“I am impotent, impotent.”
“Oh, come on. Stay here with Rosemary, Cheng Po. I’ll be back soon.”
Lim Cheng Po and Rosemary were left together, under the wind of the fan, among the dirty glasses; the faint brandy-song of the cook-boy wafted in from the kitchen. Lim Cheng Po went over to the table to get a drink, saying: “Victor’s a fool. He shouldn’t do these things.” Rosemary stood up, knowing she looked her best tall and straight, like a smooth brown tree, and sobbed: “Oh, I’m so unhappy, so unhappy.”
Lim Cheng Po turned, startled, a glass in his hand. “Oh, my dear, dear lady, you mustn’t be unhappy. What does all this business matter to you?”
“Oh,” wailed Rosemary (men are so stupid), “oh, it isn’t that. I’m so unhappy. I want to die.” She waited for consoling arms. Lim Cheng Po said: “There, now, come and sit down. Have a drink. Tell me all about it.”
“I don’t want to sit down. Oh, life is terrible, terrible.”
“There, there, there.” And here they were, comforting arms beneath a so English, a so refined voice, a smell of hair-cream, after-shaving lotion, invisible talc, Imperial Leather soap, good cloth, man. Rosemary sobbed into Lim Cheng Po’s chest, sobbed dryly because tears would ruin her mascara.
“There, there, there.”
“So unhappy, so unhappy.”
“Better now?”
“So unhappy.”
Lim Cheng Po, Anglican, Royalist, cricketer, respectable husband and father, allowed his animal reflexes out for an avenue walk on the lead. Rosemary had a pleasant smell, her flesh was agreeable to palpate, to kiss her left temple lightly was less of a bore than having to say “There, there, there” all the time. Eyes closed, she raised half-open vermilion lips to him. He was debating whether to touch them with his own when Vythilingam walked in, swaying but slightly, not very drunk.
Vythilingam had been left, apparently sleeping, in the back of his own car, while his friends, disgusted that he had once more failed them in the moment of need, had gone to the station in a police-van. But, in fact, Vythilingam had been drunkenly aware of violence proceeding outside, and he had not greatly wished to be involved. If his friends were being assaulted, that was perhaps a good thing: he was growing tired of their brother’s keeper clucking over him. If his friends were assaulting others, that, too, was a good thing: the Jaffna Tamils had suffered enough from the rest of the world. He erected an impregnable tower of drunkard’s snores in the back of the car, and only when silence returned to the house and its garden did he strike the stage set. Then he drove with drunken care to Rosemary’s house, smiled nervously to find her not yet in, and walked, tracing wave-patterns on the road, to the house of Crabbe. There he found her being embraced by a Chinese from Penang.
The whisky ventriloquised through him, the dummy. “Stop that,” he called, with great strength and clarity. Lim Cheng Po was only too ready to stop it. Rosemary turned, startled and thwarted.
“Vy!”
“Stop that,” he repeated, though it had already stopped.
“My dear fellow,” said Lim Cheng Po, in civilised reproof.
“You think,” said Vythilingam, “you can do anything with me. “But” (he had some slight difficulty with the labial), “but I am a man.” He paused, to let them take this in, to think of what to say next. “Like other men.”
“Go home, Vy,” said Rosemary, keeping her temper. “Go home and sleep. You’ve been drinking too much.”
“I wait.” He paused and swayed. “I wait for an answer.”
“Do go home.” She stamped her delicate foot. “Please, please go home.”
“So that. He can. He can.”
“I can what?” snapped Lim Cheng Po. He had not enjoyed any of the evening.
“Any man who comes along,” said Vythilingam. “Any man can do it. With her.”
“Vy, what a filthy and disgusting thing to say.” Rosemary’s face disintegrated. “Get out, get out this minute, do you hear?”
“Except me.”
“Look here, old man,” said Lim Cheng Po, “pull yourself together.” That seemed to be the leitmotif of the whole evening. “Go home now, have a good night’s sleep, you’ll feel better in the morning. You’re upsetting this lady, you know.”
“I only want,” said Vythilingam. “I only want,” he repeated. “To marry her. To …” (he stumbled over another labial plosive) “…protect her.” He nodded and swayed. “From herself.”
“I don’t want your protection,” cried Rosemary. “Get out, get out, or Mr. Lim will throw you out.”
“My dear lady …”
“He’s always after me,” cried Rosemary. “Always annoying me. He wants me to marry him. And I won’t, ever, ever.”
“Your dear Joe,” said Vythilingam, “won’t marry you.” He smiled round the room, as at a circle of invisible friends. “Ever.”
“What do you know?” cried Rosemary in anger. “What do you know about it? Shut up, do you hear?”
“He won’t marry you. Joe only wanted one thing. And he got it.” Vythilingam nodded several times, smiling.
Rosemary peeled off Sloane Square, Hartnell, decorations-will-be-worn, fog, primroses, crumpets by the fire, and let fly vulgarly at Vythilingam. Lim Cheng Po was distressed. “Bitch,” said Vythilingam, with some difficulty, and, with more difficulty, “bloody bitch.” Then he added, with courtly formality, “I ask for your hand. In marriage.”
“Never, never, never, do you hear? Never!” Rosemary’s eyes flashed danger, lights on a crumbling tower. “Now get out!”
“I think,” said Lim Cheng Po, “I’d better take you home.” He took her wrist.
“No,” said Rosemary, “let him go home. How dare he say such things? Filthy, filthy things! Send him away or I’ll hit him!”
“I suggest you go home,” said Lim Cheng Po to Vythilingam. “We don’t want any trouble, you know. Especially in Mr. Crabbe’s house.”
“I ask for her hand. I wait for an answer.”
“You’ve got your answer. Never, never, never! I don’t want to see you again, after the filthy, filthy lying things you’ve said! I don’t want to see you again, ever!”
“Come on, dear lady,” said Lim Cheng Po, leading her to the door. Rosemary sobbed. Vythilingam swayed slightly, smiling still. A madhouse, thought Lim Cheng Po, what a madhouse Asia was. He would be glad to be out of it. The church bells on Sunday, bitter and darts in the pub, civilisation. Crabbe could keep Malaya.
5
CRABBE SAT AT home in the early evening, gloomily drinking gin and water, waiting for the alcohol, like some great romantic symphony, to poison his nerves to a mood of quiet and resignation. It had been a hard day. The pupils of the local Anglo-Chinese School had decided to go on strike, and had maintained a day-long picket of the school yard, bearing revolutionary ideograms on cards and banners. Crabbe had been sent to investigate, but had found out nothing. The Communist cell lay hidden, somewhere in the multi-stream fourth form. He had appealed to them in English, and a Chinese Inspector of Schools had addressed them in Kuo-Yüa language as remote as the tongue of Caedmon to the impassive hearers. The pupils had agreed to go back next day and had been much praised for their public spirit.
And this tiny revolt, by some kind of chain reaction, was connected with Syed Hassan’s foolish escapade. Undistributed middles had led to a number of incredible conclusions in shop and bazaar, over sucked coffee and fingered rolls of silk. The Malays, it was said, had started to rise: parang and kris were being sharpened. They had begun to make a breakfast of the Tamils, they licked their lips at the prospect of a great Chinese dinner. It had never been young Hassan’s desire to meddle in politics—he had merely wanted disinterested violence or intimidation of the most token sort—but his single night in the lock-up had made him, to other Malay youth at least, a kind of Horst Wessel. Now he was out on bail of five hundred dollars, which Crabbe, of course, had had to find. And now there were some who were saying that Crabbe was behind the coming risin
g of the Malays: he had, they said, secretly married his amah and had entered Islam.
Syed Hassan had betrayed his three friends very readily, arguing that, as the four shared responsibility for the crime, so they must equally share the quantum of the punishment. The English had taught him arithmetic but no ethics. The keen sight of Maniam, Arumugam and Sundralingam had apparently pierced through yashmak and darkness without difficulty, for Idris, Hamzah and Azman were immediately identified as the other criminals. For these three no bail could be found, so they had to languish behind bars. This caused further murmuring against Crabbe: why this favouritism? Why could the white man not dip deeper into his deep coffers? After all, Hamzah’s father was a dredger in a tin-mine and Azman’s uncle had, for three weeks at least, tapped rubber, and it was well known that the English had made themselves rich through tin and rubber, natural riches which belonged rightly to the Malayans, meaning the Malays.
So it was with relief that Crabbe read the message that the peon brought:
“Headmaster of Durian Estate School murdered. Please investigate. I would go if I could, but someone must stay in the office. Please take train tonight.”
True enough, expatriates were now expendable: it was right and proper that the new masters should stick to their offices. Crabbe looked at his watch, saw that he had an hour before the slow train left for Mawas, packed shirts and razor, and sat down comfortably to finish the bottle of gin. If he didn’t, his cook would in his absence. The great Brahmsian slow movement of the sixth glass was broken rudely by the telephone’s percussion.
“Is that you, Vicky? Nicky here.”
“Vicky here, Nicky.”
“It’s about the money that Wigmore left. You know, the twenty thousand bucks to the State. There’s going to be a meeting next week.”
“Good. I shall be there.”
“All right, if you want to, Vicky, but it won’t do any good.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s already been decided. Just as I said. The Sultan wants a Cadillac.”
“But damn it, he can’t do that. The terms of the will are quite clear, aren’t they? It says something about the good of the State, doesn’t it?”
‘It’s just as I said. They’re prepared to argue it out. They say the highest good is the Sultan’s good.”
“Who say that?”
“The Sultan and the Raja Perempuan and the Tungku Makhota and the Mentri Besar.”
“And you?”
“Well, damn it, what can I do? I’ve got my job to think about, and, besides, I suppose they’re right really. I should leave well alone if I were you, Vicky. You don’t want to get into trouble.”
“I don’t mind in the slightest getting into trouble. Who’s the executor of Wigmore’s will?”
“Protheroe. He’s the trustee as well, if you want to know. And he’s not objecting.”
“For the usual reason, eh? He doesn’t want to be thrown out of the State.”
“It’s just not worth it, Vicky. He says the terms of the will cover a Cadillac.”
“I’m going to get Lim on the job. I’ll contest this. It’s a bloody disgrace.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Vicky.”
Crabbe slammed the receiver down. Then he called his cook and told him he would be away for a couple of days. “And,” said Crabbe, “I know exactly how much brandy’s in that cupboard. And whisky.” The Chinese smiled ineffably.
Jalil wheezed at the two cats that lay on the only other arm-chair and somewhat roughly removed them. Then he sat down, breathing heavily at Rosemary’s back as she, feigning to ignore him, steadily filled an air mail letter form at the table. “Who you write?” asked Jalil.
“…I am longing for you to hold me in your arms again,” wrote Rosemary, “and tickle my ear with your moustache. Oh, darling, it sends such funny shivers through me.”
“You write him. I know,” chuckled Jalil. “But no good. He not marry you.”
“ … And am dying for the day when you and I can be together again and say these things to each other properly,” wrote Rosemary. “All my love, dearest one.” There was enough space after her signature to implant a kiss. Rosemary raised the thin blue letter to her richly rouged lips, pressing it to them as though covering a ladylike belch with a dinner napkin. Then vigorously she folded the letter, sealing it with a little condensed milk which she allowed to trickle from the tin on to her fingertip. Ritually she replied to Jalil:
“Oooooh, go away, Jalil, you shouldn’t be here, you know you shouldn’t, I told the amah not to let you in.”
“Come eat, come drink, come make jolly time.” Jalil yawned. A cat yawned.
“No,” said Rosemary. “I’m going to bed early.”
“I come too,” said Jalil.
“Jalil, what a filthy, what a horrible, what a downright nasty thing to say.” Rosemary began to file her nails. There was silence. The brief ceremony was over.
“How long since you hear from him?” resumed Jalil.
“That’s none of your business.”
“How long?”
“If you must know, we write to each other every day. We never miss. That’s because we’re in love, but you wouldn’t know what love is.”
“I know what is love. Love is man and woman in bed.”
Rosemary smiled, superior. “That’s what you think. That’s because you’re an Asian. You Asians don’t know anything about real love.”
“How long since you hear from him?”
“I’ve told you.” Rosemary’s voice grew schoolmistressly sharp. “He writes every day.”
“You get letter from him today?”
“Of course I did.”
“Yes. You get letter today. But not yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“He not write two weeks, more. Today letter come. But not yet you get.”
“Jalil,” threatened Rosemary, “if you’re up to your nasty tricks again I’ll hit you, I’ll throw you out, I’ll call for the police. I haven’t forgotten that other business with the Blackpool Tower.”
“Every day I ask Sikh in Post Office about letter for you. Today he give me. Letters more safe with me. Here is letter.” In quiet asthmatic triumph Jalil drew a blue air mail letter from his breast pocket. “He write at last. He send bad news. I know. I not read, but I know. Now you read.”
In rage Rosemary hurled herself at Jalil. A cat fled to the kitchen, another hid under the table. The force of her onslaught toppled Jalil’s chair over, and he lay, legs in the air, as she scratched at his face. He panted for a while and then began his deep chuckle as he grappled, finally seizing her wrists. They were on the floor now, and frightened cats looked on as they rolled, Rosemary spitting, trying to bite. “This time,” wheezed Jalil, “you get. You really get this time.”
“Pig. Swine. Rotter.” Rosemary’s off-the-shoulder dress was now off more than her shoulders. Jalil’s asthma roared in her right ear. Her skirt was in disarray. Cats climbed and leapt, watched with huge eyes, tails were high with fright, fur staring like quills. “Now,” panted Jalil as though dying. Rosemary screamed for her amah, but nobody came. And still, crumpled in her left hand, she gripped the letter she had wrested. “Only I love,” sweated Jalil. ‘Now. You see. Now.” He dredged his lungs deeply and desperately for a spoonful of air. Rosemary tore at his right ear, turned it like a radio knob. Jalil hardly noticed, concentrating on breathing and his tearing hands. Then Rosemary upped with her knee.
Over in the corner she watched him crawling towards her, her own eyes big black lakes, herself panting. Panting filled the room, fan and refrigerator were silent. As Jalil got to his feet, his black Eskimo hair over his right eye, gasping towards her, Rosemary fumbled at the kitchen door, tottered through to the door of the servants’ quarters, opened the door and tripped through the untidy cell (the floor paved with cigarette tins saved up for a ceremony of lights, a bulky sewing machine, cardboard boxes filled with trinkets, the amah out without p
ermission) to reach the outer door which, thank God, was open. Crying, clutching the letter, she ran through the oven-like evening of the empty avenue, shoeless, whimpering towards Crabbe’s house.
Crabbe’s house looked empty: not because of shut doors or darkness—it was not quite lamp-lighting time—but because there was no car in the porch. How naked a porch then seems: caddis-cases, dried shed lizard-tails, corpses of cicadas, frogs hopping freely, cigarette-ends, dust, a great smear of oil, normally hidden by the bulky metallic body, now appear as symbols of desolation. Rosemary tried the glass-and-metal front door, but it was locked; round by the servants’ quarters she called: “Boy! Boy!” but nobody came. (In fact, Crabbe’s boy was there, but so was Rosemary’s amah.) Rosemary went round to the veranda: there the folding doors were in place, but she rattled at panel after panel. She weakened at the knees with relief when one panel meekly swung inwards, the key panel with the tiny handle, its bolts unfastened, almost a true door. Inside the living-room that smelt of enclosed heat, she stood undecided and then called: “Victor! Victor!” Darkness gently began to lower itself into the chairs, to settle on the surfaces of tables and cupboards. Perhaps he was in the bedroom? Rosemary padded down the long corridor, passing the second bedroom which Crabbe used as a study, to the big chamber which held his solitary single bed. “Victor!” In the room the mosquito net was down, ghost-grey in the falling light. Crabbe was nowhere: the lavatory door stood wide, there was no sound of bath or shower. Rosemary sobbed gently, gorgeous in her disarray, the crumpled letter still in her fist. Disturbed by the noises, a toad hopped towards the bathroom, a chichak ran up the wall. Wearily she parted the mosquito-net’s folds and half lay on the bed. Then she smoothed out the letter and tried to read it. The crumpled words swam, blurred, got mixed with diamonds, great splotches of tears dissolved some. But, of course, she had known all the time, had always known.
…And if you met Sheila I am sure you would be great friends. She is not a bit like you, of course, she is very English and has blue eyes. Anyway, she says she will go on working till I find something, she has a good job, she is a confidential secretary, and it is perhaps just as well that I didn’t get the job with that export or import company, whatever it is. Anyway, I want you to still wear the ring, and to think of me whenever you look at it, it will perhaps bring back happy memories of you and I together. I do not regret buying it for you at all, darling, for they were good times, weren’t they, and it’s nice to think we each have things to remember each other by. But, as the saying goes, East is East and West is West, and it would have been very difficult for both of us, darling, if we had got married. And if we had had kids it would have been very awkward for them, wouldn’t it, so perhaps everything has worked out for the best. You’re bound to find a good husband soon, for you are marvellous looking, and any man who is an Asian would be proud to have such a smasher for a wife. When Sheila and I are married, which should be next month, I know when we are in bed together I shall often think of you and the things we did. Good-bye, now, dear, and God bless you, and don’t think too badly of your loving Joe.
The Malayan Trilogy Page 48
