Tiger, Tiger

by Philip Caveney

  Her parting with Bob the previous night had been swift and terrible. He had leaned over and attempted to plant a kiss on her cheek. She had brought her hand across his face with all the strength she could muster and had then stalked grimly into the house, where she had needed all her powers of imagination, to spin her parents a convincing enough yarn to account for her dishevelled appearance. She was not sure how convinced they were at the end of it all, but anything was better than the truth. Her parents were fairly broad-minded as far as the species went, but they certainly drew the line at screwing on the beach, that much was for sure. So she had mumbled some hopeless story about falling into the sea after attempting to balance on a slippery rock. Her parents had exchanged looks and gone ominously quiet, and Melissa had taken the opportunity to shower and go straight to bed. This morning she had been up and about uncharacteristically early. The old saying about things looking better in the morning could not be applied in this instance. She still felt desolate about her own stupidity and the conviction that she had been somehow cheapened and soiled by the incident would not go away. She had spent a long time under the shower, scrubbing and soaping every inch of her body and it was while she was preoccupied in this way, that the realization first came to her that she had been raped. The word itself was shocking, but what else could one call it? It was true that initially she had been receptive to his advances, but from the moment Bob had entered her, she had made it plain that she wished him to go no further. By then it was far too late. He was stronger than her and intent on achieving his own aims. There was nothing she could do but submit to him. She had been raped on the sands of that idyllic little Malaysian beach and nothing could ever alter the fact. She used to laugh at the few girls in school who prized their virginity as some wonderful commodity, but now she thought she understood.

  Melissa moved on, past the rows of identical gardens that flanked her route. Many of them were deserted now, the last occupants of the small white bungalows had already fled to their cool homelands, but here and there, small groups of sunbathers lay spread out on garish sun-beds, taking the opportunity to soak up the last bit of real sunshine they were likely to see for quite some time. Melissa came to a halt outside a certain garden. Within, on the parched stretch of lawn, Victoria Lumly lay sunning herself in a ridiculously skimpy red bikini. Alongside of her, the ubiquitous Allison Weathers did likewise, clad in a rather more sensible black number. Beside them, a transistor radio was spilling out the latest chart songs from Great Britain and on a small portable table, two tall glasses of Coke shimmered with helpings of crushed ice. Melissa stood watching them for a moment. Her initial impression was of a basking hippopotamus, sharing its favourite grazing spot with a huge stick insect.

  The girls glanced up in surprise as the gate creaked open. They too were wearing shades and the three sets of secretive eyes gazed impassively at each other.

  “Oh,” said Victoria at last. “It’s you, Melissa.” Her voice was flat and resentful, almost as if she had guessed the purpose of the visit. “Haven’t seen you for ages.…”

  “No, I’ve been busy.” Melissa strolled slowly into the garden. She glanced off towards the house, where the shadowy figure of Mrs. Lumly waved briefly from the kitchen. “Getting your panic tan in, I see,” she observed cooly. By this, she was, of course, referring to the mass of blotchy red freckles that covered every square inch of Victoria’s body. “Who knows, if you lie there long enough, you just might manage to mass them all in together?”

  Victoria didn’t bat an eyelid.

  “That’s always the problem for those of us with more sensitive skin,” she mused sweetly. “Of course, there are those people with skin so tough, they could tan themselves with a blowtorch.” Beside her, Allison gave a brief giggle of amusement.

  “Oh, I can recommend that treatment,” retorted Melissa sharply. “You should try it some time.” She slid her hand into her pocket and let the tips of her fingers caress the hard cool shape of the pendant. She would not produce it just yet. She was savouring her triumph. “When are you two shipping out?” she enquired.

  “I’m leaving the day after tomorrow,” announced Allison glumly. “Victoria’s got another three weeks, lucky devil!”

  “My goodness. What will you two do without each other?” wondered Melissa. “The old team breaking up, eh? Why, it’ll be like … Bogart without Bacall … Peaches without Cream … Mutt without Jeff.”

  Victoria glanced up irritably.

  “I hope you realize there’s not much time left for that money you owe me,” she snapped.

  “Money?” Melissa gazed down blankly at her reclining enemy. “What money would that be, Vicky dear?”

  “You know bloody well what money!”

  “Yes,” agreed Allison. “It’s not fair, Melissa Tremayne! I’m a witness to the bet you made and you agreed to pay up. Victoria’s got a piece of paper that you signed, and I think trying to back out of it is really mean of you.”

  “Oh … that bet! Yes, but if you remember, Victoria, I was allowed until three days before I left. By my reckoning, that still leaves me—”

  “What difference does that make?” interrupted Victoria sourly. “The fact is if you were going to come through with something, you would by now. You’re all talk, Melissa, that’s your trouble. Let’s face it, you just can’t accept that you’ve lost and you’re playing for time.” She sat up on her sun-bed. “And you needn’t think I’ve forgotten that you upped that bet the last time I saw you.”

  “That’s right, I did, didn’t I? Let me see now … how much was it again?”

  “Fifty dollars! And any time you’re ready to bring it over, I’m ready to go out and spend it. Let’s face it, Melissa, anybody who doesn’t keep up their part of a bet, isn’t worth knowing.”

  “I do so agree with you,” said Melissa calmly. “That’s why I know that you’ll be ready to do the decent thing.…” And she pulled the pendant from her pocket with a flourish and let it dangle in front of Victoria’s shaded eyes.

  There was a brief, terrible silence; then Allison wailed, “She’s got it, Vicky! She’s won the bet!”

  “I can see that, you ass!” growled Victoria. She snatched the pendant from Melissa and peered at it suspiciously. “But how are we to know this is the real one? As far as I know, she could have bought this herself in Kuala Trengganu.…”

  Melissa gave a derisive laugh. “I must say, Victoria, your faith in me is absolutely touching! Anyway, there’s some sort of inscription on it that you can barely make out— For goodness sake, you can see how old it is. So … when you’re ready, I’ll have that fifty dollars please.”

  “I … I don’t have it right this minute,” murmured Victoria ungraciously. “You’ll have to give me a day or so. I’ll get it for you, don’t worry.…” She handed the pendant back to Melissa and then gazed at her thoughtfully for a few minutes. “So…” she muttered at last. “You finally rolled Bob Beresford, did you?” She paused for a moment to allow Allison’s inevitable bout of giggling to subside. “What was he like?” she enquired.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean … how was he?” She removed her sunglasses for a moment and gave Melissa a slow, sly wink. “Was he a good lover?”

  “Oh yes, tell us all about it!” enthused Allison, sitting up and taking notice. “Where did you do it? At his house?”

  “What, with his pretty little amah there?” chuckled Victoria. “I should say not, eh Melissa! She’d be a bit upset about it, especially with things the way they are now.” She laughed and Allison joined her. The remark was so obviously intended as some kind of taunt that Melissa ignored the bait and simply kept talking.

  “We went down to the beach if you must know. It was all very romantic, the stars and the waves beating on the sand. We’d had a few drinks of course…”

  “Oh, so that’s how you talked him into it!”

  “Believe it or not, Victoria, he didn’t need any persuading. Quite the opposite a
ctually. He’s been after me for quite some time now.”

  “Hmm. Well that’s not the impression I got, dear. Especially that time at the swimming pool when he didn’t show up.”

  “Yes, well it might take a little while to get them hooked, but they always go down in the end.”

  “Tell that to Bob’s amah!” said Victoria; and she and Allison laughed again. Melissa was beginning to get very irritated by the constant innuendos.

  “What the hell are you on about?” she demanded.

  “Us?” Victoria feigned wide-eyed innocence. “Oh nothing, dear, nothing at all. We’re not ones to spread gossip are we, Allison?”

  “I should say not!” But the girls continued to smile in a smug, knowing way that was beginning to make Melissa very angry indeed.

  “And you know,” continued Victoria. “Melissa never wants to hear these things either. Why, the last time I saw her, I offered to tell her all about it, but she just didn’t want to know. Oh, Melissa, I do hope you were careful when you were earning your fifty dollars— I mean, I hope you made sure that Bob took er … precautions … since he so obviously didn’t bother taking any with Lim.…”

  “What? What was that?”

  “Oh, now look, I’ve gone and let the cat out of the bag!” Victoria replaced her sunglasses and settled herself back down on the sun-bed. “Well, anyway, it’s nothing that need concern you, Melissa. After all, you must have known he was the reckless type…”

  “Are you saying that Bob’s amah is pregnant?” demanded Melissa, her temper building to a slow steady simmer.

  “So the grapevine says … of course, the really funny thing is that everybody knows about it. Everybody but Bob, that is.” She laughed briefly. “To be honest with you, Melissa, that last time I was going to tell you about it, I wasn’t really sure. Then, it was only a rumour. But now it’s an ugly fact, I’m afraid. Lim made the mistake of confiding in Mrs. Hoskin’s amah and she told Mrs. Blair’s amah, then Mrs. Blair’s…”

  “Yes, alright, Victoria, I get the general idea.”

  “Still, you’ve done alright for yourself, Melissa. A night of passion with Bob Beresford and you got paid for it. Actually, fifty dollars for one night is pretty good by standards, I should think. Plus, with any luck, you won’t end up like poor Lim, holding the baby. I bet Bob won’t tell her about what went on between you either.…”

  An abrupt and all encompassing redness erupted in Melissa’s head, a rage so sudden and so powerful that she was barely aware of her own actions. One moment she was standing gazing impassively down at Victoria’s plump, reclining body; the next, she was leaning forward over the sun-bed, clawing viciously at the girl’s unprotected face. Victoria gave a loud, indignant squeal of protest. Her sunglasses flew off and she twisted sideways away from Melissa’s unexpected attack, upsetting the sun-bed and sending her heavy body sprawling onto the dry grass.

  “Allison, stop her! She’s gone berserk!”

  Melissa ignored the protests. She dropped down onto Victoria’s plump back like a vengeful cat and began to tear at the wretched girl’s face and hair. Allison came stumbling warily into the fray. She began to tug ineffectually at Melissa’s arm in a pathetic attempt to pull her away, and she received a slap in the face for her trouble. With a howl of pain, she sat down on the lawn and stopped taking interest in the proceedings. Meanwhile, Victoria was loosing off a series of shrieks and curses that would have done justice to an Irish navvy. The commotion was enough to bring Mrs. Lumly out of the house to investigate.

  “I say, what’s going on out there? Stop it now, stop it at once!”

  As suddenly as it had begun, Melissa’s anger subsided. She got up and allowed a bruised and rather shaken Victoria, to pull herself together.

  “You little wildcat,” howled Victoria pitifully. “What was that for?” She dabbed gingerly at her nose and found a tiny smear of blood on her fingers. “It’s probably broken,” she snarled ruefully. “I’ll get you for this, Melissa Tremayne, you just see if I don’t.”

  “Do what you like,” retorted Melissa casually. She glanced off across the lawn to where the portly imposing figure of Mrs. Lumly advanced like a harbinger of doom.

  “You there! Melissa Tremayne, isn’t it? What on earth is the meaning of this shocking behaviour?”

  Melissa offered no reply. Instead, she stooped, picked up the fallen pendant, and crammed it back in the pocket of her shorts. She glanced at Allison, who was holding both hands against her reddened cheek and was howling pathetically.

  “For God’s sake, shut up,” hissed Melissa. “I didn’t hit you that hard.” Allison gulped, paused for a moment, then resumed her noisy protest.

  “You’d better clear off,” warned Victoria in a low, threatening voice. “I always knew you were a roughneck under that hoity-toity image … and if you think I’m giving you that money now, you’ve got another think coming.”

  “Keep your money,” growled Melissa, as she turned to walk away. “Perhaps you could use it to buy yourself a night of passion with Bob Beresford. He’s just about what you deserve!” Melissa went out through the garden gate, slamming it behind her and ignoring Mrs. Lumly’s strident demands that she stay where she was and be tongue-lashed. She set off down the street again, her hands thrust deep into her pockets, one clenched fist still holding the bullet-shaped pendant. The one aspect of her affair that she thought might still bring her pleasure had been yet another dismal failure. Only the sheer animal thrill of hitting Victoria Lumly’s unbearably smug face had been worth anything at the end of the day.

  “Your parents shall hear of this,” shrieked Mrs. Lumly as a parting shot, leaning over the gate and shaking a huge pink fist.

  Melissa sighed. Head down, eyeshades firmly in position, she simply kept walking in the direction of home.

  * * *

  LIM GLANCED UP from the cheerless expanse of the dining room table, as the familiar sound of Bob’s Land Rover ruptured the silence. She got up from the chair in which she had been sitting for nearly an hour and she resolved to herself that this time, she would tell him. She turned to face the door. Through the opening, she saw the Land Rover screech to a halt, throwing up a thick cloud of dust that hung in a fine haze over the garden. A moment later, there was the creak of the garden gate, and Bob came hurrying along the path, an expression of intense preoccupation on his face.

  Lim’s hands came up to stroke her dark hair into position. She cleared her throat. He would be angry with her of course, he would shout and glare at her and though she hated to be subjected to his displeasure, she must bear it and speak her words, slowly and simply so that he would understand.

  He burst into the room wearing a face that was a mask of irritability. He did not even acknowledge Lim’s presence.

  “Bob Tuan…” she began; but he pushed straight by her and strode in the direction of his bedroom. She followed, meekly, awaiting her first opportunity to speak. But when she followed him into the bedroom, she saw that he was stripping the sheet off the bed that she had so carefully made up that morning. He yanked the cotton right back, searched through it for a moment, then dumped the whole thing unceremoniously on the floor. Now he searched under the pillows, stooped to examine the floor around and under the bed.

  “Bob Tuan has lost something?” enquired Lim politely.

  He nodded, scowled.

  “My luck,” he replied tonelessly.

  He shifted his attention to the chest of drawers beside the bed, pulling out each drawer one at a time and scattering its contents onto the already disrupted bed. Lim stepped forward.

  “Let me look,” she offered hopefully. “What have you lost?”

  “My good luck charm. You know, the bullet-shaped thing on a chain?” He paused for a moment, stared at her. “You haven’t seen it, have you?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, Bob Tuan, I no see … but please, may I speak about something that I…”

  “Well, it’s got to be somewhere,”
he reasoned. “Things can’t just vanish.” He emptied out the last of the drawers, turned his attention to the wardrobe. “Could be in a jacket pocket, I suppose.…” He turned around and began to desecrate that shrine of order. Meanwhile, with placid acceptance, Lim began to remake the bed.

  “Please, Bob Tuan, if I could just…”

  “Nah … nah, this is crazy. Why would I have put it into a pocket anyway? It can only be somewhere where it might have fallen…”

  “… tell you of a thing, that causes much unhappiness now…”

  “Somewhere like … ummm…”

  “… and though I am almost afraid to speak of it, I know I must…”

  “The bathroom!” Bob snapped his fingers. “It could be in the shower basin, I suppose. It would be too large to go down the grill.…” He hurried out of the bedroom. Lim gazed after him sadly for a moment, aware that he had not, as yet, heard a single word of what she had said. She followed him with dogged determination and found him crouched in the shower enclosure, examining every square inch of the tiled floor.

  “Please, Tuan, can I speak of something…?”

  “Aww look, Lim, don’t bother me now, alright? This is important.”

  “But this of which I speak is also…”

  “See, that pendant is my good luck, Lim. I can’t go hunting without it, it’s like a superstitious thing I have going. Now, I’ve got to think where I could have dropped it over the last day or so.…” He moved past her again, rubbing his chin as he recounted all the possibilities to himself. “I’m sure it’s nowhere at work, I’ve already checked that out. The Mess, I suppose is a possibility … I’ll have to wait till tonight to look around there.…”

  “Please, Bob Tuan, you must hear me now. This too is important, like you speak.”