Pianos and Flowers

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The children were sent off to boarding schools, although the youngest was kept at home for a year or two after arrival in England. But when Stephanie joined her sisters at school, Francie was left by herself in the house for long periods until the girls had an exeat weekend or the term came to an end. She became proficient at crossword puzzles, for which she had a hitherto undetected talent, and became a much stronger bridge player than she had been in Penang. She read constantly, almost a novel a day. She devoured Maugham’s The Casuarina Tree, saying to herself, Yes, yes, that’s exactly right, although her friend wrote to her from Penang to say how angry they were that he had abused their hospitality by writing about them. That man, she steamed, accepted the hospitality of a whole lot of people – some of whom you and I actually know, Francie – and then writes about them like that! As if adultery and backbiting were the only things we thought about from the moment we get out of bed – rarely our own bed, in Mr Maugham’s view – until the time we turn the lights out. If you could hear some of the things they’re saying about that man here, and his so-called secretary … The invective made her briefly homesick, and she went back to one or two of the stories, allowing nostalgia to overcome her, and thought of the gardener and his boy, and of her husband in his office at the warehouse, under the fans, and those invoices that they stuck on spikes mounted on wooden bases, and the Chinese clerks at their desks.

  Thomas was sent to a school that prided itself on its academic standards, and thrived there. He had his father’s head for figures, and would in due course be a businessman like him – perhaps take over the warehouses. The girls were sent to a school that was distinctly less enthusiastic about academic matters. Their brochure spoke of the goal of the well-rounded young woman, “able to hold her own in any sort of company and competent in both the domestic and sporting fields”. This statement was accompanied by pictures of several teenage girls, one holding a test tube up to the light, and another in the process of committing a baking tin to an oven; a third girl was poised to dive from a high diving board, while watched by several admiring younger girls below.

  The girls were happy enough at this school. They liked their teachers, who tended to be people who had failed in careers elsewhere or had chosen to come to the school because they had heard that it was generally undemanding. Some of the teachers were part-time, as was Captain Edmunds, who taught horse-riding. He spent three afternoons a week at the school and all of Saturday, and his lessons were always well subscribed. He was just a little bit too old – he was forty – to be of interest to the senior girls, but he was much admired by the geography teacher, Miss Littlewood, who watched him from the window of her room in one of the school boarding houses. The girls had not taken long to work out why Miss Littlewood appeared at the window so regularly, standing just far enough back so that Captain Edmunds would not see her if he looked up from the dressage ring.

  Annette came up with the idea of writing a note purporting to be from Captain Edmunds. It would suggest a meeting that evening in the tack-room at the school stables. My dear Angela, she wrote, I know that we’ve scarcely met, and I hope you don’t think it forward of me to suggest that we meet this evening in the tack-room. I have some work to do on the saddles and would much appreciate a chance to get to know you a bit better. 6 p.m. Until then, John Edmunds (Captain).

  “Perfect,” said the friend to whom she showed the note. “And to him? What does she say to him?”

  Annette produced another note. My dear Captain Edmunds, Would it be possible for us to meet in the tack-room at 6 p.m. this evening? There is something I would dearly love to talk to you about, but feel that it will be better to have this conversation in private. Cordially yours, Angela Littlewood, B.A.

  “Brilliant,” said the friend. “But do you think it will work?”

  “Yes,” said Annette. “In two months I bet they’ll be engaged.”

  The notes were dispatched, the one to Captain Edmunds being left on the seat of his BSA motor cycle; the other being placed in Miss Littlewood’s pigeon-hole outside the staff common room. Just before 6 p.m. Annette saw Captain Edmunds making his way towards the tack-room. Five minutes later, Miss Littlewood was seen adopting a slightly circuitous route to the same destination.

  “You see!” crowed Annette. “It worked like a charm.”

  At the beginning of 1938 Robert wrote to Francie: I can’t tell you how worried I am about Japan. Manchuria is just a beginning, you know – they’ll be coming after us at the first opportunity. We have the R.A.F. at Butterworth, but a chap I know says their planes are no match to what the Japs have. And there aren’t very many of them. And what are Chamberlain and others doing back home? Saying we mustn’t upset Germany too much. Well, I can tell you, it’s not just Germany – it’s the Japanese too. Do you know what they did when they took Nanjing? They murdered – yes murdered – hundreds of thousands of people. Nobody knows how many, because virtually anybody who saw what was going on was disposed of. I bumped into Fong the other day in the street and the poor fellow was in a bad way. He’s been doing a lot for the China Relief Fund – we had a benefit for them at the Club the other day. Fong says he saw pictures of the Japs using live Chinese prisoners for bayonet practice. He started to blub, he was so upset – and who can blame him? It’s different for us – nobody’s using us for bayonet practice – just yet. I’m immensely relieved, Francie, that we got you and the children out of here. I don’t think they’ll dare come here just yet – and they’ll never take Singapore – but it’s very worrying nonetheless.

  Robert remained in Penang after the outbreak of war in Europe. In 1941, Penang fell to the Japanese. At Butterworth, the Royal Air Force’s planes were quickly destroyed and there was unopposed bombing of George Town. The British effectively threw in the towel, to the surprise of those who had considered them invincible. Penang had been described as a fortress; it proved anything but. The British had at least planned their retreat, evacuating the European population of the island before the Japanese arrived, which meant that Robert found himself in Singapore, with only two suitcases of clothing and possessions. His money, at least, was safe, and he took a room in the Tanglin Club, writing to tell Francie that he was comfortable and would be working with a friend who owned a number of go-downs. We’ll be all right, I suspect, as this place is going to be a harder nut to crack. Don’t worry. They’ll never make it down this far. He signed up as acting paymaster for a regiment that had lost a number of its officers further north. He was given the temporary rank of Captain Sanderson, and was popular with the men for his liberal view of allowance issues.

  One evening on the street outside Raffles he saw a man whom he had known slightly in Penang – a Chinese merchant who had run an import-export business. They greeted one another like old friends.

  “It is very bad,” said the merchant, his voice faltering as he spoke. “They are killing us, you know. This Sook Ching business. Killing Chinese – just because we’re Chinese. They say it’s because they think we are anti-Japanese and that we’re a threat. But they are killing anybody and everybody. And a man with tattoos – he gets it, because they think if you have tattoos you are a gangster. And all our big men, too, our leaders, they’re killing them because they are prominent citizens and they fear them. And our women – comfort women they call them. They are taking them too. We thought the British would protect us. I do not like to speak about that, because my heart is too heavy, Mr Sanderson.”

  Robert listened, appalled. There were whispers and rumours; there were even reports in the press. But these urgent, harrowing words spoken by one such as this merchant were of a different order.

  “Tell me, Mr Chao – Edward Fong, did you know him?”

  The merchant looked away. “I am very sorry, Mr Sanderson, but Edward Fong had helped the China Relief Fund. There had been pictures of him presenting cheques to the Fund. The Japanese can read. It was not good for Fong.”

  It took Robert a few moments to gather his thoughts
. “And his girls – well, young women by now, of course. Any news of them?”

  From the look in the merchant’s eyes, he could tell what the answer would be. And so he said, “I mustn’t ask you to speak about things you do not want to speak about. I must not.”

  “Thank you,” said the merchant. He looked up at the sky. “There is rain coming. I must get inside.”

  Robert was taken prisoner after Singapore fell. He survived for almost a year, before dying of dysentery. Francie did not hear of his death for ten months, when the news was passed on to her from Australia. She had feared this from the moment she had heard he had been taken prisoner; she had done much of her grieving. She stayed on in the house at Budleigh Salterton, although she often went to spend time with her sister in London. She became ill, although her doctor found it difficult to diagnose the cause. She went off her food and her health deteriorated. It seemed to her friends that she had lost the will to live. “We’re not giving up,” they said. “You mustn’t.”

  She knew they were right. It was no good being defeatist, and she made an effort with war work. But she felt that there was little point on carrying on. She had done everything she needed to do: she had raised four children, and launched them. She had made the most of her marriage. She had played the cards she had been dealt without complaint. She felt that was enough. Her final illness was a blessing, she thought. They did not tell her what it was, but she felt it within her, a gnawing feeling that seemed to be taking over. She would not fight it – what point was there?

  After the war, with both parents dead, Thomas felt that he was responsible for his sisters. He was now a shipping agent in London with a successful and growing business. His sisters, none of whom was married, lived in a house three doors away – a house that he paid for and kept in good repair. Thomas himself lived with Vinnie, a young woman whom he described as his housekeeper, but who was too well spoken for that to convince anybody. She was his mistress. She was Catholic and on principle would not divorce her husband, a philanderer called Ted Barber, to whom she had been married for only six months. It was better, she thought, to live with Thomas than to risk eternal damnation by bringing her marriage to an end. God, she imagined, would be understanding, and would appreciate the effort she had made to uphold the Church’s precepts, even if her relationship with Thomas could not be regularised.

  Thomas saw it as his duty to look after his sisters, none of whom had acquired any skills that would enable them to get a job. Their father had left enough money in his estate to ensure that none of them was indigent. But although parents might make provision for the material needs of their off-spring, they cannot, in modern conditions, find spouses for them. That, Thomas realised, was now his responsibility as their brother.

  “It would be nice if you met somebody,” he said. “I’m not saying you have to. I’m just saying it would be nice – that’s all.”

  The sisters looked at one another.

  “Yes,” said Annette. She, as the oldest of the three, tended to be the spokesman. “Yes, it would be nice, but how are we going to do that, might I ask? We don’t know any men, really.” She turned to Flora. “Do you know any suitable men, Flora?”

  Flora shook her head. “There are hardly any men around,” she said.

  Stephanie sighed. “It would be much easier, I think, if we had a tennis court. Like the one we had in Budleigh Salterton. We could invite men to come and play tennis …”

  “And then marry them,” interjected Flora.

  “You may laugh,” said Stephanie. “But it’s true. People with tennis courts have very active social lives. Everybody knows that.”

  “But we don’t have one,” Annette said. “And we don’t even know where it used to be.”

  “Behind the garage,” suggested Flora. “There’s that flat bit there and I think that was the tennis court.”

  Thomas smiled. “I don’t think it helps to argue about where the tennis court used to be. Far better to think of ways of introducing you to men.” He paused. “We could have a party, of course. Or …” He had remembered something, and the sisters watched him closely. “Or, I could take you to something I’ve been invited to. They – the hosts – don’t know about Vinnie, and anyway she doesn’t like garden parties and so wouldn’t come.”

  The sisters expressed interest, and the decision was taken. Thomas knew the hosts well, and could easily ask them if he could bring his three sisters with him. What was more, he would buy each of them a new dress for the occasion. “You can choose whatever you like,” he said. “People will be dressing up, I imagine.”

  The four of them went to the garden party and stood for some time, in a line, on the lawn. One or two people smiled at them in a friendly fashion as they walked past, and one, an elderly man with a drinker’s complexion, raised his hat and said, “Fine day for a garden party, isn’t it?” That was all. Nobody else paid them any attention, and certainly any single men, if there were any invited, were not in evidence. After drinking tea inside the house, they all left, in silence.

  Thomas was apologetic. “That was a thoroughly useless party,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t know why people bother to throw parties like that.”

  Flora agreed. “Worse than useless,” she said. “But we’re not blaming you, Tommy.”

  Then, in his ship-broking office, Thomas heard of a party being held by a group of naval officers whose ship was in harbour. “I’ve had this invitation to a party,” he said to his sisters. “They very kindly said I could bring other people with me if I wanted to. They’re naval officers.”

  Stephanie perked up. “Sailors?” she asked.

  “Yes,” replied Thomas. “Officers – not Jack Tars.”

  “Let’s go,” said Stephanie. “You never know.”

  Thomas remembered the unsuccessful garden party. He had an idea. “Why don’t you girls dress up in naval outfits? You know what I mean – nice white outfits with a blue scarf and an anchor motif on the sleeves, maybe. Something like that.”

  Annette thought this a good suggestion, as did Flora and Stephanie. “I think Tommy’s idea is really wonderful,” she enthused. “Let’s do it.”

  They had two weeks to prepare their outfits, and then they were ready. “You look stunning,” said Thomas. “They’ll love that.”

  They went to the party. The sailors were generous hosts. Junior ratings, in smart white outfits, handed drinks around. The sisters’ outfits were a real success, and they were soon surrounded by three young officers, who talked to them in an animated and clearly interested fashion.

  From the other side of the room, Thomas observed the scene with satisfaction. At his side was Vinnie.

  “Look at that,” said Thomas. “Success at last.”

  Vinnie was not so sure. “Why should those young men be so interested in girls dressed up as sailors?” she asked.

  Thomas frowned.

  “Just asking,” said Vinnie. “That’s all.”

  It was Annette who married one of the naval officers. Thomas said to her, “You do know what you’re doing, do you? Being married to a sailor means he’ll be away for long periods. You know that, don’t you?” She did, but she was sure it would not matter. “Look at Mummy,” she said. “Look at how long she and Daddy were separated. She was happy enough, don’t you think?” Thomas just looked at her.

  But it was a good marriage, and she had three sons and a daughter. Her husband was given a shore job and he remained in that for most of his career. She pre-deceased him by five years. Flora married an engineer who worked for a firm of instrument makers. “Nothing happened in my life,” she once said to Annette. “Nothing.” Stephanie was engaged, briefly, but discovered her fiancé was a compulsive gambler, and brought the engagement to an end. She never married, but she bought a small hotel that she ran by herself for over forty years. There was a piano in the dining room of this hotel – a piano that was never played – and occasionally she would stop by it and depress one of the keys and remember C
ecilia Fong. And she would turn round, to an empty room, and hold out a hand for the presentation of flowers.

  Look again at the photograph, at the man and woman in the foreground. That was Captain Edmunds and Angela Littlewood.

  I’d Cry Buckets

  THE SWEEP OF THE HILLS. THE BURN TUMBLING JOYOUSLY across the rock. The pony sure-footed but scared of moving water, picking his way gingerly under the burden of the dead stag. And the two boys, who were sixteen, and who were tired from being up on the hill since six that morning when it was still chill and misty and not quite yet light. They had two uncomfortable hours to go before they would be back at the lodge; walking downhill could be as demanding as climbing – different muscles were involved, and these might not be in such good order as those used when ascending.

  “Are you all right?”

  That was Bruce, the boy in the front, the one leading the pony.

  David replied, “Yes, I’m all right.”

  Bruce said, “I made myself really stiff last year. I wasn’t used to walking downhill, you see, and by the time I got down I could hardly walk, I’m telling you. My knees seemed to have locked.”

  David said nothing. He had noticed the blood that had dripped across the pony’s flanks. The pony must be used to it, as animals could panic when they smelled blood – or so he had read somewhere. Or was that only when the blood they smelled was their own? Perhaps that was it.