‘Delivery, Countess of Netherwood,’ he said, his voice muffled by blooms.
‘What on earth…?’ She laughed, incredulous.
‘I couldn’t choose.’ He lowered the flowers so that his face appeared above them. ‘Roses, lilies, gladioli, irises, dahlias. So I bought the lot.’
She stood and walked up the path towards him. Barney and Fred leaned on their shears and gawped. Their borders were crammed with colour and the cutting garden full to bursting. They were a little offended.
‘Are you trying to make an impression, Toby?’ Thea said, her voice creamy with approval.
‘Am I making one?’
‘I do love a flamboyant gesture.’
‘I went to see Henry.’ He was still holding the flowers, but his voice was serious now. ‘Then I came out into this lovely day and I thought of you.’
‘Henry. Silly girl, how is she?’
‘Stoical, but unwashed. Expects to be out soon, thank goodness. Will you go?’
Thea winced. ‘Rather not, to be frank. Hospitals, prisons – I shudder at the thought. Look…’ she scratched at his lapel with a fingernail ‘you have pollen on your jacket.’ They gazed into each other’s green eyes for a moment, saying nothing.
The French windows at the back of the house opened behind them, and Mrs Devine emerged onto the terrace. The new housekeeper had been Thea’s first appointment as Countess of Netherwood and she took daily satisfaction and personal credit for the excellence of her choice: the divine Mrs Devine, housekeeper extraordinaire, famous for predicting one’s needs almost before they arose.
‘May I take those flowers, Your Lordship?’ she said now, in a distinctly rhetorical manner, easing the burden from the earl even as she spoke. ‘Quite beautiful,’ she added. ‘I shall arrange them myself. Lady Isabella wishes to speak to you, Your Ladyship. She’s in the ballroom.’
Thea said, ‘The earl and I have some rather urgent business. Half an hour should do it, if Isabella can bear to wait.’ She grinned impishly. Mrs Devine, poker-faced, said, ‘Very good, Your Ladyship,’ and backed into the house. Tobias, never slow on the uptake, winked at his wife.
‘My rooms, or yours?’ he said. He hadn’t expected it to be quite this easy.
Thea said, ‘The summerhouse,’ and he almost moaned out loud at the look on her face. She took him by the hand and led him past the two gardeners, who pretended to be occupied though they knew perfectly well what the earl was in for. Tobias, who had forgotten the particular joy of being prey to Thea’s carnal appetites, was light-headed with longing, and his heart and loins rejoiced. If she had trodden this path to the summerhouse before, with someone other than himself, he didn’t wish to know, and – for now, at least – he didn’t much care.
E
arly dawn, half-light. Outside, a cacophony of birdsong. Eve stirred in her bed and opened her eyes, and was confused, as she had been every morning, by the muslin canopy above and around her. It was like waking in mist. She propped herself up on one elbow and peered through the curtain at the blurred shape of Angus, sleeping on his own little bed beneath his own swathe of netting. There he was, lying face down as he always did, knees tucked under, bottom in the air. Eve lay down again, satisfied that he hadn’t been stolen in the night. She closed her eyes just for a moment, but knew at once that she might as well get up as lie here, listening to the birds. There was a mockingbird, a lonely bachelor living among the creepers outside her window; Eve could swear she’d fallen asleep to his song and there he was, still at it.
She parted the curtains of the mosquito net and climbed out of bed, then went to the window and folded back the shutters. The view demanded a moment of quiet awe, though she had by now gazed on it every morning for seven days. To the right the high, dark peaks of the Blue Mountains, towering over a tree canopy so densely packed you might reasonably expect to be able to simply stroll across it; to the left, the gardens of the hotel and the dusty, downward trajectory of Eden Hill, winding towards the town; ahead, the sea, flashing in the early sun like a perfectly set jewel. It would be pleasant, she thought, to dress quickly and step outside before the rigour of the day began. She would take Angus with her – he would hate to wake and find her gone. She turned from the window, then started and smiled, because he was sitting up in bed, watching her.
‘Morning Gussy,’ she said.
‘Morning.’ He yawned and screwed his little fists into his eyes.
‘Fancy a walk?’
‘Can we take a picnic?’ Even at three, the child had learned that a walk was more worthwhile if it involved food.
Eve laughed. ‘Are you ’ungry again?’
He nodded. He had one pink cheek, flushed from being flattened against the pillow, and his hair stuck up and out, hedgehog-fashion. People often said he looked more like Eve these days than Daniel, but this morning he looked to his mother like a woodland creature just out from under a pile of leaves.
‘Come on,’ she said, crossing the room and hauling his warm body into her arms. ‘Let’s get you dressed. We can sneak out through t’kitchen and take some food with us.’
He clapped his hands together, thrilled at waking up on the very brink of an adventure, then stood obligingly, lifting an arm here and a leg there while she helped him into shorts and a soft, loose shirt that Anna had sent him for the trip. He had a small pile of them in different colours: collarless, with full sleeves. They gave him a flamboyant, piratical air, and he knew it, so he aimed to wear one of them every day. Today’s was a chalky shade of red, which in Netherwood would have attracted attention but here in Port Antonio was just another splash of colour.
They tiptoed through the sleeping hotel like a pair of pantomime thieves, pulling faces at each other when the stairs creaked, shushing each other’s sniggers. Angus led the way to the kitchens, already familiar with the short cut across the dining room to the discreet door at the back. He darted on, enjoying his own expertise among the twists and turns of this temporary home in which he had found himself. Through the door, down the plain wooden stairs, along a short passage and then into the kitchen through a final door which had no knob, but swung wide open with one push, before continuing to swing, back and forth, until it settled into place again. Every door should be like this one, Angus had thought, the first time he had used it. It had a covering on the inside of soft baize, the colour of grass. He bundled into the kitchen – no need now, for quiet – and then stopped short so suddenly that Eve stepped on his heels and made him yelp. The big, slow, insolent waitress Batista was sitting at the table pulling feathers off a dead bird. On one side of her was a pile of carcasses she had already plucked, on the other, a pile still awaiting her attention. Eve glanced at the wall clock. It was half past four. Batista met Eve’s eyes with a dull challenge.
‘Oh,’ said Eve, uncertainly. She hadn’t been here long enough to know the routines of the kitchen, and in any case Batista had barely spoken to her, and then, only in riddles. ‘You’re plucking t’ducks already.’
The rip of feathers leaving flesh broke the silence between them. Batista worked steadily, looking all the while at Eve. The birds on the table looked obscenely dead, as if they never could have lived; the innards were congealing in a basin, on the edge of which a fly squatted proprietorially.
‘So,’ Eve said, as if the conversation was following a perfectly conventional course, as if Batista had shown an interest. ‘We’re going out, Angus and I. We won’t be long. We can talk then about t’duck – I mean, t’recipe for t’duck.’
Batista emitted a throaty chuckle. ‘Me no cook, bakra sister,’ she said. ‘Me pluck de duck, dat’s all.’
It was the most Batista had said to Eve so far, and she barely understood a word.
‘They’ll need a good wash,’ Eve said, thinking of the fly.
‘You tink me hands dirty, bakra sister?’ Batista held up two palms, fiercely.
‘No, no,’ Eve shook her head. ‘I only meant – oh, never mind.’
It was no good, she thought, being cornered into a defensive position, and it was too early to do battle. She reached for Angus’s hand but, mesmerised by the grim still life, the boy had crept up to the table and was poking experimentally at the inert mound of dead birds. Batista cut him a glance and chuckled. At least, thought Eve, the woman spared the child her hostility. As she watched, Batista picked a large, blue-green wing feather and passed it to Angus. He held it respectfully and looked at Eve for permission to keep it. She nodded at him.
‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘Let’s be off.’
‘I’m ’ungry, Mam.’
Batista chuckled again. The sound seemed to brew and bubble in her throat before emerging. ‘Is ’im bong belly pickney?’ she said, but to herself, and then, to Eve, she said: ‘Ruby done put batch a bammy cakes yaander.’ She pointed towards the stone-floored pantry. ‘Pickney kyan ’elp ’imself.’
Eve, not following, ignored her. Instead, she picked up a ceramic jar from the worktop, opened it, and took out two rolls of yesterday’s bread. She passed them to Angus, who pushed the feather into his pocket and took them doubtfully. Eve smiled brightly at Batista, who stared. Then they left, taking the tradesman’s exit from the kitchen.
‘Dem rolls not for pickney,’ Batista told the dead ducks. ‘Dem rolls for Ruby chickens.’
Her deep-throated laughter filled the room and followed Eve as she hurried Angus away, past dustbins and empty fruit crates and on along the path to where it joined the main terraced walkway down to Eden Hill.
Eve wanted to strike out, away from the Whittam Hotel. At this time of day the heat was manageable, the sun still low in the sky, and it took them just ten minutes to find a likely looking track, leading off the road and down into the gloaming of a tunnel of trees. Angus clutched the bread rolls, one in each hand. He’d licked one, but that was as far as he was prepared to go, even though his stomach grumbled for food. He didn’t want to be awkward, but the picnic his mam had provided was a poor business. He was happy, though: happy to be out and about, following her down a path of flattened grass and ferns. He walked carefully, noticing how the cicadas’ noise stopped where he trod, then started up again as he moved on. The noise of the birds, however, never ceased and from time to time a gorgeous flash of green or gold would dart from one hiding place to another.
‘All t’birds on Netherwood Common are brown, aren’t they?’ Eve said. ‘But ’ere they’re all colours. I don’t think I’ve seen a brown one yet.’
‘We do get robins,’ Angus said patriotically. ‘Robin redbreast.’
‘Oh, so we do.’ She turned and smiled at him, then carried on.
‘And woodpeckers are green.’
‘They are. I’m talking nonsense,’ she said. ‘Don’t know what I’m thinking of.’ He was one of those children, she thought, who would soon be questioning the logic of everything she said.
The path was leading downhill now, and soon Eve could see that the crush of vegetation was lessening, the path widening.
‘Listen,’ she said, stopping. ‘Can you ’ear summat?’
Both of them stood still and listened. Underneath the constant caw and chirrup of the birds was another sound, and it made Angus think of the rush of water from the dolly tub, when Lily Pickering dragged it outside and tipped it upside down.
‘I think it’s water,’ Eve said. ‘A river, maybe.’
They crept on, Eve setting a slower pace now, made cautious by the idea that ahead might lie a torrent, waiting to sweep them off like a pair of dried leaves in the wind. This footpath was well trodden, thought Eve; it had been made by, and intended for, visitors to this place. This was how she reassured herself as they progressed. Still, though, she wondered if Jamaica had bears.
Immediately ahead lay a wide, low oval of sunlight, the end of the tunnel, and Eve reached back for Angus in case they should find themselves on the edge of a precipice. Furtively, he dropped one of the bread rolls and took her hand. Then, together, they emerged and saw what hadn’t been visible before: a long, broad band of water, streaming and bouncing down a wall of pale grey rock into a pool of the deepest, most startling blue imaginable: bluer than blue, infinite blue, bottomless blue.
‘Look!’ Angus said, pointing, as if she might have missed it, and he pushed in front of his mother and began to rush onwards, towards the water. Eve followed quickly behind, so that when the ground finally flattened out into a soft green mossy carpet leading to a strip of shingle at the water’s edge, they were side by side again.
‘Oh, I wish t’others were with us,’ Eve said. ‘I wish your pa could see this, and Eliza and Ellen. It’s magical.’ She looked up, following the waterfall to find its beginnings. It poured over a flat ridge, perhaps forty feet high, and above it, descending from yet another plateau of rock, was a further stream of water, feeding the other.
‘Two waterfalls, see?’ she said. But Angus was on all fours, gazing down at his reflection in the pool, which was as still as glass on this, the opposite side to the falls. She crouched down next to him and peered in too. She could see stones and ribbons of weed, so it couldn’t be too deep here, unless it was an illusion. She dipped a hand in, and reached down, and before her elbow was wet she was touching the bottom, so she sat back on her heels, relaxing now: no raging current, no perilous drop, no bears.
Then a boy shot up out of the water, and she almost died of fright.
He stood and stared, as shocked to see them as they were him. For an absurd moment Eve thought he was a water sprite – though she had no idea what such a thing might be – but then she realised who she was looking at: Roscoe Donaldson, the boy with the lemonade. His mother, Eve knew after these first few days of observation, ran the hotel kitchen, in the same languid, incompetent manner shared by all the Whittam staff. She had almond-shaped eyes and a beautiful smile, though she saved it for a select few. Eve was not among them.
The pounding of her heart began to calm, and Eve said, ‘It’s Roscoe, isn’t it?’
The boy nodded. ‘Roscoe Donaldson.’
‘I’m Eve MacLeod, and this is Angus.’
‘I know,’ said Roscoe. He had his hands on his skinny hips, and water dripped from his black curls and ran in silvery trails down his skin. His expression was pleasant and open. Beside Eve, Angus stepped forwards and tried to look more impressive: taller and older. He stared at Roscoe with unalloyed admiration. Angus couldn’t swim at all, and here was this brown-skinned boy who looked as if he might live in the pool.