gardens – implausibly, garishly abundant – and they, in turn, gave way to a wild tumble of jungle flora, through which an enchanting narrow pathway had been hewn, leading guests to a sea-water swimming pool where steamer chairs and parasols had been set on the grassy surround, and a weathered, wooden jetty enabled the intrepid and the uninhibited to take the plunge into the salty, health-giving depths. The pool was just visible from here: a glittering rectangle of blue, barely distinguishable from the sky. And this was merely one small, tamed piece of paradise on a paradise island.
Silas looked back at Hugh. ‘Sow’s ear?’
Hugh smiled patiently. ‘What I mean is, we can’t shape the Whittam into something it isn’t. Another year like the last one and we’ll be selling ships to keep us afloat, if you’ll forgive the pun.’
Silas laughed harshly. ‘No spine, that’s your problem,’ he said. ‘No backbone.’
Hugh took a deep draught of scotch and soda. Silas was a handsome fellow, but by God he could be an ugly drunk. His smile, now, was twisted with contempt. Hugh’s own head was beginning to spin. This was his third drink, and they’d yet to ask for a menu. He signalled to a waiter on the other side of the bar, who in an instant was by Hugh’s side.
‘Yes sir, how can I help you?’ the waiter said in tones that suggested nothing would be too much trouble. On his perch, Silas growled.
‘May we see a menu?’ Hugh said.
‘Certainly. Both of you, sir?’ He flashed a cautious, sidelong glance at Silas, who glowered back at him.
‘Yes, please,’ Hugh said. The torrent, he thought, would commence when the waiter retreated. It did.
‘Why, in the name of all that’s holy, are we stuck with the fucking natives, while the Yanks here are free to staff their hotels with impeccably trained waiters, fresh from Boston? How can we compete? What’s the value of tax-free fixtures and fittings if our hands are tied when it comes to hiring? Hmm?’
He wasn’t shouting – instead, he seemed to hiss – but he was bolt upright in his chair, and his eyes were hot, dark pools. A vein throbbed like a warning at his throat, and the muscles at his jaw were coiled and tight. He looked like a madman. Hugh leaned across the table.
‘Then let’s sell,’ he said, deliberately calm, and enunciating carefully as if Silas were hard of hearing. ‘Sell the Whittam to United Exotics, invest the profit in a new cargo ship, concentrate on what we do best.’
Silas was shaking his head before Hugh had finished speaking. ‘Never. I won’t gift my hotel to these smarmy bastards. Wouldn’t give ’em the satisfaction.’
Hugh sat back in his chair. ‘Then we’re ruined,’ he said, pleasantly. He meant it too; he had a closer understanding than the boss of the accounts. The banana-export side of the operation was in fine fettle, but its future would surely be in jeopardy if Silas insisted on keeping this millstone of a hotel – albeit a luxurious one – around their necks.
‘The menus, gentlemen.’
The waiter made a small bow. He was young and clean-cut, and he wore the Mountain Spring livery of white and green. A red hibiscus was embroidered on the pocket of his jacket, and also on the front of the heavy, bound menus that he handed over with discernible pride. He smiled as he spoke, which Hugh found ingratiating and a little unnerving. ‘Today’s special entrée is sole
bonne femme
,’ he said, ‘and we have a wonderful consommé on the hors d’oeuvres menu, as well as a spinach and Monterey Jack soufflé. Please take your time, and if I can be of any further assistance in your choices, I’ll be only too happy to oblige.’
He slid away. Hugh laughed.
‘What?’ said Silas crossly.
‘I’m just thinking about Batista. I don’t think she went to the same finishing school as that fellow.’
Silas grimaced. ‘Glad you can find something to laugh about.’
Hugh sighed. ‘I really don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn. The answer to our difficulty is staring us in the face.’ He had the soft lilt of a true Bristolian and this made him sound peaceable, even when he was feeling rattled. Sometimes people made the mistake of thinking him a bumpkin; in fact, he was sharper than Silas, and less driven by pride. He had a finely tuned instinct for business, which right now was telling him to bail out. ‘We have a failing hotel and an eager buyer. Let’s jettison the hotel and cut our losses.’