Return to Mandalay (51 page)

Softer, thought Eva. That’s what she was. Easier. For once in her life, she felt she didn’t have to be walking on eggshells around her. After her father’s death for as far back as she could remember, her mother had been so tense that Eva was afraid if she hugged her, she might snap. So she hadn’t hugged her. She supposed she had responded to the vibe, kept her distance, confided in her grandfather rather than her mother. But what about the times before that? When she and her mother had cuddled and were close, when her mother had read Eva those
bedtime stories about lions in the meadow and foxes in the fields in her low, sing-song voice, her laughter bubbling like fizzy lemonade? When her father had been working late and they’d stayed up to watch TV together, when her mother let her help bake gingerbread men. She hadn’t forgotten those times. She’d thought of them on the way to Burma, on the flight, images of her childhood had fluttered like story-flags through her mind.

Once she started talking, it was hard to stop. Eva told her mother about her Myanmar impressions, the people she’d met, and even about Maya, though she didn’t dwell on how much time she had spent with her; there was no point in rubbing salt into the wound. And then she told her about the rubies, the stolen chinthe and how Klaus had eventually got it back.

‘My God, Eva,’ Rosemary muttered under her breath as they eventually came off the motorway and headed towards West Dorset. ‘I can’t believe all this happened in less than four weeks. Are you alright, darling? It all sounds very dangerous.’ She turned to look at her, her blue eyes full of concern.

‘You sound just like Ramon.’ Eva swallowed. She missed him already. He had phoned her at her hotel in Yangon before she flew back, but it had been a difficult conversation. She was leaving Myanmar and he was staying. What more was there to say?

‘Ah, yes.’ Rosemary raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Ramon. He seems to have had quite an effect on you.’

‘He did.’ Eva thought of the little carved Buddha in her
cabin bag. And she had a sense of déjà vu. She stared out of the window. Although the roads were clear, there was still snow on the hills.

‘And?’

‘And nothing.’ Eva wasn’t sure she wanted to be having this conversation. ‘I’m British. He’s Burmese. Well, half-Burmese anyway. We live in different worlds. There is no “and”.’

‘But there might have been?’

Eva shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ He had said he’d keep in touch. But she didn’t know whether they would. Sometimes to keep in touch was even harder.

Her mother reached out and patted her hand. It was clearly an unconscious gesture and yet to Eva it was so unusual that it took her a moment to register it. ‘If it’s meant to be …’ Rosemary said.

Eva stared at her. Wasn’t that exactly what Cho Suu Kyi had said about seeing her father?
If it is meant to be
. And since when had her mother become so philosophical?

On both sides of the road now, the Dorset countryside stretched out around them as if it might enfold Eva in its arms. Green hills and lush valleys, the triangle of the distant ocean. The sky was still grey, but, as Eva watched, a shaft of feeble wintry sunshine peered through the clouds. Eva smiled. Another creature entirely from the sapping sun of Myanmar. She turned to her mother. ‘And how about you?’ she asked.

‘Me?’ Rosemary kept her eyes on the road.

‘Yes. You seem pretty laid-back about my visit to Myanmar, all of a sudden. But I know you’ve always hated the place.’

‘That’s true.’

And now that she’d been there, Eva thought she understood why. ‘So what’s changed?’ she asked.

‘Let’s say that while I’ve been looking after your Grandpa, I’ve had an awful lot of time to think,’ she said.

‘Oh yes?’ Eva waited for her to elaborate. What had she been thinking about? The past? The present? The knowledge that she had a half-sister?

Rosemary glanced across at her. ‘You and I have got a lot of catching up to do, darling,’ she said. ‘But there’s plenty of time for that, too.’

Which sounded as if she intended to stay for a while. Eva relaxed into the passenger seat. But not plenty of time for her grandfather, by the sound of it. And so she willed the remaining miles to disappear. She wouldn’t be going back to Bristol, not yet. She was going back to Dorset. Because she needed to see him now. She needed to get home.

It was evening. Rosemary had lit the fire and they’d moved her grandfather into the lounge on the settee so that he could lie and look into the flames as they talked.

The doctor had been in earlier, and although he hadn’t been so good when Eva first arrived, her grandfather had seemed to rally this evening. At last he seemed able to talk to her, able to listen to what she had to say.

She knelt beside him on a cushion on the floor, her mother sitting opposite in the floral armchair with the antimacassars Eva’s grandmother had always insisted on.

‘Well now, Eva, my dear.’ He spoke softly, his pale blue eyes fixed on her face. ‘How was she?’

Eva glanced up at her mother but she just smiled in a way that told her it was alright. Whatever her own feelings, she must have decided to put them aside, for her father’s sake. ‘She’s very well.’ Given her age. But Eva decided not to tell him how tired Maya had looked that last night in Mandalay. Tired but still peaceful, she thought.

‘Ah.’ He nodded as if this was the news he’d been waiting for. ‘And was she pleased when you gave her the chinthe?’

‘Pleased, yes. And very surprised.’ Again, Eva glanced at
her mother. Before they went into the house they’d agreed not to tell him all the details. It might be too much to know that his granddaughter had been breaking into shipment crates and trying to inveigle her way into the homes of criminals, not to mention getting involving with illegal antiques and stolen rubies.

‘Good, good.’ He stared into the flames as if mesmerised.

‘And I showed her the photos I took with me,’ Eva added. She could see now why Maya had seemed so interested in that photograph of Rosemary. She’d been comparing Lawrence’s daughter with his other daughter, she’d noticed that family resemblance right away.

‘Did you take many photos while you were out there?’ her mother asked.

Eva sat back on her heels. She’d already put them on to her laptop. ‘Would you like to see?’

‘Of course,’ said Rosemary.

Her grandfather blinked at her and nodded.

She went to get her laptop and located the file, setting it up so that all three of them had a clear view. The first pictures were of Yangon, then Maymyo and then the orchids and Kandawgyi gardens.

‘And who’s this?’ asked Rosemary. The picture was of Ramon. It caught him half in reverie as he examined a particularly stunning purple orchid, half indignant that he was being photographed unawares.

‘Ramon.’ The picture brought the memory of that afternoon back sharply into her mind. ‘Maya’s grandson,’ she told
her grandfather. ‘He showed me around Maymyo and Mandalay.’

Her grandfather frowned and nodded. ‘Ramon,’ he said, as if committing the name to memory.

When she got to the picture of Maya, looking sweet and serene and white-haired, standing outside the house in Maymyo – the house that her grandfather had visited all those years ago – he caught his breath. ‘She’s hardly changed,’ he murmured. And his head sank back onto the cushions.

Eva and her mother exchanged a small smile.

‘She says hello,’ Eva told him. ‘And she asked me to give you her love.’

He nodded, as if he already knew, as if he already had her love. ‘Did she have a good life?’ he asked. ‘Was she happy?’

‘Yes, she did. She was.’ That had certainly been Eva’s understanding. And she recalled that this was what Maya too had wanted to know,
had he been happy? Had he been loved
? Maya might have regretted her decision, but if so she showed no sign. She had shown only acceptance; she had made the best of it. ‘She married a good man,’ Eva told her grandfather. ‘And they had a lovely daughter.’

‘And my daughter?’ His voice was faint. ‘My other daughter?’

So he had understood. Over in the armchair, Eva was conscious of her mother’s silent presence. ‘I have a picture of her,’ she said. She clicked on it and her face filled the screen. ‘Cho Suu Kyi,’ she said.

Her grandfather and her mother stared at the image in
silence for a few moments. At last her grandfather nodded. ‘She looks very fine,’ he said. ‘She looks …’

‘Serene,’ Eva’s mother supplied.

‘She is.’ Eva looked appraisingly at her mother. ‘And don’t you think she looks a little like you, Mother?’ she asked.

‘Oh, she does,’ her grandfather said firmly.

‘A little.’ A small smile played around her mother’s lips.

‘Maya wanted to tell you about her, Grandpa.’ Eva willed him to understand. ‘And she never wanted to lose you. But …’

He nodded. ‘She thought it best to let me go,’ he said.

Exactly. He knew the woman. Perhaps he had never doubted her. Eva moved on to the next photograph of Maya and Cho Suu Kyi together. ‘Maya’s husband brought Suu up as his own,’ she told them. ‘He looked after them both very well.’

‘I’m glad.’ Her grandfather reached out and squeezed Eva’s hand. ‘I’m glad they had a good life. As I did,’ he added. He gave Eva a look.
Be patient with your mother
, it seemed to say,
try to understand
.

She did understand. And her mother too, Eva thought, was doing her best to understand. She moved on to the next pictures of the Royal Palace and other sights of Mandalay. There was the gaudily painted horse and cart which had carried she and Ramon around Inwa, the golden pagodas of Sagaing Hill and the glorious Mahamuni, covered in knobbly gold leaf by all his followers; a visual reminder of her entire journey. ‘And the chinthes,’ she said. ‘Reunited at last.’

‘Ah.’ Her grandfather leaned closer.

They stared back at the camera lens with dignity, heads proud, eyes glittering. ‘And here they are in the National Museum in Yangon.’ Because Eva had taken another photo of them when she visited the museum the day before she left Myanmar. They were already installed beside an information board which told the story, in Burmese and English, of how Queen Supayalat had given them to her loyal maid-servant Suu Kyi in thanks for looking after the princesses and how they had now been given on permanent loan as a precious relic of Burmese culture. Beside them, was an old photograph of the King and Queen, the pair of chinthes unmistakeable, each one on an arm of Supayalat’s throne. You couldn’t, Eva thought, get a more reliable authentication than that.

Lawrence peered at the photo more closely. ‘They look very grand,’ he commented. ‘And in a museum too.’ He chuckled. ‘Who would have thought it, eh? When one of them’s been in the jungle and even to Dorset and back.’

Eva caught her mother’s eye. She shrugged.

Eva leaned closer. ‘The eyes of the chinthes are rare Mogok rubies, Grandpa,’ she whispered.

He stared at her, then back at the laptop screen, then into the flames of the fire. ‘Rubies?’ he breathed. ‘She gave me rubies?’ He laughed, his chest heaving in an effort to get breath, but the laughter turned to a wheeze and then a cough. ‘Rubies,’ he muttered. He glanced at Eva. ‘You know I’ve always admired an adventurous spirit, my darling,’ he said.
‘But I do hope you were careful.’ And, once again, his eyes seemed to glaze over.

Rosemary got to her feet. ‘Time for bed, Dad, I think,’ she said. ‘All this excitement. It’s exhausting.’

Eva helped her support him and they got him into the bathroom and then to bed.

When Eva leaned over to kiss him goodnight, he gripped her hand. ‘Did you like it, my darling?’ he asked her. ‘Did you like the old country?’

Eva smiled. ‘I loved it, Grandpa. It was just as you always told me.’

He nodded, as if satisfied. ‘And have you thought?’ he asked her. ‘About what you’ll do next?’

Eva was surprised. She hadn’t said anything. But it was almost as if he knew. ‘I think so.’ She hadn’t quite thought it through, not yet. But she had a good idea. First thing tomorrow she was going to write her letter of resignation. And, in the circumstances, she hoped they would allow her to leave with immediate effect. But she was going to talk to Jacqui too, she’d decided. She would phone her tomorrow.

‘I’m pleased to hear that.’ He patted her hand. ‘And he seems like a nice enough boy,’ he said. ‘Maya’s grandson and my granddaughter. Well, I never …’

Eva smiled. He’d only seen a few photos of Ramon, but he’d still picked up on it, the old rascal. Her mother needn’t worry. Grandpa was as sharp as he’d ever been.

He nodded. ‘You’ll come into some money soon, my dear,’
he whispered, his voice drifting. ‘Think carefully about what you want to do with it.’

‘Oh, Grandpa.’ She didn’t want to think about that at all, because of what it would mean.

‘And thank you.’ His eyes fluttered open and then closed. ‘Thank you for taking Maya’s chinthe back to Burma for me.’

*

‘That was about the longest period of lucidity he’s had since I got here,’ Eva’s mother said as they sat back in the lounge together, Eva on the settee this time. ‘As if he were saving it up for your return.’

‘Maybe he was.’ She wouldn’t be surprised.

‘And what else was in the National Museum, darling?’ her mother asked. ‘It sounds a remarkable collection.’

‘Yes, it was.’ Despite being incomplete. Eva stared into the fire. The logs, burning orange, sparks flaring with red flames reminded her of the treasures she’d seen there. ‘Gilded furniture studded with jewels,’ she said dreamily. ‘The Queen’s couch – gold filigree with jade; the King’s day bed – gold filigree with diamonds; a carpet woven of strips of silver.’ She took a deep breath, remembering. ‘Jewelled caskets decorated with elephants’ heads. Royal costumes and state attire.’ Their wide sleeves were threaded with gold lace, the body petalled with tiny bells and stiff with sequined rubies, the lapels embroidered with images of the peacock and the hare. ‘Golden goblets, pitchers and salvers and betel boxes on dragon stands.’

Rosemary laughed, in her voice a note of wonder.

But Eva wasn’t finished yet. ‘Lacquered incense jars. Silver spittoons, swords and scabbards. A jewel-encrusted saddle, a hand mirror bordered with gemstones. Rings and bracelets and necklaces of silver, gold and jade, of diamonds and deep red rubies.’ She smiled. ‘The riches of Mandalay.’