She said nothing, watching him work.
‘Is Peony sleeping?’ he asked.
She nodded and knelt beside him. ‘She’s going to require a lot of care. I’ll do what I can, but . . . I don’t know.’
‘What’s wrong?’
Sylvia shook her head.
‘Tell me,’ George insisted.
‘It’s what happens to beautiful young girls when there’s no one to care for them.’
Recalling the way Peony had looked, it was difficult to think of her as beautiful. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Men. As best I can tell, they’ve been at her since she was eight.’
Sylvia’s voice quavered with emotion and George suspected that her empathy for the girl might be due to a similarity of experience.
‘Men did most of the damage,’ she said. ‘But her mother used her as well.’
George had the impulse to suggest that being sexually abused by one’s mother would have a momentous effect. A centipede crawled onto his ankle – he flicked it off. ‘Did she say whether the Snellings were her parents?’
‘I asked, but she’s not clear about it. She’s hazy about most things. It’s good you brought her here.’ She uprooted a weed. ‘I’m sorry for earlier . . . what I said about you.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘I had no business saying it. You’ve treated me better than most.’ She paused. ‘She saw Griaule’s scale in your kit. I let her keep it, if that suits you.’
‘That’s up to you. It’s yours, after all.’
After a pause she said, ‘Could you sleep somewhere else for a while? Peony’s grateful for what you did, but it would do her a world of good not to sleep at close quarters with a man.’
George mulled this over. ‘I should build a larger shelter, anyway. We could be here for a while. There’s a nice spot by one of the smaller ponds. If I put it there, that should give her enough privacy.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Once I finish with the booby traps, I’ll get started.’
She made as if to stand, but held in a crouch with one hand flat to the ground, and then settled back onto her knees. ‘One more thing. Can I have your shirt? I want to cut it up and make her a halter.’
‘There’s no need to cut it up. It’ll be too big for her, but it’ll do the job.’
‘I thought I might make something for myself to wear, too. I know you like watching my titties, but they’re an encumbrance for me.’
He heard resentment in her tone, but her face remained neutral.
‘You were using it as a carry-all,’ she said. ‘I don’t figure you’ll miss it so much.’
He shrugged out of the shirt and handed it to her. ‘I’d give it a wash first.’
She stood, holding the shirt in both hands. Again he thought she might speak and when she did not he lowered his head and went to twisting banderilla barbs from the twigs.
‘Save me a fish,’ he said.
Chapter Six
Worn out by his labors, by emotional tumult, George fell asleep in the partially completed new shelter shortly after dark. He was overtired and slept fitfully, now and again waking to a twinge of strained muscles, conscious of scudding dark clouds that obscured all but thin seams of stars, and of wind rattling the palm thatch, raising a susurrus from the surrounding thickets. During such an interlude a shadow slipped inside the shelter and lay next to him, her fingers spidering across his belly and his groin. He intended to tell her that he was too tired, too sore, but while he was still half-asleep, his senses pleasantly muddled, she took him in her mouth, her tongue doing clever things, finishing him quickly, and then she slipped from the shelter and was gone, leaving him with the impression that the wind and the darkness had conspired to produce a lover whose sensuality was the warm, breathing analogue of the rustling thatch and the sighing thickets. Waking late the next morning, he half-believed it had been a dream or a visitation of some sort until he saw Sylvia beside the pool and she flashed a smile that persuaded him the intimacy had neither been imagined nor supernatural in origin.
Peony stood by her on the bank, but on spotting George she stepped behind Sylvia as if anxious. He would not have recognized her in a different context, though the marks of abuse were more prominent now that her skin was clean. Her hair was pulled back from her face, exposing high cheekbones and huge cornflower blue eyes and a mouth too wide for her delicate jaw and pointed chin. It was a face of such otherworldly beauty, George’s initial glimpse of it affected him like a slap and he felt a measure of alarm. Both Peony and Sylvia wore halters fashioned from his shirt and, while they did not much resemble one another, this made them seem like a mother and daughter – he doubted Sylvia was older than twenty-two or twenty-three, yet she possessed a maturity that lent her a maternal aspect when compared with Peony. George found appealing the notion that the three of them might constitute a family.
‘I’m George,’ he said to Peony. ‘Do you remember me?’
Peony had been peering at him over Sylvia’s shoulder, but now she looked away, showing him her left profile.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
She kept her eyes averted. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘You needn’t be afraid. The people who hurt you . . .’
‘It’s not them she’s afraid of,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s Griaule.’
‘He wants to show me something,’ Peony said. ‘But I won’t look.’
George rubbed at an ache in his shoulder. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We’ll be fine.’ Sylvia fixed him with a stare, as if daring him to object. ‘Peony will be safe here, won’t she?’
‘Oh, yes. Absolutely.’ He continued to rub his shoulder and asked Peony how she knew Griaule’s mind.
‘It’s not so clear with the scale Sylvia gave me,’ Peony said. ‘Mine was better. But . . .’
George waited for her to go on. She fingered the ends of her hair and did not speak.
‘What’s not so clear?’ he asked.
‘It’s like he’s whispering to me, but there’s no voice.’
‘You hear him talking? He talks to you?’
‘He wants me to look at something awful,’ she said. ‘He wants us all to look.’
‘Do you ever hear him without touching the scale? After I took you from the Snellings, did you hear him then?’
She shot George a quizzical look. ‘Lots of people hear him when he’s angry.’
‘Do you think the Snellings heard him?’
‘I’ve got to get to my fishing. The later the hour, the harder they are to catch.’ Sylvia went to one knee and began rolling up a pants leg. ‘If you two could look after each other, maybe gather some fruit, that would be nice.’
George frowned. ‘I was going to collect some saplings I can use for poles. You know, for the shelter.’
‘Is there a reason you can’t take her with you?’ Sylvia came to her feet and said under her breath, ‘I need time to myself.’ She nodded at Peony and grimaced, as if to imply the girl was a trial, and then, in a normal voice: ‘See if you can bring back some grapes. I’m told there used to be grapevines out here.’
‘Grapes!’ Peony’s giggle seemed edged with dementia.
‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘What about them?’
‘You might as well eat eyes. That’s what Edgar says.’
‘Edgar?’
‘The man living with her parents,’ said George.
‘They don’t taste like eyes,’ Peony said. ‘But they’re squishy like eyes.’
‘How does he know?’ Sylvia asked her. ‘Is Edgar an eye-eater? Does he relish a nice eye on occasion? Does he dip ’em in melted butter and let ’em slide down his gullet?’
Peony appeared to struggle with the question; her expression lost its sharpness and her gaze wandered.