Separation, The (4 page)

Lydia looked back over her shoulder, as a jeep of khaki-clad Malay police armed with machine guns drove by. Since MNLA guerrillas had killed the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney, in 1951, nobody felt safe. She placed a hand on her throat, then tapped at the door of Cicely’s Portuguese town house, a beautiful pale pink building with decorative arched windows and a colonnaded walkway beneath. Moments later she was shown through to an airy room at the back, painted pale blue, a through draught lending some relief from the scorching day.

She wheeled round as Cicely entered the room, hands outstretched, nails shimmering in icy pink to match her pale shift dress.

‘Darling. What an unexpected pleasure,’ Cicely said, her voice low, the vowels elongated.

An elegant beauty, with swinging platinum hair, a light tan and deep plum lips, she tucked her long limbs under with implicit boredom as she sat. One dyed calfskin shoe with a high, ultra-thin heel hung from her toe.

‘I’m sorry … but I need your help. It’s very awkward.’ Lydia hesitated and straightened her back, trying to find a way to say it without arousing pity.

Cicely coolly raised one, expertly plucked, arched eyebrow. Neither of them was the kind of colonial wife absorbed by digestive disturbances or household tittle-tattle, and it had been inevitable they’d become friends, of sorts.

Lydia resisted the urge to tidy her hair and forced herself to speak. ‘I’m sorry to have to ask this, but could you lend me some money?’

Her friend’s sparkling eyes, somewhere between topaz and
emerald green, flared with delight. ‘Oh, darling, what on earth has happened?’

Lydia proceeded cautiously. Cicely wasn’t malicious exactly, but was, so Alec had it, caught in a loveless marriage, and living with tales of her husband’s affairs. There was a pause. Only the drone of the fan stirred the air, as Lydia wondered how much to reveal.

In the old Chinese quarter, they elbowed their way through the flowing current of people and dodged an army of bicycle-pulled rickshaws. Cicely led her through a backstreet market, where mah-jong players provided a clickety-clack chorus to bright blue birds singing in bamboo cages.

Cicely nodded and smiled, rubbing shoulders with Chinese shopkeepers and Malay street hawkers. She stopped beside a bucket of live deep-sea crabs, and came away with packets of food. Lydia’s eyes widened, acutely aware of the sour sewer smell drifting across.

‘You must try this, darling. Utterly delicious.’ Cicely smiled, and stuffed a taste of banana leaf curry into Lydia’s mouth. ‘Come on, sweetie. It’ll be all right. You worry too much. Though I can’t think why Alec didn’t leave enough money for you to follow him. What a shit.’

At the end of an alley, beside lurid posters advertising Lucky Strike cigarettes, Cicely stopped outside a shop with a dragon painted on a red hanging sign. She leant against the doorpost with willowy sex appeal, ignoring the rigid watchman who sat there with a shotgun on his lap.

‘Here we are,’ she said. Her narrow face spread in a wide grin, the single row of pearls at her neck gleaming.

Next door was a herbalist and snake charmer. He stood outside his shop, a burly Indian, chewing betel. Lydia eyed the snake baskets.

‘Don’t worry, darling.’ Cicely laughed, and pushed open the door. ‘The cobras always sleep until sundown.’

Inside the shop Lydia held her nose, but it reeked only of cheap incense and coconut oil. The Chinaman behind the counter wore an embroidered red gown, and what looked like a hostile stare. Lydia’s eyes slid over to Cicely who, without flinching, emptied a bag of charm bracelets, gold earrings and half a dozen necklaces on to the counter.

Sweat broke out on Lydia’s forehead, and she felt herself redden. ‘But these are real gems.’

Cicely shrugged and squeezed her hand. ‘Mainly Chinese tat. Honestly. Don’t worry. Now, have you got photos of your scrumptious girls?’

Lydia bent her head, reached into her crammed bag and pulled out a purse. Inside were two small photos, one of Emma and one of Fleur, taken in a booth at the zoo. She looked at Fleur gazing out with a slight squint and Alec’s serious eyes, and then at Em’s lopsided grin. The photo revealed her elder daughter’s straight nose and angular face, but fell short of capturing laughing turquoise eyes, and sun shining through flaming curly hair. It can’t show how tall she is for her age, nor how clever, she thought with pride.

‘She’s very grown up,’ Cicely said.

‘Who?’

‘Emma, of course. Fleur’s prettier, but hardly speaks.’

Lydia thought of her younger daughter and her heart skipped a beat. Since having pneumonia, Fleur was more withdrawn than ever. ‘She speaks, but Em loves words. Even when she was only three, she pretended she could read.’

‘Seems old for twelve.’

Lydia blinked rapidly. ‘Nearly twelve.’

Cicely put a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘Right,’ she said, picking up a locket on a silver chain from the counter. ‘My present. Round your neck is always safest in this country. And look after the cash. Don’t worry, you’ll catch up with them soon enough. And that lean husband of yours.’

Lydia nodded, unable to identify the source of her unease. She
didn’t like being parted from her girls, ever, and the hazards of a separation during the Emergency were alarmingly clear. But was there something more than that?

‘And then you’ll long for a bit of peace and quiet. I don’t know how you do it. Being a mum, I mean.’

I love them, Lydia thought, that’s how.

‘And Jack. How do you feel about him?’

Lydia felt a flush spread up her chest to her face, and fought off the urge to unburden herself of her essentially unacknowledged feelings.

Cicely narrowed her eyes. ‘Well, I couldn’t be a mother. Now let’s get that hair chopped.’

At last, a brief shower brought rain splattering from the gutters, not enough to really cool the sticky air, but enough to freshen her. She struggled to push aside wet purple bougainvillea, encroaching on the garage door. Everything grew so fast. The door squealed as she jerked it open, and she saw the solid shape of the Humber Hawk parked there. She glanced inside, relaxed a little. The keys were still in the ignition. At least Alec had left the car. She slid into the driver’s seat to check the petrol gauge.

In her bedroom it didn’t take long to roll up some practical clothes into a couple of holdalls. As she slipped out of her damp dress, the emptiness of the house jolted her. In the silence she sniffed the air. It lacked the usual smell of polish and now they were gone it didn’t smell like home. She touched the silk of her Indian dresses, run up by herself in unexpected colour combinations: pink and orange, green and peacock blue, lacquer red with black. Her favourite dress style had an oriental touch, but she decided on a sensible navy dress, less likely to show the dirt. The Indian dresses she left, but packed two sequinned evening dresses, too good to leave behind.

She slipped Emma’s notebook into the bag. How very much she craved the girls: the touch and smell of them. Her skin
prickled with anticipation, but she resisted the desire to read the notebook. She’d be seeing her daughters soon enough.

Back in the hallway, something was odd. There were sounds of life. Maybe George was mistaken and Alec had come back for her after all. Her heart picked up. Maybe they’d been to the island and hadn’t even gone up to Ipoh yet. She pictured the deep green island waters, the salty breezes and the lemon oil she smeared on the children’s skin.

There was a sequence of sounds from the kitchen: a sniff, a smothered sob, and the sound of rapid Chinese. One of the servants then. She marched over to the kitchen and threw open the door, shading her eyes from the sun’s low afternoon rays, as sharp as knives.

In the corner a slight girl with drawn features, black hair in a top knot, and frightened almond-shaped eyes, sat cross-legged on the floor. A young child, also with straight Chinese hair, sat on her lap, and hid his face in her chest. In baggy blue trousers, barefoot, with a beaded anklet on one leg, he looked undernourished. Lydia stared, sure she’d seen the girl leave their house once before.

‘Mem.’ The girl got up, a well of misery in her eyes. ‘I am Suyin. This my sister’s boy.’

There’s something familiar, Lydia thought, as she took in the girl’s shiny tunic.

‘What’s the child’s name?’

‘Maznan Chang, Mem. He was at hospital. Cannot go home. Please, he go with you.’

Lydia glanced at her watch, but the girl, rigid and pale, pitched headfirst into her plea.

‘The jungle not safe for him. They hurt him.’

The boy stood, and pulled up his shirt to reveal a red welt across his side. Lydia saw that besides being thin he was very dirty, and the injury was obviously recent.

‘He help you, Mem. He speak Malay and Chinese.’

‘He looks so young.’

‘He is seven, small for age.’

The boy turned damp eyes on Lydia, and gave a wary smile. She was taken aback. Pretty like a girl, he had a flat face and fullnostrilled Malayan nose, but pale eyes, and skin with a touch of amber, lighter than most Malays. Only his hair looked Chinese. He smiled again, displaying a row of even teeth.

She sized things up, pushing aside the pinch of anxiety about the delay. An image of Emma flashed in her head and she heard her daughter’s voice as if she was in the next room.
Hurry up, Mummy. Aren’t you here yet?! I’ve got a new story to tell you
. She closed her eyes and felt her heart constrict.

‘Mem?’ the girl said, interrupting her.

‘Why is he not safe?’ Lydia asked.

‘His mother. She run away to inside.’ The girl waited to see a reaction before pressing her point. ‘She in jungle, Mem. If they don’t come get him. The others take him next time.’

The penny dropped. The child’s mother had run off to join the communist rebels.

‘Which others?’

The girl looked embarrassed. ‘The white people, red hairs. Please. Take this boy to resettlement village, or even Malay village. They take care of him.’

Lydia wavered. ‘What about the police?’

The girl curled her lip and spat on the floor.

Lydia felt torn. She needed to catch up with her girls, get on before the day drew to a close. But then she imagined if it were them who were alone and dependent on a stranger for kindness. ‘All right,’ she said, making a snap decision. ‘I’ll take him. What’s your address? And the name of the place to take him?’

She stared at the girl’s pinched face. Then it came to her. ‘You’re the driver’s daughter?’

The girl nodded.

‘Can’t your father have him?’

The girl shook her head and Lydia saw a look of anxiety in her eyes.

‘Did your father drive my husband to Ipoh?’

The girl shook her head. ‘My father sick.’

‘Well, let me have your address, so I can let you know where the little boy is.’

The girl stepped forward, held the child by one hand and placed his other in Lydia’s. She bent down and, again in rapid Chinese, spoke in his ear. He shook his head, hair wheeling out round his face. The girl straightened up, spun round, raced through the door, picked up speed along the covered walkway, and melted into the long grass.

Lydia called out, but the girl had gone. She sighed and peered at the child. He almost had the eyes of a European child. Was he really in danger? A picture of the orphanage came up. The pitiless grey block on the outskirts of town. If the rumours of neglect were true, it was no place for this little one. The thought of her own girls there made her hold her breath.

He looked up, then counted his beads in Malay. ‘
Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima
.’

She exhaled slowly. Poor little thing, she thought, what on earth am I supposed to do with you? You don’t look like you fit in anywhere.

A noise from the direction of the garage caught her attention. Damn cats. She pulled the boy up, and planted a kiss on top of his head. She glanced at her watch again. Where had the time gone? They both needed a bath and something to eat. Then she’d put the child in Emma’s bed, and try to catch some sleep herself, before an early start in the morning.