Peony stood by her on the bank, but on spotting George she stepped behind Sylvia as if anxious. He would not have recognized her in a different context, though the marks of abuse were more prominent now that her skin was clean. Her hair was pulled back from her face, exposing high cheekbones and huge cornflower blue eyes and a mouth too wide for her delicate jaw and pointed chin. It was a face of such otherworldly beauty, George’s initial glimpse of it affected him like a slap and he felt a measure of alarm. Both Peony and Sylvia wore halters fashioned from his shirt and, while they did not much resemble one another, this made them seem like a mother and daughter – he doubted Sylvia was older than twenty-two or twenty-three, yet she possessed a maturity that lent her a maternal aspect when compared with Peony. George found appealing the notion that the three of them might constitute a family.
‘I’m George,’ he said to Peony. ‘Do you remember me?’
Peony had been peering at him over Sylvia’s shoulder, but now she looked away, showing him her left profile.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
She kept her eyes averted. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘You needn’t be afraid. The people who hurt you . . .’
‘It’s not them she’s afraid of,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s Griaule.’
‘He wants to show me something,’ Peony said. ‘But I won’t look.’
George rubbed at an ache in his shoulder. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We’ll be fine.’ Sylvia fixed him with a stare, as if daring him to object. ‘Peony will be safe here, won’t she?’
‘Oh, yes. Absolutely.’ He continued to rub his shoulder and asked Peony how she knew Griaule’s mind.
‘It’s not so clear with the scale Sylvia gave me,’ Peony said. ‘Mine was better. But . . .’
George waited for her to go on. She fingered the ends of her hair and did not speak.
‘What’s not so clear?’ he asked.
‘It’s like he’s whispering to me, but there’s no voice.’
‘You hear him talking? He talks to you?’
‘He wants me to look at something awful,’ she said. ‘He wants us all to look.’
‘Do you ever hear him without touching the scale? After I took you from the Snellings, did you hear him then?’
She shot George a quizzical look. ‘Lots of people hear him when he’s angry.’
‘Do you think the Snellings heard him?’
‘I’ve got to get to my fishing. The later the hour, the harder they are to catch.’ Sylvia went to one knee and began rolling up a pants leg. ‘If you two could look after each other, maybe gather some fruit, that would be nice.’
George frowned. ‘I was going to collect some saplings I can use for poles. You know, for the shelter.’
‘Is there a reason you can’t take her with you?’ Sylvia came to her feet and said under her breath, ‘I need time to myself.’ She nodded at Peony and grimaced, as if to imply the girl was a trial, and then, in a normal voice: ‘See if you can bring back some grapes. I’m told there used to be grapevines out here.’
‘Grapes!’ Peony’s giggle seemed edged with dementia.
‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘What about them?’
‘You might as well eat eyes. That’s what Edgar says.’
‘Edgar?’
‘The man living with her parents,’ said George.
‘They don’t taste like eyes,’ Peony said. ‘But they’re squishy like eyes.’
‘How does he know?’ Sylvia asked her. ‘Is Edgar an eye-eater? Does he relish a nice eye on occasion? Does he dip ’em in melted butter and let ’em slide down his gullet?’
Peony appeared to struggle with the question; her expression lost its sharpness and her gaze wandered.
‘I’ll wager he’s an eye-eater,’ Sylvia said. ‘Most men are.’
That conversation, George discovered, was Peony at her most coherent. Much of the time she was unresponsive, even when asked a direct question, and she would hum or sing in her pale voice, fiddling with a leaf or a pebble, whatever fell to hand. Nevertheless he managed to piece together a vision of her life with Edgar and the Snellings. She declined to talk about Sandra – her face tightened each time George broached the subject – but said that Mr Snelling had been in the habit of grabbing her whenever Sandra chose not to perform her wifely duty; he would turn Peony ‘bottoms up’ and beat her for her lack of enthusiasm. Edgar had weaseled his way into her affections, pretending to be a friend, and cajoled her into using her mouth to soothe him after a hard day of eating mangos. His fondness for sexual practices associated with sailors on long voyages had alienated Peony, yet she spoke of him fondly in contrast to her remarks about the Snellings. Having learned all this, George reserved the majority of his loathing for Edgar. Younger and stronger than the Snellings, he might have assisted Peony, but chose instead to gratify his lust, helping transform her into this broken thing.
