Leila

by Robin Jenkins

  He asked for Dr Abad.

  Then he was listening to a quiet tired voice saying something that turned his blood cold.

  ‘Is Leila with you, Andrew?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have bad news, very bad news. Christina is dead. She has been killed in an accident on her bicycle at the roundabout near the airport. The child Mary Robinson is here in hospital. She is very badly injured. The old lady who was driving the car, Mrs Wilkinson, is also in hospital, suffering from shock.’

  Sandilands was stunned. He could say nothing.

  ‘Do you know her, Mrs Wilkinson?’

  Yes, he knew her. She was at least seventy-five. She wasn’t fit to drive a car. They laughed at how slowly she drove.

  ‘You will come home immediately, Andrew.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ He would never all his life be able to believe it.

  The old man was weeping. ‘I cannot believe it either, and I have seen her. Poor Leila. It will break her heart. But here is Nurse Hislop wishing to speak to you.’

  Jean was close to tears. ‘Oh Andrew, I’m so sorry. Everyone is. She was such a bright happy little girl. They both were.’

  ‘How is Mary?’

  ‘Badly hurt, I’m afraid. They’re operating on her now, but they don’t think she’ll make it. Her parents are here. It’s awful. Mrs Wilkinson’s here too. She’s in a terrible state. It was her car that ran into them.’

  If he had been able to weep or rage against the senselessness of the child’s death it would in the end have given him some relief, but he would remain outwardly calm and it would destroy him.

  ‘Your poor wife. Does she know yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Poor Andrew.’

  She meant that he didn’t have the resources to cope with this situation. He had been selfish too long.

  She herself was practical and helpful. ‘There’s a plane leaving Singapore for Savu at half past four. You could get that. I’d phone now and book seats.’

  It was now twenty minutes to one.

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that. Thanks, Jean.’

  He telephoned the Cathay Pacific office. There were seats available.

  He had then to go back to his room. He went slowly. People were seated in the shade at tables in the grassy compound, having pre-lunch drinks. There was a family with small children. There were shrieks of laughter.

  He stood in the sunshine, utterly desolate. Nothing mattered any more. The joy that he had found in Christina was gone for good. He remembered the missing fingers of the old man. He remembered the Japanese tourists laughing. He felt bitter and revengeful when he should have been feeling only pity.

  Jean was right. He had been selfish too long.

  They were gazing at him curiously. A woman with white hair smiled in puzzled sympathy. He tried to smile back, reassuring her, letting her know that it was all right, the child he had loved was dead and he was about to go and tell her mother.

  Leila was relaxing on the bed. She had taken her shoes off. The big fan whirred overhead.

  ‘Where were you?’ she said. ‘It was a long minute.’

  He sat on the bed. All those years of looking after himself and of committing himself to no one had him by the throat. Even if he had known what to say he could not have said it then, not even to this woman whom he had married and whom he was supposed to love.

  She sat up. ‘What’s the matter, Andrew? Why are you looking like that? Is it the police? Have they come?’

  So she had been thinking of the threat from the police. The blow, a far more vicious one, had come from another quarter.

  ‘Leila, I’ve just been talking to your father on the telephone.’ His voice was so hoarse she could hardly make him out.

  Her eyes went wide with wonder and then with fear. She said nothing but waited.

  ‘There’s been an accident.’

  She still waited.

  ‘Christina and Mary. On their bicycles. A car ran into them.’

  ‘Were they hurt?’

  If she loved him surely she would understand that his apparent calm was an indication of how deep his despair was. Despair was silent, sullen, and useless.

  He should have been thinking only of her and here he was again thinking of himself. That it was largely self-disgust was no excuse.

  ‘Christina was killed. Mary’s badly injured. They think she will die too.’

  ‘Dear God.’

  At least she had her faith in God to sustain her. If he had been a believer he would have wanted an explanation as to why God, who oversaw everything, had seen fit to arrange death and serious injury for two happy harmless children. He would not, though, say it to Leila, not now or ever. Let her find what comfort she could in her belief in God’s wisdom and love.

  ‘I’ve booked seats on the half past four flight to Savu,’ he said.

  ‘Andrew, if it is true, I don’t think I can bear it.’

  It was true and he would not be much use in helping her to bear it. He felt utterly disqualified.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Who was driving the car?’ she asked, at last. There was no anger or bitterness in her voice. ‘Did my father say?’

  ‘An old woman called Wilkinson. She’s in hospital suffering from shock.’

  ‘Poor woman.’

  Yes, he supposed Mrs Wilkinson deserved pity but she also deserved censure. She ought not to have been driving the car. She had known that she was not a capable, and therefore not a safe, driver.

  He thought, with abysmal stupidity, that when they got to Savu he and Christina together would comfort her mother. He could not bring himself to accept that the little girl was dead.

  Leila got up. She had not yet wept. ‘I think I would like to speak to my father. Will he be at the hospital?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He got through for her. It took ten minutes. Dr Abad had left to visit patients.

  She spoke to the senior doctor, McAllister. He confirmed that it was true. He hinted, sadly, that it might be better if the other little girl died too. If she lived she might have permanent brain damage.

  Sandilands, close to the telephone, heard.

  When such things happened, what did it matter whether you lived in a democracy or a dictatorship?

  Thirty

  IT WAS a bumpy flight, through a tropical storm. Some passengers were terrified. The plane kept falling hundreds of feet, like a lift out of control. Dishes from the galley clattered on to the floor. The stewardesses, two small Malay girls, kept assuring everyone there was no danger, but their voices were shaky. Once Sandilands, in his despair, found himself wishing that the plane would plunge into the South China Sea far below. What use was his life now? As Principal of the College the students would soon see through him as a sham: he had sneered at them for their craven submission, now they would sneer at him for wanting them to go on submitting cravenly. He himself would go on playing golf with His Highness; he would become more and more sycophantic. He and Leila must not have children. They might escape accident and disease but not the contempt shown to half-castes or even worse, the toleration.

  Leila was whispering to him. He could not hear because of the roar of the engines. She repeated it. ‘We still have each other.’

  It angered him that she should be looking to him to make up for the loss of Christina. Why did she persist in seeing in him qualities that weren’t there? Above all, the ability, the readiness, to put others before himself. Selfish himself, he preferred it if everyone else was selfish too. That was the only kind of equality there would ever be.

  She was still waiting for a response. There were tears in her eyes, tears of sadness but of eagerness too.

  About to reject her appeal, about to find a sadistic pleasure in rejecting it, as if she was his enemy, he felt instead an overwhelming fondness for her. It was as if a dam had burst, sweeping away all his mean reluctances. He realised, for the first time, what a treasure he had in her. She was beautif
ul, clever, generous, and brave, and she was his. He claimed her humbly. How stupid to think he had nothing to live for when he had her. How cowardly to want no children because they might be despised by fools. With Leila as their mother they would be beautiful and gifted, like Christina.

  He took her hand and pressed it. ‘That’s right. We still have each other.’

  Just then the plane gave a great lurch and a woman screamed.

  ‘I’d be terrified too if you weren’t with me,’ said Sandilands.

  It was dark when they landed at Savu airport. Waiting for them in the arrival lounge were Dr Abad, Leila’s secretary Miss Lai, the Anglican minister, David Anderson, and Alec Maitland, in uniform, looking uncomfortable.

  The Deputy Commissioner managed a word with Sandilands while Leila was greeting her father. ‘I’m very sorry, Andrew. A bloody shame. We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got a car waiting. You’ll want to go straight to the hospital.’

  ‘Yes.’ But surely escorting them there was not the business of the Chief of Police?

  ‘To tell you the truth I was asked to meet you and take you there.’

  ‘Who asked you?’

  ‘His Highness. In person. He’s very upset. He really is. He’s fond of you both. So he said anyway.’

  Being all-powerful in his little State, and having so much wealth, did not necessarily mean that the Sultan lacked simple, human feelings.

  Sandilands was afraid that Leila, after her experience in Singapore, might object to going in a policeman’s car.

  ‘Why shouldn’t we go in my father’s car?’ she asked.

  ‘Maitland’s here because His Highness sent him.’

  ‘That was kind of His Highness.’ She did not say it sarcastically.

  ‘He admires you, Leila.’

  ‘Even though he knows I’m going to take his kingdom from him?’

  He was glad she was able to joke, albeit sadly.

  ‘You don’t mind then going in Maitland’s car?’

  ‘It won’t be sounding its siren, will it?’

  ‘Your father can come with us. He’ll be brought back to pick up his car.’

  ‘What about Miss Lai?’

  ‘I’ll take her home,’ said David Anderson.

  The clergyman said he would like to go with them to the hospital, but in his own car of course.

  He was a small elderly man of mixed blood, whose previous benefices had all been in places as obscure and unprofitable as Savu. No bishop had ever been interested in him.

  Since no one else was paying him any heed Sandilands did. ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Joomar,’ he said.

  A grateful smile appeared on the sad, sallow, wrinkled face. ‘Thank you, Mr Sandilands.’

  In the main hall there was a crowd of people, among them acquaintances of Sandilands and of Leila. They had come out of curiosity no doubt but also, Sandilands saw, out of sympathy. Their faces showed concern.

  At the very back he caught sight of Saidee, his amah. He pushed through the crowd towards her. Dressed in her smartest sarong-kebaya, she was surprised, pleased, and embarrassed. She thought she had no right to be there, among all those people who had come in their cars. Yet here was Tuan taking her hand and thanking her. She was too shy to say anything.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Leila.

  ‘Saidee.’

  ‘Saidee?’ Leila looked for the tiny amah but could not see her. ‘It was kind of her to come.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Saidee had been very fond of Christina.

  Maitland sat in front with the driver. Dr Abad, Leila, and Sandilands sat in the back. He held her hand. He could feel her shuddering.

  They passed the roundabout where the accident had taken place. No one mentioned it.

  Sandilands looked out at familiar sights: the kampong ayer, the water village on stilts in the sea, now lit up; places where the jungle came right up to the road; the cinema where the films were in Malay, Hindi, and Chinese.

  This was where Leila had been born and brought up. It was his home now. He might one day return to Scotland, but only for a visit.

  They passed a big billboard, brightly lit up. The Sultan’s face was depicted on it, with a broad benevolent smile. In Malay it stated that a vote for the Patriotic Party was a vote for His Highness and therefore for Justice and Prosperity.

  ‘They’ve lost no time,’ muttered Sandilands.

  ‘The town’s full of them,’ said Maitland. ‘The whole country, I believe.’

  ‘Do they think they can buy votes?’ whispered Leila.

  ‘Do they have to?’ But Maitland, never at any time interested in politics, was ashamed to talk about them now.

  There were more cars in the hospital car park than Sandilands had expected. They couldn’t all belong to the staff or people visiting relatives. Perhaps some were friends of the Robinsons or the Wilkinsons.

  They were received by Dr McAllister and the Matron. Jean Hislop was there too, still in her uniform, though she must have been off-duty. She gave Sandilands a woeful shake of her head.

  Leila asked to be taken to the room where Mr and Mrs Robinson had been waiting for more than eight hours.

  Sandilands went with her. Whatever was in store for her he would share it and let everyone know he was sharing it.

  Mrs Robinson burst into tears when she saw them come in. She got up and approached Leila. Would she, in her misery, blame Leila? No, she let Leila embrace her. Both women wept together.

  Sandilands and Robinson stood staring at each other, helplessly.

  Jean stole up to him. She touched his back.

  ‘How is Mary?’ he whispered, hoarsely.

  ‘Still the same. In a coma. They’re waiting for a brain surgeon from the UK. He’s coming in a private plane, paid for by His Highness. They’re not very hopeful, though.’

  Suddenly Robinson, catching sight of Maitland in the doorway, yelled: ‘Have you arrested that stupid old bitch yet? She shouldn’t have been driving, should she? It was murder, that’s what it was.’

  Everyone was aghast.

  ‘Poor Mrs Wilkinson’s terribly distressed,’ said Jean.

  ‘So she should be,’ said Sandilands.

  ‘Yes, but it seems it wasn’t altogether her fault. Little girls having fun on their bicycles can be careless. Sandy Robinson wasn’t fair to her. She’s usually a careful driver. She’s been driving for forty years.’

  The minister was doing his best to soothe Robinson. He wasn’t succeeding. Suddenly Robinson burst into tears. He was ashamed of himself but no one there thought him weak or unmanly.

  His wife, though, made no effort to comfort him. Sandilands wondered why. He had always thought them a secure married couple. Next minute he was wondering why she should choose him rather than her husband to appeal to. Perhaps she was remembering that last night she had given him a happy report of the two girls.

  ‘Oh Andrew,’ she said, weeping, ‘why did this have to happen? We warned them not to go on the public road where there was traffic. They were so confident, so happy.’

  As he tried to comfort her he was listening to Leila, who was asking her father if she could be taken to see Christina.

  Dr Abad was doubtful. ‘Shouldn’t you wait until you’re rested?’

  They were speaking in Malay.

  ‘No. I want to do it now. Andrew will go with me. Won’t you, Andrew? Won’t you come with me to see Christina?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He agreed with her father though, that she should rest first. She was too vulnerable now.

  He looked at Jean Hislop for advice and help, but her face was a nurse’s, neutral.

  All his life he would remember, with anguish, the hollow echoes of their footsteps in the long corridors, and the smell of disinfectant.

  When the white cover was removed, how peaceful, how young, how innocent, and how dark was the face revealed. It was her body that had been broken.

  Leila bent and kissed her daughter.

  Suddenly he wa
s in a panic. He wanted to kiss the child too but he might not be able to make it look natural. All his inhibitions and limitations might be exposed, when what he wanted to show was his love and sorrow.

  Leila was looking at him. He had not yet told her about his own difficult, lonely, loveless, dry-eyed childhood, but she understood him well enough to know that it wasn’t easy for him to express love or, perhaps, feel it. What she was now asking him, without saying a word, was to show love for her and faith in their future together.

  He kissed the child’s cold brow. For the first time in his life he shed tears.

  Thirty-One

  WHEN THEY returned to the office Jean took them aside. There were others there above her in rank but the duty had been given to her, because of her friendship with Sandilands. She didn’t find it easy, which was why she addressed Leila as Mrs Azaharri.

  ‘My name is Mrs Sandilands,’ said Leila, gently.

  ‘So it is. I’m sorry. I’ve been asked to give you a message, Mrs Sandilands.’ She hesitated. It wasn’t like her to be so nervous.

  ‘What message?’ asked Leila.

  ‘It’s from Mrs Wilkinson. She would like to see you.’

  ‘She’s the old lady involved in the accident?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sandilands’ first reaction was to scowl and shake his head.

  ‘Was she herself hurt?’ asked Leila.

  ‘Physically, only slightly. Her face was cut by broken glass. She’s terribly upset, of course. Her son and daughter-in-law have been with her all day.’

  ‘Are they still with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do they think I should see her?’

  ‘Yes, but they said they’d understand if you didn’t want to.’

  Leila turned to Sandilands. ‘What do you think, Andrew?’

  He was still scowling. The Wilkinsons were among those who had condemned her for marrying him. They thought her too presumptuous. She held her head too high in the presence of white people. She might be more talented than they, more beautiful, and more cultured, but she was coloured (worse than that she was half-caste) and so inevitably inferior. That was their instinctive belief. If she refused to speak to the old woman they would accuse her of arrogance. If she went and spoke sympathetically they would be even more resentful, for her fault in that case would be condescension.