by Yangsze Choo
Brushing back her hair, she glances up at him. She’s looking very handsome today but it fills him with dread—that fine coloring, those brilliant eyes. So much like Iris.
Lydia says, “That Chinese orderly—he said his name was Wong—wanted to speak to me. About you.”
“About me?” This is so surprising that William sits down again.
“Concerning one of your patients, a salesman who died recently.”
The salesman! The one who caught William and Ambika together in the rubber plantation, so long ago now it seems. The one who died so fortuitously. William’s pulse races, even as he struggles to keep his expression neutral.
Lydia spoons sugar into her tea. “Mr. Wong seemed to think that he’d been mixed up with selling human remains.”
“Nonsense!” says William. This is exactly the kind of rumor that Rawlings told him to quash. If word gets out there will be a terrible scandal for the hospital.
“He also asked me if he’d ever tried to blackmail you.”
“What?” William’s stomach lurches, recalling the terror he felt, right after Ambika’s mangled torso had been identified, that the salesman would come forward and tell everyone about their affair. But there’s nothing to fear, is there? Despite Rawlings’s doubts at the time, there’s been no criminal investigation.
He lifts his teacup. It’s too hot to drink. “Why ask you about that?”
“People think we’re close. And we are, aren’t we?”
William shudders at this assumption. “We’re not close, Lydia. I can’t have you telling people that we’re engaged, when it’s not true.”
Her face turns red, her mouth trembles. “How could you say that—after everything I’ve done for you?”
A chill across the back of his neck, telling him to run, run away now. “I’ve never asked you to do anything for me.”
“All the things that could have caused you problems—I got rid of them.”
He shifts uneasily. Something is coming, approaching the doors of his mind. Something that he forgot or overlooked. He’s not used to being hunted like this. It’s wrong, all wrong. Outraged, he says, “I don’t have any problems!”
But she’s not listening. “Haven’t you ever felt that you can change things, control them, if you wish hard enough?”
William flinches.
“You do, don’t you? I knew you would. No one else understands.” She clasps his hand. Her fingers are cold. “Well, I have that power, too. You probably know about it, since I heard you were asking around about my fiancés.”
Fiancés. “There was more than one,” says William, realization dawning on him.
“Yes, I was engaged twice. Three times if you count intentions. They were all no good, though. I didn’t know how to choose, you see. I had to get rid of them.”
Is she saying that she’s like him, filled with that dark ominous power? William’s hand is numb. Pulling it away, he tries to say scornfully, “Are you saying you can wish people dead?”
“Can’t you?”
William has never voiced this to anyone, but at that moment, drowning in Lydia’s frenetic blue gaze, he almost does. “Everyone’s wished someone dead at some point, Lydia. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I did it for you,” she says. “That salesman. And those women who were so bad for you. Why do you associate with them?”
Horror grows tendrils of blackness, twisting through his stomach.
“First was that Tamil woman Ambika, the one you used to meet in the rubber estate. I told you I’d seen you going for walks in the morning, though you never saw me. She was quite unsuitable, of course, and people were starting to talk, even our servants at home. So I removed her.
“Then that salesman turned up again. I knew him when he was a patient here. From time to time, he’d come by and visit that little nurse. We’d chat a bit—he was quite a flirt for a local.” She smiles. “He was asking about you, hinting that Ambika was your mistress. I had to stop him, too.”
Frozen, William listens as her rosebud mouth keeps moving, words spilling from it. A cold narrow thread of reason tells him it’s impossible. Nobody can arrange for a death by tiger, or make a man break his neck. Lydia is just deeply disturbed, he tells himself, trying not to panic at how much she knows about his private life.
“Lydia,” he says firmly. “That’s enough. You’re imagining things.”
“No, I’m not.” She stares at him over the rim of her teacup. “I did everything for you.”
“I don’t owe you anything!” And now William is furious, his stomach burning with acid. Foolish, stupid, troublesome woman! If she goes around talking like this, it will only turn out badly for him. He takes a deep breath and swallows a mouthful of tea. It’s bitter.
Two spots of red appear on her cheeks. “There’s a plant, a tall shrub with flowers. It’s growing right outside your house. People think it’s beautiful, but they don’t know how poisonous oleander is. If you make a strong tea from the powdered leaves, it causes dizziness, nausea, vomiting. Then fainting, heart failure, and death.” She recites the symptoms as though she’s learned them by heart. “My father managed a tea plantation in Ceylon before, where it’s common for young girls to commit suicide by eating the seeds. I kept some with me when I went back to England. It was very useful.” She takes another sip of tea. “When I came out here, it was easy to prescribe to people. I help at the hospital after all; the locals believe what I say. I gave Ambika a tonic for female complaints—she must have wandered out and died in the plantation. Though I didn’t expect that a tiger would eat half of her.”
“It didn’t eat her,” says William, his voice cracking with strain.
She ignores him. “The same thing for the salesman, though I told him it was stomach medicine. He vomited and fell into a ditch.”
“And Nandani? Did you give it to her, too?”
“She was sitting right there, in your kitchen.” Lydia turns her feverish gaze to him. “It was for the best. She’d already caused a scene, showing up like that at dinner.”
William’s hands are shaking. Bile rises in his throat. “I’m calling the police.”
Is it disappointment, or triumph, in her eyes? “You won’t do that.”
“Lydia, I can’t perjure myself for you.”
“Then for Iris,” she says, her eyes glittering. “I know what you did.”
William’s throat closes, bony fingers pinching it, squeezing the air out of him. “What are you talking about?”
“You drowned her, that day on the river.”
That day on the river, the light slanting green and gold. Iris turning angry, the black mood coming down on her. Accusing him again in her unending jealousy, jabbing her finger in his chest in the way that absolutely maddened him in all their quarrels so that he shoved her, hard. Or did she trip and fall by herself? Even he can’t remember, or doesn’t want to.
“It was an accident!”
“She would never stand up in a boat. Not ever, no matter what you said.” Lydia’s not pretty at all now, not one bit. She looks like a witch, her eyes wild and cunning. “Iris had a bad sense of balance. We all knew that at school. Something to do with her ears.”
“Lydia—”
“And even after she fell in, you didn’t pull her out.”
He’d thought he’d teach Iris a lesson, let her flounder for a bit before pulling her out. But she’d gone under very quickly, the heavy woolen skirts dragging her down. So fast that William thought she was playing a joke on him, holding her breath to pretend she was in trouble. Who knew that a person could drown so quickly, so silently, without any of the wild thrashings that he’d imagined? By the time he went after her, she was nothing but dead weight.
“Lydia!” He has to stop her, spewing out these hateful words.
“Iris wrote me letters. Lots of them. About you and how she thought you were cheating on her. I have a letter written right before she died, saying she was afraid you’d kill her.”
>
Don’t panic, William thinks, biting down. After all, that’s what he did about Iris. She was leaning over and then she fell in. No, we hadn’t quarreled. Still, there were whispers and rumors that followed him. The same insidious tale of betrayal and cowardice, enough to cut him at the Club, enough to drive him to another place, another country. He fights to control himself.
“She was hysterical, manipulative.”
Lydia leans back. “You’re right.” There’s a faint smile on her face. “But you might be charged, given the circumstantial evidence, if you went back home.” Another sip of tea. “I’ve made it fair, haven’t I? I’ve told you all about myself. Though unlike you, I can easily deny everything.”
“What about the deaths of all those people? The salesman, Ambika, Nandani?”
“Why, you killed them. They were all in your way. I’ll say you got rid of the women because you wanted to marry me, but I turned you down. The police are already suspicious about Nandani being in your house right before she died, and if they dig up the talk about Iris from back home, it won’t look good for you.”
Silence. He hears the pounding rush of blood in his head. If he springs up right now, he can catch her by her long white throat. Dig his thumbs in until she stops breathing. Why, why is this happening again? Her resemblance to Iris, the same sticky, hysterical demands. It’s as though Iris has returned from the river and she’ll never be satisfied until she drags him under.
“What do you want, Lydia?”
She’s going to play her trump card, whatever it is. Stomach leaden, William knows that he’s been completely outfoxed by her.
“I love you,” she says.
He gets up. Circles behind her, his mind racing through different possibilities. Shove her forward, crack her head open on the coffee table. She’s infected him with her madness.
“So you want to get engaged?” A gun accident then. Showing Lydia the Purdey. But he’s already shot Ren accidentally. Too suspicious.
“Yes. I’d like that.” She smiles, as though he’s just proposed on bended knee. “I’ve already told the police, but it would be nice to make it official. We could have a party.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“A toast then?” she says. William numbly picks up his cup and clinks it against hers. Play along; buy some time, he thinks, draining the tepid, bitter tea. No amount of milk and sugar can disguise the vomit rising in his throat as he forces it down.
A swish of skirts, that light scent of geraniums that he hates now. He shows her to the door. Good manners, even if it’s killing him. Lydia pauses, her eyes bright. “After we’re married, I can’t be compelled to testify against you. Nor you against me. It makes it fair, doesn’t it?”
William wants to scream, smack her head into the wall, but he says through gritted teeth, “Why do you care for me at all?”
“Iris introduced us back in England, though you don’t remember. It was a party at the Piersons’; you liked me, you really did. Afterwards, you kissed me in the hallway. I couldn’t stop thinking of you for days.”
Memory. The ticking of the grandfather clock, that quick, feverish fumble in the darkness. He’d been so happy with Iris that day, her pert face never more alluring, that he’d cornered her, so he’d thought, in the hallway. And afterwards, there’d been days of brooding sulkiness. Iris complaining that he’d drunk too much that weekend, the accusations that he’d brushed off, attributing them to her neuroses, his aching head. He says with sharp, sudden understanding, “That was a mistake. I never knew it was you.”
But Lydia doesn’t care. She’s gone beyond him. A dreamy look fills her eyes. “And then when Iris kept writing about how unhappy you were with her, I knew that something would happen to make her disappear. Because you and I are fated to be together: we even have the same name. The other night, at your party, when you wrote your Chinese name—I told you that I have a Chinese name as well. I was born in Hong Kong, you know.”
What is she babbling about? Doesn’t she have any sense of danger from him?
“My Chinese name has the same character—Li for Li di ya—as yours. It’s one of the Confucian Virtues,” she says.
Ren comes into the hallway to hand Lydia her hat and parasol. He stares at her, eyes huge in his small face. William thinks feverishly. Play along; he has always been able to manage. There’ll be time enough to deal with her.
“We’ll need more servants after we’re married,” says Lydia, looking appreciatively around the large, empty bungalow.
Over my dead body, thinks William. But he smiles and shows her out.
50
Batu Gajah
Monday, June 29th
Shin’s arm was broken. The right one, as he pointed out with rueful humor. My stepfather had broken the left one, and now it was my turn: a strangely fearful symmetry. I said I was sorry, resting my head briefly against his shoulder after all the uproar was over and we were finally alone. They’d put us into a private room temporarily, though the only serious injury was Shin’s arm and some cuts and bruises.
“You’re very lucky,” said the local doctor who’d examined me. “The other chap broke your fall.”
I fell silent at the mention of Koh Beng. My statement to the police about how he’d tried to kill me, as well as the whole business of selling fingers as good luck charms, made both the hospital and the local police look bad: the hospital for not keeping track of human remains, and the police for failing to prevent an attempted murder right after Y. K. Wong had been killed that very morning. Already, a rumor had conveniently spread that Koh Beng had gone mad and run amok. In the meantime, they’d been especially nice to Shin and me.
“Well, that’s the end of my job,” said Shin, gazing at the cast on his arm.
“Perhaps they’ll let you do something else,” I said.
“Don’t be silly. I can’t write, either, so no desk jobs.”
It didn’t matter. I was filled with gratitude to be sitting here with him, remembering how I’d thought we’d be sundered forever by death. But my joy was tempered with grief. What had happened to Yi? His last words, don’t forget me, struck me as a plaintive echo of his previous lament: I don’t want Ren to forget me. Was he still waiting at that empty station, or had he given up and gone onward, alone? Wherever he was, I prayed he’d find mercy. I owed him a great debt.
I released Shin’s hand guiltily as yet another nurse came in. So many nurses had come by to visit, giggling and perching flirtatiously on his bed. I’d told the police that Shin was my brother, so I could only sit by and smile. It was all right; I was used to this.
“Why won’t you let me set them straight?” Shin said, annoyed, after the last nurse was gone.
“Not now.” We had to think things through. Figure out how to get around our parents first, and not have it spread as gossip. My mother would have a fit when she found out we’d been shoved off a building. A wave of exhaustion rolled over me; the hospital smelled like disinfectant and boiled onions.
“I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” I said, standing up.
He grabbed my hand. “Stay. They offered to keep you tonight for observation.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. And I should tell my mother we’re all right.” The news had probably leaked all over Batu Gajah and possibly even up to Ipoh by now. Besides, the hospital made me deeply uneasy, though I didn’t want to mention this to Shin in case he worried. When I gazed out of the window, I could see the distant roof where Koh Beng had tried to kill me.
“Then I’ll go home with you,” said Shin.
* * *
Of course, they wouldn’t let him go, claiming Shin’s arm needed more X-rays tomorrow morning. They tried to keep me as well, though I demurred. It seemed less about our well-being than an attempt to keep things under control. The medical director had already come by, assuring us that the hospital had only the highest standards and was deeply sorry for the actions of an employee who’d had a nervous breakdown (that wou
ld be Koh Beng, I presumed), and we could only nod and promise not to talk about it until the police had cleared things up.
Matron herself came to see me off. Her tanned, angular face was thoughtful as we waited for the car that the hospital had provided to drive me back. “So what are the two of you—siblings or engaged to be married?”
I looked down. “We’re stepsiblings, but we’re not really engaged.”
“Sounds complicated,” she said, not unkindly. “I’ll keep your secret, if you like. Good luck.” She shook my hand. I liked her firm, no-nonsense grip. “You seem like a smart girl, and sensible, too. If you don’t want to rely on a man, we might have space for you.”
I thanked her, wondering why I wasn’t as thrilled as I might have been. Perhaps the hospital had instructed her to offer me a job, to keep things quiet. I was tired. So tired that all I wanted to do was close my eyes, though I was afraid that if I did so, I’d find myself back in that dark river. And this time, there’d be no coming back.
* * *
The next few days were quiet. My mother and stepfather were surprisingly subdued about the whole affair. The hospital had already notified them in the blandest of terms: an unfortunate accident with a mentally disturbed individual. And of course, they would cover all medical fees and pay Shin’s salary for the rest of the summer, though he was excused from duties. Although my mother exclaimed over my cuts, she was relieved that my face wasn’t marked.
“A girl’s face is so important,” she said as she helped change the dressing on my side. “Imagine how upset Robert would be!”
“What does Robert have to do with this?”
I shouldn’t have said that. Her face fell and that timid look appeared. “You’re still friends, aren’t you?”
“As much as we ever were.” Which wasn’t much, but I didn’t have the heart to say so. I looked down, suddenly anxious. “Did you manage to make this month’s payment?”
