She didn’t hear him get up, get dressed or leave the shed, but she heard him come back, carrying tea in tin mugs. Not lemon and ginger this time; green tea with large leaves like floating seaweed and with a distinctively smoky aroma. She sat up and leaned back against the wall, sipping the brew.
“Sleep well?” he asked her. He looked bright and alert and in control.
“Fine, thanks. Can’t wait for the swimming pool, though.”
“Well, as soon as you’re ready, we’ll be off. No breakfast, I’m afraid. Mr Grumpy’s not in the mood. But I’ve got a chewy bar.”
“Perfect.”
“He says it’s only about three or four hours to Chumtang, so we’ll be there in plenty of time for lunch. I’ll leave you to get showered and dressed and do your make-up.”
“Out! And close the door behind you!”
***
Despite having nothing more than a mug of smoky tea and a small cereal bar inside her, Jess felt fit, energised and motivated. He set a steady pace but she kept up with him without difficulty, even having the energy to speak from time to time, although he seemed to have no inclination to start a conversation.
She’d been thinking about what she might say to Lisa when she saw her, and she approached it with some trepidation. She was excited but fearful, stimulated but wary, and, like any long wait, she just wanted it to be over. But she also wanted to talk with him and decided it best to steer clear of personal questions.
“You know I’m coming all this way to see someone I’ve never met?”
“Yes. Colonel Jeffries’s daughter.” He said it in a way that suggested he was familiar with the Jeffries and it took her by surprise.
“Do you know her?”
“Not really. I met her once, about twenty years ago. She was just a kid.”
“But you met her father?”
“Oh yeah.” Jess shook her head in frustration.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“About what?”
“That you knew Peter.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Well, I’m asking now.” Do you take lessons at being irritating, or were you born like that?
“I was in Kosovo with him, back in ’98. He was our commanding officer. Hero of the Falklands. Top bloke, the colonel.”
“Did you know Janica?”
“Sure did. We all knew Janica. We all lusted over Janica.” She wasn’t quite sure she liked the inference but noticed for the first time he’d lowered his guard a little. “Can’t believe she went off with the old boy. But then again, he was something else.”
How handsome he must have been, she thought, especially in uniform. She looked at Simon and realised he’d have been her age back then, and she tried to imagine him as a young soldier. It wasn’t hard.
“But she was smitten and so was he, so we withdrew gracefully. Went to the wedding and everything.” Jess suddenly wondered where all the photographs were. There were none at home, at least none she’d found. Surely Peter wouldn’t have destroyed them? She made a mental note to search everywhere; the loft maybe? Yes, when I get back. Before I sell the house – if I sell the house.
They crossed another tree-trunk bridge and then stopped by the rushing water to refill their bottles.
“Do you know why I’m coming to see her?” She said it guardedly, assuming he knew at least some of it.
“Nope.” He didn’t seem interested so she thought twice about launching into a long explanation that might take hours. “Do I need to know?”
“I suppose not. I just thought you might be curious.”
“Nope.” She nodded and smiled inwardly. Definitely MYOBS.
They sat by the water as it careered past them, frothing and tumbling over the rocks, disappearing down the mountain.
“So how long did you know Peter?”
“Until after the thing in the Balkans was over. In fact, the worst of it was already over when we got there but it trundled on till 2001, and then, when Colonel Jeffries retired, I took some leave and then got shipped out to Afghanistan; to special forces.” Special forces? SAS? She felt her heart skip and her brain switch to overdrive. Michael had mentioned the SAS, two of Peter’s men, Jackson and Rutherford.
She gasped inwardly and jumped up. He looked up at her bemused.
“You … were with the SAS?”
“Yes.” He drew the word out slowly but his face betrayed a creeping realisation that he might have overstepped some mark. He swallowed, the precursor to confession. “How’s Leila?”
She stepped back and looked at her feet, trying to compute, trying to process the question, analyse the information, put two and two together and see how it all fitted. Of course, it all fitted! She put both hands to her head as if it hurt. Just when you think you know everything, something, someone comes along and turns it upside down. She looked at him and he raised his eyebrows in anticipation, but in anticipation of what, she couldn’t tell. An answer to his question? She ignored it.
“Jackson … or Rutherford?” she asked. He stood up and held out a hand.
“Simon Rutherford.” She ignored the hand and glared at him.
“Why didn’t you say?”
He shrugged.
“You didn’t ask.”
The rage was beginning to build inside her, but she remained calm.
“You didn’t think I needed to know?” The words were slow and deliberate but laced with suppressed fury.
He shrugged.
“Nope.”
She shook her head, bewildered and hurt, feeling a complete fool for failing to spot the obvious and, as ever, angry at being deceived.
“But I knew you’d find out eventually. I wasn’t going to make a big deal of it. If those Chinese scum hadn’t got in the way, you’d never have known anyway. I would have just stayed out of sight and you’d have been none the wiser.” She shook her head, tried to find something to challenge his argument, negate his logic, make him contrite, but she couldn’t. He was right. But she was still mad. She relaxed a little and took a deep breath. But she was seething.
“I wanted to meet you. I wanted to meet you both.”
“Nah, you don’t want to meet Jackson. He’s trouble.” As usual, he’d resorted to flippancy and she struggled to maintain her composure.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said through gritted teeth.
“You’re welcome.” She wanted to hit him. She wanted to slap him so hard it hurt. And she wanted to hug him, and that hurt too. She sat down on a boulder.
“She’s fine. Leila’s fine.” It sounded dispassionate and irrelevant, like a platitude. But she felt tiny and inconsequential and impotent; that she and everything she was, everything she had, her whole life, was incapable of functioning without the constant supervision and stewardship of others. Life’s arrangements made for her, out of sight and behind her back, all with the best of intentions, the path cleared, her progress monitored and controlled so she could get on with the easy bit. Just living. She was torn between the overwhelming urge to break free and the urgent desire to convey her deepest gratitude. I can’t thank you enough, but, by the way, can’t you all just MYOB?
“Good. She’s a terrific little girl. I know where she gets it from. Not her father, anyway.” Jess thought her rage had subsided, but on hearing mention of Mo it burst to the surface again.
“Don’t mention him!” It wasn’t so much she hated being reminded of him, reminded of their relationship or his appalling criminality, or her folly in believing that Mo loved her and had rescued her from her hideous father, used and abused her in his own way, then committed the most heinous crime of all: taking her baby away. She knew all that and she had put it all behind her. It was that, yet again, her dark personal world had been penetrated, examined and analysed, turned over and shaken up without her knowing anything about it. That this guy may have known more about her husband than she did, and at the same time thought he knew a lot about her, made assumptions and formed opinions, when in fact he knew nothing, was vexing and left her totally exasperated.
“Sorry.” He sat down on a boulder, picked up a pebble and flicked it lazily into the stream. She pursed her lips and rubbed a hand over her mouth, not trusting herself to say anything, fearing his response might just make things worse. She breathed in deeply, let out a long sigh and got to her feet. She walked over to where he was sitting. He looked pensive, flicking pebbles into the rushing water.
“No. I’m sorry.” She put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her, and this time he wasn’t smiling; he was studying her. She was suddenly conscious of her appearance. The cracked lips, the blotchy skin, the redness in her eyes, the greasy, lank hair, the filthy, streaked shirt and trousers. He squeezed her hand.
“I think we should be getting a move on.”