Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree (50 page)

‘Again,’ Jessica said sleepily, without taking her thumb out of her mouth.

‘I think one’s enough, don’t you?’

‘The Tale of Tom Kitten?’
she suggested hopefully, snuggling further into Sofia’s lap.

‘No, one’s all you’re getting. Give me a hug,’ she said, wrapping the child in her arms and kissing her smooth pink face. Jessica clung to Sofia, not wanting to let go.

‘What about the witches?’ she asked as Sofia tucked her into bed.

‘There aren’t any witches, certainly not here anyway. Look, this is a special magic bear,’ she said, tucking the teddy into the bed with her. ‘If a witch comes anywhere near you this bear will cast a spell that will make the witch disappear

into a puff of smoke.’

‘Clever bear,’ the child said happily.

‘Very clever bear,’ Sofia agreed, then bent down and kissed her forehead tenderly. ‘Goodnight.’ When she turned to leave she saw David standing quietly behind the half-open door, watching her through the gap. He smiled at her pensively. ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, slipping out of the room to join him.

‘Watching you.’

‘You are, are you?’ she laughed. ‘Why’s that?’

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her brow. ‘You’re a natural with children,’ he said huskily.

She knew where this conversation was leading. ‘I know, but David ...’

‘Darling, I’ll go through it with you, you won’t be by yourself He looked into her fearful eyes. ‘This is our child we’re talking about. A little bit of me and a little bit of you, the one thing in the world that will be a part of both of us and belong exclusively to us. I thought that was what you wanted.’

She led him down the corridor, away from the child’s bedroom. ‘I love children and one day I would like to have one - lots. A bit of you and a bit of me,

it’s the most romantic, wonderful thing, but not yet. Please David, give me time,’ she asked.

‘I don’t have time, Sofia. I’m not getting any younger. I want to enjoy a family when I’m young enough to be able to,’ he said, feeling his stomach reel with the strange sense of
deja vu.
He’d had this conversation countless times before with Ariella.

‘Soon. Very soon, darling, I promise,’ she said, pulling away from him. ‘I’ll be down in a minute. Tell Christina that her daughter is tucked up in bed and ready for her to go and say goodnight.’

Sofia closed her bedroom door behind her. She stood still for a moment to be certain that David hadn’t followed her. The landing was quiet and still; he must have gone back downstairs to deliver her message to Christina. She walked over to the bed and, lifting up the bedspread, ran her hand under the mattress. Then she pulled out a grubby white square of muslin - Santiguito’s muslin. She settled on the floor and crossed her legs. She brought the cloth up to her nose and closed her eyes, breathing in the musty smell that was once Santiguito’s. Now the years had discoloured it and many a handling had worn away both the scent and the material. It looked more like a rag; if one didn’t know better it would be thrown out with the rest of the rubbish. But Sofia treasured it as the most important of all her possessions.

When she held it against her face it was like pressing a button on a movie projector. She would close her eyes and watch the images of her baby that were as fresh and vivid as if she had only just seen him the day before. She’d remember his minute feet, each perfect toe pink and soft, his fluffy hair, his smooth, smooth skin. She’d remember the feeling he gave her when he sucked on her breast, the glazed look that came over his face as he filled his little round belly. She remembered everything, she made sure she remembered everything. She’d replay the tape over and over again so as not to forget a single detail.

She and David had been married for four years and all anyone wanted to know was when they were going to start a family. It was none of anyone else’s business, Sofia thought crossly. It was between her and David although for some reason Zaza felt she had special status. Sofia had snapped at her a couple of times but she was as tough as an old piece of leather with a skin as thick, and she hadn’t taken the hint. Only David, Dominique and Antoine understood her reasons for not wanting a child. Dominique and Antoine had

flown over for her wedding, a quiet registry office affair, but they hadn’t wanted to miss it. Since Geneva they had become better parents to her than she believed hers had ever been. When she thought of Anna and Paco, which she tried not to do very often, she only seemed able to recall their pale faces, now almost icy green in her recollections, telling her to pack her things for her long exile. Dominique called her often, always understanding, always supportive. She remembered her birthday, sent her presents from Geneva, postcards from Verbier and seemed to sense when things weren’t too good for she always telephoned at just the right time.

‘I want a baby, Dominique, but I’m afraid,’ Sofia had confessed the day before.

^l
Cherie
, I know you’re scared, and David understands your fears. But you can't cling onto a memory. Santiguito isn’t real. He doesn’t exist any more. Thinking about him can only bring you pain.’

‘I know. I keep telling myself that, but it’s like I’ve got a block somewhere. The second I imagine my stomach all big and heavy I panic. I can’t forget the misery it brought.’

The only way you will forget is by having a child with the man you love beside you. When that child brings you so much joy, you’ll forget about the pain Santiguito brought, I promise you.’

‘David’s so sweet. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I know he’s thinking about it all the time. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. I feel so guilty,’ she said, sinking back against the pillows on her bed.

‘Don’t feel guilty. One day you’ll give him a baby and you’ll make a happy family together. Just be patient. Time is a wonderful healer.’

'You're
a wonderful healer, Dominique, I feel better already,’ laughed Sofia. ‘How is David?’ asked Dominique. She was pleased that Sofia had fallen in love and put the past behind her, almost.

‘The same as always. He’s made me very happy. I’m so lucky,’ she said truthfully.

‘Don’t worry, you’re young, you have masses of time for children,’ Dominique said kindly, but she understood David’s fears and sympathized wholeheartedly.

Sofia had lived the last five years consciously. She had never taken her life with David for granted. She had never for a moment forgotten the misery that lurked

like a black fog over the first few years of her exile, partly obscuring some of the events that had been too painful to leave in the open. Santi had taught her to live in the present; David had proved to her that it could be done. Her love for her husband was solid and unwavering. He was confident and masterful and yet she had discovered beneath his reserve a vulnerability that endeared him to her. He very rarely told her he loved her, it wasn’t his way, but she knew he did and how much. She understood him.

Sofia had the misfortune of meeting her motherin-law, Elizabeth Harrison, only once. David had introduced them a week before the wedding at the Basil Street Hotel for tea. He had said it was best to meet on neutral ground - that way, his mother wouldn’t be able to intimidate her or cause a scene.

It had been a brief and awkward meeting. An austere-looking woman with stiff grey hair, thin purple lips and bulbous watery eyes as unsympathetic and as shallow as a grave, Elizabeth Harrison was someone used to getting her own way, and making everyone around her as unhappy as she was. She had never forgiven David for divorcing Ariella, whose appeal lay more in her pedigree than in her personality, nor had she forgiven him for using his money to produce plays when she had encouraged him to work in the Foreign Office like his father. She had sniffed her disapproval when she heard Sofia speak with a foreign accent and stalked out as best she could with a walking stick when Sofia had told her that she had worked washing hair in a salon called Maggie’s in the Fulham Road. David had watched her go without running after her to beg her to come back. That had irritated her more than anything else. David didn’t need her and didn’t seem to care for her. She pursed her bitter lips and returned to her cold empty mansion in Yorkshire thoroughly dissatisfied with the meeting. David had promised Sofia that she would never have to see her again.

As much as Sofia lived consciously in the present the past had a spiteful habit of suddenly rearing out of nowhere, triggered by some vague association that pulled her thoughts back to Argentina. Sometimes it was simply the way the trees cast long shadows over the lawn on a summer’s evening, or if the moon was particularly bright, the way it caused the dewy grass to glitter like rhinestones. Sometimes it was the smell of hay during harvest-time or burning leaves in the autumn. But nothing brought it all back like eucalyptus and Sofia had barely been able to cope with their honeymoon in the Mediterranean because of the humid weather and eucalyptus trees. She had felt her heart

contract and a longing consume her until she had scarcely been able to breathe. David had held her and hugged her until the feeling had passed. Then they had talked. She didn’t like to talk about it, but David had insisted that bottling things up was a bad habit and he had made her go over the same events, time and again.

The two occasions that Sofia kept going back to were her parents’ rejection and the day she left Geneva and little Santiguito for ever. ‘I can remember it as if it was yesterday,’ she’d sob. ‘Mama and Papa in the sitting room, the atmosphere heavy and unpleasant. I was so scared. I felt like a criminal. They were strangers, both of them. I had always had a very special relationship with my father and suddenly I didn’t know him any more. Then they banished me. They sent me away. They rejected me.’ And she’d cry until the motion of her sobbing had released the tension in her chest and she’d be free to breathe again. The distress of leaving Santi was something she was unable to speak about with her husband for fear of hurting him. Those tears she shed inwardly and secretly, unwittingly allowing the grief to entrench itself deep within her being and fester.

After they had married Sofia hadn’t really thought much about Ariella. Once or twice she had been mentioned, like the time Sofia had gone through the attic in search of a lamp David said she’d find there and had discovered a pile of Ariella’s paintings stacked up against the wall under a dust-sheet. She hadn’t minded. David came up to look at them then threw the sheet over them again. ‘She was rather good at painting,’ was all he had said and Sofia hadn’t been very curious. She had found the lamp she wanted, carried it down the stairs, closing the door on the attic. She hadn’t been up there since and Ariella hadn’t featured any further in her thoughts. A society party in London was the last place she expected she would meet her.

Sofia was nervous of parties. She didn’t want to go, but David insisted. She couldn’t hide away for ever. ‘No one knows how long this war is going to go on for - you’ll have to brave the world sometime,’ he had said. When Britain had declared war on Argentina in April over the Falkland Islands Sofia had felt desperately torn. She was an Argentine and as much as she had sealed away that part of her life, she had always been sure of what she was - an Argentine through and through. Every headline stung, every cruel remark hurt. They were her people. But there was no use in defending them on this side of the Atlantic - the British wanted heads on sticks. David suggested kindly that she keep

quiet unless she wanted hers on a stick too. It was difficult not to launch small skirmishes when people were so tactless - at dinner parties when boorish men thumped their fists down on the tables, deriding the ‘bloody Argies’. The Argentines became ‘Argies’ and there was nothing complimentary about that name. Having been unaware that the Falkland Islands existed everyone suddenly had an opinion.

Sofia had to dig her nails into the palms of her hands to stop herself from giving them the satisfaction of upsetting her. Only afterwards would she curl up against David and sob into his chest. She wondered how her family were coping back at home. She wanted to fly the flag from the rooftop at Lowsley and shout as loudly as was humanly possible that she was an Argentine and proud of it. She hadn’t relinquished her nationality. She hadn’t deserted them. She was one of them.

The party was a dinner dance on an unusually sultry May evening. Given by Ian and Alice Lancaster, old friends of David’s, it was the sort of party everyone talked about for months before and discussed for months after. Sofia had spent a small fortune in Belville Sassoon on a pillar-box red strapless dress that subtly sparkled against her olive skin. David had been sufficiently impressed not to be concerned about the price and smiled proudly as he noticed all the other guests casting their eyes over her admiringly.

Normally at these events the couple would go their separate ways, neither one worrying about the other. But Sofia was afraid someone might ignite a conversation about the war, so she took David’s hand and followed him apprehensively around the room. The women were heavy with diamonds and stiff hairstyles, sharp shoulder pads and alarming make-up. Sofia felt light, though underdressed, in a simple solitaire that sparkled against her naked brown chest. A birthday gift from David. She noticed people whispering as she passed and conversations stall as she approached. No one mentioned the war.

A pale blue and white striped marquee had been erected in the garden behind the Lancasters’ mansion in Hampstead. Extravagant displays of flowers spilled out over every table like leafy fountains, and the tent glowed in the light of a thousand candles. When dinner was announced Sofia was relieved to discover that she was on the same table as David - the hosts’ table. As she sat down she winked across at David to reassure him that she was happy. He seemed to know the powdered lady on his left, but the seat to his right remained empty.