by Clare Flynn
The conversation was almost entirely between the two men, and soon moved on to the political situation.
‘The damn commies are everywhere,’ said Reggie. ‘Trade unionists crawling all over the country. You had any strikes?’
‘Not at Batu Lembah. We have a pretty happy workforce. But there have been strikes threatened at some of the other Guthrie’s estates. It was one of the things talked about at the meeting I went to yesterday.’
‘It’s all the Maoists. The blighters were on our side against the Japs but the darn government failing to grant citizenship to the Chinese has screwed things up for everybody. And not a peep from Government House about granting independence, so that’s upset the Malays as well. No wonder the commies find fertile ground for their propaganda. Mark my words, there’ll be bloody civil war here if we’re not careful.’
‘Reggie!’ Mary looked at Jasmine with alarm. ‘You’ll frighten the poor girl.’
He turned to Jasmine. ‘Sorry, my dear. I get a bit hot under the collar when I think what a mess some of our countrymen have made of things.’
‘How so? I’m still trying to figure out Malayan politics.’ Howard put down his knife and fork and focused his attention on Reggie. ‘I’ve been so caught up with trying to learn the ropes and spending late nights poring over the check rolls. And to be honest, I don’t like to ask too many questions. Being the new boy.’
‘Ah, the creeper, eh? Yes, probably best to keep your head down and get on with it until you know the lie of the land.’ Reggie paused to chew a piece of beef. ‘But to answer your question, the army made a hash of things when the BMA was running the country immediately after the war. Lost the trust of the locals. High-handed and stupid. And I think some of the jungle fighters got a taste for battle and don’t want to stop. Having finished off the Japs they want to get shot of us too.’
‘But surely there can’t be many of them still out there in the jungle?’
‘You’d be surprised. They reckon about five thousand. You heard of Chin Peng?’
Howard shook his head.
Jasmine listened, finding, to her surprise, she was interested.
‘He’s a Chinese communist who worked with the British during the war, behind the lines. After the Japs surrendered, we pinned a medal on him, but if you ask me, we should have thrown the blighter out of the country or locked him up. Trouble with some of my countrymen is they assume everyone plays by the rules. Does the decent thing. Believe their former comrades in arms would never turn on ‘em.’ He stabbed the air with his knife. ‘But let me tell you, Baxter, our boys dropped a ton of weaponry into the jungle by parachute and barely any of it was returned after the war.
‘Force 136. You heard of them? A small band of British secret intelligence and army types who worked against the Japs. They got into bed with the Chinese led by Chin Peng and another chap. What was his name, Mary?’ Reggie frowned in concentration. ‘After the war the fellow was overthrown by Chin Peng but he double-crossed him and ran off with all the party funds.’ He slapped the table. ‘Lai Tek, that was his name.’ Reggie grinned in satisfaction. ‘Rumour was he was a Special Branch agent. In the pay of the British. Probably disappeared over the border into Thailand. Never heard of since. Story is Chin Peng had him murdered in Bangkok and I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Anyway, there was enough weaponry airdropped in for an army. Apparently, Chin Peng and his boys buried it underground deep in the jungle, so we could end up being attacked with our own weapons.’ He turned to look at Jasmine. ‘Your stepfather was in Force 136, I’ve heard. He ever talk about it? He must have known Lai Tek and Chin Peng.’
‘Arthur? Was he really?’ Jasmine struggled to imagine her civil servant stepfather as a guerrilla fighter.
‘That’s what I heard but I don’t know the details.’
‘Arthur never talks about the war. Maybe he does to Mummy but certainly not to me.’
‘Brave lot those Force 136 boys. All that time living in the jungle, risking being turned in to the Japanese. Hard to hide when you’re a white man, sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb. I suppose it’s no wonder that the top military don’t want to turn on Chin Peng and his like. They were a band of brothers.’ Reggie shook his head. ‘But the war’s over and it’s obvious he and his pals want to turn Malaya into a Chinese communist state.’
Mary spoke at last. ‘I think we’ve had enough war and politics for one evening.’
Reggie looked stricken. ‘Forgive me. I have rather gone on a bit, haven’t I? Sorry, ladies.’
‘I thought it was jolly interesting,’ said Jasmine. ‘Specially the bit about Arthur.’ She grinned. ‘I can’t imagine him as a jungle fighter.’
Reggie looked as though he was about to respond but thought better of it. ‘So, Baxter, Mary tells me you’re going to be shown round the island by our delightful house guest tomorrow.’
Jasmine felt herself blushing. She had hoped that might have been forgotten and wondered how she could get out of it. Glancing at Howard, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he was still avoiding her eyes. What was the matter with the man? One minute declaring he was nuts about her and now acting as if she were invisible.
Mary said, ‘As you probably know, Howard, Jasmine left the island when she was only nine, so she’s keen to rediscover it. I’m afraid we’ve been rather negligent since she’s been staying with us.’
‘No, you haven’t at all.’ Jasmine was vehement. ‘It’s paradise up here. I love the quiet and as long as I have my sketchbook, I don’t need any other entertainment.’
Reggie cut in again. ‘Anyway, my driver is at your disposal for the day tomorrow.’
‘I thought you could show Howard the Botanical Gardens – you used to love the waterfalls and the monkeys when you were a little girl,’ said Mary.
Jasmine bit her tongue before she could retort that she wasn’t a child anymore.
‘You like monkeys?’ Howard Baxter addressed Jasmine for the first time that evening. ‘I’d never have expected that.’ He looked amused.
How patronising. The man was insufferable. How was she going to get through a whole day with him tomorrow? And with Bintang to witness it all. She prayed that once they were away from Mary and Reggie, Howard wouldn’t start all that nonsense he had subjected her to on the ship again.
13
After looking in on her sleeping daughter, Mary returned to the bedroom.
‘I think that went rather well.’ Reggie was already sitting up in bed, waiting for her. ‘Frances all right?’
‘Fast asleep. And yes, everyone enjoyed the meal. I was relieved Jasmine wasn’t in a huff. And maybe Evie was exaggerating when she said Howard was smitten.’
‘He seems a decent chap.’
‘He is. And very charming. I was dreading Jasmine being as rude to him as she was yesterday, but she was perfectly civil. And he didn’t actually appear to be interested in her at all.’
Reggie tilted his head in a smile. ‘I may well have had something to do with that.’
Mary paused, hairbrush in hand. ‘And exactly how?’
‘We had a bit of a chinwag before you two joined us. He’s a surprisingly frank young man. Told me he has a thing for the lass. Absolutely besotted. I did point out that she was still very young but he doesn’t believe that should be a barrier. So, I told him nothing gets a gal more interested than giving her the impression you’re not interested in her.’
‘Reggie Hyde-Underwood! What a devious chap you are. I wouldn’t have expected that of you.’
‘Well, it worked with you didn’t it?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘When you sent me away with a flea in my ear.’
‘I didn’t!’
‘Of course you did, darling girl. You know jolly well you did. It was in your garden. And I can’t tell you how low I felt after that and how many times I had to stop myself jumping in the car and driving back down to George Town to try to change your mind. But I stayed a
way and in the end you came to me, and thank God you did.’
‘It’s completely different. There was the little matter of me being pregnant.’
‘Do you mean you only married me because of Frances?’ Reggie looked crestfallen but Mary knew he was following a ritual they often went through.
She put on her nightgown and climbed into the bed beside him.
Reggie leaned towards her and kissed her slowly.
‘Same goes for you,’ Mary said. ‘If I hadn’t come up here that afternoon, you might never have asked me again.’
‘I most certainly would. I’d have had to crack eventually. But would you have said yes the next time?’
‘I probably would have said yes five minutes after I said no the first time.’
They kissed again.
‘I do rather like Howard. Jasmine could do a lot worse,’ said Mary. ‘But she’s very young. Probably too young to know what she wants yet. In some respects she’s awfully mature, but then at times she’s a little girl who doesn’t want to grow up.’
‘I agree. Look at me and Susan. Childhood sweethearts. We’d have got married at seventeen if it hadn’t been for Guthrie’s not allowing juniors to marry. We had to wait until I was an Assistant Manager. By then we’d been apart for five years with me out here and her back in England and being engaged was a habit.’ He reached for Mary’s hand. ‘I’m absolutely sure if Susan and I had met for the first time when we were in our late twenties, she and I would never have got together.’
‘It will be interesting to see if Howard Baxter is prepared to wait around for Jasmine to grow up a bit.’ Mary smoothed the sheet with her hand. ‘Especially if he goes to a lot of parties and joins all the sports and social clubs. There’ll be young women lining up to snaffle a handsome chap like him.’
‘Maybe. But if I were a betting man I’d lay my money on Jasmine. His heart’s set on her.’
‘Who knows? Time will tell.’ Mary reached for the light and switched it off. ‘Anyway, we’ve talked enough about them now.’ She moved into his waiting arms.
* * *
Jasmine lay in bed, unable to sleep, all too aware that Howard Baxter was a few feet away on the other side of the wall, in the adjacent bedroom. Uncomfortable at the thought, she tried to divert her mind to something else. Something that would send her off to sleep.
Had he been playing games with her on the ship? Was he just a great big flirt, and she happened to be the only available target on the Rosebery? And, more importantly, would she be disappointed if that were the case?
No, Jasmine, don’t go down that road. Don’t even think about him anymore, she told herself. She absolutely one hundred percent didn’t want a boyfriend. It had been embarrassing when he’d said all those stupid, corny things to her. It was vain and silly of her to be feeling a bit disappointed that he’d ignored her for most of the evening. Maybe she should continue behaving towards him the way she’d done tonight. Open and friendly but keeping him at a distance. Like friends. Nothing more than that.
From the way Howard had been this evening it was probably all he wanted too. She was sure. There was even a word for it that she tried to remember from school. Some kind of friendship the ancient Greeks had that was not romantic. She remembered doing it in History. Yes. A non-romantic friendship would be the best solution.
As she mulled this over, feeling pleased with herself, she heard a sliding noise. She sat bolt upright in bed. What was that?
A shaft of moonlight ran across the bedroom floor from a narrow gap in the bamboo chicks and illuminated a dark square shape on the floor in front of the door. She fumbled to find the switch on her bedside lamp.
Someone had pushed a thin package through the gap underneath the bedroom door. Puzzled, Jasmine got out of bed and padded barefoot across the room. She picked up the object, realisation dawning. It was a gramophone record. Through the large circular hole in the centre of the brown paper disc cover, she saw the words RCA Victor, under a picture of a dog listening to the sound of his master’s voice coming from a gramophone horn. The promised recording of When You Were Sweet Sixteen by Perry Como.
Shivering, she put the disc on top of the chest of drawers and scuttled back into bed. Did this mean Howard was still interested in her? Her throat constricted. She would have to find an excuse to get out of this trip around the island. How could she possibly face him now? Unless she could persuade Mary to come too. But Mary and Reggie had little enough time to spend together and that wouldn’t be fair.
Why was life so complicated? Why couldn’t she be left alone to get on with her painting, helping at the school and doing her studies? Why had this man come pushing his way into her life and why did he make her feel so utterly miserable?
* * *
The following morning, Jasmine went into breakfast with a sense of dread. To her relief, only Mary was at the table, with Frances in her lap. Mary was trying to feed her rusks soaked in milk, but the baby was getting more on her face than in her mouth as she wriggled about so much.
‘Morning,’ Mary said brightly. ‘Giving Frances a bath before breakfast was a mistake. The little terror has soggy rusk all over her newly washed hair.’
After pulling faces at Frances to make her laugh, which rendered Mary’s attempts to feed the child even more difficult, Jasmine sat down and reached for the toast rack.
‘Don’t have that. It’ll be cold and rubbery. JinJiang is making some more.’
As Mary spoke, the amah came into the room with another rack of toast and a fresh pot of tea.
‘Am I frightfully late?’ Jasmine buttered her toast. ‘Only I had trouble sleeping.’
‘Poor thing. And no you’re not. Reggie’s taken Howard on a tour of the estate. Talking shop.’ Mary rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve asked Bintang to have the motor ready to take you both in about forty minutes. Hope that suits you.’
Jasmine mumbled something in reply. The sick hollow feeling she’d had since finding the record, made her realise she wasn’t hungry. She let the piece of toast drop back onto the plate.
‘Are you all right, Jasmine? You look a bit pale.’
‘Just tired. I’ll be fine.’ She closed her eyes for a moment then decided to confide in Mary. ‘I don’t really want to go with Howard. You remember when we docked, he asked you about whether you had a gramophone player? Only he pushed a record under my door last night.’
‘A record? What record?’
‘It’s a Perry Como song called When You Were Sweet Sixteen.’
‘Ah.’ Mary’s tone was knowing. ‘I see. You think he has designs on you?’
Jasmine nodded, miserable.
‘And you don’t like him?’
‘It’s not that…it’s … oh Mary, I don’t know. I wish I’d never met him.’
‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have invited him here without asking you first. In my keenness to find some friends for you, I’ve organised you too much. I thought he seemed such a nice chap.’
‘He is nice. Well, I suppose he is. It’s …you know… I don’t want to…all that.’
‘I understand. You want to be friends and nothing more?’
‘Yes! Exactly.’
‘Would you like me to tell him you’re unwell?’
‘He’ll know that’s not true. And it’s not fair to get you to lie for me.’
Mary adjusted the baby in her lap and wiped her chin with her bib. ‘I could explain to him that you want to be just friends. Has he ever tried––?’
‘No! Never. Nothing like that.’ Jasmine poured herself a cup of tea. ‘He goes on and on about how much he likes me. It’s embarrassing. I think there must be something wrong with me. I don’t feel that way at all about him.’
‘And why should you? Just because he’s a handsome fellow doesn’t mean you have to be attracted to him. Besides, you hardly know him.’
‘I feel awkward and stupid when he talks to me that way. It gives me the creeps.’
‘Would you like me to speak
to him? Ask him to tone it down a bit?’
‘Gosh, no! That would be even worse.’ Yet, Mary’s sympathy and understanding made Jasmine feel calmer. ‘I need to do it myself. If he starts talking that way again, I’ll make it clear that I have no interest in anything other than a Socratic friendship.’ She decided she was hungry after all and took a bite of her toast.
‘A Socratic friendship?’ Mary smiled. ‘That sounds interesting. What does that involve?’
‘It comes from Socrates, the famous Greek philosopher. It means unromantic friendships.’
‘I see.’ Mary busied herself with Frances, clearly trying to disguise her amusement.
Jasmine had a horrible feeling she might have got Plato and Socrates muddled up. She would need to look the term up before she used it again.
‘I can give him the choice.’ Jasmine sipped her tea, feeling stronger and more determined. ‘Either an unromantic friendship or none at all. Thank you, Mary.’ She spread butter and marmalade on a second piece of toast.
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You helped me get it straight in my mind.’
‘What about Perry Como?’
‘I won’t even mention it.’ Jasmine nodded her head. ‘Yes, best not to bring it up as it might embarrass him. I’ll act as if it never happened.’
‘I see. It sounds like you have it all worked out then?’
‘Yes.’ Jasmine grinned. ‘And it would be such a pity to miss a chance to see the monkeys.’
14
They sat in the back of the car as far apart as Jasmine could manage without opening the door. She stared ahead, eyes fixed on the back of Bintang’s head, while the driver’s eyes remained on the road. Beside her, Howard gazed out of the car window but said nothing. He had reverted to giving her the cold shoulder and Jasmine didn’t like it at all. While she didn’t want to talk to him, the tense silence was making her nervous that he might suddenly break it and say something outrageous in front of Bintang.