‘My great-grandfather bought the estate from a British planter. I turned the tea plantation over to a workers’ co-operative,’ Vito explained. ‘But I retained a considerable amount of land to ensure the seclusion of the house.’
An astonishing number of smiling faces were gathering on the veranda to greet them. Scorn in her eyes, Ashley whispered, ‘Surely even your dignity does not require this number of staff?’
Vito sent her a stinging look of reproof. ‘Employment is far from plentiful here. While wealth may cushion me from what you choose to call “the real world”,’ he derided in an undertone, ‘I follow a policy of providing work for as many people as possible.’
Scorched by the rejoinder and flushed, Ashley was propelled forward to meet the staff. It was a long drawn-out process. Such chattering friendliness could not be swiftly concluded. All but the youngest spoke good English and it was clear from Vito’s questions that he was well acquainted with each and every one of them.
Another yawn crept up on Ashley. Seeing her stifle it, Priya, the small, rounded housekeeper, smiled and swept her upstairs into a large bedroom, full of beautifully carved mahogany furniture in the colonial style. But Ashley barely had the time to admire it because the first thing she saw was a large photograph of Carina set in prominent position beside the enormous bed.
Quick as a flash, Priya registered the source of her sudden tension. ‘You want that I should remove?’ she pressed anxiously. ‘I did not like to without instruction.’
‘Oh, please leave it there.’ Alarmed at being so easily read, Ashley forced a casual smile, behind which she boiled with a confusion of angry sensations. Were there photographs of Carina everywhere? Was she expected to lie in Vito’s arms tonight with the saintly first wife staring down at her from the sidelines? A sense of deep humiliation and rage intertwined inside her.
After Priya had finished showing her the adjoining bathroom and dressing-room with touching pride, Ashley said that she wanted to lie down for a while and refused the offer of refreshment. She threw herself on the bed. That photograph, she reflected fiercely. There could be no stronger reminder that this was not to be a normal marriage. She rather thought that Vito, who excelled on small sensitive details when he so desired, would have tactfully banished the photos had this been a different sort of alliance. And why did she kid herself that Carina was the one on the sidelines?
It was she, Ashley, who was on the outside. If Carina hadn’t died, Vito would still be with her. They would have had children by now. Dear God, why did she persist in denying the obvious? Why shouldn’t Vito have come to love his first wife? They had shared so much; family, friends, background and outlook. He held her memory in the highest possible esteem and spoke of her only rarely but then with repressed but strong emotion. In every way they had been very well matched. Why couldn’t she face up to the fact that Vito had loved Carina? Until now she had flatly refused to accept that Vito might have married for more than the ‘right reasons’ supplied by their similarities. Jealousy and resentment had blinded her. Once he had called Carina a very dear friend. Ashley had been the infatuation, Carina the woman he turned to and finally stayed with. And suddenly she was agonisingly conscious that all Vito wanted from her was a baby and a quick exit from his life. From the outset he had made it abundantly clear that that was the only use he had for her now.
A small sound roused her from an uneasy doze. She sat up abruptly as a lamp went on. Her stomach heaved in protest, her head swimming. Vito, dark and devastating in a white dinner-jacket, surveyed her from the foot of the bed. A slight frown pleated his ebony brows, a look of spurious concern in his searching gaze. ‘Are you ill?’ he enquired.
Swallowing hard on her nausea, she stared back at him with loathing. Obviously her system didn’t take to jet-lag too smoothly, and not eating much in recent days probably hadn’t helped.
‘I’ll call a doctor.’ Vito straightened with decision. With a look of smouldering resentment, heightened by her sense of being absolutely trapped, Ashley snapped, ‘I don’t need a doctor! I just don’t want anything to do with you!’
He absorbed the colour flooding back into her face. ‘Dinner in half an hour, then,’ he drawled succinctly. ‘I’m not getting up,’ she muttered, and rubbed her hot brow. ‘I’m so warm.’
‘You can hardly expect to be anything else with the windows closed, the curtains drawn and the air-conditioning switched off.’ Vito responded flatly and strode into the bathroom.
She heard the gush of running water. ‘I didn’t know there was air-conditioning.’
From the doorway, he tossed her a blessedly cool cloth and she wiped her face with it blissfully. Sliding upright, she smoothed her creased clothing, wishing she had had the sense to undress before she lay down. Vito was surprisingly silent.
‘I’ll be down soon.’ She sighed. ‘How long have you been on these?’
Glancing at him, she froze. In one brown hand, Vito displayed three little boxes. Her supply of the Pill. Ashley was so shattered by the sight that her mouth fell inelegantly open. She couldn’t believe he had them. They had been right at the very foot of her suitcase inside her toilet bag. ‘Where did you get them from?’ she demanded shrilly.
‘One of the maids must have unpacked for you while you slept,’ Vito breathed. ‘They were sitting beside the sink.’
‘I don’t know how they got there,’ she said stupidly. ‘Perhaps you would like me to ask the maid?’ Ashley paled, her fingernails biting into her clenched palms. The silence went on and on and on, brick piling steadily on brick, and Vito wielded that horrible silence with merciless efficiency.
‘We have an agreement.’ Vito slid the boxes into the pocket of his jacket. ‘And you are a cheat.’
‘B-because what you’re demanding is…is-‘
‘What you agreed to,’ Vito incised unyieldingly. ‘And I don’t intend to be defrauded by technology.’ Agreement… cheat… defraud. The terminology of the business world and the law courts. Didn’t he realise that she was a living, breathing human being ruled by emotion? Or didn’t that matter? For him, emotion clearly didn’t enter the equation. The week before last in London when he had made love to her… that, at least, had been full of emotion. Anger, bitterness, revenge, at least he had been feeling something. But now they were down to the bare bones of the cruellest contract and Vito had just shut down her one escape hatch.
‘It will only be for a year.’ The assurance was delivered harshly as though the sight of her emotional disturbance was unwelcome. ‘If you don’t conceive in that year, I’ll let you go.’
A year. She squashed back an hysterical laugh of disbelief. A year. You couldn’t even say he was prepared to waste that much time on her. A year. She wondered wildly if he would ask for his money back at the end of the trial period. She refused to think about what would happen if he was successful.
She came downstairs in an ice-blue Versace gown that glittered under the lights. While she was dressing, she had vaguely wondered where all the noise was coming from. But, as Priya led her outside, the singsong rise and fall of many voices ceased. They were to dine by candlelight on the veranda but not in splendid isolation, she realised, dazedly taking in the flaming coconut torches set up to light a large circular arena in front of the house. Like a stage, the rear was screened by a laced fence of palm leaves.
As Vito pushed in her chair, he murmured, ‘This is a complete surprise to me as well. The staff arranged the entertainment in honour of our marriage.’
They were about to enjoy a performance of the Kolam Natima, a folk drama worthy of the theatre, he explained. A narrator made his appearance, two drummers and a piper backing his entrance. One by one the dancers appeared in glorious costumes and enormous masks, playing the parts of gods, demons and other mythical beings in a celebration of Sinhalese folklore. Ashley was entranced and, although Vito translated, he occasionally fell silent for some reason.