Desert Barbarian

She smiled at him. 'No, just the weather…'

'Good old English weather,' he grinned. 'It always comes up trumps! Every continental holiday I've ever had I've come back to find weather like this—laid on specially, I suspect.' He was a small man, his silver hair brushed to cover the balding spot at the front of his head, his grey eyes quietly reflective. He had built up his firm from a small affair started by his father between the two world wars to a giant which was spreading across Europe at an alarming rate. Sometimes his harassed expression made his daughter afraid that James Brinton was a man who had lost touch with reality—his firm was growing too fast, beyond the grasp of one mind.

'You look tired, Dad,' she said, her expression anxious as she surveyed him.

'I've just been to see your mother,' he replied grimly, his eyes on the rain-wet windows.

'Oh.' She bit her lip. Her parents had been divorced when she was in her teens. Her beautiful blonde mother had eloped without warning with a South American millionaire, leaving a brief note for her husband. Marie had cried in secret, but in public had affected an in­difference which had gradually become second nature to her. From time to time her mother reappeared in Lon­don, always looking incredibly young and beautiful, draped in expensive furs and dripping with diamonds, her eyelashes fluttering madly every time an attractive male passed by, bringing armfuls of ludicrously inap­propriate presents for Marie. Once it had been a large doll which talked in three languages. Another time it had been a party dress four sizes too small. Her mother persisted in believing that she was still a little girl long after she had grown up. Marie had protested about this to her father, only to see him smile a little sadly and say 'My dear, your mother is terrified of growing old. While she can believe that you're still a little girl, she can believe that she's still young. Once she's forced to admit that you're a young woman she'll age mentally, and that will destroy her.'

She thought of this conversation now, watching her father's face. Did he still love her mother? He seemed to have a sensitive insight into the workings of her mind, anyway, and he had never betrayed any bitterness or hatred towards her in Marie's memory. He always saw his ex-wife when she came to England, but he gave no indication of his feelings normally, and she had no idea how he felt about her.

'She wants to see you tonight,' James Brinton added quietly without looking at her.

Marie grimaced. 'Must I?'

'She's your mother,' her father said gently.

'Whenever she remembers the fact,' Marie said with bitterness and clarity.

'All the same I think you must see her,' said James Brinton with a loving glance. 'Try to be kind to her, Marie.'

Something in his tone made Marie stare at him. 'Why? What do you mean?'

'Her husband is dead,' said James Brinton carefully.

'I see.' Marie remembered the large, perspiring cheer­ful South American without fondness.

'His sons have inherited everything,' James Brinton added without expression.

She almost laughed. 'Oh, no! So that's why she needs some kindness? She's lost the fortune she expected to inherit!'

'I don't like to hear you talking like that,' her father said at once. 'I want you to be kind to her. She's very upset.'

'Upset? Not because her husband is dead but because she doesn't get the money after all!' Marie said bitterly. 'How long is it since I last saw her? A year! And since then I haven't had a letter, not even a postcard. Did she remember my birthday? Did she send me a Christmas present? You know she didn't. Dad, why on earth should I feel anything for her?'

'I don't know any reason why you should,' he said gravely. 'It's harder for you to forgive her than it is for me, I realise that. A child always feels more strongly about such a desertion. But she's still your mother and she's unhappy, whether you recognise the validity of her reason for being unhappy or not. Marie, you're old enough to know that no human being is perfect. Your mother was never a maternal woman. She was terrified of having babies. She was always terrified of growing old. You were a sort of index by which others could calculate her age. After all, a young woman who has a twenty-year-old daughter can't be thirty-five, can she? She was never a real mother to you, I know, but if you can be adult enough to forget that, she could still be your friend. And she needs a friend at the moment.'

'Oh, Dad! Why are you so saintly?' Marie laughed, close to tears.

'Perhaps because I realise that I should never have married Clare in the first place,' he said. 'I was always older than she was, not just in years but in mind. She wanted parties, dancing, a host of admirers. I was engrossed in the business, building it up and expanding everywhere. I had no time to squire her around every night. So I just ignored the problem and let her do as she pleased. Of course, we drifted apart. When she left me it was only the inevitable outcome of our incompatibility. I felt responsible, in a way. I talked her into marrying me. Clare always had doubts, but I steamrollered her into marriage.'

'You must have loved her very much, Dad.' Marie felt half embarrassed at these revelations.

'I was crazy about her,' he admitted with a little grimace of self-derision. 'I couldn't rest until I'd per­suaded her to marry me. Then, of course, I turned back to my work and left her to get on with a life she had never really wanted. She just wasn't cut out to be a dutiful wife and mother. She wanted the glamour of high society, and she got it in the end.'

'And now she's lost it,' Marie said thoughtfully.

'That's why she needs your help,' he said, patting her hand. 'Be a good child. Go to her tonight—have dinner with her at her hotel. Listen to her troubles and try to be sympathetic. Try to see her, not as your runaway mother, but as a complete stranger. If you do, I think you'll find her charming and pathetic, a lost little girl in a hostile world.'

'Dad, you're still… fond of her,' she said in a smoth­ered tone of wonder.

He smiled faintly. 'You sound surprised. Perhaps you're not as grown-up as you think, my dear.'

The car drew up at their block of flats. While the chauffeur struggled with the luggage, Marie and James went up in the lift to their penthouse, talking now about Marie's holiday. James laughed at her confession of bore­dom.

'I'm afraid you're spoilt. Tired of luxury hotels in­deed! What would your reaction have been if you'd arrived to find you were expected to sleep in a filthy little room with dirty sheets and no sanitation? Which is probably how many of your romantic Arabs live in those little mud-walled houses they build.'

'I saw someone building one of them,' she said. 'It was quite fascinating. He