Hothouse Flower (40 page)

Harry spent the afternoon sleeping and was woken later by a bellboy knocking on his door to inform him that Mr Ainsley wanted to pop in and see him.

‘Send him in,’ nodded Harry, inwardly groaning at the familiar ache in his bones.

‘Dear boy, heard from Giselle you had a bit of an incident at the floating market this afternoon,’ Sebastian said as he came in. ‘Feeling rough again, are we?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Harry, ‘thought it might be the crowds, but it feels now as though it’s almost certainly not.’

‘Blast it!’ Sebastian sat down in a wicker chair. ‘I suppose that means you’ll be unable to travel home in a couple of days’ time. I came to tell you I’m booked on the ship too and was going to make the journey back to Blighty with you.’

‘I am sorry, old fellow, but just now, I doubt I will be fit enough to join you.’

‘I’ll get the doctor in to see you as soon as possible,’ said Sebastian morosely. ‘Bally shame and all that, though. Looking forward to sharing the high seas with you. Being stuck here for the past four years, I thought I would take the opportunity to go home and see the parents. The mater’s getting on rather, you know, dear old thing. Well now,’ Sebastian levered himself out of his chair, ‘I shall get the bellboy and tell him to send for the doctor forthwith. Will you be all right in Bangkok without me here?’

‘Of course I will,’ Harry reassured him.

‘Strange it’s me returning home rather than you, but there we are. I shall leave you some funds, of course. Have them reimbursed in Blighty. I’ll pop in to see your folks and reassure them you will be returning at some point. Don’t want them to think you’ve gone AWOL.’

‘No,’ muttered Harry, feeling ghastly.

‘Just one thing.’ Sebastian paused as he reached the door. ‘This country tends to be rather seductive, and the longer you stay, the more attractive it becomes. Don’t fall in love with it, dear boy, will you? Otherwise you may never return home.’

The doctor arrived and confirmed that Harry was suffering another bout of dengue fever.

‘You have been doing too much, too soon, my boy,’ he said, giving Harry a hefty dose of quinine to bring down his temperature. ‘I heard you playing in the bar the other night,’ he smiled. ‘And jolly good you were too. That’s off the agenda for now, along with alcohol. You know the ropes: rest, fluids, quinine when you need it, and let us hope we can keep you out of hospital this time.’

‘Yes, Doctor.’

‘I’m also going to prescribe you some vitamins. I shall get one of the boys to run along the road for them. And I shall be in to see you tomorrow. I will inform Madame and I am sure she will send someone to keep an eye on you.’

‘What do I owe you for your trouble, Doctor?’

The doctor turned round and gave a short smile. ‘It is I who owe you, my boy. It’s brave soldiers like you who won this damned war for us. Good day, Captain Crawford.’

Harry drifted in and out of a fitful, feverish sleep and, sometime during the evening, there was a soft tap on his door.

‘Come,’ he said. The door opened and there was Lidia, her eyes full of concern.

‘Madame tell me you still feel unwell. That you have dengue fever back again. It is my fault. I should not have taken you to such a hot, busy place when you are not strong.’

‘Lidia, really, I asked you to take me.’

Despite feeling so dreadful, Harry couldn’t help but stare at her. In the soft glow of the lamp, she looked so perfect; everything about her was exquisite to his feverish eyes. He felt a sudden unexpected and inappropriate surge of desire.

‘May I see your forehead?’ she asked, walking towards him.

‘
Feel
my forehead? Of course,’ he nodded, and enjoyed the sensation of her cool palm on his brow, not to mention the heavenly scent of her in such close proximity.

‘Yes, you are too warm,’ she pronounced. Then she produced a small bag of herbs from her skirt pocket. ‘At home, we use Chinese medicine always. This one especially for fever and aching bones. You want to try? I can make up as tea for you.’

‘Lidia, I will try anything,’ Harry said with fervour. ‘I am so damned sick of being sick.’

‘Then I will bring it to you and you will feel better by the morning. I promise,’ she smiled. ‘It contain magic.’

‘I do hope so,’ replied Harry, managing a smile in return.

‘I go and make it now.’

‘Thank you.’

Harry watched her leave and lay back. As he gazed up at the ceiling fan, he realised this seemingly rotten bad luck could have benefits.

Lidia was back ten minutes later, holding a glass.

‘I warn you, Harry, it taste very bad,’ she said as she helped him sit up.

‘Then it will work. Or, at least, that’s what my mother used to say when I was a little boy, and she was feeding me some foul medicine,’ joked Harry weakly.

‘Very bad,’ she reiterated as she put the glass to his mouth.

Harry almost gagged on the first mouthful but, remembering the live maggots he had eaten in Changi, told himself to stop being a jessie and drank it all down.

‘Gosh,’ he spluttered, ‘you were right.’

Lidia passed him some water to take away the taste.

‘Now, Harry, you rest. If you need anything, you ring bell. Madame has asked me to sleep in room across from you tonight. I check you in one hour. You will feel very, very hot soon, but is only herbs helping break fever and it will stop.’

‘I look forward to that,’ he gulped as she walked to the door. He wondered whether he had been foolish to trust her.

‘Do not worry, Harry. I will be here.’

Lidia’s prediction proved right: within an hour, Harry was on fire. Lidia arrived with cool cloths for his forehead, as he tossed and turned with a raging fever. A couple of hours later it abated. Exhausted, Harry fell into sleep.

36

Late the following morning, Harry woke feeling far better than he had expected. Although there was still an ache in his bones, its intensity had diminished, and when the doctor arrived, he confirmed with surprise that his patient’s temperature was indeed only one degree above normal.

‘Remarkable,’ the doctor surmised. ‘I thought you were in for another bad bout, but it seems not. Well done and keep up the good work.’

Lidia popped her head round the door after the doctor had left. She was holding another glass of evil-smelling herbs.

‘How are you, Harry?’

‘Better, thank you.’ He eyed the glass suspiciously. ‘You’ve not come to set me on fire again, have you?’

Lidia giggled, showing her perfect teeth. ‘Of course not,’ she answered, proud of the new words she had learnt from him. ‘This is for big strength, to build up body and stop bad dengue fever coming back. It give you energy and appetite. No fire, I promise.’

‘Does it taste as bad as the last one?’ Harry asked as he sat up, bracing himself.

‘Worse,’ she admitted, ‘so even better for you.’

Harry drank the foul-tasting mixture, then lay back panting, trying not to gag. ‘Are you a witch?’ he asked. ‘The doctor couldn’t believe how much I’d improved.’

‘Perhaps,’ she smiled, ‘but a good one. Now I must leave you, as I have new guests arriving very soon. I will come back later to see how strong you have grown.’

Harry chuckled as she left the room, thinking how delightful it was to watch her personality emerge as her confidence with him grew. And whatever these brews of hers were, they certainly worked.

By suppertime, Harry felt hungry, and ordered some noodles to be brought to his room. As he sat up in bed to eat them, he decided he was happy to continue having occasional bouts of the dreaded dengue fever if Lidia could be his nurse and his saviour.

Over the next couple of days, Harry slept far more than he felt he should and ate whatever was put in front of him. When he wasn’t sleeping, he thought about Lidia. She looked in to see him whenever she could, her eyes alight with pleasure that he was recovering.

And every day she looked more beautiful.

Harry began to live for her visits, fantasised afterwards about beckoning her over to the bed, enfolding her tiny body in his arms, kissing the perfectly formed arcs of her lips, feeling her small, sharp pearl-white teeth with his tongue … In his rational moments, Harry tried to reason that his enforced separation from females accounted for the effect she was having on him. On the other hand, he could not remember, in all his adult life, feeling like this about a woman.

He hardly knew her, or anything about her life beyond the little she had told him. But he
did
know her … she was kind, with a sense of humour, and very bright. Her grasp of English, the way she could make herself understood, despite her lack of vocabulary, was impressive. Used to the riddles of English girls with their full command of the language, he found it refreshing that Lidia said what she meant in so few words. And then there was her beauty. Harry had never been easily aroused physically, certainly not by thoughts alone. Now, picturing her would engender an immediate, urgent stirring in his groin. He supposed it was reassuring that all parts of him were still in full working order, after the physical and emotional beatings he had taken in Changi. And that, after all his doubting, a woman could finally induce such a strong physical reaction.

It was something he had never felt for Olivia.

His wife.

Harry thought back to all the times the fellows in Changi had discussed their feelings of lust and love. Was this what he felt for Lidia?
Love?

On the fourth day of his incarceration, and when, unusually, Lidia had not popped her head round the door to see how he was, Harry ventured out of his room at sunset. He strolled across the lobby to the Bamboo Bar, for want of something better to do, glancing at the reception desk on his way.

‘You are better?’ Giselle appeared behind him.

‘Yes, much, thank you. I was just wondering where Lidia had got to.’

‘She has taken a day off,’ Giselle said distractedly. ‘Family problems, I believe.’

Harry’s heart started to pound. ‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’

‘I do not know, Captain Crawford. I’m her employer, not her mother, although I am very fond of Lidia. She has a difficult life.’

Rattled, Harry headed to the Bamboo Bar, which was not due to open for an hour and was currently deserted. He sat down at the piano, lifted the lid and began to play.

Soon, the other musicians and the bartender started to drift through the door.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Yogi, the Dutch drummer. ‘We miss you when you don’t play with us.’

‘Ill,’ replied Harry.

‘You good for tonight?’ he asked.

‘I’m good for tonight,’ nodded Harry, thinking it might help take his mind off Lidia.

Harry played until midnight, drinking pints of water whilst the clientele succumbed to the effects of whisky. He was propositioned by a couple of tipsy middle-aged women, who offered to show him the sights of Bangkok if he would play naked for them. Harry thought the whole thing was a marvellous joke: his body was still skeletal, with a lumpy rice belly and flaky, vitamin-deprived skin.

On waking the following morning, his first thought was of Lidia, and whether she would be back today. He got out of bed and went down to the veranda for breakfast, having checked whether she was behind the desk. She was not.

The day wore on, punctuated only by the tailor who came to fit his new clothes, muttering under his breath at having to alter the waistbands of his trousers now that Harry’s rice belly was diminishing.

Harry kept passing through the lobby to check whether Lidia had arrived. After the third time, Giselle came over to him and shook her head. ‘She’s not in today either. I can only hope she’s not going to do what so many of these natives do here and just disappear.’

The thought made Harry’s stomach churn. He walked back to his room for his afternoon nap, lay on his bed and tried to sleep. He eventually gave up and started pacing around the room instead, wondering whether Giselle had Lidia’s address. If she didn’t tip up again tomorrow, perhaps he should go and hunt her down.

‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he chided himself out loud. ‘For pity’s sake; you’re just another guest at the hotel. You can hardly go chasing round Bangkok after random girls you hardly know!’ But, despite giving himself a jolly good talking to, Harry could think of nothing else. The rest of the day passed in an agony of suspense as he imagined the dreadful things that might have happened to her. He lay on his back at three in the morning, head resting on his hands, and realised this had to be more than simply a crush.

He was in love with her.

His relief when he walked into the lobby the next morning, and Lidia was sitting behind the reception desk as usual was palpable. He had to restrain himself from running over and putting his arms round her.

‘Lidia, you’re back! Are you … all right?’

‘Yes, Harry.’ Her eyes seemed darker than usual, her demeanour somehow dimmed, but she added: ‘I am all right.’

He studied her. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course.’