I could live here. Me and Razak.
Quickly she inspected every inch of it but just as she was about to push the jar into one of the many cupboards that covered the walls, the boat gave a subdued hiccup, knocking her off balance. She righted herself and glared out of one of the small round windows.
The river was tossing up waves. Playing with her.
‘That’s a fine yacht you have, Mrs Hadley.’
‘Thank you.’ Connie continued walking briskly along the jetty towards the car on the quayside.
‘Have you owned her long?’
‘A few years.’
Nine years, to be precise. Nigel had bought the sleek bermuda-rigged schooner for Connie as a wedding present, and named her The White Pearl in her honour.
‘Do you sail her often?’ Fitzpayne persisted.
Despite the questions, his manner was not what she would call friendly. ‘Often enough to suit us.’
In the early years they used to take her out every weekend, but now it had dwindled to an occasional jaunt down the Straits and around the islands with friends. Like everything else in their marriage, it was for show only.
‘Ho Bah,’ she said to her driver as they reached the car, ‘I’ll take these.’ She scooped up a large box of biscuits, several cartons of matches, a pack of bandages and a small sack of coffee beans. ‘If you can bring the flour and …’
Ho Bah made a grunting noise in his nose. It indicated disapproval. She looked at the hefty sacks and back to the syce. He had folded his arms across his chest. She sighed. The trouble was that Ho Bah was a good age now – he had been syce to Nigel’s father for many years – and believed he was above many of the tasks that a chauffeur normally undertook. Like carrying things. But Nigel refused to pension him off.
‘Let me,’ Fitzpayne interrupted, and casually swung a sack onto each shoulder without waiting for a reply from her, striding off back towards the boat.
Something about this whole encounter made Connie uneasy. It felt to her as though Fitzpayne had sought it out and deliberately manoeuvred her into it, yet she couldn’t imagine why. With her arms laden she caught up with him and thanked him for his help, but his attention was on The White Pearl, not on her.
‘Planning a trip somewhere?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Just using the boat to store food?’
‘No.’
That was the end of the conversation. In silence they walked the length of the jetty, past the other yachts rocking at their moorings. Out on the muddy river, sampans and narrow fishing boats scurried about their business, while a westerly wind blew the odour of the sea from the stinking fishing nets draped like oversized cobwebs over the quay. Natives in wide coolie hats sat lazily mending them hour after hour in the scorching sun, but Connie knew that as soon as that sun started to dip towards the horizon and the gulls folded their wings to bob on the oily surface of the waves, those men and their nets would be out in the boats. Lanterns would dance like fireflies on the bows, each man seeking his nightly haul of crab and gourami fish.
When they reached the gangplank of The White Pearl, Connie stepped on it to lead the way aboard but Fitzpayne paused, his face half hidden from her by the sacks.
‘Mrs Hadley, are you thinking of sailing away from Palur?’
‘Mr Fitzpayne, you ask a lot of questions.’
‘That’s because boats are my business.’
‘What exactly is it you do with boats?’
‘I sell them.’
‘Well, I’m afraid this one is not for sale.’
For the first time he fixed his eyes on hers directly in a sharp, assessing stare. He was in his late thirties with strong features, not handsome because his jaw was too heavy and his brow too prominent, emphasised by the way he wore his thick brown hair swept back from it. It was a stern and uncompromising statement of who he was. She was just about to turn from him and continue along the plank when a gust of wind snatched at the butter-yellow hem of her dress and lifted its skirt. It flew up like a kite around her, and she saw his gaze linger on her bare legs. With a gesture of impatience she flicked down her skirt and went on board, annoyed. Her plan to stockpile supplies in private on the boat was fast coming unravelled. She carried her armful of goods down into the saloon and found Maya perched in a corner like a small brown owl, eyes wide and head swivelling back and forth at every creak of the boat. The sweet jar was still clamped to her chest.
‘Are you all right, Maya?’ Connie dumped everything on the table in the saloon.
‘Yes, mem.’
‘You don’t look too good.’
‘Yes, mem.’
Connie approached and touched her forehead warily, almost fearing she might scratch, because there was something only half tamed about this young girl. Her skin was cold and clammy.
‘Is it the boat, Maya? Does its movement make you feel ill?’
‘No, mem. I like boat.’
The girl was obviously lying. ‘Would you prefer to wait back at the car?’
‘No, mem.’ Her eyes sank deep into her head, and she swallowed hard as though about to be sick.
‘I’ll make us some tea.’
The girl nodded, her sleek curtain of hair swinging forward to hide her face. Connie patted her shoulder awkwardly and became aware of heavy footsteps on board. A moment later, Fitzpayne appeared with the sacks.
‘Could you stow them in the forward locker, please, Mr Fitzpayne? Would you care for a cup of tea?’ She was confident he’d say no.
‘Thank you, I would. I’ll just fetch the rest of the boxes.’
‘There’s no need, I can …’
‘No trouble. Back before the kettle boils.’
He vanished. Damn the man!
Maya felt sick. A sea monster was blundering around inside her stomach. The white lady had killed her mother and now she had turned the curse onto Maya herself, somehow making her ill with just a touch of her hand.
Maya had seen it happen before, out in the jungle. A native spirit-man. He could heal with the breath from his nose or he could kill with the touch of a finger. Her stomach heaved, and she felt the sea monster’s tentacles slither up to her throat. She moaned. The white lady immediately abandoned her teapot and stalked her again, touching her head this time. Soft, dangerous strokes.
She couldn’t run, as she did from Hakim. She was trapped by the gangplank and by the man with the big shoulders. He was standing near the steps, drinking his tea, smiling at her. Waiting for her to die.
‘She doesn’t look well,’ Connie said.
‘Never been on the water before, I suspect,’ Fitzpayne commented.
‘The sooner I get her off the boat and onto dry land, the better.’
The air in the saloon was unbearably hot and lay heavy and unused, the stale accumulation of weeks of being shut up, so it was no wonder the girl was uncomfortable. Connie’s sense of unease increased. What was Fitzpayne doing on her boat? What was he after?
She sat quietly sipping her tea, but her skin felt too tight, as though she had put on someone else’s by mistake. Exactly as it did when she saw a snake flash across her path or heard the sounds of a water buffalo snorting and tramping its way through the trees close to her garden perimeter fence. It was her gut reaction to danger. But why on earth would Fitzpayne represent danger?
It was absurd. Ever since the car accident she had been jumpy, and being with Maya didn’t help. The sight of her, the scent of her hair, the eyes that were her mother’s, all reminded Connie of what she’d done, yet at the same time they fulfilled her need to make amends. She studied the girl’s face and tried to imprint it on her mind, so that at night during the relentless hours of staring at the mosquito net, she could examine it for hidden damage. Maya wasn’t pretty, but neither was she plain. Her face possessed a youthful vitality that was appealing, a quickness that captured the attention and drew the eye away from more conventional attractions. But there was knowledge there, too. Connie could see it in the
feral wariness that lurked behind every expression, far too much knowledge of what life had in store.
She became aware of Fitzpayne still standing by the door, watching her. She replaced her cup in the saucer and asked, ‘Why are you here, Mr Fitzpayne?’
‘I told you. Looking at boats.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘I like to keep my eyes open.’
Why did she get the feeling he wasn’t talking about selling boats?
‘Mrs Hadley, I congratulate you on your foresight. It’s obvious that you’re planning to flee on The White Pearl.’
The way he said it made her feel like a coward, and her cheeks flushed. Sweat trickled into her shoes. ‘Do you really think my husband is wrong when he says that the Japanese cannot bring an army into the Malayan jungle?’
‘With the greatest respect, he is talking like a colonial. Blind to everything but the glory of the British Empire, ignoring what is under his nose. The Japanese economy is in ruins. Its silk trade to America and Europe made up forty per cent of its total exports and now, since the Depression, their market has collapsed. It needs to find its raw materials elsewhere.’
‘But not here, surely.’
‘Why not here? And Siam, and Burma, and Sumatra, and the Philippines and …’
‘Enough! The League of Nations will prevent them.’
He came forward and put his cup down on the table with a scornful laugh. ‘Like they prevented the war in Europe? The League is a toothless old dog. It has no power. The Japanese know that. Their Prime Minister General Tojo is aware of that, and he will not stand by and let the oil embargo imposed on Japan by America continue with impunity.’
He leaned towards her, and she could hear his breath harsh in the sudden silence. ‘Tell me, Mrs Hadley, what would you do in their situation? Sit in your empty kitchen and starve?’ His grey eyes were hard. ‘Or arm yourself and fight to survive?’
Connie rose to her feet. ‘Not all of us are ready to steal what is not ours. My husband is an honourable man who has brought a good living to hundreds, if not thousands, of Malay natives who would otherwise be grubbing for survival. So I’ll thank you not to speak ill of someone who …’
He bowed to her crisply. The way Sho used to. Then he stood upright, and with a cold smile said, ‘My mistake. I apologise.’
For a moment they stared at each other before Connie nodded briefly. ‘Accepted.’ She turned to Maya who was sitting in silence, observing them through narrowed eyes. ‘Come, Maya. Time to leave.’
The girl shook her head. ‘I stay.’
‘What?’
‘It’s the gangplank,’ Fitzpayne said.
With an unexpected, boisterous laugh he swept the girl onto his shoulder as easily as one of the sacks, leaped up the steps and off the boat with Maya mewing like a kitten. The moment she was deposited on the jetty, she scampered off into the milling crowd. Connie stood on the deck and watched her go.
‘She’s taken my sweet jar,’ she muttered.
Fitzpayne raised a hand in farewell and set off up the quay. Connie didn’t like the way he walked – as if he could march through anything. But she was certain that they would both be back.
‘What are you running from, little whore?’
No, no, no. Not Hakim. Maya’s heart was ripped out of her chest. She swerved to avoid his fist, lost a sandal and tore a strip of skin off the sole of her foot. She dodged behind a fish stall, the glassy eyes of the groupers jeering at her, but one of the wolf cubs seized her from behind and hauled her over to Hakim.
‘Where have you been hiding, little whore?’
‘Nowhere, Hakim. I’ve been working.’
The slap, backhanded, landed on her jaw and knocked her head back so sharply she heard something crunch in the back of her neck. Pinpoints of light wavered across her vision.
‘You work for me, whore!’
‘No.’ She spat at him, but it had no force and fell in an aimless arc between them. She prepared herself for another slap but it didn’t come. Instead, he laughed. It was worse than the slap. Then he stroked her hair and pinched her chin between his fingers. Worse. Far worse.
‘The Purple Pussy. Every night this week,’ he hissed. She tried to shake her head, but his grip on her chin prevented it. ‘The stupid Russian bitch has knifed herself.’
Maya’s eyes widened.
‘So you’d better be there.’ He grinned at her and she wondered why, until she saw he had acquired a gold tooth and was showing it off. ‘Or I’ll send my boys here to fetch you and they won’t be as friendly as me. To you. Or to your brother.’
His black eyes were sucking the life out of her, turning her into a dead thing. She spat again and this time it hit.
He snatched the jar of sweet sticks from her arms, ignoring her whimpers of dismay, and swaggered away. If only the Russian bitch had sunk her knife between Hakim’s greasy shoulder blades.
11
Connie would fight to survive, she knew she would.
Sit in your empty kitchen and starve?
She pulled open the top drawer of the chest-of-drawers in her dressing room and lifted out a pile of neatly folded scarves made from finest Chinese silk.
Or arm yourself and fight to survive?
‘Yes, Mr Fitzpayne,’ she admitted in the privacy of her own room, ‘you are right. Whether it’s a country or an individual, it doesn’t matter; we fight to exist. For Teddy, I intend to survive.’
She slid her hand to the bottom of the drawer and her fingers brushed against something hard. She curled them around it and drew out an object that glinted in the shaft of sunlight, sending a rainbow shimmering up the wall. It was a silver cigarette case. She clicked it open and regarded the cigarettes inside it with distaste. A year ago, when she first hid it under her scarves, it had contained ten cigarettes and now only three remained. She removed one and snapped the case shut. The small metallic sound made her heart flip and her hand tremble. Her eye could not resist the pull of the elegant engraving in pride of place in the centre of the lid – the initials S.T., initials branded on her brain. Shohei Takehashi.
Why could she not hurl it in the bin even now?
‘Caught you.’
Flight Lieutenant John Blake laughed and threw himself down in the rattan chair beside Connie’s. She was seated on the veranda finishing her cigarette, inhaling the smoke in long cool threads, exhaling it abruptly to dispel the clouds of insects that hummed around her head. All the time she was watching the quiet figure of Razak as he raked the azalea bed on the other side of the lawn.
‘I thought you’d given up smoking, Connie.’
‘I did.’ She laughed, the tension trickling from her as she stretched her limbs on the bamboo chaise-longue. Why did Johnnie always have that effect on her? ‘So don’t tell Nigel.’
Johnnie put a finger to his lips in a pact of silence. He had good fingers, long and capable. Trustworthy hands. She could imagine them on the control column of an aircraft, holding the lives of others in their grip. He grinned at her, blue eyes bright with amusement, and drew out a pack of Dunhill cigarettes from his top pocket. He was in uniform again, and it suddenly struck her as ominous.
‘Not leaving are you, Johnnie?’
‘’Fraid so. My Brewster Buffalo calls.’
She sat up, swinging her feet to the floor. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Oh, you know, a bit of a flap on. Rumours flying around.’
‘What rumours?’
‘Nothing to take a blind bit of notice of, I promise you.’ But he rubbed a knuckle over his chin.
So it was a lie. Under the Flight Lieutenant’s easy charm lay a quiet intensity that he was trying his best to hide, a darkness in his blue eyes that held an awareness of something much more sombre than the pleasant garden in front of him, the yellow-breasted sun bird sipping at the russelia flower, and the comfortable haven Connie always offered him. She sensed that his mind and soul were already up in the sky, strapped into his Brew
ster Buffalo. But still he had come to Hadley House.
She stood up and pulled him to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s take a stroll.’
‘Where’s Teddy?’
‘He’s at his friend Jack’s birthday party, eating mounds of jelly and showing off his Interceptor, no doubt. It was very generous of you. He will be so disappointed to have missed your departure.’
‘He’s a fine boy.’
She smiled and slipped an arm through his as they walked along the path, past the tulip trees with their fleshy orange flowers. Everything was damp and clammy after an earlier downpour, which had encouraged the cicadas to give vent with frenzied energy. She let her footsteps fall into rhythm with Johnnie’s, his polished shoes crunching the gravel, his blue-grey trousers hanging crisp and freshly pressed on his long limbs, lean as sticks. He always had the knack of making her feel he would prefer to be here than anywhere else on earth.
She enjoyed the warmth of his arm against hers as they strolled, her body starved of such contact, but she never betrayed it by even a fraction of pressure beyond what was correct between friends. ‘Take care. You know I’ll worry. Nigel too, of course.’
He stopped suddenly, pulling her up short. They had wandered through the archway in the hedge and entered the vegetable garden, but she had a feeling that he was looking inward rather than outward. When he raised his hands and wiped them over his cropped blond hair, it was with a lurch of misery that she realised what was happening. He was wiping away the fear that lay on him like sweat.
‘Oh, Johnnie,’ she murmured, and circled her arms around him.
She could feel him shaking, tiny little vibrations rippling through him as he stood, ashen and silent. For less than a minute he buried his face in her hair and she could hear him inhale deeply, then he stepped back and turned his head away.
‘My apologies, Connie,’ he muttered. His voice was under control.
The White Pearl Page 11
