The door opened: the departmental head.
‘Francois? Pronto?’
He picked up the parts of his phone and clipped them back into place, slipped it back into his pocket and re-entered the hubbub. He tried to divert his thoughts as he wandered through the chamber, joining in the discussions with his colleagues and contributing to the evaluation of the artworks on display. The students responded conscientiously to the questions that were posed, and he nodded sagely along with the others. But his mind was elsewhere, there were flutters in his stomach, and while no one could suspect, the voice coming from his lips was not his.
24
AT midday, the doors were opened. Members of the public and the families of the candidates poured in. Before long, the chamber was full of noisy chatter and exclamations. He left his colleagues and moved to stand on a small dais from where he could have a view of those who entered. He could not be sure that Rita would visit, but he was not surprised either when, through the crowd, he saw her. He watched her from his vantage point for some minutes. She had dutifully picked up a pamphlet at the entrance and was reading the names of the contributors, identifying their artworks then standing in front of each with respect. In the sea of people, he could still pick her out with ease. He could have watched her for hours, but not many minutes had passed when she raised her head and scanned the room, met his eyes, the trust that then arrived in her expression giving him a pang. She weaved her way towards him through the gathering, her eyes shining.
‘It’s such a great atmosphere,’ she said when she drew up to him. Then, looking around, ‘And have they all passed?’
‘It’s not a pass-fail thing. More like putting them forward for awards and exhibitions and suchlike.’
‘Oh, I see.’
In front of them a young man was being squeezed on either side by two smaller, rounder elderly people: grandparents most likely.
‘Actually,’ he said, and he could hear his voice sounding brusque, ‘I wouldn’t mind some air. Shall we go out for a bit?’
She looked surprised at his request: she had not long arrived.
‘OK . . .’
‘I’ve seen too many of these to be too excited by it all . . .’
He regretted the cynicism in his voice; she bit her lip, perhaps embarrassed of her earlier enthusiasm. But he hardened himself against her and led her out of the chamber, down the stairs and into the street. Across the road stood the Plaza do Sol; on one side, a kiosk where he could buy some cigarettes, but he would not. He had no wish to give her the impression that he needed any crutch, any fortification. He held her arm as they crossed the road to the viewing point, the river ahead of them in all its splendour, and pointed to the café a few steps further.
‘Would you like a drink?’
She shook her head. Her eyes were on his face even as he looked out to the Tagus.
‘There’s something, isn’t there?’ she said. ‘There’s something wrong.’
He shook his head; he could feel a nerve pulsing in his temple.
‘There is,’ she said.
‘My mother phoned,’ he said. ‘She’s upset about something, that’s all.’
She was quiet, then she said, ‘About Ben?’
He found that his hands were bunched by his sides. He pushed them into his pockets and said, ‘There was a suggestion. Someone she spoke to at the university suggested to her that there was something between you and Ben.’
The colour left her face and her features tightened. ‘Who was it?’
‘One of Ben’s colleagues. Marc?’
She nodded. Her face had become so pale that he pulled one of his hands out of his pocket and took hers. It was small and cold in his. He said quietly, ‘I told her everything, Rita. About Ben and you. And she knows you’re here with me now.’
She slowly drew her hand away from his grip. He wanted to press his palms against her skin, block her pores to stop the light that had been inside her from seeping out. He remembered that night when he had held her: the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair, the way her body bent into his arms when he had lifted her up. He did not just want to hold her in his arms; he wanted to relieve her of the weight she held inside her. His mother had said: this is an awfully heavy burden for her to be carrying.
‘Your mother . . .’ Her voice was low.
He said nothing. She folded her arms around herself.
‘What does she think of me?’ she whispered.
He shook her head. ‘It’s not like that.’
They stood like this for many silent minutes. She was half-turned away now, looking at the river. He gestured to it: better to talk of something else.
‘Down that river,’ he said, ‘and into the Atlantic Ocean, the armada would have sailed. To Africa, South America. To India.’ He smiled, but she was looking away and did not see him. He abandoned his hackneyed recital and leaned against the railing, letting his eyes take her in, wanting her to know that he was doing as much. But her gaze was fixed on the water.
Finally, she spoke: ‘My parents came in the other direction. Not by sea of course.’
He had not heard many mentions of her family; he had no idea how often she had phoned or emailed them while she had been here, but, he realised, only a week had elapsed.
‘I know my father has never really adjusted,’ he said. ‘Not with being in London itself, but with not being in Africa.’
She was quiet for some minutes and then asked, ‘Did you read what he wrote? About Ben dying?’
He straightened up.
‘No, I don’t think I did . . .’
‘I found it on the Internet,’ she said. ‘When I looked you all up. Before I went to see your parents . . .’
She stopped speaking, pressed her lips together. His eyes ran over her features, the curve of her cheek, the cusp of her lips, her slender throat. Her hands were at her sides now, her elbows bent. It felt like a lifetime ago that Rita was not in his life; it felt unseemly that his parents had met her before he had.
‘Rita,’ he said, ‘my mother wants to help. She wanted me to tell you that it might be better if you stayed with my parents in Clapham.’
She accepted his news without any surprise. After some moments, she said, ‘Why does she think I should stay with them?’
‘She said my flat’s not big enough. And also,’ he hesitated, ‘she said she’d be happy to go with you, whenever you want to talk to your parents.’
She stood still, and he watched her. She did not appear so young to him now; she was pale but composed, her eyes were dry. She held herself erect, and despite the uniform of youth that she wore – the jeans, the boots – she looked elegant and poised. Then she turned, and as the moments passed, her eyes held his, steadily. They seemed to have unfathomable depths, which opened into her heart. He could hear it beating, a rhythm that matched his, thudding against his ribs, his insides melting into his stomach, down into his legs.
‘And,’ she said, ‘what do you think, Francois?’
What was she asking him? He waited until he knew he could speak in a normal voice.
‘If you want to, I’m happy for you to stay here. I’ve enjoyed having you around.’
She tilted her head without looking away.
‘That’s nice,’ she said quietly.
There was a shout from across the road: someone was waving at him.
‘They’re starting the awards,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ll tell them I can’t stay—’
‘No, don’t,’ she interrupted. Her voice was strong now. ‘You shouldn’t let them down.’
She took his hand, squeezed it, then dropped it.
‘Go,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘There’s a dinner after, but I won’t be very late . . .’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
His heart was heavy, suddenly, in preparation for what was to come, but he gave her his most winning smile.
‘We can talk more later. We’ll figure this out,’ he said.
He continued smiling, then reached forward and chucked her under the chin, and she rewarded him with a twitch of her lips.
‘I’d better go.’
‘Yes, OK.’
He turned away. There was a large group of people suddenly walking towards him, some kind of group, arrived to see the cathedral, the Sé, chattering excitedly to each other. He waited for them to make space for him to tunnel through them, and reached the end of the esplanade to where there was a crossing over the main road. The people milled behind him, but he did not hear what they were saying. There was a hum in his head, Mahler’s Adagietto, as loud as he had ever listened to it; louder than when he had played it on returning to Lisbon after Ben’s funeral; louder than that night all those years ago in Maputo, when he had learned that one of the girls he had painted had been strangled by her client and was only found days later in a miserable squat in Alto Mae; louder than a morning many aeons earlier, when he had woken up from a dream where Paula had walked into the sea and drowned herself because she had learned that he no longer loved her. The hum stayed in his head as he walked through the last dregs of the crowd, back into the building. When he reached the top of the stairs, he looked out of the window and saw her walking back up the hill, taking long but slow steps, the fingers of one hand on her lips.
It was later than he had envisaged, when he could finally extricate himself from the panel, the examiner from the Università de Belle Arti in Rome, the group of excited students, and then from his colleagues and friends who refused to let him leave after the meal had ended but dragged him to a bar for a celebratory cognac. The building was quiet, and from the street he could make out that the lights in his flat were turned off. He had a feeling of déjà-vu, returning from Lucie’s the night before, calling out to the girl as she crept back to bed. He was hoping she would be properly asleep tonight. He wished to delay any discussions of plans or his parents’ invitation until the morning, and was relieved when he opened the door and saw the flat was indeed in darkness and very quiet. Then, closing the door and stepping through to the living area, he saw that the screen was folded, lay leaning against the wall, the bed was neatly made, and her suitcase was gone.
He walked around the room, from one end to the other, along the edges, as Gildo had done just the morning before, not expecting to find her curled under a table or behind a chair, lying in wait to spring a mischievous surprise, but simply so that he could see what she had seen before she took her leave. When he reached the bookshelf, he saw that the file of his photographs was on a different shelf: the shelf he had placed it on that night after the Gulbenkian, not where he had left it the morning that followed. He opened it: the photo of Ben, standing in the wind, leaning against the castle wall, was still there. She had had a last look, but she had not taken it with her. He walked back to his studio area and looked through the stack of canvases: the painting remained, too. He looked at it with disdain: it captured nothing of her. He stood up, glanced around. She had taken nothing it seemed. Even the note she left on the dining table was pinned in place under the books he had lent her: Ben’s book and next to it the Mankell.
He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, let the hot water wash the day away, then walked back drying himself, tossing the towel onto the floor, to pick up the note from the table. He slid into the bed – his bed, her bed – the note in his hand. He turned his face into the pillow. He could smell the scent of her hair; the sheets were perfumed with the body lotion she used. The note read:
Dear Francois,
If I keep hiding away and lying to everyone, I’ll never grow into the person I was supposed to become, before I met Ben. But at the same time I know that I can’t ever become that person, because meeting him changed me. But I do need to grow and accept that I have hurt many people. I hurt Clare. I’ve hurt your parents, her parents, my family. And I’ve hurt you, because you’ll remember Ben differently now. I’m going back to tell my parents everything, because I owe them my honesty. I won’t keep in touch, because any responsibility you feel you have for me must end now. You’ve done more than you ever needed to and I’ll always be grateful.
Rita.
Such eloquence, he thought; she sounds older than her years. He lifted the paper away from him, as if invisible ink would reveal a hidden message: a love poem, a secret address where he would always find her, where he could wait for her. But there was nothing. Even if there had been someone to hear him, he could not speak; his voice was choked in his throat. The only thing that broke the silence was the mantra repeating in his head: go well, stay well.
Part Five
25
SHE arrived in Ernakulam in the early hours, after an interminably long flight. When she came through customs, she saw her uncle, Onachen, standing in the arrivals hall. Her ribcage ached with the weight of her holdall, and she felt dishevelled and in need of a shower, but the languorous warmth of the air and the familiar sounds of greetings and instructions being shouted in Malayalam lifted her spirits immeasurably. Her uncle clasped her to him briefly, his chin grizzly, his eyes tired: hello, mol. They drove through the quiet streets. She opened the window, felt the breeze in her hair.
For the first time, on this return, she did not have her parents with her to orchestrate, delegate, translate. Onachen had been told that she had had a love affair. No more details were needed for him to understand the gravity of the situation, and grave it certainly was, he commiserated with her parents. But Onachen’s disconnection from the rest of the extended family located far away in the hills, and his adeptness at deflecting disapproval and curiosity – which Seline’s debilitation and spinsterhood had already attracted – determined that he would be the most suitable guardian for Rita. Seline was still unwell, and he would appreciate Rita’s help in the antique shop; she had been such an asset the last time. Anyway, her visit was just that: temporary, only to let time pass. Rita could resume her studies later.
Latha had enrolled her on some online courses and would be posting some materials. Keep up to date, it will make it easier when you get back. It was her way, Rita knew, of showing her gratitude: that Rita did not insist on remaining in London, in her home. Indeed, why should she be treated like a pariah when all she had done was fall in love? But as the scandal at the university grew, so did the danger of the spotlight falling on the family. There had been one conversation she had overheard, that week when she first returned, when her parents had summoned Joy for his support and his advice and he had appeared at the house every evening. This affects all of us, Joy was saying. All of us: me, Latha and Mira too. She knew her brother loved her; he was only expressing what they all knew. It was the mention of her niece that had strengthened her resolve. Her involvement with a lecturer, the subsequent death of both the lecturer and his wife, and the speculation that it was the discovery of the affair that had led to the accident: these were not her burdens alone. There would be whispers among the other Malayalees who worked in the hospital with her father, the ladies who provided her mother with her trade. Latha’s family – Mira’s other grandparents, her other aunts and uncles – would regard her parents and Joy with disdain: what kind of family? What kind of daughter?
As she had expected, rather than venting fury on her, her parents had crumpled on her news, looked broken themselves. The first night back in her bed, her childhood bed, late at night, her mother had knocked on the door and sat next to her, stroked her hair: a simple gesture which made Rita’s tears flow onto her pillow, her mother then whispering, karayanda, mol. Karayanda. For hadn’t her mother cried tears for years, been denigrated for years, on account of not producing a child? These memories had left her parents aged, deflated. Rather than pass judgement, her mother made a request: that she attend church the next day and make confession. A request which made Rita hurt as much as if she had been struck: her mother was as worried about her soul as about her person.
Whether the priest would recognise her voice and form – he had known her since
she was a teenager and had heard her childhood trespasses: I have disobeyed my parents, I was angry with my friend – was not a likelihood she wanted to dwell on. When she kneeled in the darkened cubicle, she whispered, bless me, Father, I have sinned. Then, I slept with a married man. There was a pause, and she saw the priest shuffle his feet.
‘Just the one time?’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Many times.’
He cleared his throat.
‘And then you repented?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘And so you ended it?’
She chose to say, ‘Yes, it ended.’
He was quiet, then, ‘You understand the seriousness of your actions?’
‘Yes, Father.’ Her palms were now sticking together.
‘I see,’ he said. And then after a long silence, he said, ‘You are young and attractive now, Rita, but when you are older and married and not so attractive you will want to be able to trust your husband.’
She felt her face grow hot with shame. ‘Yes, Father.’
There followed a monologue on the weakness of the flesh, delivered, she felt, in a rather lukewarm manner, as if the priest were so disappointed in her, he did not himself believe in her redemption. She was given her penance: three prayers, which she recited quickly after, her mother kneeling beside her on the pew. As they left the church, her mother patted her arm but, heartbreakingly, did not appear convinced that the ritual had saved her daughter.
And when, not even a week after she had returned, a letter arrived from the university – addressed to her but read by everyone around the dining table – written in a very neutral register, asking whether she would like to discuss the reasons for her non-registration, she knew then that somewhere a ball had started rolling. But rather than gathering in its descent leaves and earth to fatten it up, it would be eroded, thinned, grazed, so that at the bottom it would sit raw and exposed: Ben’s legacy.
The Inheritance Page 24
