Sleeping Tiger Read Free Page B

in the small cupboard between the two beds. It occurred to her that she might perhaps find a book she had never read, and with this idea in mind she went to kneel between the beds and run her forefinger along the titles.
    It stayed still at Rebecca. A yellow-jacketed war-time edition. She took it out and opened it, and a photograph fell from the closely-printed pages. A photograph of a man. Selina picked it up. A man in uniform. Very dark-haired, with a cleft in his chin, his eyebrows irregular, his black eyes glinting with laughter although his face was set in suitable solemn lines. He was a soldier, tailored and well-buttoned, with a glimpse of gleaming Sam Browne across one shoulder.
    There was the beginning of a wonderful suspicion. Somewhere, behind the dark amused face, was a suggestion of Selina’s own. She took the photograph to the mirror, trying to find resemblances in the planes of her face, the way her hair grew, the squared-off corners of her chin. There wasn’t much to go on. He was very handsome, and Selina was plain. His ears lay neatly against his head, and Selina’s stuck out like jug-handles.
    She turned the photograph over. On the back was written:
    Harriet, darling,
    from G.
    and a couple of crosses for kisses.
    Harriet had been her mother’s name, and Selina knew then that the photograph was of her father.
    She never told anybody about it. She slid Rebecca back into the shelf, and took the photograph into her room. After that, she carried it everywhere with her, wrapped in thin paper to keep it clean and crisp. She felt now that she had, at least, a root, however, tenuous, but it still didn’t fill her need, and she still watched other families, and still listened in to other people’s conversations.…
    *   *   *
    A child’s voice penetrated her thoughts. Selina had been dreaming in the sun. Now, awakened, she was aware of the endless roar of Piccadilly traffic, car horns, and the high-pitched chatter of a baby girl, sitting in a pushchair. The other little girl on the tricycle and her father had long since disappeared. Other groups had taken their place, and a loving couple lay, entwined with complete abandon, only a few yards from where Selina sat.
    The wooden chair had grown uncomfortable. Selina shifted her position slightly, and the parcel that Rodney had given her slid off her lap and fell on to the grass. Stooping, she picked it up, and aimlessly, without a thought, began to undo it. The dust-jacket of the book was in glossy-white with the lettering in red:
    FIESTA AT CALA FUERTE
    by George Dyer
    Selina turned down the corners of her mouth. The book seemed very heavy. She riffled its pages and then closed it, as though she had already finished reading it, with the back of the book lying upwards on her knee.
    The face leapt at her, as a name does, suddenly out of a column of newspaper print. It was a casual photograph, blown up to fill the space on the back of the jacket. George Dyer. He wore a white open-necked shirt, and his skin, in contrast, was dark as leather. His face was seamed with lines, they splayed from the corners of his eyes, drew deep channels from nose to mouth, furrowed his brow.
    But still, it was the same face. He hadn’t changed so much. The cleft was there in the chin. The neat ears, the light in his eye, as though he and the photographer were sharing some outrageous joke.
    George Dyer. The author. The man lived on an island in the Mediterranean and wrote about the inhabitants with such balance and sanity. That was his name. George Dyer. Selina picked up her bag, took out the photograph of her father, and, with hands that trembled, held the two photographs alongside each other.
    George Dyer. And he had published a book. And he was alive.

2
    She took a taxi back to Queen’s Gate, ran up the stairs, burst into the flat and called for Agnes.
    â€œI’m here, in the kitchen,” Agnes replied.
    She was making tea. As