Free The Silk Merchant's Daughter by Dinah Jefferies Page B

father the leaflet she’d found and tell him about the show when she got home that evening. But when he still hadn’t arrived back, a part of her felt relieved. How could she behave normally after seeing him with that woman? Even looking him in the face felt like too much. When Lisa went outside to relax with a glass of wine and a cigarette, Nicole joined her in the garden.
    ‘I ate
bánh xèo
today,’ she said.
    ‘Really?’
    Nicole nodded.
    ‘Did you enjoy it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Lisa grimaced. ‘I can’t stomach Vietnamese food.’
    In the garden, wild flowers dotted the edges of the lawn and flying creatures clustered round sweet-scented bushes. The trees waved their branches and the yellow sun on the leaves shone gold, throwing the depths into deeper shadow.
    ‘Isn’t it lovely out here? Do you remember, Lisa, how I was always falling off the swing hanging from the pipal tree in Huế?’
    Lisa smiled and her eyes lit up as she watched a dark-winged bird take flight and then land on one of the top branches of the pipal tree.
    ‘And the time I tore my party dress?’ Nicole added.
    ‘Yes, and when we had to get the doctor after you broke your ankle.’
    ‘You sat up all night with me.’
    Lisa sighed. ‘Such a tomboy. You were always grazing or bruising yourself.’
    ‘Lisa, what if the Vietminh were to win and we had to leave?’
    ‘Don’t you listen to your father? The Vietminh can never win against the French army.’
    ‘I suppose you’re right.’ She paused as a feeling of loss seemed to come out of nowhere. ‘I know so little of my mother.’
    ‘You should ask your father about her. She was a good woman and I loved her.’
    ‘He won’t talk about her.’
    ‘You’re like her, you know.’
    Nicole smiled. ‘Am I really?’
    ‘In so many ways. She was full of life, just like you. Sylvie’s not like her at all.’
    ‘The Vietnamese say that if you don’t know who your ancestors are, you’re little better than a thief.’
    Lisa laughed. ‘What ridiculous ideas they have.’

10
    A third hairpin sprang from her fingers and skimmed across the floor. Nicole swooped down, scraping a nail on the floorboard as she picked it up. Damn! A broken nail. It was now early July and a typical hot wet summer with daily rain and numbing humidity but at least the streets were dressed in the bright red of flamboyant blossoms. She had, at last, told her father about the show and, after some persuasion, he’d grudgingly given his permission; but when she’d handed him the Vietminh leaflet she’d found in the street, he’d just torn it up.
    She hadn’t seen Mark for nearly four weeks, and was now so excited she felt all fingers and thumbs. Exactly what she didn’t need. She’d have to fix the nail later; first she needed to sort out her hair. She perched on the edge of a stool, her skin growing increasingly hot as her frustration mounted. Great. Now she’d have a red face, a broken nail and hair behaving badly. If only it wasn’t so thick and straight. Just a little curl or a wave like Sylvie’s would do. With each grip that slid out, she attempted to fix it in again, until, defeated, she flung the pins down. Instead she brushed vigorously to bring out the shine, applied a little rouge to her cheeks and rubbed her lips together to smooth out the pale pink lipstick.
    She went on to the landing to scrutinize her appearance in the full-length mirror. Never too confident of what suited her, she frowned. Were the red roses she’d had sewn on to her lime-green dress a bit garish? And that pink lipstick! She rubbed it off.
    A knock at the door.
    ‘Are you ready? The car is here,’ Sylvie said as she came in.
    Nicole stared, struggling not to gasp in surprise.
    Sylvie stood in her simple pearl-grey silk chiffon oozing perfection, as if she’d stepped out of the pages of French
Vogue
. No roses on her dress, no flowery drape. She rubbed her hands together. ‘Well? All set?’
    ‘But –’
    ‘What?’ Sylvie