A Place of Hiding

by Elizabeth George

  As Deborah measured out the tea, China explained her hesitation. This turned out to be the child of her superstition. “It's like I'll jinx things for him if I call.”

  Deborah recalled her using this expression before. Think you'll do well on a photographic assignment or perhaps an exam and you'd fail completely, having jinxed yourself in advance. Say that you expect a phone call from your boyfriend and you'd jinx the possibility of his calling. Remark upon the ease with which traffic was flowing on one of California's massive motorways, and you were sure to hit an accident and a four-mile tailback in the next ten minutes. Deborah had named this kind of skewed thinking “The Law of Chinaland,” and she had grown quite used to being careful not to jinx a situation while she lived with China in Santa Barbara.

  She said, “How would it jinx things, though?”

  “I don't know for sure. It just feels like that. Like I'll call her and tell her what's going on, and she'll come over, and then everything will just get worse.”

  “But that seems to violate the basic law of Chinaland,” Deborah observed. “At least the way I remember it.” She set the electric kettle to boil.

  At Deborah's use of the old term, China smiled, it seemed in spite of herself. “How?” she asked.

  “Well, as I recall how things work in Chinaland, you aim for the direct opposite of what you truly want. You don't let Fate know what you have in mind so that Fate can't get in there and cock things up. You go round the back way. You sneak up on what you want.”

  “Fake the bastard out,” China murmured.

  “Right.” Deborah took mugs from the cupboard. “In this particular case, it seems to me that you have to ring your mum. You have no choice. If you ring her and insist that she come to Guernsey—”

  “She doesn't even have a passport, Debs.”

  “Which is all the better. It will cause enormous trouble for her to get here.”

  “Not to mention the expense.”

  “Mmmm. Yes. That practically guarantees success.” Deborah leaned against the work top. “She must get a passport quickly. That means a trip to . . . where?”

  “Los Angeles. Federal Building. Off the San Diego Freeway.”

  “Past the airport?”

  “Way past. Past Santa Monica even.”

  “Wonderful. All that ghastly traffic. All that difficulty. So she must go there first and get her passport. She must make all her travel arrangements. She must fly to London and then to Guernsey. And having gone to all that trouble—herself in a state of tearing anxiety—”

  “She gets here to find that it's all been resolved.”

  “Probably one hour before she arrives.” Deborah smiled. “And voilà. The Law of Chinaland in action. All that trouble and all that expense. For nothing, as things turn out.” Behind her, the kettle clicked off. She poured water into a stout green teapot, took that to the table, and gestured for China to join her there. “But if you don't ring her . . .”

  China left the phone and came into the kitchen. Deborah waited for her to conclude the thought. Instead of doing so, however, China sat and fingered one of the tea mugs, turning it slowly between her palms. She said, “I gave up that kind of thinking a while back. It was always only a game anyway. But it stopped working. Or maybe I stopped working. I don't know.” She pushed the mug to one side. “It started with Matt. Did I ever tell you? When we were teenagers. I walk past his house and if I don't look to see if he's in the garage or mowing the lawn for his mom or something, if I don't even think about him when I pass by, he'll be there. But if I look or if I think about him—even think his name—then he won't be. It always worked. So I went on with it. If I act indifferent, he'll be interested in me. If I don't want to date him, he'll want to date me. If I think he'll never even want to kiss me goodnight, he'll do it. He'll have to. He'll be desperate to. At one level I always knew that wasn't how things really work in the world—thinking and saying the exact opposite of what you truly want—but once I started seeing the world that way—playing that game—I just kept going. It ended up with: Plan out a life with Matt and it'll never happen. Forge ahead on my own, and there he'll be, panting to hook up permanently.”

  Deborah poured the tea and gently eased a mug back over to China. She said, “I'm sorry how things turned out. I know how you felt about him. What you wanted. Hoped for. Expected. Whatever.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. That's the word, all right.” The sugar stood in a dispenser in the centre of the table. China upended this so that the white granules poured like snowfall into her cup. When it looked to Deborah as if the brew would be completely undrinkable, China finished with the dispenser.

  “I wish it had worked out the way you wanted,” Deborah said. “But perhaps it still will.”

  “The way your life worked out? No. I'm not like you. I don't land on my feet. I never have. I never will.”

  “You don't know—”

  “I ended it with one man, Deborah,” China cut in impatiently. “Believe me, okay? In my case there wasn't another man—crippled or not—just waiting for things to go bust so he could step in and take over where the other left off.”

  Deborah flinched from the sting behind her old friend's words. “Is that how you see my life . . . how things turned out? Is that . . . China, that's not fair.”

  “Isn't it? There I was, struggling with Matt from the get-go. On again, off again. Great sex one day, big break-up the next. Get back together with the promise it'll be ‘different this time.' Fall into bed and screw our brains out. Break up three weeks later over something really stupid: He says he'll be there at eight and he doesn't show up till eleven-thirty and he doesn't bother to call and let me know he'll be late and I can't deal with it a second longer so I say that's it, get out, that's it, I've had it. Then ten days later, he calls. He says, Look, baby, give me another chance, I need you. And I believe him because I'm so incredibly stupid or desperate, and we begin the process all over again. And all the time, there you are with a fucking duke, of all things—or whatever he was. And when he's out of the picture permanently, ten minutes later Simon steps in. Like I said. You always land on your feet.”

  “But it wasn't like that,” Deborah protested.

  “No? Tell me how it was. Make it sound like my situation with Matt.” China reached for her tea but she didn't drink. Instead, she said, “You can't do that, can you? Because your situation has never been like mine.”

  “Men aren't—”

  “I'm not talking about men. I'm talking about life. How it is for me. How it's God damn always been for you.”

  “You're seeing only the outside of it,” Deborah argued. “You're comparing that—the superficial part of it—to how you feel inside. And that doesn't make sense. China, I didn't even have a mother. You know that. I grew up in someone else's house. I spent the first part of my life frightened to death of my own shadow, bullied at school for having red hair and freckles, too shy to make a single request of anyone, even of my father. I was pathetically grateful if someone so much as patted me on the head like a dog. The only companions I had till I was fourteen were books and a third-hand camera. I lived in someone else's house, where my father was little more than a servant, and I always thought Why couldn't he have been someone? Why doesn't he have a career, like a doctor or a dentist or a banker or something? Why doesn't he go out to a proper job like other kids' dads? Why—”

  “Jesus. My dad was in prison,” China cried. “That's where he is now. That's where he was then. He's a dope dealer, Deborah. Do you hear me? Do you get it? He's a fucking dope dealer. And my mom . . . How'd you like Miss USA Redwood Tree for a mother? Save the spotted owl or the three-legged ground squirrel. Stop a dam being built or a road going in or an oil well being drilled but don't ever—ever—remember a birthday, pack a school lunch, make sure your kids have a decent pair of shoes. And for God's sake don't ever be around for a Little League game or a Brownie meeting or a teacher conference or anything as a matter of fact because God knows the loss
of endangered dandelions might upset the whole fucking ecosystem. So don't—don't—try to compare your poor life in some mansion—sniveling daughter of a servant—with mine.”

  Deborah drew a shaky breath. There seemed nothing more to say.

  China took a gulp of her tea, her face averted.

  Deborah wanted to argue that no one on earth ever got to put in a request for the hand of cards they were dealt in life, that it was how one played the hand that counted, not what the hand was. But she didn't say this. Nor did she remark that she'd learned long ago with the death of her mother that good things could arise from bad. For saying that would smack of self-satisfaction and supercilious preaching. It would also lead them inevitably to her marriage to Simon, which would never have come about had his family not believed it necessary to get her grieving father away from Southampton. Had they not put Joseph Cotter in charge of renovating a run-down family house in Chelsea, she would never have come to live with, to grow to love, and ultimately to marry the man with whom she now shared her life. But that was dangerous ground for her to tread on in conversation with China. She had far too much to deal with right now.

  Deborah knew she possessed information that could alleviate some of China's concerns—the dolmen, the combination lock on its door, the painting inside it, the state of the mailing tube in which that painting had been unwittingly smuggled into the UK and onwards onto Guernsey by Cherokee River, what the state of that mailing tube implied—but she knew she owed it to her husband not to mention any of this. So instead, she said, “I know you're frightened, China. He'll be okay, though. You've got to believe that.”

  China turned her head away further. Deborah saw the trouble she had in swallowing. She said, “The moment we set foot on this island, we were someone's patsies. I wish we'd handed over those stupid plans and just taken off. But no. I thought it would be so cool to do a story on that house. And I wouldn't have been able to sell it anyway. It was dumb. It was stupid. It was a just-so-typical China screw-up. And now . . . I did this to us both, Deborah. He would have left. He would've been happy to leave. That's what he wanted to do. But I thought here's a chance to get some pictures, do a story on spec. Which was even stupider than anything else, because when the hell have I ever been able to do a story on spec and sell it? Never. Jesus. I am such a loser.”

  This was too much. Deborah got to her feet and went to her friend's chair. She stood behind it and dropped her arms round China. She pressed her cheek against the top of her head and said, “Stop it. Stop it. I swear to you—”

  Before she could finish, the door of the flat popped open behind them and the cold evening December air whooshed into the room. They turned and Deborah took a step to hurry over to shut it. But she stopped when she saw who was standing there.

  “Cherokee!” she cried.

  He looked utterly done in—unshaven and rumpled—but he grinned nonetheless. He held up a hand to stifle their exclamations and questions, and he disappeared for a moment back outside. Next to Deborah, China got up slowly.

  Cherokee reappeared. In each hand was a duffel bag, which he threw inside the flat. Then, from within his jacket he brought out two small dark blue booklets, each of which was embossed in gold upon its cover. He tossed one to his sister and he kissed the other. “Our ticket to ride,” he said. “Let's blow this joint, Chine.”

  She stared at him and then looked down at the passport in her hands. She said, “What . . . ?” And then as she dashed across the room to hug him, “What happened? Cherokee. What happened?”

  “I don't know and I didn't ask,” her brother replied. “A cop came to my cell with our stuff about twenty minutes ago. Said, ‘That'll be all, Mr. River. Just get your ass off this island by tomorrow morning.' Or words to that effect. He even gave us tickets back to Rome, if that's our pleasure, he said. With the States of Guernsey's apologies for the inconvenience, of course.”

  “That's what he said? The inconvenience? We ought to sue these bastards to hell and back, and—”

  “Whoa,” Cherokee said. “I'm not interested in doing anything but getting out of this place. If there was a flight tonight, believe me, I'd be on it. Only question is, do you want to do Rome?”

  “I want to do home,” China replied.

  Cherokee nodded and kissed her forehead. “Got to admit it. My shack in the canyon never sounded so good.”

  Deborah watched this scene between brother and sister, and her own heart lightened. She knew who was responsible for Cherokee River's release, and she blessed him. Simon had come to her aid more than once in her life, but never more rewardingly than at this moment. He'd actually listened to her interpretation of the facts. But not only that. He'd finally heard her speaking.

  Ruth Brouard completed her meditation, feeling more at peace than she'd felt in months. Since Guy's death, she'd skipped her daily thirty minutes of quiet contemplation, and she'd seen the result in a mind that careened from one subject to another and in a body that panicked against each new onslaught of pain. Thus she'd been running off to meet advocates, bankers, and brokers when she wasn't combing through her brother's papers for some indication of how and why he'd altered his will. When she wasn't doing that, she'd been off to the doctor to try to alter her medication so as to manage her pain more efficiently. Yet all along, the answers and the solutions she required had been contained in simply going within.

  This session proved she was still capable of sustained contemplation. Alone in her room with a single candle burning on the table next to her, she'd sat and concentrated on the flow of her breath. She'd willed away the anxiety that had been plaguing her. For half an hour she'd managed to let go of grief.

  Daylight had faded to darkness, she saw as she rose from her chair. Utter stillness pervaded the house. The companionable noises she'd known so long, living with her brother, left with his death a vacuum in which she felt like a creature thrust unexpectedly into space.

  This was how it would be till her own death. She could only wish that it might come soon. She'd held herself together quite well while she'd shared the house with guests, making Guy's funeral arrangements and carrying them out. But the cost to her had been a high one, and the payment declared itself in pain and fatigue. The solitude she had now provided her with the opportunity to recover from what she'd been through. It also provided her with a chance to let go.

  No one to pretend health for any longer, she thought. Guy was dead and Valerie already knew despite Ruth's never having told her. But that was all right, because Valerie had held her tongue from the first. Ruth didn't acknowledge it, so Valerie didn't mention it. One couldn't ask for more from a woman who spent so much time in one's own home.

  From her chest of drawers, Ruth took up the bottle and shook two of the pills into her palm. She downed them with water from the carafe by her bed. They would make her drowsy, but there was no one in the house for whom she had to be sprightly now. She could nod over her dinner if she desired. She could nod over a television programme. She could, if she wished, nod off right here in her bedroom and stay nodded off till dawn. A few more pills would accomplish that. It was a tempting thought.

  Below her, however, she heard a car crunch in the gravel as it moved along the drive. She went to the window in time to see the rear end of a vehicle disappear round the side of the house. She frowned at this. She expected no one.

  She went to her brother's study, to the window. Across the yard, she could see, someone had pulled a large vehicle into one of the old stables. The brake lights were still on, as if the driver was considering what to do next.

  She watched and waited, but nothing changed. It seemed that whoever was inside the car was waiting for her to make the next move. She did so.

  She left Guy's study and went to the stairs. She was stiff from sitting for her lengthy meditation, so she took them slowly. She could smell her dinner, which Valerie had left on the hob in the kitchen. She headed there, not because she was hungry but because it seemed the reasonable thing
to do.

  Like Guy's study, the kitchen was at the back of the house. She could use the dishing up of her meal as an excuse to see who'd come to Le Reposoir.

  She had her answer when she finally negotiated the last of the stairs. She followed the corridor to the back, where a door was ajar and a shaft of light created a diagonal slice on the carpet. There she pushed against the panels and saw her nephew standing at the hob, energetically stirring whatever it was that Valerie had left simmering on its back burner.

  She said, “Adrian! I thought . . .”

  He swung round.

  Ruth said, “I thought . . . You're here. But when your mother said she was leaving . . .”

  “You thought I'd be going as well. That makes sense. Wherever she goes, I generally follow. But not this time, Aunt Ruth.” He held out a long wooden spoon for her to taste what appeared to be beef bourguignon. He said, “Are you ready for this? D'you want to eat in the dining room or in here?”

  “Thank you, but I'm not very hungry.” What she was was light-headed, perhaps the result of pain medication on an empty stomach.

  “That's been obvious,” Adrian told her. “You've lost a lot of weight. Doesn't anyone mention it?” He went to the dresser and took down a serving bowl. “But tonight, you're going to eat.”

  He began scooping the beef into the bowl. When he had it filled, he covered it and took from the fridge a green salad that Valerie had also prepared. From inside the oven, he brought out another bowl—this one of rice—and he began setting all of this on the table in the centre of the kitchen. He followed up with a water goblet, crockery, and cutlery for one.