Separation, The (29 page)

She pouted, then bit her lip and bent across to Lydia. She flicked a speck of nothing from Lydia’s shoulder, licked her finger and slowly ran it down Lydia’s neck to her cleavage. Lydia froze and Cicely took her chance, pulled Lydia to her and kissed her firmly on the lips.

For a moment Lydia didn’t react. She had never been kissed by a woman before, never even imagined it. She blinked rapidly, came to with a start, then shook Cicely off and held her at arm’s length.

‘You’re drunk.’

‘Don’t say you didn’t find that just the littlest bit enjoyable. You are luscious, Lydia dear, and I want to go to bed with you. I’m staying here. So it’s awfully convenient, isn’t it. What do you say?’

There was a silence.

‘Just one night, darling?’

Lydia shook her head and began to laugh.

Cicely’s face spasmed, then she smiled brightly. ‘Is it so funny?’

Lydia shook her head again. Cicely, used to attracting the stares of men and women alike, suddenly looked pitiable, an aging, melting ice queen. There was another long silence as Lydia raked her fingers through her hair. What was the source of Cicely’s misery? She looked at her friend closely, at the slightly flaring nostrils, her painted lips and the gorgeous topaz eyes.

‘I loved him you know. Adil. The only one I ever have. Something in his eyes. And, oh my, what a body!’ Cicely declared. ‘But don’t underestimate Adil. He’s a dangerous man.’

‘Funny, that’s what he said about you. Come on.’ Lydia seized her arm. ‘I’m putting you to bed. On your own.’

Outside the wind was getting up and Lydia felt the cool air as she bundled Cicely into the lift. She heard a mumble and decided to ignore it, but Cicely repeated the words.

‘What was that?’ Lydia asked, not really expecting clarity.

‘George paid Adil to get you to stop off at Jack’s, you know, paid him to delay your arrival at Ipoh.’

She decided to put it down to Cicely’s drunken rambling, but that night dreamt her teeth were crumbling. As soon as they were rebuilt they began to crumble again, as soft as chalk. It left her feeling as if she was no longer walking on solid ground.

Billy and I saw each other a lot at the start of the summer holidays. It was a good way to put the forthcoming wedding to the back of my mind, and he was fun. We sloped about the village, or met at the bus stop with other local kids, or hung about at the old Thomas Telford Bridge to see what came down with the river. Mostly it was debris, though once a dead sheep dipped and plunged on its way past. Of course Billy and I were waiting for the day a body appeared, all puffed up and crinkled.

We were in the bus shelter keeping out of the rain when Billy gave me a nudge and said, ‘Em. Why don’t we go to the barn again?’ He shrugged. ‘Only if you want.’

It was as if he read my mind. With a big grin, he looked me straight in the face. Then, he combed his great shock of dark blond hair back with his hand, and turned bright red. He made a roll-up, I reckoned to cover his embarrassment, and offered it to me. Though he fancied himself a James Dean look alike, he was really a sweet young man, calm, and very kind. I refused the roll-up.

On our way there, I kept thinking of the moment he had kissed me before. Every time I tried to think of something else, I came back to his lips. The way they were warm but not wet. The way the shiver went down my neck when he said I was beautiful. The way I felt like a child, but grown up too.

I was nearly fifteen, well fourteen and a half, almost, and quite well developed, and I reckoned the heroines in my stories needed some sexual adventures to keep things realistic. Though I hadn’t fallen in love with Billy myself, there was something cute about him, and lots of the village girls were after him. Apart from how embarrassing it’d be to take off my clothes, I thought it was time, even if I did regard him as more of a mate.

The barn was due to be demolished by developers who wanted flats in its place, so this was our last chance. We scrambled up the ladder, me first. I slipped, and he gave my bottom a shove to heave me up, leaving his hand there as I climbed. I was only wearing a thin cotton skirt and it felt hot and strange to have his hand on me like that, and the warmth made me tingle.

Up there, it smelt of mould and damp and musty straw. It scratched my skin, the straw, made me itch, and I felt thin and gawky, despite my newly acquired chest. You couldn’t see much from up there, just a strip of green where the field stretched into the distance.

When he kissed me, his lips were cool and moist, not wet or sloppy, though they smelt slightly of tobacco. He told me he really liked me, speaking with a bit of a local accent, which added to his appeal. I muttered I liked him too, and thrilled by the feel of his hands on my body, I felt miles away from my normal life. It became a bit of a blur. He pressed his body so close I felt as if my own heart thumped inside of him, and as he slid his hand between my thighs, I felt hot and an electric flutter passed through me.

I stopped thinking, surprised when my body automatically knew what to do when he lay on top of me, in just a pair of white Y-fronts. Though we both wanted to, we didn’t go all the way, but held each other really tight. Something definitely did happen though, because we moved about, bumping on the uneven floorboards, until he shook a couple of times, and said, oh my God into my neck.

While he put his tongue in my ear, I looked past his head to the roof of the barn. The rafters were black and rotten, and the underside of the roof was mouldy green. Where some of the slates were missing, you could see little squares of pale sky. I noticed it had stopped raining and a fresh new sun had appeared.

‘Sorry,’ I said, when I saw him frown at my distant expression.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he shrugged, but I could see that he was hurt.

‘I’d better go. I’m meeting Veronica at the library.’

I didn’t want to make things worse, so I said there was always next time.

He turned to look at me with a big grin. ‘Really?’

‘When are they pulling down the barn?’

‘End of the holidays.’

‘Well then.’

The reading room was in the basement, with a strong smell of varnished wood and yellow light from angled table lamps. I had an idea for a story set on the continent, and wanted to research European history. While I waited for Veronica, I put Billy to the back of my mind, and laid out several heavy books on the table, glad that I almost had the place to myself.

Glued to the history, I failed to hear her footsteps, so when she spoke my name, I jumped.

‘Sorry, sweetie. Didn’t mean to startle you.’

I started to pack up. ‘Do you want to go now?’

She dumped her shopping and pulled up a chair next to me. ‘To be honest, I’m so hot, I’d just like to sit for a moment. My poor feet!’

I glanced at her stilettos and grinned.

‘I know. I know. Anyway what are you reading?’

I shoved the open book across to her and she peered at the page. She lifted her head.

‘Oh dear, it’s a bit dry, isn’t it?’

I grinned.

‘By the way I told you I’d ask my solicitor friend, Freddy, if there was a way to discover the identity of a client. Well, I saw him last week. As you know he’s staying in my flat in Wandsworth.’

I looked up hopefully. ‘Did he suggest anything?’

‘Unfortunately not. He said no solicitor can risk breaking client confidentiality.’

I shrugged. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘He did remember the firm though. His first placement was with a rival solicitor in Worcester, but he and a chap at Johnson, Price & Co
.
had to work together for a while. On the transfer of land deeds apparently.’

I gave her a nod, piled up the books, and began to feel hungry. She took the hint, collected her bags, and we walked to the door together.

‘He did say he’d look into it for me, but not to hold out much hope.’

After dropping me at our house, Veronica went straight on to her cottage, but came back later on looking like she’d been crying. She told us she’d received a telegram from abroad, a summons from her brother. He was really sick now and the wedding would have to be postponed. Fleur and I went outside to wave her off. Veronica didn’t look too happy to be going, but kissed us both goodbye, and went home to pack before going to nurse Mr Oliver in Africa. I stared after Veronica, and Fleur started skipping. Trouble was, I liked Veronica and without her help, I had no idea how to search for Emma Rothwell on my own. So far Veronica had found nothing.

‘Everyone leaves,’ Fleur said.

‘Veronica will be back.’

Fleur began a skipping rhyme.

She was brilliant at skipping, the best in her class, and could do all the movements in time, without breaking the rhythm. As she concentrated on turning around and touching the ground, I thought she’d stopped listening, but then she said, ‘Will Gran ever come back home?’

I shook my head.

‘Let’s remember the good things,’ I said.

There was only the sound of Fleur skipping through the rhyme once more.

I joined in on the last line and we shouted it out together.

She stood still for a moment. ‘I liked Gran’s apple pie.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Let’s remember Granny’s dinners.’

She started skipping again.

‘What about liver and onions?’ I said.

‘Ugh!’

‘Roast pork on Sunday.’

‘Fish pie on Saturday.’

Tears came and I couldn’t get my breath. Oh, Granny, I thought, I’m so sorry you can’t be here. And I was sad, not just because she was in the home, but because it brought back to me how things can be going along as normal, and then suddenly end.

Fleur dropped her rope, came over and touched my cheek. ‘Never mind, Em. You’ve still got me.’

I looked in her eyes. I did still have her. She smiled and I thought that perhaps, one day, when we’d both grown up, we might be real friends. I wanted to talk about what I’d done with Billy, but she was too young, so I kept the secret to myself.

I stared out at the dog rose trailing over the front hedge and thought about Billy. I wasn’t sure if I’d really enjoyed what we did. While I was with him, I still had my writer’s hat on, imagining what feelings would be stirring Claris. It made it much more acceptable to think of her in my place.

I couldn’t tell Billy I didn’t love him. I liked him a lot and didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But I always felt safer with stories, and while Claris benefitted from my tender experiences, I had to be more careful than ever to hide my sensationalist scribbling. Dad would kill me if he saw it. What I really enjoyed was sitting by the willow tree on Coal Quay steps, and dangling my legs in the river with Billy, watching the dragonflies and feeling like a kid.

An intense smell of cooking, sweat, and patchouli reached her where she stood perspiring in a doorway in the Street of the Three Dragons. The green paint of the building was still peeling and the place seemed seedier than before. She kept her eyes on his door. Before leaving Singapore, she’d slipped into a silky cheongsam, slit high at the side. Too suggestive. She took it off. Tried a simple cotton blouse and crisp skirt. Too dull. In the end she’d plumped for a shift dress in sea green; understated and fitted, it made the most of her hair and eyes. She drew on her eyeliner like a Chinese girl and applied bright lipstick, then she pulled herself together, and stowed away her feelings.

She didn’t want to loiter like a streetwalker, but made the decision to show herself only if she saw him at the door. It would be as if fate had taken a hand. If he didn’t appear, she’d get the next bus back, and he’d never know.

A woman settled in the shadows of an alleyway nearby, a thin boy squatting beside her. She cradled an infant in her arms and with deep sorrowful eyes cried out for food in Malay.
‘Makan. Makan,’
she said, and pointed at the little boy’s mouth, her palm held out.

Lydia felt helpless. What could she do, other than give money and hope that it would be spent on food? But a furtive glance at the baby and Lydia caught her breath; the infant’s stiff grey face suggested it was too late for food.

She dipped in her purse for some coins, and in doing so, almost missed him. Startled, she heard her name called, realised it was he who’d seen
her
, as he’d started to walk off down the street.

He stepped across the crowded street and grinned at her, sable eyes full of curiosity. ‘I take it you’re coming over,’ he said. ‘It’s been quite a few months, hasn’t it?’

‘Have you been keeping track of me?’

He shrugged and offered his hand.

A dusty gust blew grit in eyes that began to water badly. ‘I hate the wind,’ she said.

‘Ah. So you’ve been touched by the wind demon too.’

She wiped her eyes with a tissue.

He looked at her face and laughed. ‘Oh dear. I don’t usually make women cry.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘My guess is you’ve been talking to Cicely.’

She bit the loose skin at the side of her thumbnail, and felt the heat rise to her face.

‘You have black smudges. Here let me.’ He took the tissue from her and she looked at the ground as he wiped them away.

She muttered her thanks.

‘Seems like I’ve got some explaining to do. How about we get inside first? You look like you need a cold drink.’

Upstairs the blinds were down. He left them like that, turned on a couple of lamps, and a ceiling fan jerkily moved the sticky air about. It was another humid day, in desperate need of a downpour to clear the air.

‘I’m sorry to call unexpectedly. I don’t want to inconvenience you.’

‘How British of you, Lydia, but since you ask, you’re not inconveniencing me at all.’ He smiled and with a questioning look, held up a large orange.

‘You remembered.’

He sliced the orange, then squeezed it, and a lime, into a tall glass. The citrus scent filled the air.

‘You lied to me.’

‘Could we call it an omission?’

She wasn’t there to quarrel. ‘Call it what you like. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘About Cicely?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to. Nearly did, the day we went to see Lili, but the truth is – well it’s complicated.’

She stared at her feet, glad she’d painted her toenails, but avoiding exactly what that meant.

‘I have a question for you as well. Why did you run off like that without a word?’

She sighed. ‘That was complicated too.’

There was a silence while he added soda water and ice to the glass.

‘Did George pay you to see that I didn’t get to Ipoh too quickly?’

‘Ah.’

‘You don’t deny it?’

He held out his arms wide in a gesture of surrender, then passed her the glass. ‘George was my boss, and the sad truth is that I didn’t know you then.’

‘And when you did?’

‘When I did – you left.’ He looked her in the eye and smiled a slow smile.

She drained the glass. She’d come for answers, but couldn’t hide the fact that now she was here, she felt more alive than all the time she’d been in Singapore, where, though she’d tried to deny it, her thoughts kept returning to him.

‘Look, George asked me to follow you, delay you where I could. How I did it was up to me.’

‘But why?’

He shrugged.

‘And what about the bus? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘I knew it would take the same route as you were taking. It was only a matter of time before you ran out of petrol.’

‘But there
was
petrol.’

He tilted his head ‘Not too hard to drain it off and tamper with the gauge, while Suyin brought Maz to you.’

‘I can’t believe it. I thought it was cats outside.’ She considered for a moment. ‘What if the driver hadn’t let me on the bus?’

‘I’d have persuaded him.’

‘What about the ambush?’

‘No. Even I don’t have control of the terrorists, though I knew one of the perpetrators. He’d been arrested some time before and was feeding us information.’

‘But not about the ambush.’

He shook his head.

‘But this is crazy.’ She paused for a moment. ‘You didn’t say why George asked you to delay me.’

‘I don’t know. That’s the truth.’

She looked at his high wide cheekbones, the deep-set slanted eyes, the long nose and full lips, and noticed something vulnerable. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. She wanted to feel cross with him, but believed he was telling the truth.

He took her hand. ‘Look, after I followed you on the journey to Ipoh, and delivered you to Jack, I came back and did some investigating. I wasn’t happy. As I said, George wouldn’t say why he wanted me to delay you, and I already had clues that he was involved in something unsavoury. There’s a suggestion of fraud and possibly arms dealing. I wondered if he needed Alec to take care of some business before you joined him up in Ipoh, and that was why he wanted me to delay you. It was just a guess, of course. George once had strong connections with the Singapore underworld, smuggling, Chinese triads, that sort of thing. Mostly before the war.’

She shook her head and withdrew her hand.

‘I missed you. I mean it, Lydia.’

Lydia’s thoughts spun. She had missed him too, but nothing seemed to make sense, and there was still a question she needed to ask.

‘Why did you and Cecily split up?’

His eyes went muddy. ‘She was ashamed of me, my background. When my father died we had no money. Not only am I not white, but my mother had joined the oldest profession. Cicely is a snob. She found out.’

There was a pause.

He turned to face the window, his back to her. ‘It might be hard to understand now, but I was young, influenced by her. It was slow and poisonous, until in the end I was too ashamed of my mother to visit her. I let her die alone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘She asked for me, but I delayed. By the time I arrived she was dead. Now, the shame …’ He looked at his feet.

She watched his chest rise and fall, and immediately felt the impossibility of saying anything that wasn’t trite.

He looked up. ‘It’s something I have to live with.’

As they sank into silence, Lydia wondered how to react. She didn’t want to pry, or cause him further pain.

‘How did you get to where you are now?’ she eventually asked, feeling it was better to change the subject.

‘I owe it to George Parrott.’

She raised her brows.

‘He was a client of my mother’s, in the days when we lived in the shanty town down by the docks. He offered me a way out. The job as a waiter was just the start. After that I worked for him. He took me under his wing.’

‘I see.’

He came to sit beside her. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you about my past. And now here it is, sneaking up and spoiling the present.’

‘Isn’t it guilt that does that?’ she said, but the talk had made her uneasy.

He gave her a glum smile. ‘Or fear. Don’t you want to disown anything in your past?’

‘It’s not that simple,’ she said, thinking of her own mistakes,
and seeing in her mind’s eye the zoo where she used to take the girls, and sometimes met Jack.

‘So where are we now, Lydia?’ His voice was quiet.

She inclined her head. His mood had caught her unawares.

‘Everything comes back to George Parrott. I hate it. Nobody’s the way they seem.’

‘The day you visited him, the day you spotted me, I was in the room next door, waiting. After all he’d done for me, it wasn’t easy to tell him I was on to him. We quarrelled.’

‘You’re not saying that’s why he shot himself?’

Adil gave a wry smile. ‘Not while I was there.’

Lydia felt a spasm in her chest. How had she got caught up in this? She stood up. ‘So who do you work for now?’

His eyes clouded. ‘The police. I thought you knew.’

‘Okay. Just one more question.’

‘Fire ahead.’

‘Did you love her?’ she asked as casually as she could.

He cleared his throat. ‘She was difficult to love.’

‘But you did?’

He nodded.

When they went out that evening, the sky was pink. Seconds later, night rolled down a curtain of black. Starless, moonless. Fast. Soon the stars would come. From the alleyways they heard shouts, laughter, the desolate howl of a dog, and the stink of privies, which were never far away. It still felt deeply foreign to her. A low wail came from a building behind her, more a lament than a cry. She tried to remember the incantation the gardener taught the children, to keep the demons of night and darkness at bay. At times like this, Malaya seemed impossible. An impenetrable world of myth and magic, a place where colonial officialdom fought Chinese rebellion, where falsehood was rife, and having a white skin made you a red-haired devil.

She stood still, but under the blackness, the heat was building up. In hope of finding a breeze, they headed for the docks. But
there, the sailing boats were still; further out, the scattered pinpoints of light from fishing boats split up the dark. There was no breeze at all. Irritable patches appeared on her neck. She rubbed her skin, and then noticed a Chinese medicine man selling ointment and herbal remedies from a makeshift stall. She looked at Adil for confirmation. He shook his head.

‘Another cold drink,’ he said, and pulled her through an archway.

They headed for a corner table at the back of the smoky bar, where a radio was playing slow music, and two or three couples danced beneath the ceiling fan. She watched green lizards dart across plain grey walls. A bare electric bulb drew enormous whirring moths that slammed into it over and over, so that they crisped and fell to the floor. He ordered iced beer for her, flavoured with cardamom.

‘Would you like to dance, Lydia?’

She opened her mouth, then closed it without speaking.

He held out a hand. ‘Come.’

Their drinks arrived. She sipped hers for a moment, then took his hand.

‘Cicely said you wanted to tell me something,’ she said as he placed a hand in the small of her back and they started to move together.

‘No.’

‘She said you were looking for me.’

‘Certainly I hoped you’d come back, you must know that, but I wasn’t looking. If you wanted to come, it would be because you decided. I didn’t say anything to her. Haven’t even seen her.’

She felt the tingle of his breath on her neck, forced herself to concentrate on his words, and decided to believe him. She closed her eyes for a second before she spoke again.

‘Are you sure you don’t know why George paid you to delay my journey to Ipoh?’

‘I really don’t know. At least not yet.’

She looked into his eyes. ‘Is there any reason I should trust you?’

‘I think I might be able to find a way to persuade you,’ he said, with a gentle smile, and led her back to the table. She noticed his hands, strong, well shaped, with a few dark hairs curling just above his wrists.

From across the bar a man watched them through sinister puffy eyes. Adil walked over to speak, waving his hands as he spoke. He had the advantage of speaking most of the vernacular languages of Malaya, though Lydia only caught the odd phrase. He slipped the man a couple of dollars. An image of Jack came back to her, bent over the table, reading in the light of a single lamp. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the past and turned her face to Adil.

He smiled as he walked back. ‘Just getting the information we need for tomorrow.’

She felt confused. He felt foreign to her, unknowable.

Back into the night, an oily expanse of cloud was moving quickly.

‘It’ll be cooler now,’ he said.

He was right. All round them, shop signs flapped, litter picked up and drifted, and the boats had started to bob in the water. With the wind came air, and though she could breathe more freely, she felt constricted by troubling emotions. They hurried back as an increasingly livid sky delivered the first few drops of warm rain.