A Sister’s Gift (40 page)

‘Only rose petals?’ I offer, pulling my hand away from his, even though I’m tempted to do exactly as he says – to leave, to forget that other, harsh mosquito-infested world – for now and just enjoy the luxury and opulence of his.

‘That
is
my world, my love. It is full of beautiful things, and luxury and privilege, I grant you that. But never think for one moment that it is not real. It is every bit as real as yours, don’t doubt it. You are one of the lucky ones though – you get to take your pick, which of them would you rather inhabit?’

‘Either one of them, if I could be with you,’ I say without thinking and, to my surprise, I really mean it.

‘Then you need to know something. You need to understand this. I cannot help your friends to save their natural home. I will help to re-house and to educate and employ any of them who come to me through you for assistance. But I can’t stop the tide of what’s happening in your part of the forest.’

‘But the tide must be stopped,’ I urge. I have to make him see. ‘It
must!
Can’t you – influence the police or the government or…or somebody? You told me that influence and power were everything. The tribe has been infected with an outbreak of measles now, did you know that? You told me…’

‘I
told
you I didn’t want to discuss these matters today. And we shall not; that is an end to it, Scarlett.’ He snaps his fingers and a waiter appears in an instant, ready to take our order.

‘I don’t
care
how much money and influence you have.’ I stand unsteadily, ignoring the waiter and pushing the chair out behind me with my knees. ‘You’re not going to gag me, Guillermo. I’m sorry if you don’t think there is anything that can be done to save the forest or my people but it isn’t a view I share with you. And it
is
important to me. I can’t sit here sipping champagne and pretending it all away. Even for you.’

Don’t do this, don’t do this…
Eve’s earlier words about how much we need this man are buzzing about my reddening face like flies and yet as I run to the door, I can’t seem to turn back.
I need him too
. I scrunch up my fists and bash the beautiful glass door of the lobby open so I can make my way out. For the very first time, it seems, I have realised how much I need him.

‘Then stay with me for one week.’ He’s manoeuvred himself in front of me so I can’t go through the door without barging past him. ‘Just one week, Scarlett. I will take you to meet my family, show you my home. Then you can decide how you’d rather spend the rest of your life…Please?’

‘I have tried to get hold of her, Mr Huang. I’ve tried every route I can think of but unless she wants to contact me…’

He hands me a tissue and I blow my nose miserably.

‘It is good that you forgive her though,’ he says quietly and I look askance at him.

‘I want to get hold of her because she’s carrying my baby. I didn’t say that I
forgave
her.’

‘Ah,’ is all he says. As if the two things – forgiveness and the baby – were somehow interlinked, and they are not – how can they be? He needs to understand how it is.

‘All along, she’s been jealous of me, Mr Huang. All this time, my sister was jealous of me for being with Richard, and I never knew it. How could I have been so
stupid?’

‘Sometimes not so easy to see these things, huh?’ He bows his head sympathetically and I marvel at how easily the whole sorry tale spilled out the minute he asked me how my sister was doing.

‘She told me the other night how
angry
she was when I first started going out with Rich. It turns out now that she’s been holding a candle for my husband all these years. The fact is, she’s allowed her fantasies to grow instead of stifling them. I could have forgiven her for having those thoughts as a teenager. I can’t forgive her for still harbouring them as a grown woman.’

‘Situation most difficult,’ he agrees. I watch as he carefully places a teacup on a saucer down in front of me. I didn’t mean
to say so much. I only came in here because I saw the ‘relocating’ sign and I wandered in to find out what was happening. I don’t suppose he and his wife ever had any similar problems after they tried the ‘natural’ route? I scan his face for clues but his expression is inscrutable.

‘What I’ve found the most difficult thing of all to stomach is how easily she was prepared to betray me,’ I run on. Now that I’ve started to spill my feelings out, I find myself quite unable to stop. ‘She slept with him when she knew she was already pregnant, Mr Huang. She used my desperation to achieve her own ends. I guess what I’m trying to say is – how do you ever get over that kind of betrayal?’

Mr Huang considers for a bit. ‘Difficult, huh? But sometimes…we can hurt ourselves more with our own thoughts than anyone else can ever hurt us.’

He’s right. I’ve been tormenting myself with my imaginings of what really went on between them ever since that day I told her to leave…

‘Resentment and anger,’ he says softly, ‘Stored in the liver, causes bad flow of
chi
, yes?’

Ah, we’re back to
chi
again. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place, I think grimly.

‘But…she still wants Richard,’ I stutter, ‘after all this time. Do you think I
shouldn’t
be angry? She’s taken my baby. She’s…she…’I shake my head, frustrated that he doesn’t seem to understand me. ‘Look, how do you suggest that I stop feeling so resentful and angry, then? Acupuncture isn’t going to do it, is it?’

He smiles, then. ‘You work for the Bridge Trust,’ he reminds me softly now. ‘This you tell me is the largest charity in Britain, yes?’

I nod.

‘There is a saying I have heard in this country. You say charity begins at home, huh? What does this mean?’

Oh, OK. I get it.

‘You’re telling me that I need to forgive her. Get over it, right? She may still be expecting my child, don’t forget,’ I get out. ‘There is a large part of me that wants to do just that, believe me. I just don’t know how. I don’t know if I can.’

‘Child more important than grudge,’ he reminds me. ‘Child more important than anything…’

‘I know. I know! It’s just…hard to forgive someone who makes a habit of betraying those who love her. She did the same thing to an ex-boyfriend of hers. She promised him she’d marry him then dropped him when he wasn’t useful to her any more, she just used him…’ I pick up the Chinese tea and finish off the cup in one go. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Huang, I’ve taken up enough of your time already and I can see you’re packing…’

I pause, realising I haven’t asked him a single thing about his own progress.

‘Will you be sorry to go?’ I ask.

‘Very sorry. I will miss many things here, Miss Hollie. The birds. The river. My friends…’

I’m going to miss you too, I think.

‘I think – maybe you come back here, Miss Hollie, and you learn to lose fear of water, yes? Before Mrs Huang and I must leave?’ He stands up and bows reverently to me just like he always does. ‘Come soon, please?’

‘I will come,’ I promise him. Because part of me knows that that’s important too, maybe more important than I let myself know. I
am
going to learn how to swim. I want to, I realise. ‘It’s something I want to do for me.’

But now that Duncan’s in my mind again, I’m also thinking about what he said to me. Perhaps I need to ring that number again, the one I’ve been ringing to make contact with PlanetLove in Manaus. They told me she wasn’t there, nobody knew anything. But if I could speak to someone in charge and say it was about Duncan’s allegations, then maybe they’d sit up and take notice,
because if I know Scarlett she will certainly be making her way back there sooner or later.

If it ever did come to light that the thesis Scarlett submitted wasn’t her own, she’d be well and truly scuppered. She’d lose her job for sure. Her friends wouldn’t think so highly of her either. Worse than that, she’d have to say goodbye to any hope of winning the Klausmann, which is no more than she deserves.

But maybe, even more importantly, she’d have to come home and face the music.

A scrap of paper. Just a little scrap of paper, where is one when you want it? Mairie switches off her engine and rubs her face with her hands, feeling hot and flustered. By the mother of God, she doesn’t need this right now. Already the traffic on the road from Rio de Janeiro to the city of Santos, São Paulo, is starting to move again, snaking its way past the hold-up, several drivers pausing long enough to beep their horns as they pass by and get a good look. The joker in the BMW – unscathed as far as she can tell – has already got his BlackBerry out, he’s taking down notes.

He’s taking notes! What’s his problem? Mairie’s the one with a complaint to make. It’s her little car that’s had its rear fender all dented just because the
hijo de puta
wasn’t looking where he was going, too busy talking on his mobile phone, making all the time business like they do…

Mairie delves a little deeper into her handbag. So much make-up but where is a paper to write down his name and his registration? The police will deal with him. She’s got Luciendo’s party to organise for next week, his tenth birthday celebration, and he’s waiting for her. She promised him Mama wouldn’t be too long and now she’s got involved with this joker. American, by the sounds of him.

She throws her handbag down, gets out of the car. Near here they had the Bloco party last week and there is so much rubbish
littering the streets, beer bottles and greasy fast food wrappers and all sorts. She’s not touching
them
. The rubbish men have been on strike and it’s all been piling up for a while. It smells! Mairie bends, her thick waist groaning, and picks up the little envelope she’s just spotted attached to a deflated red balloon.

That reminds her – Luciendo asked for some balloons like these for his party. She’ll pass the shop on the way home and she’ll pick some up then. With an eyebrow pencil, she takes down the other driver’s name and number on the corner of the envelope. She squints at the strange name on the front of it –
Hudson
– mildly curious but more agitated than anything else because – is she hearing right?
This American is threatening to sue her?
Huh! Wait till her sister – who spends most Saturday afternoons in bed with the local chief-of-police – hears about this.

Mairie slumps back into the driver’s seat, the red balloon and its letter thrown onto the seat beside her. Too many things on her mind. One thing at a time, Mairie. She checks her aggrieved reflection in the mirror, treating the American to a death-stare as she reverses out onto the road. She’ll deal with him later. Right now she’s got Luciendo’s party to organise. And she needs to remember to get some more of those balloons.

‘I didn’t know if we should expect you back here, Scarlett.’ Emoto pulls the 4x4 into a surprisingly large gap in the trees. The ground beneath our vehicle is thickly muddy and wet; I can feel the wheels straining to pull straight. ‘After a whole week at Almeira’s luxury pad?’ He turns and looks at me frankly. ‘What would make the girl who now has everything come back to this, the mud and mosquito capital of Brazil? What is the
one thing
that could have enticed you to come back, I wonder?’ His voice is thick with sarcasm because he thinks he knows the answer – my hopes of winning the Klausmann – but he is so wrong…

I’ve come back here because after a week under Guillermo’s family roof one thing has become clear above all else. I can’t keep this baby for Hol. Gui and his family would never understand or approve. I
had
to come back here to get the herbs I need from Tunga, if I wanted any hope of remaining with Gui’s family. Because without Gui’s connections, it’s pretty clear, I have no hope of helping the tribe.

Just wait till he learns I’ve got barely a week here before Gui insists I go back. It was all he would agree to, to let me ‘say my goodbyes’ – after that he wants me at his side again. I thought I was going to find that a wrench, but we’ve only just arrived back at base camp and I can already see that it won’t be.

Everything has completely changed. Not just the location. This place is a dump. It feels too open, too exposed. And it
smells
.
I don’t know of what, but it makes my nose wrinkle up it’s so strong.

When I jump out of the jeep all I can spot are a few tents dotted here and there and some people who I don’t recognise going about their work, their heads down.

‘Defoe’s lot.’ Emoto indicates with his head in their direction and the immediate impression is one of division between the camps. ‘We’re over here. This one’s Eve’s tent. She and Gillian are both at the Forestry Conference in Manaus so you can kip here till morning. I put the ground sheet down for you but I warn you we do have to take them up during the day due to the risk of flooding.’

I nod, shielding my eyes. The minute we’re out of the protective canopy cover the sun is baking hot. ‘So hot, and yet still so muddy,’ I murmur.

‘There’s been some unseasonal flooding in this area. When the site was picked, it wasn’t anticipated that it’d be so damp. You do have your mosquito net, spray, tablets, yes?’

I nod, looking at him blankly. Where are the tribe, though? He hasn’t mentioned them yet and I need to see Tunga…

‘You’ll definitely need the nets. Defoe deliberately chose this site so we can evacuate with the jeep or by boat if we should need to – European Alliance have a “minimalisation of risk” policy,’ he continues drily. ‘That didn’t include the mozzies, of course.’

‘It doesn’t sound as if you’ll be all that sorry to go,’ I put in tentatively. He’s already mentioned what I already knew – that he’s barely got any time left here. He’s flying out virtually as I fly in. I wish he wasn’t. I’ll miss Emoto, I realise suddenly. He may have been a rival for the Klausmann but he’s also been a good friend.

‘I
will
be sorry to go,’ he corrects. ‘If I’m honest, I was praying…’ he smiles crookedly now, ‘I was hoping that your boyfriend would woo you into staying with him. Then you wouldn’t come
back to gather the species samples you still need to be eligible for the Klausmann and that way I’d still be in with a chance.’