The White Pearl (42 page)

She took a towel and mopped the covers that were already beginning to crinkle. Poor Teddy, he would be so cross with himself
and the rain. She undid the strap that held it closed and dabbed at the worst of the damage. On some pages, the pencilled
words were already fading into illegibility. She had flicked through quickly and smiled to herself. So many pages covered
in small, careful handwriting. How industrious her young son had been.

I saw a school of jellyfish. White like milk.

Had he? He didn’t mention it.

I like it when the wind roars like a tiger in the sails.
And later:
Maya is scared but I told her
The White Pearl
will not capsize because it has a giant keel. The mast would brake first. That’s what Daddy told me but Maya started to cry
and that made me feel bad.

Oh, Teddy, my sweet boy. Connie blotted the towel on several more pages, trying not to read their content.
The best Chritmas ever. In a kind of tent.
She laughed out loud, and made herself move on.
I spotted a dolfin.
That was when she saw it.

I HATE RAZAK.

They were the last words he’d written. She experienced a confused pulse of anger towards the native boy. What had he done?
Hurt Teddy? With no qualms now about breaking her promise, she examined the previous page. The writing had grown tiny and
cramped as though the words could barely breathe, and she had to peer closely.

I love Mummy.
Connie caught her breath.
But I don’t love Daddy any more. He has forgoten me. He plays Snakes & Ladders and Drafts and Hangman with Razak. Not with
me. He gave Razak his speshal penknife for Christmas.

He what? Nigel would never allow
anyone
to touch the mother-of-pearl penknife that he had been given as a child by his grandfather. He carried it like a talisman
in his pocket at all times.

He laughs with Razak.

It was true. Connie realised abruptly that Nigel had taken to laughing recently. She would hear his delighted chuckle ripple
out while she was occupied reading her book or unfurling a sail.

He strokes Razak’s hair.

Connie’s cheeks flushed crimson.

I saw Daddy kiss Razak today. On the lips again. A long kiss. It’s not fair. He wants him to be his son. I HATE RAZAK.

Connie’s grief for her marriage was like mourning a death. The terrible pain of loss. Great waves of sorrow were suffocating
her. Her heart slowed to a sluggish, ill-focused beat and it ached as though someone had stamped on it.

She wanted to shout. To scream. To let everyone hear the wails of despair that were tearing through her, but instead she sat
in the saloon, barely able to touch the excellent fish and rice meal cooked by Kitty. When it was over she said quietly, ‘I
feel unwell,’ and vanished into her cabin. She sat and stared out through her porthole at the turbulent waves and when the
sky flared scarlet, painting the clouds as the sun shimmied down towards the horizon, she didn’t light the lamp. She lay in
the dark, arms curled around herself in a tight ball on the bed.

Nigel had never wanted her. Their marriage was a sham. He’d wanted a son, that was all, and a wife-figure to mask his true
desires. Her husband had used her and cheated her. All the years that she had tried so hard to win his love, to gain his favour,
he had been repulsed by her. How he must have loathed her, hated sharing a bed with her night after night – far, far worse
than she ever realised. A deep animal moan escaped into
her pillow, as a wave of humiliation swamped her. She buried her face. Burned into her brain was the look on his face each
night when they were vainly trying for a second child, the effort he had to make.

She had heard about men whose taste was for boys, but she had never known one. There were always whispers in the Club, discreet
finger-pointing on the tennis courts.
See the good-looking chap knocking hell out of the ball, well …
Or even,
Don’t look now but the fellow at the bar is giving young Macauley the eye. Right under his wife’s nose.

She had paid little attention. But she was vaguely aware of the collective cold shoulder that British society out here turned
on such men.
Deviant
, Harriet had giggled and rolled her eyes
.
The careers of those men ended abruptly when the whispers started.

She didn’t cry. The pain was far too deep for tears. Instead, she forced herself to picture Razak, how beautiful he was, and
how she was the one who had dragged him into their life. Was this the mother’s curse? Was this what Sai-Ru Jumat intended
when she said,
I curse you, white lady
? That her son would be her implement of vengeance?

Teddy came in to kiss her goodnight. As he slipped an arm around her waist, she knew that his father would never let him go.

‘Mummy,’ he kissed her damp cheek, ‘I’ll read to you. Like you read to me when I’m ill.’

So she lay on her pillows, eyes fixed on his face while he read her a page from his favourite book on learning new skills,
describing the technique required to build an igloo.

‘Useful,’ she said when he’d finished, ‘if I ever go to Lapland.’

He nodded, wanting to laugh but not quite able to.

‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she said, ‘I’ll be right as rain tomorrow. Daddy will put you to bed tonight.’

He scowled his father’s frown at her. ‘Daddy’s too busy. I can put myself to bed.’

She kissed his salty hair, breathed in the sour smell of his jealousy and felt his confusion mingle with her own.

It was hours later that Nigel came to bed. She was sitting up, alert, with the kerosene lamp casting a dull, oily glow in
the cabin. She would talk to him. Quietly. Calmly. With no display of anger and no embarrassment. She had planned the words
in her head. Outside, the wind was fitful but
the creaks and shrieks of the timbers became less intrusive, as though settling down for a night’s sleep.

‘Feeling better?’ Nigel asked politely.

‘No.’

‘Aspirin?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘That’s a shame, old thing.’

‘Nigel, I am neither old, nor a thing.’

He paused in the process of removing his socks and looked at her, surprised. ‘Just a turn of phrase, that’s all.’

She opened her mouth to tell him that she knew now that he had never loved her, that he had tempted her out to Malaya with
tales of exotic enchantment, that he had lied to her, deceived her. About everything. All to gain a son. But now he was in
danger of breaking his son’s heart, that he …

Yet when she examined his face, seeking out the liar, the deceiver, the heartbreaker, all her prepared words died in her throat.

She may feel humiliated. She may feel hurt and rejected. She may feel mortified that her husband preferred a Malayan youth
to his wife. But what she saw in his face was that Nigel was brimming with happiness. How could she not have noticed before?
The darts of light in his eyes. The shine on his skin. The curve to his mouth. And the way his long features, usually so stiff
and controlled, seemed to have rubbed up against each other and repositioned themselves, so that she would have sworn his
nose was shorter, his chin blunter, the lines of his cheeks and his eyebrows more fluid.

Suddenly, as sharp as a knife in the ribs, just like her son, Connie ached with jealousy. Nigel was in love. Nigel was happy.
In the nine lonely years of their marriage she had never seen him like this, and she could not bring herself to snatch such
happiness from him right now. He was trapped within his own desires, and her heart bled for him. So she closed her mouth and
slid down under the sheet, careful not to let any part of her body touch his as he climbed into bed. In case the clash of
skins sparked something in her that she couldn’t control, and make her lash out.

‘Goodnight, Nigel,’ she muttered.

‘Goodnight, old thing.’

*

A slender arrow of silver lay on the bedsheet. It was still dark outside but a tiny slit in a cloud somewhere had allowed
moonlight to sneak through and find a path to Connie’s bed. She watched it edge its way up towards her.

She lay awake, fingering the pearls that she wore constantly, some distant part of her mind paying heed to the motion of the
boat to judge the height of the waves, and to the grumbling of the rigging to reckon the speed of the wind. But all her attention
was on the silent form beside her in the dark. She listened to his breathing, and counted the times he turned on his side
with a sigh rumbling up from his dreams. At one point, a sudden movement of the boat jolted him from his sleep, but he chose
to pretend otherwise. Nevertheless, Connie spoke to him softly.

‘Nigel, do you like Razak?’

An indistinct murmur rose from her husband.

‘Nigel, do you like him?’

‘Razak is a nice enough young man.’ But he had hesitated too long.

‘Do you love him?’

‘What?’

‘Do you love him?’

He sat bolt upright. ‘Constance, have you gone out of your mind?’

‘Hush,’ she soothed. ‘I can see you love him. So can Teddy. That’s why he’s sulking. He thinks you have forgotten us.’

Nigel released a loud explosion of sound, then lowered it to a throaty hiss as he clambered from the bed. He landed on his
bad leg and stumbled in the darkness, cursing, but by the thin arrow of moonlight she could make out his features, contorted
with anger. Or was it fear?

‘Constance,’ he said in a low voice, aware of thin walls around him. ‘I demand an apology and a retraction.’

‘No, Nigel, I can’t. I should have realised before. It’s true, isn’t it, that …?

‘It is not true!’

‘Oh, Nigel, you should never have married me. It was cruel.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Constance.’

‘Please, Nigel, don’t lie to me any more. Be honest with me.’

‘You are suggesting something that is disgusting and unnatural. As well as illegal, as you well know.’ His voice trembled.
‘The Malay boy needs help, and I am giving it to him. Isn’t that what you wanted?’

Connie rolled over on her side, away from him. ‘No, Nigel, that is not what I wanted.’

Madoc was worried about the boat. She was still taking on too much water, limping against a headwind. The rain didn’t help.
It lashed down on the deck, hammering at the timber planks as if intent on robbing Madoc of his prize. Nothing was visible.
The solid sheets of rain swallowed the tops of the masts and veiled all land from sight, so that
The White Pearl
floated in stifling isolation, alone and disconnected. Trapped in her own private world.

‘What do you think?’

Madoc leaned against the rail alongside Flight Lieutenant Blake. The man was huddled in mustard-yellow oilskins, his gaze
turned outwards to the water, a closed expression on his face. Even so, he was a good-looking bastard. A bit too eager to
please for Madoc’s liking, but that was no bad thing. It might yet work in Madoc’s favour. He noticed the blond pilot was
munching on a biscuit – they were in short supply now, along with fresh water. He’d bet his boots that the feral little native
girl had smuggled it to him. Whenever Blake ventured up on deck, she scuttled around him with small scratchy sounds like one
of the damn cockroaches.

‘What do you think?’ Madoc repeated.

‘About what?’

‘About our chances.’

Blake continued to stare at the turbulent water. ‘I think,’ he said, with an attempt at an ironic smile, ‘that we are running
out of islands to hide in.’

‘You’re damn right there. Can’t help wondering if this Fitzpayne fellow is leading us on a merry dance.’

Slowly Blake turned his head, blue eyes narrowed. ‘A dance that ends where?’

‘That’s what I want to know.’

‘You don’t trust him?’

Madoc shrugged. ‘Do we have reason to?’

‘He’s guided us to safety … so far.’

‘Barely.’ Madoc gestured with his chin at the Jap swathed in green canvas and tethered to the mast. ‘Your friend, Mr Hadley,
slipped up there. Not his best decision – to allow an enemy on board.’

Blake frowned, but before he could comment Madoc uttered, ‘I get the feeling Fitzpayne is taking his time bringing us to this
island of his, and I wonder …’ He stopped and glanced over at the figure at the helm.

‘Wonder what?’ Blake prompted in a low tone.

‘How many of us have to die before he feels ready to sail
The White Pearl
into safe harbour.’

‘For God’s sake, man, that’s going too far.’

‘Is it?’

A sudden squall of rain slapped them in the face and made them turn their backs to the wind, hunched inside their oilskins.

‘What do you mean?’ Blake muttered.

Madoc could tell he was annoyed, yet he had the distinct feeling that it had nothing to do with the conversation they were
having.

‘I mean, the way he talks with the Jap. He squats in front of him when he thinks no one is about and speaks in fluent Japanese.’

‘So?’ Blake demanded.

‘So I’m beginning to wonder whose side he is on.’

The rain had cried itself to sleep. At last the noise of it had stopped. Maya watched the steam rise off the deck as the sun’s
rays stroked the timbers with warm fingers, and it reminded her of the smoke from the fires that had danced from hut to hut
in her street in Palur. Flames that crackled and devoured as Japanese bombs fell. She flicked a glance towards the Japanese
pilot and felt an uncomfortable heat flare in her chest. He should be lying at the bottom of the ocean, wrapped in a coffin
of seaweed.

She could see death on him, as grey and lifeless as cobwebs on his skin. Like the child charred in the fire, the one
Mem
Hadley saw in the old man’s arms in the filthy street.
Not my child. My body gave birth to it but it was never mine.
She shuddered.

She had been little more than a child herself, and the baby was sold immediately by her mother to a couple who were barren.
Her child, but not her child. After a day selling flowers on the streets, dodging the traffic, she would refuse to cross paths
with it. She would take a snaking route back to her hut to avoid its bright little face. Maybe this Japanese pilot dropped
the bomb that caused the fire.