Some of those images are with me still. Sitting on our verandah on a Sunday morning reading airmail copies of the Times, the tissue-thin pages lifting with every movement of the morning air. Walking in the garden at dusk, laughing and talking nonsense while Java sparrows fluttered in the flame trees and the sky turned indigo and pink. Denis picking a sprig of frangipani and twisting it into my hair as the Indian women did. And Denis catching me at the piano as I played Peter and the Wolf with tears streaming down my face, and how he didn’t laugh but sat silently beside me, understanding.
But one day I was doing something quite routine, like discussing the next day’s menus with Teng Swi, when I suddenly realised that the nature of my happiness had changed. It was no longer the fragile happiness of a moment stolen from the jaws of time, but the long-term happiness of someone who expects tomorrow to be just as happy as today, and the day after that as well.
It took me a month to get used to being Mrs Elesmere-Elliott, but I never really got used to living at Ampang Road. It was a beautiful home, a mansion really, but I suppose that was part of the problem. I had been overawed the first few times I had visited the house, and that sense of awe lingered, preventing me from even thinking about making any changes. It was a bit like living in an art gallery, or a museum: I dared not move a single painting on the walls, nor adjust the angle of a single chair. And I was treated by the large staff – there were fourteen of them, all on the Guthries payroll – as a cherished and honoured guest. But as a guest, not as the mistress.
I mentioned this to Denis one morning as we were eating breakfast. He gave me a long, level look, trying to assess the depth of my feelings, and I frowned back to make it more difficult for him. I didn’t want to press my concerns out loud, because I knew Denis loved Ampang Road, both for its convenience and the comfort of its well-trained staff.
Denis must have divined my thoughts, because when I saw him off in the Ford he looked back at the house and shook his head. ‘I’m getting a bit tired of this old pile, you know. We should be thinking of a change.’
Later in the morning Ismail brought the Ford back with a squeal of brakes and ran up to me with a piece of paper in his hand. ‘Tuan has asked that you look at these houses, Mem,’ he said importantly, handing me the paper. ‘Very good if you can see them today. I will drive wherever you want to go.’ I looked down at a list of four properties available for rent from Messrs Smith & Co., Estate Agents and Valuers, of Batu Road.
I didn’t have to look any further than the first house on the list. It was a small bungalow in Rifle Range Lane and the moment Ismail pulled into the circular gravel driveway, edged by bright cannas and shaded by casuarinas, I had a feeling that this would be our next home. The house was empty but the agent had provided keys so I was able to a take a long, leisurely look around. It needed painting here and there, but the rooms were spacious and cool and conveniently laid out. There was a wide central breezeway with a good-sized lounge opening off to the right and a snug dining room to the left. There was a big study for Denis, a sewing room for me, and three bedrooms.
But it was when I reached the back of the house that I knew for certain this was where I wanted to live. A broad patio shaded by a creeper-clad pergola overlooked a swimming pool, and I caught my breath at the sheer beauty of the scene. It was like something out of a Hollywood magazine, with the limpid blue water reflecting the flowers, trees and feathery bamboo of a carefully arranged tropical garden. I literally ran back to the car, calling for Ismail as I ran, concerned that a gem of a house like this wouldn’t last five minutes on the market. Don’t forget that I was an impressionable girl of eighteen, and this was 1937, when swimming pools were strictly the provenance of film stars and multi-millionaires.
I rang Denis at his office, and my words tumbled over each other as I tried to explain just how fantastic the house was. Denis didn’t quite share my enthusiasm. In fact, I could hear him trying to disguise his ‘responsible’ voice with false enthusiasm so as not to hurt my feelings. ‘It sounds terrific and if you are absolutely sure it’s suitable, of course we will take it,’ he said. ‘But please, darling, go back and have another look. See what sort of storage space there is available. Is there a covered garage big enough for both of the cars? And what size are the servants’ quarters?’
‘We’ll need to hurry if we want to take the place,’ I said desperately. ‘It won’t last five minutes.’
‘It’ll last long enough for you to go back and have another look,’ Denis said firmly.
I gulped with anxious exasperation. ‘Truly, darling, I don’t need to see it again to know it’s absolutely perfect. And I am worried that if we dither we’ll lose it. You know the old saying – he who hesitates is lost.’
Denis sighed. ‘I’ll ring the agents and tell them we’ll take it. But please go back and have another look. If you change your mind, do give me ring. Don’t forget we’re not committed until we’ve paid some rent and signed the lease.’
There were a few things wrong with No. 4 Rifle Range Lane. For a start, there was no garaging at all, so the two cars had to stay out in the open, which did not please Ismail one bit. For another, the servants’ quarters were small and old and needed serious refurbishment. And then there were signs of white ants in the pergola, signs which I tried to dismiss with a careless wave of my hand: ‘There are serpents in every paradise, aren’t there?’ I asked. ‘And these are such tiny serpents.’
‘Tiny or not, we’ll only take the place if they spray for white ants,’ Denis said a little grumpily, and I hugged him with relief.
The two weeks before we moved in passed in a blur of activity and excitement. We filled the house with blondewood furniture, replaced the heavy brocade curtains with brightly-coloured chintzes, and carpeted the bedrooms wall to wall in the American style. On the evening before we moved in, Denis and I walked through our home hand in hand, happy with what we had achieved. It was the first moment I really felt married. I had chosen this house to be our home, I had pressed for the light, airy look of Scandinavian pine and brightly printed cottons, and I had chosen to have soft carpet throughout. I was no longer the indulged mistress but an equal partner in a team.
Our first week in Rifle Range Lane coincided with the wettest, windiest July in KL for over fifty years. The rain ruined our pretty garden, and the galeforce winds brought down branches into my beloved swimming pool, and the roof leaked. To add to our problems Teng Swi (whom we had recruited from Guthries) had difficulties with the new-fangled electric stove and had to resort to cooking on Chinese barbecues (clay-lined buckets) in the covered walkway between the house and the servants’ quarters. But we were sublimely happy. Denis took a week off, and we read a lot, laughed a lot, and made occasional exploratory forays into our large, wind-tossed garden. On one of these forays we came across a little secret orchard running down the overgrown left-hand side of the garden. There was a huge old lime tree covered in bright green fruit, half a dozen papayas, a dozen banana trees (blown to tatters by the wind), a few healthy young mangoes, and even a stand of sugar cane. We stood in the shelter of the lime tree contemplating our good fortune. ‘A couple of kenganis will knock this into shape in a few hours,’ Denis said with satisfaction. ‘And then we’ll try multi-cropping – plant vegetables in between the trees. It’s all the rage these days. Saves labour and reduces water evaporation. What do you think we might plant as our first under-crop?’
Back in the house he took a sheet of paper and sketched out his new project while I hung over his shoulder and pretended to be fascinated. My own mind was playing around with plans for my nursery.
‘Cabbages,’ he said. ‘Just think about unlimited cabbages! We could even pickle some and have them with German sausage. But does cabbage grow well in KL, I wonder? Perhaps it’s too hot down here.’
‘Oh, cabbages will grow anywhere,’ I said absently. ‘Darling, do you think the nursery should be all white, or is that a bit too clinical for a child?’
‘
Donald Duck wallpaper,’ Denis said firmly. ‘Cheer the blighter up if he wakes in the night. But I think you’re wrong about cabbages. They grow well enough up in the highlands, but I don’t think they flourish this far down on the plain.’
‘I will not have Donald Duck wallpaper,’ I said, outraged. ‘It’s much too American! How can you even suggest Donald Duck wallpaper for our firstborn child?’
‘Bobby Shaftoe, then. Or Little Bo Peep. They’re not American. Ladyfingers – that’s what we want to plant! Ladyfingers grow jolly well in KL. One can eat them as delicacies for breakfast, you know. Grilled with butter and garnished with salt and pepper . . .’
‘I really don’t think we could have the same taste,’ I said crossly. ‘I think a nursery should be in the very best of taste – bright and cheerful, but definitely not looking like a page torn from a child’s comic book. I’d have a fit if I woke up in my crib to see some great big cartoon figure staring at me . . .’
‘I think you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a child, darling. A child has absolutely no taste whatsoever. The brighter the wallpaper the better. But I don’t think you’ve been listening to a word I’ve said about our under-crop . . .’
We were a married couple nagging at each other on a slow, wet afternoon, and I absolutely loved it.
Chapter Fourteen
Our days in Rifle Range Lane developed a comfortable, familiar pattern. We’d usually ride before breakfast (I had decided to ignore Dr Lowe’s advice until it was physically impossible to climb aboard my horse), then shower and breakfast at the Riding Club before Denis dropped me home and took the Alvis on to his office. We usually met again for lunch, generally at home but sometimes at the ‘Hash House’ – the Selangor Club Annexe which had a particularly good lunchtime menu.
We always read during lunch at home, our respective books propped up on the table, our conversation lazy and desultory. We both loved books and reading, and had very similar tastes except that Denis rather laughed at my enthusiasm for Baroness Orczy and I didn’t approve of his fascination with Somerset Maugham. To me, Maugham seemed a cold fish and a cruel commentator on the human condition, and he was obviously a confirmed misogynist.
Late in the afternoon, the swimming pool came into its own. The sun would have dipped behind the casuarinas and long shadows would make the pool a cool, inviting spot. I’d usually be in the water by the time Denis arrived home. I’d hear the crunch of tyres on the driveway, and minutes later he would dive cleanly into the water to surface by my side. We’d stay there until dusk, and then it would be a pleasure to emerge from the water and wrap ourselves in the warm, fluffy towels the boy would leave by our chairs on the patio.
Saturday mornings were dedicated to Denis’s golf. He still played at the Selangor Golf Club with the group including Tim Featherstone, and that gave me the opportunity to keep a weather eye on my dear friend. Tim had met a girl, I discovered, and fallen for her with all the unrestrained enthusiasm of his sunny nature. Her name was Amai Rais, and she was a niece and ward of the Sultan of Perak.
The affair caused uproar throughout the whole of Malaya. I don’t quite know what the public outrage was about – whether it was because she was of royal blood and he was a mere planter, whether it was because she was a Muslim and he was a Christian, or whether it was because he was white and she was Malay. Whatever the reason, it revealed just how inconsistent, artificial and laughable social distinctions were in Malaya. In fact, how laughable they were throughout the world, because almost in step with the agony of Tim’s romance with Amai the King of England was having his own troubles with an American divorcee called Mrs Wallis Simpson.
We invited Tim and Amai for afternoon tea one Saturday. They arrived by taxi, and my first sight of Amai was of an elfin little creature in a gold and blue sari that was demurely arranged so that a fold covered half her tiny, pointed face. She was accompanied by a chaperone, a thin, aristocratic Malay lady who was clearly under Amai’s gentle thumb. Tim and Amai sat close together at the tea table on our patio, two lovesick youngsters with the weight of the world on their shoulders. There had been another veiled, scurrilous report about them in that morning’s Malay Mail, and it had clearly upset them both.
‘Look, don’t take too much notice of what the damned papers say,’ Denis said kindly. ‘It’s all froth and bubble, you know, and it’ll fade away as soon as they have something more current to get their teeth into.’
‘It’s not only the talk, and the pestering reporters,’ Tim said passionately. ‘It’s that this whole damned country is so unbelievably hidebound. We’d be pariahs in whichever community we chose to live – European or Malay!’
‘So you two are really serious?’ I asked Tim. ‘Are you thinking of getting married?’
‘I’m studying to be a Muslim,’ Tim said simply. ‘You see, Nona, when you went off with this brute Denis, I thought I’d never fall in love again. But when I met Amai I realised that up until then all I’d experienced was calf love. This is the real thing. Amai is the sun and the moon to me.’
Calf love indeed. ‘I’m glad you got over me so smartly,’ I said a little tartly. And then I smiled. ‘You do look different, Tim. More responsible. I think probably you really are in love.’
‘Tim is food and drink to me,’ Amai said softly in Malay. She could speak English but like many high-caste Malays she limited herself to her own tongue when in unfamiliar company.
Tim turned to Denis. ‘I think we need some sound advice,’ he said, ‘and there is nobody whose advice I respect more than yours. We love each other, but if we were married all hell would break loose. I’d risk getting a kris stuck into my ribs by one of Amai’s relatives. Or at the very least I’d lose my job – Dunlops have made that crystal clear. They need to be in the Sultan’s good books. And Amai would very likely be seized by the Sultan’s ruffians and held in some gloomy istana until she’s sixty. So what do you think we should do?’
Denis thought for a moment. ‘To be frank, Tim, I’d let things cool down before you do anything. Convert to Mohammedanism if you want to, but stay a little clear of Amai and her people until she is a little bit older. Passions are high and they will need time to cool. And you two have the whole of your lives ahead of you.’ He turned to Amai. ‘How old are you, Amai?’
‘I am eighteen,’ Amai said, once again speaking in Malay. ‘Old enough to be married. There is no need for us to wait any longer. And Tim and I do not want to wait. Time is a dragon which will consume our youth if we allow it to.’ I recognised those words. They were from one of the Malay love quatrains which mooning adolescent girls used to sing at my school. The fact that Amai used them worried me a little, because they are associated with love that can never be fulfilled, and of suicide. I looked across at Amai’s chaperone, sitting discreetly out of earshot, and couldn’t help thinking of Juliet and her nursemaid.
‘We’re both keen to be married as soon as possible,’ Tim confirmed. ‘I don’t think either of us can wait until things cool down, as you put it.’
‘Then I’d take your young lady and do a bunk,’ Denis said cheerfully. ‘Show Malaya a clean pair of heels. What about going to Australia? Or America?’
‘We’d never get out of the country,’ Tim said. ‘The Civil Service doesn’t want to upset the Sultans so we’d be separated on the wharf. And even if we did manage to get away, we’ve not got a penny between us. I do need my job.’
‘I could get you out of Malaya,’ Denis said quietly. ‘I’ve a towkey friend in Singapore who regularly moves people in and out of the country. He owns a couple of small ships. And as for money to live on, I need a chap overseas to look at some prospects I’m interested in. The job is yours, Tim, if you want it.’
Tim was about to speak but Amai stopped him with a graceful gesture of her hands. ‘You are a very good friend, Tuan Denis,’ she said, suddenly speaking in perfect, unaccented English. ‘And we appreciate the offer you have made. But I could never leave Malaya. I would rather die
than have to live as an exile in a foreign land.’ She still looked a child, but she had an air of tragic maturity about her that caught at my heartstrings.
Denis took the matter as seriously as I did, and after our guests had left we talked late into the evening.
‘Malcolm Bryant says that you have what he calls the big battleships on your side,’ I said. ‘I think he means that you know how to pull strings. Do you think you could pull some strings and do something for Tim and Amai? Something official?’
Denis stubbed out his cigarette and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. ‘I wish to God Malcolm was right,’ he said. ‘But the truth is, Nona, I’m at an utter loss about what to do. It’s clear that the boy is infatuated with Amai and intends to play the story out to the end. So unless something is done to stop him, he’s in for an almighty crash and he’ll pull Amai down with him. Tim will survive, of course, because he’s English and the English will eventually rally around him. But Amai is playing for keeps.’
I got up from my chair, distracted with worry. Denis was quite right. Nobody would rally round Amai if things went wrong. She’d be cast to the wolves, a casualty of the rigid Malay sense of honour. She really was playing for keeps.
A thought struck me. ‘What if someone were able to split them up for a while, just until things had a chance to cool down? You know, trick Tim into taking a trip up the Amazon for six months, or something like that?’
Denis rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Actually, that’s a pretty good idea,’ he said. ‘Perhaps nothing quite so dramatic as a trip up the Amazon, but I think you’re on the right track.’ We talked some more, and the idea began to look quite feasible. Tim had said he needed his job. If Dunlops could be induced to keep him busy out of Amai’s way, there was a chance passions might cool enough for common sense to prevail. And if in time they found they were still in love – well, as Denis had said, they had their whole lives ahead of them.
In the Mouth of the Tiger Page 28
