Inheritance. Part 12

I said that of course I did, I was not yet gaga.

The woman laughed and then became serious. 'She has been to see me. She has also met Francesca.'

'Who?' I had no idea who she was talking about.

'My the daughter.'

'I see.' That wretched Elena. I knew she would ferret away.

'She said she spoke to you. You didn't tell her anything about the ... the circ.u.mstances of my daughter's birth?'

'I did not,' I said, outraged to think that she might suspect me of being loose-tongued. 'Will that be all?'

My hands were shaking. I couldn't wait to end the conversation.

'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'I don't mean to upset you.'

Obviously she could read my feelings down the wire. How women do that I have no idea. To me a voice on the phone is impersonal. And should be so.

'Thank you,' she said, then added, 'There is one other matter. Stuart you know my ...' Her voice trailed away. 'He thinks he has found me. I may have put him off. He hasn't been in touch with you?' After a moment or two she added more sharply 'Stuart?'

It was a jolt hearing her speak of him so soon after Simone had found his photograph. I suppose I finally answered in the negative; her sigh of relief was quite clear.

'My daughter is an artist and is well and happy. I'm very proud of her.'

Even I could hear the warning note. 'Good,' I said. 'Goodbye.' A great relief to put the d.a.m.n thing down.

Simone was in the room in a flash, to push some b.u.t.ton on the phone. She said it was beeping.

'What did you not do?' she asked.

I had no idea what she meant.

'You said "no I did not" in very firm tones.'

I believe I was rather sharp with Simone. The whole conversation disturbed me more than I would like to admit. I told Simone some rubbish about the woman being too insistent and that I had refused to send her the answers she sought. Simone looked at me sharply, but let the matter lie.

After lunch, however, as I dozed over the Times crossword, the matter would not lie quiet in my own mind. The thought of Stuart finding Jeanie again must be desperate for her. She sounded quite in control over the phone, but then I am no judge of women's emotions, as Simone would be quick to point out. I longed to talk to Simone, but how could I admit that I had acted secretly criminally all those years ago? If matters were about to unravel in some uncontrolled way, perhaps it would become necessary, but not yet. Not yet.

Jeanie Roper came to see me in my little shared office on Beach Road. It would have been 1967. April perhaps, or May. She came unannounced as I was sorting my papers into cardboard boxes. Simone and I had finally taken the difficult decision to leave Samoa. One of our boys had moved back to New Zealand (briefly as it turned out, but we were not to know that then) and was insistent that we return to enjoy the grandchildren. He may have meant 'babysit them'. We had always thought that a time might come to return either to New Zealand or France when work and perhaps health gave out. Palagi don't usually wait to die in Samoa, and most of our friends had long gone. But it would be a wrench, nonetheless, for both of us. We dreaded the next few months tying up ends, selling or renting the house.

I was feeling particularly grumpy the day Jeanie arrived. The old files and papers reminded me of the many interesting cases I had dealt with in Apia. What on earth would I find to fill my days back in New Zealand? But Jeanie was contrite and I felt I had to spare her some time.

We sat and chatted about the plantation while my boy brought us tea and sandwiches. Jeanie had begun to take an interest in the estate, which was doing better than many others, being in cacao. Something dreadful was happening to the new banana crops since the hurricane. New plants were planted and flourishing supposedly an improved strain but the fruit which left on the Tofua or Matua looking healthy, collapsed on arrival in New Zealand. They became ripe one day and black the next. Officials and experts were perplexed. Meanwhile, our princ.i.p.al export was in crisis. Jeanie could be pleased with her healthy cacao trees, but Samoa's economy was going downhill fast. So it was a surprise to hear Jeanie say that she wanted to sell the estate.

'Will you put it on the market for me?' she asked. 'Have you time before you go?'

I was pleased to have a little work, and pretty certain that there could be a quick sale.

'But why? Why now when you are beginning to learn the ropes and trade efficiently?'

I wanted to ask about Stuart; what he thought of the matter. I'd heard he was on the way back. Simone had told me that Jeanie would not welcome his return, but I thought that a bit harsh, after his nasty accident. Surely they'd find a way of rubbing along again. Jeanie put me straight on that matter without my asking.

'I've told Stuart I want a divorce,' she said very firmly, her pretty little face determined. I thought of that time when Simone had described her as dangerous. 'Could you draw up some papers? Is that what happens? We sign something and it's over?' She laughed in a tense kind of way. 'I'm afraid I don't know anything about the procedure.'

To me, this was all quite sudden and strange. We hadn't seen Jeanie for a while she often stayed in the house up at the plantation, but recently during the rehearsals and performance of the marvellous Women's Committee play, she stayed in Apia and we saw her almost daily. She seemed on top of the world. Settled. We were so glad.

The question of divorce put the sale of the plantation in a different light. If I sold the estate and delivered the money to Jeanie, knowing that divorce was her intention, I could be accused of colluding with her to cheat Stuart out of a share. The law is pretty clear on that. Stuart could pet.i.tion to block the sale. Caution on my part was advisable. Since Stuart was returning, I suggested, it might be better if they both came in and discussed the matter when he arrived.

'Oh he won't agree to it,' she replied, rather grimly. 'It's my idea, not his. He thinks we can go on just as we used to. That's the problem. I've written to him not to come back, that I don't want to see him again, but he doesn't believe me. I thought if we had a legal paper to present to him, he might understand that I mean business.'

I told her that divorce was a rather more prolonged and complicated matter than that. She had every right to pet.i.tion for a legal separation, but she must produce grounds. Then, if they lived apart, after a certain length of time five years in Western Samoan law a separation could be declared legal.

'Five years!' she cried, looking at me as if I had presented her with a handful of c.o.c.kroaches. 'I just want it over and done with!'

I told her that if Stuart didn't want a divorce then a 'paper', as she called it, couldn't be signed. Unless she could cite grounds.

She was silent for a bit then, frowning. 'What grounds would do?'

I recited them. Adultery, desertion, cruelty. Possibly habitual drunkenness, although since the plantation was in her name, she could not claim that he drank away the necessities of life.

'He beat me,' she said, then, in a small voice.

'Well that could certainly be cited as grounds for divorce,' I said. But I had the feeling that his beating her was not the reason. Something else.

'And the sale of the plantation? This is connected to the divorce?' A rather shady area for me. Possibly I shouldn't have asked. But I was curious you see. Anyone would have been curious.

She said then that she was planning to leave Samoa, but that she wanted it kept a secret for the moment. She wanted to make sure that the plantation was hers to sell and that she need not share the proceeds with Stuart. The house in Apia she thought she might keep meantime, but the house and all the buildings on the plantation would go with the sale of the land. Clearly, she had thought it all out.

I was astonished. 'I thought you were settling really well,' I said. 'Congratulations, by the way, on the performance at the Tivoli. You really made a big difference. We'll miss you,' I added.

'You're going,' she said rather pointedly.

'Elena will miss you. You and she make a great team.'

'Elena's going back too,' she said. 'For a while anyway. They want her back in New Zealand for something.'

I hadn't heard that. But Elena was always coming and going. She'd be back.

Jeanie brought me back to the matter in hand. Did she have a right, she wanted to know, to refuse Stuart entry to her house? To the plantation?

Oh dear, oh dear. I certainly didn't want to be dragged into this! Technically, I suppose she might. Both were in her name and very recently inherited. But it would surely be looked on as unkind to lock out a returning invalid who was still, in fact, married to her.

Jeanie frowned and bit her lip. She seemed to have no feeling at all that she was being unkind.

I pointed out that Stuart would possibly have no means of support if she insisted on selling the plantation and refusing him entry to the house. He might have some legal redress, as her partner of some years (only four, she was quick to point out) to some share of the plantation sale. I was quite shocked, to be honest, that she was able to harden her heart so.

Jeanie looked at me squarely. I think she realised how my mind was running.

'What if I paid for a room at the hotel for him? The plantation could do that for him.'

I agreed that that would ease the matter, certainly.

Jeanie seemed to need, then, to persuade me that she had right on her side. She explained that Stuart had been a disaster on the plantation too forceful in his dealings with the workforce. ('He hit them too,' she said, 'and let them know he carried a gun.') I was not quite sure she told the truth. His temper and impatience, she said, got in the way of good plantation practice and production went down when he was in charge.

Suddenly she seemed to lose patience with the whole conversation. She stood up and walked to the open door. Outside the midday downpour had just begun. Her voice was all but drowned in the roar.

'Why does he have to come back?' she said. 'How can he think we can go on together? He knows I can't stand him any more.' She ran her hands through her hair and shuddered. 'Can't stand him anywhere near me.'

A crack of thunder underlined her mood. It was so perfectly timed I had to smile. She turned on me, fierce as a cat. 'Hamish, this is no laughing matter. I am desperate, in case you haven't noticed. Desperate. I never thought he would have the nerve to come back.'

Perhaps she felt she had been too outspoken. The rain and her outburst stopped at the same time. As the trees dripped outside and the sun reappeared, she sat again and we talked quite calmly about selling the plantation and the possibility of citing cruelty in a divorce proceeding. Certainly Simone and I had seen evidence of his violence towards her. If there was something she was holding back, it was none of my business. So I thought.

After she left, I had a rather cowardly thought, and looked up the Act to make sure my memory was correct. Indeed it was. Since Jeanie and Stuart were married in New Zealand, and had lived in Samoa for less than two years, any divorce proceedings would need to be dealt with in New Zealand. Rightly or wrongly, I decided to put all knowledge of divorce out of my head and to go ahead with the sale of my client's plantation.

Naturally enough, Stuart's return and rejection was the talk of the town. His appearance in the first month or two was rather gruesome it was difficult to look at him squarely. The reconstructed ear swollen and red, the skin a different, furrier texture, the whorls quite imprecise. Simone felt the doctors had been foolish to try. 'Those men they just want to experiment for their own glory, then when it turns out ugly, send him away back to Samoa where no one will criticise!' She had a point, though it became very clear he had come back of his own volition earlier perhaps than his plastic surgeon may have wished. The hand had not been saved. Some days he wore a stuffed glove. Mostly he let the raw stump show.

Jeanie had gone ahead and reserved a room for him at the Casino. She didn't meet him. Simone knew about Jeanie's arrangements, approving her strong stand against such a bully. I must admit I felt sorry for the fellow. It didn't seem right. He was an invalid, for heaven's sake. Surely, he deserved some common courtesy, for a few weeks at least.

Stuart must have come on Polynesian Airlines because there was no boat that week. He arrived next door in a taxi, clearly in a bad mood. Who wouldn't be, having suffered the road from Faleolo in a Samoan taxi? He slammed the car door and shouted for Jeanie before even reaching the steps. Simone hurried to the verandah shamefully eager to watch the explosions.

'He knows what to expect,' my wife muttered. 'Jeanie has written all to him. Why has he not gone to the hotel?'

Jeanie did not appear. Stuart stumped up the steps with his case, banged it down on the verandah floor and wrenched at the door. Not a sound from inside. Even I was drawn into the drama by this time. Stuart hammered on the door, which was clearly locked. He disappeared around the back and we heard further shouts and hammering. The housegirl wasn't there either it seemed.

'He knows, he knows,' moaned Simone. 'Stupid man, go away.'

There was no sound for a while. Perhaps he was trying windows. Was Jeanie inside, hiding, or had she gone up to the plantation? Neither of us knew. Stuart came into sight again. He looked up and caught us prying. By this time I was wishing I was somewhere quite different. Something about the man was rather terrifying.

Over he came, a beeline through our hedge and across the lawn. I started to move inside but Simone, without a word for once, put out an arm to hold me. We both waited there as he stumped up the steps.

'Hamish!' he said, quite genial, holding out a hand which I shook. It was as if the last ten minutes' ranting and frustration had never existed. But he had seen us! 'Simone!' For a moment I believe he thought of kissing her. 'How good to see you again. Please forgive the appearance. The surgeon a.s.sures me the swelling and scarring will fade.'

There was an awkward moment as he waited, perhaps expecting to be invited in. Indeed I would have, if Simone had not spoken first.

'Your wife is not in I think,' she said. A flat, matter-of-fact statement; not welcoming at all.

Her tone seemed to make no impression. 'Ah,' he said, 'I don't suppose you have a spare key? She's locked the door.'

'But Stuart,' said my fearless wife, 'she has written to you, no? There is a room for you at the Casino, no? She has said you two are separating? So sorry, to hear this, but you will be comfortable enough at the hotel.'

She can take your breath away, Simone. I admit I could scarcely breathe for fear of what would come next. I laid a hand on her arm, which she ignored. Stuart ignored me too. The two of them were involved in some kind of ritual in which I had ceased to exist.

'No, no, no,' said that poor, ugly man, still smiling. 'Nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. She must have forgotten the day. You don't have a key? I had thought ...'

In fact, we did have a key, but Simone was shaking her head. 'Hamish will drive you down to the hotel if you would like. Jeanie said it was booked in your name.'

He stood there looking at her. No expression at all now, the geniality gone but no hint of anger. This was the first time I felt afraid for Jeanie. Perhaps the accident had damaged the mind. Something mad in that blank look.

But he shook his head. 'I'll wait. She'll be back soon.' He looked at me expectantly.

'Would you like a drink?' I asked. How could I not? Simone could frown all she liked, but I had my scruples too. The man deserved a drink.

He smiled and came inside. Simone brought out a little food in the end, and Stuart had more than one whisky. Twice he went back across to check and returned smiling in a strange, disquieting way. When night fell, Simone took the matter in hand.

'She is not coming, Stuart. I think you know this. You must accept the hotel.'

Then we saw the anger. Just a flash widened eyes; tightened jaw. He stood abruptly and I moved to protect Simone. But he was gone, he and the suitcase, down the steps and into the night. Perhaps he slept on Jeanie's verandah with the mosquitoes, because he was there again in the morning, banging on the door. After a while he gave up and busied himself lining up a row of pawpaw on a fallen stump.

'Oh not again,' muttered Simone.

Stuart's wretched target practice. He liked to stand on the verandah and take pot shots at the pawpaw, slowly demolishing them until the stump was a glistening orange mess of fruit. In season he practised on mangos, which were smaller. Simone hated the waste, hated guns, hated the noise. She banged pots in the kitchen until it was over. Where he found his rifle was a mystery. Did he travel with it?

By mid-morning he came across again. I had not liked to leave Simone alone, so had delayed going to work. Stuart looked dreadful, unshaven, greyish skin, mad pale eyes.

'She must be up at the plantation,' he said. 'Do you mind if I ring?'

He must have rung five or six times but there was never a reply. I was beginning to feel rather desperate. Were we going to be stuck with him? Finally he accepted a ride to the hotel 'Just until I find out what has b.l.o.o.d.y happened. She must be somewhere.'

Simone said that a short half hour after I had driven him down, Jeanie turned up at the house. Goodness knows where she'd been hiding inside or elsewhere. She didn't tell even Simone.

That was only the beginning. Stuart stayed at the hotel, thank goodness, but turned up to the house almost every day, sometimes pleading, sometimes shouting. Often drunk. Once he came with a great bouquet of orchids. Jeanie never willingly let him in. Once he caught her off guard forced his way past her and into the house. She ran out the back door, got into the car and drove away, with him running wildly down the drive after her. Later he returned to smash some furniture and crockery. He slept there for a couple of days, but the moment he went back to the hotel, Jeanie was there again, locking the door against him. By this time I had lost all sympathy for the fellow. He was making Jeanie's life impossible; had become a degenerate stalker. No wonder she wanted rid of him. It was all highly embarra.s.sing. He seemed to have lost touch with reality.

Stuart settled a little after about a month of this. The prowling visits became less frequent. It surprised me that he didn't seek entry to the house legally. A pet.i.tion may have been successful. Perhaps he had consulted another lawyer and been told to sort it out with the New Zealand justice system. I suspect the man was all bl.u.s.ter and lacked any drive of a constructive nature. He fell in with some of the harder drinkers at the Club; could be seen there most evenings in a jovial mood to put it kindly. I wondered where the money came from; there was no evidence of a job. Giles one of his drinking mates said some of the men felt sorry for him and were 'helping him out meantime'.

What he meant by 'meantime' became clear when Stuart visited me in my office one morning. This day he was reasonably presentable clean shirt, freshly shaved, hair trimmed. For some reason I found his genial moods more intimidating than his belligerence.

'Hamish!' he said. 'Sorry to come unannounced. Mind if I have a word?'

I gestured him to a chair.

'Man to man?' he asked.

I took this to mean off the record and unpaid. 'I'm acting for your wife,' I said pointedly. The fellow had been in law; he would know the rules.

'Well, exactly,' he ploughed on, settling into the chair and smiling at me in a knowing way. 'The thing is, I'm short of cash. I imagine as her husband, I'm ent.i.tled to some of the income from the plantation?'

I cleared my throat, shuffled some papers while I thought. 'She still pays your hotel bill?'

'Well, yes.' He waved the stump of his wrist as if dismissing this contribution. 'But a fellow has other expenses. Especially an invalid. Jeanie is upset in some way goodness knows what's got into her head. She's avoiding me.' He leaned forward as if to include me in a significant truth. 'You know, I wonder whether she has inherited her father's depressive tendencies. She's been acting most strangely.'

I tried to laugh at that. 'Jeanie is certainly in her right mind. Very much so. I wouldn't try that one on, Stuart.'

He leaned back, then. Looked at me in a calculating way. My hands were sweating. What was it about him that frightened me so much? A sort of stillness, I think. A bland intensity of expression that somehow threatened to break into violence. He was holding himself back and the effort showed.

'You need your own lawyer,' I said, wanting to get him out of the room. 'When the plantation sells, he may be able to argue a portion of the value coming to you.' I wanted to say small portion or tiny. But I was suddenly desperate to see the back of him. He wouldn't stay in control long, I felt.

He looked at me in amazement. 'There's no question of selling. Jeanie and I are here for the long haul, Hamish.' He rose thrusting out his good hand. 'Have a word about some cash will you? We shouldn't need to resort to legal process.' He looked at me pointedly, 'Let's have no nastiness.'