The Japanese Lover

by Rani Manicka

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A breathtaking and absorbing novel set in Malaysia propelled by the superb storytelling instinct of the author of THE RICE MOTHER. Parvathi leaves her native Ceylon for Malaya and an arranged marriage to a wealthy businessman. But her father has cheated, supplying a different girl's photograph, and Kasu Marimuthu, furious, threatens to send her home in disgrace. Gradually husband and wife reach an accommodation and the naïve young girl learns to assume the air of sophisticated mistress of a luxurious estate. She even adopts his love child and treats Rubini as her own daughter - a generous act which is rewarded by a long-wished-for son. But it is a life without passion and Parvathi dreams of loving - and being loved - with complete abandon. When the Japanese invade Malaya in WW2, they requisition the estate. Marimuthu dies and Parvathi is forced to accept the protection of the Japanese general who has robbed her of her home. For the first time she experiences sexual ecstasy. And gradually, her sworn enemy becomes the lover she has always yearned for . . .

Release date: September 2, 2010

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 340

Sample

Adari

Set on the fringe of a jungle, at first glance it seemed to be entirely constructed from precious gems cast in some dark metal, as unreal as something plucked directly out of a fairytale. But as the car drew nearer, different facets caught the sunlight and came blindingly alive. Oh! But if her father had only seen this he would never have dared do what he did. Coming closer, she saw that the house was made from pieces of violet, blue and pink glass held together by wrought iron. Nevertheless, that first impression of a palace made of jewels remained with her for ever.

A circular driveway lined with statuary brought them to a covered porch. Someone opened the car door and, to enter her new home auspiciously, she put her right foot out first. Slowly, for her clothes and jewellery were weighty and cumbersome, she came out fully. People had lined the front steps, and some more stood craning their necks along the balconies on both wings of the house for the first glimpse of the new bride. Nervously, she looked up at them. There seemed to be so many of them, but as she later found out, most were staff, there to serve her.

Her husband came around to her side and together they went up the smooth white steps towards the entrance of the house, where six blue-grey pillars inlaid with white marble creepers and flowers stood. Stretching on either side of them right to the ends of the building were deep verandas made fabulous with arches of stained glass. From their ceilings hung enormous baskets of jungle fern interspersed with grape-like clusters of glass lamps. From the veranda they descended six steps into an open courtyard. There Parvathi forgot the watching crowd and gazed about, wide-eyed, transfixed.

Soaring pillars – this time white, inlaid with blue-grey designs – held up the balcony and roof. But here someone as powerful as God must have said, ‘Let there be coloured light,’ and there was. Pouring through the stained glass, the sun let fall a myriad of translucent coloured shards onto the walls, pillars, floors, people, animals and the moss-covered pond creature with water lilies and goldfish streaming out of its mouth.

In one section of the vast yard grew an ancient tree. Its ash-coloured trunk was thick and smooth and its leaves moss green. The house must have been built around it, as one of its larger branches was growing through a window upstairs.

On the smaller branches hung many gilded cages, all empty, their doors open while a flock of birds, all of them white or the albino of the species, sat where they pleased on the tree. It was only later that she learned that theirs was not freedom, that the young boy who took care of them strategically plucked their feathers so flight was no longer possible. But at that moment she was entranced when like dreams or ideas exquisite shades of indigo, blue and pink patterns leapt on the beautiful birds as they moved. Tame doves, completely indifferent to the noise and crowds, walked about magically hued on the paved floor. A parrot perched at the edge of the fountain, turned its head sideways and fixed its round eyes on her.

At that moment her bridegroom spoke for the first time.

‘You,’ he ordered a servant harshly, ‘show this lady up to a room in the west wing, and everybody else, go back to your quarters.’

The musicians stopped playing and a hush descended. She had expected this, of course, but perhaps not in front of so many curious eyes. Heat rushed up her throat and face, and her stomach contracted, leaving her quite breathless. She should have stayed in her daze. This humiliation would have been nothing to bear then. This, after all, was the moment she had been dreading ever since the marriage-broker had referred to the photograph of her.

She had not seen the photograph her father sent to him, but she knew it was not of her. No one in her village owned a plate camera. To hear its shutter click one needed to travel to the city, but the only time she had left her village was when she had made that image of Pulliar with a fistful of dung from one of Vellaitham’s cows and with her mother as chaperone, had taken it to another village not far away. There, with other young girls, she had placed her little idol in a stream and as it floated away had prayed for a good husband.

Her father had cheated the broker and now . . .

A voice fell softly upon her ear. Eyes downcast she followed it up a wrought-iron staircase to the balcony. A decorative glass door opened to the west wing and they stood in a long corridor where many tall double doors led off on either side. The soft voice politely enquired if she wanted to choose a room. Parvathi shook her head, and the first set of doors was opened and the voice announced, ‘The Lavender Room.’

Parvathi entered.

The Lavender Room; but my goodness. Parvathi stood, a dwarf in that splendid, lofty room and looked with awe at the panelled walls painted a dramatic aquamarine and then richly decorated with Chinese birds of paradise, pagodas and weeping willows. Here too a fine rhapsody of violet, blue and pink light flowed in through the tall glass windows and doors.

She transferred her amazement to an enormous blue-beaded chandelier that hung from the middle of the ceiling. Under it, on a cream carpet, stood a magnificent brass four-poster bed. Its tasselled mosquito net had been dyed blue and held back with velvet indigo ribbons. Against one wall was a late-eighteenth-century French cupboard, close to it a dressing-table and a delicate stool painted eggshell blue and parcel-gilt. Nearby hung an open, empty birdcage made of bamboo and coloured with Chinese ink.

On the wall across from the bed hung a large oil painting of a white monkey surprised in the act of eating a fruit, pomegranate peel all around him. She marvelled at how the light in that room had been marshalled so that the monkey alone was bathed in pure white light. She stood on the tips of her toes and touched his tail. The paint was hard and glossy.

A cool rush of wind made the long veil-like curtains billow into the room. Dropping to her hands and knees, she crawled into the balcony and watched the leaving crowd gesticulating and speculating about the state of her marriage.

She hugged her knees and waited as the house fell silent. Soon, her husband would come up, and there would be recriminations; explanations would be required of her. But he did not come up. Instead, she saw him slide into the back of his long car, and it turn off at the gates. Kasu Marimuthu had gone out! For some time she did not move as if it was a trick and the car might turn around and come back, but the road remained empty. Seeing that she truly had been left alone, she stood up and surveyed her surroundings.

The house fronted a golden beach and a very blue sea, and about thirty yards into the water she saw it: the wonderful little island populated entirely by peacocks. There was a small wooden boat in the shade of a thatched roof that she guessed was used to get to it. That afternoon though, the tide was out and the water was so shallow it seemed to her one could have easily waded out there on foot.

She leaned out and to her right and left counted eight balconies in each wing of the house. At the back, unpainted and within calling distance of the back door, were the servants’ quarters. Two men stood talking. Between them the carcase of a goat, poor beast, yellow with turmeric and salt, hung from a wire. No doubt part of her wedding feast. Beyond the boundary walls of the house, as far as the eye could see, was nothing but dark green vegetation. It gave the sensation of being completely marooned in wildness, but she took a strange pleasure in that.

She turned back into the room.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she removed her jewellery and they made a glittering heap beside her. The only item she did not take off was her thali, the symbol of her married status, a pendant made by welding together two golden pieces. They were supposed to represent her husband’s feet, so that no matter where he was or whatever he was doing, his feet were always touching his wife’s heart.

Going slowly to her suitcase she rummaged around and pulled out her mother’s battered old slipper. The sight of it almost undid her. She kissed it passionately, closed her eyes and thought of her mother toiling alone so far away, and at that moment missed her so much she could have wept.

Eventually, she put the sandal away and returned to her perch on the bed. On the bedside table stood a porcelain figurine of Scaramu. She ran a finger down his elaborate costume and wondered who he was and why he was there. The ceiling fan whirled lazily and she glanced longingly at the white expanse behind her. The truth was she was completely exhausted. She would lie down for a short while, not close her eyes, just rest her body. She would not be surprised sleeping. No, she’d jump up as soon as she heard footsteps on the parquet floors outside. Curling herself around the heap of gold, she slept.

And came awake in a strange blue mist, instantly on guard. Then it occurred to her: someone must have come in and let the blue mosquito net down. She looked around the room warily. A small wall lamp by the door had been lit. She lay very still and listened. Something had awakened her. In the distance the sea murmured. Then a shrill scream pierced the night. An animal definitely, but too far away to be of any danger. Still, she remained frozen, watchful. Her body had reacted to that sound as if her very survival was implicated in it. There it was again; a clattering. Amplified by the empty acoustics of the house. Someone was moving about downstairs.

Adding her anklets to the glittering pile beside her, she parted the net and slid off the bed. The hardwood under her feet made no sound. The door opened noiselessly into the corridor, lit here and there by the grape-like lamp clusters. She stood at the entrance to the balcony, and through a pink glass petal, looked in wonder at the courtyard below, transformed into an enchanted world. Small lights had sprung up around the green and gold fountain, and the light from inside the surrounding glass corridors had cast lacy trails of seashell lights onto the walls and floor. And there was a tinkling sound like falling silver coins. Surely, otherworldly beings lived here.

But hardly had the thrilling thought formed, than she saw the figure of her husband held up in the milky light of a frosted lamp. Head bent, and apparently only with much help from the banister, he was unsteadily making his way up the stairs. What was the matter with him? Puzzled, she padded to the top of the stairs, where her unexpected appearance startled him and caused him to lose his footing.

Luckily, one of his wildly flaying hands managed to catch the banister, and the face that was exposed to her was so loose and strange that she felt certain he must be ill. She had not discarded the memory of his silent growling or the restless, invisible fear of the man, but she ran down the stairs, her hand outstretched to help him. But he flung out an arm to ward her off, before dropping back heavily on the stairs, his knees falling wide apart as he transferred all his weight onto one hand. He winced. He must have hurt himself in the abrupt manner of his sitting.

In the light from the disturbed water of the fountain she had her first good look at the man she had married. Large beads of sweat covered his nose, and he was holding his head at an odd angle while his bulging eyes seemed to be experiencing great difficulty in focusing upon her.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked, her voice no more than an alarmed whisper, for she had little knowledge of drunkenness so she had not recognised his condition at first. Kasu Marimuthu opened his mouth – his left canine shone pure gold – and laughter spewed forth, bouncing off the walls and echoing mockingly around them. When his mirth was spent he turned to her and said, ‘I’ve left a glass on the fountain ledge. Get it for me.’

She caught the reek of alcohol then, and was so taken aback she couldn’t stop herself from exclaiming aloud: ‘Oh! But you’re drunk.’ All the hard surfaces around them acted as cruelly on her voice as they had on his laughter, making it sound shrill, accusing, and so completely lacking in docility that she covered her mouth with her hand in mortification.

The bleary eyes found their fix. The affable mood was gone. ‘And why shouldn’t I be?’ he sneered. ‘I asked for a bird of paradise and I’m given a puny peahen.’

Her mother’s words came back: ‘And when you are far away from me, remember this: if a man harms you only with words, say nothing, do nothing, for words may, when he has gone to sleep, be shrugged off like an ill-fitting garment.’ Parvathi dropped her eyes in a show of submission, unaware that this served only to further infuriate her new husband. Absolutely everything, he concluded belligerently, about his bride annoyed him. The lack of style, beauty, height, education, sophistication, and now this irritating attack of meekness. The girl was irredeemable. Grimly he muttered, ‘Hurry up with that drink.’

Parvathi reached up to the command immediately. He cradled the half-full glass in his hand, and then in great exasperation burst out, ‘Oh, for God’s sake stop hovering about like some long-necked ostrich, and sit down!’

She sank down a few steps below him.

‘I’m sending you back to your father tomorrow.’

She nodded slowly. She had expected nothing less from the moment she had laid eyes on his house. Until then she had cherished a wild, bizarre hope. But really, it was not even her father’s fault. How could he, poor thing, living as they did, have any comprehension of what ‘immense wealth’ really meant? Like her, he must have imagined less, much less. Otherwise he would have understood. Enclosures that kept names like the Lavender Room would always insist upon tall, urbane mistresses.

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ he challenged.

She looked up at him, her eyes enlarged. ‘Yes, but you must understand that I had no say in the matter. My duty is to obey my father at all times.’

‘What kind of man does this to his own daughter, anyway?’

A tear slipped down her face.

‘What will happen to you when you go home?’ he asked, and for that small while sounded weary and kind.

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the side of her hand. ‘I don’t know. If my father will take me back I will help my mother as I have always done.’

He shook his head regretfully. ‘Don’t think I don’t pity you, but no one and I mean no one, cheats Kasu Marimuthu and gets away with it. Your father must be a fool or a mad man. Who else would even begin to think of such a harebrained scheme? If he imagined I wouldn’t send you back for fear of tarnishing my good name, well, he put his money on a lame horse.’

‘Why didn’t you just refuse to marry me this morning when you first saw me?’ she asked quietly.

He drew himself up proudly. ‘Somebody else might have married you then, you mean? I don’t care if I am the talk of gossiping women, but there were important people in that hall whom I need for my business plans. I couldn’t make a laughing stock of myself in front of them.’ And then, as if he suddenly remembered that he was the injured party, glared down at her with cold dislike. ‘Look to your father if you need someone to blame for ruining your life.’

In the silence that followed he gazed into his glass as if it was unfathomably deep. Finally he looked up and with one bushy eyebrow raised, said, ‘We should drown our sorrows together.’

She stared at him in disbelief. The shame of it. She was ruined for life and he wanted her to get drunk with him! She shook her head.

‘Why, she said, “no” to a cup of love,’ he observed sarcastically, or at least that was how he had intended it to sound, but it came out dispirited and poignant. He looked about him dazedly before laying his head on the cold stone steps and closing his eyes. Oh, but look at the great Kasu Marimuthu now. So rich and so sad. But just as she imagined that he had fallen asleep, he sat up, and in one gulp downed the entire contents of the glass. He set it empty on the stairs and pulled himself upright. ‘I’ll bid you goodnight then, madam. Be prepared to leave in the morning. Which room are you in?’

‘The first room on the left of the corridor.’

‘Fine,’ he said, as he attempted a half-bow, staggered, and had to cling the banister to steady himself. Clutching it, he went down the stairs. Halfway across the courtyard he stopped, turned back towards her and seemed about to say something . . . but must have thought the better of it, for he shook his head instead and beat the air in a discouraged gesture.

‘Forget it,’ he mumbled, and reeled away.

With his going, Parvathi realised she needed the toilet. She had seen an outhouse by the servants’ quarters and she went outside through the front door and along the south wing to get to it. A cold wind was blowing and the jungle looked dark and threatening. Strange cries and sounds were flung out from its black depths. Hardly had she finished, when she pushed the door open and, shaking with terror, fled back to the house. She knew she’d not sleep any more. She settled herself on the balcony floor to wait. Let morning come. She was ready.

 

In the library, Kasu Marimuthu picked up a bottle of whisky by its neck, and dropped so suddenly into a large swivel chair behind his desk that he had to hold on to the edges of the table to stop the sudden backward tilt. He poured himself a drink and was raising it to his lips when the door opened.

‘What do you—’ he began angrily, only to stop in surprise. It was not his unwanted bride who had entered, but a hulk of a woman holding a circle of light. She paused at the doorway, and he stared incredulously at the apparition she made. Surely no one was that ugly.

She moved further into the room and in the light of the reading lamp on his desk he saw with relief that it was one of his servants. His heart was thumping loudly in his chest. She had given him a scare. Stupid woman. He thought she might, in fact, be his cook. What the blazes was she doing in his library at this time of the night?

‘What do you want?’ he shouted angrily, for that first fear had still not left him.

Instead of coming to a stop in front of his desk, she came around the side and towered over him. Now he was really furious. The impertinence. He made to stand, only to find himself rooted to his chair. Sweat collected in his armpits and ran down the sides of his motionless body. He stared up at her, half-hypnotised by her savage, unrefined features.

‘I have come to ask you a small favour, sir.’

He glared at her dumbfounded.

‘I understand that you are unable to show the shape of your heart to your wife, but sir, it is not your right to leave the shape of your foot on hers.’

Kasu Marimuthu could not believe his ears. A servant? Forget her place in this manner? It was unheard of.

‘Why, how dare you! Get out of here,’ he spluttered, and once more tried to rise, but this time she lightly rested her forefinger on his Adam’s apple, and conversationally commented, ‘This is where man keeps his karma. All the sins he collects through his many lifetimes are catalogued and recorded here. Even the Bible considers it the evidence of man’s first sin, does it not?’

That such a low, low woman should be so presumptuous! He tried to jerk away, and found he no longer had any command of his body. Not even his fingers could he move. Had this monstrous woman by some sorcery turned him to inert gristle and bone in his own chair?

His reaction was comical. Never before in his life had he been in such a position, treated thus. He took a deep breath and detected the unpleasant odour of onion or garlic clinging to her hand. And then, without any warning that person who had built an entirely impressive financial empire, that adult who was day and night deferred to and respected, became once more the frightened, confused child hiding in a cupboard and watching his father and uncles close soil and gold into his grandfather’s mouth. The ground beneath him felt as if it was shifting and his eyes, already large and frog-like, bulged wildly. But because his servant took no pleasure from his sudden confusion and fear, she did not laugh.

Instead she gazed kindly at him.

‘If you could see what I see in your wife,’ she said quietly, ‘you would fall to your knees in awe. Know that she is an adored soul who has incarnated to experience love in the most unlikely circumstances.’

‘I’ll have you dismissed and thrown out in the morning,’ he said in reply, and with menace, for even paralysed and sloshed, the sharp brain in his head had, rightly, deduced that injury was not coming his way, not from her anyway. This was a simple cook who had forgotten her place and acted out of a misguided loyalty to someone she perceived to be her new mistress. Some of his deduction did not make sense, but he had not sufficient brain cells on duty to navigate the deeper mystery.

She smiled and he saw that she had the big mouth of a dog. Truly there was not an ounce of beauty in the woman.

‘You are a good man. If you harm her no more, I promise, one day soon, you’ll see what I see.’ His eyebrows shot into his receding hairline. The bloody cheek of it.

‘Now,’ she said gently, ‘sleep, and remember nothing of this tomorrow.’ And with his eyes still open and staring at her the man fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Gently she ran her big, powerful fingers over his eyelids and closed them. Then, as regally as she had entered she left, holding her melting candle. Not at all a servant but a Queen.

A Baby Comes

To help her theory that a common rock could be turned into a precious stone in the right atmosphere, Maya began adding more eggs into Kasu Marimuthu’s diet to turn his seed less bitter. To nourish Parvathi’s womb she gave her ashoka leaves to chew, and three days before her periods, three white flowers of the Adhatoda Vasica and three of the Morinda Coreia, ground and added into a cup of human milk to drink.

Nearly a year later, Parvathi gave Kasu Marimuthu the good news. He smiled broadly. A happy surprise indeed.

‘Let’s celebrate,’ he said. And reached for the whisky bottle.

The months passed dreamily, slowly. She drank the concoctions Maya set before her and her body made its changes. She began to crave tosai with grated coconut. While Maya made and drizzled them with sesame seed oil, Parvathi sat on the kitchen floor listlessly waving a paper fan at her face and neck and Kalichan rested his head on his front legs and watched her.

‘The gardener found a hornet’s nest in my vegetable patch today. He showed it to me just now,’ Parvathi said.

‘How many entrances did it have?’ Maya asked.

‘Only one, I think.’

‘That means it will be a boy,’ Maya predicted.

And so it was.

He came in the night while Kalichan stood outside the door whining, scratching, and eventually howling at being separated from his mistress at her time of distress. Added to the commotion, suddenly and inexplicably, all the cows began lowing at the moment of the baby’s arrival. She could hear them from her room. And through the haze of pain she heard Kupu singing to them.

They put the infant into her husband’s arms. He was dark, but what had displeased Kasu Marimuthu in his wife, now brought an outpouring of love. Gently, he caressed the boy’s skin, and scooping him to his face, breathed in the sweet, sweet fragrance of a son. Let him be called Kuberan.

Astrologers were sent for. They spoke as one – the boy’s star did not agree with his father’s. Either his ears must be pierced as if he was a girl and would therefore be no longer malefic towards his father, or symbolically sold to a temple for a bit of sweet rice, as if he was no longer a son of his father’s. They did both, but it did not help. Kasu Marimuthu’s ox-like constitution and frame, that had seemed unshakeable until then, suddenly showed the first signs of damage.

‘Why do you have to drink so much?’ Parvathi asked.

‘Ah you,’ he mocked cheerfully. ‘Always in the tavern. Come once to find me in my temple.’

She looked at him, reduced, vulnerable, and inconceivably distant. ‘How do I find your temple?’

‘First look at me without reproach. Because I’ve crossed over. I’ve crossed over, and now I exist only in an old song no one remembers any more. The only way to join me is in a glass.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I have to pray in the morning.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t you know, you should offer everything at the altar. God accepts all, especially the morning fumes of the alcoholic’s obedient, pure-hearted wife.’

She held out her hand for the drink and sat on the floor beside him. He laid his head in her lap tiredly and was soon asleep. Gently, she pushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. Then she bent down and kissed the tired, lined skin she found underneath. The truth was he drank because even with all the money in the world, he was just not happy. She looked up and saw Rubini framed in the doorway.

‘Is he sick?’ the child asked in a frightened whisper.

‘No, he’s just tired. He’ll be fine in the morning. Go to sleep now.’

The girl turned around unquestioningly and went back to bed. Parvathi watched her small figure go up the stairs. She had thought Rubini would be jealous of her brother, but from the first moment she had walked in with her father, she had gently touched her brother’s cheek, and with pride and love called him, ‘My baby.’ As it turned out, it was Kalichan who was insanely jealous of the new arrival. He growled menacingly whenever Parvathi picked up or kissed the baby. If Kasu Marimuthu shouted him down, he would stop growling, lie back down with his chin on his front legs, but unhappily.

Kasu Marimuthu warned Parvathi never to leave the child and the animal alone, but Parvathi refused to take his warning seriously. Instead she told him a story she had heard on her mother’s lap about a man who left his pet, a mongoose, to guard his firstborn. He came home one day and found the mongoose, its mouth dripping blood, standing over the crib. With a horrific cry of rage, he cut the mongoose in half, but in the crib, he found his son gurgling beside a dead cobra. ‘See, even a mongoose can be trusted . . .’

But Kasu Marimuthu frowned impatiently. He had no time for folk tales.

‘Look,’ she appealed, ‘Kalichan’s always been a bit slow on the uptake, but it’s only a matter of time before he gets used to the baby and accepts him as part of the family. Look at him now. See how he is smiling.’ For Kalichan had a way of pulling back his lips when he was happy. It looked like a snarl but it was not.

‘God! Not more nonsense,’ Kasu Marimuthu muttered, and strode away. He did not believe dogs could smile.

Afterwards, she watched Kamala sit on a wooden stool and lay the baby on her thin legs. And while Kuberan screamed without respite, she oiled and bathed him so vigorously that Parvathi sometimes feared her son would slip right out of her grip. Afterwards she stuck her thumb in his mouth and pressed it into the roof of his mouth and with the other hand yanked at his nose.

‘What are you doing?’

‘This will make his nose nice and sharp like a Bengali’s.’

Maya shook her head, but Kamala swore by it. She had done the same to all her children and they all had high noses.

One Sunday after his bath Parvathi came into the room and felt her knees give way. Kalichan had her baby by the shoulder, close to the neck. Though his teeth were bared, they had not yet broken the skin. She dropped to the ground and spoke gently to him. She explained that the baby was only little. She told him he was her first love and that the baby was only a little thing. She asked him not to hurt it. She promised to love him until the day she died, and Kalichan let go the crying baby and stepped back. The baby was squalling with terror, but she did not move to pick it up. Instead she held out her arms to the dog. ‘Come here, you silly thing,’ she said, and he trotted up to her and stood shamefaced inside the circle of her arms.

‘Don’t do that again,’ she said, and he looked so sheepish for what he had done that it made her want to cry. He began to shiver and whimper with fear and remorse, and Kasu Marimuthu who had been waiting at the doorway, ran in to snatch up the baby and rock him gently in his arms until his cries ceased.

‘He isn’t hurt,’ Parvathi pleaded, but Kasu Marimuthu, his face a thundercloud, would not even look at her. Wordlessly, he gave the baby to her and called to the dog. With a dejected glance at her, Kalichan followed him. She held the baby in her arms and stared out of the window. He was going to punish the dog. Poor Kalichan, he hated being locked up. She must be very careful from now on. She’d not leave them alone until the boy was a bit older. She nuzzled her baby. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ she said, ‘The two of you’ll be the best of friends one day. He didn’t really mean it, otherwise he’d have drawn blood; easily. He won’t be able to help loving you, you’ll see.’ She buried her face in the baby’s neck and breathed in the scent of the boy and dog, and thanked God she had walked in when she had.

The sound of the shot went right through her unprepared being.

She went rigid with shock, and must have squeeze