Teddy came in to kiss her goodnight. As he slipped an arm around her waist, she knew that his father would never let him go.
‘Mummy,’ he kissed her damp cheek, ‘I’ll read to you. Like you read to me when I’m ill.’
So she lay on her pillows, eyes fixed on his face while he read her a page from his favourite book on learning new skills, describing the technique required to build an igloo.
‘Useful,’ she said when he’d finished, ‘if I ever go to Lapland.’
He nodded, wanting to laugh but not quite able to.
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she said, ‘I’ll be right as rain tomorrow. Daddy will put you to bed tonight.’
He scowled his father’s frown at her. ‘Daddy’s too busy. I can put myself to bed.’
She kissed his salty hair, breathed in the sour smell of his jealousy and felt his confusion mingle with her own.
It was hours later that Nigel came to bed. She was sitting up, alert, with the kerosene lamp casting a dull, oily glow in the cabin. She would talk to him. Quietly. Calmly. With no display of anger and no embarrassment. She had planned the words in her head. Outside, the wind was fitful but the creaks and shrieks of the timbers became less intrusive, as though settling down for a night’s sleep.
‘Feeling better?’ Nigel asked politely.
‘No.’
‘Aspirin?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘That’s a shame, old thing.’
‘Nigel, I am neither old, nor a thing.’
He paused in the process of removing his socks and looked at her, surprised. ‘Just a turn of phrase, that’s all.’
She opened her mouth to tell him that she knew now that he had never loved her, that he had tempted her out to Malaya with tales of exotic enchantment, that he had lied to her, deceived her. About everything. All to gain a son. But now he was in danger of breaking his son’s heart, that he …
Yet when she examined his face, seeking out the liar, the deceiver, the heartbreaker, all her prepared words died in her throat.
She may feel humiliated. She may feel hurt and rejected. She may feel mortified that her husband preferred a Malayan youth to his wife. But what she saw in his face was that Nigel was brimming with happiness. How could she not have noticed before? The darts of light in his eyes. The shine on his skin. The curve to his mouth. And the way his long features, usually so stiff and controlled, seemed to have rubbed up against each other and repositioned themselves, so that she would have sworn his nose was shorter, his chin blunter, the lines of his cheeks and his eyebrows more fluid.
Suddenly, as sharp as a knife in the ribs, just like her son, Connie ached with jealousy. Nigel was in love. Nigel was happy. In the nine lonely years of their marriage she had never seen him like this, and she could not bring herself to snatch such happiness from him right now. He was trapped within his own desires, and her heart bled for him. So she closed her mouth and slid down under the sheet, careful not to let any part of her body touch his as he climbed into bed. In case the clash of skins sparked something in her that she couldn’t control, and make her lash out.
‘Goodnight, Nigel,’ she muttered.
‘Goodnight, old thing.’
*
A slender arrow of silver lay on the bedsheet. It was still dark outside but a tiny slit in a cloud somewhere had allowed moonlight to sneak through and find a path to Connie’s bed. She watched it edge its way up towards her.
She lay awake, fingering the pearls that she wore constantly, some distant part of her mind paying heed to the motion of the boat to judge the height of the waves, and to the grumbling of the rigging to reckon the speed of the wind. But all her attention was on the silent form beside her in the dark. She listened to his breathing, and counted the times he turned on his side with a sigh rumbling up from his dreams. At one point, a sudden movement of the boat jolted him from his sleep, but he chose to pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, Connie spoke to him softly.
‘Nigel, do you like Razak?’
An indistinct murmur rose from her husband.
‘Nigel, do you like him?’
‘Razak is a nice enough young man.’ But he had hesitated too long.
‘Do you love him?’
‘What?’
‘Do you love him?’
He sat bolt upright. ‘Constance, have you gone out of your mind?’
‘Hush,’ she soothed. ‘I can see you love him. So can Teddy. That’s why he’s sulking. He thinks you have forgotten us.’
Nigel released a loud explosion of sound, then lowered it to a throaty hiss as he clambered from the bed. He landed on his bad leg and stumbled in the darkness, cursing, but by the thin arrow of moonlight she could make out his features, contorted with anger. Or was it fear?
‘Constance,’ he said in a low voice, aware of thin walls around him. ‘I demand an apology and a retraction.’
‘No, Nigel, I can’t. I should have realised before. It’s true, isn’t it, that …?
‘It is not true!’
‘Oh, Nigel, you should never have married me. It was cruel.’
‘Don’t be absurd, Constance.’
‘Please, Nigel, don’t lie to me any more. Be honest with me.’
‘You are suggesting something that is disgusting and unnatural. As well as illegal, as you well know.’ His voice trembled. ‘The Malay boy needs help, and I am giving it to him. Isn’t that what you wanted?’
Connie rolled over on her side, away from him. ‘No, Nigel, that is not what I wanted.’
26
Madoc was worried about the boat. She was still taking on too much water, limping against a headwind. The rain didn’t help. It lashed down on the deck, hammering at the timber planks as if intent on robbing Madoc of his prize. Nothing was visible. The solid sheets of rain swallowed the tops of the masts and veiled all land from sight, so that The White Pearl floated in stifling isolation, alone and disconnected. Trapped in her own private world.
‘What do you think?’
Madoc leaned against the rail alongside Flight Lieutenant Blake. The man was huddled in mustard-yellow oilskins, his gaze turned outwards to the water, a closed expression on his face. Even so, he was a good-looking bastard. A bit too eager to please for Madoc’s liking, but that was no bad thing. It might yet work in Madoc’s favour. He noticed the blond pilot was munching on a biscuit – they were in short supply now, along with fresh water. He’d bet his boots that the feral little native girl had smuggled it to him. Whenever Blake ventured up on deck, she scuttled around him with small scratchy sounds like one of the damn cockroaches.
‘What do you think?’ Madoc repeated.
‘About what?’
‘About our chances.’
Blake continued to stare at the turbulent water. ‘I think,’ he said, with an attempt at an ironic smile, ‘that we are running out of islands to hide in.’
‘You’re damn right there. Can’t help wondering if this Fitzpayne fellow is leading us on a merry dance.’
Slowly Blake turned his head, blue eyes narrowed. ‘A dance that ends where?’
‘That’s what I want to know.’
‘You don’t trust him?’
Madoc shrugged. ‘Do we have reason to?’
‘He’s guided us to safety … so far.’
‘Barely.’ Madoc gestured with his chin at the Jap swathed in green canvas and tethered to the mast. ‘Your friend, Mr Hadley, slipped up there. Not his best decision – to allow an enemy on board.’
Blake frowned, but before he could comment Madoc uttered, ‘I get the feeling Fitzpayne is taking his time bringing us to this island of his, and I wonder …’ He stopped and glanced over at the figure at the helm.
‘Wonder what?’ Blake prompted in a low tone.
‘How many of us have to die before he feels ready to sail The White Pearl into safe harbour.’
‘For God’s sake, man, that’s going too far.’
‘Is it?’
A sudden squ
all of rain slapped them in the face and made them turn their backs to the wind, hunched inside their oilskins.
‘What do you mean?’ Blake muttered.
Madoc could tell he was annoyed, yet he had the distinct feeling that it had nothing to do with the conversation they were having.
‘I mean, the way he talks with the Jap. He squats in front of him when he thinks no one is about and speaks in fluent Japanese.’
‘So?’ Blake demanded.
‘So I’m beginning to wonder whose side he is on.’
The rain had cried itself to sleep. At last the noise of it had stopped. Maya watched the steam rise off the deck as the sun’s rays stroked the timbers with warm fingers, and it reminded her of the smoke from the fires that had danced from hut to hut in her street in Palur. Flames that crackled and devoured as Japanese bombs fell. She flicked a glance towards the Japanese pilot and felt an uncomfortable heat flare in her chest. He should be lying at the bottom of the ocean, wrapped in a coffin of seaweed.
She could see death on him, as grey and lifeless as cobwebs on his skin. Like the child charred in the fire, the one Mem Hadley saw in the old man’s arms in the filthy street. Not my child. My body gave birth to it but it was never mine. She shuddered.
She had been little more than a child herself, and the baby was sold immediately by her mother to a couple who were barren. Her child, but not her child. After a day selling flowers on the streets, dodging the traffic, she would refuse to cross paths with it. She would take a snaking route back to her hut to avoid its bright little face. Maybe this Japanese pilot dropped the bomb that caused the fire.
She stared at him, the dull heat spreading tentacles through her chest. She recalled Mem’s words of concern for the child. Why was it that the only person who cared was the woman she had sworn to hate?
‘Twenty-seven Mitsubishi bombers,’ Teddy shouted.
Maya looked up from her perch on the hatch. Like black bees strung out across the sky, Japanese planes were flying in formation overhead. In the far distance somewhere they could hear the growling and pounding of big guns. Lines of angry fire spat through the gloom as evening cast its grey net over the restless ocean.
The White Pearl murmured to herself and spread her sails like a fine lady fluttering her fan, and Maya felt the familiar rocking motion start up under her feet as the waters took hold of the hull. It still made her nervous, but no longer sick. Once the planes had vanished in the direction of Singapore, she watched Fitzpayne ease the yacht from under the canopy of trees. Despite the boat’s wounds, tonight she would reach his island of safety. That’s what he promised.
Maya didn’t know why, but she trusted Iron-eyes’ promises.
‘Here, Maya. Drink this.’
Golden-hair had brought her a cup of tea.She thought theBritish stupid to drink it all day. It tasted of dog’s piss. But she looked up at him gratefully, tossed her dark hair over one shoulder and put her lips to the cup.
‘Why you kind to Jap?’ she asked. Earlier he had taken a cup of tea to the prisoner.
‘Because he’s a pilot, like me. He was just doing his job, flying his plane.’
‘He bad. He try kill us.’
‘That’s part of his job.’
‘His job to die. Good thing.’
‘No, Maya. He’s young, and has his heart set on serving his emperor with glory. Dying for him, if necessary. It’s a concept we have all but abandoned in the Western world.’
She didn’t know the meaning of all his words, but she heard the edge of sorrow in his voice and saw the way his golden lashes seemed to grow heavier, masking the ocean blue of his eyes.
‘You good man,’ she told him, nodding vigorously. ‘He bad man.’
He didn’t laugh at her the way Iron-eyes would have done. Or turn away from her the way Tuan Hadley always did, as if she hurt his eyes. Golden-hair regarded her solemnly and then took her hand in his, the one not in the sling. It looked like a small, ugly brown leaf on his broad white palm, but he folded his fingers around it. He spoke. But her ears didn’t hear. They were listening to the happiness singing in her heart, and all her mind could think of was that this strong, plane-flying hand of his wanted hers. She gazed at the bony rise of each of his knuckles and the veins pulsing with blood under the freckled skin.
‘Maya?’ He was waiting for a reply, but she had no idea what he had asked her.
She risked a smile at him. ‘You crazy,’ she said.
The White Pearl swept out into the open sea as if she owned it. Maya had seen white ladies enter a room like that, with head high and a spine as straight as a ship’s mast, taking possession of the space around them instead of just passing through it the way Maya did. She admired those women, even though they had stolen her country.
‘Maya!’
She lifted her head. Young Tuan Teddy was in the back – no, think, what is it? … the stern – of the boat, beckoning to her. His hair was stirred by the wind and his brown eyes were wide and round as a bush-baby’s. She hurried over.
‘Look!’ he said. He pointed out to sea.
As though on command, the evening clouds that had lain stubbornly over the water picked up their grubby skirts and sneaked away below the horizon. Vivid red streaks from the setting sun tiptoed across the tops of the waves, and Teddy’s cheeks turned crimson. When Maya’s gaze followed the line of his finger, she didn’t know if his flushed cheeks were the work of the sun or the fear that leaped into her own heart.
‘It’s back,’ he whispered.
It was the native boat, the pinisiq, the one the boy had spotted before. This time near enough to be clearly visible to the naked eye, its long pointed nose sniffing them out.
‘Is same one?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ He looked at her as if she were simple. ‘It has the same patched sail.’
‘Tell Tuan Fitzpayne.’
‘Last time, he said it was just a trader ship going about its business.’
‘Maybe he right.’
‘Maybe he’s wrong.’
They stood side by side, staring at the craft in the distance. It reminded Maya of a mosquito, spindly and fragile but with a long point at the front and a nasty bite.
‘Tell Mem Hadley.’
The boy glanced across at his mother and shook his head. ‘Today she’s not … concentrating.’
Maya had no idea what concentrating was, but even so, she knew what he meant. Mem Hadley was different today. The skin of her face was dull and colourless. She kept looking at her husband and when she spoke to him, her voice was gentle. She had played Snap with her son in a slow, distracted manner like someone who had only just learned the game. Now, aware of Maya’s scrutiny, she picked up the rope she had been knotting and headed for the stairs, but just at that moment Razak came bounding up them. Mem Hadley jumped back the way she would if she’d seen a scorpion. Then she vanished below in a hurry.
Razak slumped against the rail next to Maya, his mouth sulky. ‘A white person’s mind is like a lazy bird’s nest,’ he muttered. ‘It falls apart when the wind blows hard.’
Teddy was listening. He understood Malay. Maya saw him frown as he tried to shape the insult in a way that made sense to his young mind.
‘What devil is in your tongue now?’ she asked her brother.
‘Tuan Hadley is …’ he stopped.
‘Is what?’
‘He doesn’t see me today. He turns his eyes away. Today I don’t exist for him.’
She pressed her hand flat on his chest, fingers splayed over his heart. She felt it beating wildly. ‘You are a fool, Razak. You will destroy everything for us.’
She walked away. Sometimes her brother needed a slap.
*
A hand touched the calf of Maya’s leg. She was scurrying past the prisoner when his fingers reached for her. She kicked out at the hand.
‘Maya.’
The Japanese pilot’s voice was soft and nasal. She looked down at him propped in a sitting position on the
deck, his back to the hefty mast, his legs in uniform stretched out straight above fur-lined boots. He had cast off the tarpaulin to reveal the dressing on his chest. It was big and square and stained with dried blood. His black hair stood up on his skull like the bristles of a brush.
‘What?’ she said rudely.
‘I speak you.’
‘Tidak. No.’
‘Help me.’
‘Tidak. No.’
‘Please. Onegai shimasu.’
His narrow face was tipped up towards her – a boy, she told herself, he’s only a boy – and she saw clearly the shame that swirled in his fierce eyes, shame at having to beg help from a girl. His chest heaved with each laboured breath, and his forehead was scuffed. Smudge marks sat in the hollows under his eyes like bruises. She didn’t like looking at him.
‘No.’ Her feet started to move away.
‘I help you,’ he said quickly.
When she swivelled back to him, he was staring at her brother in the stern. She crouched. ‘How?’
Maya tried to find her mother’s face in the darkening waters, but it wasn’t there. She listened for her voice when the waves fingered the bottom of the boat, but all she heard was the low hissing as the sea drew breath. Maya longed to know that her mother’s spirit was pleased. She had made a deal with Jap man.
‘What you want?’ she had asked him.
He had smiled at her, but it was an empty smile. ‘I want help.’
‘You are bloody Jap fool.’ She shook her head at him. ‘No help.’
He nodded, as though he had expected her bad words. ‘You help me. I help you. I see you and brother look at white lady. Daggers in eyes.’
‘So?’
‘I want her dead. You want her dead.’
‘Dead?’ She said the word quietly. To see how it tasted in her mouth.
‘When she gone,’ he finished, ‘we go from ship.’
The White Pearl Page 33
