«Right.»
Tiarella picked up the pack of cards and started to shuffle them absently. She had the dexterity of a professional croupier. «We are getting a little bit too overgrown here. Charmaine might look charmingly rustic when you sail by, but the vines are becoming a nuisance.»
He nodded at one of the big prints on the wall. It was of three people, a formal family pose: Tiarella when she was younger, looking even more like Althaea, a bearded man in his late twenties, and a young boy about ten years old. «Is that your husband?»
The cards were merged with a sharp burring sound. «Yes, that's Vanstone, and Krelange, our son. They died eighteen years ago. It was a boating accident. They were outside the archipelago when a hurricane blew up. They weren't found until two days later. There wasn't much left. The razorsquids . . .»
«It must have been tough for you.»
«Yes. It was. I loved him like nobody else. Ours was a genuine till death do us part marriage. If it hadn't been for Althaea I would probably have killed myself.»
He glanced up sharply, meeting a hard-set smile.
«Oh yes, it is possible to love someone that much. Enough so their absence is pure torture. Have you ever experienced that kind of love, Eason?»
«No.»
«I don't know whether to envy you or pity you for that lack. What I felt for Vanstone was like a tidal force. It ruled my life, intangible and unbreakable. Even now it hasn't let go. It never will. But I have my hopes for Charmaine and Althaea.»
«She's a nice girl. She should do well with this island, there's a lot of potential here. It's a wonderful inheritance.»
«Yes, she has a beautiful future ahead of her. I read it in the cards.»
«Right.»
«Are you a believer in tarot, Eason?»
«I like to think I can choose my own destiny.»
«We all do at first. It's a fallacy. Our lives are lived all at once, consciousness is simply a window into time. That's how the cards work, or the tea leaves, or palmistry, or crystals for that matter. Whatever branch of the art you use, it simply helps to focus the mind.»
«Yes, I think I've heard that already on this planet.»
«The art allows me to see into the future. And, thank God, Althaea isn't going to suffer like I have done.»
He stirred uncomfortably, for once feeling slightly out of his depth. Bereavement and isolation could pry at a mind, especially over eighteen years.
«Would you like to know what your future has in store?» she asked. The pack of cards was offered to him. «Cut them.»
«Maybe some other time.»
Rousseau walked him over to the chalet, following a path worn through an avenue of gloomy trees at the back of the house. The old man seemed delighted at the prospect of male company on the island. Not least because his share of the work would be considerably lessened. Probably to around about zero if he had his way, Eason guessed.
«I've lived here nearly all my life,» Rousseau said. «Even longer than Tiarella. Her father, Nyewood, he took me on as a picker in the groves when I was younger than you. About fifteen, I was, I think.» He looked up at the tangle of interlocking branches overhead with a desultory expression pulling at his flabby lips. «Old Nyewood would hate to see what's happened to the island. Charmaine's success was all down to him, you know, building on his father's vision. Half of these trees are varieties he spliced together, improvements on commercial breeds. Why, I planted most of them myself.»
Eason grunted at the old man's rambling reminiscences. But at the same time he did have a point. There was a lot of fruit forming on the boughs in this part of the jungle, oranges, lemons, and something that resembled a blue grapefruit, most of them inaccessible. The branches hadn't been pruned for a decade, they were far too tall, even on those trees that were supposedly self-shaping. And the snarl of grass and scrub plants which made up the undergrowth was waist-high. But that was all superficial growth. It wouldn't take too much work to make the groves productive again.
«Why stay on, then?» Eason asked.
«For little Althaea, of course. Where would she be without me to take care of things? I loved Vanstone when he was alive, such a fine man. He thought of me as his elder brother, you know. So I do what I can for his daughter in honour of his memory. I have been as a father to her.»
«Right.» No one else would take on the old soak.
There were twelve chalets forming a semicircle in their own clearing. Rousseau called it a clearing; the grass came up over Eason's knees.
«My old chalet, the best of them all,» Rousseau said, slapping the front door of number three.
«Shack, not a chalet,» Eason mumbled under his breath. Two rooms and a shower cubicle built out of bleached planking that had warped alarmingly, a roof of thick palm thatch which was moulting, and a veranda along the front. There was no glass in the windows, they had slatted shutters to hold back the elements.
«I fixed up the hinges and put in a new bed last week,» Rousseau said, his smile showing three missing teeth. «Tiarella, she told me fix the roof as well. With my back! That woman expects miracles. Still, now you're here, I'll help you.»
Eason paused on the threshold, a gelid tingling running down his spine. «What do you mean, last week?»
«Last Thursday, it was, she told me. Ross, she said, get a chalet fixed up ready for a man to live in. It was a mess, you know. I've done a lot of work here for you already.»
«Ready for me to live in?»
«Yes.» Rousseau shifted unhappily from foot to foot as Eason stared at him.
«Did she mention me by name?»
«No. How could she? Listen, I made sure the toilet works. You don't have to run back to the house every time.»
Eason reached out and grasped the front of Rousseau's vest. «What did she say, exactly?»
Rousseau gave him a sickly grin, trying to prise his hand loose. Sweat broke out on his forehead when he found just how implacable that grip was.
«She said there would be a man coming. She said it was the time and we should get ready. That's all, I swear.»
Eason let go of his vest. «The time? What did she mean?»
«I don't know.» Rousseau stroked the front of his vest down. «Tiarella, she's not . . . you know. Since Vanstone's death I have to make allowances. Half of what she says is mad. I wouldn't worry about it.»
After Eason finished sweeping the chalet's floor and washing fungal colonies from the walls he sat on the cot-style bed and opened his case. The three confinement spheres were still functioning perfectly. Of course, there were only two modes, working and not working. If one of them ever did suffer a glitch, he'd never know about it. That still didn't stop him from checking. Their presence was heightening his sense of paranoia.
Tiarella worried him. How the hell could she know he would be coming out to Charmaine? Unless this was all some incredibly intricate trap. Which really was crazy. More than anyone he knew how the Party members operated. Sophistication was not part of the doctrine.
It was no good terrorizing Rousseau, that drunken fart didn't know anything.
«I brought you some cups and things,» Althaea said. She was standing in the doorway, wearing a sleeveless mauve dress that had endured a lot of washes. A big box full of crockery was clutched to her chest. Her face crumpled into misery when he looked up, the heat of surprise in his eyes.
He closed the case calmly and loaded an access code into its lock. «It's all right, come in. I'm just putting my things away.»