A Painter in Penang: A Gripping Story of the Malayan Emergency

by Clare Flynn

  Jasmine closed her eyes and the shot rang out.

  But she felt nothing. No pain. She was in a heap on the ground. Had she fainted and the shot missed her? How else would she have heard it? There was an eerie silence. Time had frozen. Was she dead?

  Then she saw Bintang. He was sprawled on his back on the ground. A small singed hole broke up the smooth contours of his forehead. His wide-open eyes stared up at her, unseeing. Seeping out from under his skull a sticky pool of blood formed a halo around his shock of black hair.

  Jasmine lowered her head so she wouldn’t see the terrorist take aim. No hope of mercy in his case. Nor did she want it.

  The second shot rang out but the man crumpled and fell to the ground.

  Jasmine didn’t wait to find out if he was dead. She shuffled on her knees towards Bintang and lay across his still warm body, her head where his heart should be beating. She thought of that evening in the car on the way back to Bella Vista, when her head had lain in the same place, only for his hand to cradle her hair and his heart to beat strongly.

  ‘Bintang, what did they do to you, my love?’ She whispered before her words became incoherent and then turned to keening. Pain poured out of her. Shock. Disbelief. Sorrow. Grief. She sobbed and wailed. It was only when she felt herself being gently eased away from Bintang’s body, that she remembered there was someone else there. Whoever had shot the terrorist.

  Howard Baxter held her against his chest as she sobbed. He stood immobile, patient, holding her while the shock and grief drained out of her.

  Her body calmed, but her thoughts continued to race. ‘I loved him and he loved me.’

  Howard tried to draw her back into his protective hold.

  She pushed him away.

  Howard’s eyes flickered momentarily in pain, but his expression was one of compassion and sympathy. ‘He was about to kill you, Jasmine.’

  ‘He wasn’t. He couldn’t do it. That’s why the bandit shot him.’

  Then something occurred to her. ‘If that other man hadn’t appeared, you’d have shot Bintang, wouldn’t you? Because he burned down your rubber stores.’ She gave a little sob. ‘And because I love him.’

  ‘I couldn’t give a damn about the rubber store. I’d have preferred him to be arrested and tried for arson. But no, I wouldn’t have let him kill you. And yes, I was jealous of him and I still am, even though he’s dead. Seeing you grieving over him hurts.’ His jaw was set in a hard line. ‘You need to be clear about something, though. No matter what your feelings for him might have been, whatever he felt for you wasn’t love. No man who loved you could point a gun at you – even if he didn’t fire it. And a man who does love you with every fibre of his being wasn’t going to stand here and watch him do it.’

  Howard’s face was stricken. His last words were choked with emotion. He turned and walked away, back through the rubber trees towards the padang.

  Jasmine dropped to her knees again, beside Bintang’s body. The heat and humidity of Malaya and its jungle made it a paradise for all forms of wildlife, including insects. Already a swarm of ants was colonising his face. The body would be rapidly consumed if left alone – which of course it wouldn’t be – she could already see a small group of men in the distance, making their way towards her.

  Jasmine felt only sadness: for the way Bintang had been indoctrinated, for his sad, too brief life and the wasted possibilities for his future. Sad also for his grandmother, who had now outlived the last member of her family. And sad for herself. For the child she had been and the innocence she had lost forever.

  With a last look at that beautiful face she began to walk back to the bungalow.

  31

  The rest of that day passed in a blur. Jasmine was as drained as if she had been put through a mangle, all the life and energy squeezed out of her. But she did remember an angry Barbara ranting at her for leaving her in the bungalow cellar.

  ‘Anything could have happened. The bandits could have broken in and murdered me. I’ve never been so terrified in my life. And it was so gloomy down there. One naked light bulb. Disgusting. And nowhere proper to sit.’ She folded her arms and glared at Jasmine. ‘I had to sit on a mattress on the floor.’

  ‘Shut up, Barbara.’ Howard’s voice was tense with anger. ‘Stop moaning. Jasmine doesn’t want to listen to it. And neither do I.’

  Barbara turned to Jasmine. ‘Did you hear what he said?’ Eliciting no response, she resorted to Godfrey and said, ‘I want to go home. Now. I don’t want to spend any more time in this godforsaken dump.’

  ‘I’ll take them,’ said Howard to Godfrey. ‘I know you want to get on with assessing the damage.’

  Godfrey, grateful, nodded. ‘Thanks, pal. I think we got off quite lightly this time. But those guards are going to get a rocket up their backsides. See you later. Bye, Jasmine.’ Without a glance at Barbara, he was gone.

  Barbara looked as though she were about to burst into tears.

  The three of them left the bungalow. As she was getting into the back of the jeep, Jasmine saw the Malayan housekeeper again. The woman was running across the padang, towards the jeep from the line of houses where the tappers lived, a young boy clutching her hand. Howard had evidently not noticed or deemed it unrelated to their departure. He released the throttle as soon as Jasmine was inside, and the jeep moved quickly away.

  The journey passed in total silence, Howard keeping his eyes on the narrow slit in the armour plating that covered the windscreen and Barbara still in a huff. Alone in the back seat, Jasmine wallowed in her own private misery.

  As soon as they reached Orchard House, Barbara got out, slamming the door behind her, ignoring Jasmine and not even bothering to thank Howard for the lift.

  ‘How are you getting back to Penang?’ Howard turned to Jasmine.

  ‘I’ve no idea. Barbara’s driver picked me up from Bella Vista and was supposed to be dropping me back. But that’s looking unlikely now. I’ll have to ask her if I can telephone for Reggie to come and get me.’

  ‘I’ll run you home. Don’t worry, I’ll take the armour plating off. The main road between here and the ferry is safe.’

  She tried to protest that it was out of his way, that it would mean he would be driving back in the dark, but he brushed that aside. ‘Go and get your things while I get the panels off.’

  Inside the house there was no sign of Barbara, so Jasmine hurried upstairs to fetch her bag. The shocking pink gown was still hanging on the outside of the wardrobe door, its fish tail trailing limply across the carpet. Was it only last night that she’d been wearing it? A lifetime ago and she had been a completely different person. Her reflection in the mirror stared back at her. How could she possibly look the same as she always did, when inside she felt so different?

  It was more comfortable in the front of the vehicle, as Barbara had no doubt realised when she’d made sure she sat there. Jasmine leaned back and pretended to doze, grateful that Howard didn’t try to talk to her, didn’t dredge up what had happened. Without all the armour plating, now stacked in the back, it was much cooler and a relief to be able to see out of the windows.

  The internal wounds from this afternoon would stay with her forever. How could she ever get over it? She tried to block out the memory of the contempt and loathing on Bintang’s face. She shivered with remembered fear, despite the heat of the afternoon, at the image of him raising the gun and steadying his arm to take aim.

  Howard was wrong. Bintang would never have gone through with killing her. The other CT had known that and that’s why he’d shot him.

  With a sudden cry of anguish the tension inside her broke, as she acknowledged how close to death she had been. A mere moment later it would have been her, alongside Bintang, lying on the ground with ants covering her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, tears rolling down her face. ‘I shouldn’t have said what I did. I didn’t mean it. You saved my life, Howard. I’m sorry I was being insensitive and ungrateful.’

  ‘
You were in shock,’ he said simply. ‘You have no need to apologise.’ He kept his eyes on the road, so she couldn’t read his face.

  ‘I do. And I need to explain. About Bintang.’

  ‘There’s nothing to explain. I’m sorry you went through all that. He doesn’t deserve your tears. But there’s no point me saying that, is there?’

  She turned her head and looked out of the window. It had started raining heavily. A sudden tropical rainstorm. It suited her mood. Acres of dripping rubber and oil palm trees gave way to the buildings on the edge of Butterworth. They were almost at the ferry.

  The woman she had seen at Batu Lembah, Nayla, drifted into her thoughts again and with her, the memory of that other drive from Batu Lembah to the ferry before the war, with her stepmother, Mary and Penny. Then it had been Mummy who was encased in misery. Utterly distraught. Even at such a tender age and tired from a long day, it had been evident that something terrible had happened to upset Evie. Now Jasmine understood what it was. That long-ago afternoon, and the days that followed it, her mother had plumbed the depths of despair and misery. Even a child could see that. Somehow remembering this made Jasmine feel better. Mummy had been badly let down by a man but had gone on to find happiness with Arthur. Even before that, she had managed to patch things up with Daddy until his death, another blow to Evie. If Mummy had been brought low by all that and yet remained strong, then she must be strong too.

  She was fast asleep when they reached Bella Vista, the motion of the car lulling her off. Mary and Reggie were on the veranda when they pulled up. As she was getting out of the car, Howard reached over and squeezed her hand lightly.

  For a moment she was disorientated, sleep having banished the events of the day temporarily.

  Howard took her hand and put her watch and the pearl ring in it. ‘I almost forgot. They found these in Bintang’s pocket.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Remember, Jasmine, if you ever need to talk, don’t hesitate. Call me at BL or drop me a line and I’ll come at once.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper. ‘And I’m sorry about everything, Howard. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way.’

  Exhausted, Jasmine went straight to bed, leaving Howard with the Hyde-Underwoods, to be fortified with a sandwich and a stengah before the long drive home.

  * * *

  The following morning, Jasmine felt drained.

  Mary had just started her breakfast when Jasmine walked into the room. She looked up and smiled. ‘We tried to persuade Howard to stay the night and set off early this morning but he insisted he had to get back. He told us there was an arson attack at Batu Lembah.’ She handed Jasmine a cup of tea. ‘I got the impression there’s more to the story than he was ready to tell me. He was very concerned for you. Told us to keep a close eye on you. Was it terrifying?’

  ‘The fire? No. I got nowhere near it.’

  Mary stretched her hand out and laid it on Jasmine’s. ‘What’s happened, Jasmine? Why did Howard have to bring you back? Did you fall out with Barbara?’

  She nodded.

  ‘It’s a pretty poor show on her part to drag you over there for a party with a promise of transport and then leave you to find your own way home. I had heard she was a bit of a handful. Spoilt rotten, apparently. I didn’t want to put you off her but I wish I’d guessed something like this might happen.’ She took a sip of her own tea. ‘How was the party? Was that at least fun? Did you meet some nice people?’

  ‘The party was fine.’ Her voice was flat.

  ‘There’s something wrong, Jasmine. I can tell.’

  ‘Bintang’s dead.’

  Mary gasped. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I was there.’

  ‘What on earth happened? Was it to do with the fire?’

  ‘I suppose it was. He started it. Then he tried to kill me. He told me he hated me and pointed a gun at my head but he couldn’t go through with it, Mary.’ She took a gulp of air. ‘So one of the communists shot him dead.’

  Mary gasped. ‘Oh, my poor darling.’

  Jasmine shook her head when Jinjiang stuck her head round the door to ask what she wanted to eat. ‘Thanks but I’m not hungry.’

  She glanced up at Mary. ‘When someone you care for tells you that rather than loving you back, he hates you enough to want you dead, it’s the worst of all possible rejections.’ Her own voice sounded hollow, flat.

  Mary jumped up and came around the table to her and pulled her into a tight hug. ‘You poor dear girl. What a terrible experience. I am so sorry.’

  ‘I really believed I was in love with him, but I can’t have been, can I? You can’t love someone when they threaten to kill you – can you?’

  ‘But he didn’t kill you, Jasmine. Isn’t that the point?’

  ‘Howard says if Bintang had loved me he wouldn’t have been able to point a gun at me. Even if he didn’t actually fire it. Mary, even if he didn’t want to kill me, he said he hated me.’

  ‘Bintang didn’t hate you, my darling. I’m certain of that.’

  ‘I don’t want you to think badly of him. I know you and Reggie cared about him. But in the end he wasn’t like the Bintang we knew. He said terrible things. About all of us. He called us all running dogs.’

  ‘They indoctrinate people. It is a form of brainwashing. To put the party first. They do it in order to get men like Bintang to do terrible things. To kill people. To commit arson. They teach them how to hate. They punish those who don’t obey. And they expect the men and women who work for them to commit atrocities. It’s drummed into them all so fanatically that they lose all moral sense. I think that must have happened to Bintang.’

  ‘So, he wasn’t always like that and hiding it from us?’

  ‘No. I am sure he was a good person. The Bintang we all knew wouldn’t hate or kill. But who knows what the communists did to him in those jungle camps. What they threatened to do if he didn’t obey. It’s a form of mind control.’ She took Jasmine’s hand. ‘And he must have known they’d shoot him if he refused to obey the order to kill you. That means that at the end the good man that he was came through.’

  Jasmine took another deep breath and felt herself relax a little. ‘Thank you, Mary. I feel better about it now. I don’t want to think badly of him. Or of myself for caring about him. I will have to break the news to his grandmother. Doing that while believing him to be a bad person would have been too hard for me.’

  ‘But I don’t understand what happened next. Why didn’t the terrorist kill you after he’d shot Bintang?’

  Jasmine gave a little sob. ‘Howard saved my life. He shot the other bandit. And instead of being grateful I was angry.’

  ‘Ah. I see.’

  ‘Am I a terrible person, Mary?’

  ‘No, my love. You are a kind and warm person who has undergone a terrible experience. The last thing you should do is blame yourself.’

  * * *

  Later that day, Mary drove Jasmine to the kampong where Bintang’s grandmother lived. Mary waited in the car while Jasmine went alone to the little hut at the edge of the village.

  It was awful witnessing the old lady’s distress. No weeping and wailing, but more of a silent crumpling up inside as though she had lost any reason for living.

  Yet the woman appeared to have expected it. ‘I know he never come home. I know it was the end.’

  Together they went to Siti’s grave and the old woman propped the painting of Bintang against the trunk of the jackfruit tree. ‘Now I come each day and talk to both my grandchildren. They together in paradise.’

  Jasmine reached for the old lady’s hand, her eyes full of tears. ‘I cared for Bintang very much. He was my friend.’ Her voice broke.

  The old woman put her arms around Jasmine and held her as she cried. ‘Bintang talk always of you. He say you like Siti. Clever and beautiful. He like you very much.’

  * * *

  Three days later, Jasmine was in her stud
io painting. Since the shocking events of the weekend, she had flung herself into her work, finding consolation and peace in the silence of the little wooden studio. The act of painting helped her lose herself: the almost meditative process of creating the work, of moving her eyes between the object or scene and her translation of it onto the canvas. Locked in concentration, there was no room left for morbid thoughts to enter her head as they did whenever she tried to read a book or go to sleep.

  In her art she was experimenting with a less figurative approach, more abstract, pushing at the boundaries of form and colour. It was liberating; this freeing up allowed her to see connections between the objects she was capturing and their place in space. She let her hand and her imagination run free. She wasn’t confident about the end results, but the process was deeply satisfying. It was as if she were gently feeling her way in the dark and, eventually, she would reach the light and it would all make sense.

  Jinjiang appeared in the doorway. It was the first time she had ever been near the studio and now she stood, hesitant, on the threshold, curling her nostrils, perhaps repelled by the smell of the oil paint. Her eyes ranged over the collection of works stacked around the room, leaning against the walls. ‘Mem say you come house now. Someone here to see you.’ The housekeeper hurried away.

  Puzzled, Jasmine, wiped a rag over her brush. She hated being interrupted when she’d found her flow. It was like floating gently down a stream only to crash into a boulder. She pulled off her apron and made her way back to the bungalow.

  She’d expected to find Mary on the veranda. That was where she spent most days when she wasn’t teaching – reading a book or, more often, playing with Frances. But she wasn’t there. Jasmine went into the cool dark interior of the house.

  ‘In here, Jasmine. In the drawing room.’