The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness

by Malcolm Pryce

  Webster considered for a moment. ‘I guess you could say that, more on account of our living in the same flea-bitten hotel at the same time. If we had met in any other walk of life I don’t suppose he would have given me the time of day.’

  ‘Has he … do you think he has suffered some form of nervous breakdown?’

  Webster took a long drink from his beer and said with a chuckle, ‘He might have done, but I’ve never really understood what that means, “nervous breakdown”.’

  ‘I thought it was when a chap can’t take any more and goes off the rails,’ I explained.

  ‘The concierge at the Raffles called it late-flowering Bohemianism,’ added Jenny.

  Webster pulled a face that suggested he approved of the description. ‘You heard about the screenplay, I suppose?’

  We said that we had.

  ‘That was pretty Bohemian for a man like Curtis. I never knew him before he came to live here, but we talked a lot and the impression I got was of a man who had lived a very quiet and timid life. But something had been undermining the respectable exterior for a while, like termites eating the wood of his soul. The Japs interned him out at Changi, so that must have been pretty hellish. The surrender of Singapore hit him hard. He was obsessed by the thought that the war might have been … I don’t know … engineered somehow, deliberately started like the one in 1914. I asked him what made him think it had been engineered in 1914, and he said a German Count told him. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘I can’t say it does,’ I replied. ‘It seems a most extraordinary charge to make. But the chap we met at the Raffles said something similar.’

  ‘Yup,’ said Webster. ‘It’s a new one on me too. He also talked a lot about those badges made by the jam company.’

  ‘They are called golliwogs,’ explained Jenny.

  ‘Yes,’ said Webster, and added, ‘He said to me, “You know I’ve suddenly realised what appalling things they are. And yet for most of my life I thought they were perfectly jolly. What have I done?”’

  ‘Appalling? What a strange way to describe them!’ I said.

  ‘I agree with him,’ said Jenny. ‘They are sort of … making fun of people, aren’t they?’

  ‘I’ve never thought so,’ I said, slightly surprised.

  ‘That’s because it’s not you on the badge. It’s like when people pick on someone and the person is supposed to join in and laugh at himself because otherwise he would be a spoilsport, and they’d say, “Oh he can’t take a joke.”’

  ‘You do see some things that never occur to me,’ I said, and turned to Webster. ‘My wife is reading a book with some very modern opinions in it.’

  ‘It’s called Trust in God, She Will Provide,’ said Jenny.

  Webster laughed and said, ‘If God was a woman I wouldn’t have fallen out with Her.’

  ‘Mr Webster,’ I said, ‘what made you fall out with God?’

  He took a long drink from his beer and said softly, ‘I once had a girl … and now I don’t.’ He did not expand upon that for a second or two. Jenny and I exchanged glances, neither of us sure whether to pursue the matter. But then he went on, ‘Before the war I was posted to an American Mission at the Catholic Cathedral in Nagasaki.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Jenny.

  ‘I didn’t know there was a Catholic cathedral there,’ I said.

  ‘Well there isn’t now.’ He flinched. ‘Sorry, that was a cheap shot. It was a beautiful town and so were the people. Then I went home on leave and the newspapers were full of a place I had never heard of in Hawaii, called Pearl Harbor. Well, you can imagine the rest.’

  ‘It does sound like a terribly cruel bomb,’ said Jenny.

  ‘I hear it works by focusing the rays of the sun,’ I said.

  ‘Actually, it creates a new sun, a mile above the city,’ said Webster. ‘Then there is no city.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it won’t be long before we have one,’ I said.

  ‘It sounds like the sort of bomb we would be better off without,’ said Jenny.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Webster, ‘but you know how the military are when they get a new toy. This is one genie that won’t be going back in the bottle.’ He was silent for a while. It was clear the memory was very painful for him. Then he brightened and changed the subject.

  ‘He’s in Bangkok now. Staying at The Garden of Perfect Brightness. Everyone knows it.’

  ‘What made him go there?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s a firm there, import and export, called the Burma, Bangkok and North Borneo. They’ve got a flying boat to charter. Empire flying boat. Waiting for a new rudder or something. They are going to use it to fly to the island mentioned in the screenplay. Last I heard, Curtis had found himself a girl. Everyone finds a girl in Bangkok, but this one was European, blue eyes. Wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.’

  ‘Has he not been back here at all?’ I asked.

  ‘Only once as far as I am aware. Looking for an item in the post. I didn’t see him. Why are you looking for him?’

  Some instinct told me to just tell the truth. ‘I have reason to believe the girl mentioned in the screenplay was my mother.’

  Mr Webster’s eyes widened. He gave the sort of look one wears when told the price of an item and it is unexpectedly high.

  ‘And yet you seem to have about you both an air of desperation,’ he commented.

  ‘Yes. You see we had to leave England hurriedly, we are in a bit of a pickle.’

  ‘What’s a pickle?’

  ‘A disagreeable situation. A man tried to kill me.’

  Webster said, ‘Hmm. That’s a pickle. Can’t you kill him back?’

  ‘I would prefer not to.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s the only way.’

  There was a pause as we watched the carousing. The atmosphere, though drunken, seemed most cordial, and had the feel of a carnival. It was still too early to see the show on the lavatory roof, and I had no desire to, but I knew if I tried to leave before it began Jenny’s beautiful eyes would flash with impish scorn and she’d call me a stuffed shirt. The truth was, I was a stuffed shirt, and did not greatly mind. The behaviour of the sailors Mr Webster described is not new to me, I have seen drunken men scandalise other passengers in this manner on the trains. I have to confess, I have not the faintest idea what is funny about it.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Webster suggested, ‘why don’t we go and look in his room? Come with me.’

  We followed him back into the lobby of the hotel. The boy was no longer behind the counter, and, without pausing to consider, Webster walked behind it and retrieved one of the keys. He beckoned and we followed him up the stairs to a room on the floor above his that he unlocked for us. It was dark inside, with a faint glow discernible through the louvred shutters from the street outside. The air was rank and stale. Webster flicked the switch and the fan in the ceiling inched feebly into motion. His fingers scratched at the wall until a thin yellow ghost glimmered from a single bulb that hung from the ceiling. The room was bare and largely empty. Just a single bed, a bedside cabinet and a wardrobe. On the floor at our feet were two letters that had been slipped under the door. Webster bent and picked them up, opened them and began to read. He passed them to me. The first letter was an invoice from a firm in London that supplied circus ringmaster’s outfits. It was a demand for payment, seemingly the fourth of its kind. The second letter contained another tranche of the screenplay.

  A photograph lay on the desk, and beside it a newspaper cutting. Having satisfied ourselves that there was nothing else of interest in the room, we returned downstairs to the table outside where we could take a better look at what we had found.

  The newspaper cutting was yellowed and bore the headline: ‘Five die in boating tragedy’. There was no photograph and only a few lines in the accompanying story.

  Less than ten years after a terrible fire engulfed the west wing, tragedy has struck again at Wisskirriel Hall. Five servants, including the butler Mr Jarvis and
head housekeeper Mrs Bainbridge, have been lost in a tragic boating accident off Puffin Rock. The boat foundered off the island shortly before noon on Saturday. There were reports of an explosion, but since the Cormorant was a sailing vessel confusion reigns as to what could have caused it. The police are working on the theory that they may have hit a stray mine. There will be a memorial service in the Wisskirriel Hall chapel on Sunday 16th at 11 a.m.

  The photo showed a water buffalo standing next to the ruins of a temple. The stone head of a god, broken off from its torso, lay entwined in the roots of a tree, in a way that suggested the head was already lying there in the grass when the tree was a mere sapling, and had continued to lie there undisturbed as the tree grew around the head. Now it was encased by the tree like a knot in the wood. The stone head was round, exaggeratedly so, like a Halloween pumpkin. The face had a flat, wide nose, wide fleshy lips and blank, almond-shaped eyes. Its expression seemed to float between malevolence and a mocking smile. I turned the card over. It bore the marque of the photographic studio, ‘Finky’s Fotographic, Bangkok’, and was scrawled with the words: The horror! The horror!

  EXT. DECK OF SHIP. DAY

  MILLIE has climbed onto the rail, threatening to jump into the sea. The CREW watch in amusement.

  MILLIE

  Don’t come any closer!

  SQUIDEYE

  You really going to jump?

  MILLIE

  Yes. Rather be eaten than sharks than suffer this fate.

  MILLIE looks over her shoulder: the dorsal fins betray the presence of a school of dolphins in the water. She jumps. The men cheer.

  EXT. IN THE SEA. DAY

  MILLIE surrounded by dolphins. They playfully nuzzle her.

  MILLIE

  (Fake screams)

  Sharks!

  Squideye dives in to save her. He swims up to her and takes her in his arms. She holds on tight. Their faces draw close and they peer into each other’s eyes.

  MILLIE

  You saved me!

  SQUIDEYE

  How did you know they were dolphins?

  MILLIE

  I didn’t. Are they not sharks?

  SQUIDEYE

  (Staring at her as one smitten.)

  Yes. Of course they are sharks.

  MILLIE

  My saviour!

  EXT. DECK OF TRAMP STEAMER. DAY

  The ship’s CREW are cheering, MILLIE climbs slowly and precariously up the ladder attached to the ship’s funnel. Her TEDDY BEAR has been tied to the top of the funnel. Alerted by the cheering, SQUIDEYE rushes out on deck. The ship yaws and thick black smoke envelops MILLIE. She coughs and falls to the deck, landing on a pile of coiled ropes. SQUIDEYE rushes to her aid, picks her gently up in his arms.

  SQUIDEYE

  My sweet!

  MILLIE

  (Groans)

  SQUIDEYE is smitten. The ship’s CREW see this and smirk amongst themselves like schoolboys.

  SQUIDEYE

  You wretched dogs! Mowgli, find the man who did this and tie him to the wheel with back bare.

  MOWGLI

  Aye, aye, Sir!

  SQUIDEYE carries her below.

  INT. MILLIE’S CABIN. DAY

  MILLIE is lying on her bunk. SQUIDEYE is tenderly ministering to her.

  SQUIDEYE

  I will introduce that wretch to the cat.

  MILLIE

  You have a cat?

  SQUIDEYE

  Yes, with nine tails. And the man who did this will feel them all lick his back.

  MILLIE

  Please do not hurt anyone because of me. I know it was just a joke.

  SQUIDEYE

  I have no choice. If I show even a hint of mercy it will be the end of us all. I rule by fear alone, nothing else.

  MILLIE

  Why do you want to marry me to this ape?

  SQUIDEYE

  He guards the portal to a valley where, they say, grows a flower with the power to mend a broken heart.

  MILLIE

  Is your heart so very broken?

  SQUIDEYE

  There is a wound on my soul that no physician can heal. For once, long ago, I did a terrible thing.

  MILLIE

  Captain, what did you do?

  SQUIDEYE

  I killed a child.

  MILLIE

  (Gasps)

  Goodness, no! Who was this child?

  SQUIDEYE

  It was my own little boy. He had tuberculosis of the spine. He writhed in pain so much he broke his own ribs. So I took a rope and tied him to his bed, then smothered him for love.

  MILLIE

  Smothered?

  SQUIDEYE

  (Weeps)

  Smothered with a pillow on his angel face.

  MILLIE

  Poor Captain!

  SQUIDEYE

  I pray you never know what it is to lose a son.

  MILLIE

  Oh but I do know. I once had a son. A lovely boy. He did not die, but he is dead to me.

  SQUIDEYE

  A son?!

  MILLIE

  His name was Jack. There is not a moment in the day when my heart does not break for him.

  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE NEXT FOUR PAGES HAVE BEEN RENDERED ILLEGIBLE BY SALT WATER DAMAGE.

  Chapter 8

  Mr Webster informed us there was a train for Kuala Lumpur that left each night at seven minutes to midnight, and that would arrive just before dawn. From there we would be able to travel on to Bangkok. The journey would take three days in all.

  We returned to our hotel and had the clerk make up our bill. I walked across the road to the hotel we had originally booked. The man behind the desk told me the ship for Yokohama departed the day after tomorrow and our tickets would arrive next morning. He also said a man with a burned face had been inquiring after us. I thanked him and told him that should the man with the burned face return he was to be sure to tell him about the boat we were catching to Yokohama.

  We left that night on the train. There were very few lights to be seen after we left the brightly illuminated station. We sensed the waters of the causeway more than we saw them. There is a stillness to water at night which one feels in one’s heart, and the smooth gliding of a railway carriage magnifies this tranquillity most agreeably. Even the chuffs from the engine were slow and muted. But this tranquillity was disturbed by the thoughts racing in my mind. What on earth had Curtis discovered during his quest?

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Jenny.

  I nodded. ‘Yes, we are in a bit of a pickle, I’m afraid.’

  ‘This man with the burned face seems to know exactly where we are going.’

  ‘Yes, it does rather appear that way.’

  ‘Do you think Lady Seymour has told him?’

  ‘I can’t see why she would. I believe her desire to discover the fate of her son is genuine. And even she doesn’t know we are going to Bangkok now.’

  ‘Does he know we are looking for Curtis, do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but if he makes inquiries about us at the Raffles, he will soon learn about it.’

  ‘And then he will discover Curtis is in Bangkok, so the tickets to Yokohama won’t fool him for long.’

  ‘I’m rather afraid, they won’t.’

  ‘What will we do, Jack?’ Jenny stared at me with a look that suggested for the first time, perhaps, that the gravity of our situation had sunk in. In the gloom of the carriage her eyes glistened with soft fear.

  ‘We don’t have to go to Bangkok,’ I said. ‘With the money Lady Seymour has given us we could go just about anywhere.’

  ‘But wouldn’t he find us wherever we went?’

  ‘I believe if we took more care about covering our tracks we might escape him.’

  ‘But what about your mother?’

  I was silent for a while as I reflected on how to say something that I knew Jenny would dislike intensely but which it behoved me to say. ‘I cannot turn back, but you can.’

  Th
e pause that followed was no longer than a musical beat, and then, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think you know what I mean.’

  ‘Are you sending me away?’ she asked in a shocked whisper.

  ‘I think it’s for the best, don’t you?’ I tried to sound matter-of-fact, as if we were discussing some trivial matter of housekeeping. Jenny did not answer but stared at me, searching for some sign that I was not serious. In truth, I knew if she left me I should not have the strength to continue. I knew with a certainty beyond words that I could not live without her. ‘Yes, Jenny,’ I said. ‘I really think it would be safest and for the best if you returned to England.’

  I stared into her eyes, straining every nerve and sinew to counterfeit in my gaze a conviction that I did not possess. Jenny opened her mouth to speak and all I heard was a strangled whisper, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Definitely the most sensible thing. There really is no need for you to be put in danger on my behalf. You are not wanted by Room 42, you could travel back to England and await word from me.’

  Her voice was barely audible, a hoarse whisper. ‘Yes, of course. I mean … if you send me away … I will go.’

  ‘There! You see? You’d be much safer in England, and in a few weeks I would—’

  ‘Not England.’ Her voice was soft, and distant, as a voice in a dream.

  ‘Not?’

  ‘No. Not anywhere. If you send me away, I will go there.’

  ‘How can you go “not anywhere”?’

  ‘It’s where we all go one day, isn’t? It’s where Cooper went.’

  I flinched at the mention of his name. I understood she had not said it with an intention to wound, but simply because to mention this dead American soldier at this moment was the closest she could come to a blasphemy that might express the agony in her heart. ‘Jenny, you … you surely do not mean—’

  As the train chugged softly on, the already dim lamp in the ceiling grew dimmer. The glistening in Jenny’s eyes became more acute, gilding the edge of her cheek, and then I saw she was crying, silently.

  ‘I promised to love, honour and obey you, Jack. It wasn’t hard, no one needed to make me promise. But if you send me away, I will obey you though it will be the hardest thing I have ever done. But I can’t promise to go back to my life in England, the very thought is hateful to me.’ The word ‘hateful’ was barely recognisable as she convulsed and then she sobbed. I took her in my arms and squeezed her tightly. ‘Please don’t send me away,’ she whispered.