Maybe that was the problem.
She sent the Jumat twins home.
‘Teddy is not allowed to leave the garden,’ she told them. She frowned sternly at her son. ‘He knows that’s the rule.’
‘But I was with Maya and Razak, I wasn’t on my own,’ he grumbled. His brown eyes were darker now, cross with her.
‘You know the rule,’ she insisted. ‘Whose idea was it?’
‘It my idea,’ Razak admitted. ‘Good play for boy.’
‘Yes,’ Teddy added. ‘Good play.’
‘Not without asking me first. You should have asked my permission.’
‘You gone,’ Maya said softly.
‘I cannot employ you if I can’t trust you. Come back tomorrow morning and I will let you know my decision about your jobs. Go now.’
They didn’t argue, but turned and walked away down the drive. She was conscious of Fitzpayne on the front step, smoking a cigarette and watching them with close attention. It irritated her. She whisked Teddy’s hand into hers and marched him into the house. As she passed Fitzpayne she said a final, ‘Thank you for your help.’
In the hall, Chala fussed over Teddy, kissing his dirty cheeks and scolding him for worrying his mother.
‘Bath time,’ Connie said.
‘One moment, please.’ It was Fitzpayne, still at the open front door. ‘I would like a word with you, Mrs Hadley.’
‘Not now, I’m sorry, Mr Fitzpayne. I’m grateful for the help you’ve given me but …’ She stopped. He had walked across the hall and entered the drawing room, as though she had suggested it. She strode after him quickly. ‘Excuse me, I don’t recall inviting you into my house.’
‘Just sit a minute.’
‘No, thank you. I have a son to bathe.’
‘Just sit.’
He came over to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and sat her down on one of the sofas. Her knees just buckled under her. No resistance, nothing in them. It shocked her. Then her whole body started to shake.
‘Mrs Hadley, you look pale. You’ve had an unpleasant shock. Just sit for a moment.’
He moved over to the cocktail cabinet, opened it, poured out a stiff brandy and brought it to her. She shook her head. He crouched down in front of her, regarding her carefully.
‘You need it,’ he said.
‘No. Thank you.’
He didn’t insist, but shrugged and drank it down himself. ‘Shall I call a servant for you?’
‘No. Thank you.’ Her teeth chattered. She closed her eyes.
He remained there in front of her, not patting her knee or holding her hand. He just left her to deal with whatever she had to deal with alone. But he didn’t leave. Minutes ticked past and the nausea in her stomach began to lessen, the beat of her heart which had slowed to a sluggish murmur picked up and a pulse tapped impatiently at her temple. When she opened her eyes, Fitzpayne was gazing out through the window. She saw that the wide jaw was tense and his large nostrils flared with annoyance. He reminded her of a grumpy horse she’d once owned who hated being cooped up in a horse box. She sat up straight and immediately he returned his attention to her, offering her a cigarette. She accepted. He lit hers and one for himself, inhaled deeply, then stood up and walked to the door.
‘Better?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Your cheeks have more colour, your lips are no longer blue.’
His words embarrassed her. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do you want to tell me what that was all about?’
‘No.’
He nodded. ‘I said last time I was in this house that we all have our secrets.’ With a tip of his head to her, Fitzpayne was gone.
‘I mean it, Teddy. You must never leave our garden without permission from me or Daddy. Even if someone you know invites you to. This is important.’
‘Why?’ He made the bow of his boat bump against the white porcelain of the bath, and the corner of his mouth drooped down. ‘It’s boring in the garden.’
‘Because something bad might happen. You might have an accident or …’
‘Like you had in the car?’
She swallowed. ‘Yes, exactly like that. Or you might fall over. And we wouldn’t know where you were to help you. We would be worried, like I was worried today.’ She caught hold of a strand of his wet hair. ‘Do you understand?’
He ducked his head away, sulkily. ‘Yes, Mummy.’
‘Good. Because I have an idea.’
Instantly his eyes flashed to hers. ‘What kind of idea?’
‘I’ve decided,’ she continued, ‘that we all need a bit of adventure – you, Daddy and me.’
‘Yes.’ He abandoned his boat.
‘I think we need to live rough for a day. Out in the plantation.’
He beamed at her. ‘Can we light a fire?’
‘Yes.’
‘And cook food?’
‘Yes. And we’ll build a hut.’
He splashed his hand down on the water with excitement, spraying bubbles over them both and laughing, but after a moment he looked back at her cautiously.
‘Us?’ he said. ‘Just us?’
‘That’s right. You can invite Jack if you want.’
‘No servants?’
She realised what he was trying to say. Because servants did all the work at home, he thought she wouldn’t let him have a go on their day out in the wild. It dawned on her that Teddy was a seven-year-old desperate to get his hands dirty. Well, in the plantation he could get dirty without the dangers of the jungle.
‘No servants,’ she promised him. ‘We’ll do everything ourselves. Unless we want someone to come along to show us how to light a fire without matches, and how to make a waterproof roof. It’s up to you.’
Her son thought for a moment, his young face solemn as he considered the options. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘We must take Razak with us.’
Her heart sank. ‘Not necessarily Razak, sweetheart. We could take one of our gardeners instead – how about Ajib? He knows about …’
‘Please let’s take Razak!’ His voice was full of yearning.
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘You won’t sack them, will you, Mummy? Because I got them into trouble.’
She heard the guilt. She recognised it in his voice instantly, that dull, dragging sensation that tightens the throat.
‘Teddy, what they did was wrong.’
He placed his small hand over hers on the edge of the bath. ‘I’m sorry I broke the rules, Mummy. I won’t leave the garden again, I promise.’
She kissed his wet skin and accepted his peace offering.
Razak was blank-eyed and far away, though his shoulder was against Maya’s as they sat in the back of the ancient truck that had stopped to give them a lift. The sun directly overhead beat down on the top of her head but the wind had risen, moaning through the rubber trees. She knew a storm was on its way. She could see the clouds marching over the hills in the distance, and she wanted to get home quickly.
‘Razak,’ she said crossly, ‘you have the heart of a bleating goat.’
He blinked, his long black lashes moving slowly as he came back from wherever he had gone. ‘The woman must suffer,’ he said solemnly. ‘Not the child.’
‘But we agreed we would make her suffer by stealing the boy.’ Maya didn’t mention demanding dollars. She didn’t want another lecture on the need to respect her mother’s spirit. Piss on her mother’s spirit!
‘We did steal the boy, Maya. She did suffer.’ He turned to her, and she glimpsed the satisfaction in his eyes. ‘You saw her face.’
Maya could not resist a smile. ‘Yes, I saw her face.’
‘The agony.’
‘And the fury.’
He made a soft, contented noise in his chest. ‘She will die before she forgets that day.’
‘You made us waste time with your stupid game with the boy.’ She slapped her brother’s thigh, and he caught her wrist and pinned it down.
‘The boy is a pup, Maya. He needs to play. Not in a bed of goose down. He needs …’
‘Razak, I don’t care what the boy needs. He is a tool for us, nothing more.’
He sighed beside her, his breath mingling with the hot wind and the dust. ‘Sometimes, Maya, it weighs on my heart, the fear that you have no soul.’
His words hurt her, but she kept it hidden. She trod carefully. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘you must go back to the white lady alone. She will keep you working there, but not me. It’s up to you now to squeeze the blood from her veins.’ She watched the black clouds swarming together like bees. ‘But my time will come with her, I know.’
‘Why? We must go to Hadley House together in the morning.’
She heard the alarm in his voice, and it pleased her to know that he wanted her there. She shook her head, sweeping flies from her lips. ‘He will never allow it.’
‘Who?’
‘Her husband.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I know him.’
He swivelled round to face her, curious. ‘You know him?’
‘Yes. He is the man with the sad eyes and the whisky who comes and sits against the wall in The Purple Pussy.’
Nigel was late home that evening. He arrived out of the rain just when Connie was in the middle of dancing a snappy quickstep on her own across the drawing-room floor. She had pushed back the furniture, kicked away the rug, turned down the lights and put one of her dance-band records on the gramophone, a Glenn Miller. She let her eyes fall almost closed as she danced, her steps complicated and fast, her blood pounding in rhythm to the beat. Nigel stood in the doorway and stared. She stopped as soon as she saw him but she had no idea how long he had been there, watching her with astonished eyes. She came to a halt in front of him, and on impulse held out her arms to him.
‘Dance with me,’ she whispered, swaying her hips.
To her surprise he slipped off his jacket, took her in his arms and twirled her around the room in a series of quick turns. She tilted her head backwards, stretching her neck and letting her hair swing free, feeling the pleasure of being held for once by her husband, his palm warm on her back, his grip light on her fingers. He rarely took to the floor even on social occasions, which was a shame because he was a damn good dancer.
When the music ended he immediately released his hold on her, walked over to the gramophone and lifted the needle from the record. She remained where she was, standing with her arms loose at her sides, tendrils of hair clinging to the moist skin of her neck. In the dim light with the rain lashing down outside, the room felt intimate despite the expanse of polished floor between them. It struck Connie that Nigel’s face looked tired, the set of it older than his thirty-eight years, especially along the jawline where shadows gathered.
She gave him an affectionate smile. ‘Would you like a drink? A stengah?’
But neither of them moved.
‘Do you often dance?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes. When I’m lonely. Or restless.’
‘Are you restless now?’
She shrugged. ‘Colonial wives are restless most of the time. There’s not much for us to do.’
He made no comment, but walked over to her till he was so close that for one stupid moment she thought he intended to kiss her. Instead, his eyes fixed on her face so intently that she felt he was trying to strip away the layers that made up the gossamer armour that guarded her, protected her from his prying gaze.
‘Don’t ever kiss Johnnie again. Promise me.’
His words were the last she had expected. He spoke in such a low voice she barely heard them. Hesitantly she raised her hand, cupping his cheek in it, but for once he didn’t back away.
‘I promise.’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘No, not yet.’
He was lying, she could tell, but she let it sit there between them as if it were the truth. ‘You’ll tell me when you do?’
‘Of course.’
She removed her hand, but he remained where he was and she could smell whisky on his breath.
‘What is it, Nigel?’
‘Constance, I insist that you don’t employ that girl who was here this afternoon. Find someone else. Please. I think she’s dangerous.’
She nodded. ‘If it makes you happy.’
That’s the trouble with guilt. It makes you say yes when what you mean is no.
14
Madoc worked harder and faster on the casino than ever before. He had a sense of time running out. Whoever were the victors in the war that was coming, they’d all be sick of the misery of fighting and want to come and gamble away their hard-earned cash, and where better than at Morgan’s Bar? Kitty had strapped up his ribs and bathed his wounds, and he dosed himself each morning with a glass of cheap brandy to numb the pain.
‘You’re drinking too much,’ Kitty commented.
‘I’m drinking enough,’ he countered. He downed another half-glass and felt it scorch his gut. It was the second of the morning, and he hadn’t had breakfast yet though he’d been at work for the past two hours, ever since dawn.
‘Eat something.’
To oblige her, he sat down at the table and watched her move around the cramped kitchen as she served him a plate of fried belly pork and eggs. It smelled good but he wasn’t hungry. He was never hungry these days, not since his run-in with Bull Chan. Something was churning inside him, eating him up. He stuck a fork in the eggs, pushing them round his plate.
‘Sit down, Kitty. There’s something I want to tell you.’
Quietly she abandoned the pan and sat opposite him at the battered old table where she had once cut a bullet from his thigh. She folded her hands in front of her on its surface, and narrowed her eyes at him.
‘If anything happens to me – I mean anything bad – I want you to …’
‘Nothing bad will happen to you,’ she retorted. ‘Not if you don’t do anything stupid or go begging to get your thick skull knocked in.’ She didn’t raise her voice, but he could hear she wanted to.
He tried again. ‘If anything bad happens to me, I want you to know that there is a box buried behind the banyan tree. It’s an old Huntley and Palmers biscuit tin with a picture of King George on the front. It’s buried a good way down, and there is enough money in it to get you back home.’
He’d expected surprise from her. Probably annoyance. Maybe even a veiled relief. But what he got was a soft melting of something at the core of her; he could see it like honey in her hazel eyes.
Her hand slid forward and took hold of one of his. ‘Don’t you know, I am home?’ She said it with the kind of smile that meant she could think of a better use for the table than scoffing belly pork and eggs.
Madoc was up a ladder, hammering the roof beams in place. When the roof was finished, he would start to prepare the interior. He already had the gaming tables ordered – though not yet paid for – and was thinking of travelling as far as KL to poach a well-trained croupier from one of the clubs. One with a French accent would be classy. He liked that idea; it would impress the jock-heads who would come flocking upriver.
He returned to his work, whistling cheerfully, despite the fact that everything was wet from a recent downpour, so that he and the timbers were drenched and the ground squelched beneath his ladder. Later, when he thought back on it, he realised his mistake was the whistling. It masked other sounds, even the usual racket that frogs made after rain. So he didn’t hear the boat glide up to the jetty, or the footsteps that approached his shell of a casino while he was up the ladder. If he had, maybe it would have turned out differently.
‘Madoc-san.’
Shit! Madoc’s hammer paused mid-strike. He glanced down onto a neat male head, raindrops glistening in the cropped grey hair, and an upturned face that looked pleased with itself. It was one of his Japanese contacts, the oldest one, the one in authority who liked to pretend he spoke little English.
‘Good morning,’ Madoc said, and shinned down the ladder. He kept the hammer in his hand. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’
He watched the pale face of the man in front of him, the way it made no attempt to hide its arrogance and its dislike of him. The narrow eyes had the look of a cat, and Madoc was in no doubt that he was intended to be the mouse.
‘I have a task for you,’ the Japanese said with the utmost politeness.
‘Does it pay well?’
‘Of course.’
‘You want more information?’
‘No.’ The man was sweating in the heat. Or was there something more? He wore a raincoat over dark, spotless trousers, but his shoes were spattered with Morgan’s Bar’s mud. ‘Not this time. What I want is this: one hundred bicycles.’
Madoc burst out laughing, it was so absurd. ‘What? Is the great Imperial Japanese Army going to invade Malaya by bike?’
He was still chuckling at the idea when his companion said coldly, ‘That is exactly what we intend to do.’
Madoc’s laughter instantly dried up. In the silence he heard the palm trees chafing against each other in the same way that this man’s manner chafed on Madoc’s nerves.
‘That’s insane,’ he said. Perhaps unwisely.
The small man pulled back his shoulders and pushed out his narrow chest. ‘The Imperial Japanese Army does nothing that is insane. It is a supreme fighting force.’
‘On bicycles!’
‘You are a fool! You and your British Army know nothing. You think that the Malayan jungle will stop us!’ Spittle gathered in one corner of his mouth, and he clenched a fist to his chest as though to stop his heart from launching itself at Madoc. ‘We have tanks that will blast your defences, and we have bicycles that will carry our infantry so fast along the jungle tracks that our forces will outflank yours before you can finish drinking your English cup of tea.’
‘Christ!’ Suddenly Madoc could see the sense of it. The natives of Malaya criss-crossed the jungle on bicycles every day. Why not an army? ‘A hundred bicycles? You’ll need a thousand.’
The man stiffened. ‘Don’t think we won’t convey our own.’
The White Pearl Page 15
