A Sister’s Gift (38 page)

‘Why ever would I?’

‘Because you
could.’
She pulls me into the shaded area of the pavement and we both cower under a shopfront awning for a bit. ‘He’s mad about you,’ she continues now. ‘He’s made no bones about that. He’d give you anything you wanted. The moon, the stars. £400,000…’

‘I didn’t think about asking him,’ I tell her miserably. ‘I thought you said Chiquitin-Almeira had already pledged £250,000?’

‘Of course they have, but that’s from company funds. He could have pledged a lot more from his own pocket if he’d a mind to. Why didn’t you just ask him, you silly little cow?’

I blink back the angry tears that spring to my eyes now. I open my mouth but no words come out.

‘What did you
think
I was expecting you to do?’ snaps Eve. ‘I mean, how else could you have had a hope of getting the amount I’d asked you to raise? You agreed to do it. I thought it was understood that you’d have to ask him for the cash…oh, for Pete’s sake!’

The ramifications of Eve’s words are finally filtering down into my over-heated brain. ‘So that’s why you chose me over Emoto?’ I manage. ‘Because of my potentially useful connections with Almeira’s son?’

‘Precisely. Got it in one. I mean, let’s face it, you aren’t the brightest bunny in the basket when it comes to academic stuff, are you?’

‘I’m up for the Klausmann,’ I remind her. But she ignores that.

‘Look.’ She scrapes her hair back and I suddenly remember how much I’ve always been repulsed by her high forehead with its crisscross of tramlines etched into it. ‘Does Guillermo even know about this? You being up the duff, I mean?’

I shake my head slowly. Up the duff, she says. What happened to my ‘precious cargo’? This can’t be happening to me. A car
horn blares out suddenly, the driver cursing a reckless pedestrian who’s just ran in front of him, and it nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I feel dizzy; I must still be on that plane and dreaming all this. Eve turning against me like this – it’s just unthinkable! I’m starting to think maybe I was just being used all along.

‘I haven’t told him yet,’ I tell her numbly.

‘And you don’t think you could get away with passing it off as his? Don’t be selfish here, Scarlett. I’m looking at the bigger picture – the future of the Amazon, not just one more spoiled brat.’

I just stare at her, aghast.

‘Well, OK, OK,’ she concedes, seeing my expression and misinterpreting it. ‘He’d want DNA-testing no doubt, seeing as he’s worth a bob or two. Unless we just strung him along for a bit – keep him sweet and then you “lose” it? Oh, but then the timing would be out though, wouldn’t it?’

‘How can you be so
callous?’
I breathe, horrified. I put aside for the minute that I’ve harboured thoughts of termination myself.

‘Of course, I forgot.’ Eve puts her hand to her chin thoughtfully. ‘It’s your sister’s child, isn’t it? She’ll be expecting it back. But hang on a minute – didn’t you tell me your sister chucked you out of the house?’

I nod dejectedly.

‘Bit ungrateful, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I slept with her husband,’ I put in miserably.

‘Ouch!’ Eve laughs out loud. I shoot her a killer stare from behind my sunglasses. For all her high ethical principles about saving the planet, it appears this kind of immorality doesn’t rank too highly in her list of cardinal sins.

‘It was the biggest mistake of my life,’ I say through gritted teeth.

‘Well, does she want the child or doesn’t she?’ Eve’s suddenly become very businesslike. ‘If she’s chucked you out…’ And then,
before I can answer, she continues: ‘We need to retrieve the situation here, Scarlett. If you’re only twelve weeks gone, then termination is still an option, isn’t it? It might be the best option, under the circumstances. I’ll tell Defoe that you miscarried. She need never know it wasn’t Guillermo’s child – and you can carry on going out with him and still be the golden girl, can’t you?’

I remain silent for a few minutes while she thinks this all through.

‘Don’t you see – it’s the Yanomami I’m thinking about here, Scarlett?’ Her attitude changes, becoming suddenly solicitous. ‘You do realise what a dire situation they’re in at the moment, don’t you?’

I feel a trickle of sweat run down from my scalp and across my cheek. I wipe it away with the back of my hand.

‘Maybe it was a mistake to keep the worst of it from you,’ she muses now. ‘Let me just say there’s a certain amount of division in the tribe at the moment. Yes,
your
tribe…’ she says deliberately, seeing my frown. ‘The elders know they’re being threatened with obliteration. Some want to leave the forest, to go and work in the shanty-towns…They’ll lose all their heritage, all their plant lore will disappear…’

‘No!’ The plastic water bottle I’ve just put to my lips slips in my sweaty hand and a trickle of warm water dribbles down my chin. I feel limp, helpless.

‘I see you get the picture. That isn’t all. There’s been a bout of measles within the tribe, Scarlett. Many of them have perished.’

‘How many? Not…José?’

She shakes her head. ‘Seventeen, last count. José wasn’t affected. They’ve no natural defences, have they? Look, I know you think I’m being callous but the truth is I’m trying to save these people, that’s all. I thought that’s what you were committed to doing too?’

‘I am,’ I say faintly. ‘They’re my friends.’

‘Then,’ she takes hold of my arm firmly, ‘you’re going to have to make some difficult choices here, Scarlett. You have to look
at the bigger picture in all this. We could still save this patch of ours – I’m certain of it. With the right backing, we could even save a larger area. It’s got to be purely a matter of time before the world wakes up and sees that we can’t afford to hang about any more, don’t you know that? But if we don’t all do what we can it’ll be too late. Let me take you down to our old base camp and show you the damage that’s already been done…’

‘You don’t have to, Eve,’ I shake my head. ‘I get the picture.’

‘Look, I know I’ve come across as harsh today. You’ve had a shock today, right? Well, I’ll be honest, so have I. We need political muscle and leverage now more than ever and I honestly thought you might be pivotal in helping us attain that. I suggest we go in and have a drink and wait for Guillermo in the cool of the hotel – what d’you think?’

‘He’s coming here?’ I say in surprise.

‘I thought you’d be pleased so I told him you were arriving. I couldn’t think why you hadn’t rung him to say so yourself. Listen, when you arrived to take up your post with us nearly two years ago now, I sensed from the start you were something special, you’d
bring
something special to your work here. And you have. You’ve done some great work here, you know I think that. More than that, you’ve opened up great possibilities with the Almeira connection. We can’t afford to lose that, Scarlett.’

‘I’m aware—’ I begin.

‘Sometimes, things are just meant to be,’ she says grandly. ‘They work out just how they’re supposed to. You have a mission to accomplish which only you can.’

What if she’s right? I stare into her serious face while I digest the import of her words. It’s true that Hollie doesn’t want me in her life any more. Maybe if I stay here and build on what I’ve got I could still make a go of it here. All the bad things I’ve done will just go away – be forgotten about.

Eventually.

‘Beatrice Highland, will you please just answer my question?’

Bea takes a large swig of G and T, for fortification. Then she nods slowly.

‘Flo’s brother was your dad, my dear. It’s true. Though never acknowledged, you understand. He was already married to someone else at the time…’

I stare at Beatrice for a few moments, getting my voice back.

‘She only ever held this house in trust for you two. I’m not sure quite how Heinrich her laywer would have explained the position to you but…’

‘Heinrich…read out a letter with a lot of legal terms in it and asked me if I knew what it meant, if anyone had explained it to me. I told him Flo had…’

‘Perhaps she hadn’t explained it adequately then?’

‘Bea,’ I lean forward, stopping her. ‘This is all besides the point. I can’t believe you knew all along – you both knew – who my father was and nobody ever said…’

‘I was never comfortable about the secrecy, dear, but it wasn’t my place to say. And Flo had her reasons. Her brother was a well-respected barrister. He had a wife and two sons, and he stood to lose more than Helen if the truth ever came out,’ Bea runs on. ‘Helen loved him desperately, you know. He was part of the reason she carried on working in South America. He had a lot of business over there…’

‘So you’re saying Flo really WAS our aunt after all?’ I have to concentrate on that. Her having a brother – the father that I never knew, who nobody ever even spoke about seems too much to take on board right now.

‘Does Scarlett know?’

‘Not from me, if she does. Hollie, dear…’Bea puts her hand over mine.

‘And does he have a name?’

‘Geoffrey,’ she says baldly, as if hanging on to the last vestiges of his anonymity. As if it matters anymore.’ Perhaps I should have told you sooner. It’s just that I saw his obiturary in the Times recently. I thought maybe, now would be a good time to say…’

So he’s dead? Here and gone in the space of a few seconds.

‘Flo’s brother was our dad?’ My mind is spinning. ‘And now he’s gone. Just more water under the bridge.’ He fathered us and he left us the house but he managed to get away without being our dad, I think, a sudden storm of fury in my head. Just like Scarlett thought she would get away with everything…

‘You dad’s gone, Hollie. But your baby has yet to be born, remember, and if you can’t find a way to re-establish contact with your sister – no matter how badly you feel about her just now – then you lose the child as well.’

I blink and the chaos I’ve just wreaked in Florence cottages garden comes suddenly into sharp focus. Good God, what have I done? I blink back a tear.

‘I’ve made a mess, here, haven’t I?’ Huge swathes of broken foliage are piled high at various points along the flower beds. I’ve cut off heaven knows how many branches in full bloom and many more with their ripening buds just about to open, like some kind of maniac with shears.

‘This will recover,’ Beatrice pats my knee encouragingly. ‘You’ve given it a drastic haircut, that’s all. Plants grow back though. They’re forgiving.’

Just like I’m going to need to be.

‘Choose what you like,’ Eve’s saying. We’re sitting in the palm-decorated bar area at the Montana and she’s persuaded me to change out of my jeans into the pretty white dress she’s brought along just for the purpose. She’s trying to be nice to me, to retrieve the situation, just as she said. I can entirely understand her reasons for everything and yet I know I’m never going to feel the same way about her again. She apologised, as we sat down, for her earlier ‘over-zealousness’. She said that’s just how you get after so many years of being ‘committed to the cause’. And it’s a good cause. I know this. I believe this. I believe in the same cause.

She said she’d thought I understood what my part in her grand rescue plan for PlanetLove was. She hadn’t realised, she said, quite how naïve I still am. That was her error, she admitted. She should have made things all a bit more overt, but she assured me that we could still rescue this.

I’m not saying much. She seems to think that ridding yourself of the encumbrance of an unwanted pregnancy will be no more difficult than taking an aspirin to cure yourself of a headache. I never thought too much about it before, but when I hear her talk about it in this dispassionate and unconnected way I realise that it’s not going to be so easy for me after all.

I’m feeling really weirded out now. I tell her it’s the long-haul flight but it’s not that. She’s just messed with my head, that’s all.
I thought I knew where I was within the PlanetLove structure; the lie of the land, the terrain beneath my feet all seemed comfortable and familiar and welcoming, but now it feels as if all along this woman, who I took to be my friend, was simply using me as a pawn in a bigger game. I was never really that valuable to her after all, not as me, not Scarlett,
myself
. It was only what I represented that meant something to her. At the end of the day, the cause is more important.

And can I really blame her for that? I’ve backed the cause to the hilt myself. I’ve been prepared to throw my sister out of her home for it. I’ve been prepared to carry another person’s baby for nine months. Will I now have to terminate it, in the name of the same cause?

Then I ask her the one burning question that’s still left in my mind.

‘What about the Klausmann?’ I get out at last. ‘Are you going to tell me now that Guillermo Almeira was the reason I was shortlisted for that as well?’

‘Oh, no,’ Eve attests. ‘The Klausmann nominations have nothing to do with us. They’re judged at King’s College, as you know. The outcome is entirely out of our hands.’

That’s one good thing, then. The relief I feel at this last piece of news is for some reason enormous. Because – almost miraculously – the thesis I sent to PlanetLove has earned me the respect of some of the most prestigious workers in the field today. And that recognition is really worth something to me, despite Eve’s observation that I’m not the most academic bunny in the warren…

‘It’s a highly prestigious award,’ Eve admits. ‘And if you get it, that’ll work to your advantage too. The Almeiras are a highly status-conscious clan, as you know. Winning the Klausmann will be a feather in your cap that Gui can show off to his family – she’s not just a pretty face, sort of thing. He was very proud when I told him, you know.’

He was proud. Despite everything else I feel so shit about right now, that makes me feel good. If Mum were around today, I feel sure she’d be proud of it, too. She’d be proud of the work I’m doing here, too. She wouldn’t have wanted me to give it all up, I know. Not now.

‘Here he comes, honey. Be sweet to him. You know what he means to us so don’t cock it up again…’