by Clare Flynn
He gives me another of those tight, grim smiles – his kind face lit by the full moon reflected on the water. He flicks the starter, lets out the clutch and we set off towards my bungalow.
When we pull up outside, on a sudden impulse I ask whether he is staying in town or returning to Bella Vista, the rubber estate he manages for Evie, at the top of the island. When he says he is driving back, I find myself telling him he can stay the night and sleep in what had been my parents’ room.
‘You don’t want to drive all the way up there in the dark. The road is probably pot-holed.’
He hesitates for a moment then says, ‘If you don’t mind? It’s not too much trouble?’
‘It will be nice to know that someone else is here in the house.’
That decides him, and he follows me up the pathway.
13
Nightmare
Inside the house, I make a pot of tea and we sit at the kitchen table to drink it. Nervous and awkward, I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have asked Reggie to stay the night. He might misinterpret my motives, or someone might see him leaving tomorrow morning and jump to conclusions.
As if reading my mind, he coughs. ‘Maybe I should go? I shouldn’t have imposed on you, Mary. I’d intended to stay at the E&O but they only have a few rooms open so far and those were all taken. I’ll drive back to Bella Vista tonight. It’s not that late and I know the road well.’
I can tell he doesn’t really want to go. His face shows his tiredness.
‘Don’t be daft, Reggie. I told you, I’m glad of the company. The bed in my parents’ room is made up anyway, so it’s no trouble at all – you might as well make use of it. And how could I live with myself if you were found in your car at the bottom of a gully tomorrow?’
He leans back in his chair and drinks his tea.
For some reason, I don’t want him to go. His presence is reassuring. Reggie is a thoroughly nice man. Decent. I like to think Frank would approve if he could see me here, sharing a companionable cup of tea with his brother. And he would also be pleased that I had managed to get out of the house tonight and do something normal for once.
I look up and see Reggie is studying my face.
‘You look thoughtful,’ he says.
‘I was thinking about Frank. You’re like him in many ways.’
Reggie gives me a rueful smile. ‘Certainly not in appearance. Old Frank got the lion’s share of the good looks in our family.’
I wish I hadn’t brought the subject up, as it would be hard to disagree with him. No one would describe Reggie as handsome, whereas Frank fitted the template of the dashing RAF pilot, with film star good looks. But Reggie has kind eyes. And a nice smile.
‘I can’t imagine why you’d think that.’ My voice sounds awkward and he must realise I’m being disingenuous.
‘I’m not fishing for compliments, Mary.’ He gives me a grin. ‘I never envied my brother’s good looks. Since Susan was my childhood sweetheart the lack never bothered me – I didn’t go chasing after the girls.’
I laugh. ‘And Frank did?’
‘Frank didn’t have to – they all chased after him. Not that he was interested. Until he met you, I’d begun to think he’d never want to settle down.’
Noticing he’s finished his tea, I pour us both another cup.
‘What I meant when I said you were like Frank, is you’re a good listener. That’s unusual in men. Mostly they either glaze over, as though what you’re talking about isn’t important enough to merit their full attention, or they talk over the top of you, constantly cutting in as if what they have to say is far more important.’
‘Then most men are fools.’ He smiles.
Ignoring what I take to be a compliment, I say, ‘I’ve always found that odd, the way so many men – and to be fair, some women too – love the sound of their own voice, even though, by definition, since they’re telling it, they already know the story. Frank wasn’t like that at all. He was genuinely curious. He loved people. I get the feeling you do too.’
He looks embarrassed and I wish I hadn’t said all that. It would be dreadful if he mistook what I was saying as flirtation.
To change the subject, I ask him about the rubber estate. He tells me he’s working hard to restore its fortunes.
‘The coolies fled when we were evacuated, and the Japanese didn’t bother with Bella Vista. I’ve promised Evie I’ll work like a Trojan until I’ve got it back to how it was before the war.’
‘I doubt Evie needs the money.’ I can hear the bitterness in my own voice. The war, and her avoidance of it in Australia, has made me resent her – like everyone who was fortunate enough to escape – even though I know it’s not her fault that I didn’t. ‘She has income from the other rubber estate too, the one near Butterworth.’
‘She’s considering an offer for the other place. Although I think she should hold out for a better one. It can’t be easy for a widow with two children.’
His generosity of spirit shames me. After all, Evie is my best friend and has shown nothing but kindness to me.
Before I can answer, Reggie adds, ‘Our house at Bella Vista was unoccupied during the war. Too far out of town for the Japs. But it wasn’t in bad order considering.’ He grins. ‘Remember when we were all leaving Penang? We were told no pets, and everyone had to shoot their dogs at the harbour as they weren’t allowed to leave with us.’
I’d forgotten, but now remembered the horrible scene at the dockside.
‘I had Badger, Doug’s dog. Doug told Evie he wanted me to take care of the dog, once he knew he was dying.’
‘Of course. Now I remember. Did you have to shoot the poor thing?’
‘Thankfully no. I was in a terrible quandary – I would have felt I was letting Doug down – and I was fond of the dog. Our houseboy had driven down to the harbour with us to help with the bags. He took Badger back to Bella Vista and somehow managed to keep him alive throughout the war, despite all the shortages. I couldn’t believe it when I got back and there he was, wagging his tail.’
‘How lovely.’
‘Yes. It’s made such a difference to me having Badger. Dogs are such loyal and undemanding companions.’
I could see the loneliness in his eyes and was glad he had the dog. Bella Vista was isolated, up high at the top of the island.
‘Was everything else all right when you returned?’
‘Surprisingly, yes, considering we all shipped out in such a hurry. It was just as we’d left it. Apart from the dust and the dead insects. Amil, our houseboy, and the other servants who remained, had locked the house up and stayed in their own quarters. Susan’s orchid garden suffered though.’
‘I’d forgotten your wife grew orchids.’
‘Her pride and joy. They’ve reverted to the state they were in when she and I moved into Bella Vista. Left to run rampant. Fighting it out with creepers and trees trying to choke them. Almost four years is a long time in this climate. The jungle takes over so quickly.’
‘Will you try to restore the orchid garden?’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Can’t see that happening. Vegetables are more my thing. A few of us made a little vegetable plot in the camp, cultivating plants from scraps and roots. It supplemented our diet – until the Japs realised what we were up to, told us to dig everything up and hand the lot over to them.’
‘Did you try again?’
‘No. That area became our burial ground instead.’ His mouth tightens.
I look away. I don’t want to talk about the camps, and I am afraid he might change his mind and ask me about my experiences. But he doesn’t.
‘A woman from the Red Cross came to see me a few months back,’ I say. ‘She wanted to encourage me to talk. I think it was the doctor’s idea – he says I’m depressed. But I didn’t want to talk to her.’ I meet his eyes. ‘Everyone asks about the camp. What it was like being held by the Japs. Everyone apart from you – you don’t need to. And the irony is when they ask, they don’
t really want to know. They just want to mend us, like broken dolls, put us back together again so we can all go back to normal and pretend it never happened. But we’ll never be normal again, will we, people like you and me?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looks baleful. ‘You’re right about people not really wanting to know. That just about sums up Susan’s attitude. She wanted what happened to be swept under the carpet so that we could get on with the rest of our lives. My dirty little secret.’ He drops his head. ‘Anyway, how can you tell someone who’s never been there just how bad it was? It’s not fair to inflict that on other people.’
He puts down his cup and it rattles in the saucer. ‘I got a letter from Susan last week. She wants a divorce. Says she’s met someone else.’ He closes his eyes so I can’t see the pain and hurt I am sure are in them. ‘He’s a farmer. A widower.’
‘I’m sorry, Reggie.’ I touch his hand lightly but don’t let it linger there. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘It’s so final. I suppose it was inevitable, but it still came as a huge shock. I thought that maybe if it was just a separation there was always the possibility…’ His voice trails away. ‘But perhaps it’s for the best. Susan wants to get on with her life and it will force me to get on with mine.’
He releases a long sigh that indicates his words aren’t even convincing himself. ‘We’d been together since we were kids, Susan and I. We’d always known one day we’d marry. And she was such a…a lovely woman.’ His voice breaks. ‘I loved her – I really loved her – until…until all this bloody mess of a war. But it’s impossible to keep on loving someone when you grow as far apart as we have. When I try to remember how it used to be with us, it seems like a story, not something that actually happened. And maybe the signs were already there before the war.’
He stares into the middle distance. ‘Susan and I are too different. I should have realised that when she was so miserable here in Penang, when I love the place so much. But I refused to acknowledge her misery, even to myself, much less to her. Both of us kept trying to pretend that it would be all right in the end. Perhaps the war did us a service. Saved us years of living a lie and growing further apart.’ He turns back to look directly at me. ‘I’ve talked enough. You’re a good listener, Mary. Thank you. But I need to get to bed. I have to make an early start in the morning.’
I am awoken by terrible cries. At first, I think I’m having a nightmare – that I am back in the camp and Sergeant Shoei is screaming at me for not bowing low enough. I realise the cries are coming from the front bedroom. This isn’t a scream of anger, but of abject terror.
Without hesitation, I jump out of bed and run in my nightgown along the landing and open the door to the other bedroom. Reggie is lying on his side in the bed, his body in a foetal position, his arms shielding his head. The screaming has changed to a low monotonous moan.
I move across to the bed. It isn’t a conscious decision so much as an instinctive reaction. It is one human being responding to the cry for help of another. Easing back the sheet, I climb onto the bed behind Reggie and curl my body into his, holding him in my arms, cradling him. It is more the act of a mother towards her child. A response to his pain and loneliness – and – although I don’t allow myself to admit it – to my own.
Neither of us speaks. We lie together in the dark bedroom and gradually his breathing calms. I am not even sure whether he knows I am here. He may still be asleep. I drift away into a deep and dreamless sleep myself.
When someone has been married for a long time, they must be used to the familiar presence of their spouse beside them in the bed at night. Perhaps it’s quite normal for them to make love while still half asleep. I don’t know. I’ve never been married. In fact, I’ve never slept in a bed with a man or made love. When Reggie turns over and draws me into his arms, I don’t know what to make of it. It is too dark to see his face.
As I feel his mouth on mine and his erection pressing up against my body, I could stop him. What on earth is he thinking? This is wrong. It is not supposed to happen. And yet, I let him hold me, his strong arms wrapped around me, holding me so close that I can feel his heart beating against my own. I should get out of the bed, explain why I have come to be there in the first place, and go back to my own room. He would apologise, tell me he wasn’t aware of what he was doing, perhaps that he has mistaken me for his wife in that half-life between sleep and consciousness. Neither of us would have mentioned it ever again.
But I don’t do that. I not only let him make love to me, my body responds to him. I have never made love before. Ralph and I had agreed to wait until we were married. After his death, when I met Frank and we fell in love, I made up my mind that I would give myself to him at the first opportunity. What had happened to Ralph convinced me that life was too brief to do anything other than grab at any happiness along the way. That last evening together when Frank asked me to marry him, he’d booked a room at the E&O. But our plans were dashed when he got an urgent telephone call to return to his base at Butterworth immediately. I never saw him again. He was killed days later.
While I’ve never made love before, I am not without experience of sexual intercourse.
Here, in my parents’ bed in that darkened room, my decision to let Reggie do what he wants to do might be a way to help wash away those terrible memories of that Japanese soldier. Reggie’s lovemaking might be the only way to ease the horror of what happened to me that day, to show my body that this act doesn’t have to be one of power and punishment.
Nor does it have to be born of lust or passion. Instead, what we are doing tonight arises from our mutual loneliness, a shared tragedy and a need for solace. It is tender, warm and soothing. We do not speak. There is no need for words.
When it is over, I lie there beside him in the dark silent bedroom. As soon as I am sure he is calm and asleep, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and patter back along the landing to my own bedroom. I lie in the now-cooled bed, and realise I am smiling. I have not felt so at peace since I returned to Penang. I drift back to sleep myself.
In the morning, I wake just after seven, and sense that Reggie has gone. The door to my parents’ bedroom is open and he isn’t in the bed. I move across to the window and draw the curtain back. His car has gone.
I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as I remember the events of last night. I am embarrassed when I think about what has taken place between us, but I don’t regret it. It was an instinctive need for closeness, and I feel calmer and more purposeful than I have in months – no, years. I hope Reggie will feel the same way. Not that I want to repeat what we’ve done. He is still a married man and I am the former fiancée of his brother. A romance between us is out of the question. In fact, a romantic liaison with anyone is out of the question for me. Two dead fiancés is two too many. I’ve long ago reached the conclusion that I am cursed where love and marriage are concerned. No, I am grateful for the way I felt wrapped in a warm cocoon when Reggie held me and made love to me, but we will never repeat it.
I go into the bathroom and run a bath. Finding, at the back of a cupboard, a bottle of perfumed bath oil from before the war, I pour some into the water and breathe in the scent of jasmine. It is the first time I’ve indulged myself this way. All those years of being unwashed and filthy have made the idea of adding potions and lying in a warm bath feel too sybaritic. It would have been an insult to the memory of all the women I had lost in the camps including my mother.
But as I lie here with the sweet-scented water around me, I think of Veronica. She would have had no time for such self-flagellation. I can imagine her saying, ‘Don’t be silly, darling, you deserve it. Why not treat yourself?’ I smile, as I reflect she would probably also have sniffed at my choice of bath oil and told me where I could find a much more luxurious and expensive one.
Downstairs, I make tea and eat a piece of toast. All too often I skip breakfast – three meals a day seems excessive after the years of starvation. But today I have an ap
petite. After washing up the plates, I take a book at random off the shelf in the parlour and instead of staying in there and shutting myself away, as usual, in the cool gloom, I go outside and sit in the garden.
I open the book. It’s a poetry collection. Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I have never been a great lover of poetry but feel too lethargic to get up and venture back inside for something else. As I skim through the pages this verse catches my eye.
The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm.
I let the book fall shut into my lap, uncomfortable with the words I have read, wishing I had never seen them.
I don’t hear the car pull up outside and only gradually become aware of knocking at the front door. I go inside and open it and Reggie is standing there.
Trying to hide my shock and discomfort I say, ‘Come in. I was in the garden.’
He follows me through the house and out onto the patchy neglected lawn. I offer him a cold drink, but he declines.
‘I had to speak to you,’ he says. ‘All the way back to Bella Vista this morning I was thinking I shouldn’t have left like that. Without saying goodbye. Without so much as a word. When I got home, I was going to write or telephone you, but I decided I need to speak to you face-to-face.’
His cheeks are red with embarrassment and I can feel my own turning the same colour.
I start to reply but he interrupts me.
‘Did you come to my bed last night?’
I bite my lip but nod to acknowledge that I had.
