by Peter May
Or like my luck, thought Lisa. She felt sure now that she was being mocked. And her initial feeling the previous evening of security, and gratitude towards Grace, was being replaced by a growing sense of unease.
The long, narrow hang yao knifed its way through the choppy waters of one of the larger klongs, weaving between the rice barges and water buses and sampans. And for a time Lisa forgot her misgivings, enthralled again by the sights and sounds of this exotic waterborne culture that engulfed the senses. Women hung from their reed-woven lampshades like fat black light bulbs, squatting in tiny sampans. A canoe, groaning under the weight of a huge load of golden hay, turned into one of the many smaller klongs, heading east to feed the buffalo that ploughed the neighbouring paddies. Grace pointed out the flotilla of Royal Barges housed in a special pavilion along the canal, and Lisa’s gaze strayed up to the giant statues guarding the entrance to the Wat Arun, whose central porcelain-studded tower flashed in the morning sunlight.
The sun had risen mercilessly high in the pale blue sky by the time they reached the market itself. It was cooler on the water than elsewhere, but the heat was still oppressive. Their hang yao had slowed to less than walking pace, bumping its way gently among the hundreds of bobbing craft. Grace ordered their driver to stop by a boat selling headgear, and she bought them each a wide-brimmed straw hat. ‘To protect that pretty white skin,’ she said, brushing Lisa’s hair back and placing the hat on her head, tilting it forward to shade her face from the sun. Lisa was again reminded of her trip with Sivara. She had bought a straw hat then, too.
All around them clicking Thai tongues bargained and fought over purchases and sales, and Lisa became aware of Grace’s eyes on her. She turned boldly to meet her gaze. Grace smiled disarmingly. ‘You must be hungry.’
Lisa nodded. ‘Starving.’
Grace spoke to their driver and he eased their hang yao through the other craft to a sampan selling fresh fruit. They bought a bamboo tray laden with slices of watermelon, papaya, pineapple and halves of lime. As they ate the juicy red flesh of the watermelon and squeezed lime on the papaya, Grace reclined, supporting herself on one arm, and gazed speculatively at Lisa. ‘What brings a young English girl to the other side of the world to find a father she has never known?’ she asked.
‘My mother died,’ Lisa said simply. ‘Wouldn’t you have done the same?’
Grace gave a tiny dismissive shrug. ‘It never occurred to me.’
Lisa frowned, unbalanced by this unexpected response. She had thought her question hypothetical. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘My father was a Frenchman in the diplomatic corps. I was the result of a brief liaison with my mother. His name was Jacques. Beyond that I know nothing of him.’
‘But weren’t you ever curious? I mean, didn’t you want to know who he was?’
Grace shook her head. ‘No. He had no interest in me. Why should I care about him?’
‘That’s very sad.’
‘I don’t think so. I was educated in Paris, you see. My mother thought a great deal of the French, but I never liked them much. I am a Cambodian. Always have been, always will be.’
‘Oh.’ Lisa realized that she was wrong in yet another assumption. ‘I thought you were Thai.’
Grace smiled indulgently. ‘In Vietnam,’ she said, ‘all white men were once French. Then they were American. Now they are Russian. But to the Vietnamese they are all just white. As all the peoples of Indochina were just jaunes once to the French. I have long since ceased to be insulted by it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lisa stuttered, wondering how it was that Grace always seemed to make her feel so clumsy.
‘Ignorance is hardly a sin, my dear.’ Grace paused for a moment to squeeze more lime on her papaya. ‘Than tells me you believed your father was dead.’
‘It’s what my mother told me,’ Lisa said.
‘Why?’
‘Because he’d disgraced her. Us. Or so she thought.’ Lisa drew in a deep breath. ‘He was court-martialled and sent to prison for a massacre of civilians in Aden.’ A slightly raised eyebrow was the only betrayal of Grace’s surprise. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’
‘No.’ The faintest hint of a smile played about Grace’s mouth. ‘But, then, that’s hardly surprising.’
‘Why? Because you think he’d have been ashamed to?’
Grace evaded the question. ‘Are you ashamed of him?’
Lisa felt a flush rise on her cheeks. It was something she’d wondered herself many times. How could she answer Grace when she’d never found an answer for herself? ‘I don’t know,’ she said at length. ‘Maybe that’s why I’m here. To find out.’
Grace’s smile faded, and Lisa wondered if it was a flicker of pity she saw cross her eyes. ‘He does not give much away, your father,’ Grace said.
Lisa gazed at her speculatively along the length of the hang yao and wondered if she had ever seen such beauty. A beauty that could in one moment seem warm and enticing, and in another cold and dangerous. ‘What exactly is your relationship with my father?’ she asked.
Grace seemed to consider her answer carefully for some moments. Then, ‘We were lovers,’ she said simply.
Lisa felt the shock in her heart sting her face pink. Intimate. That was the word Grace had used in the car. She had not known him well, but intimately. Lovers. Of course. They had been lovers. This woman, a complete stranger to her, knew her father in ways that she never could. It seemed to explain all the ambiguities. And for a moment Lisa was almost jealous.
Grace sat up suddenly, pushing her tray aside. ‘A little coffee, I think. Then we should get you some clothes.’
*
Sweat glistened on the firm brown bodies in the steamy heat of the dyeing room. The dark-haired boys wore only gloves and sandals, and the flimsiest of shorts, as they worked with dexterous ease, apparently impervious to the heat, dipping the heavy skeins of silk into vats of hot dye. In the glow of the fires, the smoke and steam that permeated the claustrophobic darkness stung Lisa’s eyes and caught in her throat. Grace, standing at her side, gently holding her a little above the elbow, seemed oblivious. Lisa glanced at her and saw the gleam that lit her eyes as she ran them across the taut young muscles of the bare-chested boys.
‘How can they work in this atmosphere?’ Lisa said, almost choking as she spoke.
Grace replied distantly. ‘They’re used to it.’ Then she turned to Lisa and smiled. ‘You can get used to almost anything. Come. It’s time to choose.’ And she guided her back out into the comparative cool of the factory where women moved vast screens back and forth along three-hundred-metre lengths of undyed silk, printing repeated patterns of exotic jungle scenes. Earlier, Lisa and Grace had passed through large rooms resounding to the clatter of dozens of flying shuttle looms weaving great lengths of raw silk. Their guide had explained to Lisa that Thailand’s silk larvae spun unusually soft, thick fibres, and that the resultant fabric accepted dyes more readily than silk made elsewhere in the world. He was waiting for them as they climbed the steps to the factory showroom, where huge rolls of printed and dyed silks were stacked one upon the other.
A shrunken man with a bald, brown pate, he bowed and smiled. ‘Your friend enjoyed her tour, La Mère Grace?’
‘Did you?’ Grace turned to Lisa.
‘Very much,’ Lisa said. She laughed. ‘I feel like a child in Santa’s grotto.’
‘Then let me be your Father, or should I say Mother Christmas – although we are a week or so late.’ Grace’s smile seemed to conceal a greater amusement at the idea. She waved a hand expansively around the room. ‘You choose. But something fine, I think, and self-coloured, and dark to contrast the whiteness of your skin.’
Lisa finally chose a deep, lustrous crimson in a very fine fabric. Grace seemed pleased with her choice, running the material sensuously through her fingers. ‘Red for passion,’ she said. ‘Are
you a passionate creature, Lisa?’
Their guide smiled.
Lisa flushed deeply. ‘I really don’t know,’ she stammered. ‘Red has always suited me.’
‘We’ll take five metres,’ Grace told their guide. ‘On my account, of course.’
‘Of course, La Mère Grace.’
In the car Lisa asked, ‘Why did he call you La Mère Grace?’
‘It is how I am known,’ Grace said. ‘My business name, if you like.’
‘What business is that?’
‘Oh, I have many business interests. Property, entertainment, clubs, restaurants.’
Lisa was intrigued. ‘And you run them yourself?’
‘Of course. You seem surprised.’
‘I’m sorry – I just thought—’
‘That there should be a man behind it?’
‘Isn’t there?’
‘My business interests were inherited from my mother. When I was forced to leave Cambodia, I re-established myself here. The women in my family have been very singular, Lisa. Men have their place, but not in our hearts or our lives. And certainly not in our business.’
‘What other place is there?’
Grace turned a smile of genuine amusement on the young girl beside her. ‘You really are very innocent, Lisa,’ she said. ‘In our beds, of course.’
The House of Choisy was in the Patpong 2 district, an upmarket boutique with the latest fashions from Paris, London and New York. A twittering middle-aged lady fussed and fluttered around Lisa for nearly fifteen minutes in the dressing room, taking every conceivable measurement. ‘Beautiful lady, beautiful lady,’ she kept saying. ‘I make you beautiful, beautiful dress.’ She thought, too, that the fabric Lisa had chosen was beautiful. Grace sat smoking and watching the proceedings with idle amusement.
They leafed through a well-thumbed brochure looking at hundreds of designs. Lisa was flustered and indecisive. ‘I’m spoiled for choice.’ She shrugged helplessly at Grace. In the end it was Grace who chose – a full-length, close-fitting dress, split to the knee at the left side, sleeveless and with a daringly plunging neckline. ‘Along traditional Thai lines,’ she said, and looked Lisa up and down. ‘With one or two concessions to the modern world. You will be stunning.’
Lisa was uncertain. ‘I’m not sure it’s really me.’
‘You mustn’t underestimate yourself,’ Grace said. ‘You have the looks. This will lend you the sophistication. A woman must make the most of herself.’
Grace also chose an off-the-peg short brocade jacket, subtly patterned in deep blue, violet and crimson, to go with the dress. The tailoress tucked and pinched at it when Lisa tried it on. ‘Need alteration,’ she said.
‘This is all going to cost a fortune,’ said Lisa, turning to admire the jacket in the mirror. She stopped to look ruefully at Grace. ‘I really can’t accept.’
‘It gives me pleasure,’ said Grace. ‘You wouldn’t deny me that, would you?’
Lisa shook her head in embarrassed resignation. ‘I really am very grateful.’
Grace turned to the tailoress. ‘You will have it ready by Saturday?’
‘Of course, La Mère Grace.’
‘Good.’ Grace turned a charming smile on Lisa. ‘Then Cinderella shall go to the ball.’
Back in the car Lisa asked, ‘What ball?’
Grace laughed. ‘Not exactly a ball, Lisa. A dinner at one of my clubs. There will be some very influential guests. I hope you will be able to come.’
Lisa was still flushed with the unaccustomed pleasure of her purchases. Her earlier ambivalence towards Grace had mellowed and, although still uncertain about this bewildering and contradictory woman, she felt somehow closer to her now, knowing that she and her father had been lovers. Being close to her was like being close to her father. She took Grace’s hand, feeling genuine affection, and squeezed it. ‘I hope so, too,’ she said.
*
The south-facing windows along one wall of the dining room were closed against the heat and brightness of the midday sun. But large French windows at one end opened out onto a shaded area of the lush green tropical garden that grew wild behind the high walls that surrounded Grace’s villa. The rumble of traffic from the road seemed distant and unreal, like a dream on waking. The hum of insects, and the squawking of tropical birds among the luxuriant greenery of the trees, was the only real intrusion on the peaceful semi-darkness of the room.
Lisa sat alone at the long dining table, drinking strong black coffee under the gentle cooling downdraught of the fan overhead. The girl who had served them lunch had cleared the table, and Grace had left the room a few moments earlier to take a phone call. Lisa could hear the soft murmur of her voice somewhere deep in the house. She drained her cup and got up and walked slowly to the open French windows to stand framed in the doorway, smelling the damp, sweet fragrances of the fleshy-leaved tropical plants and flowers. The garden was a profusion of wild growth, a lotus pool choked with leaves, fruit trees untended, papaya, mango, the fruit of countless seasons rotting in the dark damp soil.
Over lunch, Grace had seemed distracted. She was quiet for a very long time before suddenly looking up and asking Lisa if she was still a virgin. Lisa had, again, flushed deeply. It was something she had never discussed with anyone. Even her mother. Anything to do with sex had been a subject of great embarrassment in her house. It had come from her mother and transmitted itself to Lisa. She had known nothing about the periods that would afflict her in adolescence until the first blood ran from between her legs at school. Then she had panicked, locking herself in the toilets and weeping hysterically in the certain knowledge that she was dying. The brutal truth had been conveyed to her by an unsympathetic form mistress who had sent her home with an angry note for her mother. Lisa’s mother had, in turn, been angry, masking her embarrassment by accusing Lisa of stupidity, as though somehow the child should have known without having to be told. In the years that followed, it had only ever been referred to in the house as the curse.
Sex was something she had learned about from giggled tales told by fellow schoolgirls, vulgar jokes provoking raucous laughter. For a long time Lisa had laughed too, without fully understanding why. In retrospect she had often wondered how many of her friends had been equally mystified. True knowledge seemed to rest in the hands of just a fortunate few. She could smile now at her ignorance, but the fear of the unknown, the sense of taboo, had never left her.
‘Well . . .?’ Grace had inclined her head, amused by her embarrassment.
At first Lisa had denied it. Of course she wasn’t a virgin, she’d had lots of boyfriends. Grace had raised a sceptical eyebrow, and her penetrating gaze seemed to see through Lisa’s flustered deceit with startling ease. Lisa felt her cheeks burn again. ‘Well, one anyway,’ she said.
‘And he has made love to you?’ asked Grace.
‘Not exactly.’ Lisa stared hard at her hands on the table in front of her.
‘Then you are still a virgin.’
‘I suppose so.’
Grace smiled fondly at her, marvelling at such innocence. ‘Well, don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘It’s not necessarily a permanent condition. There is a cure.’
In spite of herself Lisa smiled. ‘Only it doesn’t come on prescription.’
‘I should hope not!’ The idea seemed to shock and amuse Grace. ‘The only cure for virtue’ – she smiled wickedly – ‘is vice. It’s delicious. Not a bit like medicine.’
Lisa wondered now, as she gazed out at the garden, if Grace had simply been poking fun again. She knew she must seem very naive to a woman like La Mère Grace, but wondered what pleasure the woman derived from taunting her with it. There seemed no malice in her, just amusement, but it did nothing for Lisa’s confidence, serving only to increase her sense of vulnerability.
She remembered that, not so long ago, what she had craved m
ost was safety, the security of her home, her mother, David; and for a moment she almost regretted forcing open the trunk in the attic. It was as if, in that one action, she had closed down her past and opened up a future of bleak uncertainty, where the only light, glowing faintly in the distance, was the knowledge that somewhere in this hostile world was a man who was her father. She knew that somehow she thought that in finding him she might find herself. But it appeared that the closer she got, the less, rather than more, certain she became of who she really was. What was she doing here? What did she hope to find? And, in that moment, she was almost overwhelmed by a feeling of being completely and hopelessly alone.
A movement in the garden caught her eye. A glimpse of pale lilac caught in dappled sunlight. It was the girl who had served them lunch. She wore a simple lilac shirt over short, baggy, black trousers. Her dark hair was bobbed, cut short high into the nape of her neck, and her feet flapped in open rubber sandals as she padded from the house along an overgrown path. There was something odd in the nervous, secret intent of the girl’s carriage that banished Lisa’s thoughts of only a moment before, and aroused her curiosity. She stepped out on to the terrace and ran quickly down the half-dozen steps to the garden to follow the girl along the path.
By the time Lisa reached the spot where she’d last seen her, the girl had disappeared and the path seemed to peter out among the fronds that grew in prolific clusters all around. The garden appeared to stretch endlessly away on either side, and Lisa stood on tiptoes trying to catch a glimpse of the lilac shirt. She listened intently in the hot broken shade for some sound to give her a clue, but all she heard were the insects and the birds, and a rustling among the undergrowth that might have been a snake. She pushed quickly on through the fronds and found the garden opening up, suddenly, into a paved clearing.
