Runaways

by Carolyn McCrae

  “If I have what you’re looking for I haven’t recognised it.”

  “You must look again, you must look through all your computer disks, your writings and notes and you must find proof.”

  “Why is it so important now?”

  “Cinema has had its best day, the world of television is opening up. Satellite communications will give us great power but if there is the slightest stain on our reputation we will lose these valuable contracts. We cannot take the risk.”

  “And if I don’t find proof?”

  “You are the only person who can.”

  “Sandeep?”

  “Susannah?”

  “I will need a computer.”

  I went back to my room wondering whether Sandeep had been entirely honest and half expecting to find my room ransacked and all my papers and notebooks gone, but the room was exactly as I had left it. I poured some soda water from the fridge and squeezed two sectors of lime into it, thinking all the time about how to find what Sandeep and Vijay Thakersey needed.

  I didn’t want to think about David as a ruthless, almost evil, man. I didn’t want to be aware that some of the things I thought I knew, the lives I thought I had unravelled, were not complete pictures. All these years I had believed Ramesh was acting on Vijay’s orders. It had never occurred to me that he might be what David had said his uncle was, a loose cannon. Perhaps you never can learn everything about another person.

  There was a knock on the door and a man in the white uniform of the hotel wheeled a trolley into my room with a computer that was more up to date than the one I had left back at Ted’s. He was followed by a man in a smart grey suit.

  “I am to check that this is compatible with your requirements. You are to see if your disks can be used.”

  I looked at the machine, oddly incongruous in this environment. “It looks absolutely fine. Thank you.”

  “Mr Sandeep has asked me to wait while you check. Please memsahib, if you would be so kind.”

  It was a very polite order.

  The attendant had plugged in the machine and I looked around for the on-off switch, I was not familiar with this make or model but hopefully, once I could see what programs it had loaded onto it, I would be on more familiar ground. It seemed an age as we waited for the screen to light up. I sat down and was relieved to see displayed a neatly organised menu listing available programs. The machine had been well set up and it was obvious at one glance I would have everything I could possibly need but I put my disk in the drive and gave the instruction for the machine to access it. It worked.

  I looked up at the man in the suit and smiled. “Perfect.”

  They left, closing the door carefully behind themselves. I would not have been surprised if I had heard the sound of a key turning in the lock but there was none and I realised I was being paranoid. My room opened through a wide French window onto the open garden and the beach beyond, it was hardly the prison I had fleetingly imagined myself to be in.

  An hour later there was another knock on the door and a different attendant entered with another trolley, this time laden with bowls of fruit, plates of sandwiches and bottles of water.

  Frustrated and tired after several hours of concentration, I turned away from the computer and worked my way through Max’s notes and my hand written records of conversations with David. I could find nothing. How could I prove that Vijay had not been empty handed on his escape? How could I prove that Maureen, or Max or even David had helped him leave? At the end of a fruitless afternoon I took a break as the sun was setting and sat out on the veranda with a glass of water. I wondered how much time Sandeep would give me.

  Sitting alone and feeling conspicuous in the dining room later that evening I was wondering what it was that I had missed when Sandeep appeared, politely excused himself and sat down opposite me.

  “How are you progressing?” He asked without preamble.

  “Progressing.” I answered trying not to give anything away.

  “I have spoken with the manager and we have arranged for you to move to a much better room.”

  “But I am quite comfortable, it’s a lovely room.” I didn’t like the feeling that I was being moved to an upper floor, away from the garden. Neither did I like the idea of all my personal things being moved without my being there to supervise.

  “It is our best suite, my grandfather has arranged it especially. You will be much more comfortable. You are our honoured guest and as such you must have the best room in our hotel.”

  As soon as I walked into the room I realised why I had been moved. It was truly luxurious, with a large balcony overlooking the sea. But it wasn’t the luxury that caught my eye. It was one of a group of pictures on the wall above the bed.

  The last time I had seen it had been in the dark hall at Sandhey and I had been talking to David.

  Max’s Schiele.

  I sat on the bed and stared at the drawing I had first really looked at the day after my mother’s funeral. It had been stolen from Max in the burglary in which Ramesh was undoubtedly involved. It now graced the wall of this wonderful room. I noticed behind the drawings there was a lighter patch of wall, as if a larger picture had occupied the space until very recently. They had put them up specially for me.

  I had had lists of all the artefacts that were known to have been run by the fishermen and I had identified where the vast majority had been within the past 20 years. But nothing I had found could be in any way attributable to Vijay.

  Perhaps I had been working in the wrong direction.

  I should have focussed on Maureen. She would have known what David did, she was in love with Vijay, she would have helped him. All I had to do was prove it. It was only a week before that I had sat at her desk and leafed through her diaries as Ted had tended the bonfire but it seemed like a lifetime. There had been so much to take in. My realisation that I loved Ted, that Maureen had tried to kill me and that Maureen had known so much that she had never told me as she tried to protect the man she loved. And that Ted was my father.

  I sat on the enormous bed and cried.

  I cried because it was not fair that I had realised I loved him minutes before he was taken away from me, because it was not fair that I was thousands of miles from home, that I had no home, that I was alone, that I had lost all those people who had been my family and friends.

  I cried because I had made such a mess of everything.

  I remembered something I had glimpsed in one of Maureen’s diaries. All the answers are there for her to find but neither her eyes nor her mind is open. I had assumed I had known what it was I was looking for but I had been focussing on the wrong thing.

  As the image of Ted tending the bonfire came to my mind I realised that that was true of so many things in my life.

  I had wasted years of my life fascinated by the wrong men, then so much of my time concentrated on the wrong research. Everything I had explored over the past years had been for nothing. All the hours I had spent researching and reading had been for nothing. I looked up at the Schiele thinking that the only item I had found that could be traced to India had been stolen from Max. The only use all that information could possibly have was if I could prove that some of it was here, in India, and had been brought here by Vijay in 1947 with David’s approval.

  The proof for Sandeep wouldn’t be in the lists of merchandise, it would be in Maureen’s diaries. I had been so careless, so stupid, even when I had been reading those I had focussed on the unimportant trivia of my own life.

  Vijay’s proof would be in Maureen’s diaries.

  And I had lost them.

  I looked at the picture that Ted must have passed a hundred times when it was on the wall in Sandhey. I thought of him from the Sandhey days. He had seemed like an old man in his grey flannel trousers, tweed jackets and paisley ties. He had seemed as old as Max though, even in 1976, he would have only been in his 50s. Now I was in my 40s that didn’t seem so old at all. He had seemed years younger when we had spent
the time driving backwards and forwards to Sevenoaks to help Linda, dressed in blue jeans and a red sweater. When he’d come to pick me up from the flat in south London he had seemed even nearer me in age. Perhaps it was just me getting older.

  Then in the light of the bonfire I knew I not only loved him but wanted him.

  Less than an hour after that realisation I had heard what Maureen had written. Ted was my father. It was Ted who had raped my mother.

  But he had denied it.

  Who could I believe?

  If Ted had raped her why had she let him take her to the nursing home to give birth to me, why were they such friends in those end days, why had they spent so much time enjoying each other’s company? The only answer was that he hadn’t raped her. He could be my father but they had loved each other. It hadn’t been rape, it had been an affair.

  It was the only arrangement that made any sense.

  But I loved him now.

  And not as a daughter should love her father.

  I looked at the phone. I could pick up the receiver and ask the operator to call him. I wanted more than anything to hear his voice. What he had said could have been true.

  If Maureen had loved him and hated me that much she could have left that note as insurance that Ted and I would never be together. He had seemed genuinely devastated by the contents. Perhaps I should have given him more of a chance to explain.

  Tears don’t solve anything, but they help to relieve tension and so I cried.

  I wanted to run away. But where can the runaway run?

  I had not truly faced up to anything in my life but now, with nowhere to go, I had to.

  I had run away from everyone except myself.

  I was the one person I could never leave behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The knock on the door woke me up. I quickly checked that I was decent, I was getting used to the way the attendants walked straight in after the briefest of knocks. I was lying on the top of the bed still fully clothed. I must have fallen asleep looking at the Schiele feeling lonely and afraid.

  The knock was repeated. Whoever it was seemed to be waiting politely for me to open the door.

  I walked stiffly across the room and opened the door.

  “Ted!”

  “Hello Annie.” We just stood there for a few long seconds. “Can I come in?”

  “Oh Ted.” I opened the door wide and he walked through. He shrugged his shoulders and slipped his hurricane rucksack off his shoulders.

  “Travelling light?” I tried to sound light-hearted.

  “Annie. Why did you run away from me?” He was coming straight to the point. “I thought you’d go for a walk, come back and we could talk about it. I know you care for me. I know we have a lot to talk about. Why did you believe Maureen’s note? Why couldn’t you believe me?”

  “I always run away Ted. You know that.”

  “Stop it. Stop acting as if you don’t care.”

  I stood looking at him, still half asleep, knowing my eyes were tight and puffy from all the tears.

  “Please Annie.”

  “Please what?”

  He stood in the middle of the floor, his arms hanging by his side. “Please say you’re pleased to see me.”

  He looked so confused and bewildered. “Oh God.” He said, as if defeated by something. “I’ve made a mistake haven’t I? I should have waited for you to come home. We would have talked then, I know we would have done, but I couldn’t stand it, Annie. I couldn’t bear being in that house and you weren’t there.”

  “How did you know where to find me?” I tried to sound cold and unwelcoming. I didn’t want him to know how very pleased I was to see him.

  “Two days ago a taxi driver came to the house. He was looking for the ‘lovely lady who was very upset’ who he’d taken to the Savoy last week. You had left something in his cab and he thought he ought to return it to you. He was sorry it had taken so long but he didn’t often come out this far. It was the black plastic bag of Maureen’s diaries.”

  “You’ve got them?”

  “Yes. Is it important?”

  “Just a bit.”

  “So I knew you’d gone to the Savoy. Josie told me to follow. She insisted. She said I would never forgive myself, nor would she, if I didn’t. So I threw some things into this,” he gestured to the rucksack on the floor, “and your lovely taxi driver took me straight back up to London. I lied to the accounts people at the hotel and they showed me your bill. Indian High Commission, American Express, all those things you put on your bill, it was quite simple really.”

  “You’ve really got Maureen’s diaries?”

  “All of them, just as you left them.”

  I had the diaries, and I knew they held the answer.

  It was awkward and it was difficult but we managed to spend the afternoon talking of other things. I explained something of why I was in a luxurious suite in one of Bombay’s most expensive hotels with a desk covered in papers and a computer.

  “I’ve got to do something. Finish stuff off.”

  “Can I help?”

  “No.” It sounded ruder than I had meant to be, “Sorry. I just mean it’s something I’ve got to do.”

  “If I can’t help with that…” he nodded towards the desk and the computer, “I can keep you company. Can’t I?”

  “Yes. Yes that would be nice.”

  So he stayed.

  That evening we stood on the balcony enjoying the drinks that had been served with the excellent Italian meal. The sun was going down

  “You know it will be sunrise in Florida.” Ted said and didn’t understand why I laughed.

  “What have I said now?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  I was trying so hard not to love him.

  The hotel obviously knew of Ted’s appearance as the dinner trolley that evening was laid for two. We ate in uncomfortable silence.

  “I’ll sleep on the settee. It’ll be more comfortable than the plane anyway.”

  We edged around each other for the rest of the evening. We had lived in the same flat before but this was very different. He was gathering spare pillows from the wardrobe and towels from the bathroom when he stopped in the middle of the floor and dropped everything he had in his arms.

  “For God’s sake what is it Ted?” I was worried and uncertain and he looked dreadful.

  “Sit down.” Ted had regained something of his normal composure. I sat down at the irresistible authority in his voice.

  He pulled up a chair and placed it deliberately on the floor about three feet in front of me.

  “I think it’s best we talk.” He spoke firmly but gently. It was the tone of voice I remembered when he had talked to my mother.

  “You must understand that what Maureen wrote in that note was not true. You must believe me. You are absolutely not my daughter. I did not rape Alicia. In all the time I knew her I never so much as kissed her.”

  I tried to believe him.

  “It is so, so important that you listen to me.”

  “OK” I said, reluctantly and sulkily.

  “There are things you must understand.”

  “OK” I repeated torn between wanting to understand and not wanting to hear.

  “Are you listening? It is so very important.” He repeated.

  “OK”

  “From the day I first saw your mother I wanted to care for her. She seemed weak and unhappy and needed a friend, but I was being paid to look out for her. It was not something I’m particularly proud of but your grandfather had arranged for me to report back to him everything she did. I always tried to be her friend, Annie, you must believe I was never, ever, anything other than a friend.”

  I so wanted to believe him.

  “Alright Annie. I’ve told you the truth. If you don’t want to believe me so be it. I’ll stay tonight and get the first plane back tomorrow. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in this position.”

  “Why did you then?” I
t was churlish and childish. I did not mean to be so cruel.

  “Because I love you. I couldn’t let you believe those things. They are wrong.”

  So Ted slept that night on the settee and I in the enormous bed. I could hear his breathing. I’m not sure either of us slept much.

  “Are you awake?” I asked as the sky began to lighten and the sounds of the hotel awakening around us filtered into the room.

  “I am Annie.”

  “Can we talk?” There must have been something conciliatory in my voice because he seemed more relaxed when he answered “I’ll make some tea first. You have the bathroom.”

  “What about Maureen?” I asked him as we were sitting on the balcony, cups of tea in hand looking out over the already crowded beach.

  “I never realised that Maureen felt so strongly about me. I had known her and her family since before the war but apart from concern for your mother we had nothing in common. I knew she was fond of me but if I’d known the strength of her feelings I would never have confided in her.”

  “What about?”

  “About how I felt about you.”

  “Oh.”

  We drank our tea in silence watching the beach vendors plying their trades, young boys carrying large billy cans, women with baskets of fruit on their head and a man leading a string of camels.

  “How did you feel about me?” Eventually I couldn’t help asking.

  “It was at your graduation party. We were standing on the terrace at Sandhey, drinking champagne I seem to remember and there was something so completely new about you. I watched you when you left me to talk to someone else, and I couldn’t keep from watching you.”

  “You said I was like my mother.” I was remembering the afternoon.

  “Your mother was a very attractive woman too. But there was always something about Alicia that was hard. She used people, she used me I know. I don’t think you do, not deliberately anyway. There’s something about you that was vulnerable, I wanted to hold you safe. From that day of your graduation party I wanted it to be me you loved.”

  “But it was you that brought me and Carl together.”