Bay of Secrets (51 page)

‘Oh, Grandpa …’ Suddenly, Eva wanted to cry. He had such faith in her and what had she done to deserve it? And now he was going to ask her to come back home and look after him. She’d do it – of course she’d do it, if he needed her. She was an only child and her mother lived such a long way away. But …

‘I’ll pay you for your time,’ he said. ‘And your expenses. And it will give you the perfect opportunity to think about what to do next.’

Eva took his hand. His skin felt paper-thin; it was white and threaded with blue veins and liver spots. ‘What is it you want me to do?’ she asked him gently.

‘I’m old,’ he said. ‘No one can live for ever. But there’s something I should have done long ago. Something …’

‘Yes, Grandpa?’ This didn’t sound much like being a carer.

‘Get the
chinthe
,’ he whispered.

‘The
chinthe
?’ Perhaps his mind was wandering. But Eva knew what he was referring to. The dark and shiny decorative teak
chinthe
– a sort of mythical lion-like creature, which always stood on her grandfather’s bedside table – had been a feature of Eva’s childhood, a feature of the stories he used to tell her, about Burma and his life there, working in teak forestry, and then fighting in the war against the Japanese.

Eva had grown up in Dorset, sandwiched between her mother’s flat and her grandparents’ yellow-bricked, rambling house; between the gentleness of her grandfather’s care and the brittle grief of Rosemary, her mother. Her father had died when she was only seven years old and Eva could barely remember him, barely remember how her mother had once been – laughing, carefree and warm. When he died – of a stroke, sudden and cruel – Eva’s life had changed out of all recognition; she supposed all their lives had changed. But it was her mother who for years had seemed unable to cope with the grief of losing her husband, unable to move on.

Rosemary Gatsby was a legal secretary and she immediately went from part-time work to full-time in order to make ends meet. The care of Eva fell mainly to her grandparents. Eva often felt now that this had been a relief to Rosemary. That her kind of grieving had made it almost impossible to
give her only child the love that Eva needed. Perhaps she was scared, perhaps she associated love with being hurt again. Eva didn’t know. She was too young – then – to understand, but she’d had a long, long time to think about it ever since.

Eva’s grandmother Helen had been rather delicate, often tired and disliking noise and disruption. But her grandfather … He had picked her up from school and taken her on outings down to Chesil Beach and the Dorset sandstone cliffs, or off for muddy walks in the Vale. In the evenings they’d sat here in this kitchen and he’d made them mugs of hot chocolate and told her such stories. Tales of dark wood and darker mysteries. Of a land of scorching heat and drenching monsoons, of green paddy fields and golden temples, of wide lakes and steamy jungles. Those stories had wound their way into Eva’s heart until they had become almost a part of her.

Eva got to her feet and went to fetch her grandfather’s beloved
chinthe
from the bedroom. It symbolised his time in Burma, she supposed. She picked it up, looked for a moment into its red glass eyes. It was small and delicately carved and looked a bit like a wild lion with a jagged tasselled mane and a fierce snarling face. It had a sturdy body and was made of the rich burnished teak that her grandfather used to work with back in the days before the war; when he lived in the teak camps with elephants, sending the great logs that had been felled tumbling into the Irrawaddy River.

‘Here he is, Grandpa.’ She put the
chinthe
on the kitchen table in front of him. Her grandfather stared at the little animal for a few moments and then looked back at Eva.
‘And that boyfriend of yours?’ he asked. ‘Are the two of you still …’ he hesitated, ‘involved?’

Eva shook her head. She’d always known Grandpa didn’t much like Max. And as usual, he had turned out to be right. Fortunately, they hadn’t got round to living together although they had given each other the key to their flat. Fortunately, because Max’s tricky afternoon case had turned out to be young and blonde with legs like a giraffe. And it hadn’t involved a lot of paperwork either.

‘So you’re free,’ her grandfather said.

‘I suppose I am.’ Eva tried not to feel desolate. Being free again could be a positive thing. So, she hadn’t yet met a man she wanted to spend her life with. Was that so bad? At least now there was nothing and no one stopping her from doing what she wanted to do – recapturing that dream. And if she was honest … Max was older, charming, sophisticated. He had been great at taking her out to dinner, buying her gorgeous presents, surprising her with a weekend in Rome or Paris. Which was all very nice and Eva had enjoyed it for almost two years. But … She ran her finger across the jagged mane of the
chinthe
; he was a proud animal – she’d always liked him despite his apparent ferocity. It wasn’t really love, was it? Part of her had always known that. ‘What do you want me to do, Grandpa?’ she asked again.

‘I can’t go to my grave without telling you one last story, Eva,’ he said.

‘A story?’ She didn’t like him talking about going to his
grave, but Eva wriggled in the chair and made herself more comfortable.

‘It’s what you might call a personal quest.’ He paused. ‘Because there’s something I need to know.’

Eva waited, intrigued. And then to her horror his blue eyes filled with tears. ‘Grandpa?’

‘There’s someone I want you to look for,’ he said. ‘A task I need you to undertake.’ He picked up the little
chinthe
and held it gently in his hand. ‘There’s a promise I made many years ago that now, I need to keep.’