Pact without desire

by Jane Arbor

  Rede nodded. 'All of them before the intermission, which is on now. The second half is to be given over to ensembles and displays. But you knew that. Mai brought us a programme to see.'

  'I didn't particularly notice the sequence of the items. And anyway, I couldn't help being as late as I was. There was an accident

  'All right. Lim has filled me in on the details of your totally unnecessary dash up-island and then well into the interior of the mainland—all on behalf of a little tramp who probably asked for what she got, and could just as well have made her flit by bus I ' Rede scoffed.

  'If she is a tramp, it's because men like George Merlin have made her one,' retorted Sara, her anger rising. 'And when I saw she was afraid to stay to meet him and meant to leave him. I thought it was my duty to see her to her home.'

  'There's a regular bus run to Johore Baru.'

  'But not into the back of beyond where her home is. She would have walked or tried to hitch-hike— she'd said she would.'

  'And so you put her needs into competition with Mai's, who is a good deal more deserving of your interest, I'd say.'

  'But it just happened that way, and I haven't withdrawn any interest from Mai-! ' Sara heard her voice turning shrill and stopped.

  'Not even half-deliberately, in that though you didn't engineer this evening's misbegotten caper, you aren't too sorry that it happened?'

  'Meaning that you suspect I'm not interested in seeing Mai do well?'

  'Meaning that you're going to have to convince her that your intentions were of the best. She thought you understood how much she depended on you, and couldn't believe you'd let her down. She'd even laid on a surprise Malaysian dinner for us at the cottage beforehand, to which only I turned up.'

  'I'm sorry,' Sara said, meaning it. She crossed the room to sit on her dressing-stool, saying undecidedly, 'I suppose there's no point in my coming to the concert now ?'

  'On the contrary, you're coming as soon as you're dressed. I've made enough excuses to your friends for your not being there, and we're taking Mai out to supper after the show.'

  'I see. Then I'll hurry.' She expected him to leave the room to wait for her, but he remained where he was, and she hesitated about discarding the ' towel. Before she showered she had put her bra and evening slip and briefs handy, but she had never dressed from the nude in front of him and did not want to now.

  'Throw me my wrap, will you?' she asked him.

  'It's the lacy thing hanging inside the cupboard door.'

  He did not move. 'Why? What are you afraid of?' he asked.

  Facing the looking-glass, she saw her colour rise. 'Afraid of? Nothing,' she muttered.

  'Then why the girlish modesty in front of me? I'm your husband—remember?' He moved forward then, plucked her bra from the chair where her things lay and came to stand behind her, waiting for her to drop the towel.

  She did so and mutely offered her arms to the shoulder straps of the bra. He dealt deftly with its back fastenings and straightening, remarked, 'If you were afraid I might be harbouring thoughts of assault at the unexpected sight of your body, I'd mention that I've never yet attempted rape in a hurry. In which I am just now, and which you should be. So—all fears allayed, perhaps?'

  Sara knew she had flushed again, this time less for shyness than with annoyance. 'I've told you, I wasn't afraid of anything,' she snapped. 'It's just that if I want privacy for dressing I think I'm entitled to it, and I'd have expected you could understand that. So now, my wrap--please?'

  He fetched it for her and draped it round her shoulders where she sat. She snatched up her other things, took filmy tights from a drawer and marched past him to the bathroom. 'I hope to be with you in exactly five minutes,' she said, pretending she hadn't heard his laconic, 'A pity we're so pressed

  for time. Otherwise I believe I could have been tempted—' Pretending, in order to irk him, but needing to pretend to herself that his very lightest touch upon her skin hadn't a dark magic for her which she couldn't deny; needing to pretend that if they had opened for her, she wouldn't have gone, rapt, into his arms, her self-rightous anger no match for her love.

  Meeting Isabel in the foyer during a later break in the programme, Sara realised she should have guessed what would be Isabel's reading of her earlier absence from the gala affair. And according to Isabel, not only hers, but that of several other people who had noted Rede's attendance alone and had wondered about it.

  Isabel chanted with false brightness, 'So you did decide to come after all! Rather big-hearted of you, considering—Or did Rede have to twist your arm? Of course there could have been a dozen reasons why you didn't come with him to see his young friend doing her act, but I'm afraid we all thought we knew why, and rather pitied you-you know?'

  For all her dismay, Sara feigned ignorance. Her brows lifted. 'Know what?' she enquired. 'Ought I to?'

  'Ought to—what?'

  'Know why you felt I was to be pitied?'

  'Oh, my dear'—Isabel's tone held baffled padence—'do you need it spelled out again? Anyway, why do you suppose Ma Belmont is daiming she

  must find a boy-friend for Kluai Mai, if not because she likes you and thinks it might stop Rede from making a fool of himself over the girl?'

  That shot went home, though in no way was Sara going to admit it. 'And if that were true of Rede, do you think I shouldn't know it?' she enquired.

  'But would you? They say the injured party is always the last to hear.'

  'Not,' Sara retorted, scoring a point of her own, 'when her so-called friends are only too anxious to be the first to tell her I '

  Isabel lifted a shoulder. 'They do say too that there are none so blind ' she insinuated as Sara turned away.

  When Mai came from backstage to join Rede and Sara in the car, she was laden with the bouquets which had been the tributes to her solo performance. She was bright-eyed and excited and far more ready to forgive Sara's absence than Rede had been. She showed her flowers with pride.

  'See—these from you and Rede; and these from my dance-mistress, and these from the people in my ..,class'— upon which Sara teased her,

  'So you see, you didn't crumple as you threatened, just because only Rede was there to see you, did you? You didn't miss me at all! '

  'But when I was on stage, I didn't know you weren't there. I thought—'

  'You knew she hadn't come home in time for the meal you'd laid on for us,' Rede pointed out.

  PACT WITHOUT DES IRE

  'Yes, but I knew she wouldn't let me down if she could help it. She had promised'—Mai turned anxious eyes upon him. 'You haven't made Sara feel badly about her not being there, have you?' she asked.

  Rede's glance went to Sara. 'Tell the child, won't you, whether I beat you or not?' he invited her.

  For Mai's sake, Sara forced a smile. It's all right. He didn't take a whip to me,' she said. (He only used the lash of his tongue to equal effect, was her unspoken reserve.)

  'And he did tell you that I'd done well? Because somehow, once I began to dance, it didn't matter as much as I had expected, whether anyone—even you and Rede—was watching me or not. I just danced and forgot everything else. And I knew by the way people clapped and clapped the one with my—my lover, that I had made a success of it. So Rede did tell you all that, didn't he?' Mai appealed.

  Rede hadn't. Sara remembered that she hadn't asked him, but he could have volunteered it, if he hadn't grudged her the satisfaction of hearing that her absence had affected Mai's performance not at all. How he must have needed to make her suffer a guilt for which only he blamed her! But the loyalty which was a part of love made her tell Mai, 'Oh yes—he was full of praise for how well you were doing,' and was rewarded by the quizzical look—of surprised gratitude?—which Rede threw her.

  Mai ate very little, but she was still bright and volatile during the rest of the evening. When Rede

  dropped them both at the house and went to put away the car, she begged Sara, 'Come in with me, will you?' and Sara ob
eyed, unprepared for the electric change in the girl once the door of the cottage had closed upon them. Mai suddenly drooped— there was no other word for the limp sag of her body, reminding Sara of a mechanical toy lacking the turn of a key to keep it working.

  Sara said with quick compassion, 'You're over tired—' To which Mai said, 'Yes,' and then 'No-- not like that,' and sitting down at the table, leaned forward to it, her hands covering her eyes. Sara waited, then asked, 'What is it? You are tired, but you're unhappy too, when you should be riding on a pink cloud. So why aren't you? Do you feel you could tell me?'

  A shake of Mai's head was her only reply, but after a minute, as if she had thought better of her denial of fatigue, she let her hands fall heavily into her lap and she sat up. 'Yes, that is it. I am tired, that's all.'

  'No! ' Sara rejected the evasion sharply. 'There's something else wrong, and there has been for some time. We've all noticed it and been worried for you. But if we hoped it was only that you were strung up about tonight, it seems we were wrong. Because though you've done all that was expected of you, the trouble is still there for you, isn't it?'

  There was a dumb appeal in Mai's eyes as 'her lips formed, 'Yes.'

  'Then what?' It had been in Sara's thought to

  force the issue with the bald question, 'Is it because you and Rede have fallen in love with each other, and you're guilty about it, because of me?' But her courage failed her; she couldn't invite her own doom so crudely, and she compromised with, 'Is it something to do with Rede—something he's been, or said, or done to hurt you?' knowing only too well, from the scene in the garden-room and from Mai's abandoned letter to him, that it was Rede who was at the root of her despair, as he was of her own. Because of Rede, she and Mai shared a common pain.

  So that she would not have believed Mai if she had said 'No' to the question. But she said 'Yes,' and then enlarged on that with, 'Rede is so good. But he expects so much ... too much, and when I must fail him

  'But you don't fail him, if you mean in your work. Tonight, for instance, you couldn't have done better than you did!'

  Mai smiled wanly. 'That was a one-time, a—a sort of peak From there he will expect me to go on ... and on, and do better and better. And when I care so much about pleasing him, what if I cannot? As, one day, I know I shall not.'

  Was Mai only worried about her work? Remembering Ina Belmont's conviction that all she felt for Rede was a teenage hero-worship, Sara took a little heart, and felt she must brace her fears.

  'You can't possibly know that,' she said. 'Rede may expect you to go from success to success, but

  there's no reason in the world why you shouldn't. Or can you think of one?'

  There was a pause. Then Mai said, 'Yes, I know of one.'

  'You do? What is it?'

  But Mai shook her head. 'I cannot tell you. You would not understand,' she said.

  'I see.' But all Sara saw was that in a few seconds the girl's stonewall reply had destroyed the accord between them. In face of that, she couldn't go on fencing with Mai. She left the argument there, and when Mai stood wearily and said she supposed she ought to go to bed, she agreed with her. They said goodnight, and impulsively Sara stooped to kiss Mai's cheek. But for the second time she left the cottage without knowing the truth about Mai and Rede.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SARA expected that she had seen the last of Katin after she had delivered the girl to her home on the mainland. But when on a morning's shopping trip she went into the restaurant of one of the big department stores for lunch, Katin was the waitress at her table.

  'Well!' Sara smiled. 'Here's a surprise—do you remember me?'

  Katin shook out a napkin and handed the menu

  card. 'Of course,' she said woodenly.

  'And you're working here now? You didn't'— Sara hesitated over the delicate question—'you didn't go back to Mr Merlin?'

  The beady black eyes flashed. 'Go back there? To that one, when he throw me out after I cook for him for three—four year?' Katin demanded, with a convenient disregard of the truth of her parting from George Merlin. 'He owe me money—much money too,' she added.

  'Well, you did walk out on him without notice, didn't you?' Sara felt it fair to remind her. 'How much money does he owe you, then?'

  'Much. My wages. Things he tell me to get for the house and I pay for them. One hundred dollars—more.'

  In Sara's opinion, twenty-five pounds or so in sterling wasn't too high a price to pay for independence of a man like George Merlin, but as she couldn't expect Katin to agree with her, she said inadequately, 'I'm sorry,' and changed the subject. 'But you have a good job here? You like it?'

  Katin shrugged. 'Properly I am cook, not waiter on tables.'

  Remembering cabbage-water soup and leathery veal, Sara doubted that. But she consoled, 'Well, perhaps when there is a vacancy in the kitchens, you can hope to be taken on there. Anyway, I'm glad you found another job so quickly.' She picked up the menu card. 'Shall I order now?'

  But, her waitress role forgotten, Katin ignored

  the suggestion. Avenging angel incarnate, she bent to Sara's ear. 'Never mind, I make him pay,' she muttered. 'Even if he not pay me, I make him one *pile of trouble. For I know things about him, something that he tell me one time when he still like me. Something that I now tell to the police, and they go to work on him—boom!'

  Sara stared up at her, frowning. 'You mean— something criminal? And you've already told the police ?'

  Straightening again, Katin nodded. 'Any time now you will hear of it—in the Straits Times— all over! '

  'But what? We shall hear—what?'

  'All that I tell the police. That he sends out drugs in his crates of orchids. Just in one box or two in every hundred, and he laugh a lot that he so get away with it. And if anyone ask questions, he withdraw the boxes and sends out no drugs in that lot. Or he can blame the man who sign out the shipment. That man, he will say, has slipped in the drugs himself. He know nothing about it, and so he will simply fire the man and let the police have him.'

  Instantly Sara's thoughts flew to what Isabel had told her about Cliff's new job. 'And has he ever done that, do you know? Got rid of anyone in that way?' she asked Katin.

  But Katin hadn't heard, she said. It was, she thought, only what Merlin planned to do if suspicion fell on him. 'And it will,' she threatened

  darkly. 'I have seen to that.'

  Sara was appalled, wishing she could dismiss the story as the vindictive revenge of the man's cast-off mistress. But if Katin had already approached the police, she must have believed she had substance to her accusations, and if she had, Sara saw the consequences for Cliff as wholly disastrous. Either Merlin had taken Cliff into league with him, or he intended to use him as his catspaw. It was as hideously simple as that, and little sympthy as she had with Cliff, he should be protected from the results of his trust in Merlin.

  'And what did the police say when—?' she began. But with a glance across the restaurant at the handsome young Malay in Western head waiter's dress, Katin was again a waitress, adjusting the table cutlery while she waited for Sara's order.

  'He is watching me, the maitre d'hôtel,' she whispered, her lips scarcely moving. `So choose, please, madame, if you will.'

  Sara glanced herself at the young man, immobile, but obviously very watchful of his domain. 'That man?' she smiled at Katin. 'He doesn't look old enough to be a head waiter.'

  'He is not He is only assistant. But he is new and very correct, and if he thinks I gossip with you, madame—'

  `Of course.' Sara obliged by giving her attention to the menu and ordering.

  While she ate, she debated what could possibly be done for Cliff if Katin's story were true. Isabel,

  she guessed, would never forgive him if he were even remotely connected with anything so shady, and if he were actually involved ! She had no more friendly brief for Isabel than she had for Cliff, but she dared not let him go blind into trouble which might be prevented if
she acted in time; acted with the help of the only person to whom she could turn—Rede.

  She turned cold at the thought of pleading Cliff's case with Rede, after her hot denial that Cliff meant anything to her. At the time she had persuaded herself that Rede had believed her. But supposing he had not, what was he going to conclude from her support for Cliff now? Was there any way to avoid telling Rede what she had heard? Was there? She had found none by the time Katin brought her bill to her table and when that happened the young head waiter was there too, asking if she had enjoyed her meal, thanking her for her patronage and politely bowing her away, giving Katin no further chance to speak to her. As she left the restaurant the passing thought occurred to her that his wordless control of his staff and his manner and poise would probably take him a long way in his profession. Then she forgot him in the urgency of the problem which Katin had wished on her.

  She worried at it all day and took it to Rede that evening, plunging in on the telling until he stopped her, his response to it unreadable from his expression.

  'And what's your interest in this scandal?' he wanted to know.

  So far she hadn't mentioned Cliff's name, but now she had to. 'Well, Cliff,' she said. 'That's his job with George Merlin, Isabel says —responsibility for checking consignments before they're shipped, and if Katin isn't lying about the whole thing, then Merlin could—'

  'She isn't lying,' put in Rede flatly.

  Sara stared at him. 'You know she isn't? How?'

  'Never mind. But she's not the only one to have tattled to the police, and they've had a suspicious eye on Merlin Enterprises for some time. They intend to act, I believe. Probably in a surprise raid at the point of despatch, or at the other end, when the stuff tries to pass Customs.'

  Sara gave a long sigh. Among her worries had been the fear that, caught, Merlin might remember Katin as his likeliest betrayer and try to deal with her accordingly. She told Rede so and took some reassurance from his, 'At that stage, I doubt if he'll have much opportunity for wreaking revenge.'