by Clare Flynn
She decided to go for a walk instead and look for inspiration. She could take her sketch book and gather some ideas then play with them when she got back. If she went for just an hour, she’d have the rest of the afternoon to work on what she’d found. Maybe she’d start small – gather some leaves, patterns of tree bark, the shapes of shadows on the ground, the splash of colour from orchids in the forest, or the receding perspective of endless ranks of rubber trees. Packing her satchel with a pad, some pencils, her portable tin water holder and a tiny palette of watercolours, she turned to leave the studio.
There in the doorway was the dark outline of Bintang. He seemed to take pleasure in creeping up on her.
‘You say you want paint me. Now is good time?’
Surprised, she put down her satchel. ‘Yes, of course. If you’re not needed elsewhere.’
He didn’t reply, but came into the room, looking around him. ‘This was place for last Mem’s gardening equipment.’
‘Last Mem?’ For a moment she thought he must mean her own mother, then she reminded herself that, before the war, Reggie had been married to the woman she had called Aunty Susan, who during the war had shared a house with her, Mummy and Hugh while they were in Australia. Jasmine had forgotten Susan had been Mrs Hyde-Underwood, before the war changed everything. Susan’s little boy, Stanford, used to be Hugh’s best friend. Jasmine hadn’t known Reggie then. He’d had to stay behind in Singapore and was imprisoned by the Japanese. It was hard to imagine Reggie with Susan. Such a different person from Mary. But then Mary had been a prisoner too. Jasmine imagined an experience like that must change people.
‘Last Mem grow many orchid.’
‘Really?’ Jasmine couldn’t picture Aunty Susan as a gardener. In Australia the former Mrs Hyde-Underwood had been more interested in getting her hair done and spending time with her friends at the hospital where she volunteered. Susan had had a rather strident laugh, as though trying to convince herself she was happy when she wasn’t really. It was odd that Jasmine hadn’t given Susan a thought in all this time. Mary and Reggie were such a devoted couple.
Changing the subject, she said, ‘I think I’ll do your head and shoulders only. A close portrait of your face.’ She pulled a canvas chair over to the centre of the room and asked him to sit.
Once again, Jasmine noticed the fluidity of his cat-like movements: he glided rather than walked. Capturing that sense of motion could not be done with a static pose. The sketches she planned to make while he was cleaning the car would be essential. Should she tell him what she intended to do? She didn’t want him to be self-conscious and hence behave in an artificial way, so she probably wouldn’t. But sketching him as he went about his work, without telling him she was doing it, could be construed as a form of theft. How might he react if he found out – or if she showed him afterwards? She’d worry about that when the time came. Right now, she wanted to capture his face, his velvet-dark eyes, his aquiline nose.
Jasmine adjusted her easel, then took a fine brush, squeezed a tiny amount of burnt sienna into a saucer of turpentine, mixed it to a thin solution and used the brush to form the outline of his head. Using the diluted paint, she drew the basic framework of his skull until she’d settled on the correct proportions. Absorbed in her task, Jasmine moved rapidly, working now with larger brushes and directly in oils. The smell of the paint, cut through with the sharp tangy aroma of the turpentine, filled the air in the shed.
She lost track of time as she applied the paint, building up patterns of dark and light, forming the sharp contours of Bintang’s face with the oil paint. Her challenge was balancing the sculpted angles of his face with his smooth complexion and the dark richness of his hair.
Bintang sat, motionless, and she marvelled at his self-containment. Most sitters by now would be fidgeting, impatient.
‘You’re a good subject. You’ve not moved a muscle. You make it easy for me.’
He said nothing, continuing to stare into space. She wondered what he was thinking about. Usually this kind of self-possession and tranquility in a sitter would be welcome, but Jasmine gradually began feeling uncomfortable and wanting to fill the silence. There was an intensity in him, a pent-up anger that both scared and fascinated her.
Eventually, she decided to force him to break his silence. ‘Tell me more about how it was here during the war. I’m really curious. I was so young, but my memories of the Japanese planes are still vivid. I’d ask the Hyde-Underwoods, only my mother told me they wouldn’t want to talk about it. Same with Arthur, my step-father.’
‘So why you think I tell you?’ His voice was neutral. ‘Why I talk about it?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose because you’ve already told me about your parents and Siti. And you weren’t a prisoner, so I thought you could tell me about everyday life here. How it was for you and your grandmother. I mean after the invasion, during the years of occupation.’
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Everyone in Penang a prisoner. You say everyday life. Like it easy. You think because Tuan and Mem are in camp they suffer worst.’
‘I didn’t mean that at all.’
‘You think see your sister have head blown off is everyday life?’
‘Of course not.’ She wished she had never embarked on this. ‘That must have been utterly hateful. I can’t imagine how it must have felt. But that was at the beginning of the war. The Japs were here for more than four years.’
‘You think I got used to them being here? You think after while I forget what they do to my mother and sister?’
‘No. I suppose not.’
His face contorted. ‘Every time I see Japanese soldier I want to kill him. Cut throat from ear to ear. Every time I see Japanese soldier I see sister die again. I see again my mother screaming. See her pushed into lorry and taken away. See myself digging hole in ground for sister’s grave. See a bloody hole in her head where her face used to be.’
Jasmine put down her paintbrush and covered her face with her hands.
‘Every day I want to go into jungle to find my father and help him kill Japanese soldiers. But I must stay here like a girl with grandmother. I must stay and watch my cousin taken away to police station and never come out again.’ He spoke the words with a contemptuous snarl.
‘They imprisoned your cousin?’
‘When go to police station in George Town no one come out. They torture for days, then they kill.’
‘What had your cousin done?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why did they take him then?’
‘They say he spy. Take messages to MPAJA.’
The Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army was, she remembered, the guerrilla fighters Reggie said Arthur had fought with. The fighting force that were supposed to have disbanded after the war but had morphed into the MNLA. ‘And was he a spy?’
‘My cousin not right in head. Never grow up. Like little boy. Too stupid to be spy. But they take him to police station in George Town and torture him and then they cut his head off. Put it on post on Weld Quay.’
A wave of nausea swept over her. ‘I’m so sorry, Bintang. How old was your cousin and what was his name?’
He grunted and for the first time moved out of his pose, looking her straight in the eye. ‘Ayyash. Name mean long life. He nineteen when die.’ Bintang rose from the chair. ‘I go now. Drive Tuan to George Town.’
Jasmine was relieved. She was desperate to be alone. ‘Goodness, is that the time?’ she said quickly, trying to cover her confusion. ‘I’ve almost finished,’ she lied. ‘Perhaps we can have another session one day when you have more free time.’ She turned away and dipped a brush in the jar of turpentine, then wiped it with a rag.
‘Excuse me for barging in on you.’ Mary stepped over the threshold, doing a double-take when she saw Bintang. ‘Frances is having a nap, so I thought we could have a look at those French irregular verbs that are giving you so much trouble.’ She looked again at Bintang and frowned slightly. ‘But if th
is isn’t a good time?’
Bintang said, ‘We done.’ He slipped outside and hurried away.
‘You’ve been painting his portrait? Am I allowed to have a look?’
‘Of course. But it isn’t finished.’ Jasmine felt herself blushing. Mary was clearly wondering why she was spending her time painting one of the servants. Jasmine hadn’t even asked him if he was off duty. She hoped she hadn’t got him into trouble.
Mary moved behind the easel. She looked at the portrait for several moments, while Jasmine busied herself cleaning the brushes.
‘You’re very talented, Jasmine. You’ve really captured Bintang. The rather arrogant expression, his guarded nature, those dark soulful eyes. It’s unmistakably him. You must show Reggie. Not that he knows a lot about art, but he will definitely see the likeness.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me painting him. He has an interesting face, especially in profile and he said he had some free time.’
‘He’s driving Reggie into town this evening so, yes, he’s free this afternoon. Reggie’s got something on at the Club and I don’t like him driving back up here at night with all those hairpin bends after he’s had the inevitable number of stengahs.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘So, it’ll be just us at supper tonight.’
Mary moved to a table at the back of the studio where Jasmine had gathered a collection of objects – oddly-shaped pebbles, pieces of bark, shells from the beach.
‘This reminds me of the nature table we used to have at school,’ said Mary. ‘Do you remember? We should set one up at the school in the kampong – we could ask the children to bring in any interesting objects.’ She picked up a brightly coloured feather and stroked it across the back of her hand before replacing it on the table. ‘French verbs, then?’
Jasmine gave a resigned nod.
‘Only I did promise your mother I’d make sure you were ready for the examinations.’
Jasmine smiled. ‘I hate French. But it’s a jolly sight more bearable with you than it was with the nuns in Nairobi.’
* * *
After they had eaten that evening, Mary and Jasmine sat together on the veranda, as the cicadas buzzed and the sounds of nightbirds and other creatures drifted towards them from the copse of hardwood trees behind the plantation bungalow.
‘I rather put my foot in it with Bintang today,’ Jasmine said. ‘I made the mistake of asking him what it was like here under the Japs.’
She sensed Mary stiffen.
‘Did he tell you?’
‘Not much. But what he did tell me, I wish I hadn’t heard.’
‘Then forget about it.’ Mary’s tone was unusually curt. ‘Best not to dig over these things.’
’I hope you don’t mind that I was painting him?’
‘Why should I mind?’
‘I suppose with him being one of the servants.’
‘That makes no difference to me. Reggie too. You can paint whom you please. I was rather surprised Bintang was willing to sit for you though.’
‘I don’t think Howard likes him.’
‘Really? Why’s that?’
Jasmine had the impression that Mary wasn’t all that interested in the answer, so she shrugged – she didn’t want to admit that Howard had told her he was jealous of Bintang. Too embarrassing. ‘No reason that I could understand.’
‘So, that’s why you decided to paint him?’ There was the shadow of a smile on Mary’s face.
‘I’m painting him because he has an interesting face. In fact, I find him a thoroughly interesting person. He reminds me of a cat. Maybe because I never hear him coming. I turn round and he’s there.’
‘Are you frightened of him?’ Mary looked alarmed.
’No! Not at all. It was an observation not a criticism. I like him very much; even though I may have offended him by asking him so many questions.’
‘I doubt that. If he’d been offended, he wouldn’t have answered them.’
Jasmine nodded. ‘I suppose that’s true.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘I can’t imagine Bintang would ever do anything he didn’t want to do.’
Mary got up from her chair. ‘School tomorrow. An early night for me.’
‘That’s a jolly good idea.’
Jasmine was grateful for the chance to get to her room where she could mull over what had happened today. Understanding other human beings was even more complicated than French irregular verbs.
She noticed that someone, Jinjiang possibly, had returned the Perry Como record to where it had been on top of the tallboy. She should have thought to do that herself. Imagine if Reggie had decided to play it one evening. She picked the record up, put it inside a drawer and covered it with her underwear.
It was only then that she remembered she’d never read the note she’d found inside the sleeve. She’d slipped it into the pocket of the dress she’d been wearing that day. She located the right frock in the wardrobe and retrieved the paper. Crumpling it into a tight ball, she decided she wouldn’t read it and flung it into the litter basket.
Curiosity got the better of her after a few minutes, so she fished it out again, uncurled it and flattened the creases. She sat down on the edge of the bed and started to read.
‘Dear Jasmine,
Yet again I have managed to upset you. Please forgive me. I always open my mouth before I’ve put my brain in gear. You must think me a pompous twit for going on about the political situation when I’ve only been in Malaya five minutes. I’m trying desperately hard to understand the country and, if I’m honest, trying too hard to impress you. You must think me a shallow show off.
Jasmine found herself smiling, imagining him writing it. She read on.
And I know my bringing up that Perry Como recording must have embarrassed you. If I could wind the clock back, I would. The last thing I want to do is upset you or hurt you. I’d rather hoped you’d have come along to the cricket this morning. It would have given me a chance to make amends.
I don’t know when we will get a chance to meet again. Every day until then I’ll be fuelled by hope that you will have managed to forgive me. I have no right to expect it but I can’t help but hope.
It was signed only with his initial. She was glad he hadn’t signed it ‘with love’. He had rather nice handwriting, bold and confident. She read the note again, then went across the room and placed it underneath the record in her drawer.
18
A few days later, Jasmine and Mary had returned from the school and were about to go in to lunch, when Reggie burst into the house and onto the side veranda to find them.
‘Not like you to be late for tiffin, darling.’ Mary smiled.
‘We need to talk.’ Reggie’s face was ashen.
‘Then we can talk over lunch. Jinjiang is about to serve.’ She saw his face and frowned. ‘Here, sit down and get your breath back. You look white as a sheet.’
‘No. It can’t wait.’ Reggie’s expression was grim. ‘This is serious.’ Exchanging glances, Mary and Jasmine perched on the edges of their chairs. Reggie’s tone shocked Jasmine. Normally such a genial man, he was almost barking at them.
Mary looked up at her husband. ‘What’s happened? What on earth’s wrong, Reggie? You’re frightening Jasmine.’
‘I’ve had a phone call in the office. There’s been an incident.’
‘An incident?’
He lowered his voice but Jasmine could still hear what he was saying. ‘More than an incident. The commies have shot three planters dead.’
Jasmine’s hand shot up to her mouth. A spike of fear rushed through her. Not Howard. Please not Howard. The force of her terror surprised her.
Mary spoke calmly, ‘Who? When? Where?’
‘In Sungei Siput. This morning. They’ve been ringing round everyone but we’re at the end of the chain since we’re over here on the island. This is it, Mary. This is war.’ Reggie’s expression was grim and he was speaking faster than usual. ‘Dear God, we’ve barely recovered from the last one.’ His face looked ha
ggard, his eyes wild.
Mary got up and placed her hands on his arms. ‘Calm down, Reggie.’ She then addressed Jasmine without turning to look at her. ‘Go in and ask Jinjiang to make tea. Strong with plenty of sugar.’
Jasmine was about to go, when Jinjiang, as if telepathic, appeared at the entrance to the veranda. Mary issued her instructions again.
‘It’s not tea, I need, it’s a damn stiff scotch.’
‘Well you can’t have one, darling. It sounds as though you’ll need to keep a clear head.’
Reggie ignored her and went inside to the cocktail cabinet in the sitting room beyond. He swigged down a gulp of whisky and settled himself in one of the veranda chairs with the tumbler. ‘I was at Sungei Siput only a couple of weeks ago. There was a meeting to discuss holding the line against the strikers.’ He glanced at Jasmine, then looked at Mary, who immediately said, ‘She’s nearly seventeen. She needs to understand what’s happening.’
Reggie looked down. ‘Soon after nine this morning. Three men on bicycles arrived at Elphil’s Estate. All Chinese. Walker was in the office and they went in, greeted him with a friendly “Tabek, Tuan!”. Walker returned the greeting and they shot him twice, there at his desk in front of the Indian clerk. Straight through the heart.’
‘Oh my God! That’s horrible. Wally Walker! Is Verna all right?’
‘Verna’s fine. Well, she’s obviously in shock at losing her husband like that, poor woman. She’d gone into Kuala Kangsar early that morning to do some shopping so wasn’t there when it happened. She and Wally were due to go on home leave. Bloody awful timing.’ Reggie took another gulp of scotch. ‘The poor clerk was scared out of his skin but they didn’t touch him. Looked him right in the eye, then one of them spat at him. Must have wanted a witness. That’s the kind of men they are. Cold-blooded killers. They want to put the fear of God in people. They walked away and escaped on their bikes as if nothing had happened. There was money in the safe but they didn’t touch it.’
