Foley, Lucy - The Invitation by Foley Lucy

Author:Foley, Lucy [Foley, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007575381
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

19

Early morning, and Hal hopes to have the deck to himself. Perhaps he will lie in the newly risen sun for a while, then go for a swim. There is something exhausting about spending every moment in such close proximity to others, especially for one who has spent the last five years living alone. But when he reaches the top of the steps he sees that he is not the first up.

‘Mr Jacobs.’ Truss is sitting at the dining table, Gaspari opposite him, a chessboard between them.

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been meaning to thank you. I realize I didn’t get a chance yesterday.’ There is a strange law of diminishing returns, Hal thinks. The more cordial the man is, the less he likes him. He mistrusts his manner entirely. Because even when Truss smiles – especially when – his eyes remain watchful.

‘For what?’

‘Escorting my wife, yesterday, on the hike.’

‘Oh,’ Hal says. ‘Well, I didn’t exactly …’

‘She can be very determined about things,’ Truss says, ‘but, as I’m sure you have by now seen, she is also quite frail.’

‘She didn’t seem to be having any difficulty to me,’ Hal says. ‘If anything, I had to keep up with her.’

‘Well,’ Truss says, patient, ‘it might not be obvious to a stranger, but she gets very tired.’

There is something distasteful in his speaking of her as though she were an invalid. Hal doesn’t want to hear any more of it. He nods to the chessboard.

‘Who’s winning?’

‘Oh, we’ve only just started.’

‘And yet,’ Gaspari says, ‘I do not – what is it they say – fancy my chances.’

‘It’s a fine set,’ Hal says, looking closer.

Truss smiles again. ‘Thank you. It’s mine – a travelling one.’ He picks up the white queen and passes her over. Hal studies it. A tiny nude, small enough to fit in the centre of the palm.

‘It’s very fine.’

Truss smiles. ‘Evidently we share the same tastes, you and I. I was there, you know, when they killed the elephant. I have a few other pieces made from the same ivory – but she is my favourite.’

Hal hands the piece back to him.

‘I rather like the idea that this little thing, so pale and refined, has come from some great beast – hulking, shitting, crashing through the forest. You should have seen the blood, too, when we slew it. Rivers of it – very dark, almost black.’

‘Yes,’ Hal says. The piece has suddenly become abhorrent to him: an object of barbarism. He looks at Truss, who is studying the piece minutely, as though he has never seen it before. He has time to observe in more detail the sleek head, the hair combed precisely back from the brow. The short, manicured fingernails, the long elegant fingers. Hal cannot imagine him on a game drive, his clothes covered in dust from the road, sweating in the heat. He does not look like he sweats. But then Hal thinks of the ivory: the violence polished into something benign.

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