A Different Sky (14 page)

‘No idea. Just call him “Boy”. They all come to the call of Boy whatever their age, no need to bother with names. They all look alike as well, you'll find it difficult at first to tell them apart.' Boffort sucked hungrily at a spoonful of soup. Wilfred glanced at their Boy and found his features distinctly different from the Boy serving at the next table.

‘How long has he been your Boy?' he asked.

‘Five years, ever since I arrived,' Boffort replied between mouthfuls. ‘All these houseboys and cooks are Hainanese and come from the same place in China. They're probably all related; one big happy clan.' Some soup dripped on to his chin and he put down his spoon to dab at it with his napkin.

‘Do you understand English? What's your name?' Wilfred turned directly to the Chinese.

‘Name Wang,
Tuan Besar
.' The man gave a grin, revealing a mouth of nicotine-stained teeth.

‘His English doesn't stretch to much more than that,' Boffort observed, finishing the last of his soup.

‘I thought we'd get curry.' Wilfred stared down at the thin gruel before him in disappointment.

‘
Tiffin
is on Sunday, and you need the afternoon to recover from it. You'll find Mrs Burns does a slap-up
tiffin
,' Boffort replied.

Wang appeared with a course of fish. This was followed by braised lamb and boiled vegetables, a dessert of sponge pudding and some cheese. The food was plentiful and well cooked but Boffort was critical.

‘Chinese cooks never get the hang of anything other than their own food. Mrs Burns probably breathes down their necks to produce our Sunday tiffin. Now, that's
her
kind of food. Shouldn't think
she
was brought up on food like this. People like her want their spice and chilli.' Boffort laughed, blowing spittle over the dessert Wang had just placed before him.

‘But her name is Burns. Was her husband English?' Wilfred had
been wondering about his dark-skinned landlady. In spite of her name she was not European, but neither did she appear completely Indian or Malay.

‘Lord, no. You really are wet behind the ears. Mrs Burns is
Eurasian
. Our Rose of Mount Rosie,' Boffort laughed. ‘There was probably a long ago English ancestor who came out and married a local Malay woman, and whose name has been passed down the line. I believe she herself was born in Malacca, which means there would also be a large family tree of Portuguese or Dutch bits and pieces, all long ago married with Malay, Indian, Chinese or even Ceylonese women. Then local Malacca-Dutch marry Malacca-Portuguese, Malacca-Irish marry Malacca-Ceylonese, etcetera and hey presto, soon they're a community of their own. They're very particular about their white ancestors, however, even if they themselves are now as black as coal.

‘They're a valuable community, don't get me wrong,' Boffort continued hurriedly, seeing the disapproval on Wilfred's face. ‘They push our pens for us, so to speak; most are well educated and English speaking, so we give them all our clerical jobs. And of course they're also Christian like us, Catholic mostly. Couldn't run the Colony without them. You can't trust the Asiatics; most of the Malays are illiterate and, except for a minority of Straits Chinese who have been educated in English-medium schools, none of that lot can speak our language, and neither do the Indians, by and large. We depend upon the Eurasians to manage everything for us. They're a dependable lot.'

Wilfred looked across at Rose, who sat like a benevolent headmistress before a school dining room. He felt acute discomfort on behalf of his landlady as he listened to Boffort. ‘Mrs Burns appears an admirable lady,' he protested.

‘Yes indeed. A valuable community, just as I said.' Boffort stretched across the table to cut another chunk of cheese. Wilfred stared at the candlelight reflected on the balding crown of his head; the man filled him with shame for being an Englishman. Wilfred turned again to observe Rose, dignified and upright before the table. Beside her sat the girl who had cursed like a man below his window, and a boy of similar age.

‘They are her children,' Boffort explained, following his gaze and swallowing in a single gulp the demitasse of coffee Wang had just served him. He called loudly for more, rattling his cup on the saucer.

‘Howard and Cynthia. He's with the Harbour Board and she's doing nursing. Hot little chilli, isn't she? It's said Mrs Burns must have had it off with one of her lodgers before Cynthia appeared. Just look at those green eyes. We'd all like a piece of Cynthia, although of course not in any permanent way. I'm telling you right now at the beginning, stick to your own kind. You won't get better advice than that. Society here does not take kindly to intermarriage. A man's career is finished if he takes a dusky-skinned wife. It's just not done; you'll be cut dead by everyone who matters. She won't be accepted anywhere either or included on invitations, can't enter our clubs. And anyway, who wants children with a touch of the tar brush, eh? What kind of life can they hope for anywhere in the civilised world?' Boffort held out his cup as Wang approached with the coffee pot.

‘I haven't even been introduced to the young lady.' Wilfred turned upon Boffort in exasperation.

‘Steady on. Just trying to put you wise before you make a mistake. The races don't mix here, you see. Chinese keep to themselves in Chinatown, as do the Malays in Geylang, the Indians in Serangoon Road, the Eurasians in their Eurasian pockets and we of course, being the ruling race, can't afford to hobnob with any of them. Live apart, work apart, socialise apart. That old adage, familiarity breeds contempt, is more true than we know.' Boffort leaned forward, the candlelight carving up the fleshy crags of his face until he resembled a heavy-jawed gargoyle, and continued.

‘It can get lonely here for a man; not many unattached young ladies of our own kind about. A man can easily fall prey to a local girl when he's lonely. It's not as if the Settlement has ever had a “fishing fleet”, as in India. If you find yourself feeling low, let me know. You can get whatever you want in the right places: Chinese, Japanese, Malay even French or Russian girls too. And there are always the taxi dancers at any of the Great Worlds.' Boffort winked across the table.

Within a few minutes, to Wilfred's relief, Boffort stood up and announced that he had a letter to write to his fiancée, Valerie. The Boy, Wang, appeared with a pot of fresh coffee and Wilfred accepted another cup. It was strong, bitter stuff and he drank it gratefully, savouring the few moments without Boffort. He found himself staring at Cynthia. Her brother, Howard, was a good looking young man with his mother's dark colouring and hair, width of jaw and rounded brow.
Cynthia appeared something apart from these two, just as Boffort had indicated.

Cynthia's hair seemed lit from within by tawny light and framed a slim face of high cheekbones. Even from a distance he could see the hazel, slanting eyes, cat-like against her light olive skin. She appeared to Wilfred impossibly beautiful; unlike anyone he had seen before. Once, she looked across at him in a deliberate manner then turned abruptly to speak to her brother, taking no further notice of Wilfred. The directness of her glance surprised him, and her raw curse that afternoon below his window sounded again in his ears. At the end of the meal she disappeared through the door that led under a covered walkway to the kitchen buildings. Wilfred returned to his room and, as he climbed the stairs, he looked down on the dark candlelit space beneath him and knew he had entered the residue of his childhood memories. Nothing as yet felt real.

Later, as he lay in bed beneath the shroud of starched muslin Wilfred listened to the old house settle down for the night and wondered at the strangeness of the day. There was the low hum of voices and clink of glasses from the men who still sat in the coolness of the Lodgers' Lounge, an airy open-walled room above the downstairs portico. A mosquito whirred near his ear beyond the tent of netting that hung about him. The night was punctuated by the full-throated call of bullfrogs, the scent of night flowers mixed with the fetid odour of the manure spread upon the flower beds. Once he heard a clock strike, and then the heavy thud of the dining room shutters as the servants closed up for the night. From the other side of the thin partitioning wall came a rattle of glass as Boffort dragged out the crate of bottled drinks kept beneath each lodger's bed. He thought about the Boy, Wang, who to Boffort deserved no name, and the dignified Mrs Burns, so undeserving of Boffort's disparagement. Beneath every thought he was aware that Cynthia was constant in his mind. There was the sound of far off thunder, and he wondered if he would have to get up in the night to battle with the rain and the bamboo blinds. The last thing he remembered before sleep enclosed him was the naked, straining back of the rickshaw runner who had pulled him away from the docks. He heard again the man's rasp of breath, saw the bony protrusion of his ribs and the knotted blue veins in his neck. It had disturbed him that a man should be used like an animal for his own convenience.
He understood then that he had entered a world that was a distorted reflection of the one he had left, and knew already that he could not condone it. Then again he remembered Cynthia, a hand to her hat, books in her arms, staring up at him as he stood in the open window. At last he closed his eyes and slept.

I
N
M
ANIKAM'S
C
LOTH
S
HOP
Raj rewound the bale of white muslin a customer had earlier inspected, and pushed it to one side. A pile of fresh garlands for the wedding was heaped on the counter, the sweet scent of jasmine filling the shop. Raj looked uneasily over the flowers to where his sister, Leila, sat on a chair, head bowed, waiting. The day was one of those turning points of which he had already seen so many; something was ending and something new was beginning. Leila had pulled her sari down over her face so all Raj could see was the gold hoop of her nose ring, a hanging pearl trembling as she breathed. Her hands twisted nervously in her lap, the nails bitten down to the quick.

‘Krishna is a good man and my best friend,' Raj reassured her yet again, but Leila remained stubbornly silent. She had said little since her arrival a few days before, sitting with head covered and eyes downcast, answering his questions in monosyllables. It was natural for a bride to feel apprehensive, Leila knew nothing of Krishna and had not even seen him yet, but how many brides saw their husband before a wedding? Raj reasoned. He could not tell if her silence was one of anger or submission, and tried to control his impatience.

When Manikam died and he had inherited his business, Raj felt able at last to send for his sister. Within a short time of Manikam's death, Raj had also had an unexpected opportunity to diversify in business. Mr Ho, the biscuit maker, had introduced him to a man who was a ship chandler and wished to sell his company. After the trolleybus incident at Kreta Ayer, their friendship had grown over the years. Raj visited Mr Ho regularly, and the man had taken on the aura of a further mentor for him. It had been Mr Ho who encouraged him to think beyond the narrow confines of Manikam's Cloth Shop. If we do not risk we do not gain, Mr Ho told him. Mr Ho had also taken Raj to a Chinese bank and helped him to arrange a loan with which to buy the ship chandler's company. Next, Mr Ho had introduced him
to his daughter-in-law's father, a Japanese shipping agent who lived on Middle Road. Mr Yamaguchi had contact with many Japanese ships, and it was through him that business had come to Raj. Now, Raj kept a desk at the back of Manikam's shop where he managed his new business, a far more profitable trade than the selling of
dhotis
and mosquito nets. He had been able to buy a gold necklace for Leila, and bangles to cover her wrists.

Leila wore this jewellery now, and Raj observed the gleaming ornaments against her smooth flesh with both possession and pride. Feeling his eyes upon her, Leila raised her head and met his gaze and he saw, with some surprise, resentment in her face. Then she quickly pulled the sari down over her head, showing him only the delicate fingers of her small hand clutching at the silk.

As her brother had done before her, Leila had sat huddled on the deck of the ship through endless days at sea, enduring the sickening pitch and roll, burned by the never-ending sun, queuing with men for use of a single stinking toilet. The last thing she had expected when she finally arrived in Singapore was to be married within days of reaching the place. All she had thought about on the long journey was seeing her brother again. Before the voyage she had gone no further than a kilometre from the village. The courage to leave India and travel to Malaya came from her brother, whose letters over the years she had waited for impatiently. She had been seven years old when Raj left India; now she was eighteen. After he left she had lived alone with her grandmother, in a crumbling mud hut that leaked when it rained. Eventually, the old woman died and after her death Leila had gone to live with an aunt in a neighbouring village who treated her like a servant, giving preference in everything to her own daughters. As soon as Leila was of marriageable age, the aunt began searching for an elderly widower who would overlook the absence of a dowry to acquire a young wife. It was at this time that Raj suggested she join him, and the aunt was only too happy to be rid of her.

At last she had disembarked from the ship to feel solid land beneath her feet once more. The noisy clamour of the quay and the alien Chinese faces made her realise how far she was from the village, how untraceable her journey; she might never go home again. What would she do if her brother were not there? How would she recognise him after all these years? Standing to one side of the gangplank, a bundle
of belongings beside her, she anxiously scanned the crowded quay. As the wharf cleared Raj saw her and came forward, and the sight of him filled her in a rush.

It was Raj who suggested to Krishna the idea of marriage to his sister. The thought had suddenly appeared in his mind once he was certain Leila would join him in Singapore. Since the day, long before, when Krishna had written Raj's first letter to Leila, the schoolteacher's destiny and that of his sister had appeared to Raj to be linked together. At first Krishna had declined the offer, apologetically informing Raj that he intended marrying a literate woman, a schoolteacher like himself, and that, through a matchmaker, he was soon expecting to be engaged to just such a person. Yet, within days, Krishna learned that his prospective bride, far from being a schoolteacher as reported, was a deaf-mute and his trust in all matchmakers was shaken. Raj had quietly mentioned his sister's availability again, and had also set about convincing Krishna that her illiteracy was to his advantage.