Chapter Twenty-Five
Deeta
“Hold still, Jan, there’s a gazillion buttons on this dress.”
“But it is so worth all your trouble, Deet.”
Jan smoothes her hand down the bodice of her red dress lovingly.
“Mari said that she would ask Ryder to send around his mother’s jewellery for us to wear tonight.” Her voice contains a hint of sardonic amusement. “Apparently there will be rubies for me, and sapphires for you.”
“Which, being as he’s such a good boy, is exactly what he did,” drawls a deep voice.
“You ever heard of knocking, Ryder?” I ask.
“Heard of it, yes, but it’s not something I practice. It has the irritating consequence of alerting people to my presence. Besides, Dec brought me up.”
Ryder isn’t wearing a tuxedo tonight but a brilliant white dinner jacket.
“Have you seen the beds, Uncle Rye? They’re great!” Dec takes a running jump and lands, spread-eagle, on the four poster.
“You should have seen the bed at the last place we were in, Dec. You could have fitted five or six people in them, they were so big.” Jan tells him.
“What an interesting idea to be sure,” grins Ryder, placing two velvet jewellery cases on the bed.
“Don’t be too long, will you girls; I’m hungry.”
We wait until he has left the room before we open the boxes. Nestled against the interior of Jan’s is a pair of long ruby and diamond chandelier earrings, and a thick matching bracelet. Mine contains a necklace and bracelet with large, flashing blue stones surrounded by diamonds, and linked together to make a chain.
“You know, I’m getting too used to this,” remarks Jan, turning her head so that the earrings catch the light and sparkle brilliantly. “I’m going to be totally ruined for the real world after all this grandeur.”
I smile, thinking of the stir it would have cause if we’d walked in to a party in the Clark compound dressed as we are now. Everyone would have looked at us as though we were aliens from another planet. I finger the jewels. When we go back home this will all seem like a dream, but I don’t think that I’ll miss it. The Andak compound may be more comfortable and luxurious than the Marshall compound, but it’s also far more dangerous. I don’t like how Andak society works, I hate the manipulation and backstabbing that goes on behind the scenes.
I think I prefer the simple life; it will be nice to go back to obscurity.
As we walk down stairs I can hear Tom and Rye talking together in low easy tones.
“Contrary to a deep rooted belief that nothing could have been worth the wait, it appears I’m wrong,” smiles Ryder. “You were quite right, Tommy; the tanzanite is a much better match for Deeta.”
I see Tom’s head jerk sharply around to bend a frown on Ryder, but Rye doesn’t seem to notice. He raises his eyebrows and grins at Tom lazily, as if daring him to say something.
“You’re looking very red tonight, Jan.”
Jan tucks her arm through his.
“Aren’t you just a darling to say so? You look like a waiter.”
I hear Ryder laugh as they walk through the door and out on to the pavement. Tom takes my hand and pulls it through his arm.
“How did Dec take the fact that he couldn’t come tonight?”
“He asked me if I’d leave Jak Dane mouldering at home while I went off to save the world. I told him that eating dinner hardly qualified as saving the world, but it wasn’t until Mari showed him how to work the video library that he consented to stay.”
Tom smiles and bends down to tuck the train of my dress into the car.
“Are we going to have to leave Tom here, or is there enough room for him and your dresses?”
“It’s alright I’ll sit on the roof,” returns Tom with a smile.
-------
The pavilion is filled with music and people, their muted chatter loud yet indistinct. As we enter a hush falls, and a tall gentleman with grey hair and vivid blue eyes comes forward, his hand out stretched.
“Hello, Tom, it’s nice to see you back.”
“Thanks, Orin, it’s good to be back. You know Deeta, of course.”
The tall gentleman gives me a friendly smile, and shakes my hand.
“Actually no, I haven’t had the pleasure. I wasn’t here last night, but my wife’s description of you is unmistakable.”
I smile vaguely, and cling a little tighter to Tom’s arm. He and Orin continue talking for some time; I don’t really hear their words, but watch their faces closely. How can he do it, I wonder? How can Tom stand talking with the utmost pleasantness to a man who could be a killer?
Every time I have been confronted with one of Tom’s brothers the realisation that he could be the one, the murderer who wants all his brothers dead, has filled my mind, crowding out everything else and rendering me nervous and socially inept. However, with my arm through Tom’s I feel better, as though the weight of responsibility has transferred itself from my shoulders to his.
After some time another two men arrive and greet Tom cheerfully. They have dark curly hair and brown eyes, their features are identical. One of them, I can’t tell which one, is the man that Nova was with the day her coke can malfunctioned.
“Deeta, these are my brothers, Cayden and Jayden. Cay, Jay; this is Deeta…” Tom turns to me with a slight smile in his eyes. “I’m sorry; what did you say your last name was?”
“Richards, Deeta Richards.” I smile at the two men, placing them somewhere between thirty to thirty five years old.
“That’s right, I’ll try to remember.” He turns to the men. “I’m off to find a table; Mari promised me Pavlova and I intend to collect.”
We all laugh, and Tom and I weave our way through the crowd and sit down at a vacant table.
“Who were those men, Tom?”
“Orin is the last surviving son of my father’s first wife, Theresa. Dax, Ethan, and Roland were his full brothers; they all had ‘accidents’. The twins are the sons’ of wife number three, Nadia. Their brother Rothe also had an ‘accident’.”
For a while we are silent, looking out over the room.
“Is there anyone who hasn’t had a full brother suffer one of these ‘accidents’?”
“Ryder and I are the only brothers who haven’t lost a full brother.” He pulls his chair a little closer to mine. “You see that table over there? Those people are the children of my father’s second wife, Rebecca. Their eldest brother Rehu was the third of our brothers to be claimed by an ‘accident’. Over there are the children of Sadie, my father’s fourth wife. Their brother Devin is also dead.”
“I’m so sorry, Tom.”
“What for?”
“Because I didn’t know; I didn’t think how bad this must be for you. To me they’re just names; to you they are family, loved ones. I can’t even imagine how petty we must have seemed to you with our foolish squabbles.”
“You were never petty in your life, Deeta.” His eyes meet mine. “Sometimes I think that you and the children were the only thing that kept me sane. The quiet life I led with the Clark tribe is the only reason why I could deal with what was going on here. It showed me that the things happening in my tribe were not normal, that life could be free of the evil that I found every time I returned here.”
“Then why do you come back? If you hate this place so much, why return?”
Tom is silent for a moment, looking at me with dark, pain filled eyes.
“Because I have to. I can’t let whoever it is that is killing my brothers continue, don’t you see, Deeta? I can’t just walk away and leave them to die. I have to come back, I have to try.”
I’m not used to seeing him like this. Tom always knows what to do, he can fix anything. For so long I have seen him as a rock, a safe haven that I can turn to and cling to in times of need. I never saw, never stopped to think, that maybe Tom needed someone too. I know that I can’t tell Tom that everything will be okay; the glib words wou
ld be empty, meaningless. Still, I can reassure him in my own way.
“Tom?” I slide my hand across the table and rest it on his. “Tom, you’ll figure it out, I know you will. You always do.”
“But what if I can’t?”
“You can only do your best, Tom.” I smile at him gently. “And it just so happens that your best is brilliant.”
For a second he looks at me, then he turns his hand to take mine and cling to it with the fierceness of a drowning man.
“Why do you have so much faith in me, Deeta?”
“Because you’ve never let me down, and I know you never will.”
“What will Tommy do?” asks Ryder. “Or not do, as the case may be?”
I hadn’t heard Jan and Ryder approach, and when I turn I see that they are not alone.
I would say she is around forty years old. Her skin is caramel brown, her hair jet black and soft looking, and she has a quizzical expression in her eyes.
“Minda, you’ve met Deeta haven’t you?” asks Ryder.
“No, but I saw her here last night.” Minda smiles. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Her eyes stray to where mine and Tom’s hands are clasped on the table top, before travelling on to Tom’s face. Tom greets her with a warm smile and unhurriedly slides our joined hands to his lap, sheltered from prying eyes.
“Minda is our step mother, Deeta,” explains Tom.
I smile nervously as she sits down at our table, along with the two little boys that are with her.
“And these are her sons; Raj and Naveed.”
“Deeta; such a pretty name.” Minda smiles friendlily. “I suppose you must have been asked how you like it here a dozen or more times, so I’ll try for something more original. Did you get that dress from Leighton’s or the Palace?”
“From Leighton’s,” I reply, slightly surprised by the question. As the topic seems harmless enough I decide to continue. “The Palace’s dresses were a little too flamboyant for me to carry off.”
“I know,” laughs Minda, “all those sequins and ruffles.’
“Don’t be led on, Deeta; you’ve just made it into Minda’s good books and I doubt that anything will ever blast you out of them. She’s the chief designer at Leighton’s,” explains Tom.
Minda leans across the table, and gives Tom a playful push.
“The girl has taste, can I help that?”
As they laugh together the little boy on my right, who has been staring at me for some time with a frown on his face, decides that the time has come for me to be favoured with his conversation.
“Do you play football?” he asks suddenly.
“I… er… yes, I do.”
Tom chokes into his glass of champagne.
“I said that I played, not that I was any good!” I exclaim, giving him a shove.
“Well you hardly could, could you?” laughs Tom. “Not with a straight face any way.”
I turn to the young boy again, pretending not to hear Tom’s uncomplimentary observations.
“Do you play?”
He nods his head enthusiastically.
“I’m a winger, Raj’s a midfielder,” he answers proudly. “Where do you play?”
“Generally on the opposing team’s side,” interjects Tom, doubling over with mirth.
“You think you’re so hot, don’t you? Who was it that headed the ball into their own goal last time we played?”
“That was different,” states Tom, turning to Naveed. “I was just trying to even the game.”
“It was nil-nil,” I remind him.
“But it was obvious that we were going to thrash them; I didn’t want them to feel embarrassed.”
I level a disbelieving look at him.
“Very smooth.”
“Oh, I know. I’m sharp, like a razor!”
“First I’ve heard of it,” comes Ryder’s voice from just behind me. “Say Minda, where’s Mark?”
As Minda turns to answer him, Tom passes his arm along the back of my chair and bends his dark head toward mine.
“Minda was my father’s sixth wife, she looked after Ryder and me until she was remarried. After that Dax insisted that I live with him and Mari. Rye was old enough to enter the guard by then. The boys are from her second marriage.”
“Tom —?” I hesitate. “Tom, how —?”
I break off unsure how to formulate my question.
“How come my father had six wives?” he finishes for me. “Well he didn’t have them all at once, if that’s what you were thinking. Theresa died of cancer before it happened, Rebecca left him, that was also before it happened. He divorced Nadia and Sadie, my mother died, and Minda outlived him.”
As he pulls away my eyes widen in alarm. I’ve hurt him, I didn’t mean to, but I really have. Why don’t I think before I speak, and take in to account how my words may affect the other person?
“Come on, Deeta.” Ryder’s hand is on my arm. “You owe me half a waltz; we never finished the first one did we?”
Before I have a chance to answer him, he pulls me to my feet and we move out on to the sparsely populated dance floor.
“Did you like Minda?” questions Ryder after some time.
“Yes.”
“She looked after us when we were smaller you know,” he continues.
“Yes.”
“The boy’s are mad on football, I suppose they told you?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, Deeta! This is like trying to squeeze blood from a rock!”
“I’m sorry; I was just thinking.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere; what about?”
Over his shoulder I see Nova regarding us with a particularly baleful stare.
“What’s the deal with you and Nova?”
“There is no deal.”
“Really?”
“Really. Why do you find that so hard to believe?”
“Because she’s beautiful.”
“So she’s beautiful,” he replies. “I know lots of beautiful women. Nova wanted to chase, I merely obliged her by running.”
-------
“Aunty Deet, are you awake?” whispers Dec, loudly.
“I am now.” I moan, turning on to my side and squinting up at him through half closed lids. “What do you want, trouble?”
“Nothing, I just wondered if you were, that’s all.”
I thump him with a pillow, and he falls back onto the bed and snuggles up to me.
“Was it a good party?”
“I suppose so, Dec. We didn’t play games or anything, it wasn’t like when we have a party back home.”
“What did you do then?”
“Well we had dinner and danced a bit, mostly we just talked,” I tell him.
“And they call that a party? It sounds boring! You should have stayed here with me and Keya. We watched this film called ‘Flight of the Navigator’, it’s about aliens and spaceships and stuff.”
“You sound like you had fun.”
“Yeah. We ate ice cream until we felt queasy.’ He sighs with satisfaction, and for some time we are silent. I’m just dropping off to sleep when Dec speaks again.
“Keya was really strange though, Aunty Deet.”
“What do you mean?” I mumble sleepily.
“Well, she didn’t tell me to shut up once. She just wasn’t like she normally is, she went all girly on me; fussing about and making sure I had everything I wanted. She even missed the end of the film to get me a glass of lemonade! And once, right in the middle, she started crying and saying she was sorry and hugging me.”
Dec looks at me out of wide eyes.
“I told her it was okay, she was being really loud and it was a good bit. You don’t think she’s crazy do you?”
“No, Dec, she was just a bit sad, girls get like that sometimes.”
Dec digests this piece of information before turning to me again.
“You don’t. You never bawl all over the place like she did.”
“Well she’s had a hard time here all by herself, Dec.”
“I guess.”
Dec shrugs his shoulders, dismissing from his mind the inexplicable workings of the female brain.
“Aunty Deet, can we go for a swim in the pool?”
“I don’t know how we’re going to manage that; neither of us can swim a stroke. It would be fun to splash about a bit, though, wouldn’t it?”
I scramble up from the bed, and open the cupboard that houses all of the clothing that Mari bought for us that first day. I’m pretty sure that lurking among the items is a yellow bikini. I find it and pull it out. It seems much smaller than I remember, but I don’t worry too much as it will only be Dec and me. I hesitate before opening the cupboard that contains Tom’s clothes, but Dec needs some trunks. I swallow the feeling that I’m invading Tom’s privacy, and rummage around looking for a pair. They are, of course, much too large for Dec. We remedy this by tying a shoelace around the waist to hold them in place. When we’re both ready we slip quietly down stairs, leaving Jan to sleep, and close the door of the pool house behind us.
“Stay out of the deep end, Dec, because I can’t rescue you if you get in any trouble,” I warn as I begin to descend the shallow steps that lead into the beautifully warm water.
The pool is rectangular, about thirty by fifteen, and I’m pleased to find that the shallow end only comes up to my waist. I don’t intend to find out how deep the other end is. We splash happily for some time before Jan arrives, her cheeks still softly flushed from sleep.
“Janny, come in; the water is ever so warm!” invites Dec. His fringe is slicked forwards into his eyes.
“No, thank you, munchkin.” Jan yawns and settles her peignoir clad frame on to a sun lounger. “I’d much rather watch.” She regards us from beneath half closed lids, a sleepy smile playing about her mouth. “Did you sleep well, Deet?”
“Very well, but suddenly, in the middle of the night, this ghastly little boy came and woke me up by jumping all over my bed.”
Dec splashes me and I push him under.
“Aunty Deet, I’d been awake for hours and I kept ever so still so I wouldn’t wake you up,” splutters Dec, resurfacing. “Even though I was starving!”
“Well I suppose if you’re starving, we’d better feed you.”
Jan disappears through the door, with a hasty command to us to stay put. She is gone for a long while but we hear, quite regularly, the crash and rattle of pans. Finally, after much anticipation, she returns carrying a very large and heavily loaded tray.
“Master Dec...” She pulls out a chair and bows slightly. “Your breakfast is served.”
“Look, Aunty Deet! Jan’s made pancakes!” Dec exclaims as I endeavour to wrap a towel around his impatient form. “And, goodness: sausages for breakfast!”
He slides into his chair, tucking in with relish.
“Sugar and spice and all things nice!” I laugh, wrapping myself in a towelling robe.
Jan pours out coffee into dainty bone china cups and saucers, and hands one to me.
“Please tell me there’s some coffee going spare?” Ryder’s voice startles me, and I spill some of the liquid from my cup into my saucer.
“Uncle Tom, look: sausages for breakfast!” exclaims Dec through a mouthful of pancakes.
“Did you sleep well, Dec?” asks Tom, accepting a cup of coffee from Jan. Dec nods vigorously, stuffing another forkful of pancakes into his already overfull mouth.
“Steady up, Dec,” I reprimand.
Obediently he lowers his fork, and begins to chew vigorously. I smile at his enthusiasm and lean forwards to pick up a pancake, but I pause as I catch sight of Ryder out of the corner of my eye. He is lounging back in his chair, his head to one side, a slight smile on his face. He’s gazing at Jan’s attractive nightwear with a little too much appreciation in his eyes for my liking.
“Could you pass the butter please, Ryder?”
His eyes meet mine, filled with amusement he doesn’t even try to conceal.
“You’re up very early,” remarks Jan. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look all that rested.”
“We spent most of the night making plans,” answers Ryder.
“Plans for what?” I ask, passing Tom some breakfast. “Would you like some toast, Tom?”
“Please.” He accepts the toast from me, and begins to butter it. “Plans to catch a killer, but we didn’t get very far, I’m afraid.”
“I wouldn’t say that!” objects Ryder.
“Why, what did you decide on?”
“Well, we… I mean… you see…” flounders Ryder. “We didn’t get very far,” he finishes.
The sound of incessant buzzing cuts through our laughter, and Jan and I look around us in surprise.
“What is that?”
“It’s the door bell; you must have heard it before?”
“No; everyone lets themselves in to our house without warning,” answers Jan dryly.
“Are you expecting Mari?” asks Tom.
“She said that she would come round this afternoon, it’s a bit early…”
Tom stands, and disappears into the hallway. We hear him open the door and then the murmur of conversation. He returns, followed by several armed guards, a slight frown between his brows.
“An emergency meeting of the council has been called, Rye. We’re required to congregate at Andak Hall as soon as possible.”
Ryder takes a hurried gulp of coffee as he stands.
“We’d better be off then, see you girls later.”
He hurries to the door, but on realising that Tom is not with him, he halts and turns back.
“See you later, Dec.” Tom rests his hand on the boy’s head, and I hear him say something in Polish. Dec nods eagerly and Tom follows Ryder and the guard out of the door, closing it firmly behind him.
“What was that all about?” asks Jan.
“He said that we were to go to the pavilion and wait for him there,” answers Dec, he turns to me his eyes eager and excited. “Are we going to have an adventure now?”