Why should Robert Loo’s name be present? His interest was purely historical: he was not to be read in any anthology. His poem had been jejune, over-brief, uncontrolled, inarticulate really, a poem not to take seriously, not even to read, merely a link in a long process of evolution: Bale divided the interlude into acts; Surrey first used blank verse; Wyatt introduced the sonnet—forgotten scullions to the great world, table-scrubbers, potato-peelers, onion-cleaners, meat-choppers for the master cook who will soon arrive from Stratford. But that cold, polite, refined Oxonian from Penang had made possible the entrance of Asia, and time and grief had handed the key to a dull and harmless Chinese boy, a boy who had at least stammered an overwhelmed gratitude, not merely yawned and said: “Let’s have a cigarette.”
The cook-boy came now and said obsequiously: “Makan sudah siap.” Rosemary sat at the table, mistress of an empty house, and spooned out curry on to her plate. The chapattis were pale (at home they had always been golden) and heavy (at home they had always been so light). But she tore off great pieces and dipped them in the fiery sauce and munched with appetite, letting the viscous driblets stain Crabbe’s pyjama jacket. She made parcels of mutton-pieces and potatoes and posted them express. She broke large chunks of fish with her chapatti glove. She called for water, no, not water, beer.
“Beer!” she cried. The cook-boy hesitated. “Brandy,” warned Rosemary.
Rosemary ate four chapattis, half the fish, all the mutton, most of the sauce, most of the sambals of shredded coconut, hard-boiled egg, chutney, banana-slices and red cabbage. And as she drained her beer she remembered something she had long convinced herself had never happened. She sixteen, in her beauty’s first heady phase, the meal with that man in Kuala Hantu. A curry with chapattis on Satu Road, and afterwards, with chillis in their blood, they had not gone after all to the cinema but to his flat near Bukit Chandan. And he?
“Black as the ace of spades,” said Rosemary aloud in wonder. “No, I couldn’t. It never happened.”
But he had been handsome really. He had done an engineering course in Brighton. He had a white Jaguar which he drove at speed. He danced divinely. Where was he now? What was his name? Sundralingam? Mahalingam? Sundra meant beautiful, maha meant great. The names, now all too literally interpreted by her, were apt, apt enough. At the moment of climax their language had been Tamil, a rapid bubble of sincere sensuality.
“He was cold,” said Rosemary aloud, “cold as that fish there.” She was now thinking of somebody else, someone in West Kensington on a January morning. “Joe, too,” she added, “really.” She tried crying again, but she was too full to cry. She picked her teeth with a match from the box on a side-table. She called for coffee. After some argument, quelled by the mention of brandy, coffee was made and brought. While the table was being cleared, Rosemary lounged on the couch, sipping Cointreau, her eyes in far space. In far space the men of her life marched like stars. When the boy had gone back to his quarters, Rosemary said to a Corot reproduction, hanging over Crabbe’s desk: “He’s quite clever, really. And awfully kind. And I have been rotten to him. And he has got it bad. Poor, poor boy. I could do so much for him.”
Soon she lay in bed, comfortable, a cigarette in her mouth, hands behind her head, the bedside fan whizzing. “I’m glad I gave up Joe,” she said. “I told him that it would never work. But he insisted and insisted. And now he’s leapt into somebody’s arms, as they all do. Marrying on the rebound. And he’ll think of me all the time when he’s with her, knowing it’s not the same, nowhere near as good. But I told him it wouldn’t work. No qualifications, no ambitions, no money, no prospects. And me with all mine.” She snuggled down in the bed, silk against her clean, smooth body. “And his speech was so bad. ‘You was’ he used to say sometimes. And think of the children. Eurasian children. I’d be ashamed to show my face.”
As she turned on her right side, she saw, crumpled on the floor, almost out of sight under the bedside table, the blue air-letter that she had received that day. That was the letter saying that Joe had had to fly into the arms of another woman, that life was intolerable but he realised now that Rosemary would never change her mind. Farewell, O cruel. Rosemary got out of bed, picked up the letter, crumpled it still further, walked over to the lavatory with it and flushed it away. The words went crying away into the town drains, away to the river, to the sea. Poor Joe. Rosemary went back to bed and slept.
Robert Loo could not sleep. Excitement made his limbs dance under the thin sheet. He danced to the last movement of the Second Brandenburg Concerto, to the scherzo of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, to the development of the Meistersinger Prelude, to the finale of L’Oiseau de Feu, to Holst’s Fugal Overture. But the rhythms were not enough, and what sang above the rhythms was not really relevant to his highly-charged, almost febrile state. It was too universal, too general, too mature, too little concerned with this mad spring of love. Had music ever really been able to convey that? He listened in his mind to Wagner, leafing through the love-themes of Die Meistersinger, the great duet in Die Walküre; in Beethoven there was nothing; perhaps one of the songs of Hugo Wolf?
Fever, fever. His eyes must have been bright when he entered the shop, his head burning. Why else had his father been so considerate, his mother fussing round, sending him off to bed with Aspros and brandy? Or perhaps, thought Robert Loo, it had not been that at all. His father was hopeless with accounts, his brothers worse. He, the musician, had the musician’s aptitude for playing with numbers: perhaps this one night had been enough to abash his father with a sense of his son’s indispensability. But no, he had been away before, sent by Crabbe to Singapore to have his quartet recorded. His quartet? He tried to hear it in his mind, but it seemed to be played on miniature instruments by elves, incredibly high up and thin. All the music he had written before this night must, of course, be immature, must be re-written or, better still, destroyed.
Most probably his father and mother had been shocked by the possibility of the break-up of the family, and his own impiety, his pulling out of a brick, was discounted in the terror of the prospect of the whole vast structure collapsing in thunder and dust. Perhaps his mother had screamed at his father, accusing him, with blows, of tyranny and exploitation, and his father had been cowed and scared of the high-pitched storm.
Robert Loo felt that he could now dictate terms. He would ask for liberal time off—most afternoons and at least two evenings. Sometimes, after the closing of the shop at midnight, he would say:
“I’m just going out to see a friend. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Very good, my son. God knows, you work hard enough. You deserve a little relaxation. Do you need any spending money?”
“Thank you, Father. I think I’ve got as much as I need.” Then off, in the blue warm aromatic night, to see her, her waiting arms open in perfume and desire, in some light gown that fell easily from her shoulders.
‘But, look here, you need all this time to write your music.’
‘My music? Oh, yes. Of course, my music. But I think I feel a new style developing, my second period, or perhaps my real first. That needs time to germinate.’
‘And what’s it going to be like, this new music?’
‘I don’t know yet, I just don’t know. Warmer, gayer, speaking more to the heart, more rhythmical, tuneful, full of the spirit of the dance.’
‘Something like this?’
Robert Loo’s interlocuter, who was also Robert Loo, sprang through the open window, flew over the street, switched on a light in a high room opposite and set a loud radiogram playing. Robert Loo, lying on his bed, came fully awake and listened.
It was the fat Indian clerk who lived in a solitary room above the chemist’s shop opposite. He could be seen in silhouette, walking up and down, eating something, playing music, insomniac. The music was some standard American dance-tune, of the regulation thirty-two bars, with the regulation near-impressionist harmonies, its orchestral palette limited to brass and reeds and so
mewhat sedative percussion. No development, no variations, only a key-change from chorus to chorus. “No,” said Robert Loo aloud. “Nothing like that.” And then a voice sang, relaxed, without effort, against the pre-Raphaelitish chords of very early Debussy:
“Oh, love, love, love —
Love on a hilltop high,
Love against a cloudless sky,
Love where the scene is
Painted by a million stars,
Love with martinis
In the cabarets and bars.
Oh, love, love, love …”
Robert Loo listened entranced, hardly breathing, indescribably moved. Oh, love, love, love. His heart yearned, seeing himself in a white tuxedo, moving with grace round the small dance-floor, Rosemary in his arms, she ravishing in something backless and close-fitting. Words of love on a balcony, the band playing in the distance, under the moon, palms swaying. He felt the palms as something exotic, not the common dingy scenery of his town and state. Rosemary said:
“Let’s go in and dance. That’s a lovely tune the band is playing.”
He smiled, draining his martini. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Why? did you …?”
“Yes, I wrote it. For you. I wrote it this afternoon when you were on the beach.” (Ah, the romance of those large striped umbrellas!)
“So that was it! And you said you had a headache!”
“Yes. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“You darling.”
And, yes, he would, he would! He would revert from this stage of hard-won mastery of counterpoint, of orchestration, of thematic development, to breathed clichés of wind and voice for her, for her. All the ore that waiting lay for the later working he would melt before its time to make her ornaments for a day.
‘And so you’ve no longer any objection to composing something for people to listen to, even to sing? An anthem for the workers of Malaya, perhaps? A Strength Through Joy song?’
‘No, no! Anything, anything for her!’
He slept fitfully, and in the morning his father brought him breakfast in bed: two boiled eggs and a pot of tea. He was too surprised to say thank you.
“You eat both those eggs, son. Eggs give stamina. You can’t work on fresh air.”
“No, Father.”
7
IN THE MORNING Crabbe and Tommy Jones met, quite by chance, in a Chinese kedai. The loud radio somewhere down the street announced ten o’clock Malayan time, and then came the news in the cheerful sing-song of Mandarin. They drank treacly coffee and wondered what they could possibly eat. The shop was dingy and gay and full of half-nakedness—vests and underpants, pimply shoulders and hairless brown legs—and rang with ground-rows of Hokkien vowels and the clop of wooden clogs. Tommy Jones looked in gloom at the clouded glass display-case of cakes in primary colours. “Don’t really fancy anything,” he said. “You do anything last night?”
“Slept.”
“Yes, I know. Don’t know what’s coming over me lately. Couldn’t do a thing. I could eat a bit of fried fish if they’ve got it.”
“With vinegar?”
“That’s it.” But he made no move to ask or order.
“I’ve got to get transport,” said Crabbe, “to Mawas. Do they have taxis round here?”
“Eh,” said Tommy Jones, plucking at the vest of a passing boy. “Polar beer. A big one, cold.”
“A?” But beer was brought. Tommy Jones gulped it greedily, cutting the phlegm, and said: “That’s a bit better.” The morning film seemed to drop from his eyes, for he said to Crabbe: “You’ve had a shave.”
“Yes. She brought some water in a flower-vase.”
“Oh, I’ll have one later. Got to see this new Malay shop here, try and get them to take a regular order. Bit difficult with some of the Muslims.”
“You can tell them that they’ve just discovered a codicil to the Koran.”
“Eh?”
“Making it all right to drink.”
“You ought to be in this business,” said Tommy Jones gravely. “You’d do all right. I’ll put in a word for you when I get back to Hong Kong. Don’t know your name, though.”
“I’ve got to get to Mawas,” said Crabbe. At that moment a Land-Rover pulled up outside the kedai: from its covered body came protesting squeals and loud comforting words. The man who jumped down from the driver’s seat was known to Crabbe: Moneypenny, an Assistant Protector of Aborigines who was based at Mawas. He now entered the kedai, very big and boyish in khaki shorts, fair-haired, mad-eyed, almost as brown as a Malay, with a child’s sulky mouth and native tattoo-marks on his fine throat.
“You’ve saved my life,” called Crabbe. “I’m coming with you.”
Moneypenny gazed at Crabbe with eyes focused at something far behind him, as though trying to pierce impenetrable jungle. He did not smile in greeting but merely said: “Oh, it’s you, is it? You can help to hold down that blasted pig in the back.”
“Pig?”
“Jungle-pig. There’s a couple of Temiars with it. The bloody fools took it for a walk on a bit of string and they got lost. Spent half the morning looking for them.” At this moment a large snout poked out from the back of the truck, small intelligent eyes looking bewildered at the street of trishaws and dustbins and idlers in sarongs. A small curly man in a yellow shirt and trousers much too big for him, evidently a cast-off gift from Moneypenny, jumped down, crooning at the pig encouragingly, showing all his teeth in a most affectionate smile. The great bristled body of the pig, pushed from behind, began to appear.
“Eh!” Moneypenny, still on his feet, shouted in a strange language. The Temiar looked hurt but began to push the pig back again. Moneypenny sat down.
“How long you been on this job?” asked Tommy Jones.
“Six years.”
“Do they drink beer, this lot of yours?”
“They’ll drink anything you give them. But they won’t be able to for long. They’ve all got to be turned into Muslims, that’s the new official policy. No more walks with pigs then.” Crabbe desperately tried to make the blue far-focused eyes come home to himself, to the table. He asked about the murder on Durian Estate.
“Oh, that. The foreman said he’d been sleeping with his wife and got the Reds to do him in. And now the widow’s sleeping with the foreman.”
“How did you find that out?”
“It came through on the bamboo wireless. Everything comes through.” Moneypenny refused a drink. “Got to go back and see how our American friend’s getting on. I only called in to get some condensed milk for the pig.”
Crabbe and Moneypenny said good-bye to Tommy Jones. As they prepared to mount the dusty Land-Rover Tommy Jones came running out, calling to Crabbe:
“What was that about the what-you-call?”
“What what-you-call?”
“About the Prophet inventing beer?”
“No,” said Crabbe, “not quite that.” He suggested various Jesuitical ways of persuading Muslims to reconcile their hard desert faith with the mild pleasures of the West. He realised he was still not quite sober. Moneypenny had borrowed a tin-opener from the shop, and already the jungle-pig was guzzling ecstatically, the Temiars encouraging it with gentle mooing noises and happy laughter.
“I’ll tell them about you in Hong Kong,” said Tommy Jones gratefully. Moneypenny impatiently engaged gear. “Eh!” shouted Tommy as they moved off. “Don’t know your name!” Crabbe waved smiling at the thin paunched figure standing alone among the small Malay boys and the Chinese in their underwear, the prophet of harmless solace in a harsh world, not altogether ridiculous or ignoble. They never met again.
“Who,” asked Crabbe, “is this American?” He sat next to Moneypenny; the pig no longer needed holding down: its snout ranged the sticky patches on the floor behind them. Moneypenny drove badly, almost bitterly lashing the vehicle to unnecessary speed, savagely jerking the gear-lever. Around his neck he wore a Temiar amulet: its charmed stones clinked as they bumped towards
Mawas.
“Him? He’s from some university or other. Under the auspices of some organisation or other. He’s trying to give the Temiars an alphabet. He’s part of the vanguard.”
“Which vanguard?”
“The British are going. Nature abhors a vacuum. His name is Temple Haynes.”
The river had appeared on their left, far below, eye-achingly silver. The jungle could be seen beyond. Crabbe laughed, a brief snort only. “You’ve got to hand it to them,” he said.
These words seemed to have a violent effect on Moneypenny. “Christ,” he said. He lurched to the side of the road and stopped the Land-Rover. His hands were shaking. “What in the name of God did you want to do that for?”
“Do what?”
“You laughed. Didn’t you see that butterfly?”
“What butterfly?”
“Went sailing in front of the windscreen. And you laughed at a butterfly.”
“I didn’t see any butterfly. In any case, where’s the harm?”
“Oh, my God. You’ve broken one of the taboos. You couldn’t know it, I suppose. But for God’s sake be careful in future.” He sat there, breathing heavily, Crabbe unable to say a word. The aerial factory of insects twittered away in the distance. “And,” warned Moneypenny, “if we get any thunder today, for God’s own sweet sake don’t choose that time to run a comb through your hair. It’s very serious.” The pig was now snoring most gently, its Temiar guardians watching tenderly over its sleep. “I’m going to drive slowly,” said Moneypenny. “I don’t want anything bad to happen.” They crawled along now.
Crabbe sat still and silent, as though for his photograph, thinking: ‘Oh, would anybody believe it, would anybody believe it back home? They just don’t know, they’re all so, so innocent, sitting in their offices in Fleet Street and Holborn.’
Soon they came to the outskirts of Mawas. Moneypenny stopped, arbitrarily it seemed, at a tree-choked point indistinguishable from any other point in the long jungle continuum on both sides of the road. The river had long disappeared. But three little men in loin-cloths, armed with bamboo blow-pipes, came softly out of the mess of frond and liana and decaying palm-stumps, smiling and greeting. Moneypenny spoke briefly and made a cabalistic sign. The pig was aroused with considerate strokes and ear-tweaks, and pig and men climbed down amid a clank of empty cans, the men laughing and waving as they took their leave. In an instant the jungle had taken them.
The Malayan Trilogy Page 52
