When the other children left early, he sat beside me, smelling of mud and rotting wood. It wasn’t so bad. He had nice conker-coloured eyes and a big grin, once you got used to the teeth, and now his hair was grown a bit, he had a short straight fringe and you could see it was blond.
He grinned at me, and got out a grubby pack of cards.
‘Your hair’s changed,’ I said.
‘Nits,’ he said, not bothered. ‘Mum chopped it off before. Sorry I said you’re an immigrant. You’re not. Just foreign. Want one of these?’
I nodded and he passed me a large purple gobstopper.
‘Where do you live?’ he said.
‘At my gran’s, but you’re wrong, I am English.’
‘All right. All right. Keep yer hair on.’ He scratched his head. ‘They call you stuck up, you know, the kids.’
‘I know. And they call you stink.’
We both laughed.
‘Tell me about that place. Where you come from. What’s it like?’
‘There’s a rain storm every day and there are millions of animals in the jungle. ’
‘Monkeys?’
I nodded.
‘Never saw a monkey for real. Got a picture though.’
He pulled out a dog-eared card and handed it to me. His face was all bright, but his fingernails, and the skin around them, were bitten raw.
‘There’s hundreds of monkeys in Malaya. All sizes. The little monkeys hang on their mothers’ furry tummies, and howl like real babies.’
‘Cor!’
We sat in silence, sucking the gobstoppers.
‘Can you whistle?’ he said.
‘I can.’ To show him, I took my gobstopper out, and then whistled a song Mum taught me about coins in a fountain. ‘Mum says I whistle like a man.’
‘Where is she? Your mum.’
I felt a lump in my throat and swallowed hard, not wanting him to see. ‘She’s coming soon.’
‘Want to help me make a go-kart?’
‘You bet.’
We climbed down the ladder. He charged over to the corner where he’d hidden some bits of old wood, a set of bent pram wheels, some rusty metal and a crate. He poked under the hay and brought out a hammer and some nails.
‘Dad’s,’ he said, and we set to work, arguing about how to do it.
When it was nearly finished we stood back, covered in scratches and splinters, and inspected our kart. It didn’t look pretty, but it worked, and we were happy.
I looked at my watch. Half past five. Veronica was due at four. I should have waited at home, watched television, but then I remembered there were no programmes in the day. Dad rarely spoke, except to tell me off, and despite what he said about fresh air, spent evenings stuck to Granddad’s television set. Dad bought it for him, even though he and Granddad didn’t see eye to eye.
I’ll really catch it now, I thought.
‘See you at school tomorrow,’ he said with a grin.
‘Yup,’ I said, and turned red, pleased I’d made a proper friend.
I arrived home as the coal merchant was coming up the road. Wilson’s it said on the side. Everyone was out on the pavement. A cold wind blew, and my eyes watered, as I watched Veronica with Dad and Fleur. Dad kissed Veronica on the cheek. She blushed, patted her pin curls down, and tied a headscarf over her hair, while her skirt swished round in the wind. Then Mr Oliver came out of the house.
‘Ah, there she is,’ he said, and grinned at me.
Dad spotted me. I’d hoped I could pretend to have been there all along, but the apple in his throat jumped, and his lips went thin. ‘I’ll speak to you later, young lady,’ he said under his breath. ‘Come to the car to see Sidney and Veronica off. At least you can manage that.’
I hung back, wanting to keep away from Mr Oliver, but just as we reached the car, Veronica called me over to where she stood beside him. ‘I missed you, Emma. Let’s have a day out soon. Just you and me.’
She smelt of lavender and starch, and wanted to hug me. When she put her arms round me I could tell she was lonely, but held back. She got into the car and waved a pink-gloved hand, while her brother put his hand on my bottom and patted it. I had to put up with it. There was nothing I could do. I’d have said something to Mum, but not Dad.
‘Toodleoo. See you soon,’ Mr Oliver said with a grin, and showed a mouthful of very white teeth and bright pink gums.
‘Not if I can help it,’ I whispered, and pulled a face at his meaty smell. Then, feeling my stomach rumble, I turned to Father and said, ‘Can I have a scone now?’
He looked at me with angry eyes. ‘Not ruddy likely. Upstairs to your room.’
I climbed the stairs one at a time, instead of bolting up, my heart thumping as he followed.
‘Bend over,’ he said, when we got to my room.
I bent over and stared at the threadbare carpet, wishing myself a million miles away. It was completely silent in the room. I thought he might smack me, but took a sharp breath when I heard him undo his belt.
I was trembling, but tried not to show any fear. Suddenly there was a sharp sting across the back of my thighs. The faded pattern of roses and leaves on the carpet leapt about and began to blur. I blinked away the tears, and dug a thumbnail into the fleshy part of my hand.
‘Don’t.’ The sting came again. ‘Let me.’ Whack. ‘Ever see you.’ Whack. ‘Disobey me like that again.’
I didn’t cry then either, but when I stood up and saw his face turn red as a tomato, probably redder than my sore bottom, I looked straight at him and spoke in as clear a voice as I could. ‘No, Daddy. Sorry, Daddy.’
I saw his jaw twitch but he didn’t look at me.
‘It’s for your own good, Emma,’ he said as he put on his belt. It seemed to take for ever as he fumbled it through the loops. When it was done he moved away, still not looking at me.
‘It’s for your own good,’ he said again. ‘You can’t do what you like in this life, and the sooner you stop playing silly buggers the better. Now stay in your room.’
He’d never really walloped me before, and though the buckle hurt, I smarted more from shock at what had happened than actual pain. He’d growled at me before, lost his temper and given me a clip. Like the time I spilled ink on my school uniform and tried to clean it with bleach. His face was scrunched up and red as he yelled at me. But it wasn’t fair. It was an accident and I didn’t know bleach would turn navy blue to pinky white. He said I’d bloody well have to wear it like that, and I screamed at him and said I would not. I lost my temper out of fright. I shouted that he couldn’t make me and I’d rather die, and then picked up a vase from the coffee table and threw it on the floor.
That night, after the walloping, I lay awake in the dark, wishing for my mum. I listened to my father’s snores through the bedroom wall. At heart I longed for Dad to love me, and it made me sad that sometimes he didn’t even seem to like me much. He never smacked Fleur. She had a squint and looked like him, and it was usually me and Mum, and her and Dad.
I was lucky to have Gran, because we didn’t have any relatives on our mother’s side; Mum was brought up by nuns, and Mum never knew her mother. I once asked why she never wanted to find out who her mother was, but she only said, ‘I’ve got you and Fleur now. That’s all that really matters.’
But a voice hissed in my head – If you matter so, why didn’t she come with you?
Shut up. Shut up. Her friend was sick.
I closed my eyes, hoping so see Mum, but the picture was fuzzy and her face was gone. I brushed my tears away, and thinking of the pattern of roses and leaves on the carpet, went to sleep in a beautiful garden, where we once sucked the sweet nectar of needle flowers. Where Fleur knocked over iced lemon as she turned cartwheels on the lawn, and Mummy laughed and said she’d have to wear specs. It was the garden that led to the undergrowth, where gibbons howled and forest dwellers with squashed faces hunted for food. And where the long grass was, where nobody dared go because of the snakes.
11
Ahead of her Lydia heard the child rattle on in Malay. As she navigated the springy undergrowth beneath the vast umbrella of trees, a fluorescent bird cackled right above her head. She jumped, thinking of Em’s spirits, cunning as crabs, who slip into your blood and make it go cold. She pulled herself together and fought off the cloud of insects whistling round her head. Haunted by her early romantic ideas of how life in Malaya was meant to be, she stood still.
Not an idyll at all, it was noisy, stinking, and frightening.
She glanced back to see black trees silhouetted against a yellow sky, and hearing a rustle above the drone of cicadas and crickets, saw the tall Eurasian man she’d picked out on the bus. With an easygoing Malay stride, he came up behind her; she tensed and looked ahead for the boy.
‘Watch out for the malu-malu,’ the man said, pointing at a carpet of pretty pink flowers. ‘They have thorny stems.’
She nodded, noting his deep voice, slanted eyes and the well-shaped contours of a clever man. His was not an open Malay face, but a complicated face, more western in appearance.
The smell of wood smoke reached her, and there was Maznan, at the edge of the village, hopping on one foot, looking just like Mowgli from The Jungle Book: all knees, elbows, and a whirling mop of hair. He grinned as she caught up and ruffled his hair.
They picked their way through the vegetable patches surrounding the kampong, and reached the thatched houses, built high on wooden stilts. Lydia carefully avoided the Malay jungle fowl pecking in the dust.
Maznan laughed. ‘They are chickens.’
‘I’ve never seen chickens three feet tall before.’
He shook his head, still grinning.
‘What’s malu-malu mean?’ she said.
‘It is a shy flower.’ He lifted his arms, and with his hands made the shape of petals closing up.
She kept her distance from the grazing buffalo, but the simple domesticity was comforting and she realised it had been the right decision to come here. At least for the moment they were safe.
On the two narrow bridges that crossed the stream, children attempted to catch flickering fireflies, hopping and twirling, clapping their hands when they got close. It wasn’t the way Alec depicted native villages. Rat-infested he said. Disease-ridden.
‘The Malays are downright lazy,’ he’d said, when she pointed out their serenity.
Alec invested a lot in the British Administration, in his job, the outdoor life, the club. George, Harriet, and their ilk, that’s what Alec aspired to. They all thought the same. Who would have guessed I’d be here now, she thought, smelling coconut oil and listening to the sound of Malay throat singing and delicate jangly music.
Maznan ran on to speak with two men in burnt orange sarongs and waved at her, indicating she should follow. She hesitated. He skipped back and slipped his hand into hers. Is this the place I should leave him, she wondered, as he pulled her over to a hut.
A young woman with the typical soft eyes, round face and polished skin of the Malays, offered her tepid water in a wide bowl. ‘Lela,’ she said, introducing herself. Maznan indicated Lydia was to wash her hands and face, but instead she took the bowl, reached for the child and began to remove his shirt.
‘No!’ He pulled it back down.
‘I just want to wash it, Maznan. Will you let me?’
He frowned, as if weighing up her words.
‘Only wash it? Not take it?’
‘No, darling. I won’t take it away. I promise.’
He stopped struggling; allowed her to take off his shirt. She washed the wound on the side of his body, then scrubbed and rinsed the rest of him from top to bottom. From a second bowl, she washed the lingering trace of vomit from her own face and sponged her skirt.
The finest slice of a crescent moon stood out in the orange sky. As it grew darker, lanterns flickered right across the village. She guessed they’d be eating soon. Outside, by the fire, if she’d understood correctly. The boy confirmed it, grinning widely.
‘Rice balls,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘Sticky ones.’
She smiled and lifted his chin. Children were the same the world over. She felt a surge of longing for her girls. It took her by the shoulders and shook her to her boots. She imagined the sound of their laughter as they sang to each other in the bath. How much longer was it going to be?
In the dark, clusters of fireflies took off and flashed in synchrony, lighting tree after tree all along the riverbank, but she felt lost; more than missing a limb, as people said, she was missing her heart.
That night she lay on her makeshift bunk, blue moonlight slanting through the glassless window. As the little boy snuggled up, she put one arm round him to hold him safe, then travelled to her daughters in her mind. She made herself cry with images of them asleep in bed, protected by mosquito nets, but not by her.
She felt Maznan wipe her tears away with his fingers, then she sang him to sleep and sent a prayer to her girls, across miles and miles of inhospitable jungle.
The shadowy image of a woman in a pale blue dress with darker flowers at the hem drifted into her mind. She stood on a beach, the skirt rustling against her calves, and Lydia longed for the image to become clearer. It did not. It never did. But she clung to the memory, buried inside the long years she spent at St Joseph’s. When she’d asked who the woman was, the nuns had changed the subject and she’d had to make do with her imagination. She allowed the picture to fade, and despite the suffocating Malayan heat, was surprised to sleep soundly, the peace of the village wiping the terror of the day away.
She woke as dawn lit the walls of the hut and the scent of ripe pineapples and mangos drifted in. She went outside, sniffed the air, and found leggy Maznan counting the number of times he leapt over the remains of the night’s fire. She smiled at his squeals of make-believe fear, knowing the fire was cold. Even though it was early, the men, bent double, toiled on the vegetable plots, and women swept the bare earth round their huts.
‘Maznan,’ she called.
He turned his face, grinned, and ran across to lead her to see the goats. Together they saw a clearing where the small herd of beige goats was grazing.
‘Eight,’ he said. ‘You can touch them.’
She tentatively held out her hand to one of the smaller ones.
He laughed. ‘The babies do not bite.’
Lela came out with a stool for Maznan and one for herself. Lydia was astonished at the little boy’s proficiency as he began to milk. Again she wondered if it was the right place to leave him. It was hard to know. The girl hadn’t been clear.
‘Mem.’ He smiled encouragingly at her. ‘You try?’
She shook her head and saw the disappointment in his eyes. ‘Would you like to stay here?’ she said.
‘For how long, Mem?’
‘You can call me by my name, Maznan. I’m Lydia.’
‘Yes, Mem. And you can call me Maz.’
She sighed. ‘I mean would you like to live here, Maz, until your aunt can fetch you?’
The boy looked up at her with watchful eyes. ‘Not my aunt, Mem. I will go with you.’
Lydia stared at the child and shook her head. He’d triggered her pity back in Malacca and now a dozen thoughts fought for space.
Part Malay, part Chinese, the girl had asked her to take him to a Malay kampong or Chinese resettlement village. He had relatives in both, but she hadn’t said which ones and there were so many. She couldn’t drag him all the way to Ipoh, and despite the Emergency this was a happy village. She wondered if she should have left him with the police in the first place, but the image of her own children shut up in a cell banished the thought.
The boy was still looking at her, his pale eyes hopeful.
‘But you need to stay with your people, child. I’m going to find my own family.’
He left the milking and came up close, planting his hand in her own, looking up with tears forming. ‘Please. I have no family here.’
She watched the swallow
s that flew about the place, heard the birdsong, the sounds of goats and chickens, and the rumbling noises beyond. Across the embers the tall man stood in the shadows watching with dark unblinking eyes. She stared back. He gave her a nod. After he had caught up with her the afternoon before, they’d walked the remaining few yards to the village in strained silence, and since then she’d only seen him at supper. He continued to hold her eyes.
She was the first to look away. He came straight across, moving fluidly as if he had well-oiled joints, like an athlete. A runner. He offered a firm hand. ‘My name is Adil,’ he said.
She nodded, removed her tingling palm, and looked down at the ground. But not before she’d noticed his wide high cheekbones, strong nose, and cool sable eyes beneath well-formed brows.
‘Why did they ambush the bus?’ she asked, for something to say.
‘Execution and extortion. Next they will burn the bus if the company doesn’t “subscribe”.’
‘You know about these things?’
He shrugged.
Though he didn’t seem particularly young, maybe forty, his forehead was unlined, and, as she’d noticed on the bus, his head was shaven and brown. Two lines ran from the sides of his nose to a full mouth. He was lean but wide-shouldered, and although he was quite dark-skinned, she was unable to distinguish his nationality.
‘Where are you travelling on to?’ he asked.
‘Ipoh,’ she found herself saying. ‘I’m going to join my husband.’
He rubbed his chin. ‘Ah well. We shall go together. It is a difficult journey. I am headed that way.’
Lydia hesitated, considering his words. She hoped George Parrott had got it right and Alec and the girls were still there. She didn’t know exactly where she was now, and she didn’t know this man. He was reserved, but there was nothing deferential, as she might have expected. He could be anybody.
Separation, The Page 6
