Sleeping Tiger Page 3

  But Agnes understood, because she had always known Selina’s hunger for what it was. She hesitated and then made the only suggestion she could think of.

  “Why don’t you talk it over,” she said, “with Mr. Ackland?”

  * * *

  The publisher’s office was at the top of the building, at the end of an uncertain upward journey by small trembling lifts, short flights of stairs, narrow passages and again, more stairs. Out of breath, and feeling as if she were about to emerge on the roof, Selina found herself in front of a door marked “Mr. A. G. Rutland.”

  She knocked. There was no reply, only the sound of a typewriter. Selina opened the door and looked in. The girl who was typing glanced up, stopped for a second and said, “Yes?”

  “I wanted to see Mr. Rutland.”

  “Have you an appointment?”

  “I called this morning on the telephone. I’m Miss Bruce. He said that if I came about half past ten…” She looked at the clock. It was twenty past. The typist said, “Well, he’s got someone in with him now. You’d better sit down and wait.”

  She went on typing. Selina came into the room, shut the door and sat down on a small, hard chair. From the inner office came the murmur of male voices. After twenty minutes or so, the murmur became more animated, and there was the sound of a chair being pushed back, and footsteps. The door to the inner office opened, a man came out, pulling on his overcoat and dropping a folder of papers.

  “Oh, careless of me.…” He stooped to scoop them up. “Thank you, Mr. Rutland, for everything.…”

  “Not at all; come back when you’ve got some fresh ideas about the dénouement.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  They said good-bye. The publisher began to return to his office, and Selina had to stand up and say his name. He turned and looked at her.

  “Yes?” He was older than she had imagined, very bald, with the sort of spectacles you can either look through or over. He was looking over them now, like an old-fashioned schoolmaster.

  “I … I think I have an appointment.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I’m Selina Bruce. I called this morning.”

  “I am very busy…”

  “It won’t take more than five minutes.”

  “Are you a writer?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I just wanted you to help me … to answer some questions.”

  He sighed. “Oh, very well.”

  He stood aside and let Selina walk past him and into his office. There was a turkey-red carpet and a littered desk, and shelves and shelves of books, and books and manuscripts piled on the tables, and on the chairs and even on the floor.

  He did not apologise for any of this. He obviously saw no need … and indeed there was none. He pushed forward a chair for Selina and went to settle himself behind his desk. Before he was even thus installed, she had begun to explain.

  “Mr. Rutland, I really am sorry to bother you and I won’t take a moment more than I have to. But it’s about that book you published, Fiesta at Cala Fuerte.”

  “Oh, yes. George Dyer.”

  “Yes. Do—do you know anything about him?”

  This blurted question was met with an unnerving silence and an even more unnerving glance over the top of Mr. Rutland’s spectacles.

  “Why?” said Mr. Rutland at last. “Do you?”

  “Yes. At least I think I do. He was a … friend of my grandmother’s. She died about six weeks ago, and I … well, I wanted to be able to let him know.”

  “I can always forward a letter for you.”

  Selina took a deep breath and proceeded to attack on another flank.

  “Do you know very much about him?”

  “I should think as much as you. I presume you’ve read the book.”

  “I mean … you’ve never met him?”

  “No,” said Mr. Rutland, “I haven’t. He lives at Cala Fuerte on the island of San Antonio. He has lived there, I believe, for the last six or seven years.”

  “He never came to London? Even for the publication of the book?” Mr. Rutland shook his bald head so that the light from the window gleamed upon it. “Do … do you know if he’s married?”

  “He wasn’t at the time. He may be by now.”

  “And how old is he?”

  “I haven’t any idea how old he is.” He began to sound a little impatient. “My dear young lady, this is wasting my time.”

  “I know. I am sorry, I just thought you could help me. I thought there was the chance that he might have been in London, now, and I could have seen him.”

  “No, I’m afraid not.” Firmly, Mr. Rutland stood up, indicating that the interview was over. Selina stood up too, and he went to the door and opened it for her. “But if you do want to get in touch, we will be pleased to forward any correspondence on to Mr. Dyer.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

  “Not at all. Good morning.”

  “Good-bye.”

  But as she went through the door and crossed the outer office, she looked so despondent that Mr. Rutland’s heart, despite himself, was touched. He frowned a little, removed his glasses, and said, “Miss Bruce.”

  Selina turned.

  “We send all his letters to the Yacht Club in San Antonio, but his house is called the Casa Barco, Cala Fuerte. It might save time if you wrote to him direct. And if you are writing, remind him that I’m still waiting for the synopsis of that second book. I’ve written him a dozen letters, but he seems to have a built-in aversion to answering them.”

  Selina smiled, and the publisher was amazed at the transformation it wrought to her whole appearance. She said, “Oh, thank you. I am grateful.”

  “Not at all,” said Mr. Rutland.

  * * *

  The empty flat was not the most suitable place for a discussion of such importance, but there was no other.

  Selina cut short Rodney’s observations on the relative merits of plain and patterned carpets, and said, “Rodney, I must talk to you.”

  Interrupted, he looked down at her in mild annoyance. He had thought, all through lunch, and the subsequent taxi ride, that she did not seem herself. She had eaten scarcely anything, and had seemed preoccupied and vague. Furthermore, she was wearing a blouse which did not seem to go with her fawn coat and skirt, and he had spied a ladder in her right stocking. Selina was normally as well-groomed and co-ordinated as a Siamese cat, and these small irregularities worried him.

  He said, “Is anything wrong?”

  Selina tried to meet his eye, to take a deep breath and be entirely calm, but her heart was thumping like a sledge-hammer, and her stomach felt as though she had just ascended in a too-fast lift, leaving most of her innards in the basement.

  “No, there’s nothing wrong, but I simply have to talk to you.”

  He frowned. “Won’t it keep till this evening? This is the only chance we’ll get to measure the…”

  “Oh, Rodney, please help me and listen.”

  He hesitated, and then with a resigned expression, laid down the book of carpet samples and folded his foot-rule and slid it into his pocket.

  “Well? I’m listening.”

  Selina licked her lips. The empty flat unnerved her. Their voices echoed, and there was no furniture, and no ornament with which to fiddle, no cushion to plump into shape. She felt as if she had been put on to a large, empty stage, with no props and no cues, and she had forgotten her lines.

  She took a deep breath and said, “It’s about my father.”

  Rodney’s expression scarcely changed. He was a good lawyer, and he enjoyed a game of poker. He knew all about Gerry Dawson, for Mrs. Bruce and Mr. Arthurstone had long since deemed it necessary to keep him informed on such facts. And he knew that Selina didn’t know anything about her father. And he knew that he was not going to be the one to tell her.

  “What about your father?” he said, quite kindly.

  “Well … I think he’s alive.”

&nb
sp; In relief, Rodney took his hands out of his pockets and gave a small snort of incredulous laughter. “Selina.…”

  “No, don’t say it. Don’t say he’s dead. Just listen, for a moment. You know that book you gave me yesterday? Fiesta at Cala Fuerte. And you know it had on the back a photograph of the author, George Dyer?”

  Rodney nodded.

  “Well, the thing is … he looks exactly like my father.”

  Rodney digested this, and then said, “How do you know what your father looked like?”

  “I know, because I found a photograph of him, ages ago, in a book. And I think it’s the same person.”

  “You mean George Dyer is…” He stopped just in time.

  “Gerry Dawson,” Selina finished, triumphantly, for him.

  Rodney began to feel as if a carpet was being pulled from beneath his feet.

  “How did you know his name? You were never meant to know his name.”

  “Agnes told me yesterday.”

  “But, Agnes has no business…”

  “Oh, Rodney, try to understand! You can’t blame her. I caught her unawares. I put the face of George Dyer like that, flat down on the table in front of her, and she practically fainted away.”

  “Selina, you do realise that your father is dead?”

  “But Rodney, don’t you see, he was missing? Missing, presumed killed. Anything might have happened.”

  “Then why didn’t he come back after the war?”

  “Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he lost his memory. Perhaps he heard that my mother had died.”

  “And what’s he been doing all this time?”

  “I don’t know. But for the last six years he’s been living on San Antonio.” She realised that Rodney was going to ask her how she had found that out, and she added quickly, “It tells you all about this in his book,” because she didn’t want him to know that she had been to see Mr. Rutland.

  “Have you got the photograph of your father with you?”

  “Not the book one.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant the other.”

  Selina hesitated. “Yes, I have.”

  “Let me see it.”

  “You’ll … give it back…?”

  A slight tinge of irritation crept into Rodney’s voice. “My dear child, what do you take me for?”

  She was immediately ashamed, for Rodney would never stoop to an underhand action. She went for her bag, took out the precious photograph, and handed it across the Rodney. He carried it to the light of the window and Selina followed to stand beside him.

  “You probably won’t remember the photograph on the back of the book, but it is the same person, I’d swear to it. Everything is the same. The cleft in the chin. And the eyes … and the way the ears are set.”

  “What did Agnes say?”

  “She wouldn’t commit herself, but I’m sure she thinks it’s my father.”

  Rodney did not reply. Frowning down at the dark, amused face in the photograph he was visited by a number of anxieties. The first was the possibility of losing Selina. A painfully honest man, Rodney had never deluded himself that he was in love with her, but she had become, almost without his realising it, a pleasant part of his life. Her appearance, with her satin, fawn-colored hair and skin and her sapphire-blue eyes, he found beguiling, and although her interests were not perhaps as esoteric as Rodney’s own, she showed a charming willingness to learn.

  And then, there was the question of her business affairs. Since her grandmother’s death Selina was a girl of some property, a ripe fruit, if ever there was one, to fall into the hands of a possibly unscrupulous man. At the moment, Rodney and Mr. Arthurstone, in complete accord, were handling her stocks and trusts, and in another six months Selina would be twenty-one, and after that any final decisions would be her own. The thought of the control of all that money passing out of his hands gave Rodney the shivers.

  He looked down, over his shoulder, and met Selina’s eyes. He had never known any girl with such blue whites to her eyes. Like detergent advertisements. She smelt vaguely of fresh lemons … verbena. Out of the past he seemed to hear Mrs. Bruce’s voice, and some of the biting things she had had to say about Gerry Dawson. Shiftless was the word that stuck in Rodney’s mind. Further epithets presented themselves to him. Irresponsible. Unreliable. Financially unsound.

  He held the photograph by the corner and tapped it into the palm of his left hand. He said, at last, in a small burst of annoyance, finding it necessary to blame somebody for the situation in which he found himself, “Of course, it’s all your grandmother’s fault. She should never have kept you in the dark about your father. This web of secrecy, never mentioning his name … was a ridiculous mistake.”

  “Why?” asked Selina, interested.

  “Because it’s given you an obsession about him!” Rodney shot at her. Selina stared, obviously deeply hurt, her mouth hanging slightly open like an astounded child’s. Rodney plunged ruthlessly on.

  “You have an obsession about fathers, and families and family life in general. The fact that you found this photograph, and kept it—hidden—is a typical symptom.”

  “You talk as if I had measles.”

  “I’m trying to make you understand that you have a complex about your dead father.”

  “Perhaps he isn’t dead,” said Selina. “And if I have got a complex about him, you’ve just admitted that it isn’t my fault. What’s so wrong about having a complex? It isn’t like a squint, or a wall eye. It doesn’t show.”

  “Selina, this isn’t funny.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny either.”

  She was regarding him with a bright gaze that he told himself could be described as a glare. They were quarreling. They had never quarrelled, and this was surely not the time to start. He said, quickly, “Darling, I’m sorry,” and bent to kiss her mouth, but she turned her face aside and he caught her cheek. “Don’t you see, I’m only thinking of you. I don’t want you to get caught up with some man, go chasing him to the ends of the earth, and then find you’ve made a foolish mistake.”

  “But, supposing,” said Selina, “just supposing it really was my father. Alive, and living in San Antonio. Writing books and sailing his little yacht and making friends with all the local Spanish people. You’d want me to get to know him, wouldn’t you? You’d want to have a proper father-in-law of your own.”

  It was the very last thing Rodney wanted. He said gently, “We mustn’t just think of ourselves. We must consider him, too—George Dyer—whether he’s your father or not.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “By now, after all these years, he’s made a fine life for himself. It’s a life he chose of his own free will. If he’d wanted a family and the ties of a wife and sons … and daughters … he’d have got them for himself by now.…”

  “You mean he wouldn’t want me? He wouldn’t want me to go and find him?”

  Rodney was shocked. “You aren’t considering such a step?”

  “It’s so important to me. We could fly to San Antonio.”

  “We?”

  “I want you to come with me. Please.”

  “It’s out of the question. Besides I have to go to Bournemouth, I told you, and I’ll be away for three or four days.”

  “Can’t Mrs. Westman wait?”

  “Of course she can’t wait.”

  “It’s just that I want you to be with me. Help me, Rodney.”

  Rodney misunderstood this plea. He thought she meant “Help me” in the practical sense. Help me buy an air ticket, help me get to the right aeroplane, help me through the customs, find me the taxis and the porters. She had never travelled any distance on her own in her life, and he was quietly confident that now she would never try.

  He parried her plea with a small spurt of charm, smiled, and took her hand and said, placatingly, “Now, what’s all this rush about? Be patient. I know this must be exciting for you, to suddenly suspect that your father is alive. I realise, too, that the
re’s always been something of a void in your life. I hoped I was going to be able to fill it.”

  He sounded noble. Selina said, “It isn’t that, Rodney.…”

  “But, you see, we don’t know anything about George Dyer. Oughtn’t we to make a few quiet investigations before we take any steps we might regret?” He was talking like Royalty.

  “I was born after he was reported missing. He doesn’t even know I exist.”

  “Exactly!” Rodney risked a more forceful tone. “You know, Selina, there’s an old saying and a very true one: Never wake a sleeping tiger.”

  “I don’t think of him as a tiger. I just think about maybe he’s alive and he’s the one person I’ve wanted, more than anybody, all my life.”

  Rodney vacillated between being offended and being angry.

  “You’re talking like a child.”

  “It’s like a penny. A penny’s got two sides, heads and tails. I have two sides as well. A Bruce side and a Dawson side. Selina Dawson. That’s what I’m really called. That’s who I really am.” She smiled at Rodney, and he thought, in his distress, that it was a smile he had never seen before. “Do you love Selina Dawson as much as you love Selina Bruce?” He was still holding the photograph of her father. She took it from him and went to return it to her bag.

  Rodney said, only a little late on cue, “Yes, of course I do.”

  Selina closed her bag, and laid it down. “Now,” she said, smoothing down the front of her skirt as though she were about to start a recitation, “isn’t it time we measured this floor?”

  3

  Barcelona Airport, in the first pale light of dawn, was deep in puddles from the storm which had chased the aircraft across the Pyrenees. There was a thin wind, blowing down from the mountains, the airport officials all smelt of garlic, and in the lounge the benches and chairs were sunk with still-sleeping figures, tumbled in coats and rugs, bag-eyed and blue-chinned from hours of waiting. It had been a bad night. Flights from Rome and Palma had been cancelled. Flights from Madrid were late.

  Selina, still queasy from her flight, came in through the swinging plate-glass doors, and wondered what to do next. She had a through ticket to San Antonio, but needed another boarding pass. At a counter a tired-looking official was weighing some luggage, so she went and stood hopefully in front of him, and presently he looked up and she said, “Do you speak English?”