by Di Morrissey
The man stopped and pointed with his parang.
‘Oh, I see it. Oh, thank you, thank you so much.’ She started to run towards the golf course, then turned to thank the man again, but he had disappeared. As she approached the clubhouse she could see a group of men gathered in front of it, including Roland and a man in a khaki uniform who was obviously a policeman.
She hurried forward, trying to maintain her dignity.
‘There she is! Oh my Lord. Margaret! Where have you been? We were about to send out a search party!’ Roland came towards her.
‘I’m so terribly sorry. I went for a bit of an explore and I got lost, I’m afraid.’ She smiled, putting on a brave face. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced everyone . . .’
Roland put his arm around her. ‘Are you all right, my dear? This has been such a worry. You can’t just walk off into the jungle on your own.’
‘I hadn’t planned to, Roland. I got lost, but here I am.’
He smiled at the police inspector and shook his hand. ‘All’s well that ends well, eh? Frightfully sorry for the call out. My wife has found her own way back.’
‘I’m pleased you’re all right, Mrs Elliott. I know you are a newcomer, but this is not England. You can’t walk unattended in these forests. I’m surprised you didn’t run into any of the Orang Asli, the local tribesmen.’ The inspector gave a brief salute. ‘Happy to be of service, Mr and Mrs Elliott.’
‘Oh, how embarrassing,’ said Margaret. ‘And those ladies, I’m dreadfully sorry to miss their luncheon.’
One of Roland’s golfing partners stepped forward and held out his hand. ‘I’m Reginald Broadstairs, Mrs Elliott. My wife was expecting you for luncheon and it was she who raised the alarm when no one could find you.’
‘Please thank her. Very silly of me, I know. I was trying to get to the peak for the view, and this giant lizard appeared and gave me such a fright, I turned around and took the wrong path and . . .’
‘It’s fine, Margaret. You did jolly well to find your way back,’ said Roland. ‘You probably saw an iguana. Those big ones can look very fearsome.’
‘I will telephone my wife and tell her all is well,’ said Broadstairs. ‘Would you like to go over to my bungalow? The ladies will still be there.’
‘I’d rather not if you don’t mind,’ said Margaret. ‘I’m not properly dressed and I feel a little shaken. Please extend my apologies and hopefully we can reciprocate the hospitality.’ Margaret glanced at Roland.
‘Of course. Why don’t you all come to dinner tonight at the Smokehouse, Broadstairs? I’ll let MacAllister know,’ said Roland.
‘Splendid idea,’ said Broadstairs.
‘Did you finish your game?’ Margaret asked Roland sheepishly.
‘No, we didn’t, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, it’s my fault I do so apologise to you all. Please, all of you go and finish your game. If you can just arrange a car to take me back . . .’
‘Are you sure, my dear? I hate to let these fellows down.’
‘I insist. I’ll take a bath and a rest and see you all this evening.’ She gave the men a wan smile.
‘Righto, you can use my driver,’ said Broadstairs.
‘I suggest we go straight to the twelfth hole. It won’t take us long to finish,’ said the man partnering Broadstairs.
By the time Roland returned to their room, Margaret had bathed, dressed, eaten a sandwich, taken a nap and collected herself. She was almost ready to laugh off the episode. Roland gave her a big hug and she could smell whisky on his breath, but she was pleased that he seemed so loving and wasn’t at all cross with her for spoiling his golf game.
‘Well, aren’t you the talk of the club! Everyone agrees it’s very easy to get lost on those trails, but you found your way out, no hysterics, no tears. Quite a feat, darling. But please, it is dangerous. You have to take care.’ He gave her a big smile. ‘Next time you go out walking, stick to the paths and take someone with you. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I am so sorry.’
While Margaret was quietly pleased by his contrition, she said graciously, ‘Please, Roland. Don’t be sorry. I’m upset I spoiled your game of golf with those important people.’
Roland pulled off his jacket and loosened his shirt. ‘Oh, stuff and nonsense. Father has had dealings with Broadstairs’ firm, but he and those other fellows are a bit stuffy. And my game was dreadfully off today. So I should have listened and stayed here with you.’ He reached for her. ‘Shall we have a cuddle before we go out?’
Margaret stood up. ‘Didn’t you say six pm to meet everyone? By the time you’re bathed and dressed . . . Shall I meet you downstairs? I was going to walk around the garden.’
‘Don’t stray too far!’ he said. And they both laughed.
But Margaret was unsettled. She hoped that when she got to the security of Utopia she would feel safer because the vastness, the strangeness of this landscape, its people, its culture felt very alien.
When they finally arrived at Utopia, after farewelling Winifred in Kuala Lumpur, it was dark. Roland had suggested that Winifred might like to travel further, perhaps going as far as Bangkok, before returning to Australia. But Winifred had no desire to travel on her own, and, she suspected, she would have had her fill of the exotic East by the time Roland and Margaret had returned from their honeymoon. The darkness was almost physical; damp, pressing and enveloping. Margaret had been asleep and barely took in the glow of lights, the murmur of voices, even when Roland helped her from the car while issuing instructions to the people who had met them.
A light shrouded with small flying insects hung by the front door under a portico. Eugene stood at the door as she went up the steps to the front entrance.
‘Welcome, my dear Margaret, welcome. This is an unholy hour to arrive, Roland.’
‘I know, Father. Margaret is weary. I made a call at Tanjung Estate and saw Sidney Baker. You know how he loves to chat. He’s had a few problems but I’ll go into that later. Do you want some supper, Margaret dear?’
‘No, I’d just like to fall into bed if that’s possible. Start afresh in the morning.’ Margaret noticed the heavy, dark wooden furniture in the entrance, but she was simply too tired to be curious about her surroundings, although the house had appeared large and impressive.
‘Kim has made up the guestroom for you both here. I thought it easier,’ said Eugene.
‘Thank you, Father. Very thoughtful. Good evening, Kim. Margaret, this is Kim, our amah, who’ll show you to our room.’
A Chinese woman, smiling broadly, hands clasped in front of her crisp white tunic came forward. ‘Hello, mem. Kim happy for Mr Roland. Very good, very good.’
‘Kim, when you’ve shown the mem to the guestroom bring her some tea,’ said Roland. ‘I’ll have your suitcase sent in, Margaret. I’ll be there shortly after I have a chat with Father.’
‘I’ll be asleep, I’m sure. Goodnight, Mr Elliott. Thank you.’
‘See you in the morning, my dear.’
Margaret followed the amah down a hallway to a large room furnished with two single beds, a large closet and a dressing table. The room had big windows but the shutters were closed. The furniture in the room was made from rattan with faded print cushions. A large fan spun lazily overhead. Kim began to pull down the mosquito nets which were suspended from the ceiling, and tuck them around the beds.
A large bowl and china jug filled with water sat on a dresser. Margaret poured some water from the jug into the bowl, splashed her face and fell into bed.
In the morning when she awoke, Roland was already up. She had no sooner opened the shutters to the bright morning when Kim tapped at the door.
‘Mem wish tea? Warm bath?’
‘A bath would be lovely. Where’s the bathroom?’
‘Kim do.’
Margaret followed Kim down the hallway to a large, white bathroom where a bath stood in the middle of the room. It was filled with tepid water. Kim spread a towel on a chair and indicated the s
oap and washer and left Margaret staring around the spartan room. The starkness, indeed plainness, of the interior of the house surprised Margaret. She had the impression it would be far grander, which made her wonder about the bungalow that had been built a couple of years before for Roland and in which they would both now live.
Dressed and refreshed Margaret found Roland and his father sitting at a glass-topped cane dining table in a room that overlooked the garden. Both men rose.
‘Sorry, we’ve started breakfast without you. How did you sleep?’ asked Roland, kissing her.
‘Didn’t hear a thing.’ Margaret gazed around the simple room that had ceiling fans, a wooden floor and two well-worn comfortable lounges as well as the dining chairs and table. A dart board and games table were at the far end of the room. Palms and tropical plants in pots stood along its length, protected from the sun by bamboo blinds.
An elderly Chinese man, dressed in a navy cotton jacket with short sleeves and matching pants, placed a bowl of porridge and a plate of toast before her. ‘Tea, mem? Or mem take coffee?’
‘This is Ho, Father’s houseboy,’ said Roland.
‘Tea, thank you, Ho,’ said Margaret, somewhat startled that such an elderly man should be referred to as a houseboy.
‘Ho runs this household with an iron fist. Been with Father for years,’ said Roland. ‘Darling, I’m just about to go to a section of the estate with Father, then I’ll be back and we can go over to our house and you can start settling in.’
‘Won’t keep him long, Margaret. He’s got a little catching up to do. After your breakfast take a stroll around Charlotte’s garden. She’s very proud of it and I’ve been trying to maintain it while she’s been away,’ said Eugene, rising. Ho immediately stepped forward to hold the chair for him and push it back under the table as Eugene walked away.
‘How is Mrs Elliott?’ asked Margaret unsure how to refer to her mother-in-law since they’d never met. ‘And her mother?’
‘It’s difficult, of course. Charlotte is being brave,’ said Eugene.
‘Have some fruit from mother’s garden. The papaya is excellent,’ said Roland as he, too, stood, kissed her quickly and followed Eugene out of the room.
Margaret turned to find Ho smiling at her expectantly. ‘Yes, please. We call it pawpaw at home, and I love it. And more tea, please.’
After eating breakfast, Margaret returned to the guest-room to fetch her sunhat and found that her bed had been made and that everything had been tidied and her suitcase repacked.
She decided to explore the house before heading into the garden. There was a formal lounge room and a bar room hung with some photographs of cricket teams. The room led to a dining room, with a teak dining setting and beside it was another room, which looked to be Eugene’s office. On its walls were the stuffed heads of various animals, including boars and deer. Further down the corridor was the master bedroom with a small dressing room beside it. To one side of the shaded verandah was a sleep-out, which was clearly used for casual accommodation. Behind the dining room Margaret could see a small detached building. When she reached it she discovered it was the kitchen. It contained a large wood-fired stove, a long wooden table and a sink, as well as a large pantry. A Chinese man dressed in cotton pants and a loose singlet was chopping vegetables on a heavy wooden block. He looked up in surprise as Margaret entered. Suddenly, Kim appeared from what appeared to be the laundry and the servants’ quarters.
‘Sorry, mem. You want something? I get,’ said Kim, ushering Margaret from what was clearly the servants’ domain.
‘No, thank you. I was just looking for the way to the garden.’
‘I show. Follow me.’ Kim showed her the door leading into the back garden.
‘Thank you.’ Margaret wandered across the grass to a fenced area where there were colourful shrubs, two large flowering trees, several pawpaw trees and a kitchen garden. What caught her attention were some stakes tied to a fence. These supported huge stands of flame and coral coloured miniature orchids. Winifred would have admired them as she had several orchids in pots that she prized and which she nurtured carefully. These orchids, however, looked to be growing untended and in great profusion.
The kitchen and the servants’ quarters were screened from the house and garden by a bamboo fence. Through the fence she could see a metal washing tub, several pails, a large pottery pitcher and a rough outdoor fireplace with a large shallow pan on top, like she’d seen the hawkers use. There were several rope chairs and two tiny rooms which she thought must house some of the domestic staff. Washing was hanging on a rope line. Margaret doubted if this was the sort of place where a mem would spend any time.
She turned away and walked around the house to the front driveway where Eugene’s black Oldsmobile was parked beneath the portico of plastered stone pillars supporting a tiled roof, covered in a rampant flowering vine. The exterior of the house was high, and its timber and stone gave it a stately appearance.
Lush plants grew under the side of the portico. The driveway leading to the house wound around a small circular garden before joining a narrow dirt road. There was no fence, front gate or demarcation between the house and the red laterite road lined on either side by palm trees. In the distance she could see thickly forested hills. As Margaret turned down the road she saw, for the first time, a section of young rubber trees.
An Indian who had been tending the garden stood and gave her a swift salute. ‘Memsahib require car?’
‘No, thank you. I’m just walking.’
He shook his head from side to side. ‘No good memsahib walk. Very hot. Many snakes.’
‘Snakes? Oh, I see. Thank you.’ She turned back towards the house.
The gardener crouched back down to the small border of flowers.
Margaret sat on the verandah and fanned herself. All the staff had asked if they could help her and they had been very respectful. Margaret was enchanted. Clearly while Charlotte Elliott was away, Margaret was the ‘boss mem’. No one at home in Brisbane would ever imagine living with so many servants.
She jumped up as she heard Roland’s Bedford truck returning.
He took off his hat and wiped his face with his handkerchief. ‘Right, Mrs Elliott, shall we go and inspect our house? I’ve asked Hamid to take our things over there. Then later this afternoon when it starts to cool, we’ll go for a bit of a tour about the rest of the place.’ He kissed her. ‘I know this might seem strange and difficult but our bungalow will be your own domain to make of what you will.’ He put his arm about her shoulders as they walked indoors.
‘This place is rather, well, old looking. Outdated,’ said Margaret. ‘I suppose older people don’t like change.’
‘Well, that’s part of it. But Margaret, we’ve just come through the Depression when rubber prices were at rock bottom. It was a struggle for us just to keep the plantation viable. So there’s been no money for what Father would consider frivolous things. My mother certainly understood that whenever there was spare cash, it was put straight back into the business. Things are picking up now and because my parents were frugal and hung on through the bad times, they were able to come out way ahead. Actually we have been able to expand our operation because we bought up a lot of estates around here from other families and companies that couldn’t make a go of things in the last few years.’
‘So you actually expanded Utopia during the Depression?’ asked Margaret, impressed with the Elliotts’ business acumen.
Roland nodded. ‘Yes, I’ll show you later. For now let’s drive over to our house. Can I carry you over the threshold?’
Margaret was glad that their bungalow was some distance from the main house. On the way there, they passed worksheds housing equipment, lean-tos sheltering seedlings and a collection of rough shacks of woven palm leaves, which was where some of the rubber tappers lived. All around, stretched the pale-green lines of the rubber trees.
‘There’s a local village of sorts not far away where a lot of the Indian ta
ppers live. I’ll explain the workings of the plantation to you another time,’ said Roland.
When Margaret saw her new home, so unadorned, so basic, so . . . words failed her. By local standards it was new, only two years old, but there had been no attention given to a garden, not even pot plants. She dreaded to think what it would be like inside. The one redeeming feature, which gave the house some identity, was a massive nipa palm growing close to the front step, its fronds spreading into a thick green fan. The house itself was a wooden construction set up high with a wide verandah all around. It reminded Margaret slightly of a small Queenslander.
‘It needs a garden,’ she managed to say.
‘There’s a kitchen patch out the back. Greens and things. Ask the gardener and he’ll do whatever you want out the front here.’
And with that, Roland swept Margaret up in his arms, marched up the front steps and deposited her on the verandah.
‘This looks like a pleasant area to sit,’ said Margaret noting the old-style planters’ chairs, wicker table, a rack overflowing with newspapers and a drinks trolley. As the bungalow was on a rise, the view from the verandah across the sea of ribbed rows of rubber trees to the hills was quite spectacular.
She tried to hide her disappointment as she went from room to room realising how very simple it all was. Indeed the kitchen out the back was so primitive that the stove appeared to be a converted kerosene tin. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to work with it.
‘Where’s the toilet and bathroom?’ asked Margaret.
‘Thunder box, I’m afraid. It gets emptied every day.’ Roland opened a small door and Margaret felt the sultry outside air hit her as she gaped in shock.
The bathroom was an unlined wooden cubicle with a section of the floor made up of slats a few inches apart, just wide enough for snakes to come in, Margaret thought grimly. A huge ceramic jar stood beside a tin bathtub. There was a dipper made from half a coconut shell hanging beside it.
‘No hot water, I’m afraid,’ said Roland cheerfully. ‘You ladle the cold water from the Shanghai jar over yourself. It’s always cold, so you’ll find it refreshing. The amah will get you some hot water if you want a warm bath.’
