She gently woke a youthful rickshaw driver who had fallen asleep waiting outside the church and negotiated a price for him to take them home. Blearily he climbed into the saddle and pedalled dreamily off.
They glided slowly through the suburbs of Rangoon, gradually heading south into the city. Despite the lateness of the hour there was still activity everywhere, the lights of teashops glowing invitingly through the darkness. The inhabitants of Rangoon must all have heard the explosions, if that was what they were, but life carried on as normal for now.
‘The Strand first, please,’ said Kate to the boy, glancing at Edwin. He was sitting very still again, his fingers white with tension.
Outside the hotel Kate climbed stiffly down from the rickshaw and gently helped Edwin to alight, leading him up the steps to where a doorman waited, looking concerned.
‘He’s had a bit of a shock,’ she said. ‘Look after him, will you?’
‘Of course, madam,’ said the doorman, holding out a hand to steady him. He opened the door, letting a pool of warm light flood the steps.
Kate patted Edwin’s shoulder. ‘Will you be all right?’
Edwin shook himself, seeming suddenly to realise where he was, and stood up a little straighter. ‘I’ll be fine.’ He blinked. ‘Goodnight. And thank you.’
He watched as Kate climbed back into the rickshaw and the boy pedalled off again, heading for Pagoda Road.
7
Rangoon, December 1941
Kate padded around her flat, occasionally moving things from one room to another. Officially she was tidying up, but really she was just enjoying the space – her space. A fortnight had passed since the Scottish party and Japanese forces had started bombing targets in the far south of Burma, while ground troops invaded Malaya and Singapore. Asia was suddenly at war, but in Rangoon things were oddly calm and Kate tried not to think about what was to come.
Having a whole flat to herself still felt like a luxury. In the busy house of her childhood, dominated by her father’s sickroom, there had rarely been time to be alone. Occasionally she would run out into the fields, brushing her hands in the dew of the early morning, or stand out at dusk in the summer listening to the birds, before going back inside.
The day she got the keys to the flat she had waited until the footsteps of her kindly landlord had died away before lying down on the cool wooden floor, her arms and legs outstretched, listening to the murmur of the street outside and the chiming of a clocktower.
Every day, coming back from work at the Secretariat, she was delighted to see the place again, to sit in the chair by the window with a drink and read or watch the city. She did not dwell on the fact that she was lonely; it seemed a fair price to pay for the solitude she craved.
Of the occasional lovers she’d had in Rangoon, none had been invited back to the flat. She couldn’t have said why. It seemed too private. Perhaps, if she had fallen in love with one of them, it might have been different, but they were short-term flings, usually with men who were passing through, equally uninterested in lasting arrangements.
‘You can be very cold,’ said Paul, the most recent, the last time she saw him, as she buttoned her dress in front of the mirror in his room.
‘Cold?’
‘Detached. You’re not very loving.’
‘But you’re not in love with me,’ said Kate, surprised.
He looked back at her appraisingly. ‘No, I suppose I’m not.’
‘Ah. You want to be loved, but not to have to do any loving yourself. Don’t you think that’s rather selfish?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s what I’m used to.’ His honesty had been one of the things that had attracted her in the first place. Now she wanted to slap him.
‘And how does that usually end up?’
He sighed. ‘I get bored and move on.’
‘Well, don’t let me stop you,’ she said, pulling on her shoes. She picked up her bag and looked around for anything she might have missed.
‘You’ll fall in love with someone eventually,’ said Paul, leaning back against the headboard and lighting a cigarette. ‘I wonder if you’ll be as cold to them?’
Kate stared at him, feeling a rush of fury tempered by indifference. Who was he to pass judgement on her, as if he knew her? He knew nothing about her – had never asked about her family, her background, or wondered why she might be unable – or unwilling – to open her heart. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing.
‘Goodbye,’ she said, and went to the door. She was angry at him, but also oddly relieved that things could end with such finality. It was clean and she need feel no remorse.
‘Kate,’ said Paul, in what she knew was meant to be a conciliatory tone, ‘I’m leaving next week. I’d like to see you before I go.’
She hesitated. Then, without turning back, she said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Good luck.’
She could hear him calling something as she went down the hallway, but she kept walking, her legs carrying her automatically home.
*
Edwin sat under a shady awning outside the teashop nearest to the Strand, slurping the last dregs of a bowl of noodle soup. He had brought a book, but it lay untouched as he watched the activity on the street outside.
‘Hello,’ said Kate, appearing beside his table. He squinted up at her. ‘I thought you’d be here. I’ve been tidying and now I’m much too hot. Want to go swimming?’
‘Yes,’ said Edwin at once. ‘Where can we go?’
‘The India Club pool,’ said Kate. She jerked her head. ‘It’s a mile or two that way.’
‘All right,’ said Edwin. ‘I’ll get my things.’ He laid some money on the table before disappearing back to the Strand. Kate looked around for a waiter, feeling vaguely that she ought to buy something, but the only person she could see was a boy who lay curled up on a table, fast asleep, his head covered by a cloth.
A plump man at the next table leaned over and placed a tiny cup of weak tea in front of her, poured from his own jug.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and he bowed his head before going back to his newspaper.
What a decent man, thought Kate, sipping the tea. She hoped that he had offered it out of kindness rather than obligation. The Burmese were proud and treated the British as equals. If only we treated them that way in return, she thought uneasily, recalling the things she had heard Europeans say when there were no ‘natives’ around.
Edwin emerged wearing a pair of shorts and carrying a bag over his shoulder. She noticed how pale his legs were but that his face had picked up a healthy colour over the last few weeks. She drank up and they started off through the hot streets towards the India Club.
‘It’s my birthday today,’ she said.
‘You should have said,’ exclaimed Edwin. ‘Many happy returns.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t you celebrate it?’
‘Not really,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve always been too busy and there was never time or money when I was a child. I almost forget it these days.’
‘The older you get the less you want to remember,’ said Edwin. ‘I shall be thirty-four soon. It seems rather old. I shan’t ask you to tell me how old you are.’
Kate laughed. ‘Today I turn twenty-seven.’
‘So you must have been born just after the first war started,’ said Edwin after a moment.
‘My poor mother, can you imagine? Having a baby twelve days before Christmas, not long after the outbreak of war, in one of the harshest winters on record.’
Edwin shook his head. ‘She must have been very stoic.’
‘She was. My father hadn’t yet been called up, so at least he was able to spend a few months with me before he was sent to France. My sister Laura would have been four, I suppose. And my grandparents were still alive then, so I expect they helped, too.’
‘Were you living on the farm?’
‘Not at that point – we lived in a village nearby. In 1917 my grandfather died, so Mother, Laura, and I move
d onto the farm to help Grandma. Then the following year Grandma was carried off by the Spanish flu and Father came home unable to work much, so the only thing to be done was for Mother to run the farm.’
Kate thought of those early years, when she and Laura had ranged through the fields and outhouses, discovering eggs still warm in the hen boxes and stroking the soft noses of young lambs. Her father had gone back to work in his office three days a week, which gradually decreased to two and then one as his health declined. Her mother, understanding that the farm would have to support them all eventually, had spent long days outside, learning from the elderly farmhands who had been there since she was a girl.
‘How old were you when he died?’ said Edwin.
‘I was twenty-one. Spring, 1936.’
Edwin said nothing, but she knew he was listening intently as they approached the Scott Market.
‘He came home from the war with gas damage,’ she said. ‘He was all right for a few years, physically at least, but it was a gradual decline.’
‘That sounds very difficult.’
‘It was, for all of us. My mother was strong but I know she was unhappy for a long time.’
‘What about you?’
‘I felt trapped,’ said Kate in a low voice. She looked up, frowning slightly. ‘I know that sounds awful.’
Edwin shook his head. ‘You were young. It’s natural to feel that way.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course. No one would choose to witness the decline of someone they love.’
‘I felt dreadfully guilty – still do, I suppose.’
‘Kate, believe me when I say that you have nothing to be ashamed of,’ said Edwin earnestly. ‘I know all about shame—’ He broke off suddenly and looked flustered.
Seeing his discomfort, Kate cast around for a change of subject. She led him on through the crowds, talking automatically about the India Club, but her mind was elsewhere. She wondered what Edwin was so ashamed of – what had happened to him? It was hard to imagine that this kind, gentle man could ever have hurt someone.
But that’s probably what he thinks of me, she said to herself, feeling chilled even under the hot sun. Perhaps we’re more alike than we think. She turned back to look at him, pushing through the crowd behind her, his glasses slipping down his nose as he rummaged in his pocket for a coin to give to a small child. What sins had Edwin Clear committed?
*
The India Club lay a few streets back from the Scott Market. It was solidly built of teak, the gardens still immaculate, and Kate wondered if she was imagining the slight whiff of decay as they walked up the driveway between quivering jacaranda trees.
‘You don’t strike me as a club sort of person,’ said Edwin, looking at the sign that heralded the entrance.
She laughed. ‘I’m a swimming sort of person. The Pegu Club is the fashionable place to go for drinks, but there’s no pool and anyway, they’re odd about women going in alone. This place is charmingly chaotic and considerably cheaper.’
The huge front doors were closed and though Kate rattled the handle and called, no one came. Squatting down, she peered through the latticed glass; the vast and empty hallway stretched away and a broom lay abandoned on the floor, evidence of its last half-hearted journey etched into the dust nearby.
‘They must have closed because of the bombing,’ said Edwin. ‘That’s a pity.’
‘The swimming pool is at the back,’ said Kate, and marched off along the side of the building, stopping now and then to look in through a window.
‘But we can’t . . . can we?’ Edwin dashed after her, trying to keep his hat on with one hand and gripping the bag that contained his swimwear and water bottle in the other.
Kate disappeared around the corner ahead and he emerged to find her standing before a high wooden fence, eyeing it appraisingly.
‘Look,’ she said, and pointed to a knothole. Dropping his things, he peered through.
On the other side he could see a whitewashed swimming pool, surrounded by neat lawns, with trees overhead to shade it against the cobalt sky. Wooden sun loungers lay on either side of the pool, each with a little table beside it, and he imagined uniformed waiters bringing cocktails to pink sunbathers as they rested between dips.
‘There’s still water in the pool,’ said Kate. Putting down her bag, she turned to him. ‘How are you at climbing?’
‘What?’
She was off before he knew it, clambering briskly up the fence, feeling out each foothold with her rubber-soled shoes. Before long she was at the top and turned briefly to look back down at him, laughing.
‘Good thing I wore shorts today!’ She swung over the top and then paused. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
For a second he saw her silhouetted against the sky, almost unbearable in its brightness, and then she was out of sight.
‘Oh – all right,’ said Edwin, and began to climb. At one point he looked down and regretted it; it would be a long way to fall. He had not climbed anything since he was a child.
He reached the ground on the other side, panting slightly, to find Kate peering at the water while untying her laces.
‘It’s fairly clean,’ she said. ‘They can’t have been closed for long.’ A few palm fronds floated on the surface.
‘I’ve left my swimsuit on the other side,’ said Edwin in dismay, looking back towards the fence.
‘Me too,’ said Kate, shrugging. ‘Never mind.’ She pulled her shoes off, looking down at the cotton shorts and blouse she wore.
‘You’re not—’
With a splash, Kate leapt into the water. It was cool, and for a moment everything was gloriously quiet and calm. She opened her eyes and saw the eerie green expanse of the pool stretching away, free of the dozens of pairs of plump legs that would usually be kicking lazily below the surface. She swam down as close to the bottom as she could. It was odd to be alone here. She wondered where the patrons had all gone and if they would ever return.
There was a muffled splash over at the deep end and she watched Edwin diving down, his hands neatly pointed. He looked even paler than usual, and she remembered the Burmese legends that Miss Soe had told her about green ghosts, souls doomed to wander. Edwin, she thought, the ghost trying to find his way home.
Later, they lay baking on sun loungers and Edwin told her about his parents and his happy childhood in Kent, about how much he had enjoyed teaching. In turn, Kate told him about her mother, who ran the farm single-handed and was tougher than anyone she knew, and her sister Laura, who was a nurse and worked terribly hard, and how she had read Kipling’s poem about Mandalay as a young woman and had thought of Burma ever since.
‘I would have liked siblings,’ said Edwin, fanning himself with a banana leaf. ‘I was rather a lonely child. It must have been fun.’
‘I suppose it was when we were little,’ said Kate. ‘But Laura was four years older than me, so she left home when I was twelve to go to secretarial college and later went in for nursing.’
‘And she got married?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, wrinkling her nose. ‘To Will. A perfectly amiable solicitor’s clerk.’
‘You don’t like him?’
She shrugged. ‘He’s a nice enough chap. Just a bit boring. I was disappointed in her lack of imagination. Although I suppose I was also envious that she’d escaped. We grew apart a lot when I was stuck at home and after Father died it got even worse. She didn’t approve of me coming here. She thought it wasn’t fair on Mother. I suppose she was right.’
Kate stared at the surface of the water, which twinkled as it was gently ruffled by a breeze, thinking of Laura in cold, wet London. She looked up at Edwin, who was still watching her. ‘The war seems to have done wonders for our relationship. Will signed up immediately and Laura went to nurse in London. She started sending me great stacks of books.’
‘A peace offering?’ said Edwin.
‘I suppose so, yes. We don’t talk much about the past, but I’m glad to be frie
nds again. I wonder when I’ll next see her.’
‘I wonder that about my parents,’ said Edwin, frowning slightly. ‘I know they’re safe enough in Kent but one can’t help worrying.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘I think I’ll have another dip.’
Kate watched him practise diving, his thin arms surprisingly muscular, and wondered for a moment what it would be like to fall in love with him. No, she thought firmly, surprised at the strength of feeling. Don’t mistake friendship for romance, for it is far more rare and precious. It occurred to her that Edwin was probably the first man who had not treated her as a potential conquest: the first real friend that she had had.
She knew that they were both carefully avoiding the painful territory they had encountered before. Edwin’s loss was still raw and the weight of it sometimes made him maudlin and prickly. Eventually, she supposed, they would talk about it properly. Perhaps she could tell him about her own grief, the tragedy that had sent her away from home.
It was a long, hot, strange afternoon and the war was a world away. They talked and laughed, comparing suntan lines. Edwin pretended to be a waiter, serving her half a coconut shell he had found on the ground, and she showed him her spluttering impression of the ageing colonels who usually used the pool. They swam again and finally, when the shadows were lengthening, they climbed over the fence and made their way back towards Pagoda Road, their clothes drying quickly in the warm evening.
8
London, June 1941
Edwin had consumed most of a bottle of whisky on the night his father found him. He was curled up on the floor of the temporary lodgings he had rented after the bombing, weeping into a scarf of Emilia’s, the empty whisky bottle rolling nearby.
‘What do you want?’ he slurred, seeing his father enter the room. ‘How did you . . . get in here?’
‘The landlady let me in,’ said his father, shaking his head a little. ‘Oh, Edwin. You’re a mess.’ He leaned for a moment on the door frame, wincing as he stretched out his bad leg.
‘Leave me alone,’ Edwin said, struggling up to lean against an armchair.
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