A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  Adam drove her down to Southampton, terrified at what her reaction might be if Raefe was not among those disembarking. It was a chill autumn day, and they had to wait with a small huddle of other eager relations for the men to begin to file down the gangplanks and once again touch English soil. She stood, her coat-collar up against the cold breeze, her eyes fiercely bright. He would be one of those disembarking. He had to be.

  Gaunt face after gaunt face hurried down the gangplank. A woman standing next to her gave a joyous cry and ran forward, calling out to one of the hunched emaciated figures with his kit on his shoulder. Elizabeth saw the look of disbelief on the man’s face: saw his disbelief turn to wonder and then to joy as he slung his kit to the ground and opened his arms wide.

  In single file the men continued to disembark, but there was no tall broad-shouldered figure with a pelt of blue-black hair. Only tired men, thankful to be home again, slightly bewildered that there were so few people at the docks to greet them.

  When the last men had disembarked, she still stood there, her coat-collar turned up against the wind, her eyes overly bright.

  Adam touched her gently on the arm, and she said fiercely: ‘There will be other ships, Adam. Lots of other ships.’ And then she didn’t speak to him again, and he drove her back through the winding country lanes to Four Seasons in silence.

  That night he asked her if she would remarry him. She stared at him, her green eyes brilliant, knowing why it was that he was asking her.

  ‘No,’ she said, her throat dry. ‘Raefe is still alive, Adam.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ Adam said tenderly, taking her hands and holding them tightly in his. ‘And if he isn’t? Will you marry me then, Beth? Will you let us be happy as we used to be?’

  Tears sparkled on the thick sweep of her lashes. ‘No, Adam,’ she whispered, loving him with all her heart, but loving him as a friend. ‘No. Those days are over. They will never come again.’

  There were other ships bringing back POWs and internees as she had said there would be. Helena and Jeremy and Jennifer arrived home on 28 October, having sailed via Manila and Singapore and Colombo and Aden. She drove up with Adam to Liverpool to meet them, and as Helena walked towards them, her square-jawed, high-cheekboned face still beautiful despite the gross amount of weight she had lost, Elizabeth gave a low sob.

  ‘Helena. Oh, Helena!’ she cried, running towards her and hugging her tight. ‘Oh, Helena, I’m so glad to see you!’

  ‘The feeling is mutual,’ Helena had said unsteadily, and there were lines around her eyes and mouth that had never been there before.

  Adam had held her close, shocked at the suffering etched on her face, knowing that she, too, was probably shocked at the change in him. He was still only fifty-four, but the fighting and the trek to Chungking had taken their toll of him and he knew that he had prematurely aged, his limp now severely pronounced, his hair snow white.

  ‘Oh, Adam,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek, her deep blue eyes bright with tears. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you again!’ And suddenly, as he tucked her arm in his and began to lead her towards their waiting car, he no longer felt so old and so decrepit.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you, too, Helena,’ he had said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Beth has a room ready for you and the children at Four Seasons. You will stay there, won’t you? For as long as you want.’

  ‘Yes,’ she had said, and then, as the children clambered into the rear of Adam’s Daimler, she said bleakly: ‘You know that Alastair is dead, don’t you?’

  Adam had nodded. They all knew the way that Alastair had died, and he had been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

  ‘I loved him and was a fool and never really realized it,’ she said, her voice unsteady with regret and grief. ‘I shan’t ever make the same mistake again.’

  ‘No, my dear,’ he said, knowing now what the future held for him and full of the kind of happiness that he had thought he would never feel again. ‘I know that you won’t.’ And he walked round to the front of the car, sitting behind the wheel, knowing that, although Beth’s long years of waiting were still not over, his own years of waiting had finally come to an end.

  ‘And neither of us ever saw Li Pi again,’ Helena said quietly.

  They were sitting at the dining-table at Four Seasons. Jung-shui and Nicholas Raefe had welcomed Jeremy and Jennifer. Jung-shui with shy gravity, Nicholas Raefe with boisterous exuberance. They had gone immediately down to the paddock to view the pony, and after a specially indulgent high tea they had retreated to Nicholas Raefe’s bedroom where they had played a spirited game of Monopoly until it was time for bed. Now the house was quiet, and Elizabeth and Helena and Adam sat around the candlelit dining-table and Elizabeth clasped her hands lightly in her lap and stared down at them.

  ‘He may still be alive,’ Helena said tentatively, but all of them knew that there was very little hope. He had been old and he had been Chinese. His chances of survival in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong would have been tragically slim.

  ‘Tell us about Tom and Lamoon,’ Adam said gently, knowing how deep Beth’s grief was at the thought of Li Pi’s death and wanting good news to leaven the bad.

  Helena smiled, and her mane of dark hair, now heavily streaked with grey, swung forward against her cheeks. ‘They were married in Shamshuipo camp three days after liberation. The troops were still confined there because there wasn’t anywhere else for them to go, and Lamoon and myself hitched a lift from Stanley to Shamshuipo and Tom said he’d waited so long to marry her that he wasn’t going to wait any longer, and he insisted that the padre marry them immediately.’

  ‘Let’s give them a toast,’ Adam said, rising to his feet and crossing to the cocktail-cabinet where he knew a bottle of Sauterne lay hidden, saved by Beth for just such an event. He uncorked the wine, pouring it into their glasses.

  ‘To Tom and Lamoon,’ he said, raising his glass high. ‘May they know only peace and happiness from this day forward.’

  ‘To Tom and Lamoon,’ Elizabeth and Helena echoed, and for both of them tears were not very far away.

  Christmas came and went, and still there was no news of Raefe. ‘There were other camps apart from the ones in Hong Kong,’ Elizabeth said obstinately when Adam gently asked her if she shouldn’t now accept the official report of his death. ‘There were camps in Singapore and Formosa and Manchuria. Quite a lot of officers from Hong Kong were sent to Shirakawa Camp in Formosa. He may have been there. He may have been sent anywhere.’

  ‘But the men in those camps are all accounted for. The authorities have lists of their names and nearly all of them have been returned home.’ Adam said, his heart hurting at her steadfast refusal to face reality.

  ‘Not all of them,’ she said, her face pale, deep shadows bruising her eyes. ‘Not Raefe.’

  In the New Year he told her that he had asked Helena to marry him and that Helena had accepted.

  ‘I’m so pleased,’ she said, hugging him tight. ‘It’s the most sensible thing that you’ve ever done, Adam. She’ll make you a marvellous wife.’

  ‘We’re going to be married in April, on Helena’s birthday. You will be there, my dear, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I’ll be there,’ she said lovingly. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.’

  In February, Tom and Lamoon drove down to Four Seasons. They were on a visit to England so that Lamoon could meet Tom’s parents and be formally welcomed into the family.

  ‘This is quite like old times, isn’t it?’ Tom said as they sat round the dinner-table with Adam and Helena, happily unaware of the shadow that passed across Elizabeth’s face.

  Lamoon looked as impossibly lovely as ever, her almond eyes shining with happiness, her cheong-sam glitteringly exotic. The years in captivity had sat lightly on her, but there were flecks of grey in Tom’s dark hair and his lean face still bore traces of the emaciation he had been suffering from when he had been released.

  ‘If only Alastair were h
ere,’ Helena said quietly, ‘and Julienne and Ronnie, then it really would be like old times.’

  They were silent, all of them thinking of the past; and suddenly, as clearly as if it were a vision, Elizabeth could see Alastair, laughing and talking in the Jockey Club Bar, and Ronnie, his blond moustache as trim and sleek as that of a matinée idol, and Julienne, her mop of spicy red curls tumbling around her heart-shaped face, her eyes dancing with mischief. Somewhere in the background, she was sure that she could hear the faint rousing strains of ‘There’ll Always Be an England’, and then Alastair and Ronnie and Julienne faded into the background and she could see only Raefe.

  He was standing nonchalantly at ease, his hair falling low across his brow, his dark eyes looking at her with love and tenderness. And again she saw the smile on his mouth, the same ironic smile with which he had bade her goodbye at the village on the shores of Mirs Bay. She sat absolutely still, waiting for him to come nearer to her, but the sound of singing faded and Tom was saving: ‘We shall be returning to Hong Kong on the twentieth. I still have my job with the government and, even if I hadn’t, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. It’s my home.’

  Small drops of ice were dripping down her spine. The ghosts were all receding and Raefe was receding, too.

  ‘There’ll be a lot of changes there now,’ Adam was saying. ‘I’m surprised the Chinese didn’t hold out to have it handed back to them.’

  Suddenly, and with absolute certainty, she knew that he was dead. She rose abruptly to her feet, trembling violently, her face chalk white.

  ‘The day will come,’ Tom said, pouring more wine into his glass. ‘The British government will have to surrender Hong Kong to the Chinese eventually.…’

  ‘Excuse me!’ she said in a strangled voice, spinning on her heel and walking swiftly from the table.

  ‘And then what will become of it?’ Helena was asking Tom curiously.

  Tom was holding Lamoon’s hand, and Adam was watching Helena’s face, thinking how beautiful she was. None of them realized that Elizabeth had left the table for anything more than to bring in the dessert. None of them realized how deeply distressed she was.

  She stood in the hall for a brief second, and the sound of their laughter drifted out to her. Tom had been reunited with Lamoon. Adam was reunited with Helena. But she knew now that she would never be reunited with Raefe. The belief had sustained her and given her strength for over three years, but now that belief was gone. Raefe himself had personally come to her and gently removed it.

  The kitchen door was open, the desserts standing on a tea-tray, waiting to be transferred to the dining-room. She ignored them. Without pausing for a coat or a jacket, she ran from the house and across the gravel of the drive towards the garages. Her car was parked alongside Adam’s Daimler and Tom’s hired Ford. She opened the door, slipping behind the wheel and turning the key in the ignition. She didn’t know where she was going and she didn’t care. With a screech of tyres she reversed out of the garage, swinging the wheel round and shooting down the drive and out into the dark high-hedged lanes beyond.

  He was dead. The realization beat at her in waves. He was dead and he was never, ever going to return to her. She drove south, across the South Downs and down towards the sea. He had said goodbye to her in the dusty Chinese village, and he had meant goodbye, but she had not meant goodbye. Not goodbye for ever.

  ‘I can’t live with it,’ she whispered as she raced seawards, out to the loneliness of Selsey Bill. ‘I can’t live with such pain! It isn’t possible!’

  The sea gleamed, slickly and blackly, and she brought the car to a halt, opening the door and slamming it behind her, running down to the beach, slipping and sliding over the loose pebbles until she reached the shingle and the gentle creaming waves.

  He was dead and he was never coming back to her. ‘Oh, Raefe!’ she cried in agony, raising her face to the night sky. ‘Oh, Raefe! Why did you leave me? Why did you go?’ And then she sank to her knees on the sea-deep sand, and covered her face and wept.

  Epilogue

  The sun heat hotly on her back, and the azure blue South China Sea glittered. She had survived that night on the English coast, as she had survived the hundreds of agonizing nights that had succeeded it. There had been her music, and Jung-shui and Nicholas Raefe, and somehow because of them she had found the will to live and the courage to endure.

  She rose slowly to her feet. This was the last of her pilgrimages. Yesterday she had visited Julienne’s grave and had laid a posy of exotic blossoms on it, and then she had driven to the military cemetery at Stanley. She had laid flowers on Alastair’s grave and on Ronnie’s and Derry’s and had walked slowly up to one of the graves on which the inscription on the headstone read only ‘Known but to God’. She had ordered the small bouquet of flowers especially. It was an English bouquet of all the flowers that grew at Four Seasons and that he had never seen there. Creamy white roses and yellow-eyed daisies and pale lilac anemones with indigo hearts. She had stood for a long time, thinking about the past, knowing that finally she had come to terms with it.

  The intervening years had brought their own happiness. She had achieved her dreams of concert-platform stardom and she remembered the words she had whispered to herself on the first night that she played to a large audience. ‘For you, Li Pi,’ she had whispered, ‘and for you, Raefe, my love.’ And she had not let either of them down.

  Slowly she walked back down the hill to her car. People were beginning to emerge from the long, white, peaceful serenity of the hotel for early-morning swims. Lamma Island was beginning to take on shape and form as the early-morning heat-haze lifted and disappeared. She opened her car door and slid behind the wheel. She had no more doubts, no more uncertainties. The man who had loved her for seven years was waiting for her in their hotel suite, and in two hours’time she would become his wife.

  She drove away from the bay and up Repulse Bay Road towards Wong Nei Chung Gap. New buildings were springing up on the hillsides, luxury homes standing where the Rajputs and the men of the Middlesex had so bravely died. The road topped the gap and began to wind down towards Happy Valley and the outskirts of Victoria.

  She had served a long and lonely seven years. There had been no other men in her life, not until three months ago when she had found herself staring in stupefied horror into Roman Rakowski’s fierce grey eyes.

  They were on the concert platform of the Hollywood Bowl. The Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra was to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in D, under the German conductor Otto Klemperer. She was guest pianist. Rehearsals had gone satisfactorily and, though it was the first time she had played in the immense natural amphitheatre of the Bowl, she had her nerves well under control.

  The orchestra had taken its place on the concert platform to enthusiastic applause. She herself had walked out to a warm reassuring welcome from the stunningly large audience. But still Klemperer had not taken his place on the podium. There were impatient coughs and mutterings from the open-air auditorium and a sense of growing unease from the members of the orchestra. There had been rumours that the sixty-seven year old conductor was not in good health; in rehearsal he had looked tired and strained.

  The minutes spun out, and she half-expected the musical director to walk out and apologize for the conductor’s absence owing to sudden indisposition. Just as it seemed they could wait no longer for him, there was a cheer from the audience and an outburst of applause. Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes as Klemperer strode towards the podium. In these last few seconds before she commenced to play, she needed to steady herself, to harness the adrenalin surging along her veins, to be in complete and utter control. Klemperer reached the podium amidst continuing applause. She flexed her fingers, drew in a deep calming breath, and opened her eyes, fixing them on Otto Klemperer.

  Only it wasn’t Klemperer. It was Roman. The world shelved away beneath her feet, leaving her sick and giddy. Roman saw the s
hock she had sustained, saw the blood drain from her face, the black satin evening gown she wore emphasizing her pallor. The applause at his entrance finally died down, and he lifted his baton, his eyes riveting hers.

  ‘Don’t go to pieces!’ he silently pleaded with her. ‘Remember who you are and what you are! Play for me as you played for Klemperer!’

  The breath was so tight in her chest that she was in physical pain. She could read the messages his eyes were sending and she tried vainly to comply with them. Just when she thought she couldn’t possibly move, when she thought she was frozen for ever, she remembered the tiny candlelit restaurant in Perth where they had drunk Brudershaft together. Slowly the pain in her chest eased.

  He gave her a sudden grin, and she felt the world right itself on its axis. She was going to play for Roman as she had played for Klemperer. A sudden blaze lit the backs of her eyes. No, she was going to play far, far better than she had played for Klemperer. She was going to play better than she had ever played in her life before.

  He sensed her returning confidence, and his thick eyebrows, so many shades darker than his deep-gold hair, rose queryingly. She gave an imperceptible nod of her head, and relief flooded through him. Me brought his baton down in a characteristic firm downbeat, and from the moment that her fingers touched the keys he knew that the rapport between them was total.

  The excitement in the audience was palpable. Elizabeth felt as if she were riding a magic carpet as she and the orchestra entered into another world. Their collaboration was brilliant, flawless, as the dialogue between them flowed and ebbed and climaxed in a surge of spirit and sound at the end of the long first movement.

  There was hardly a breath from the audience in the pause before the second movement. Elizabeth knew that her sleekly coiled chignon was damp with perspiration, that she was playing on a level she had never reached before. Roman leaned forward on the podium, his eyes blazing into hers as softly, almost imperceptibly, he summoned in the strings. The flute entered, delicate as the pipes of Pan, and then Elizabeth, and then Roman merged them all into a Ukrainian dance of rhythmic pungency.