by Jane Arbor
Watching him, Sara could not tell whether his blankness was a true innocence of an affair with Mai or whether his quick thinking was using it as a front while he played for time. She remembered her spoken scorn of Isabel for not being able to trust, her husband. But here was she herself, not only doubting the fidelity, but dreading the defensive subterfuges of her own. She said reluctantly, 'Because she's in love with you, and she has enough conscience to be unhappy—for me.'
What she expected him to reply to that she did not know, and he kept her guessing for some seconds. Then he scoffed, 'In love with me—rubbish ! And even if she imagined she was, how could the calf love of a girl like her affect you, my wife?'
'She might think it could.' Sara knew that moral courage should have added,—'if she knew that you loved her in return,' and have steeled itself to his honest reply to that. But her voice refused to frame
the words; she longed to cling, for as long as he would let her, to her fool's paradise of hope that his rejection of Mai was as sincere as it sounded, and when he answered his own question with a brisk, 'No ! There has to be some better reason for her decamping than some imaginary personal hurt to me or to you,' Sara let it ride. If Rede didn't volunteer the truth—supposing he was hiding it now— then she wouldn't trap him into it. Her pride couldn't stoop so far.
Flicking the roll of notes with a fingernail, he went to stand with his back to her at the window.
'It could be an exaggerated idea about the money. That she's taken more of what she calls "charity" from us than she thinks is right,' he mused, think ing aloud.
Sara said, 'No, it's more than that. She's got that off her back by returning to you as much money as she could. She says so.'
`Mm.' He accepted the argument with a nod.
'And she's been unhappy about—something since before her debut concert. You know that,' Sara reminded him.
'That was cold feet, nerves, butterflies in the tum—nothing to run away from, once she'd done well, and she did. And she's been working as hard as ever since then.'
'Has she?' Sara stopped short of 'How do you know?' for that was a trap.
'Well, hasn't she?' Rede retorted. 'You should know?'
`Yes, but—'
He swung about. 'And here are we, chewing over the whys and wasting good time, instead of looking for the hows and the wheres—particularly the wheres. For pity's sake think,' he demanded of Sara. `Where could she have gone, hoping not to be found?'
Sara thought, without much reward. 'Home to
the mainland?' she offered, unhelpfully she knew. Rede shook his head. 'The first place she would
know we should look.'
'But could you telephone to find out?'
`Suchee and Yuki-Ling aren't on the phone. But yes, I'll ring the police at Kota Tingii and ask them to go round to the bungalow to see if Mai is there.'
'If she only left this morning, could she be there yet?'
`Assuming luck with connecting buses, pretty well, or soon. But it's a forlorn hope. And more ideas? What friends did she ever bring back with her here?'
'Not many. A few dancers from the School, that's all.'
'Girls or boys or both?'
'Always girls.' (With Rede as the sun in her sky, was Mai likely to have brushed more than acquaintance with many of the men dancers she met? thought Sara.)
-
'Well, we can ask at the School about her—the last class she attended, who were her friends, get their names and addresses.'
'Would you ask the police here to post her as a missing person?'
'At this stage? Good heavens, no. We'd have reporters and busybodies around our ears like wasps.' Rede moved towards the door. 'Anyway, the police at Kota Tingii first and then the School—want to come with me?' he offered.
'Please,' said Sara.
They had to give the Kota Tingii police time to visit the bungalow of Mai's foster-parents and to ring back with the result. At the Dance School they-learned that Mai had attended her yesterday's classes as usual, but had not appeared for that morning's. The principal denied knowledge of any trouble at the School which could have caused Mai to leave and two girl students who she knew to be Mai's friends could not help either.
Rede and Sara were back at the house in time to take the police call saying that Mai had not gone to her home, nor had been seen on any arriving bus. After that, short of making her disappearance public, which Rede insisted on delaying, there seemed nothing more to be done. He went back to his office; he had a business dinner to attend that night, and he would be leaving early to fly to Bangkok the next day. Sara spent the rest of her day restlessly between the house and the cottage, seeking there some clue which Mai might have overlooked. Rede had told Buppa that Mai had been called home unexpectedly and Sara had to play along with this. In the evening she dined early from a tray and went
to bed, not waiting for Rede to return.
She couldn't sleep for her churning thoughts, worrying about Mai, blaming Mai, pitying Mai; doubting Rede, believing in Rede; knowing herself for the coward she had been in not having forced him to admit or to deny his part in the despair which had caused Mai to break free of whatever it was that she feared from their continued association. Just one question had been needed, and Sara hadn't asked it.
She heard him come in, and expected he would knock to see if she were awake and had anything to report. But evidently concluding she had not, he went to his own room and presently all was quiet there.
After that she must have dozed a little, but shortly was wide awake again. This was impossible! Mosquitoes or no, she had to have air. She got out of bed, pulled on a chiffon negligee and went out on to the balcony to meet a pungency in her nostrils and to see a silhouetted figure, lighted by the glow of a cigar, leaning on the rail—Rede.
'Oh! ' She drew back into the wall-shadow.
He turned, saw her and beckoned her to the rail. 'What's the matter?' he asked.
'I haven't been able to sleep, and I craved some air.'
'Same here.' He drew on the cigar and indicated it: 'Do you mind?'
'No. You know I like it.'
'It should keep the bugs away at least. Has there
been any news? Anything happened?'
'Nothing.'
'I guessed not, or you would have waited up to tell me.'
'Of course.'
Close, forearm to forearm on the rail, they looked out over the sleeping but still brightly lit city. Sara wondered if Rede could hear the pounding of her heart as she could, and suddenly knew what she had to say.
'Rede—?' He turned her way. 'Rede—about Mai. When you read her letter, you claimed you didn't know why she's run away. You—pretended to look for reasons; you questioned me, and the people we saw, as if we might know, while you hadn't a clue yourself. But you do know, don't you? Or you've guessed?' She paused. 'Please—you owe me the truth.'
He did not answer directly. 'You think you have the right idea—that she's made something romantic out of my interest in her, and has worked up a guilt complex in consequence?' he asked.
Not looking at him, 'Yes, and more than that.' 'More? How much more?'
Sara drew a long breath. 'Just that—on her side. That she's in love with you. But on yours, that you know it and you've encouraged her because you— you love her in return.'
'And so?' Ash from his cigar glowed momentarily and died.
'And so'—Sara took up the non-committal
phrase—'being good, and with a conscience and unhappy because, though she had begged you, you wouldn't let her go, she had to act for herself. And this—her running away—is what she's done.'
Rede murmured, 'Mm, interesting. And how do you know—or think you know—that she felt she had to escape from me?'
Sara told him.
He listened in silence. 'And so, from a private letter which she hadn't even finished and which certainly I never received, you concluded that she wanted out from a clandestine affair with me, but that—
hypnotised by me, no doubt! —she abandoned the idea of getting away until now?' He stopped Sara's attempt to speak with an imperious lift of his hand, and went on, 'And supposing I told you I've never thought of nor touched Kluai Mai in any way of love, what would you say to that—self-wronged wife of mine?'
She had to moisten her dry lips. 'I'd want very badly to believe you,' she said.
' Why?' The curt question sprang at her as dangerously as a flicked-open knifeblade. 'Wh-what do you mean—why?' she faltered.
'I'm asking what it matters to you whether or not I'm double-crossing you with another woman— which for the definitive record I am not. Or in other words, even if I were, what have you got to lose?'
She looked in bewilderment at the dark shape that was his face! —I am your wife, after all,' she
reminded him.
'My wife, I agree. But in what way, except the way you wanted marriage and got it, which in my view would give you no right to a sense of high grievance against me, even if I deceived you with a dozen "little friends" every week?' he demanded savagely, then conceded, 'All right, I admit your loss of status, once the gossips knew. But if I saw to it that you didn't suffer that, how much betrayed passion for me could you claim? How much wounded love? How much blighted loyalty—hm?'
If he had really wanted an answer to that, Sara could have let him read it in an ardent abandonment to his arms, his lips, his virile body which she dared not contemplate. For he only meant to taunt her. He had already decided she had brought as little warmth to their marriage as he had, and as to that she could retort in kind.
'As I remember, your terms of marriage didn't expect love from me and didn't offer any to me. You found yourself with "a use for marriage", you said. It suited you to marry me, or you wouldn't have asked me. And of course one use I filled for you was to play chaperone to Mai,' she said.
'If that was all I wanted, I could have employed a duenna for her,' Rede pointed out.
'Who, I daresay you're thinking now, might have looked after her better!' she flung at him.
He shrugged. 'Who would have been a mere paid servant, not the companion I hoped you would be for Mai, and she for you. But that aside, I do have other uses for a wife.' He paused. 'As I thought I'd
demonstrated,' he added with a significance she knew he meant she should take.
She felt her anger surge. 'Uses, yes! And rights of possession! Arid payment extorted for bed and board and the sharing of your name—all those! ' she sneered, her voice rising, out of control.
'And the right to deal with the tantrums of an hysterical child in the time-honoured way of sending it to bed,' Rede said quietly, shaming her outburst. He had discarded his cigar and now turned her inward towards him, but at arm's length.
On the verge of nervous tears, I'll go back to bed when I'm ready! ' she defied him.
'You'll go now.' He swept her up, one arm beneath her knees, another behind her shoulders, and carried her into her bedroom where he set her down with no more care than he might have given to any load of her size and weight. While she kicked off her mules and dropped her negligee, he smoothed the bed and when she was in it, pulled the covers over her.
'I can't sleep to order,' she said petulantly.
'If you relax and lie still, you will in time,' he assured her.
She sat up, resting on an elbow. 'You couldn't sleep either,' she reminded him.
'That was for a different reason than that I'd worked myself up into a lather of temper.' Ready to switch off the bedside light, he pressed her back on to her pillow. 'Try,' he said, and as the light flicked out she felt his lips brush across her own
before he left her to the longing and regret which flooded over her.
He had never yet kissed her so gently, with so little demand of her response. He had made it a conciliatory kiss for a peevish child, and that in itself was a rebuke. But he had been there—close within reach of arms which ached to open to him. If she had clung to his kiss, invited him with the warmth of hers, drawn him down to her, might he perhaps have stayed long enough for her to try to express all that her body and spirit, hungry for him, wanted to tell him?
Supposing, reckless, she had pleaded, 'I love you,' would he believe it meant what it said and be kind? Or would confession of her need of him put her even more into the power of his intolerance, add pity for her to the contempt he already had?
Anyway, she hadn't kept him with her, and the might-have-been of her having dared it, she would never know.
She woke to the heaviness following late sleep after a wakeful night. There was a note from Rede on her breakfast tray. He had already left to fly to Bangkok, but he gave an address where he could be reached in case there was news of Mai. The note was written on a page torn from a diary; he must have sent it back by Lim, who would have driven him to the airport.
Most of the day Sara waited, for what to happen she didn't know. Perhaps for Mai to appear br to
ring, or for Rede to call to check for any news, or— pretty vainly—for some idea or clue to occur to her, which she could look into on her own.
There was nothing; no Mai, no calls, no ideas, until the late afternoon when, lying on a sunlounger in the garden, she shot bolt upright, almost shouting to the garden stillness, 'Yes ! ' and again, 'Yes Now I know ' for memory and instinct told her she did.
Mai, according to her girlfriends, never known to have dated a man or invited him to the cottage, had been seen once with a man, seen walking with him by Sara herself, and what was more, Sara knew him, had recognised him from only one sighting of him before.
A small enough chance that he had had any part in Mai's disappearance, but with it as the only chance, Sara was already making plans.
They meant a journey into the city to contact Katin. For Katin and the store where she worked were the leads to Mai's friend—the handsome young Malay, Katin's urbane deputy-chief of the store's restaurant, who on a certain morning had parted from Mai at the corner of the store block, to vanish within minutes on a long straight side street as if he had been spirited away.
But Sara, remembering, realised there had been no magic to it. Employed by the store, he would have returned to work by a staff entrance, and Sara's first errand in the city would be to look for such an entrance in that street. Then she would go in
search of Katin; find out the man's name and ask permission to speak to him. At last there was something she could do; something, however trivial, she could report to Rede.
She decided against taking Lim. She would go by taxi to the store and hope she would leave it, armed with some clue as to where Mai might be— an errand which might take her further afield—or not, if the scent she was on was dead or had never existed except in her imagination. But at least to try was to do something for Rede.
The store's staff entrance proved to be where she had expected it to be. The young man could easily have reached it before she had looked along the street herself. She went into the store by the main doors, took the lift to the restaurant and looked around for Katin.
She was not there, nor was the Malay waiter. The store did not serve dinners, and with the lunch hour long over, the only customers were two ladies for afternoon tea, attended by one waitress, whom Sara approached when she was free.
It was Katin's day off, the girl said. The deputy head waiter was also on a week's holiday. No, she did not know Katin's address, but the store's personnel officer would help Madam, no doubt. 'On the next floor, madam—the executive offices; ask for Mrs Sunderabad,' she advised.
Sara thanked her. On her way to Mrs Sunderabad's office, she realised with dismay that she herself knew Katin's home to be far inland in Johore.
But Mrs Sunderabad a be-saried Malaysian woman with perfect English, pooh-poohed the idea that Katin commuted to work from so far away, and gave Sara an address in Chinatown where Katin lodged with her married sister.
So far, so good. Sara picked up another taxi and gave the driver the paper on which Mrs Sunderabad ha
d written Katin's address. He nodded and set off for the teeming streets of Chinatown, threading at speed through their mazes whenever the way was clear and exchanging gestures and raucous jokes with his fellows whenever, as frequently happened, an evening market intermittently obstructed the traffic of a whole street length.
Katin's sister lived on one such street, in a tall tenement house with canary cages hung from the upper balconies and items of household linen draping the rails of the lower ones. The number Sara wanted proved to be the ground-floor apartment and at her knock a young woman appeared with a black-eyed toddler on either side of her.
Sara began to explain in careful English that she was looking for Katin Char who, she believed— She got no further. The young mother backed from the door and called into the house, `Katin ' followed by a chatter in Malay of which 'Mem' was the only word Sara understood.
Katin came out; her sister did not reappear; the babes remained, a thumb in each pouting mouth, sometimes staring at Sara, sometimes at the garish stall at the curbside behind her. Sara explained her
errand without going into details; she rather particularly wanted to know the name of Katin's deputy chief in the restaurant, and perhaps, if Katin knew, where he lived.
Surprisingly incurious, Katin said, 'His name is Charn Narong. 'He live in Changi village, I do not know where.'
Sara knew the place for a Government-sponsored small model town not far from the city, a kind of garden suburb laid out round a shopping precinct and with a batik factory to provide employment. But how to find one Charn Narong in even so small a place?
However, she thanked Katin for knowing even so much about him, and asked, 'Is he a married man, do you know?'
Katin thought not, he lived with his parents, she volunteered, and added. 'He is Buddhist. When he come as waiter, he is only just out of his service as monk.'
'A monk? I see.' Sara knew of the religion's rule that its young men must serve a minimum period of five months as religious mendicants, begging alms and their food and 'touching no woman' during their service. 'And about when did he come to the restaurant?' she asked.
