Separation, The

by Jefferies, Dinah

  She slipped Emma’s notebook into the bag. How very much she craved the girls: the touch and smell of them. Her skin prickled with anticipation, but she resisted the desire to read the notebook. She’d be seeing her daughters soon enough.

  Back in the hallway, something was odd. There were sounds of life. Maybe George was mistaken and Alec had come back for her after all. Her heart picked up. Maybe they’d been to the island and hadn’t even gone up to Ipoh yet. She pictured the deep green island waters, the salty breezes and the lemon oil she smeared on the children’s skin.

  There was a sequence of sounds from the kitchen: a sniff, a smothered sob, and the sound of rapid Chinese. One of the servants then. She marched over to the kitchen and threw open the door, shading her eyes from the sun’s low afternoon rays, as sharp as knives.

  In the corner a slight girl with drawn features, black hair in a top knot, and frightened almond-shaped eyes, sat cross-legged on the floor. A young child, also with straight Chinese hair, sat on her lap, and hid his face in her chest. In baggy blue trousers, barefoot, with a beaded anklet on one leg, he looked undernourished. Lydia stared, sure she’d seen the girl leave their house once before.

  ‘Mem.’ The girl got up, a well of misery in her eyes. ‘I am Suyin. This my sister’s boy.’

  There’s something familiar, Lydia thought, as she took in the girl’s shiny tunic.

  ‘What’s the child’s name?’

  ‘Maznan Chang, Mem. He was at hospital. Cannot go home. Please, he go with you.’

  Lydia glanced at her watch, but the girl, rigid and pale, pitched headfirst into her plea.

  ‘The jungle not safe for him. They hurt him.’

  The boy stood, and pulled up his shirt to reveal a red welt across his side. Lydia saw that besides being thin he was very dirty, and the injury was obviously recent.

  ‘He help you, Mem. He speak Malay and Chinese.’

  ‘He looks so young.’

  ‘He is seven, small for age.’

  The boy turned damp eyes on Lydia, and gave a wary smile. She was taken aback. Pretty like a girl, he had a flat face and fullnostrilled Malayan nose, but pale eyes, and skin with a touch of amber, lighter than most Malays. Only his hair looked Chinese. He smiled again, displaying a row of even teeth.

  She sized things up, pushing aside the pinch of anxiety about the delay. An image of Emma flashed in her head and she heard her daughter’s voice as if she was in the next room. Hurry up, Mummy. Aren’t you here yet?! I’ve got a new story to tell you. She closed her eyes and felt her heart constrict.

  ‘Mem?’ the girl said, interrupting her.

  ‘Why is he not safe?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘His mother. She run away to inside.’ The girl waited to see a reaction before pressing her point. ‘She in jungle, Mem. If they don’t come get him. The others take him next time.’

  The penny dropped. The child’s mother had run off to join the communist rebels.

  ‘Which others?’

  The girl looked embarrassed. ‘The white people, red hairs. Please. Take this boy to resettlement village, or even Malay village. They take care of him.’

  Lydia wavered. ‘What about the police?’

  The girl curled her lip and spat on the floor.

  Lydia felt torn. She needed to catch up with her girls, get on before the day drew to a close. But then she imagined if it were them who were alone and dependent on a stranger for kindness. ‘All right,’ she said, making a snap decision. ‘I’ll take him. What’s your address? And the name of the place to take him?’

  She stared at the girl’s pinched face. Then it came to her. ‘You’re the driver’s daughter?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘Can’t your father have him?’

  The girl shook her head and Lydia saw a look of anxiety in her eyes.

  ‘Did your father drive my husband to Ipoh?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘My father sick.’

  ‘Well, let me have your address, so I can let you know where the little boy is.’

  The girl stepped forward, held the child by one hand and placed his other in Lydia’s. She bent down and, again in rapid Chinese, spoke in his ear. He shook his head, hair wheeling out round his face. The girl straightened up, spun round, raced through the door, picked up speed along the covered walkway, and melted into the long grass.

  Lydia called out, but the girl had gone. She sighed and peered at the child. He almost had the eyes of a European child. Was he really in danger? A picture of the orphanage came up. The pitiless grey block on the outskirts of town. If the rumours of neglect were true, it was no place for this little one. The thought of her own girls there made her hold her breath.

  He looked up, then counted his beads in Malay. ‘Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima.’

  She exhaled slowly. Poor little thing, she thought, what on earth am I supposed to do with you? You don’t look like you fit in anywhere.

  A noise from the direction of the garage caught her attention. Damn cats. She pulled the boy up, and planted a kiss on top of his head. She glanced at her watch again. Where had the time gone? They both needed a bath and something to eat. Then she’d put the child in Emma’s bed, and try to catch some sleep herself, before an early start in the morning.

  7

  It turned into a morning of startling brilliance, the early mist melting away as soon as they left the house. The streets were still quiet, though a few knots of men in sarongs of orange and yellow stood gossiping outside tea shops. Further out, Malays whizzed by on bicycles, and finally, right at the outskirts, shinyfaced Tamil women workers sweated as they cut back the dark vegetation, their long-lobed ears swaying.

  Lydia sang, glad to be on her way. She’d always had a good voice, and feeling confident, she put her foot down, tyres ringing on the tarmac road. She raised her voice to match. The boy, sitting in the seat beside her, giggled.

  ‘My singing that bad?’ she said, and glanced across at him.

  He shook his head and smiled.

  He’d eaten a filling breakfast at the roadside stall, she thought, and that was a good start.

  As waving trees in a million shades of green flew past, she went over the journey in her head. It was about fifty-five miles to Seremban, so if they got past there, in three hours’ time they’d stop for an early lunch, and stay out of the afternoon heat. Then push on until it started to get dark. It’d mean finding a cheap place to stay for the night. Rawang maybe, or Tanjung Malim. How many miles from there to Ipoh? She thought of Jack. Perhaps not Tanjung Malim. No point asking for trouble.

  An hour and a half into the journey, the car shook and came to a sudden halt.

  She got out, and peered down the road. Blue haze rose from the dust. She lifted the greasy bonnet of the old Humber Hawk, stared at the engine, and tried to recall the mechanical checks Alec had tried to instil in her. Maznan pointed at the oil slick on her palm. She puffed out her cheeks, the boy was right, she knew nothing about cars, and there was no point getting filthy.

  She slammed the bonnet shut, wiped her hands on her dress, then bent down and slid her hand under the driver’s seat, in search of a manual. There was no manual, but she felt something sharp. She pulled out her lost lizard earring and smiled. So that’s where you got to. I’ll take it as a good luck sign.

  She folded her arms across her chest and glanced at the child. Now what? In the Emergency you never trusted a stranger. I could wait for a British police patrol, she thought, but not if I have to use all my cash staying somewhere and getting it fixed. Damn you, Alec, why couldn’t you just delay for a couple of days?

  She prepared to wait for a bus. She’d ring the police later, get them to pick up the car. With a sigh, she squatted like a native in the shadow of a fifty-foot clump of bamboo, the silent child by her side. A bright orange jungle butterfly landed on her knee. The boy giggled and reached out a hand, his ability to be enchanted reminding her of Em.

  ‘Do you like butterflies?’ she said.r />
  He nodded.

  The edges of the jungle were scented with wild ginger, cinnamon, and figs. High above, in tall trees that blotted out the sun, hornbills cried. Beautiful in a way, but, still, the whirring clicking life of the jungle’s creatures unsettled her.

  She took out Em’s notebook, flicked the pages. The words for Doris Day’s ‘Secret Love’, written in Emma’s confident hand, stared out. She began to hum the tune, but faltered, and bit the skin round her thumbnail. She stood up, deliberated. It would be too much effort to carry two cases in the heat, so she kept the larger case, and chucked the other into the squat ferns at the roadside. She imagined a happier time when they’d be off for drinks at the club, the children safe in their beds. But who can be happy in this damn country, she thought, apart from men like Alec.

  ‘What about when they get independence?’ she’d asked him once, on their way to the annual sultan’s ball.

  ‘They’ll always be scope for someone like me,’ he said, dismissing her concerns. ‘And there’s no chance I’d ever go back to my parents’ house, nor to England, for that matter.’

  She peered at the tall razor sharp lallang grass that lined the road. She had no reason not to believe him. Alec was not in contact with his parents, and there had been an awful atmosphere at their home.

  She and the boy walked a little.

  There was no breeze, and even the feathery pink tops of the grass were completely still. Wary of fat vipers concealed in the grass, and the bigger snakes coiled in the trees, she kept to the road and heard the brain fever bird, its call rising to a maddening crescendo.

  Maznan still hadn’t spoken, except to count his beads. He only ever reached five, and said them over and over. Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, sweat stinging the lids, and heard it before she saw it. A brightly painted yellow and red Bedford came roaring up the road. With a shout, she lurched towards it, hindered by the child who hopped beside her, jabbering in Malay, and ‘helping’ with the case. The driver slowed to a crawl, spread his arms out wide and shook his head. Her heart sank as thirty pairs of eyes stared through the open windows. The bus, stuffed with people, baggage, chickens and goats, was full.

  The driver revved the engine. From the back an Indian woman with bulging eyes stood up, and pointed at Lydia and the boy, as if protesting. The driver shook his head again but she seemed to win. He shrugged, and beckoned Lydia forward as the bus burst into life.

  Once on the bus, she clasped the child’s hand, dragged her case, and they bumped their way along the aisle to the back seat. The Indian woman, a floral shawl over her head, shifted over. With a sigh of relief, Lydia sat on the metal bench; no upholstery for insects to inhabit.

  The woman grinned, revealing red gums from chewing betel nut, and a couple of pink teeth. Lydia smiled self-consciously, the only white woman in a bus crammed with Malays, a scattering of Chinese in black baggy trousers, and Tamil workers wearing saris. She saw their eyes on her, and though she didn’t understand what they were saying, she picked up their grumbles. She’d thought she had a decent command of Malay, but realised now this was true only if the person speaking enunciated carefully, and spoke directly to her. Here, they could say what they wanted, and no one cared if she was the mistress of a sizeable house with a sprinkling of servants.

  She smiled vaguely at eyes that slowly turned away, then stared out of the window as the bus swayed from side to side through the tunnel of green.

  Her eyes glazed over and an ache settled in her heart. She put an arm round the child and he leant against her. Until the moment her daughters crawled away with her heart, she hadn’t known what love was, but now she would give anything to be with them.

  A few moments later, there was a sound of rattling paper, and through heavy lids, she glimpsed the Indian woman offer Maznan a pastry. He wolfed it down and held out his hand for more. The woman grinned, pulled out two more cakes, handed one to the boy, and, nudging Lydia, gave her the other.

  She savoured the sweet cinnamon and nutmeg, tried a few tentative words, but the woman stopped her. ‘Speak English,’ the woman said, passing her a flask of citrus-tasting tea and a small yellow pancake. ‘Is good cake. Keep the Pontianak away.’

  ‘The Pontianak?’

  ‘Evil spirit of dead woman. Will come and take your child away. Cake protects him,’ said the woman, pointing at Maznan.

  ‘Oh no. He’s not mine. Mine are up north with my husband. He’s …’ And she stopped. The Indian woman smiled and indicated she was all ears.

  ‘He’s –’ she paused ‘ – the son of an acquaintance.’

  The woman looked doubtful.

  Lydia sighed, turned the boy’s face towards her and stroked his smooth cheek.

  ‘He’s a good boy.’

  Maznan smiled.

  People were falling asleep, their snores and whistles oddly comforting.

  Lydia’s longing for her family was uppermost. Her girls. And Alec too. The first man she’d ever met at a party. She closed her eyes and thought of that night.

  It had been a typical wartime bash. She’d spotted him leaning against the wall outside, a tall older man in uniform. He’d rubbed his leg, and turned his head as she approached. She’d been wearing a green striped dress, her waist pinched in. Only eighteen and feeling flattered.

  ‘Do you smoke?’ he said, and opened a tin of Woodbines.

  She hesitated but took one.

  She studied his face. He was too thin and every few moments he winced. ‘Shouldn’t you be sitting down?’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Sick of sitting, to be honest.’

  ‘RAF?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Fairly obvious.’

  ‘Why aren’t you smoking Player’s Airman then?’ she said, with a flick of her hair.

  So much had happened since. She’d become somebody for a start. A wife, a mother, now on her way to a third new beginning since coming to Malaya.

  She looked out of the bus window again, squinted in the bright light, a dull heavy feeling in her head. The green waving trees spawned more green trees in unbroken monotony. One more time, she went back to the start of things with Alec, picked at it, as if searching for something.

  They’d got together a second time, for Spam and lettuce sandwiches in the Fiddler’s Arms. He’d offered coffee at his lodgings, where he covered the window with a blackout curtain on a pole, fag in hand, the lamp off, but even the glow from their cigarettes was banned. He brushed her neck by accident and she felt herself redden.

  ‘Did you hear about the man who was fined ten shillings when he struck a match to look for his false teeth?’ she joked to cover her nerves.

  He didn’t laugh, just held up the bottle of Camp coffee. On the label a turbaned Indian servant waits on an officer in a kilt who sits relaxed, sipping the brew.

  When the prospect of Malaya arose, he described starlit tropical skies, drinking Pimms by night, and lazing on silver beaches laced with palms. They’d have to marry, of course.

  She sighed. She’d happily swop all of that now, for some good old British weather. She was thinking how much she missed the seasons, when there was a bang and the bus lurched, bumping wide-eyed occupants against each other. A terrific thud followed, and they came to a jolting halt. Outside, shrill voices barked orders in Chinese. She held the boy close and checked to see if he was hurt. He looked up at her with enormous eyes, as if trying to work out if he could really trust her.

  She patted his arm, and shifted round to the Indian woman.

  ‘What happened?’ she whispered.

  The woman put a finger to her lips, and threw her floral shawl over Lydia’s head.

  ‘Insiders. Look down,’ the woman said. ‘Lean against me.’

  Lydia hid the child inside the shawl and buried her own face. She remembered the blinding white light of the grenade thrown into the packed market place, and fear ran through her like a current. Communists. What did they want? Had
they come to recruit people into the Min Yuen, their supply organisation, or was it something worse? She glanced up and saw the thin ragged rebels drag two Chinese from the front of the bus. Stories of terrorist atrocities flashed into her mind. She looked down, aware of the shock passing through the people sitting rigidly in front. The little boy started counting. Satu, dua.

  Through the dusty window, she saw the road was deeper into the jungle now. The two Chinese men had been tied to a tall tree, and several more were made to get off the bus. As they reached the ground their hands were tied together. Shrieking like macaques who’d burnt their mouths on red-hot chilli, they were dragged a few yards, then pushed up the road and forced to run. The remainder stayed on the bus.

  Lydia and the Indian woman exchanged looks. The Indian woman shrugged, her eyes uncertain. At the sound of gunfire, the little boy trembled; Lydia bit her lip and forced her eyes from the window. But for the echo of the gunshots, it was silent, and a single chilling thought rang in her head. She lifted her hand to her locket and held it tight.

  Outside birds still sang. She dared risk a look, felt a flash of anger overtake the fear. This was not how she’d expected Malaya to be. Alec hadn’t mentioned the endless battle against humming mosquitoes, nor the wet heat, which approached like a solid wall – nor the war they called an Emergency.

  She noticed a man with a shaved head sitting very still near the front. She hadn’t picked him out before, but now the bus was half empty, she could see a smooth brown head and shoulders, high above the rest. The man was dressed in a Malay tunic, the colours subdued, yet when he stood, she saw a sarong woven with silver and turquoise. His height set him apart. Not an ordinary Malay, he looked more worldly. Eurasian maybe? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two insurgents start down the central isle and head her way. She faced them and held her breath. One ran his tongue across his teeth, lifting his lip in a sneer as he brushed past the tall man. The man twisted his head towards her, his face grave. With searching dark eyes, he focussed on their path towards her, tense, ready to spring it seemed. For an instant their eyes met.