Or she could be neutral and tell him of a project she was funding with her own money, a hostel for some of Goa’s many orphaned children. He would appreciate her reasons for setting this up because it paralleled his own project.
She was saved from making a decision by a loud boom. The lights in the café went out and the monitors blackened just as the heavens opened. The rain cascaded down the windows, tapped, hammered and gurgled with its own music. People on the street were ankle deep in water almost immediately and dashed for shelter. The door to the café swung open with a clatter, and one of her charges ran in.
‘Lady, lady, you come now. Mr Joe has dinner ready.’
The boy, Ajit, barefoot and with black hair plastered to his skull, knew her name well enough, but like all the other children at the orphanage preferred to call her ‘lady’. Joe, who cooked for the skinny kids, was known simply as Mr Joe.
‘Dinner? Isn’t that a bit early? It’s only four.’
The boy tugged at her clothes. ‘You come now.’
‘Okay, I’m coming.’ Nothing more she could do here anyway. Not until the power came back on.
She picked up her jacket and rucksack and followed Ajit out into the driving rain. The hostel was five minutes away in an old Portuguese colonial house along the beach, and by the time they arrived the rain had soaked through even her jacket.
Laughing, they shook off the worst of the rain on the verandah. A huge stuccoed balcony hung over their heads, and above it, large ornate windows, which Helen had learned was an influence from Portuguese settlers so that returning sailors could identify their houses from the ships.
The house had been a hotel, but the company had gone out of business and she’d bought it with some of her inheritance. In the grand salon where the house began there were still traces of the hotel trade – tourist brochures, posters and a giant rosewood reception desk with an old-fashioned bell, which she’d kept because it added a certain charm.
Joe was in the kitchen stirring something on the hob. The smells of spices and fried chicken filled the air. A stack of clean plates and a cutlery tray stood on the table behind him as well as a bottle of what Joe liked to call ‘the amber fluid’.
‘Where’s the fire?’ she asked, drying her face and neck with a towel.
‘Eh?’
‘You called me back early.’
‘In your office. Something for yer.’
Knowing that she wasn’t going to get any more out of him, Helen hung up the towel and made to leave the kitchen. Ajit followed her, but Joe called him back, waving a wooden spoon at him.
‘You, young thingo. Table laying.’
‘But, Mr Joe …’
Ajit’s protests faded into the background as Helen made her way down the long narrow room which would originally have been the library. Now the mahogany bookcases were devoid of books, and her naked feet slapped on the bare floorboards.
Her office had inherited the grand name of visitor’s salon and was a fine example of what the house would have looked like in its colonial heyday. The walls were painted with vegetable dyes, and the floor tiles were laid in an intricate pattern of terracotta red, royal blue and white, and was in good condition because it hadn’t seen as much traffic as the main lounge. In order to preserve it, she had chosen it for her office. Even so, it was sparsely furnished with only a small dining table for a desk, a couple of chairs which could be spared in other parts of the house, a bookcase with a few folders of paperwork, and no computer. Yet.
She wondered what had arrived for her. Ruth had sent a parcel, but it was unlikely to be here already.
It wasn’t a parcel, it was a person. Engrossed in an old map of Goa on the wall, the visitor turned when Helen stopped in the doorway, with her mouth wide open.
‘You’re hard to find,’ said Jason.
He’d changed since she last saw him two months ago. He was no longer battered and bruised as he had been when she’d left him in hospital, but also seemed stronger and taller, as if he’d grown now that he was away from his father’s influence. Days of travelling had given him a rumpled look, but despite the five o’clock shadow on his chin, the goatee, which Helen saw as the essence of him, was still clearly defined.
She’d thought of a million things she might say to him if she ever saw him again, but every single rehearsed conversation went out of her head like it never happened. In three long strides she was halfway across the room. They met in the middle, and he scooped her up in his arms and spun her round, laughing and with no attempt at hiding the tears in his eyes.
‘Are you hard to find, or what?’ he said again.
Without shoes, Helen had to stand on her toes. Draping her arms around his neck, she accepted a kiss from him which brought a flood of emotions to her throat, feelings she thought she’d managed to suppress by telling herself she’d done the right thing.