Before the Poison (31 page)
Authors: Peter Robinson
‘And now you’re here.’
‘Yes. As it happens, I’ve got a job offer here through some contacts I had in Melbourne. Down in Cambridge. Computers. I start next week.’
‘Congratulations. I thought the brain-drain usually went the other way.’
‘I was headhunted.’
‘I see. So what else did your father tell you about his life here?’
‘Very little.’ Louise surveyed the room. ‘He told me about this house, described growing up here, what he remembered of his mother – her kindness, her gentleness, her smile, the sound of her laughter, her lovely singing voice, her love for him. All so cruelly taken away. But he didn’t understand what was happening, the trial, the execution. He was only seven, eight when he left, and he somehow got stuck with the impression that she must have been evil.’
‘Did he talk much about Sam Porter?’
‘Not much. He didn’t know him. They never met. At least, he doesn’t remember that they did. I think my grandmother must have been very discreet in her affairs.’
‘Affair,’ I said. ‘As far as I know, she only had the one.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And one indiscretion was enough.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you read the trial account?’
‘I didn’t know there was one.’
‘Want to?’
She paused. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll lend you the book. So what else did your father tell you about Grace?’
‘It wasn’t so much what he told me that impressed me,’ said Louise. ‘It was the stuff in the box he gave me.’
I felt a little frisson of excitement run through me. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Stuff?’
‘Her things. What was left. The box of stuff they brought over from England. Granny Felicity told Dad that when she went to stay with my grandmother when the police started asking questions, my grandmother gave her some odds and ends and asked her to keep them for her in case things didn’t turn out well. She had a bad feeling, and she didn’t want the police going through her private stuff. What do you call it, a foreboding? Anyway, when Granny Felicity started to get ill, she passed the box on to Dad, to keep the memory in the family. There’s not much. But it was enough for me. It brought my grandmother to life.’
I felt my pulse quicken, but I didn’t wish to appear overeager in front of Louise, lest she think me ghoulish. After all, this was her grandmother we were talking about. ‘What are these things?’ I asked. ‘Photos?’
‘Some, yes, mostly from the war.’
‘Letters?’
‘There aren’t any letters. They must have got lost somewhere, or somebody must have destroyed them.’
I tried to hide my disappointment.
‘There’s the journal,’ Louise said.
‘Journal?’
‘Yes, an old leather-bound thing. Grandmother’s journal. Granny Felicity told Dad that Grandmother kept it in a secret drawer in the escritoire, and she took her up one day and got it out for her. That’s how I knew about the drawer. Granny Felicity told Dad, and he told me.’
‘Good Lord. Does it say . . . I mean, is there any . . .?’
‘It blew me away. Maybe you’d like to read it?’
‘You know I would. You brought it with you all this way from Australia?’
‘Like I said, there’s not much. But I think she wanted it preserving. Maybe it was her legacy. Or maybe she was just trying to keep it from public scrutiny. She probably knew what was going to happen, the arrest and trial and all. I’m planning on staying here, so I brought all my worldly goods with me, all I cared about, at any rate, and my grandmother’s stuff is among my most valuable possessions, the only ones, really, apart from a few mementos of Mum and Dad. If you want to see it, you’ll have to come to Staithes in the next couple of days, though, before I head down south.’
‘There’s nothing I’d like more than a day at the seaside.’
16
Extract from the journal of Grace Elizabeth Fox (ed. Louise King), December, 1941–January, 1942. Singapore
Monday, 8th December, 1941
It is hard to believe that our carefree year of golf, tennis, tea dances, afternoon siestas and Singapore Slings at the Raffles Hotel may soon be over, but today the war has come to our little island. The Japanese have bombed us. There were no warnings, and the casualties have been pouring in all day. Major Schofield said at lunchtime that we still should not worry. We have our guns pointed at the sea, and a land invasion is impossible. At worst, he allowed, we may undergo a minor siege, but even that, he felt, was unlikely. Happily, tonight’s dinner dance at the Cricket Club has not been cancelled, and my shift will soon be over!
Thursday, 11th December, 1941
The HMS
Repulse
and HMS
Prince of Wales
have both been sunk off the Malay coast. We are told to expect more casualties in the coming hours, mostly burn victims, which are most difficult and heartbreaking to deal with. I fear poor Brenda will be worked off her feet after her experience with the burns hospital at Bangor, and she is already suffering so much with the heat and humidity here, not to mention the mosquitoes!
Thursday, 18th December, 1941
Life goes on much as normal, apart from the air-raid precautions. We did not get as many survivors of the naval disasters as we expected, and one of the V.A.D.s told me she had heard nearly 1,000 men were killed. The Japanese are advancing south and west from Kota Bahru. There is now fierce fighting across the Straits of Johor, and many people are fleeing south to safety in Singapore. According to one of our casualties from the Suffolk Regiment, the refugees are blocking the roads with their cars, rickshaws and bicycles, and the relief troops cannot get through. The Japanese planes are constantly strafing and dive-bombing them. He also told me that the jungle is proving no barrier to the Japanese. They are running rings around us. They can shoot straight, too, he says, contrary to the rumours that went around. The Alor Star Hospital, in the far north, has already been evacuated. They loaded all their patients on to an ambulance train and headed south. We can only try to carry on as if all will be well. After all, the north is still a long way away, and we have strong defences.
Thursday, 25th December, 1941
We had a fine Christmas dinner at Raffles Hotel with the civilians and the surgical staff. It was all rather depressing for a while because of the news of the Japanese advance, which shows no signs of halting or slowing down, but in the end we decided it was Christmas, so we ought to try to forget our troubles for a while and enjoy ourselves. Naturally, there was dancing afterwards, though I spent much of the time sitting it out. Whenever I see people dance, I think of Stephen Fawley, who disembarked from the
Empress of Australia
at Hong Kong with the rest of his regiment. It seems so long ago now. I am troubled by rumours I have heard about the behaviour of Japanese troops in Hong Kong. It is so hard to get any reliable information here. Even if people do know something, they are more than likely to keep it a secret as if information were some kind of currency. I am almost certain that Hong Kong has surrendered to the Japanese, but I have no idea of the fates of those sisters and military personnel there. We can find no news of Kathleen or Doris, or of Stephen and the others. For Christmas, Brenda very thoughtfully gave me a waterproof oilskin bag for my journal. I can hang it around my neck under my clothing, complete with pencil stubs! I gave her a lovely hand-painted Chinese fan I found at the Sungei Road market to help her keep cool.
Wednesday, 31st December, 1941
Today we evacuated over a hundred convalescent Australian patients to free more beds here. It was a sad day for me, as I had come to know some of them, and the sisters who accompanied them, quite well over the past year. I waved goodbye to Amelia, to Gillian, to Florence, Jimmy, Mick and Kenny. We have only one hospital ship now, a decrepit old riverboat called the
Wu Sueh
, and we are making arrangements to ship more patients to Sumatra when they are well enough to travel. The fighting up north is getting fiercer and closer, and we are receiving a steady stream of wounded coming in daily. The air raids continue, and we also have many civilian casualties to contend with. We are all so rushed off our feet I barely have time to scribble this before bed. The blackout is annoying. Last night, crossing the grounds after my shift, I tripped over a root and almost sprained my ankle.
Friday, 2nd January, 1942
Our bright new hospital is no longer what it was. It used to be a nice place to work. The wards are filled with casualties from the fighting, and there are drip stands and oxygen cylinders everywhere. We also have some cases of battle fatigue, which I have never witnessed before. They are most unnerving. They want to do nothing except lie around and sleep all the time, but as soon as the bombs start to fall, or the artillery fire begins, they jump out of bed and hide underneath it, or try to dig holes in the earth or hide themselves under the sheets. It is very upsetting because there is so very little you can do but try to comfort them and talk to them. Their fear is terrifying to watch. Everything seems to be happening at once, and we are still rushed off our feet, filling in the forms, giving transfusions, sending patients off to the theatres. When we get back to our quarters after a long shift, all we want to do is take our uniforms off, lie down and fall asleep in the blissfully cool blast of an electric fan. That is all there is now. Work. Sleep. Work. Sleep.
Monday, 12th January, 1942
I heard that Kuala Lumpur fell yesterday. It can only be a matter of time now. Guns facing the sea are not much use when the enemy invades by land, which everyone said could never be done. We can turn them around, of course, but everyone says they are no use in this kind of battle. We would only end up shelling ourselves. The talk among all the European women in Raffles Hotel and the Cricket Club is whether to stay or go. They are frightened, and they would like to leave Singapore before it falls into the hands of the Japanese, but they do not want to leave their husbands and be perceived as cowards or deserters. The news coming out of Hong Kong is deeply disturbing. We hear of medical staff and patients alike tortured and killed, sisters subjected to the most degrading ordeals. It seems the Japanese have no respect for the Red Cross, for medical staff, for the wounded, or for women. Major Schofield told me they did not sign the Geneva Convention, so they do not play by our rules. I worry constantly about what has become of Stephen, Kathleen and Doris, and I shudder to think what that will mean for us when the Japanese arrive here, for arrive soon they surely must.
December 2010
On the day following Louise’s visit, I got two phone calls that gladdened my heart. The first was from my daughter Jane in Baltimore. She was ringing to ask me whether she could visit me for Christmas and bring her fiancé, Mohammed, with her.
Fiancé!
It was the first I had heard of this. Of course, I told her she could.
A short while later my director and best friend Dave Packer phoned to remind me of the offer I had made last time we talked, and to ask whether he and Melissa could take me up on it and come over for Christmas. They were planning a short tour of Europe and would love to include Richmond. Melissa had a break in her filming schedule, and Dave was mulling over a few scripts for his – he hoped
our
– next project. Again, I said yes, delighted. Dave was Jane’s godfather, and Melissa would certainly raise a few eyebrows around Richmond, I was sure of that.
So there
was
going to be a Christmas, after all. Though it was only early December, I would have to get busy soon, order the turkey, get a case of decent champagne delivered. Crackers. Presents. A tree. Tinsel. Lights. Ornaments. I started making a list and was about halfway through when the phone rang again.
It was Heather. ‘Look, I’m still at the office. It’s been a really, really bad day, and I could do with a drink before I head home. Any chance of you joining me?’
Her voice took some of the wind out of my sails. She sounded sad, tired. I looked at my watch. It was seven o’clock. I had plenty I wanted to tell Heather – and I certainly owed her a lot after all she’d done to help me. The only thing that held me back from jumping at the chance was that I still fancied her, and something like this would only serve to fuel my desire. Even so, I paused for only a few seconds before answering, ‘Sure. Black Lion, half an hour?’
‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘See you there.’
The Black Lion was fairly quiet at that time on a weekday evening in December. There was no live music, no pub quiz. A few late-season tourists sat at the tables in the dining room, finishing their meals. I hadn’t eaten yet, so I thought I might order fish pie or something. The reason I had chosen this particular pub was the little snug beyond the dining room, which fortunately was empty. I bought a drink at the bar and went to sit in there and wait. Five minutes later, Heather arrived and popped her head around the door.
‘I thought you might be in here,’ she said. ‘Very cosy.’
‘If you think it’s likely to do your reputation any harm being alone with me like this, we can go back into the public bar.’
‘What, and listen to regulars talk about football and last night’s television? You must be joking. No, I’ll risk my reputation, such as it is, thank you very much.’
She asked for a vodka and tonic, and I went to get it for her, casting my eyes over the menu chalked on the blackboard.
‘Eaten?’ I asked Heather when I got back.
‘I’m not hungry.’
I ordered fish pie at the bar and went back to join Heather in the tiny wood-panelled snug. The room was so small that if two people were in there and someone checked it out, they most likely wouldn’t come in. You could hear voices from the dining room and the public bar, but you couldn’t really make out what people were saying.
Heather downed her vodka and tonic with the speed of someone determined to get drunk. She looked fraught, frazzled, and there were bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. I wondered whether it was just work, or whether there was something else. When I brought her the second vodka and tonic, still working on my first pint of Tetley’s Cask, before I could ask her what was wrong, she said, ‘You might as well know, Derek and I are separating.’
