Free Mosquito by Roma Tearne Page A

said suddenly. ‘D’you think we knew each other in our last birth?’
    He swallowed. Her eyes were large and clear. They seemed to mirror the sky. Looking at her he could not think of a single thing to say. Twenty-eight years between them and still he was lost for words, he thought, amazed. They walked the length of the beach and he watched the frangipani in her hair, marvelling that it did not fall; half hoping it would, so that he might catch it.

4
    ‘W HEN CAN I SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE?’ asked Theo impatiently. He sat squinting at the sun. His white shirt was crumpled and the light cast purple shadows against the creases of the cloth.
    The girl smiled. ‘What if you don’t like the painting?’ she asked, teasingly. ‘What if the money you are paying my mother is wasted?’
    ‘I will love it,’ he said, certain. ‘No question. I can’t wait. Don’t forget, I saw it when you began. And another thing, while I remember, I want the money to be kept for your work only. Should I tell your mother that?’
    She laughed. What did she need the money for? She had wanted only to paint him. It will soon be October, thought Theo. The rains would come then, he knew. When they broke he would be in London. He did not tell her but he no longer wanted to go. The film had no significance for him. It was all part of another life. A life he seemed to have discarded with alarming ease. Living among his own people, here in this amorphous heat, seeing the mysterious and uneasy ways in whichone day flowed into another, he felt as though he had never left.
    The girl was sitting close to him on the veranda, staring dreamily at the garden. She was so close her arm brushed against his. She had the ways of the very young, he mused. Physical closeness came naturally. He could see the shadows of her breasts, small dark smudges, rising and falling through her thin white blouse. She looked very cool and self-possessed. And she seemed happier. He realised with shock that loneliness had clung to her like fine sea dust when he had first met her. But now she’s content, he thought. Now she is happier.
    He wanted to think he had given her something, some comfort for the loss of her father. Even if all he did was offer her a space and encouragement to paint, surely that was better than nothing? He felt a growing certainty in his desire to help her. He felt it rise above the anxieties of this place.
    ‘You must work here when I am in London,’ he said.
    An idea was forming in his mind. He did not know whether to tell her. He wanted to organise an exhibition of her paintings. But she had opened her notebook and was drawing again, her eyes half shut against the glare. Green and red splashed against him, other stories unfolded. He saw she was drawing his outstretched foot.
    ‘You can’t keep drawing me!’ he said laughing, moving his foot out of sight. ‘Now look, I’ve been thinking, I want to organise an exhibition of your paintings. I can’t do that if you only draw me!’
    ‘Where? Colombo?’ Her head was bent over her notebook.
    ‘Yes, maybe,’ he said, suddenly wanting to take her to London with him in October.
    Thinking, what was wrong with him that he could not bear to be parted from her? He knew nothing about art but evenhe could see the astonishing things that were conjured up by her hands. They were the hands of a magician. Like shadow puppets they illuminated other dimensions of the world, probing the edges of things and those corners where drifts of light revealed all that had been concealed from him until now.
    ‘You must work hard until I get back,’ he said instead, trying to look stern.
    So that she threw her head back and burst out laughing. And he saw, how in spite of everything she had been through, her youth could not be contained but was mirrored in her laugh. It was low and filled with happiness. October is still a long way off, he reassured himself. I’ll feel differently then.
    The hot season was coming to an end