Hothouse Flower (52 page)

‘Any luck?’ Giselle asked, catching sight of him in the lobby.

‘No,’ Bill shook his head. ‘Eight down, twelve to go. To be honest, ma’am, I don’t know if I’m happy I haven’t found her, or disappointed.’

‘Here,’ Giselle handed him an envelope. ‘It is a staff photograph of Lidia, taken just before she left. It might help to show it at the hospitals. You never know.’ Giselle patted Bill on the shoulder. ‘Better luck tomorrow.’

Bill collected his key and went up to his room. He sank wearily on to the bed and opened the envelope to look at the photograph.

The black and white face which gazed back at him had the same delicate features of the many Thai women he had seen in Bangkok. Yet there was a light, a sparkle in Lidia’s huge eyes that gave her a radiance, lifting her beyond prettiness and making her beautiful. Bill gently touched the unblemished cheek, wondering if this young girl was aware of the upheaval she had caused him and others, thousands of miles away.

‘Where are you, Lidia?’ he murmured softly, and laid the photograph carefully on the nightstand by the bed.

After a shower and a change of clothes, Bill was drawn by the music coming from a room near the lobby, and he went into the Bamboo Bar. He ordered a beer and listened to the trio playing jazz. It was not really his sort of music – he preferred Vera Lynn or his beloved classical – but the atmosphere in the bar was vibrant and it lifted his spirits. He tried to imagine his Lordship playing the old Joanna in here – smiling, carefree and in love – but it was difficult. All that came to mind were the serious, drawn features of a young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

A young Thai girl asked if she could share the table with him and he nodded, taking very little notice of her as she ordered herself a Coca-Cola. She tried to make conversation with him in halting English and, assuming she was waiting for her young man to appear, Bill answered her questions. Twenty minutes later, when the girl had moved closer to him and he could feel her thigh purposefully brushing against his own, the penny dropped. Bill panicked and waved frantically at the waiter so he could sign the check and leave. The girl glowered with disappointment as Bill hurried out of the bar.

When he reached his room and shut the door firmly behind him, Bill realised he was breathing heavily. Even though he had done nothing, he paled at the thought of Elsie seeing him with another woman. There was no one else for him, there never had been, and the thought of hurting her made Bill feel physically sick. He had never understood the attraction of these oriental women; he had watched fellow soldiers throw themselves into the whorehouses of Singapore on their release, when all he could think about was his wife waiting patiently for him at home, with her big brown eyes, sweet freckled nose and plump white body.

Bill undressed and slid between the sheets, thinking that he and Elsie might not have the money or ease of the gentry they worked for, but they did seem to be blessed with something he now realised was rarer than a black orchid: undying love.

Another sweltering day greeted him, and the humidity felt so tight about Bill’s chest, it was as if the oxygen had been sucked from the air. He gulped the cooler air beneath the ceiling fans at the hospital reception desks, whilst the receptionists checked their admissions records for Lidia’s name, then studied her photograph and shook their heads.

Bill’s quest led him deeper into the city, leaving behind the graceful colonial architecture around the Oriental and the banks of the river. As he rode from hospital to hospital in his tuk-tuk, Bill saw temples painted in rich, bright colours, home to monks who rose at dawn and walked the filthy streets barefoot, holding bowls for the locals to fill with rice. And there were the homeless: cripples with disfigured limbs, women with young babies sitting in the gutters begging, despair clearly visible on their gaunt faces. The poverty was unlike anything Bill had ever seen and it struck him that, although these poor souls were free to go where they chose, their lives were little better than his had been in Changi.

The more Bill saw, the more he longed for the comfort and relative security of his life and home at Wharton Park. And realised just how blessed he was.

By the end of the day, Bill had visited every hospital in the city, to no avail. He walked back into the hotel, weary and demoralised, unsure where he should try looking for Lidia next. When he picked up his key from reception, Giselle saw him through her office window and came to speak to him.

‘I see from your face you have not found her.’

‘No,’ Bill sighed. ‘And I don’t know where to look next. Any ideas?’

‘Well, I was thinking you could try the neighbourhood where Lidia lived before her family left for Japan and she moved into the hotel. She could have gone back there.’

‘It’s worth a try, I suppose,’ Bill replied flatly.

‘I can give you her old address and perhaps you could show her photograph to some of her neighbours, the local street vendors. Maybe someone has seen her …’

Giselle’s voice tailed off. They both knew it was a tenuous link.

Bill scratched his aching head. ‘What I don’t understand is why she didn’t leave word here for his Lordship to tell him of her whereabouts? She was expecting him to come back and find her, after all.’

‘We cannot guess why she did this, Mr Stafford, we really cannot,’ Giselle answered, despairing for this good, loyal young man, whom, despite his lack of culture and education, was endearing himself to her more as each day passed.

‘Well, thank you for your help, ma’am. I’ll try this address tomorrow. My passage home is in ten days’ time and, even for his Lordship, I can’t stay any longer. I might not have a wife to go home to if I do,’ he added.

‘You can only do your best, Mr Stafford, and no more.’ She gave him a short smile and walked away.

Bill had the tuk-tuk take him on the twenty-minute drive to the address Giselle had given him. It was right in the heart of the city, a dark, narrow street lined with tall wooden buildings which leant towards each other at strange angles and looked as if a puff of wind would send them toppling over. The smell of food rotting in the gutters was overpowering and Bill’s stomach contracted as he stood in front of the building where Lidia had apparently once lived.

His knock at the door summoned an ancient woman with a toothless smile. Having gathered it was pointless trying to speak to the locals, Bill thrust the photograph in front of her.

She nodded. And pointed upstairs.

‘She’s here?’ Bill’s heart skipped a beat. The woman spoke in fast Thai, shaking her head and gesticulating. Bill put his foot on the threshold.

‘Lidia? Up?’

‘
Mai, mai, mai
!’

Bill at least knew this meant ‘no’.

‘Where is she then? Lidia?’ He mimed and gesticulated too.

Then the door was slammed in his face, nearly amputating his toes.

Bill banged on the door for several minutes, to no response. He paced up and down the street, knocking on the doors to either side, this exercise proving equally fruitless.

It was hopeless. He would simply have to return home and tell his Lordship he had failed to find her. If he was honest, it had been a doomed mission from the start. A missing girl, just after a war, lost in a city of millions. And a westerner, looked on with suspicion by the locals, and unable to communicate with them. He must not feel guilty. He had done his best by Harry, but the fact was, he had nowhere else to look. He would spend the time he had left buying his orchid specimens, and would leave for England as planned.

Bill walked slowly down the street, looking for his tuk-tuk driver, who seemed to have disappeared. When he turned the corner, he came upon a large, noisy market. He bought himself a bowl of noodles and wandered aimlessly through the stalls until he spied one overflowing with a wonderful selection of colourful, sweet-smelling orchids. He stopped in front of it to study the plants, many of which he had not seen before.

‘Help you?’ said a voice from behind the foliage.

Bill squinted through the row of
Dendrobium
and saw a tiny man squatting on the floor.

‘You speak English?’ Bill asked in surprise.

‘Litten English, yes.’ The man stood up and appeared from behind the flowers. At full height he reached Bill’s chest. ‘Help you, sir? Have many rare orchid here. My family, we bring from our nursery in Chiang Mai. We famous,’ he said proudly. ‘Supply royal palace.’

‘I can see the plants are unusual.’ Bill pointed at a particularly stunning orange orchid, its delicate narrow petals covered in darker veins, centred around a white longitudinal crest. He put his bowl of noodles and the photograph down on the trestle table, and picked up the plant to study it more closely.

‘What is this?’

‘That, sir, is
Dendrobium unicum
. It rare and expensive.’ The man grinned. ‘It like strong light and dry weather.’

‘And this?’ Bill picked up a plant with gossamer-fine lilac petals. He wished he had brought paper and a pen to write down the names and details of the flowers. This man seemed to know what he was talking about.

‘That, sir,
Aerides odoratum.
Grow on ground in forest. Like shade.’

‘And this?’

For the next twenty minutes, Bill forgot all about Lidia and entered a world he understood and loved. His fingers were itching to buy the entire stall and ship it home to his hothouse. Then he could spend the next few months getting to know each specimen, experimenting with temperature, light and moisture, and see if he could grow the genus for himself from the original plant, perhaps even cross-fertilise it and produce a hybrid.

‘Are you here tomorrow?’ Bill asked, wondering how he could find transport for all the plants he wished to take, and where he would store them when he did.

‘Every day, sir.’

‘I want to ship the orchids I buy to England, you see.’

‘Yes, sir. I organise. We can send crate to dock to join your ship.’

‘And I will be here when you pack it and load it,’ Bill said firmly, not wanting to set sail and find he had been sold five crates of daisies. ‘I will come back tomorrow to choose the plants and bring you the details.’

‘Okay, sir. I see you tomorrow.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ Bill turned to walk away, his head still full of orchids.

‘Sir! Sir! You forget photograph!’

The man was behind him, flapping the photograph at him.

‘Yes, I did. Thank you.’ He reached out for it and saw the man studying it.

He looked up at Bill and smiled. ‘She very beautiful. I know her.’

Bill gulped. ‘You know her?’

‘Yes. She is Lidia. Good customer of mine. She live round there.’ The man pointed to the street from which Bill had come. ‘But I not see her now. Maybe she gone.’

Bill tried to keep calm and speak slowly so the man could understand him. ‘Can you find out where she has gone?’

‘Yes, easy. My cousin her friend for many year. I ask her.’

‘Please. As soon as possible. It is very important I find her.’

‘Why?’ The man frowned. ‘She in trouble? Don’t want trouble.’

‘No, nothing like that.’ Bill knew it was pointless trying to explain in full so he said, ‘Tell your cousin to say that Harry is here looking for Lidia. She will understand.’

The man thought for a moment. ‘Okay. But I must visit cousin and take time to find.’

Bill produced a note from his pocket and handed it to him. ‘I will be back tomorrow and I will pay you more if you have news for me.’

The man smiled. ‘Okay, sir. I do my best.’

‘Thank you.’

Bill walked away, hardly daring to hope that such a chance encounter would produce the result he so desperately needed.

47

‘I have found her, sir,’ the flower man informed Bill gravely the next morning.

‘Where is she?’

There was a long pause as the man studied his filthy toes. On cue, Bill took two further notes from his pocket and handed them to him.

‘I take you there now.’ The man whistled at the boy on the next stall to keep watch over his own, and indicated that Bill should follow him.

‘Miss Lidia move now,’ the flower man explained as he led Bill through a labyrinth of filthy streets. ‘Her life … not good. My cousin say she velly, velly sick. Can’t work, can’t pay for home.’

‘What has happened to her?’ Bill asked, his heart racing at the thought of what he might find.

‘Think you know, sir,’ the man said glumly. ‘But I go see her and say Harry here and she velly happy. She say come. You help her, yes? Think she dying.’

The flower man had stopped in front of a building, its wooden door half rotted and patched with planks. As he stepped inside, Bill nearly tripped over a one-legged beggar sitting by the door. He clamped his jaw against the familiar smell of the unwashed and the sick that filled the chokingly hot, airless room. The man led him up some narrow, creaking stairs and knocked on a door.

A murmur answered. The flower man spoke in Thai through the door, eliciting another faint murmur.