The Empire Trilogy (172 page)

‘Now d'you think you've got it?' she enquired, and could not help adopting the rather condescending tone which had once been adopted by the missionary who had taught her English years ago.

‘You mean, all those words mean that?' asked Matthew, indicating the part in question.

‘Well, not literally, of course. One, you see, means “head of turtle”, another “jade stalk” and so on … but they all add up to that, d'you see now?' Vera was becoming a little impatient.

‘I'm not sure …'

‘Look, I just tell you names for things, OK? We talk about it later.'

Matthew agreed, still looking baffled.

‘Here is called “
yin-nang
” or “secret pouch” and here on me is called …' but Matthew had not been properly paying attention and all this had to be repeated, too. He was shown the ‘
yü-men
' or the ‘
ch'iung-men
as it was sometimes known and that naturally led them on to the ‘
yü-tai
' and, from the particular to the general, to ‘
fang-shih
' or ‘
ou-yu
'. Vera held forth on all this with rapidity, certainly, but not without touching on the Five Natural Moods or Qualities which he might expect to find in himself, nor the Five Revealing Signs which should be manifested by his partner: the flushing pink of throat and cheeks, perspiration on nose like dew on grass in the morning, depth and rapidity of breathing, increase of slipperiness and so forth. And Matthew found himself obliged also to acquire a working knowledge of the Hundred Anxious Feelings (though there was no time to go through them one by one), the Five Male Overstrainings, and the medicinal liquor that he might expect to lap up from his lover's body at the Three Levels, for example, that sweet little cordial called Liquid Snow exuding from between the breasts at the Middle Level (good for gall-stones).

Vera could now see that the mighty
yang
spirit which, a little earlier, had seized Matthew and held him up by the ears like a rabbit, was no longer gripping him so firmly. She decided to content herself with once more running over the names of the most important parts so there would be no misunderstanding. And it was lucky she did so because it turned out that there was a part she had forgotten to mention the first time, namely, the ‘
chieh-shan-chu
' or ‘pearl on jade threshold'. Drawing up her knees to her chin she pointed it out with a magenta fingernail.

Matthew peered at her, blinking. He could not for the life of him think why all this elaborate ‘naming of parts' should be necessary. However, he bent his head obediently to look for the ‘
chieh-shan-chu
'. After some moments of inspecting her closely he brought the oil-lamp a little closer and put his spectacles on again.

‘Oh yes, I think I see what you mean,' he murmured politely.

‘Good,' said Vera. ‘Now we can begin.'

Matthew brightened and after a moment's hesitation took off his spectacles again. But what Vera meant was that she could now begin to explain what he would need to know in order to bring to a successful conclusion their first and relatively simple manoeuvre, known as ‘Bamboo Swaying in Spring Wind'. After that they might have a go at ‘Butterfly Hovering over Snow White Peony' and then later, if all went well, she might wake up a girlfriend who slept in a neighbouring cubicle and invite her to join them for ‘Goldfish Mouthing in Crystal Tank' if they were not too tired by then. But for the moment Matthew still had a few things to learn.

‘What is it you don't understand, Matthew?' she enquired with the monolithic patience she had so admired in her missionary teacher. Matthew sighed. It was clear that some more time would elapse before the rivers of
yin
and
yang
reached their confluence at last. All this time the sound of weary coughing had not ceased for a moment.

No doubt there were many unexpected developments in Singapore in the first two weeks of January but few can have been as unexpected as that which affected the Blacketts and the Langfields. How could it have come about that these two families which had hitherto held each other in such abhorrence and contempt should, after so many years, establish amicable social relations? Any close observer (Dr Brownley, for instance, who had made what amounted to a hobby of the mutual detestation of one family for the other) would have found it most unlikely that the Blacketts would ever issue an invitation and quite improbable that the Langfields would accept it. Nevertheless, it did come about. It came about under the pressure of circumstances, as the head of each family became concerned for the welfare of his women-folk.

Walter and Solomon Langfield, bumping into each other by chance at the Long Bar of the Singapore Club, as they had done, indeed, week in, week out, for the better part of thirty years, happened at last to recognize each other. Recognition led to a wary offer of a
stengah
, made in a manner so casual that it was almost not an offer at all, and an equally wary acceptance. In a little while they were patting each other on the back and bullying each other pleasantly for the privilege of signing the chit. And, although each time one of them cordially scribbled his signature on the pad which the barman handed to him he might secretly have been thinking: ‘I knew as much … The old blighter is “pencil shy” (the quintessence of meanness in the clubs of Singapore), outwardly at least no ripple of discord was allowed to corrugate this new-found friendship. Soon Walter was confiding to old Langfield his anxiety for his wife and daughters. This, it turned out, exactly mirrored a similar concern, ‘since the RAF did not seem to be putting up much of a show', that Solomon felt for Mrs Langfield and little Melanie beneath the bombs. The women should be sent to a safer place, it was agreed, perhaps to Australia where both firms had branch offices. But neither Mrs Langfield nor Mrs Blackett would be very good at fending for herself. Why should they not travel together? Together they would manage much better. Perhaps by pulling some strings it might be possible for Monty or young Nigel Langfield to accompany them. And so in no time it had been agreed: it only remained to persuade the women that this was the best course.

‘By the way, Blackett,' old Solomon Langfield was unable to resist saying with ill-concealed malice as they prepared to go their separate ways, ‘it's bad luck about your jubilee. I suppose you'll have to call it off under the present circumstances.'

‘Not at all,' replied Walter coldly. ‘We've been asked to go ahead with it for the sake of civilian morale. I hope you don't mean to call yours off?'

‘We aren't due to have ours for another couple of years,' Solomon Langfield, out-manoeuvred and cursing inwardly, was forced to admit.

‘Oh? I didn't realize that we had been established longer than you and Bowser,' said Walter condescendingly.

‘By that time, at any rate,' replied Solomon, trying to recover the ground he had lost, ‘we should be at peace again and able to do things properly.'

‘By
that
time,' retorted Walter, delivering the
coup de grâce
, ‘another war will probably have broken out or heaven knows what will have happened.'

When Walter mentioned evacuation to Australia in the company of the Langfield women to his own family, however, his proposal was received with indignation and dismay. To travel with Langfields was bad enough, but to be expected to live cheek by jowl with them in Australia was more than flesh and blood could endure. Joan flatly refused to consider leaving with anybody, let alone a Langfield. There was a war on and plenty for an able-bodied young woman to do in Singapore! As for Kate, she was alarmed at the prospect of having as a constant companion Melanie, whom she considered capable of any outrage or excess. For there were times, particularly when there was some authority to be flouted, when Melanie's behaviour verged on the insane, so it seemed to Kate. Now, while she listened to her parents arguing, she remembered an occasion at school when the girls in her dormitory had planned a midnight feast. It had been agreed that each of them would contribute something to eat or drink, a couple of biscuits saved from tea-time, say, or a bottle of lemonade crystals. She remembered how they had all crouched, shivering and breathless with excitement, on the waxed floor between two beds, each producing what she had managed to collect … until last of all, Melanie, with an air of triumph had slapped something down on the floor with a dull thud. An enormous dead chicken! She had somehow broken into the caretaker's chicken coop, strangled a chicken, plucked it and here it was! Well, it seemed to Kate that someone who instead of a bar of chocolate or a couple of Marie biscuits brought a raw chicken to a midnight feast could hardly be called sane. What would she get up to in Australia with only her mother to restrain her?

Monty, on the other hand, brightened up when he heard that there was a prospect of either Nigel Langfield or himself accompanying the women-folk to safety. He believed he could count on Nigel to show the necessary courage and foolishness to insist on sticking it out at his post. Things had not been going well recently for Monty but now they might be looking better. In the meantime he was having to fight a determined rear-guard action with medical certificates from Dr Brownley to prevent himself being enlisted in the Local Defence Corps. The air-raids, too, increasingly alarmed him. Well, if there was a chance of escorting women to safety only an idiot would linger in Singapore to be bombed. He would crack off to Australia and take charge of the firm's office there … as an ‘essential occupation' that should keep him out of the beastly Army, with luck.

But after a day or two Monty's spirits sank again. No European men were being allowed to leave without special permission and it soon became clear that such permission would not be granted to either himself or Nigel under the present circumstances despite more string-pulling by both Walter and Solomon. Evidently some spiteful little official in some office was seizing his opportunity to pay off a grudge against the merchant community. And
he
had to suffer!

In due course it was decided that Kate and Melanie and their mothers should leave for Australia on the
Narkunda
, sailing in mid-January. Walter agreed provisionally that Joan should stay a little longer but insisted that she would have to follow her mother if the situation got any worse. The truth was that Walter had need of Joan in Singapore, not only to supervise the running of the household in the absence of his wife, but also to lend a hand in the increasingly frantic work involved in administering Blackett and Webb's affairs from temporary offices in Tanglin, for by now the air-raids on the docks, spasmodic hitherto, had made continued occupation of the premises on Collyer's Quay too dangerous. Moreover, Walter still had not quite given up hope that Matthew might suffer a change of heart and decide he must marry Joan, after all. This match was such a good idea! That was what upset Walter, to see a good idea go to waste. There persisted in his mind the feeling that in some way Joan's marriage could still be the foundation of Blackett and Webb's recovery. But how? It was an instinct, nothing more.

An impetus was needed, that much was certain! Whether or not Singapore might survive as a military strong-point in the Far East it was clear that as a business centre it was finished for some time to come. As a result all Walter's efforts were now directed towards the running-down of the company's Singapore operations, the transferring of business to branches overseas in Britain, America and Australia and the suspension of that which could not be transferred.

And there still remained as a reminder of his own weakness those vast quantities of rubber in his godowns on the Singapore River. He had barely been able to shift a fraction of it. Nor was it any comfort to tell himself that he was the victim of circumstances beyond his control. Difficulties are made to be overcome! A businessman must shape his own environment to suit his needs: once he finds himself having to submit to it he is doomed. Once, years ago, while leafing through a copy of
Wide World
, he had come across a blurred photograph which, for reasons which he had not understood, had made a great impression on him. Well, if he had not understood it then, he certainly understood it now! It was a photograph, very poorly printed, of some dying animal, perhaps a panther or a leopard, it was hard to tell. Too weak to defend itself, this animal was being eaten alive by a flock of hideous birds. Walter had never been able to forget that picture. He had thought of it not long ago while standing at old Mr Webb's bedside. And now he thought of it again, reflecting that there comes a time, inevitably, when the strong become, first weak, then helpless.

Walter knew very well, mind you, that other rubber merchants shared at least some of his own difficulties. Even old Solomon Langfield had admitted in an unguarded moment that he had large stocks waiting on the quays for a carrier. This was no comfort, however: Walter had always held in contempt businessmen who excused their own failures by matching them with those of other people. There was a way of shipping that rubber, he knew, just as there was a way of doing everything. But the present state of the docks baffled and exhausted him: the quays were jammed with shipping still loaded with war material said to be urgently needed by the military. Yet nobody was doing anything about it: the labour force had largely decamped, doubtless because they were unwilling to risk their lives under constant air-raids; what unloading was taking place was being done by the troops themselves: Walter had tried to suggest to a military acquaintance that these same men should reload with rubber ‘urgently needed for the War Effort elsewhere', but the man had looked at him as if he were out of his mind.

Walter, even in his weakened state, had been stubborn enough to keep on trying. He had paid another visit to the Governor, suggesting that he might intercede with the War Council to provide a labour company under military discipline (which might encourage them to turn up for work) in order to start reloading the great backlog of rubber before it was too late. But Sir Shenton Thomas had barely listened to him. Although he was normally sympathetic to the Colony's mercantile community, he had shown visible signs of impatience with Walter's difficulties. That stuffed shirt! He had hardly even taken the trouble to make an excuse, muttering something about it being all he could do to prevent the military from commandeering what labour was already available to the rubber industry … Relations with Malaya Command and Singapore Fortress, already bad at the outbreak of war, had got worse … Walter would kindly realize that the community had other needs, above all civil defence, besides his own … Well! Walter had come close to asking him whose taxes he thought paid his bloody salary! Affronted, he had taken his leave. The bales of rubber, in their thousands of tons, had continued to sleep undisturbed in their godowns.