The Eden Inheritance (39 page)

Now, with a sense of utter shock, it came home to her that he was not, after all, immune.

She reread Josie's letter, her sense of foreboding growing. However close their friendship, Josie knew better than to interfere in family matters. She would never have taken the step of breaking news such as this unless she thought it absolutely necessary, especially when what she actually knew was little more than supposition and hearsay, and the very unsensational matter-of-factness of her words made them all the more chillingly convincing.

He should have let me know! Lilli thought, a terrible sense of isolation overwhelming her. And if he wouldn't do it, for all the reasons Josie mentioned, then Ingrid should have. They should have told me! I am his daughter, for God's sake! I have a right to know!

She sat for a few moments longer, turning the glass between her hands, steeling herself to do what she knew she had to do – speak to them herself and find out the truth. Then she got up, crossed to the telephone and called the operator.

‘I want an international call, please, to Madrepora in the Windward Islands.' Her throat felt tight as she gave the number, once so familiar, but now rusty on her tongue, lost beneath the layers of other, more recently used numbers – her New York friends, her business acquaintances.

‘All lines are busy at the moment. I'll call you back.'

The unconcerned implacability of the operator increased her feeling of helplessness. How long would it be before she was able to get through? But there was nothing she could do about it. She replaced the receiver, went to get herself another glass of wine, then changed her mind. She could do with something stronger. It was much too early, of course, but still – tough! She unstoppered the gin bottle, poured a good measure into a fresh glass and topped it up with tonic water. Then she gulped at it like a lost traveller at a St Bernard's life-saving brandy flask.

The telephone, when it began to ring, made her start. Perhaps it wasn't the call to Madrepora, she told herself. Perhaps it was one of her friends suggesting a movie or a drink.

But it was the call to Madrepora.

‘Connecting you now,' the operator told her, and she heard the whistles and the hollow echoings, which reminded her oddly of the surf on the beach, and then, as if from a long way off, the ringing of the bell.

After a few moments it was answered by one of the maids – Lilli knew it must be one of the maids because she recognised the slightly singsong patois.

‘I'd like to speak to Herr Brandt,' she said.

‘Who is calling, please?'

‘It's his daughter.'

‘Lilli! Miss Lilli – is that really you?'

‘Patsy?'

‘Yes, Miss Lilli, it's me. Oh, it's good to hear your voice!'

‘And yours, Patsy.'

Memories, rushing in; a smiling black face, a broad bosom in which Lilli used to bury her face – Patsy, her nurse, closer to her in many ways than her own mother had ever been. When Magdalene had died it had been Patsy who had picked Lilli up and cleaned her grazed knees when she fell down, Patsy who had braided her hair, Patsy who had tucked her up in bed at night, crooning to her in a low tuneless voice. Even before Magdalene had died Patsy had been the one Lilli could run to, dishevelled and crying, knowing that unlike her mother there would be no protests about her crumpling her dress or planting sticky kisses on her cheek. Dear, dear Patsy. But Lilli knew she could not spend time in idle chatter however much she wanted to. The lines to Madrepora were not very reliable. This one could break up at any minute and it was important she speak to her father.

‘Is Daddy there?'

‘He's here, Miss Lilli, but I'm not sure … He's been ill, you know. I think he may be resting.'

‘Frau Brandt then?' Lilli suggested.

‘Oh yes, speak to Frau Brandt, Miss Lilli.' The relief in Patsy's voice was obvious. ‘I'll fetch her. Oh, I'm so glad …'

Lilli took another gulp of gin as she waited. She felt a little calmer now – hearing Patsy's voice had done that.

She heard voices, too indistinct to be able to make out what they were saying, then what sounded like footsteps on the tiled floor of the villa. And then, unusually clearly, as if she were in the next room instead of half the length of a continent away, Ingrid's voice.

‘Lilli.'

Just the sound of it conjured up a picture of her. In imagination Lilli saw her standing there, holding the receiver in her smooth beringed hand, stroking it lightly with nails varnished to a pale pearly pink. Ingrid was fifty-six years old but she looked ten years younger, her pampered plumpness denying the wrinkles the chance to deepen and giving her a statuesque poise. Ingrid never allowed her fair skin to be exposed to the hot Caribbean sun but she glowed with an aura of health and sophistication, dressing with a flamboyance that was striking but never tarty. She was charming and well bred and Lilli did not think she could ever remember having heard her voice raised in anger. But she had long believed that Ingrid was a schemer and that the surface charm, projected with such apparent sincerity, hid a single-minded and selfish nature. Lilli had endured Ingrid because she believed Ingrid was good for Otto – he had had too many lonely years since Magdalene's death and too much pain – but she did not like her.

‘Ingrid,' she said. ‘I had a letter from Josie.'

There was a small pause – a lag on the line, or Ingrid gathering herself together? Then Ingrid said: ‘I see.'

She wasn't going to make this easy, Lilli realised.

‘She tells me Daddy is ill. Is it true?'

Another pause. Then: ‘Yes, it's true,' Ingrid said.

‘How ill?'

‘Very. He may have only months to live.'

Lilli's blood turned to ice. From the moment she hadread Josie's letter she had feared the worst, but having it confirmed so baldly was still a shock.

‘Why didn't you let me know?' she demanded. ‘If he's so ill … if he's going to die … You should have told me!'

‘He didn't want you to know,' Ingrid said. ‘You know your father – he despises weakness in himself as in others. He prefers to believe he is going to get well.'

‘But he's not?'

‘Miracles can happen, I suppose. But to be honest, I don't think so.'

‘So what is it?' Lilli asked willing herself not to break down in tears. ‘What's wrong with him? Josie mentioned a cancer specialist.'

‘You can't keep anything private here, can you?' Ingrid said with a touch of bitterness. ‘ Yes, it is cancer, I'm afraid.'

‘But isn't there something that can be done? Drugs … an operation?'

‘The specialist was willing to attempt it, yes. But he thought things had gone too far. And in any case your father won't contemplate an operation.'

‘But surely – if there's a chance …'

‘You know how he is about hospitals. He hates them. He insists on fighting this his own way.'

‘What good will that do?' Lilli burst out. ‘Oh, I know Daddy thinks he can do anything, but still …'

‘I've tried to talk to him, Lilli, but he won't listen, any more than he would listen when I told him I thought we should get in touch with you. No, I am afraid we must resign ourselves to the fact that your father may have no more than six months at the outside to live.'

‘Dear God,' Lilli said. She could hear the line beginning to break up and made up her mind Jorge, infidelity, betrayal, the secrets of the past and the awkwardnesses of the present all paled into insignificance in the face of this one devastating fact. Her father was dying. Nothing else mattered.

‘Ingrid.' she said, her voice steady now with resolve. ‘ Ingrid … I'm coming home.'

Ingrid Brandt replaced the receiver and stood for a moment with her hand still resting on it. Her clear blue eyes had narrowed slightly – the closest she ever came to frowning – and a pulse fluttered faintly at the base of her throat, the physical reflex of the tightness in her stomach that had gripped her the moment Patsy had come to tell her that Lilli was on the telephone.

Lilli always affected her this way. Useless to tell herself that Lilli was just a young girl – or had been when she left Madrepora – and that she was Otto's daughter and had every right to be at the centre of his life. Lilli was not only Otto's daughter, she was also Magdalene's. She was the living image of her mother and she reminded Ingrid too sharply of all the things she preferred to forget. In Lilli's presence all the old hurts resurfaced, robbing Ingrid of her carefully nurtured self-possession and making her as vulnerable as the heartsick young woman she had once been. Seven years of marriage to Otto, seven years of living a life of luxury with him when he had given her everything she could wish for, had done nothing to change that, and now that she was on the point of losing him again she knew nothing ever would.

Ingrid released her grip on the telephone and raised a hand to smooth her thick fair hair back into the sleek chignon at the nape of her neck. Not a strand had escaped, except the tendrils she intended to be there, softening the outline of her face, but it was an instinctive gesture of self-protection to reassure herself that on the surface, at least, she was as poised and perfectly turned-out as ever. Then she walked through the villa, through the soft patches of light and shade thrown by the half-drawn shutters, and into the salon.

Otto was on the veranda, sitting propped up in a recliner with a long cool drink and the day's newspapers on a rattan table within easy reach beside him. Ill as he was he had refused to take to his bed. Each day Basil, the local who had served him faithfully for twenty years, bathed and dressed him and settled him here where he could look out over the gardens, shaded from the heat of the sun by the hibiscus-entwined trellis; each night he put his master to bed and wondered sadly, but with the implacable resignation that is part of the Caribbean islanders' character, whether he would ever leave it again.

As Ingrid approached Otto turned his head towards her, but she could see that even such a small movement required a good deal of effort on his part and her heart twisted with pain for him – and for herself, because it brought into sharper focus the sickening knowledge that she was soon going to lose him.

‘Who was on the telephone?' he asked. His voice was still surprisingly vibrant, as if he concentrated all his scant reserves of energy into it, determined that even if his body was betraying him, at least he should not sound like a sick old man.

She came around and sat in the rattan chair beside him, pouring herself a glass of the iced lemon drink spiced with cognac which stood on the table.

‘It was Lilli.'

‘Lilli!' A spark of light came into the blue eyes, dulled now from too many hours of coping with too much pain. ‘You should have called me!'

‘The line was breaking up. You'd never have got to the telephone in time.'

‘God in heaven – I'm not dead yet! I could have tried!'

‘It's all right, Otto.' She leaned forward, placing a hand on his arm, telling herself she did it to calm him but knowing deep down it was also a proprietorial gesture to reassure herself that he belonged to her now. ‘ You'll be able to talk to her soon, face to face. She's coming home.'

Beneath her fingers the sinews of his arm tensed and he shifted himself fractionally in the lounger as if to rise and physically intervene.

‘She can't do that! Why didn't you stop her?'

‘How could I? She's hundreds of miles away. She said she was coming home and then the line went dead. She's heard you are ill, Otto. She wants to see you. It's only natural.'

‘How did she find out? You didn't let her know, did you? I told you not to!'

‘She'd had a letter from that friend of hers, that local girl – what's her name?'

‘Josie. Dammit – are they still in touch?'

‘Obviously. Don't upset yourself, my darling. It will be all right, I'm sure. Lilli has a whole new life now. That business with Jorge was over a long time ago.'

Otto's hands, lying in his lap, balled into fists.

‘It's never over with Jorge. Never! He's not the sort to let anything go when he thinks of it as his, whether he wants it or not.'

The pain and anger was there in his face, superimposed upon the lines of that other, physical, pain. It tore at Ingrid, resurrecting her own insecurity.

‘Well, there's nothing you or I can do to stop her now,' she said, resorting to the brisk yet placid approach that was her stock-in-trade. ‘She's coming home and that's all there is to it.'

He was silent for a moment while the conflicting emotions fought within his disease-racked body. In spite of everything he did very much want to see Lilli again. She was his daughter, his little girl, and she came to him sometimes when he lay sleepless in the long reaches of the night because he refused, whenever possible, to take the drugs that had been prescribed for him. He saw her then as the child she had once been, daughter of his beloved Magdalene. She had been born when he had reached an age when he had never expected to have a child, and he loved her with the fiercely protective love that made him vulnerable. Lilli, so like her mother that she could have been Magdalene reincarnated, Lilli, totally unaware of the implications of that legacy, Lilli, whom he had missed more than he would have believed possible. Otto was a hard man, ruthless and without conscience or scruple, but two women had found a chink in the armour. One had been Magdalene, the other Lilli. But much as he longed to see her smile, hear her low infectious laugh, hold her slim brown hand in his, he would have died rather than expose her again to the dangers that had claimed her mother's life. He should have died! he thought fiercely. If the disease had tightened its hold more quickly or if he had put his gun to his head when he had first found out about it Lilli would not be coming home now. Or would she? Madrepora was her home. For all that had happened there – was still happening – she might still have come. And he would not have been here to warn her and try to protect her.