Separation, The (19 page)

The idea of the new villages was to isolate the terrorists from their supporters. Lydia knew that, but was still shocked by sharp bamboo spikes, embedded in a moat surrounding three, parallel, chain wire fences and, at intervals, huge observation towers.

She glanced at Jack. In a white, freshly laundered shirt he looked handsome, but out of place.

‘The police will let us know if they get any leads,’ he said. ‘But I reckon this place is our best bet. Unless he’s in the jungle.’

Once through security, they began to search.

Lydia held her nose. ‘It smells awful.’

‘It’s latrines,’ Jack said. ‘There’s no running water.’

The place was bigger than she’d thought, noisy, and packed with people. For a moment her heart sank. ‘This’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack. How many people are there?’

‘A couple of thousand.’

‘What do they do here?’

‘Some are my tappers.’

‘And the rest?’

He shrugged. ‘The rest are a problem.’

Lydia brushed off the mosquitoes from her arms, and looked at the chilling rows of drab huts, none of them bigger than a garden shed.

‘It looks like a concentration camp,’ she said.

A bell clanged and a loudspeaker bellowed an announcement. The crowd thickened, and the noise stepped up a level. People began making their way to a raised platform, at one end of a bare open area. It was six o’clock and growing dark.

Her heart lifted. ‘Look! Over there.’

A small, brown-skinned boy hung back in the shadow of a hut.

‘Maz?’ she called and stepped towards him. ‘Is it you?’

The boy came out of the darkness, a ragged, dark-eyed child.

She sighed. ‘I suppose it was a bit too much to hope for.’

Jack put an arm round her.

‘What if he’s hurt? Is there a doctor?’

Jack shook his head. ‘Shall we hang on here? If Maz is anywhere, he’ll likely be watching.’

‘Not if he’s held captive, he won’t.’

‘Let’s just scan the crowd in case, and put the word round after. Try not to make it too obvious that you’re looking.’

She tried to ignore the stale smell of sweating bodies as they followed the horde gathering at the stage. Jack slipped them into a gap near the front, where lanterns covered with green and orange saris were hung for jungle atmosphere. A beaten gong signalled the start.

Chinese dancers, in traditional dress and elaborate headgear, came out from behind a makeshift curtain. Lydia looked past the performers, head swivelling, eyes scanning the crowd. There were dozens of children that might have been Maz. She’d start to smile, think she’d spotted him, become excited, but every time it was not.

The Assistant DO stepped out to introduce the play.

‘It’s a piece of propaganda from our side,’ Jack said. ‘To persuade young girls to stop idolising the insurgents.’

Right now Lydia didn’t care. All she cared about was finding Maz.

The play began.

‘Smile. Try to act normally,’ Jack whispered.

Lydia wasn’t listening. Blood pounded in her ears. She’d seen someone. Not Maz, but in the crowd on the other side of the stage, Lili stood squashed between two rough-looking men. No longer dressed smartly, she seemed unwell. Shocked by the girl’s thin face, Lydia tugged on Jack’s elbow and turned to him.

‘There – it’s Lili. She looks awful.’

When she glanced back, the girl had gone.

‘I don’t think it would have been her,’ he said. ‘Lili knows how
to take care of herself. I’m sure she’s okay. Come on, let’s go. Maz isn’t here.’

‘Where next?’

‘Search the outer areas. Then work back to the centre.’

After elbowing their way out, they passed a square metal container, rather like a large hut, and heavily padlocked. Dozens of birds were scavenging in the dust.

‘It’s a food silo,’ he said, seeing her frown. ‘The police control the supply.’

They carried on towards the end of the camp, where a ripe stench of swamp reached them from beyond the moat. Here the paths between the huts were muddy, the insect-laden air heavy, and no children ran about. Lydia looked past the wire and into the jungle’s dark green depths. She felt its silence even more than its noise, couldn’t bear to think of Maz out there.

‘Not much hope here,’ Jack said.

She shook her head, and crossed her fingers that he’d be here somewhere.

They retraced their steps and stopped at a coffee house. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask the owner.’

Dozens of leaflets flapped in the dust. She picked one up, and stared at pictures of fat ex-terrorists, showing off in front of their starving comrades. The Chinese letters stamped across the top were no doubt a call to surrender. She sat to wait for Jack, watched a bunch of children run along the narrow path. Could Maz be one of them? She called his name. None turned. Instead, a man came up, smelling of strong tobacco. He held out his hand, his face too close, reached in the pocket of his loose black trousers. Lydia drew back, afraid he was about to pull a knife. But all he held in his hand was a worn cloth purse.

She searched in her bag for coins, and put ten cents on the table. She felt uneasy. It was nearing dusk and paraffin lanterns shining from the huts made the place look friendlier, but her heart still thumped.

Jack came out with cups of coffee.

‘I’m glad you’re back. Any news?’

‘No. But look. It’s Bert.’

He pointed at a man keeping an eye on the crowd on the other side of the narrow street, while two soldiers went from hut to hut, and occasionally dragged people out.

‘They’re looking for anything illegal, to stop stuff getting out. If they do find something, the owner will be detained for eighteen months.’

‘Without trial?’ Lydia said.

He nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

They went over to Bert and she asked him about Maz.

The policeman shook his head. ‘The local Malay cops told me about a missing child. Sorry, I’ve not heard anything. Come on. I’ll look with you, then see you back to the exit.’

They turned into a shop a hundred yards down. It was dark inside with two pools of light from Kerosene lamps. Jack questioned the shopkeeper and asked him to keep an eye out for the boy.

They continued to ask at each shop and coffee house for another half hour, then Bert led them past the smell of the swamp again and back to security, where a crowd seemed to be heading. Lydia felt her skin prickle. A baby screamed, and a row of beggars lined the rubbish-strewn street. Jack held Lydia’s elbow and barged his way through the crowd.

All the time, she searched for Maz.

She missed his trusting pale eyes, his sweet face, the way he counted and chased butterflies. Couldn’t bear that he was lost somewhere in this alien world. She prayed again that his mother had taken him, but not to be with the rebels in the jungle. She glanced up. Even against the darkening sky, the jungle still stood out, black, hump-backed, and ragged. Birds of prey circled overhead. She wanted to cry.

Shrill voices reached them from a group clustered at the exit. She felt an undercurrent of fear. Jack stiffened and she craned her neck to see. Her mouth fell open and she grabbed Jack’s arm.

Two corpses had been thrown in the mud inside the enclosure, stripped naked and riddled with bullet holes. In the gloom Lydia stared at their broken emaciated bodies and lifeless eyes. Somebody’s son, somebody’s brother. She heard the sound of counting, and looked round to see a row of old women in black, pointing out the number of holes to each other and shaking their heads.

‘It’s a great deterrent,’ Bert said, viewing the bodies.

Lydia let go of Jack’s arm and stepped back. ‘So on the one hand we entertain them and on the other we scare them half to death.’

‘That’s pretty much it,’ Jack said.

‘But they’re people, Jack.’

‘Probably the same ones who burnt down the rest house,’ Bert said, stony faced. ‘They want to frighten us, make us feel so unsafe we give in.’

At a loss for words, Lydia stopped listening. The smell, the sights, the noise were too much. She felt herself sway, noticed Jack scowl, then hold out a hand to steady her.

‘Don’t fool yourself,’ he said. ‘They call it an Emergency for the insurance, but mark my words it’s war. And everyone’s on the make.’

‘Well, heaven help us,’ she said.

Jack snorted. ‘Heaven. I don’t think so.’

The floodlights at the gate came on, and a tall man let them through and across the moat, his shaven head and upright stature a reminder of Adil, the man she’d met on her train journey. For a moment she even thought it was Adil. Wished it might be him, come to help them with his knowledge of how things worked in this country. Help them find Maz. But, of course, it was not, and as they passed she saw the resemblance was only slight. They were on their own. Though Jack would do his best, there would be no help to find a little half-caste boy. Not from the police, not from anyone.

My mother’s disappearance was an unbearable hurt I kept hidden almost all the time at boarding school. She might be missing but I didn’t believe she was dead. At night I returned to Malaya, to pounding rain that splashed a yard up in the air as it hit the pavement, and monsoon drains swimming with dirty overflowing water. I heard my mother’s voice, woke drenched in sweat and shaking from the loss, terrified she had never loved me.

By day, Susan Edwards and I poked fun at teachers
and
pupils. It was our only way to survive. She told me her mother had come home from India, pregnant, and had given birth in a hostel for unmarried mums, in Birmingham. The social found a family who wanted a little girl, but even after they adopted her, Susan didn’t fit in, and this had resulted in banishment to Penridge Hall.

‘Who’s paying your fees?’ I asked her, during an unofficial break in a trudge through the countryside. Cross-country trekking they called it.

‘The local authority. There was nowhere else to put me. Rebecca’s the same, though she won’t admit it. I overheard the head telling a teacher no one will have her. She’s actually funded by a charity for disturbed children, and it was either here or borstal.’

I was surprised. Susan nodded and pulled a face, but it made me wonder.

‘Gran said Dad’s stony broke,’ I said. ‘And she almost let slip that it isn’t him paying for me. At least I think she did.’

‘Why not just ask him?’

‘You don’t know my dad.’

‘We could find out,’ Susan said lightly.

‘How?’

She tapped the side of her nose.

‘I did attack that man. Would that make a difference?’

‘I’d have thought you’d get borstal for that.’

‘He didn’t press charges. His sister’s Dad’s girlfriend.’

‘It could be the education authority, or a charity, like Rebecca.’

I frowned. ‘But I thought her parents were rich?’

‘So she says!’

We were standing under the canopy of a wide horse chestnut, the best tree for conkers in the autumn. I looked at the view of washed-out fields and smudgy clouds.

‘If the school want us to go trekking, they should take us to Malaya,’ I said, and stuck out my chin. ‘In the jungle.’

‘Oh, shut up about Malaya. What do you think?’ She peered ahead. ‘We can dive off in a minute, and head back the quick way, through the woods.’

I thought of the night I’d spent there alone. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Or we can go down the back lane. Go on, Em. It might be your dad or it might be the council. Don’t you want to know who’s paying? It’ll be a laugh. There’s nobody in the office now. And at least we’ll get out of the bloody drizzle.’

I loved the way she swore, dark eyes shining, and she was right, the dull grey sky was hardest to bear. And on Wednesdays, straight after lunch, the whole school went on a hike across the countryside, all the teachers too.

We climbed over a fallen-down piece of fencing, jumped the ditch at the edge of the road, crossed a meadow where the long grass was cool on our legs, and immediately were in the back lane. Half an hour later, we approached the school buildings, and the only place to climb into the grounds from the back lane, unseen.

Inside the building we skulked round corridors, hung back in alcoves, and hissed at each other like secret agents.

‘I’ll wait here and watch the corridor. You just go and check the office really is unlocked,’ she said.

We had to stop ourselves getting the giggles as I padded to the
headmistress’s room, turned the handle, and pushed the door open. Inside it was stacked floor to ceiling with files. I beckoned Susan over.

Her face fell. ‘Blimey. There are hundreds. We’ll never find yours in a million years.’

‘We’d better start then,’ I said. ‘But remember, put each one back exactly as you find it.’

‘I’d rather mess them all up,’ she said with a laugh, and marched round the room yanking open random drawers. She picked out a magazine from the waste paper basket.

‘Ooh get her! She reads
Woman and Home
.’ She held out a picture of a woman with neatly set hair, wearing a pinny, with a fixed smile on her face.

I snatched it and read the words in a posh clipped voice: ‘
For every woman, happiness and fulfilment lie in the kitchen and nursery, the most rewarding and satisfying places for a woman to be. With an eight-page pull out of knitting patterns and a sensitive story by Lucilla Smythe-Watkins.
’

Susan stuck out her tongue.

I grabbed a chair and almost fell into a bowl of dog food. We hardly ever saw the terrier. From the chair I was able to scan the top files close up, and saw there wasn’t any need to move them. You just needed to crick your neck and bend your head sideways. Each one had a sticky label on the spine, with a name and year of arrival clearly typed.

‘Aren’t they in alphabetical order?’

I stared at them. ‘Some are. I’ll keep going up here. You look down there.’

‘But they go back for years. And they’re all different colours.’

As the sun came out and threw a pattern of leaves on an open newspaper on the head’s desk, Susan picked her way through more magazines piled up on a chair beside it.

‘Get her! There’s one here with Marilyn Monroe on the front.’

‘I thought we were looking for my file.’

‘
The star who shines
,’ she read, ‘
the truth behind the dream
.’

‘Oh my God, I think I’ve found it!’ I pulled out a file with my name in bold letters across the front and side.

The head’s voice carried up from below the window.

Susan froze.

‘You go,’ I said.

Susan shot me a grateful smile over her shoulder and dashed out. Seconds later I heard another pair of footsteps tapping along the corridor and a shrill neighing voice call out.

‘What are you doing in this corridor, girl?’

‘I felt sick, Miss,’ Susan said, in a loud voice, so that I’d know.

‘Did you ask permission to leave the walk?’

‘No, Miss. I’m going to be sick, Miss.’

‘Well, hurry along to sickbay. Though I can’t imagine why you came this way.’

I quickly scanned the room. What if she brings the terrier too? He’ll be sure to growl.

Behind the desk, two sash windows overlooked the playing fields, with floor-length curtains blocking out some of the daylight. I had no choice. There was nowhere else. I slid between the semi-drawn curtain and the window, clutched the file to my chest, and hoped the twilight wouldn’t make the headmistress close them and therefore catch me there. I held my breath, scared that with eyes in the back of her head, she would be able to see right through the curtain.

She turned on a lamp and golden light filled the room. Thank goodness, no dog. She sat at her desk only a yard from me, pushed the newspaper aside and started to write. It went on for about an hour, though I daren’t risk a peek at my watch. The walkers laughed and joked as they arrived back, and a car accelerated in the distance. I heard the mistresses’ voices hurrying them along, sounding grumpy from the walk. They’d be doing evening register soon. I was dying to spend a penny, and my foot had gone to sleep. It went on and on, the curtains smelling so badly of chalk dust, I struggled not to sneeze. When the phone rang, I crossed my fingers and sucked in my breath.

‘Hello. Miss Watson. Penridge Hall.’

Oh, please let it mean she has to go.

She swung in her creaky swivel chair, talked for a few minutes then got up and yawned. As she cleared the desk, it felt like an age. Finally she switched off the light, and only then walked out of the office, locking the door from the other side. Oh no! That was it. I’d be found. In the morning. All I could think was I’d have to go to the loo in the waste bin. Then I realised the office was only one floor up, and beneath it, to the left, stood the bicycle sheds. Could the other window be directly over the sheds? It was a sash window and a bit stiff, but I pushed hard, and opened it enough to look out sideways at the blue-black sky. I crossed my fingers, looked down, and with a sigh of relief, saw one end of a bicycle shed directly below.