The White Pearl

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘So why do you need me to find any more?’

  ‘Many will be damaged. We need replacements ready along our route.’

  ‘Christ!’ Madoc said again. The chill finger of reality touched the base of his spine, and for the first time he believed the bloody Japanese Army might actually manage it.

  ‘One hundred bicycles,’ the man repeated.

  ‘That’s a tall order. How soon do you want them?’

  ‘Immediately.’

  Madoc laughed in the man’s face and started back towards his ladder.

  ‘Madoc-san, don’t you dare walk away from me!’

  Madoc swung round. ‘I do not care for your manners,’ he snapped.

  The Japanese pulled out two manila envelopes from his raincoat pocket and held them out. ‘One to pay the cost of the bicycles,’ his mouth tipped into a sneer, ‘the other to pay the cost of you.’

  Madoc contemplated hitting him. But the envelopes were fat. He knew he could buy a native’s bicycle for little more than a beer and a couple of dollars. He snatched the envelopes without looking at the man, and ripped open the one for himself. It took an effort to keep his face straight. Inside lay real temptation, more than enough money to fit out the new casino to a standard that would draw punters from far and wide. He could employ the best girls, get in a stock of good Scotch whisky, buy Kitty a wedding ring at last, he could …

  Fuck! He spat on the ground and pocketed the money.

  The Jap’s eyes glittered, hard and cold and unforgiving. ‘Two days. I want them in two days.’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  Abruptly the Jap turned his head, conscious of someone staring at him. It was Kitty. She was standing with the iron pan swinging loosely from her hand. She wore a bright green blouse with sweat stains and a yellow sarong around her ample waist, her hair bundled up in an unruly knot. She didn’t look dangerous.

  She ambled over, swaying her hips. ‘Any problems, Madoc?’ she asked casually.

  ‘No. Our friend is just leaving.’

  ‘Good.’

  The man bristled like a fighting dog and drew himself up to his full height, but still he was several inches shorter than Kitty. ‘Your husband and I are doing business,’ he said. His tone was dismissive.

  ‘If you ask me, you do too much fucking business with my husband. Now get your yellow hide off our land.’

  Madoc fought hard not to laugh at the expression on the Jap’s face, but his laughter changed to dismay when he saw his wife sidle up to the ladder and give it a nudge with her shoulder. It came crashing down. Madoc jumped clear, but it twisted and gave a glancing blow to the Japanese, sending him sprawling in the mud. With a scrabble of limbs he leaped immediately back to his feet, but his trousers and raincoat were caked in mud. A flash of something like hatred passed through his dark eyes as he bowed stiffly to Kitty, then strutted off back to the jetty without a word.

  Madoc wanted to scold his wife. She had made the Jap lose face in a big way, and you didn’t do that to a Japanese if you wanted to keep your fingernails. But instead he seized hold of her, pressing the large fleshy mound of her breasts against his chest, and planted a kiss on her lips.

  White gold.

  That was the name for rubber. The milky-white fluid that spilled like liquid gold dust into the white man’s pocket. As Connie rode her horse along the plantation trail, she gazed upwards. Far above her arched a vaulted ceiling of delicate leaves and slender branches that shielded her from the fiery force of the tropical sun, allowing only the fingertips of a gentle dappled light to filter through.

  Here was order. Here was control. Here was certainty. They soothed Connie’s thoughts. Regular rows of rubber trees – Hevea brasiliensis – that stretched for mile after mile, tall mottled trunks as straight and fundamental as marble columns in a church, while a smattering of foliage sprouted underfoot like a carpet of bright green feathers. Here there was room to breathe.

  Nothing like the chaos of the jungle.

  They’d chosen a Sunday. Early morning, when the air was at its coolest and a thin green mist rose up like the earth’s breath, but Connie knew better than to trust it to stay that way. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a light muslin blouse with jodhpurs and a pair of sturdy walking shoes. She and Nigel had saddled their horses and Teddy’s small Turkish pony, Puck. Razak opted to walk. When Connie offered him a horse to ride, he looked at her as if she’d suggested putting a firecracker between his legs. She’d been amazed at how readily Nigel had agreed to this Jumat twin accompanying them on their trek and it touched her that he should want to please her and Teddy like this. They rode in single file along the trails through the plantation, passing from groves of younger trees to the old-timers which towered above them, creaking their heavy branches like old men with sore joints.

  As they rode deeper through mile after mile of identical trees, the air damp and earthy, Connie found the sameness of the groves around her disconcerting and became disorientated. Everywhere looked identical. How Nigel could find his way in this green kaleidoscope of rubber trees she couldn’t imagine, but he did so with unfailing sureness. Whenever they passed a tapper or one of the coolies clearing ditches or weeding, Nigel would call out, ‘Selamat pagi, Ghani,’ or ‘Good morning, Kijang.’ In return he would receive a ‘Selamat pagi, Tuan,’ with a good-natured smile on the brown face and a courteous bow to herself. It was like being with a beloved king in his kingdom. No wonder he adored it.

  ‘Here we are,’ Nigel announced suddenly. ‘The perfect spot.’

  Connie gazed around her. At first glance it looked no different from every other spot they had ridden through, but then she realised that just ahead of them sprawled a patch of jungle forest. She regarded it warily.

  ‘Yes! We can make camp,’ Teddy crowed, and slid off his horse with an energy she envied after two hours in the saddle.

  ‘We’ll collect material for the hut from over there,’ Nigel waved a hand towards the forest, ‘and build our camp right here, I think.’ He surveyed his chosen territory with satisfaction. ‘There’s a river just beyond those trees.’

  Connie dismounted. She had to admit that this spot did indeed look perfect: a narrow strip of open grassland tucked between the rubber trees and the dark ribbon of the jungle’s edge. She left the others to make a start as she took care of the horses. She removed their saddles, rubbed down their hot, sweating backs and led them to drink and cool their feet in the river, then tethered them in the shade and returned to the camp area. Already a pile of areca palm fronds lay in a heap, and Teddy was dragging more across the grass, his face red with effort. Behind him, Razak was carrying five long straight poles and Nigel held an armful of sticks. He grinned as he approached, waving his parang at her. They had agreed with Teddy what to bring: one parang, an evil-looking native machete, and a long-bladed knife for skinning anything they caught, as well as a billycan for heating water. In her back pocket Connie had secreted a box of matches and a hipflask of antiseptic. Just in case.

  It took some time to build a hut, an A-shaped shelter with fronds for the roof.

  ‘Make it watertight,’ Connie laughed as Teddy worked another layer of greenery into the walls. ‘We don’t want to get wet when the rain comes.’

  ‘We won’t!’ His fingers were nimble. He only needed to be shown once how to interweave the fronds.

  There was a lot of shouting and laughing but the hut slowly emerged, a bit shaky but definitely a respectable hut, and Connie noticed that even Razak seemed to be enjoying the experience. His black eyes shone, glancing at her shyly as he worked. Only Nigel was allowed to wield the parang because they wanted no accidents, but Razak was as quick as lightning with the knife when they all descended on the river to try for fish. He poised himself, still as a statue, up to his waist in the current, waiting for long moments, then struck hard and fast. He lifted the fish from the water, skewered on the point of the knife.

  �
��Good show,’ Nigel called and Teddy clapped.

  Razak bowed, holding his catch aloft, a wide smile on his handsome face.

  So why did she feel the need to insist on taking the knife away from him to gut the fish herself?

  They made a fire – using her matches – and cooked the fish. Teddy caught a pair of speckled lizards with bright yellow eyes but refused all his father’s urging to roast them over the fire. The rain sheeted down for an hour in the afternoon as it did most days, and the four of them huddled inside the hut which, to Connie’s amazement, kept them dry with only a few drips sneaking down her neck. At least it was cooler for a brief time, and Connie was grateful for that. When they emerged from their cramped confinement into a green world that was waterlogged and steaming around them like a hot bath, she noticed a restlessness surfacing in Nigel, as though he’d had his fill of this game, and she recalled Sho’s comment about her husband’s passion.

  ‘Nigel’, she said, ‘why don’t you take the opportunity to teach Teddy about rubber trees?’

  Nigel looked across at his son. ‘Good idea. Would you like that?’

  Teddy didn’t exactly jump at the offer.

  ‘It’ll be your job one of these days,’ Nigel pointed out.

  ‘I like.’ It was Razak who spoke. He pointed to the rows of rubber trees. ‘I like learn.’

  Nigel beamed at the native boy. ‘Come along then, chaps.’

  He led them all on foot deeper into the plantation, occasionally touching the mottled bark of a tree as he passed, in the same way that Connie would ruffle her son’s hair.

  ‘So, who can tell me their name?’ he boomed as if talking to a class of fifty.

  ‘They have names?’ Teddy asked.

  ‘Pokok getah,’ Razak offered.

  ‘Correct. That’s their native Malay name.’

  ‘Hevea brasiliensis,’ Connie smiled.

  ‘Well done. That’s the scientific name. Hevea brasiliensis.’ He repeated it because it sat well on his tongue. He drew them close to a tree to inspect the long diagonal cut that ran around half the outer circumference like a massive appendix scar. ‘This,’ he said, ‘takes great skill. If a tapper cuts too deep, he will destroy the productive life of a tree. He has a special knife to excise only a thin sliver of bark, less than a quarter of an inch, and he makes an incision through the latex vessels. He mustn’t damage the cambium – that’s a paper-like skin between the bark and the wood – or the tree is ruined. And he has to work fast. I expect a tapper to do between five hundred and six hundred trees in a day, if he’s any good.’

  Connie looked at the huge wound on each tree and felt sorry for them. Sliced open day after day, never allowed to heal. Around every trunk was a metal wire that held a glazed porcelain cup to the base of the scar where the milky substance had gathered. Teddy stuck his finger in it.

  ‘Latex,’ Nigel announced. ‘I make it into rubber down in the smoke-sheds. And do you know why it’s called rubber, my boy?’

  Teddy was rolling the white coating on his finger into a tiny ball. ‘Because you can rub it?’

  ‘Close. It’s because the early growers found that you could rub pencil marks out with it. Simple.’ He pointed to a smear of white latex that had gathered all down the length of the scar. ‘This is called tree lace.’ He peeled it off. ‘Already coagulated.’ He rolled it into a sticky ball and tossed it to Teddy. ‘A rubber tree,’ he said, ‘has enormous tenacity, though they look slender. Their timber is as hard as teak.’

  Razak moved closer and tentatively ran his hand over the tree, touching its wound, stroking its bark. ‘How old?’

  ‘We start tapping seven years after planting, on alternate days throughout the whole year. Yields increase as the tree matures. Each tree has a production life of about thirty years.’

  ‘It’s solid now,’ Connie pointed out to Teddy, ‘but it’s liquid when it starts to flow.’

  ‘Tree blood,’ Razak whispered.

  ‘That’s right,’ Nigel agreed. ‘It flows better before the heat of the day. That’s why tappers have to start before dawn. They trek along their grove making the six hundred or so cuts, and then return a few hours later to collect it once the latex has stopped flowing for that day. They empty each cup into pails and add ammonia if we want to keep it in liquid form. But this,’ he reached into the cup and scraped out a fistful, ‘is called cup lump.’ He tossed it to Razak.

  ‘Thank you.’ Razak bowed. ‘Terimah kasih.’

  ‘It has coagulated.’

  Connie smiled. Coagulated was not a word that either Razak or Teddy would be familiar with. ‘It’s solid,’ she explained.

  ‘Coagulated,’ Teddy murmured. He ran to the next tree, his hand hovering over the cup as he looked across at his father for permission.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Nigel laughed.

  Teddy drew out the viscous substance and started moulding it into a ball. He held it to his nose and sniffed it. In the shifting light that drifted between the trees, Connie saw something in his young face change, as if he had just smelled his future.

  Nigel came over and sat with Connie on a thick branch that was lying on the ground. Not beside her, not close, but still on the same moss-covered limb. He stretched out his legs in front of him, flicked a cluster of flies from his knee and together they watched the boys laughing and throwing the rubber balls at each other. Nigel slapped his thigh with satisfaction each time Teddy scored a direct hit.

  ‘It’s been a good day,’ Connie said, ‘for all of us.’

  He nodded, his attention on the boys.

  She waited. ‘What is it, Nigel?’

  ‘Johnnie Blake is in hospital. His plane crashed on landing. Apparently the undercarriage collapsed.’

  Her heart thudded. ‘Oh, poor Johnnie. How badly is he hurt?’

  ‘It seems his shoulder is in pieces.’

  She put a hand over her mouth. ‘But it could have been worse.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘When did you hear?’ she asked.

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘No.’ He applauded a good throw by Razak. ‘He’s leaving hospital but has refused to be sent back to England to recuperate, so he’s coming to Palur. I’ve invited him to stay at Hadley House. I don’t want him stuck at the Victoria Club on his own.’

  ‘Of course not. When is he arriving?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Nigel, you might have discussed it with me earlier.’

  ‘I’m discussing it now.’

  Connie could feel sweat gathering in the hollow of her collar bones and a beetle, the colour of dung and the size of a ping-pong ball, started to crawl up onto her shoe. She kicked it off.

  ‘We’ll take good care of him,’ she said, and rose to her feet. ‘I’m going to check on the horses.’

  As she started to move away, Nigel said behind her, ‘I’ll hold you to your promise, Constance. Don’t forget it.’

  Without comment, she walked down towards the river.

  She watered the horses and leaned her forehead against the hot hide of her mare.

  ‘Oh, poor Johnnie,’ she murmured.

  She crouched at the river’s edge, a pair of bright yellow butterflies chasing each other around the rocks like children. She dipped her hat in the tepid water of the river, shook it, then placed it on her head once more, cooling her thoughts, but a rough noise nearby made her turn. A noise like a smoker’s gravelly cough. She opened her eyes.

  Oh, Christ!

  Six feet away from her crouched a giant monitor lizard. Connie didn’t move a muscle. The monster creature looked like the cousin of a crocodile, longer than a man, its huge scaly body built of solid muscle. Its narrow head darted forward, flicking out a grey tongue, tasting the air, smelling her sweat while the tiny eyes remained fixed on her. Its massive tail started to whip back and forth, shuffling the stones by the river, frightening the horses.

  Slowly, Connie uncurled from her position at
the water’s edge and rose to her feet. Not often did monitor lizards attack humans, that’s what they said, unless the humans were small or wounded. Or dead. Its fleshy mouth opened and hissed at her. She started to back up the slope from the river, and that was when a scream started somewhere behind her. A high-pitched scream that went on and on and froze the blood in her veins. It was Teddy.

  She forgot the lizard. She turned and flew up the bank, racing towards her son. At the top she saw that Teddy was running towards her, his mouth wide open, showing all his small white teeth, his screams solidifying into one desperate word: ‘Mummeeee!’

  He was covered in blood.

  There was blood on his hands. On his shirt. On the V of his throat. Running down his small tanned leg into his shoe. No, no, no!

  He flew into her arms, stinking of blood and fear. She swept him up, racing back towards their camp hut. She saw Razak, standing and looking down at something on the ground.

  ‘Mummy,’ Teddy screamed in her ear. ‘Daddy’s hurt.’

  Connie held Teddy close, inhaling the heat of his skin and the dirt in his hair. ‘You’re bleeding.’

  ‘No. It’s Daddy …’ Tears were streaking down his cheeks.

  She reached the hut.

  ‘Nigel!’

  Her husband was on the ground, lying flat on his back, both arms wrapped around his face as though holding everything in. ‘Constance.’ The word came out through clenched teeth. ‘For God’s sake, help me.’

  His trouser leg was soaked in blood from the ankle all the way up to the thigh. Quickly Connie stood her son on the ground, kissed his cheek and knelt on the damp grass beside her husband. Already it was thick with blood under her knee.

  ‘It’s all right, Nigel,’ she said calmly. ‘Let me take a look at it.’ Without raising her head she said, ‘Razak, move Teddy away, please.’ Her eyes skimmed the immediate area and spotted the parang lying nearby. There was blood on the blade.

  ‘What happened?’

  She started to lift the torn material off his leg. It was drenched in scarlet and stuck to his skin, but she eased it away as gently as she could. She heard Nigel’s sharp intake of breath, his faint sob. What she saw made bile shoot up to her throat. The flesh of one whole side of his calf was severed from his leg, hanging on by a flimsy flap of skin, blood pouring into the cavity. Bone showed red and glistening, tendons drowning in the mess.