The Eden Legacy

III

Rebecca drove briskly north, anxious to make good time yet without drawing attention to herself. A bank of smoke from some charcoal makers drifted like fog across the road, making her eyes smart and her throat tickle enough to send her into a coughing fit. She came out the far side to find a bus unloading passengers, forcing her to brake sharply and swerve. A pair of panicked goats scrambled over each other to squirm through sliver-thin gaps in the fence, while a girl in a cut-down wedding dress snatched up a scrawny black chicken from almost beneath her wheel.

The guard on duty outside Mustafa’s house flicked away his cigarette as he sauntered across, blowing smoke out his nostrils in twin plumes, like a cold-weather bull. Mustafa was in Tulear, he told her. She asked for Ahdaf instead. He slouched back to his hut, then beckoned Rebecca over so that she could speak to Ahdaf herself on the intercom. ‘I’m afraid my father had some business in Tulear this morning,’ said Ahdaf. ‘But he should be here in an hour or two, if you’d like to come back.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Rebecca, who’d anticipated this possibility. ‘It’s actually you I wanted to talk to.’

‘Me? What about?’

‘You made some very perceptive comments about my programmes the other night,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about them a great deal. I’d like to talk to you about them, if that’s okay.’

‘Oh!’ Ahdaf sounded thrown. ‘Then yes, come on in.’

The gates slid open as Rebecca returned to her Toyota. She drove up to the house, looking all around her for anything out of place. The front doors opened as she parked, and Ahdaf emerged, swathed in silks. She led Rebecca around to a shaded veranda with a long glass table. Two maids appeared from nowhere to lay a tablecloth, napkins, cutlery and bone china. ‘I don’t have long,’ said Ahdaf. ‘My studies, you understand.’

‘Then let me get straight down to it,’ nodded Rebecca. ‘I feel the same way about science as you obviously do. Truth should be enough. But it isn’t. Natural selection operates on TV just like in any competitive environment. The weakest programmes are ruthlessly killed off. You need special qualities to survive, let alone prosper. My programmes succeeded because they were fresh and startling and they looked damned good. But audiences grow bored. They crave the new. What you said the other night-’

Ahdaf had the grace to blush. ‘I didn’t mean to-’

‘It’s okay. You were right. My last few programmes have been flat. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. And I’ve been thinking about moving to the other side of the camera anyway. Maybe now’s the time.’ She looked Ahdaf straight in the eye. ‘But do you know what I’ll need most, if I’m to become a successful director or producer?’

Ahdaf’s mouth turned sour, as though suddenly she understood what was going on. ‘Money, I suppose?’

‘No,’ laughed Rebecca. ‘Money’s easy. Money’s everywhere. Talent is what I need. Specifically, I need a qualified zoologist with zest, youth and beauty. A young woman of forceful ideas, and with the confidence to express them. Someone who can dazzle a screen; someone exotic. And preferably someone fluent in French as well as English, because my programmes do very good business in France.’

Ahdaf placed a hand on her chest. ‘You can’t mean-’

‘Ahdaf,’ said Rebecca earnestly, ‘have you ever considered a career in television?’

Ahdaf looked up and away, her eyes glinting. Rebecca remembered the moment she’d got her own series; the intoxication of it, the absurd conviction of how perfect life would now be. ‘It’s not…’ stammered Ahdaf. ‘No, that is, I have sometimes thought I might be… but my father wouldn’t-’

‘This isn’t an offer, you understand,’ said Rebecca. ‘I’m only asking hypothetically.’

‘Hypothetically.’ Ahdaf seized gratefully on the word. ‘Yes. I think I can say that hypothetically I’d be interested.’

‘Good. Then may I ask you some questions?’

‘Of course. Of course.’

‘Thank you. When do you finish at university?’

‘This summer.’

‘Are you planning postgraduate studies?’

‘Yes. In Antananarivo.’ Then she added hurriedly: ‘But that’s not definite.’

‘If I could arrange for a scholarship to Oxford, would you consider that?’

‘Oxford?’ Ahdaf swallowed. ‘Yes. I think I could-’

‘Do you drink?’

‘No.’

‘Drugs?’

‘No.’

‘You have a boyfriend?’

‘No.’

‘A girlfriend?’

Ahdaf blushed furiously. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘If I’m to put my reputation and my business behind you, I need to know what I’m getting. Do you have a girlfriend?’

‘I… No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not like that.’

‘Good. Is there any reason you wouldn’t live in England?’

Ahdaf made fists of her hands. ‘I don’t know… Wouldn’t there be immigration and work permits and-’

‘I have people to take care of all that,’ said Rebecca airily. ‘I mean personal reasons. Would you get homesick? Are you promised in marriage to some nice Indian boy? Would your family stand in your way?’

Ahdaf said defiantly. ‘They could try.’

Rebecca stood up, walked around the table, tugged back Ahdaf’s silk head-scarf, combed her fingers through the wiry, shoulder-length black hair. She tilted back Ahdaf’s chin, examined her throat, her profile, her pierced but empty ears. She asked: ‘What about your hair? Would you want to keep it covered on TV?’

‘I… Yes. It is… That is, yes, it’s part of-’

‘That may be a problem,’ said Rebecca. She took a pinch of Ahdaf’s sleeve, rubbed the silk between her fingers. ‘And these clothes wouldn’t do at all.’

‘But your programmes aren’t on fashion,’ protested Ahdaf. ‘They’re on science.’

‘No,’ said Rebecca. ‘They’re on television.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh well. Best to know early. Too bad, though. I really thought you-’

‘I’m sure something can be arranged,’ said Ahdaf quickly.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m sure we can find a compromise.’

Rebecca snorted. ‘Oh yes. I know compromise. You pretend you’ll do what I tell you until the last moment, and then I’ll be screwed.’

‘I wouldn’t be like that.’

‘How can I be sure? You’re implying you’ll agree some time in the future. If so, why not now? Don’t you realise what I’m offering you? Do you imagine I’d risk my reputation on someone who thinks her hair too precious to-’

‘Okay,’ said Ahdaf.

‘You’ll go bareheaded if I tell you to?’

Ahdaf twisted her hands in her lap. ‘Yes,’ she murmured.

‘Sorry? I didn’t hear.’

‘Yes,’ said Ahdaf, more loudly.

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes, I’d go bareheaded if you told me to.’

‘Good.’ Rebecca reached to take Ahdaf’s hands from her lap. She separated them, examined the stubby fingers artificially lengthened by false nails of burnished brown; the smudges of ink on her index finger and thumb. ‘You’ll wear what I tell you to wear?’

‘Yes,’ said Ahdaf.

‘Clothes that showed off your figure?’

‘I…’ Ahdaf bowed her head. ‘Yes.’

‘That flattered your breasts and waist and hips?’

Ahdaf’s head drooped lower and lower. ‘Yes.’

‘That showed your cleavage?’

‘Yes.’

Rebecca pushed back Ahdaf’s sleeve and jangling silver bracelets, revealed dark forearms soft with downy black hair. She reached up inside the material all the way along Ahdaf’s arm to her shoulder. ‘Clothes that showed your legs and arms?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll put yourself completely in my hands?’

‘Yes.’

Rebecca leaned backwards. ‘Why do I get the impression you’ll be too proud to take orders?’

Ahdaf said softly: ‘I can take orders.’

‘From me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll obey me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look at me, Ahdaf.’ Ahdaf raised her eyes slowly, reluctantly. Their gazes met and locked. Ahdaf seemed to quiver, almost to shrink. ‘Sometimes, to succeed,’ said Rebecca, ‘we must do things we wouldn’t want to do, things that clash with our image of ourselves. I need to know you’ll do such things, if I tell you they need to be done.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘I can’t predict that,’ answered Rebecca. ‘Each person balks at different obstacles. I only know that if you want to succeed, you must be willing to sacrifice everything else, including your pride. Are you willing?’

‘Yes,’ said Ahdaf quietly.

‘Your family? Your friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘Without protest? Without bitterness?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good,’ said Rebecca. ‘Then take me to your room. I need to see you in some other clothes.’