‘I’ll soon get the hang of things,’ she said.
It was a declaration of faith. She would do so because she must; there was nothing more to be said.
The months passed. What had been strange became familiar. Language was not the problem she had anticipated; Singapore was a British colony and English widely spoken.
She became friends with one of the students. Madeleine Tan, a member of a wealthy and influential family, was a year older than Jess. She lived with her parents in a waterfront mansion near the Haw Par villa in the Pasir Panjang road, and arrived at the school every morning in a chauffeur-driven car.
At the end of the year the students had to pass an examination, both practical and theoretical, before being permitted to continue to the second and final year of their studies.
Jess wasn’t happy about her prospects because one of the tutors, a ferret-faced little man named Khoo, was offended that a Westerner should be taking the course at all and never missed an opportunity to put her down.
‘This,’ he said, pirouetting as he held up one of Jess’s dishes. ‘And what do we call this?’ He turned to the little knot of students who had become his favourites throughout the year. ‘We call it gou shi.’
He spoke in Mandarin but Jess had been taking evening classes in the language and understood.
‘Excuse me, sir, forgive my unworthy reply. It is not gou shi, dog shit, but si chuan jiang zhong de chang yu. Steamed pomfret in a spicy Szechuan sauce. Please excuse my poor pronunciation.’
Head bowed, hands clasped, she was the figure of humility, but her words were swords that punctured Khoo’s self-esteem, and, looking up at him through her long eyelashes, she saw he would have liked to kill her where she stood.
‘He’ll fail me for sure after that,’ she said to Madeleine as they left the class.
‘Perhaps not,’ Madeleine said, and smiled.
In the event both Jess and Madeleine passed with flying colours, Madeleine being placed first in the class and Jess second.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Jess said.
‘Never mind believing. Just accept.’
Jess stared at her suspiciously. ‘Tell me.’
‘Nothing to tell.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It is not right a turtle dung tutor should insult you because you are a foreigner. I mentioned it to my brother, casually, you understand, and he agreed with me. He, I believe, said something to our father. My father,’ Madeleine said carelessly, ‘donates much money each year to the university.’
‘You mean he spoke to somebody?’
‘Two things are not connected in any way,’ Madeleine said. ‘It would be most wrong of you to think otherwise.’
Jess saw three things. Firstly, Madeleine had helped her pass the year-end examination with high honours. Secondly, she would get nowhere by pursuing the matter. Thirdly, Madeleine had been correct in the advice she had given earlier. Never mind believing. Just accept.
That she would do. Wisdom might have come only by inches, but one way or another it had come.
She took Madeleine’s hands in hers. ‘Xie xie nee,’ she said. Thank you.
‘Friends help,’ Madeleine said.
Shannon sent her the money to fly back to Queensland for Christmas. She cooked them a grand Chinese banquet for Christmas Eve, looked up Jean Goujon and his assistant, who seemed to be doing well, and found she had no regrets about her career change. She had established an emotional as well as intellectual connection with the cuisine of China and couldn’t wait to get back. On 2 January 1950 she once again flew north.
The second year of the course was tougher than the first but in one way at least it was more comfortable. Tutor Khoo kept out of her way.
That year the Chinese New Year fell on 17 February, the year of the metal tiger, and Madeleine Tan invited Jess to join her and her family for their celebratory dinner at the Pasir Panjang house.
‘It is a great honour,’ Jess said.
‘It is time to greet members of my family and their friends. You are my friend and the honour is mine.’
Jess had made it her business to find out something of Chinese tradition, so when she arrived at the house she brought a circular tray of mixed fruits. The tray contained eight items in all because eight was a lucky number and the collection included kumquats, longans and watermelon seeds, all of which were supposed to bring happiness and prosperity for the year ahead.
‘You go New Year dinner with friends?’ the shopkeeper asked.
‘I’ve been invited by one of my colleagues.’
‘Most fortunate to have such friends,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘They will be most happy with this gift.’
From the outside the Tan mansion did not look much but inside was a different story, beginning with a marble-floored courtyard with a fountain leading to a succession of inner rooms.
‘I am so happy you came,’ Madeleine said. She saw the wrapped tray that Jess was carrying. ‘No need for this.’
‘For your mother,’ Jess said.
Beyond the courtyard was a room with dark furniture and three ceramic figures placed upon a type of altar.
‘Household gods,’ Madeleine explained.
This room opened into another one. Here Madam Yong, Madeleine’s mother, was seated in a chair like a throne. Madam Yong’s face was wizened and wise; months earlier Madeleine had told her she was the youngest of five children.
No wonder she looks wizened, Jess thought.
She gave Madeleine’s mother her gift of auspicious fruits; Madam Yong opened the parcel, checked its contents and smiled. She spoke to Madeleine, who nodded and turned to Jess.
‘Mother is pleased you understand our customs.’
‘I’m learning to,’ Jess said. ‘Just a little. Or I hope so.’
Yet another room lay beyond the one where they were standing. The lights were brighter there and through the open door came the sound of conversation and laughter.
‘Come in,’ Madeleine said. ‘Let me introduce you to my family.’
‘Will your father be there?’
‘Of course.’
‘I want to thank him for putting in a good word for me about that Tutor Khoo business.’
‘Say nothing,’ Madeleine said. ‘He will deny all knowledge and it will embarrass him. That is the Chinese way.’
The main reception room was huge and, unlike the rooms she had seen before, brilliantly lit. Its windows faced the sea and through the glass Jess could see the lights at the seawards end of the fishing platforms known as kelongs.
The room was crowded: Chinese for the most part but with one or two Westerners as well.
Madeleine’s father was a slightly-built man. Unlike his well-suited guests, he wore an open-necked blue shirt, a man with a ready smile and watchful eyes. Mindful of what Madeleine had said, Jess did not mention Tutor Khoo but smiled and kept her lips buttoned.
‘Welcome to my house,’ Mr Tan said.
‘Zhen she yet ge rong yu,’ Jess said in her best Mandarin. It is an honour. ‘Please excuse my bad pronunciation,’ she added in English.
Mr Tan’s eyes widened fractionally. ‘Very good,’ he said, also in English.
There were six round tables, each with places for ten. Waiters in white jackets offered plates of dim sum. Jess took siew mai, a tiny dumpling stuffed with chopped pork and shrimp.
Mr Tan was watching her. ‘You like?’
‘Delicious.’
‘From the kitchen of one of my hotels.’
‘I didn’t know you were a hotel owner.’
‘All my life, except during Japanese occupation. During the war we took refuge in India, like many others.’ His smile seemed to fill his face. ‘But that is past. What matters now is the future. You agree?’
‘My sister owns a hotel in Queensland,’ Jess said.
‘We will sit down and you will tell me about it,’ said Mr Tan.
He spoke to Madeleine, who in her turn spoke to a man in a dinner ja
cket, who rang the small silver bell he had been holding. He spoke first in Mandarin and then in English.
‘Take your places. If you please.’
Mr Tan took her arm, holding her lightly above the elbow. ‘You are sitting next to me,’ he said, leading her towards the table with the number 1 prominently displayed in its centre.
With Madeleine seated on one side and her father on the other, Jess’s memory of the banquet was of seemingly endless courses interspersed with toasts like cannon fire. All the time Madeleine’s father questioned her about her background and her sister and why she, a European, was so interested in becoming a celestial grade Chinese chef, while Jess felt more and more as though he were peeling away her skin, inch by slow inch.
By the time the banquet ended and Mr Tan told her he had arranged for a driver to take her home, she believed he had stripped her, if not quite bare, then at least to the point where he knew what she had achieved in the past and what she was hoping to achieve in the future.
Mr Tan said good night and had turned away to farewell some of his other guests when, in the marble-floored entrance hall, she caught sight of a European man she had not noticed before. He was speaking to another man and from his accent was also Australian, maybe ten years older than she. Their eyes met and she felt a shock, as though for a moment her breath had been stifled in her body.
Madeleine had said she would come in the car with her to see her safely home and Jess had been pleased; she had thought it would give her the chance to find out from her friend why her father had shown such interest in her. Now she wanted only to know who the Australian man had been, yet even this she dared not ask, for fear of what she might find out.
He is the friend of a friend, passing through, to whom hospitality has been given and who tomorrow will be gone.
He was listening to the fountain as he waited for his wife to emerge from the bathroom to rejoin him.
He is a business acquaintance notorious for his hatred of women, or is engaged to Mr Tan’s niece, or…
God alive, Jess thought. I’ve not exchanged a word with him yet I know that if he beckoned I would go to him at once.
And this was the woman who, after Grace’s twice-repeated rejection, had sworn that never again would she allow her feelings to overcome her common sense.
She thought about that as the car purred its quiet way into the city, and it was as though all the lights of all the vessels anchored out in the roads had combined to dazzle her so that she no longer knew who or where she was.
Her anchors were dragging. She had seen him for no more than a minute yet her anchors were dragging and she was drifting towards the rocks. It was impossible; of course it was impossible, yet her heart was thundering like the broadside from a man-of-war. There was a better than even chance she would never see him again, this man to whom she had not even spoken, for heaven’s sake, yet it made no difference.
She would find him because she must, and if her vessel ended wrecked upon the shore then that would be her fate.
The first six weeks of 1950 were a bad time for shipwrecks, including two submarines, a battleship, two patrol boats and several other vessels. The total might easily have been one more but wasn’t, thanks to Madeleine Tan, in whom Jess had confided.
‘You’ll think I’m mad,’ Jess said. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy.’
‘Love at first sight,’ said Madeleine, who was in love with love. ‘It can happen.’
‘Without even speaking to him? Without even knowing who he is?’
‘I can find out,’ Madeleine said.
Madeleine was enjoying every minute of what she no doubt hoped would be the start of a romantic saga, but to Jess it was embarrassment and pain. To have fallen helplessly in love with someone she didn’t know? It could not be real yet the pain certainly was, no doubt about that.
The school had re-opened after the lunar new year when Madeleine said she had some information about the man Jess had seen at the banquet.
‘Australian man,’ Madeleine said importantly. ‘Works at Raffles Hotel.’
‘A chef?’
‘Under-manager.’
‘A friend of your father?’
‘Business friend, I think.’
‘Does he have a name?’
‘Strange name. Blan-dun. Blandun Gey Han. Very strange name.’ Madeleine smiled like a conspirator. ‘You want to meet?’
Blan-dun? Brandon, perhaps.
Did she want to meet him? Dare she? Move too slowly, she’d lose him. Move too fast, she’d lose him. Not that he was hers to lose, anyway. She drew a deep breath. ‘I’d like that. But how?’
‘I can find a way,’ Madeleine said.
The next Friday Madeleine said: ‘Tomorrow at eleven o’clock. Adelphi coffee shop. Best Danish pastries in Singapore. OK?’
Conspiracy was Madeleine Tan’s second name.
‘OK,’ Jess said.
When they arrived at the Adelphi the café was only half full. They went to the counter and ordered coffee and selected their cakes. They went and sat down. Jess was not surprised to see the man Madeleine called Blan-dun sitting in the far corner of the café. He was alone.
A loud exclamation from Madeleine, who crossed the room to greet the Australian. They laughed and smiled, while Jess watched.
Madeleine turned and beckoned to her. Come, the gesture said. Come and join us.
Jess grabbed her coffee and pastry and crossed the room. She put them down and would have gone back for Madeleine’s cup and plate had she not beaten her to it.
‘I’ll get mine,’ Madeleine said.
And was gone before she could protest. Jess and the man, the man, were left staring at each other.
‘Hi,’ Jess said.
‘Hi.’
‘Mind if I sit down?’
‘Help yourself.’
She did so. The waves were breaking along the shore; any minute now she’d be on the rocks. And she without a word to say about it, or about anything.
He’ll think I’m a moron.
He’d be right.
‘My name is Jess,’ she said. ‘Jess Harcourt.’
‘Brandon,’ he said. ‘Brandon Graham.’
Such sparkling conversation.
Madeleine returned with her cup and plate. She sat down. She chatted, clatter-clack. While Jess sat. Brandon didn’t have much to say for himself, either. Madeleine scoffed her cake, swallowed the last of her coffee and got to her feet.
‘Must run.’
Jess looked at her. Help.
Madeleine wasn’t having any. ‘My aunt. I told you. Remember?’
She was gone.
Jess and Brandon, staring across an emptiness aching to be filled. Since Brandon showed no sign of filling anything, she thought she’d better do it herself.
‘I saw you at the Tans’ place the other night,’ she said.
Still nothing.
‘It was a good evening.’ Smiling brightly, the queen of conversationalists.
‘Yes,’ he said.
She supposed it was an advance, of a sort.
‘I saw you as I was leaving.’
‘I saw you, too.’
Walking on stilts might have been easier.
‘If I’m in the way, say so and I’ll leave you in peace,’ Jess said.
‘Not at all. Stay, if you like. I’d like you to stay.’
Stay she did, recognising progress when she saw it. But progress towards what? She desired him, had from that first glimpse after the New Year banquet; Madeleine the conspirator had found out facts about him: single, no kids, never been married, had fought as a sapper in the war, now was one of three under-managers at Raffles Hotel – but facts alone told her nothing. She did not know him although, the attraction as strong as ever, she hoped she might, in time. For the moment she was content to grope in the dark, seeking the core and marrow of the man, knowing that at the same time she was seeking a life outside herself.
Brandon had a sailing boat that he kept at
the Royal Singapore Yacht Club. There were lots of boats there – Fireflies, Dragons, Sydney Harbour skiffs – but sailing had always been Shannon’s thing rather than her own.
Brandon’s boat was not of any class and that pleased her. He did not race and that pleased her more. She saw no point in racing but was happy to go out with him to explore the islands and reefs under the equatorial sun.
He had snorkel gear and he guided her down into the blue underworld of the sea, the reef like a vast cliff rising silently above them. She stared through the window of her face mask and saw the eyes of fish watching her from their hiding places in the chinks and alleyways of the rock.
Brandon was no talker but as the weeks went by she felt she was growing closer to this man who had appeared unannounced in what she had believed was her secure world. Secure no longer, it was as restless as the sea that in her memory sang her to sleep each night. And always Brandon was there: in her work as in her sleep. She had been concerned her growing feelings for him might distract her from her work, but they had the opposite effect. She had always striven for perfection; now she redoubled her efforts because she felt his presence in the art that was beginning to consume her life without in any way damaging the relationship that was doing the same thing.
They had not kissed; they had barely touched, yet Jess’s world had shrunk to a kitchen and a man. In the sea’s dark depths they came closest to each other, like birds, wingtips touching, gliding across an immensity of sky.
‘Be normal. Be natural.’
Shannon had said that to her once. It would have helped had she known what normal and natural were.
She needed Brandon, was scared of growing too close to him and yet was unable to help herself. Adrift, with anchors dragging…
Shannon had told her of a magical sound you could hear only when sailing at night, the whisper of waves along a yacht’s hull. Was that what she was waiting to hear? If she listened attentively enough, between the pulsing of her heart, might she not be hearing it already?
She thought about that in her trishaw trip back to the flat. Adrift, with anchors dragging…
Did she love him? Truly love him? If she did, being too close was an impossibility. If she did not, the only option was to walk away.
White Sands of Summer Page 26
