Oriental Hotel

by Janet Tanner

  It was a warm, humid evening. The upstairs windows of the house had all been thrown open, but there was no breath of air stirring the curtains as she sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair before going to bed.

  Her face, reflected in the mirror, was paler than usual – she had felt nauseous all day and been unable to eat much – but it disclosed nothing of the trembling anxiety within her as she tried to formulate the words with which to deliver the bombshell. Her brush moved with long, deliberate strokes, smoothing out the tangles until her hair fell in a curving golden mass to her shoulders.

  A sound in the adjoining room made her start and the trembling intensified. Then in the mirror she saw Gordon come in tying the cord of his red silk dressing-gown.

  ‘Are you almost ready to put out the light?’ His voice had the strained note she had become accustomed to. ‘I’ve had a long day.’

  She stopped brushing and swivelled round on the stool.

  ‘I have to talk to you, Gordon.’

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Can’t it wait? I told you, I’m very tired.’

  ‘No, it can’t wait.’ She held the brush between both hands so that the bristles dug into her palms. ‘I’m going to have a baby, Gordon.’

  For a moment he froze, every muscle seemingly paralysed, and the breath caught in her throat. Then he stood up, flicking back the sheets and swinging his legs beneath them.

  ‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’

  It was Elise’s turn to be shocked into immobility. Of all reactions, she had not expected this.

  ‘It’s not nonsense, Gordon,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Of course it is! What on earth gave you such an idea?’

  ‘What do you mean? Dr Munro …’

  ‘You cannot possibly be pregnant,’ he cut across her. ‘It’s just not possible. You know as well as I do what we agreed – no more children until the business was established.’

  ‘Gordon – will you listen to me? I’m telling you …’

  ‘And I’m telling you. You must be mistaken. Now, are you coming to bed or are you going to sit there all night talking?’

  She looked at him helplessly. She had spent all day gearing herself up to this moment. Anger she had expected. Denunciation – even cold accusation. But this calm denial of fact was unnerving.

  ‘Gordon …’

  ‘Come to bed, Elise. I don’t want to hear any more about it.’

  ‘Gordon, don’t you understand? I am going to have a baby!’

  ‘Elise, I understand very well: there will be no baby in this house.’

  With a cool movement of finality he reached over and switched off the light. In the soft dark she sat trembling with disbelief – and dread. What was the meaning of his attitude? Surely he realised the implications behind her statement – that Brit was the father of her baby?

  Is he threatening me? she wondered wildly. Is he telling me in a devious way to get rid of it? He’s mad! He must be …

  She crossed the room and sank down on to her own bed, pressing her hands to her stomach. Had she not seen Dr Munro this morning, Gordon’s insistence might have convinced even her that she must be imagining her pregnancy. But she knew she was not.

  He didn’t even want me to mention Dr Munro, she remembered. It was as if he had no intention of acknowledging it, or anything about it …

  A sudden unexpected breeze moved the curtains and she shivered. Perhaps it had been the shock. Perhaps tomorrow he would come to terms with what she had told him. Perhaps tomorrow he would rage and accuse – or even hail the baby as the saviour of their marriage. One thing was certain – he could not continue to deny the existence of the coming child. As she began to grow bigger, that would become impossible.

  With her arms wrapped around the precious life she carried within her, Elise slid down against the pillows and attempted to sleep.

  ‘I think it’s time Alex started school.’

  It was six weeks later and they were at breakfast, Gordon eating toast and marmalade with his copy of the South China Morning Post propped up against the stoneware marmalade jar, Elise sipping half-heartedly at a cup of weak tea. Nausea had overtaken her as it did every morning the moment she woke, and she had gone to the bathroom to retch several times while she was dressing. But Gordon had ignored her malady completely – just as he still ignored every other sign of her pregnancy.

  Since the night she had tried to tell him she was going to have a baby, he had continued to avoid the subject with the same determination he had shown in refusing to listen to her then; it was as if, she thought, her condition did not exist to him.

  More than once she had tried to mention it again; each time she was silenced as he changed the subject so blandly that she could have screamed. But something in his utter coldness forbade trying to force him to listen to her. It was as if he had somehow locked himself away – and she turned the key at her peril. At some stage he would come to accept it because he would have to do so. For the present, however, she could only wait, watching his controlled performance day by day with dread, and trying in some way to appease him.

  Now, taking up his statement though the effort of speaking revived her nausea, she said, ‘I’m sure you are right. But with things as they are here, don’t you think it might be best if he went to England?’

  She had given up mentioning Australia, knowing that to do so was like a red rag to a bull, but she had not given up hope of getting Alex away from Hong Kong. The weeks might be passing, but the threat was still there, as real as ever, just over the border in China.

  ‘England?’ Gordon looked up bad-temperedly from buttering his toast. ‘What are you talking about – England? We want him here with us don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Of course we do! I was talking to Su Ming about it; she thinks the schools here are quite adequate as his age. There is an excellent one, she says …’

  ‘You talked to Su Ming about it?’ Elise interrupted, indignant that Gordon should have discussed their child’s future without mentioning it to her.

  ‘Who else? She is an excellent amah and I have come to trust her more than anyone else with Alex’s future.’

  There was no mistaking his meaning and Elise flushed.

  ‘He’s my son, too, Gordon. I should like to have my say too about what is going to happen to him.’

  Gordon spooned marmalade, pointedly ignoring her.

  ‘Where is Su Ming this morning? She’s usually here by now. I should like to discuss it while the matter is fresh in my mind.’

  Elise set down her tea-cup with a clatter.

  ‘I’m here, Gordon. Discuss it with me.’

  ‘I told you, I prefer …’

  It was not the first time in recent weeks that he had treated Su Ming as if she had been, elevated from amah to mother. So far Elise had said nothing, though the pointed slight both hurt and annoyed her and Su Ming was responding by becoming increasingly disrespectful. Only yesterday she had argued when Elise had said Alex should have an egg for his tea. She had insisted that he no longer liked eggs, inferring that if Elise had not been absent for so long she would have known this. When Elise insisted, Su Ming had obeyed with very bad grace; and when Alex turned up his nose, she sided with him, saying, ‘There’s a good boy – eat just a little more and then Su Ming will take the nasty thing away …’

  Elise had simmered then and she simmered now.

  ‘Gordon, I am Alex’s mother. Su Ming is not. And I shall be grateful if you will stop giving her the impression that she is.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Gordon said coldly.

  ‘I am not being ridiculous …’

  Before she could say any more the door opened and Alex came in, Su Ming a few steps behind him.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, Su Ming said I can have a kite for my birthday.’

  ‘Did she now?’

  ‘Yes – a real one – a Chinese one!’

  Elise transferred her annoyance to Alex.
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  ‘Your birthday is a long way off yet, Alex. It’s far too early to begin thinking about presents; Su Ming should know that.’

  ‘I did tell Alex that he would have to ask his father,’ Su Ming said, unabashed. ‘But there is no harm in planning, is there? And I think a Chinese kite would be a very suitable present.’

  ‘You see?’ Elise turned to Gordon, incensed beyond reason. ‘You see how little my opinion matters? If you and Su Ming decide he should have a Chinese kite, I dare say he will have one. And the school chosen by the two of you will be the one he will go to. I shall have no say at all in the matter.’

  They all stared at her and the fact that she knew she had gone too far did nothing to cool her anger.

  ‘It’s true! Since I got back I have had no say in such matters at all.’

  ‘Elise – for heaven’s sake!’ Gordon said crossly while Alex demanded, ‘What’s the matter, Mummy? Why can’t I have a kite? Su Ming said …’

  Su Ming – Su Ming! Nausea rose again. She knew this was neither the time nor the place to have things out with Gordon. But as usual, it was the pious Chinese amah who precipitated matters.

  ‘Take no notice, Alex. Mummy doesn’t mean it; she isn’t feeling well,’ she told him smugly.

  And you know why, don’t you, Elise thought. You have a very good idea, even if my husband refuses to acknowledge the reason. You’re another Hugh de Gama, seeing too much and using what you know too cleverly. And if Gordon kept his threat and took Alex away from me, it would be you who would bring him up …

  Determination took hold of her then, stronger than the nausea.

  ‘I’m feeling fine and I have decided to take Alex out myself today,’ she announced. ‘You can take the day off, Su Ming. It’s far too long since you had one.’

  ‘Oh no, Mrs Sanderson, it’s quite all right …’

  ‘No, Su Ming, I insist,’ she said. And took the greatest satisfaction in knowing that this time she had won a small but significant victory.

  However one battle, as they say, does not win a war, and as the weeks dragged slowly past Elise became very tired of fighting.

  With Su Ming it was constant open warfare – at every turn she tried to undermine Elise and always in such a way as to make Elise appear unreasonable for opposing her. She knew that things were not right between Gordon and herself, Elise supposed, and was raking advantage of the situation to consolidate her own position. While Elise had been away, she had had too much freedom and too much power. Now she was determined to retain as much of it as possible in any way she could.

  As for Gordon, he continued to treat her with a potent mixture of open hostility and cold indifference which kept her at her wits’ end knowing how to deal with it.

  The blind anger she had felt against him in the beginning had receded now, though she could still burn inside when she remembered what he had put her through that day when she had planned to take Alex and leave. And when the ache of longing for Brit became unbearable, she squirmed to think that because of Gordon, Brit had gone to China believing she had not cared for him enough to go with him. But hating him was futile, and she knew in her heart that she had no one but herself to blame. She had deceived him and hurt him badly – he had reacted accordingly.

  I suppose I have come to realise that if we have to live together indefinitely I might as well make the best of it, she thought. But Gordon seemed incapable of taking the same view.

  Too often, now, he turned to the gin bottle – though it seemed to do him no good at all. If he was miserable before a session in his study with the bottle at his elbow, he was positively morose afterwards and Elise smelled it on his breath earlier and earlier in the day as the weeks passed.

  And still he continued to deny the existence of the baby, as he denied the threat of invasion by the Japanese.

  The days were hot and steamy now, the humidity high and the temperature such that with her extra weight Elise was forced to take a rest in the afternoons in spite of her determination to spend all her time with Alex. But even her need for rest was treated by Gordon with a disdain which totally disregarded her condition.

  ‘What on earth are you doing up here?’ he asked her snappily one afternoon when he returned unexpectedly to the house. ‘I should have thought you could find something better to do with your time than lie on the bed and sleep.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping.’ She shifted herself clumsily. Already, at five months, she was bigger than she had been with Alex at full term and the nausea had never left her completely. ‘I’m just resting. Dr Munro said I should.’

  ‘Munro! Oh yes …’ But he made no further reference to it, no move to ask what Munro had said or anything else. ‘We have been invited to the Peninsula for dinner tonight – Hugh de Gama has someone staying with him and he wants to make up a party. I have told cook not to cater for us here.’

  ‘Oh, do we have to?’ Elise felt muzzy and heavy, as if all the energy had drained out of her body with the continuing sickness. ‘I don’t feel the least bit like it and I look a fright.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘What’s more, I have nothing suitable to wear …’

  ‘Now that is complete nonsense!’ Gordon strode across the room, throwing open one of Elise’s well-stocked closets, ‘just look at all these clothes, yet you tell me you have nothing to wear.’

  ‘But they don’t fit me any more. I’ve bought day dresses, but it’s so long since we went out for the evening …’

  ‘Exactly! All the more reason why we should. This visitor of Hugh’s is a cousin of his – or a second cousin to be precise – and if he has as sharp a mind as Hugh we should be in for an entertaining evening.’

  Elise’s heart sank still further. The prospect of one Hugh was bad enough, two was positively daunting. And the thought of the delicious but rich food at the Peninsula was turning her stomach already.

  ‘I really don’t think …’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gordon said pointedly, ‘you would have preferred me to ask Su Ming to go with me. Since you’re so paranoid about my favouring her, you would perhaps have been pleased to have something concrete on which to hang your criticisms.’

  The suggestion produced the reaction he had known it would.

  ‘All right. If you insist, I suppose I have no option.’

  He let it go, turning away with the disdainful half smile she found so maddening.

  ‘Good! The table is reserved for seven o’clock in the Playpen. I thought if I told you now that would give even you time to get ready. Now, I’m going to have a shower. It’s like a Turkish bath outside.’

  He went into the bathroom and her fingers gripped convulsively at the pillow. If she had the energy, she would have thrown it after him, she thought, but she felt too weak. The ready tears gathered in her eyes.

  How much longer was he going to carry on this ridiculous charade of pretending that nothing was happening to her? How much longer would it be before he felt he had had his pound of flesh – if that was what it was?

  She certainly didn’t want to be treated like Dresden china. All she longed for was a little consideration – a little concern. And she didn’t expect their marriage to be perfect again – as perfect as it had ever been. Too much damage had been done for that to happen, besides which she was still in love with Brit. But there had to be some neutral ground in this battlefield, where they could thrash out some kind of compromise. The constant antagonism was unbearable – and it must be unbearable for Gordon too, even if he was perpetuating it in order to punish her.

  She got up and padded towards the bathroom. She had taken off her dress before lying down and the bulge of her pregnancy was clearly visible beneath the cr’pe de Chine of her petticoat, but she could not face putting on a robe in the sticky heat of the afternoon.

  The shower was running and she stood in the doorway, waiting. When the curtains parted and he emerged to see her standing there in her petticoat, she caught a brief glimpse of disgust on his face befor
e the cold mask came down again.

  ‘Gordon – can we talk, please?’ The tears were still there in her voice, and he reached for the towel with a gesture of impatience.

  ‘I thought you were going to start getting ready.’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘When? When? You never talk to me nowadays.’

  ‘Is that surprising?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But we cannot go on like this. It’s sheer purgatory …’

  He paused in the action of drying himself, looking at her coolly.

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t think of that before.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ Tears were streaming down her face. ‘I understand how you feel …’

  ‘Do you indeed? I very much doubt it.’

  ‘I do! But it’s over; you finished it.’ You won, she wanted to say. You had your victory. Have the grace now to at least give a little. But the words were lost in the tears in her throat and she could not utter them.

  ‘Did I finish it? Do you really think so? Well, I wonder just how long your tawdry little affaire would have lasted if I hadn’t stepped in when I did. It’s my opinion that you would be back already with your tail between your legs. The Brittains tire very quickly of what they have; they’re only interested in acquiring what belongs to others, as I’ve found to my cost more than once over the years. As for you – many husbands would have thrown you out, Elise. I haven’t done that. I continue to give you a home and everything you want. But don’t expect me to forgive and forget, too.’

  He turned away and the tears exploded in her. Pious, pompous, self-satisfied bastard!

  I won’t go with him tonight! she thought. I’ll make a stand – show him he can’t treat me this way.

  But even as she thought about it she knew she would go, because he could treat her in any way he chose. All the cards were in his hands now and he could play them any way he liked.

  When her tears were spent she showered, washed her face and hair and began looking through her wardrobe for something to wear. She found one of the flowing Indian cottons she had bought in Penang: vermilion red, embroidered in black and shining metallic thread in a design of hummingbirds and butterflies. The colour enhanced her pallor, making her skin look almost translucent where it stretched across her bones, and she dabbed powder on the dark shadows under her eyes, determined that it should not be immediately obvious to Hugh what he had wrought in her life.