The Eden Inheritance

by Janet Tanner

  And then he saw it, hanging on the wall in a position where what light there was made the colours glow like fire. The triptych. He crossed the room with long hurried strides and knew beyond doubt that this was the triptych which had once graced the walls of his family home. From the photographs his grand-father had shown him it was clearly recognisable – the scenes from the life of the Maid of Orleans had never, to his knowledge, been repeated. He gazed at it, mesmerised both by its beauty and by the sense of history it generated. His history – his family’s history – a continuity of heritage passed from generation to generation. It was, for Guy, perhaps the most moving moment he had ever lived through, and also the most unexpected. He had been brought up with antiques through his mother’s shop and none of them had ever affected him in this way. But then never before had he been brought face to face with something which had been owned, not just by his grandfather, but by his grandfather’s grandfather.

  ‘Oh, you’re looking at my triptych!’

  He had not heard Lilli come back into the room. He turned now and saw her standing in the doorway, a glass of lemonade in her hand. She had slipped on an oversized cotton shirt, and the effect was to make her look more vulnerable than ever.

  ‘Your triptych?’

  She laughed.

  ‘That’s what Daddy always called it. I’ve always loved it, you see, ever since I was a little girl.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. But then you have a lot of beautiful things here. Your father must be quite a collector.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t call him a collector, exactly. At least, I’ve never known him to collect. These things have always been around – as long as I can remember. I think he must have brought them with him when he came here.’

  ‘From Germany? But I thought you said his home was destroyed.’

  ‘It was. But the treasures were probably stored for safekeeping when, the bombing began. And I intend to go on taking very good care of them. After all, soon they may be all I have left.’

  He looked at her quickly, and she gave a small nervous laugh.

  ‘Enough of that. You’ve suffered enough of my neuroses for one day. Did you find the ice?’

  ‘No, I don’t want any, thank you.’

  But he did want his brandy. Oh God, did he want his brandy! Guy sipped it gratefully, knowing that to treat very fine, very old de Savigny cognac as medicinal was close to heresy, and not caring one jot.

  ‘Your father …?’ he said questioningly.

  ‘He’s resting. I just looked in on him and he is asleep.’

  ‘Ah.’ So he wasn’t going to get to see Otto today. ‘Thanks for the drink, anyway.’

  ‘Thanks for saving my life. I was very stupid. I’m sorry.’ She looked small and utterly adorable standing there in her oversized shirt, clasping her glass of freshly made lemonade between both hands.

  Guy’s stomach lurched unexpectedly, but he hardened his heart.

  ‘Perhaps you’d let me buy you a drink sometime?’ he said, half expecting her to refuse.

  Instead she nodded.

  ‘That would be nice. I’d like that.’

  ‘Tonight?’ he suggested.

  ‘No, not tonight. Quite honestly I don’t think I’d feel up to it. Tomorrow, perhaps?’

  ‘Fine. There’s a bar on the other side of the island …’

  ‘Johnny Shovelnose’s.’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps it’s not quite your style, but …’

  ‘Johnny Shovelnose’s is fine. I love it – though Daddy would have a fit if he knew I was there. Look, don’t bother to pick me up, I’ll call for you. Your house is on the way, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘If I get totally tiddly you can see me home again. Will that satisfy your male pride?’

  He shook his head, laughing. Lilli seemed to have recovered all the easy charm he had noted when he flew her in; it was difficult now to realise that this girl and the tortured soul he had rescued from the sea were one and the same.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening then. Unless an unexpected job comes up. If it does I’ll let you know.’

  He finished his drink, set down the glass and turned towards the veranda. As he looked back into the room he was aware of two things: Lilli, looking so beautiful it tore at his heartstrings, and the triptych, glowing so that it seemed the flames of the fire were rising once again around the figure tied to the stake. The hair of that woman was fair and shorn short like a boy’s, not long and dark, yet to Guy it seemed that for a moment, by some trick of the light, the features of the saint burning at the stake seemed to resemble Lilli’s.

  Guy sat on the veranda of his house, staring into the softly humming darkness, a glass at his elbow.

  He had drunk a great deal since he had got back from the villa but he was completely sober and the alcohol had done nothing to lift the strange mood that had settled upon him.

  He should feel elated, he told himself. He now had the proof he needed to bring von Rheinhardt to justice – if he lived long enough for that – and to reclaim the famhys stolen inheritance. But it was not elation he was feeling, but confusion – a confusion of emotion unlike anything he had ever experienced before. And he knew that the reason was Lilli.

  He wanted justice for his family – had wanted it with all his heart – and still felt he owed it to them to try and right some of the wrongs that had been perpetrated against them more than thirty years ago. But in carrying out his mission he would destroy Lilli. The knowledge tore at him, the vision of her beautiful yet tormented face rising before him in the darkness, the sound of her voice, low and husky: ‘It wasn’t that I wanted to die … I just didn’t want to go on living’, whispering at him with the crickets in the murmuring night.

  He could do without these complications, he thought bad-temperedly. He must put them to one side and concentrate on doing what he had come here to do. But it wasn’t that easy. Oh no, it wasn’t that easy at all.

  With a protracted sigh, Guy reached for the bottle and refilled his glass.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  NEXT MORNING LILLI kept her promise to herself and went to visit Josie. Otto had had a rather larger dose of drugs than usual the previous evening and was still sleeping, so she had no need to explain where she was going. He would be less than pleased if he knew she was visiting her old friend, but she wanted to see her, and in any case, after what had happened yesterday she did not think it was a very good idea to be alone.

  Lilli could still scarcely believe what she had done – or almost done. Never in all her life had she even contemplated suicide, and now the memory of the strange lethargic trance which had almost destroyed her was frightening as well as inexplicable. If it hadn’t been for Guy she would be dead by now, simple and horrific as that, and she wasn’t sure she would ever quite be able to trust herself again.

  The shack where Josie lived with her husband Abel was close to the edge of the shanty town, and Lilli was glad of it. It was not the most pleasant place on the island, with its sprawling cluster of corrugated-iron shacks and the not entirely agreeable aroma of spices and sweat, imperfect sewage arrangements and people living in too-close proximity which hung over it. Once upon a time Lilli had made up her mind that one day she would see to it that living conditions for the locals were improved, now she realised with a sinking heart that that day would never come.

  Josie had been doing her washing in a tin tub outside her shack and was spreading the clothes out to dry in the sun when she saw Lilli coming down the track. She dropped the laundry into the basket, scooped up Winston and ran to meet Lilli, a beaming smile lighting up her pretty round face.

  ‘Lilli! Lilli! I can’t believe it! You came home! Abel said he heard you was coming but I thought he’d been on the rum again!’

  The two girls hugged one another, little Winston squeezed tightly between them.

  ‘Of course I came,’ Lilli said. ‘The minute I got your letter. I’m so glad you wrote to me, Josie.’


  ‘Well, I thought you should know, though Abel didn’t think I was doing right to interfere.’

  ‘You weren’t interfering. I’d never have forgiven myself if I’d been too late.’

  ‘How is he?’ Josie asked, her dark face growing serious.

  ‘Very poorly indeed. But let’s not talk about Daddy. Let’s talk about you. Tell me all your news.’

  ‘Well, as you can see I’m going to have another chile – very soon!’ Josie patted the huge bulge beneath her brightly coloured dress, smiling again. ‘It’s due in just a couple of weeks, Lilli, and I hoped you might talk to your father about it for me. I want my baby to be born here, but you know the rules …’

  Lilli grimaced She knew the rules about locals having to leave Madrepora to give birth to prevent a new generation being able to claim that they were native Madreporans. It seemed to her to be very unfair and very unnecessary but she wasn’t sure there was anything she could do about it.

  ‘I don’t think Daddy is up to making a decision about something like that, Josie,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’ll try to talk to him about it if I get the chance but I can’t promise anything. All I can suggest is that you try to produce early and take everybody unawares.’

  Josie laughed.

  ‘I’d certainly like to do that, Lilli – for my sake as well as the little one’s. I’m real uncomfortable now. This is going to be one big chile.’

  The two girls sat for a while in the sun chatting, but for the first time in her life Lilli felt a distance between them and it saddened her. They had been so close once; now their lives were running on quite different tracks. But for all that Josie had so little, Lilli envied her. What did money and possessions mean? They had brought her nothing but heartache and disillusion, whilst Josie was utterly content with the man she loved, an adorable child and another one on the way. Lilli ached inwardly, longing for the same unquestioning contentment.

  ‘Now you,’ Josie said when she had imparted all her news. ‘Tell me about New York.’

  ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ How could she explain such a totally different world to a girl who had never left the islands? ‘ I go to work, I come home to my apartment …’

  ‘Your own apartment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Imagine – an apartment all to yourself!’ Josie said, impressed. ‘No boyfriends?’

  ‘No one important.’

  Josie nicked away a fly which was bothering Winston.

  ‘Have you seen Jorge?’ she asked, not looking at Lilli.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘Josie, it’s all over between Jorge and me. You know that.’

  ‘Do I? I didn’t think it would ever be over between you and Jorge,’ Josie said trathfully.

  Lilli hesitated.

  ‘Do you … have you ever heard anything about Jorge’s business interests?’ she asked haltingly. ‘What he does on Madrepora and when he goes to Florida, for instance?’

  Josie shook her head.

  ‘There must be talk in the village,’ Lilli persisted.

  Josie’s face had gone shut in.

  ‘I don’t listen to talk, Lilli. It’s safest to know nothing.’

  And she refused to be drawn any further on the subject.

  ‘Well, I’d better go home I suppose,’ Lilli said at last. ‘Daddy might be awake and wondering where I am. I’m going out tonight, too. To Johnny Shovelnose’s bar.’

  Josie’s eyes grew round.

  ‘Who you goin’ there with?’

  ‘The new pilot with the air taxi service. He’s called Guy de Savigny.’

  ‘You just be careful, Lilli. Jorge won’t like you seeing someone else.’

  ‘It’s none of Jorge’s business,’ Lilli said tartly.

  But as she walked away from the heat and smells of the shanty town she thought about it a little anxiously. Josie was right. If Jorge knew she was seeing someone else he wouldn’t like it. But she had to let him see he no longer had a hold over her. And in any case, she rather thought that terrifying as Jorge could be, Guy de Savigny was more than capable of looking after himself.

  Johnny Shovelnose’s bar stood on the very edge of the ocean within easy reach of both the marina and the hotel. The thatched roof covered the central bar area and provided shade for the tall stools which were drawn up to it on all four sides, whilst smaller thatched umbrellas covered tables that were dotted about the surrounding area right down to the beach itself.

  The bar was perhaps the liveliest spot on Madrepora. Sometimes there was music – a small steel band or an itinerant guitarist, and always Johnny Shovelnose was on hand to regale customers with his extraordinary stories of the island. For those who wanted to eat as well as drink there was the famous roti – deep-fried rolls of dough pastry filled with cubes of chicken and potato and wrapped in greaseproof paper. In the jolly, informal atmosphere locals rubbed shoulders with visitors to the hotel and as the night wore on the music invariably grew louder and the conversation more raucous.

  In the old days the bar had attracted Lilli as a flame attracts a moth. Sometimes, as a child, she had crept out of the house late at night and watched the frivolities from the cover of the palm trees which surrounded the bar area on the landward side; later she had been daring enough to go there with Josie and sit on one of the tall stools, hoping that no one would risk Otto’s wrath by telling him about it. And of course she had been there with Jorge … Tonight, however, the bright oasis of light and music held little allure for her, setting her already taut nerves jangling.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ she asked Guy as he brought her drink – a long cool Pimms – over to the small table where she was waiting for him.

  ‘Once or twice,’ he admitted.

  ‘On your own or with the other pilots?’

  ‘What other pilots? There’s only Manuel and he doesn’t seem to want to be friendly.’

  ‘No, he is a bit of a loner.’

  She didn’t add that he was also one of Jorge’s henchmen. She did not want to think about Jorge, let alone talk about him, though knowing what she now did, she could not help wondering if Manuel was mixed up in some way with Jorge’s illicit activities and if that was one of the reasons for his standoffishness. The drugs had to be ferried in and out and Jorge couldn’t possibly do it all himself – if indeed he did any of it. He was the Mr Fix-it, she imagined; the actual drug-running would be done by yacht and plane, with someone else taking the risks such an operation would involve.

  She glanced at Guy. Was it possible he was in the pay of the cartel? She didn’t think so – it was almost unimaginable that he should be mixed up in something like that, but how could one tell? She would never have dreamed her father and Grandfather Vicente could be drug-traffickers either. How wrong could one be?

  ‘How is your father today?’ Guy asked, settling back in the white plastic chair and stretching his legs. He was, Lilli noted, wearing cotton chinos in a shade of pearly grey with a bright-yellow polo shirt, and she was glad he had not opted for white. White reminded her too sharply of Jorge.

  ‘He was a little better this afternoon,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult to tell with him, though. He’s a fighter. He hides the way he’s feeling if it’s at all possible – he hates to be fussed over. But then, I expect you’ve noticed that.’

  ‘I’ve never met your father.’ He took a pull of his drink, then added conversationally: ‘I wish I had. He’s quite a character, I imagine.’

  Lilli nodded.

  ‘Yes, he is. He has always seemed to me to be the epitome of power and strength. It’s very hard to see him the way he is now.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have any yearning to go home and see Germany again before he dies?’

  ‘He’s never said so. I told you – his home was destroyed in the war and his family killed, or so I imagine. None of them have ever come to visit and certainly he has never talked of having anyone left in Germany.’ She broke off, biting her lip, and
wondering for the first time just why she knew so little of her paternal roots.

  ‘He must have fought in the war, I imagine,’ Guy said.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. He was a general.’ She was aware suddenly of the slight tautness of his features and felt a rush of embarrassment. ‘He was an army man, though,’ she added swiftly. ‘Not SS or Gestapo or anything like that.’

  ‘A general. Ah! Where did he fight then? The Russian front? The desert, with Rommel?’

  ‘I think he was in France for most of the war.’ A slight pink flush was spreading from the area of her cheeks that had taken the brunt of yesterday’s sun. ‘ Not really fighting at all – more, well, administration.’

  ‘It’s a small world then. Actually my family is French.’ He said it lightly, coversationally, but he was watching her closely.

  ‘Of course – your name – I never thought!’ she said, a little too quickly, but he could see there was no recognition, simply that edge of awkwardness that was only natural in a girl whose German blood made her vulnerable to inescapable, guilt for what her countrymen had done. She was obviously totally in the dark regarding the origin of her father’s treasures.

  ‘His family were in the coffee trade, I think you said?’ he said, changing tack.

  ‘Yes. They were importers on a huge scale.’ She was relieved to be on a less emotive subject. ‘Their coffee was drunk in the best coffee houses in Vienna, Daddy always said.’

  ‘Brandt. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of a firm of coffee importers of that name.’

  ‘Well you wouldn’t have, would you?’ Lilli said ingenuously. ‘Since they were all dead and their business destroyed before you were even born.’

  ‘Not before I was born.’ He smiled at her look of surprise. ‘ I think I may be a little older than I look, Lilli. Not everyone is as young as you, you know.’

  She felt foolish suddenly. She had not really thought about Guy’s age, simply placed him on a par with herself as we often do with those we feel comfortably at ease with. Now she looked at him more closely, noticed the small crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes and the way his hair was receding slightly at the temples. He was, of course, older than she was – he had to be. But compared with Jorge he looked very young.