Part 10 (1/2)

'Ssh.' My maman slipped out of her shorts and into the deliberately crumpled blue silk overall she had carried in her handbag. 'They'll hang us if they find us out.'

There was nothing for my father to do but get into the suit.

When they were both changed, my mother took him by the hand and set off, not along the road, but along a narrow path of the sort made by cattle. She had played this kind of game before birthdays, anniversaries and Bill guessed they would soon come to a village or at least a filling station where she would have arranged a rent-a-car.

Their destination, however, turned out to be an unprepossessing building 200 yards away. It was larger than the little fis.h.i.+ng shacks beside it, but just as rusty. It was only as they came to the steps of the wide veranda that he noticed the details, the crispness of finish, the spare teak-framed doorways cut into the thickly insulated corrugated skin.

It was a small hotel, very Efican in its modesty expensive, of course, but affecting, in its skin, the artful camouflage of rural decay.

Bill's hand went to his slashed face, feeling the raw, rough ridge.

'You don't like it.'

'No,' he said. 'Good heavens, no. The opposite.'

And as they walked to their suite he gesticulated and congratulated, admired the view of the mudflats, the red and blue hangings of old Indienne, but he could not keep the shadow of depression out of his eyes.

'It's a lot of money, I know,' she said when the concierge closed the door to the room and they were at last alone. 'It's very bourgeois.'

'It's wonderful.' Bill held his arms wide. The room was white and spare, the floor teak. 'It's very tasteful.'

'Tasteful?' She raised her eyebrows.

'Wonderful. Truly wonderful. It's such a treat.'

'It'll be our last night for eight months, mo-chou. I wanted it to be nice.'

'It's wonderful.'

When Bill and Felicity lay in bed after their bath, she said, again, 'I wanted you to remember Efica like this.'

They could look down their long pink naked limbs and see, behind the rifle sights of their toes, the inky blue clouds of a thunderstorm, the low lines of brilliant green mangroves, the long flat mudflats glistening pink in the late sun and the spindle-legged birds gathering their evening meal.

They had soaked in the hot tub and soaped each other, but now they lay naked, side by side, neither sought the other.

'Are you OK, Billy-fleur?' Felicity turned on her side and began to slowly rub his smooth wide chest with the flat of her hand.

'I guess.'

'Depressed?'

'Nah ...' He held his hand over his eyes. 'I'm OK.'

'What's the matter?'

She peeled the hand back from the eyes, playfully.

He pulled his hand away with a roughness that surprised even him. No sooner had he done it than he was stroking her hand and apologizing.

Felicity stroked his neck but her hand came clumsily close to his face and he turned his head away from her.

'Is it your face?' she said suddenly. 'Of course, I'm sorry. You're upset about your face.'

In his late thirties, interviewers, women particularly, would like to ask the question about the small pale line that ran from the corner of Bill's mouth to the point of his chin. There would be something s.e.xual about this mark whose story the Sirkus performer would never tell. They would extend a finger sometimes, as if they would have liked to touch it, and he would rest his own forefinger on the pale silky little path of tissue, and smile.

But when Bill smiled at my mother, the scar was ridged, raw, purple, and destroyed the symmetry of his archer's-bow lips.

'Let's have a good time,' my mother said. 'It's our last night for a year.'

Bill held up his gla.s.s, smiling. My mother filled it. Bill sipped the champagne and placed it carefully beside the bed, but once that was done, he was quiet and she could feel nothing had changed. She put her hand out to the scar and this time touched it deliberately.

'You know how you've worked worked to convince me that this didn't matter to you?' to convince me that this didn't matter to you?'

'So think: why would I act like that?'

'Well, it's not so crazy ...'

'... so you'd admire me.'

She looked across at him. He turned his head towards her, his mouth loose, his chin a little soft.

'So you'd admire admire me,' he repeated. me,' he repeated.

She shook her head. She could feel all his upset broiling and churning away beneath the surface.

He lay on his back again, staring up at the carefully finished teak ceiling. She lay propped up on her elbow, watching him. He said, 'Your whole life you are surrounded by people doing things so you'll admire them. Moey does a high-wire act. Your son tries to kill himself in a pine tree. I pretend this doesn't matter.'

'You get yourself slashed ... for me.'

That isn't what I said, but still: who put me on the poster?'

'Bill, that's not even logical. You're so angry.'

'I'm not angry. I'm not angry at all. This has been happening to you all your life,' he said. 'You should let yourself see it.'

She sat up again and sipped her drink. 'This is nothing to do with me. It's all to do with you.'

'What?' He also sat up and raised his eyebrow at her. He also sat up and raised his eyebrow at her.

'You're angry. You're looking for something to let your anger out on.'

'Of course I am f.u.c.king angry. You would be angry too. I got my face slashed for nothing.'

'Hunning, it's going to be fine. It looks horrible now, but you told me what the doctor said ...'

'A tour like this. What's it for? If there's an election tomorrow ...'