Separation, The (27 page)

The decaying hospital, once a palatial District Officer’s residence, had been taken over by Japanese during the war, and used as a prison. The sombre building, halfway up the hill, now a place to house the mentally ill, was entered through an intricately carved wooden door. Inside, Lydia shrank from the stench. With no natural light and a series of locked doors spaced round an octagonal hallway, it wasn’t hard to imagine the screams of torture victims. She flinched at the thought of how much pain must have been absorbed into those walls.

With fists clenched, and a stern face, Adil walked over to the office. There was no trace of the previous evening’s gentleness. At the desk he flashed his ID. A reluctant guard nodded, then opened one of the doors and led them through the length of the building. From the floor above came the sound of misery: a peal of unnatural laughter, soft persistent weeping, a sudden low pitched sob. Just as they became accustomed to the gloom, the guard opened another door, indicating they should enter.

‘Press the bell when you want to leave.’ The man grunted and slammed the door.

Lydia heard the key turn in the lock and looked about her. It was a drab little room, from which all colour had drained away. A stink of urine and disinfectant came from a covered bucket in one corner, and there was the sound of water from an underground stream flowing beneath the floor. With the damp, the smells of the jungle leaked through. Lydia’s stomach turned over.

Lili sat on a metal chair. Ragged and changed beyond recognition, her formerly luminous complexion grey, her slim frame emaciated, the beautiful long hair roughly shorn. She raised a face dotted with mosquito bites, and lined with rage.

‘Are they mistreating you?’ Lydia asked, appalled.

The girl got up, spun round and hurled her chair at Lydia. It clattered against the wall, before landing on the floor, missing her target. She launched herself at Lydia. Adil caught her arm and forced her back. Eyes darting between them, she struggled, scratching and clawing at Adil’s face, and beating his chest. When she eventually grew limp, he let her go.

‘She stole him from me.’ She hissed the words and narrowed her eyes, a thin smile twisting her features. ‘Only I knew what Jack really liked.’

Pulling up her skirt, she turned round with her back to them, and made a rotating movement with her naked arse.

Lydia recoiled, suppressing the urge to retch.

‘I only persuaded his mother the child was in danger. In return for helping her get Maznan back, they said …’ She paused and hung her head. ‘I did not want them to kill him.’

‘Go on,’ Adil said coldly.

Lili winced. ‘They agreed to bring Jack for me.’

Lydia’s hand went to her mouth.

‘No! Not to kill him. If I helped them get Maznan, they would take Jack away. From you. White bitch. Not kill him.’ She pointed at Lydia, then leant her skeletal body against the wall and slumped to the floor.

Adil went across to her, lifted her by the arms, placed her chair the right way up and sat her down on it. ‘Do you want a glass of water?’

She shrank back, and stifled a sob. A silence fell. Lydia looked at the dim square of light at the barred window. She wanted to blame the girl, but this wasn’t her fault. An image etched on the back of her eyes surfaced once again. Jack lying in the dust, his blood congealing.

After the girls died, she’d hoped her love for Jack would be the road to salvation. That together they’d give each other what both longed for. Instead she brought death to him and insanity to Lili. No one had been saved. She felt dizzy in the stagnant air. There
was no salvation in this hellish country, only the certainty of heat, sweat and violence.

Adil motioned Lydia towards the door.

‘What happened to Maznan’s mother? Have they got her?’ Lydia asked him.

‘I never meant for him to die,’ Lili sobbed. ‘I loved him.’

Adil pressed the bell. ‘I’ll tell you afterwards.’

‘I painted the wall of the temple,’ the girl said, in a sing-song tone, staring at Lydia with a dangerous edge to her black eyes.

Lydia caught Adil’s eye. He shrugged.

‘I painted four dragons, galloping in the sky. But I painted their pupils in. It was big mistake. They flew away.’ She laughed bitterly and spat on the filthy floor.

Adil glanced back at her.

She put one finger to her mouth and gave him a fierce look. ‘Shhh! Just one remained. The one with a blank eye …’ She trailed off, still staring at him.

They left the room and were shown out of the back entrance. Relieved to be out in fresh air, Lydia closed her eyes and breathed freely. Adil was already moving off.

‘You said you’d tell me about Maz’s mother,’ she said, catching up.

‘Maz’s mother became one of the girls who collects subscriptions. Dressed up as a tapper, in dark blue with a black headscarf.’

Lydia frowned.

‘She collected subscriptions for the people on the inside. She got access that way. To the insiders, and at the same time to the workers on the plantation.’

‘And how did Lili end up here?’

He shrugged. ‘After she was picked up by harbour police they decided she was deranged.’

Beneath a pink sky they walked on to a once beautiful mosaic floor, now pockmarked, and surrounded by white hibiscus grown ten feet high. It gave on to rambling overgrown gardens, where fragments of sound rose from the town below. A flock of birds
swooped by, and in a distant part of the grounds, she heard a door swing in a sudden breeze. She looked towards the sound.

‘It’s a summerhouse. Would you like to see?’

He walked with purpose to a crumbling pavilion. The house itself was hidden in a small grove, and surrounded by half a dozen tall trees, their branches leaning in to form a patterned canopy. Chattering monkeys raced up the trunks, to swing, one handed, from the top. Flowers of intense rose pink, with dark wrinkled leaves, fought their way through the windows, and the broken glass was tinted gold as the sun sank behind the mountain.

The door was warped, but with a determined push from Adil’s shoulder, it gave way. Within, all that remained was a wooden bench and a couple of shabby rattan armchairs.

‘I used to come here you know. In the beginning, George got me a job as a waiter. Those dazzling pre-war social extravaganzas. It’s where I first met Cicely, laden with necklaces and bangles halfway up her arms, all bought from the spice market. Nineteen, penniless, and reckless.’

Lydia stared him in the eye. He was showing the strain.

‘Of course it wasn’t like this then. It was a scene set for love. Harriet Parrott saw to that. Silk cushions, scented candles, incense, flowers.’ He spat into the dust.

Goose bumps came up on her skin. ‘What is Cicely to you?’

He cleared his throat. ‘I told you we worked together.’

‘That’s all?’

A brief silence followed. At the back of her mind something wasn’t right and she realised she didn’t quite believe him.

He ran a hand across his smooth head. ‘She’s a dangerous woman.’ There was a pause as he looked about. ‘Come on. Let’s go. I hate this place.’

‘Is it just the place?’ She tried to meet his eye, but he snorted and avoided contact. She watched him carefully, his face in profile now. ‘I’m right aren’t I? There is something else?’

‘I didn’t realise it showed.’

‘Why?’

‘You sure you want to know?’

She nodded, but had become used to searching for clues and felt a twinge of fear. If he was about to fill in the gaps, she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to see the whole picture.

His voice was distant as he began to speak, and she was reminded of how he had seemed when they first met. She’d almost forgotten that cool haughty man, and watched as he turned his back on her.

‘A jeep full of Japanese soldiers took my mother to a place very like this. This and other buildings like it. Mainly they wanted underage Chinese girls, but even though she was older, she still had a freshness about her and an air of fragility, so they gave her to the young green boys who treated her brutally. She was lucky to live. Most were kicked to death, or had their throats slit.’

Lydia looked through the broken glass in the window at the darkening sky. She closed her eyes and concentrated on his voice.

‘They put her in a tank of cold water up to her neck. She had to stand for forty-eight hours or drown. How she survived …’

He paused, and she opened her eyes. He seemed somewhere else, and the shrug of hopelessness he gave, palms held uppermost, twisted her heart.

‘They kept her for six months. Then one day they threw her out on to the street, naked, stinking of faeces and vomit, and covered in sores from where they put out cigarettes on her flesh.’

He pulled at a rope of dark leaves that twisted through a broken window. Picked a large, intensely pink rose, brought it to his nose, then let it drop to the ground. Very deliberately, he placed his heel on it and ground it into the dirt.

‘As I said, she was lucky, if you can call it that. Many were forced to dig their own graves, then buried alive. She never recovered. Not really. Later, in her greatest hour of need, I …’

He hesitated.

‘I was just too busy. The last time I saw her, she barely recognised me. Can you imagine how that feels, Lydia? I will never forgive myself. Never.’

Lydia sat completely still, the air between them thickening. As his words sank home, she felt for the first time the pain in them, the inaccessible place he kept hidden.

‘I’m so sorry, Adil.’

He shrugged. ‘That was the world then.’

‘Do many Japanese remain?’

‘All I know is, very few bastards were born. They had a habit of killing the women they raped. I know all men are capable of cruelty, but because of my mother …’

‘Adil.’

He clenched his fists. ‘The war here ended in the middle of August, following the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Thank God for it!’

She gulped, shocked by his words.

He lit a cigarette.

‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ she said, wanting to help, but not knowing how.

‘Only sometimes.’

‘What will happen to Lili?’

‘She’ll get better. They’ll let her out. She might get a chance to work in one of the troupes of actors. Or she’ll turn to prostitution.’

‘And Maznan’s mother?’

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve had enough. I’ll tell you on the way.’

They left the summerhouse and passed back through the lonely gardens. A flat, black Malayan night descended with the rapidity of a curtain, and a depth of blackness like no other. She kept close to Adil. She didn’t want to stumble in the dark, but she didn’t actually touch him either.

‘In the end Maznan’s mother came out. She’ll be in detention by now with her son.’

‘Maz will be all right?’

‘I think so.’

‘Won’t she be a target for the terrorists?’

He shrugged. ‘Hopefully not. More and more are surrendering.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s suffering on the inside. It’ll be over soon. Since Templer took over in nineteen fifty-two, it’s only been a matter of time.’

Lydia knew. Alec said Templer was a tough, hands on Commissioner, who, along with the Psychological Warfare Department, used every trick to counter terrorism.

‘His idea, was it, the acting troupes and film vans?’ she asked.

Adil nodded. ‘It’s working at last.’

Only the tip of his cigarette lit their way, and in the darkness she lost her balance. She tipped forward, her heel caught in a crack in the hard ground. He reached out a hand to break her fall, but when she examined the shoe, she felt the high heel hanging uselessly. She pulled it right off. Now she had no option but to lean on him as she hobbled towards the entrance where they’d parked.

‘So Maz is with his mother?’ she asked, once they reached the tarmac.

‘I told you I’d find someone who knew. That was the tip-off I had yesterday, but I wanted us to see Lili to confirm her involvement.’

That night it was her turn on the sofa. She padded into the kitchenette, mixed herself a large gin and quietly pulled up the blinds. A full moon slipped from between the clouds to silver an expanse of water, punctuated by dark sampans. She examined her nails, filed, clean, lacquered, prettier than when she lived with Jack. Oh, Jack, she thought, can I have forgotten you so soon? Only when the gin tingled in her blood and she felt light-headed could she relax.

Now she knew the truth about Jack’s death, and what had happened to Maz, what was there to keep her here? After all, that’s what she’d come to find out. And as for Adil, she couldn’t allow
herself to get closer. Apart from the fact he wasn’t white, it was far too soon, and Jack still cast a long shadow.

She thought of Adil and scanned the horizon in the dark, tried not to imagine him asleep in the next room. She felt the war inside her. Her mistrust and her need. Who is he? she thought. He’d done all he said he would, but none the less, she was sure he’d withheld something.