Separation, The

by Jefferies, Dinah

  ‘Chinese, you say. Sounds like a touch of the green-eyed monster.’

  ‘Exactly what I thought.’

  ‘No. I meant you, my dear.’

  He smiled, then opened the window wide, though no breeze relieved the stale heavy air. Somewhere else in the house, a telephone was left unanswered. She felt sweat at the nape of her neck, reached down to her bag, and fumbled for a tissue. She looked up to see him staring at her.

  He was not an attractive man, with large ears, a pug nose, and small eyes swallowed by bushy brows and fat red cheeks. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Always had you down as a bit of a butterfly. Didn’t see you as the jealous type.’

  There was an awkward silence, broken only by the high-pitched drone of a mosquito. Lydia wiped the back of her hand across her brow and ignored his comment, unsure if he was trying to needle her, or if he was merely insensitive.

  ‘Her name is Lili and I think she may have betrayed Jack.’

  ‘I can put out the word, while I still can.’

  ‘I was hoping for more.’

  He looked her up and down and gave a snort of approval. ‘You’re in good shape. Bit thin, but young enough to start again. Why not let it go, my dear?’

  She shook her head in disbelief. ‘How could you say such a thing? I’ve lost my husband, my children and now Jack.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to feel insulted. You’re supposed to feel flattered.’

  She saw a smile flicker across his face, followed by a suggestively raised eyebrow. She gritted her teeth. The man was insufferable, but she needed his help. She ploughed on.

  ‘I know what you said before, but has it been possible to compile a definitive … you know, of people killed in the fire. When Jack asked you said it was impossible. But I wondered –’

  He squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. ‘After all this time? Even back then nobody knew who exactly had been there that night. The girls and Alec for sure, and his entire department. Other than that is just conjecture.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I’d lie to you?’

  She suppressed the stab of irritation. ‘Not at all, but couldn’t you phone the department.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you insist, but I fear it’s a wild-goose chase. People are getting themselves killed all the time, what with one thing or another.’

  ‘You mentioned you’d start the process for obtaining the death certificates.’

  ‘Oh my dear, didn’t I say? I do apologise. The woman dealing with all that went off to have a baby. Left everything in a dreadful state. I’m afraid we may well have to begin all over again. I’ll chase it up now.’

  While he made the call in his office, she turned things over. A man in his position. Did he know more than he’d said?

  He came back into the room and lit a cigarette drawn from a silver and ivory case. She looked up expectantly.

  ‘Sorry. No list, though someone will start afresh on applying for the death certificates. But take my advice. Put the past to bed.’ He spoke carefully, his tone flat.

  She sighed. ‘Well, at least give me your word that there’s nothing more you can do to help me find Jack’s killer.’

  He came across to sit beside her, legs spread wide, one hand rubbing his knee. She shifted slightly. He reeked of whisky and sweat, and, sitting too close, placed a damp hand on her thigh.

  ‘You’re a very attractive woman, Lydia.’

  She found it hard to breathe. Outside there was a burst of rain, followed by a weak sun, but it wasn’t enough to alter the humidity in the room.

  ‘No point chasing about in this heat. Like I said, my dear, I’ll put the word about and we should know soon enough if there are any leads.’

  She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘There is one more thing.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A little boy I was looking after. He disappeared.’

  She saw the sweat on the back of his thick red neck as he strode over to a filing cabinet.

  ‘Should be something in here. Missing persons. His name?’

  ‘Maznan Chang.’

  He frowned. ‘European?’

  ‘Mixed race, Chinese, Malay and something else.’

  He slammed the cabinet drawer shut. ‘In that case I can’t help. We only record missing whites here.’

  She stood up, felt the heat like a blanket, couldn’t breathe for it, her skin flushed and prickly.

  ‘Nice seeing you, my dear,’ he said, ‘but my advice is leave all this. It’s all change now in Malaya. Get on with your life. No point digging around.’

  She watched him loosen his collar; saw beads of sweat appear on his brow. He wiped it with a crumpled handkerchief and paced the room. ‘Too bloody hot,’ he said. Then, hands behind his back, turned to face her, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  George’s risky sexual exploits, though largely disbelieved, might still be useful. She straightened her back. After Cicely’s revelations, could she use the information to twist his arm?

  ‘I hear you like Singapore, used to speak of it with affection, so Alec said. Go back there. Get a job in admin with one of the expanding companies. I could put in a word. With your looks, shouldn’t be hard. Tobacco maybe.’

  There was a silence. Instinct told her he’d withheld something, though she had no idea what. Suddenly making up her mind, she took a step towards him.

  ‘George, there are things I know about you. Things you’d prefer to remain behind closed doors.’

  His eyes narrowed to slits. ‘That’s uncharitable. Personally I wouldn’t flog a dead horse. And I wouldn’t tangle with me, dear. Bringing back the past can be unhealthy. With your nerves the way they are, a little holiday would be the thing. Kuala Terengganu. What do you say? Palm trees, white sands, a bit of a breeze? I can arrange it.’

  She shook her head, marvelling at his complete dismissal of her threat.

  ‘No? Then there’s nothing more to say. Always a pleasure.’ He held out his hand, and called the boy.

  The door clicked behind her. She blinked in the sudden brightness, then hurried off, heels clicking furiously. Just before she turned the corner, she stood to catch her breath, looked round at the dusty street and stood thinking. Maybe George was right. Maybe she did need to simply get on with her life. Nothing would bring Jack back, and if George wouldn’t help find Maz or Lili, who could? She heard his door close again, glanced back over her shoulder, and spun round. A tall angular man stood on the pavement, backlit by the harsh, mid-morning sun. She couldn’t see his face but the long legs, the upright posture, the shaved head, instantly suggested Adil.

  She turned away for a moment, unsure, felt herself redden. Should she approach him, say hello? Maybe just wave, to see if he’d come over to her. She very much wanted to see Adil again, but felt shaky after the encounter with George. She quickly thought it through. A friend right now was exactly what she needed. She spun round, but the man had gone. Perhaps it hadn’t been him at all, but if not, this was the second time she’d mistaken someone else for him. Once when they left the resettlement village, and now here too.

  32

  I was down in the dumps about Granny, and though it was a beautiful day, there was still a chill. It was April now, and the first person I saw, after a weekend at home, was Sister Ruth. She was kind of hovering in the hall, and, with a furtive look over her shoulder, she clutched hold of my arm, then led me back outside.

  ‘I have some information,’ she said, squinting in the sunlight, and glancing across the cracked and clumpy winter-damaged grounds. ‘Promise you didn’t get it from me.’

  Taken aback, I nodded.

  She flushed bright pink. ‘Meet me in the garden after lunch, behind the rhododendrons, down by the woods.’

  It cheered me up. Sister Ruth was straight as a die. All this ‘meet me in the library with a candlestick’ wasn’t her at all. But it was the sort of thing I loved.

  After lunch I found the place and
waited for Sister Ruth, wondering what demanded such secrecy. A couple of girls ran past without noticing me. It was a good spot for a meeting. The rhododendrons hid me from passing nosy parkers, and I even dodged Susan, which made me feel mean.

  Sister Ruth padded up, carrying a large wicker basket, and we picked our way down to the woods. I hadn’t been there since the night I spent alone. Today they looked innocent, shady, but with light patches where the sun shone through the new leaves.

  ‘Why the secrecy? And what’s the basket for?’

  ‘I’ll explain. The basket’s a ruse. I thought it made me look purposeful.’

  I grinned at her.

  ‘How was your weekend at home?’ she asked, looking over her shoulder, head swivelling like a sherbet lolly on a stick.

  ‘Fine.’

  She nodded. ‘Emma, what do you know about your mother? Lydia, isn’t it?’

  I pulled a face. ‘That’s a peculiar question.’

  ‘I mean what do you know about her birth?’

  I scuffed my heels in the dead leaves and gravel on the ground. ‘Not much. She was born in a convent and the nuns brought her up.’

  ‘She never spoke of her own mother.’

  ‘No. She only ever mentioned one of the sisters.’

  ‘Was the sister’s name Patricia?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘I think it might have been.’

  She held me at arm’s length, then glanced back at the school buildings. ‘Listen to me, Emma. On retreat this Easter, I met someone who knew Sister Patricia. Her name’s Brenda, and she was in the same convent as Sister Patricia for five years. St Joseph’s. Sadly Sister Patricia’s dead now.’

  ‘How do you know it was the same Sister Patricia?’

  ‘She said that before Sister Patricia died, she’d opened her heart and told her about a baby they’d named Lydia. Apparently she was present when the child was born.’

  Sister Ruth tilted her head and gave me an encouraging nod. I heard my mother’s voice in my ear, as if she was talking only to me. Overwhelmed by how much I still missed my mum, I felt cold, despite the sun.

  I shook myself out of it. ‘But who was she? The woman who gave birth. Did she die?’

  Sister Ruth shook her head. ‘Brenda could only draw the first name out of the old sister, but from what she said, I don’t think the woman died.’

  ‘So?’

  She gave me another smile and squeezed my hand. ‘Sister Patricia gave Brenda a painting. A miniature of the young woman who gave birth. I thought you should have it, though by rights I should really hand it in to the head to give to your father.’

  I stared deep into the woods, where a trail of bluebells came to life in a shaft of sunlight.

  Ruth shaded her eyes to look at me. ‘Let’s sit on the bench.’

  She reached inside the folds of her habit and brought out a small painting. ‘Sister Patricia kept it all these years. Look, there are some initials in the bottom right hand corner.’

  The hair was fairer, almost strawberry blonde, but my heart flipped over as I looked at my own mother’s eyes gazing out. Exactly the same hazel, flecked with blue and green, arched eyebrows, one fractionally higher than the other, the same oval shaped face, and same wide mouth. It sounds strange, but the picture brought back the scent of my mum. I could smell her skin and hair. See her standing in our old garden, a wave of butterflies, as big as birds, flying by, and the smell of tobacco smoke from Dad’s pipe where he sat reading The Straits Times.

  ‘Lydia’s mother begged Sister Patricia to take care of the picture, and only give it to your mother on her eighteenth birthday. Well, your mother ran off when she was seventeen, and Sister Patricia never saw her again.’

  I snorted. ‘That’s ridiculous. Couldn’t she have tried to trace her?’

  Sister Ruth shook her head. ‘She wanted to, but the mother superior at the time said it was better to leave well enough alone.’

  ‘Surely the right thing would have been to find my mother. Or at least to try.’

  ‘She probably thought it was right at the time.’

  I looked away. The bluebells were in shadow now, and despite the fine start, a line of grey clouds spread across the sky. I shook my head and stabbed my shoe in the slimy mud surrounding the bench, making zigzag patterns with the toe.

  ‘What was the date of the birth?’

  ‘The sixth of August nineteen twenty-four.’

  The date made me catch my breath. ‘The sixth of August is my mother’s birthday. And she was born in nineteen twenty-four.’

  Sister Ruth touched my cheek.

  ‘What was the woman’s name?’ I asked.

  She grinned. ‘This is the best bit. It was Emma, but I’m afraid she didn’t know the surname.’

  Could she really be talking about my mum’s mother? The woman my mum had never even known. I thought it over. A nun called Patricia, a baby called Lydia, with exactly the same birth date as my mum, and the woman’s name was Emma too. Mum always said I was named after her own mother. I was almost certain that I was holding a picture of my grandmother in my hand. The grandmother who, up until now, I had known nothing about.

  Though everyone thought my mum was dead, I had never believed it, and now I wanted so much for Mum to see this picture of the woman I hoped was her mother. I didn’t want to go back inside, and have to do lessons, with this picture fizzing in my head. But the bell went, so I had no choice.

  ‘Thank you, Sister Ruth.’ I kissed her on the cheek, and ran back across the grass and into the building.

  In the dorm, before I went to class, I looked at the picture again. The woman did look so like Mum. I prayed that my mother was still alive, and as I did, I tasted sugared hibiscus flowers, heard the nightjar tok-tok birds, and the buzz of giant honey bees. Most of all I heard the sound of snakes slithering in the long grass behind our house.

  Everyone said Malaya was a dangerous place, though it wasn’t danger that I remembered.

  I remembered how beautiful it was in the evening, when the sky shone like gold, and behind the dark hills, the jungle waited. We were there when we had the crash and Mummy lost one of her lizard earrings with emerald eyes. I remembered, because it happened on our way home from a wedding. It was the day after Mum and Dad had a row, and the atmosphere was horrible.

  And then we came to England.

  I thought over my day. I’d been feeling down in the dumps, but now my heart thumped with hope. If I was lucky, and if she was still alive, I might find my grandmother. Who could ever have imagined that? I snatched one last look at the picture. There were initials in the right hand corner. C.L.P. in black paint. My first task must be to find out who the artist was.

  33

  In the market, Lydia heard footsteps coming up hard behind her. Still unused to Malacca’s backstreets, she was doing her best to familiarise herself. Today she was in the outskirts of the Chinese quarter, hoping someone might provide a lead to Lili’s whereabouts. Her hair was frizzing in the damp, and she stopped outside a pawnshop to smooth it. As she peered in the window, she noticed a shadowy reflection among the cheap necklaces and pearls. She straightened her skirt.

  ‘Lydia.’

  She spun round and there he was. In Western clothes, dark trousers, cream short-sleeved shirt, a gold chain glinting at his neck. He walked towards her, taking his time, head shaven and brown. He held out a hand.

  She paused to search his face and gave him an uncertain smile. ‘Are you following me, Adil?’

  ‘Come with me. It will be worth your while.’

  She frowned. The sun, reaching its height, beat down on her and she felt a flush of colour inch up her neck. He indicated the direction, and she let him lead her to a narrow alley, where the drone of traffic was less. He stopped outside a small coffee shop, with a blue and gold Arabic sign above the door.

  Inside, they perched on uncomfortable stools in the far corner of the steamy bar, keeping their distance from the mah-jong players hunched up a
t the other end. He smiled at her. She acknowledged it, then picked up a copy of The Straits Times someone had left behind.

  ‘Are you surprised George didn’t help you?’ he asked.

  She looked up at his unlined forehead, took in the two strong lines that ran from the sides of a long nose to his full mouth.

  ‘What?’

  He bent his head to one side, looked her straight in the face, then poured sweet aromatic coffee from an engraved brass pot, before speaking slowly. ‘I think we both know what I mean.’

  She avoided his scrutiny. ‘How do you know George?’

  Adil shrugged.

  ‘Well, in answer to your question, he didn’t help, and no, I suppose I wasn’t surprised. What’s it to you?’

  He gave her a keen look.

  Sun streamed through the single window, throwing a patch of white light on to the bar. She circled her temples with her fingertips to relieve the pressure, sensed his awareness of her too revealing neckline, the skin breaking out into familiar blotches. She’d never get used to the humidity.

  For a moment neither spoke.

  Adil scratched his chin and gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. I know words are inadequate.’

  She let out a slow breath.

  ‘It will get better,’ he said.

  Her heart flipped over as Fleur and Emma’s faces flashed back, and she tried not to feel irritated.

  ‘Of course, you already know. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be kind to me … Anyway how did you hear about Jack, or the girls for that matter?’

  He shrugged. ‘These things get around.’

  She didn’t want to think of Jack now, but a Pat Boone song came on the wireless. It was a favourite of Jack’s, and an image of the first time she met him rushed into her mind. She shook her head.

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ Adil was saying. ‘No negotiation. Will you trust me?’

  She rubbed away the moisture from her hairline, then drained the remainder of her coffee. She wanted to ask for his help, but could she trust him? She wasn’t sure, though he’d been kind to her before. She felt hot and clumsy. A burst of sound from a lorry as it dropped its load in the street startled her, and the ruby red glass slipped from her hand.