The Hills of Singapore (40 page)

She pointed to the shore, and he turned his head and saw a wooden cottage on stilts hiding back amongst the coconut palms. Charlotte turned the boat towards shore and lowered the sail as the boat slid silently onto the sand. Zhen leapt into the water, glad the journey was over. He pulled it higher up the sand as a small wave picked it up and beached it. He looked at Charlotte, making the boat safe, throwing out the rope to him.

“Wait,” he said. “Wait, do not leave the boat. I want to carry you.”

She watched him, and an old poem sang in her head from long ago, a Malay
pantun
she had learned when she first met him and when she had first come to this place.

“Last night, about the moon

I dreamt And tumbling nuts of coco palm

Last night with you in dreams I spent

And pillowed lay upon your arm”

Now it was true. Charlotte felt the thrill. It was always there, even after all the time that had rolled between them—the profound thrill of waiting for his arms. He tied the boat firmly to a coconut palm. Then he took off his hat and let his queue fall. She knew he was proud of his queue. They preened themselves, these Chinese men, like cats, and loved the queues which fell, some, to their ankles. His fell almost to his knees, and he took prodigious care of it. He sometimes carried the faintest scent of some exotic pomade he used on it. He had shaved his head freshly too, she could see. What she had first thought of as odd, this half-naked head and long tail, she now found exquisitely beautiful, perfectly suited to his smooth Chinese face, revealing the high bone structure, his black almond eyes, his full lips.

He took off his coat and dropped it in the sand grass. He stood in the glow of the sun, a golden god, half-naked like the idols were in the East. The tattooed god on his chest emphasised his muscled torso, the flatness of his abdomen, the narrowness of his waist. She smiled. He always knew how well he looked, but it was not vanity, or perhaps it was a little, but, more, it was to excite her, to entice her, and it did. She sat on the edge of the boat, and she put out her arms to him and he lifted her into his, wanting to feel her in them, hold her tight against him, remind her of his strength, his youthful power. She dropped her head against his shoulder, buried her face into the silky skin of his neck. Love and desire for him flooded her. How could she ever have wanted another? She took his queue in her hand, his head in her arms, kissing his neck, his cheek. He walked up the beach to the house and waited with her in his arms, savouring her, allowing his skin to remember the way it was for them, feeling the response of his body to her lips.

He dropped her feet in the sand by the steps of the house, and they stood a moment, watching the sun fall into the embrace of the sea. Then they kicked off their sandals. There was a water jar with a ladle, and he threw water over their sandy feet. The dying sun cast a dull, ruby glow inside the house. The wind from the sea was brisk, and the verandah was cool. Mosquitos should not be a cause for anxiety, Robert had told her. Too much wind. Nevertheless the old Malay keeper had lit the sandalwood incense which wafted on the breeze.

Charlotte followed him, her hand in his, their fingers entwined. He gripped her firmly, not wanting to let go, she knew, feeling the emotion in this grip of their hands. She knew he loved her with every part of his being the way she loved him. The way their hands felt together told her this without any words. There were rarely words.

She had come to understand that the Chinese, like the English, simply did not speak such things. He showed her in the poetry he sent her, in the touch of his hand, in his constancy. Once she had said, “I love you”, in his language and he had looked quizzical and said, “I love you” back to her, but it was a gesture, she felt, to please her, as if the words meant nothing. The depth was in the unsaid. What had he told her about Taoism? The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. It was mysterious and incomprehensible to her, but she saw it a little in this non-voicing of their feelings. “The love that can be voiced is not the true love.”

She gripped his hand a little tighter, and a feeling of weakness flowed, a looseness in her limbs, as if love for him robbed her of energy, permitting a laying-down of her whole being into his hands. Was this the essence of love, this giving-up of one's self utterly into the hands of another? How much trust there was in this act! Yet she could do it with him, and he with her. There would be no hurry tonight; it would go very slowly, she knew. He would make it slow, waiting, savouring. It was his art, this slowness, his gift to her and himself.

Even as she thought this, she felt the beat of her blood, the sexual longing beginning, the pressing need. Her mind wanted this slowness, but suddenly her body did not. It had been too long. The desires this man had awakened in her she had half-buried for the years of her widowhood, but now, with him here, they flooded her. As they reached the verandah, she ran her hand down his queue, touched his back and he turned. She pulled herself into him, winding her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against his chest. He dropped his lips to her neck, kissing her, small kisses, the length of her shoulder, into her neck, under her ear. She dropped one hand, down, between his legs, feeling for him, wanting to feel this hardness. She groaned, and he stayed her hand, holding it there, not allowing her to move it as he knew she wanted to. He felt her urgency.

He made a decision. She was unprotected, the oil of neem in the boat. He would bring her to orgasm safely and then she would relax. He released the cord and let his pants slither down to the floor. He let her touch him now. He felt her deep arousal in the drooping of her body against him, the weakening of her grip on his neck. He took her waist in his arm, supporting her, and put his hand against her, gripping her, and she moaned a deep moan and began to tremble so much he knew he needed to do this quickly. He picked her up and took her inside the house, through the netting to the bed, pulling off the trousers and throwing them to one side. She took his hand and put it between her thighs, eyes closed, willing him.

She was so ready that the moment his fingers slid inside her she burst, drenching his hand, arching her back and coming again. Even that was not enough, and he knew she was in an unstoppable place; it was out of her control. It was inflaming, and he felt the throb deep inside his own body, overtaking his mind. Every other thought left him but the imperative to be with her. She exploded again as he slid into her, hot liquid gushing from her, her hips grinding against him. He took her body in his arm, pulling her into him, his lips on her throat and mouth, her legs gripping him. Wave on wave came from her. They both moved now, almost unconscious of each other, lost in physical need. Despite all his experience, he knew he would not hold on, her desires too great, his love for her too great, the feel of her against him too great, and as he had that dim thought, he flooded into her, roaring, black as night, head filled with stars, lost to everything but this moment of ecstatic oblivion. He raised his head and drew a great breath of air into his lungs, breaking the surface from the depths, craving air.

Even as the light returned to his brain, he felt her spasm again and heard her fevered moans, his name on her lips. She had waited for him too long. They had both waited such a very long time. He continued to move, his hardness returning almost instantly through this unstoppable desire for her, waiting for her to be sated, and when he felt her tenseness subside, her legs relax round his waist, he withdrew and began to rub her, moving his fingers lightly, bringing her down, kissing her lips softly until she responded, pulling his head to hers, sinking into his kiss. The final orgasm was light, a ripple, a sigh, and he knew it was over.

He pulled her tight against him, moulding his body to hers, wrapping his legs around her. Nothing felt like this. Only she made him feel this way.

He thought it had only been a moment but when he opened his eyes again, the red-gold light had gone and a faint rose hue was beginning to filter through the shutters. She lay against him, entwined in his arms; they had slept all night just like this. He couldn't believe it. A small panic rose in his chest. They had slept all night. They had wasted this time together. But he did not let her go. He had wanted to take all night, make love to her all night. Now it was almost morning. He looked down at her face, beautiful, resting against his chest, her hair falling wildly around her cheeks and shoulders, and saw the look of pure peace, of quiet repose, and realised that this had been right. The pure spontaneous release of the Tao, the coming together, the letting go.

He closed his eyes and went to sleep. When next he opened them, she was not in his arms. She was on the verandah, talking to the Malay woman from the kampong. He lay, waiting for her, cool in the strong, salty morning breeze which came through the shutters standing ajar and through the open door. Xia Lou, Xia Lou; it was like the soft swishing of the waves on the shore. He knew how to say her hard English name, this “Charlotte”, but he did not like it and never used it. He heard the gulls wheeling and calling and then the sound of her feet softly on the creaky wooden planks. He pretended to be asleep, waiting for her to approach, his eyes closed, the anticipation of it suffusing him with pleasure. He knew she had stopped at the bedside, gazing at him. Her long black hair hung tangled around her ivory shoulders, over the slope of her breasts. Her lips were parted, her white teeth showing slightly, her eyes like an evening sky, languid. He did not have to open his eyes to know the look in hers; he had dreamed her too often. He lazily opened his hand, and she realised and laughed. She moved onto the bed, into his arms, better than a dream.

“The old woman is here. She is making breakfast. Coffee and tea, fried fish and rice, coconuts, papaya and mangoes.” She caressed his cheek and kissed his ear, softly, whispering. “She will leave it in the kitchen. She will be gone in fifteen minutes.”

She saw him smile, eyes closed, the faintest smile, a mere turning-up of the corner of his mouth, and snuggled against him, her arm across his waist, holding his queue in her hand, his hand in her hair. They had one day and one more night. Last night had released all the tension coiled deeply inside her for years. Now they could go slowly.

Time flies, wasn't that what was said? “
Time's winged chariot hurrying near
.” She forgot the words exactly. But it wasn't like that. It was as if time slowed. Every moment, every gesture, slowed down so that she could record it clearly on her mind. Not all of it, just tiny moments, captured. The drip of the mango juice from his lips, kissing those lips covered in the juice, unable to stop herself rising from the table and going to him, he taking her on his lap and covering them both with sweetness, releasing her sarong, dripping mango on her breasts, moving his lips over her, down her body. And later, all the stickiness from the fruit, from their own juices, rinsed away in the sea. Sleeping then together, in the hammock, under the coconut palms.

Walking, there was a walk, along the beach, but she could not remember much of that, only holding his hand. They bathed in the freshwater stream which fell from a high, steep cleft in the hill, a clear and cooling waterfall, washing each other free of salt and sand, kissing, unable to stop kissing, as water tumbled around them.

Then, suddenly, it was night and they made a fire on the shore. The Malay couple came with fat, freshly caught fish and rice, spiced crabs, pickled vegetables,
sambal
, water and lemon oil to burn. They all sat for a while and talked as the fish cooked on the fire, inhaling this delicious aroma, she translating for Zhen from time to time, her Malay better than his, the sparks of the fire cracking, shooting small red fireworks into the dark night air.

She was not sure what this Malay couple thought of them, a white woman and a Chinese man. They made no sign that it was even unusual, but she knew the Malay nature a little, its quiet grace, its circumspection. The old woman had smiled, her teeth gapped and brown, her mouth red with the betel chewing. We grew up here, she said, pointing at the old man, wiry and fit-looking, but with a bent back and blind in one eye. Charlotte knew Robert had engaged them to care for the cottage for they were too old for anything else.

We grew up and married here, she said. So long ago we married. Long before the white men came. When the island was ours. Her mother and father were
orang suku laut
—sea tribe people. She had been married to this man at thirteen, when he was fourteen. He was from the land people at Kampong Siglap. They had ten children and too many grandchildren to count. Young then, old now, she said and looked at the old man, and they both laughed.

Before they moved off down the beach, the old woman said,

“
Asam di gunung, garam di laut
,

bertemu dalam satu belangah
.”

“Spice of the mountain, salt of the sea,

meet in one cooking pot.”

Charlotte understood. It was a kind thing to say and she knew the old woman at least sympathised with them, with their youth, their love. She saluted her, both hands raised to her forehead. Zhen too had understood and came and curled her into his arms to watch the embers die, swirling in the sea breeze.

That night was surprising in many ways. In her wish to please him, she asked him to tell her how. There were many things that, for love and fear of losing her, he did not dare raise with Xia Lou, but now, he saw her sensuality was completely open, and he showed her the ways of love learned from the old pillow books.

It was a night of revelation, a deeper discovery of each other after so many years of knowing each other, sometime humorous, for she occasionally found his Chinese application to the task and air of seriousness amusing, and he was infected by her lightness and laughed too, and the sea wind blew across their skin.

When they arrived back at the beach at Kampong Glam, she did not know what to say to him. As she tied up, he got out of the boat and waited for her. They had kissed goodbye before they left, a lingering kiss, soft and deep. She was enclosed in his arms, the sure hardness of him, protective, loving, soon to be lost, and she had trembled. She had felt him trembling too. It was so unusual that she had pulled him to her, hard, trying to get inside him and make it go away.