by Janet Tanner
Taking Alex to safety must be her objective. Everything else she must put from her mind.
The off-shore breeze blew the scent of the East to her nostrils and breathing it in, Elise tried to turn her thoughts to planning what she had to do.
Of all the famed Oriental Hotels, the Raffles was perhaps the most famous of all.
Named for the founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles, pattonised by royalty and by prominent people from the world of theatre and the arts, it stood proudly on Beach Road, raising its dark green and white façade to the blue Malayan sky.
In the Tiffin Room, paved with Carrara marble, surrounded by galleries with ornate columns and arches and crowned by an elaborate skylight, sultans and wealthy Straits Chinese mingled with members of the royal house of Johore, while planters from up-country drank gin-slings in the bar where Somerset Maugham had watched colonial life pass by and Noel Coward sat when he visited the Lion City.
On her way through the streets of Singapore, Elise had been uncomfortably aware that the military activity of the harbour was much in evidence ashore too – soldiers were everywhere, an anti-aircraft gun was positioned outside the Raffles, and at their HQ opposite the hotel a squad of Straits Settlement Volunteers drilled with more enthusiasm than precision.
But within the hallowed walls, the Raffles seemed unmoved by the prospect of impending doom. There were still daily tea dances, a pageant of youth and beauty had been organised in aid of charity, and the hotel’s routine continued to run on oiled wheels.
A chambermaid unpacked for Elise and ran her a scented bath in the adjoining bathroom with its distinctive red and white towels. After the cramped conditions of the last few days, it was bliss to soak herself and some of her depression seemed to float away on the perfumed water.
Soon Gordon would be here and the madness which had been Brit would be over for good. He would take things in hand as he always did, arrange for her and Alex to go to safety. Perhaps he would even bring Alex with him to Singapore, so that they could go straight on. She hadn’t thought of that – now excitement stirred, as it occurred to her that such a plan might have been behind his decision to meet her. She could hardly wait to see Alex again. And when would they be here? The voyage from Hong Kong took about five days, but of course she had no idea when they would have sailed.
She got out of the bath and the warm air dried the droplets on her skin even before she towelled herself. Pulling on her kimono, she telephoned down to ask Reception to check when sailings from Hong Kong were expected. The reply surprised her – the next steamer was due in four days’time, having left Hong Kong yesterday. Knowing this tightened every nerve to an almost unbearable pitch of anticipation. At this very moment, Gordon and perhaps Alex too were sailing towards her. In four days’ time she would see them again. Through the anticipation she felt a swift shaft of fear that everything would not be as it had always been; that she would find they had become strangers. No, of course not. That was ridiculous!
At dinner there was no sign of Brit, but the inevitable Hemmings couple were there, forcing their unwelcome company on her, so that she found herself wondering if they had become her self-appointed guardians as a result of seeing her dancing with Brit that night in Penang. There could be no other reason, surely, for the leech-like behaviour they had adopted. It could hardly be that they liked her company – her attitude towards them would have been enough to deter the most ardent admirers.
After coffee had been served she excused herself, feeling that another minute in their company would drive her to the madhouse, but she was not yet ready to go to her room.
I could go for a walk, she thought. Singapore had never been a city to hold any terrors for her – fresh and cleaner than most of the cities of the Orient, in the European areas where the tuans lived at any rate, it seemed at the same time almost peaceful compared with the rush and bustle that was Hong Kong.
There were no seasons here – everyday was hot and humid, punctuated by brief, refreshing showers – but the evenings were tropic warm and pleasant and the left-over heat of the day kissed the skin gently. As she left the Raffles she passed but scarcely noticed the Military Police standing guard at the doors. They were just a part of the military presence that was beginning, with the glow of her after-dinner liqueur, to seem more comforting than threatening. Brit had to be wrong about the vulnerability of Singapore, for goodness sake! There were enough troops and armaments here to protect it against a much greater army than the Japs could send.
And the japs were still everywhere – running their textile shops in Middle Road, Hylam Street and Maley Street, lending their names to massage parlours, dental clinics, photography studios and hairdressing salons, and putting out decorative paper fishes to flutter in the breeze and announce the birth of their new babies. Surely they would not still be here, living, working and giving birth, if an invasion was imminent?
Deep in thought, she walked on along the waterfront and was unaware of the clatter of heavy boots following her until two soldiers fell into step one each side of her.
‘You’re the sheelagh who came out of that grand pub, aren’t you?’
‘She is, Arne. I saw her with my own two eyes.’
Automatically her chin lifted a shade, and looking from one side to the other she linked Australian army uniforms with the Australian accents. The two men were big and bronzed from the hot midsummer they had left behind, good-natured enough but obviously very drunk.
‘Now, you look nice enough for a Pommy, darling. You won’t refuse two blokes who’re going to fight for your safety, now will you?’
She stopped walking, drawing herself up very erect and looking from one to the other. Her heart had begun hammering and she was aware of sharp, trembling fear, but she had no intention of letting them see it.
‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’
For a moment the two men looked stunned, then they began to laugh. ‘ Come off it, darling! Don’t get on your high horse with us.’
‘We’ve got a hoity one here!’
One of the soldiers put a hand on her arm and she jerked it away. ‘Take your hands off me!’
They laughed again. ‘A Pommy with spirit! Now there’s a thing!’
‘Hey Pommy, give us a kiss!’
Then one soldier lurched towards her and automatically she jerked away so that she collided with the other. His arms caught her and she smelled the liquor fumes on his breath.
‘Let me go, you disgusting little man!’
‘Hey, there’s no need to be offensive!’ Good humour was being replaced by drunken aggression. ‘ Did you hear what she called you, Kev?’
‘I did, Arne.’
He was threateningly close now, and she felt almost suffocated by him. ‘Get away,’ she tried to say, but no words would come and the towering presence of him seemed to him her like a wall of heat. Then, as suddenly, he was gone, lurching and tripping over his own feet as someone pushed him roughly from behind.
‘Let her go, you oaf!’ It was Brit’s voice, Brit who put himself between her and the second soldier. ‘Are these two jokers bothering you?’
She had neither heard nor seen his approach, now her knees went weak with relief. ‘ Brit! Oh, they’re just …
‘Are they?’
The first soldier was picking himself up unsteadily, the other seemed anxious only to appease. ‘We didn’t mean any harm, sir. We just wanted her to get us into the Long Bar at that Raffles, that’s all. We saw her come out and we figured she could get us past that bloody MP on the doors.’
‘What did you think we were going to do? Rape her?’
‘We heard of the Raffles back home. Now we’ve come to defend it and they won’t let us past the door’cos we’re not bloody officers. There’s no justice …’
‘None!’ Brit said roughly.
The soldier straightened, rolled and straightened again.
‘Couldn’t you get us in, sir?’ he persisted with drunken optim
ism.
‘Not bloody likely! Now get moving before I help you on your way.’
‘All right, all right …’
As they went, remaining upright with almost comic determination, relief drew a small, shuddering laugh from Elise.
‘Thank you!’
‘That’s the second time I’ve had to rescue you from drunks, isn’t it? You seem to make a habit of attracting them.’
‘You could say that.’ Incongruously she found herself remembering not only the time on the Stranraer when he had intervened to rescue her from the soldiers, but also the night at the E & O when he had been the drunken aggressor; with the memory came again the thrust of treacherous desire, rebellion against the days and nights of knowing she must not want him.
She had been half turned towards him as the thought caught her and with the twist of longing her eyes moved against her will to seek his. At the same moment he turned and the fusion as they met stopped them both where they stood. Never had she experienced anything this powerful. For long moments it was as if her body ceased to exist; the whole of her being had been drawn up into that look. Her heart had stopped beating, her breath was suspended, she was nothing – just apart of him, something so infinite it was beyond comprehension.
Then abruptly awareness returned, flooding into her veins and bringing each nerve ending to aching life. She was alive; every inch of her was yearning towards him, magnetised as her eyes had been by an unseen force.
Without speaking they drew together in one fluid movement and were in each other’s arms. He was enveloping her; she felt she was drowning in him and the need to be closer, to have him within her, was a searing, rushing flame, blinding in its intensity.
He raised his lips but kept her within his arms, allowing her to turn just enough to put one foot in front of the other. Stumbling as the drunken soldiers had done, stopping every few yards to kiss or cling, they went back along the waterfront towards the Raffles. On the Beach Road the poor local Indians loafed, watching the dancers under the soft colour floodlighting in the Verandah Ballroom; at the main door the MP saluted, hiding a smile behind his neatly clipped toothbrush moustache, but she was unaware of it. Nothing existed beyond the driving force of desire. Nothing – not reason, not guilt, not fear. Only the need to be with him completely and utterly once more.
At his door he held her aside, searching for his key, in the soft light his face shadowed and mysterious. It sent fresh waves of love throbbing through her, but she no longer asked for this to be reciprocated. It would be enough to be here with him …
Then the door was open and he was leading her through the sitting room to the bedroom beyond. There was no fumbling, nothing to spoil the mood of completeness; her cheong-sam slipped off like a snake shedding an outworn skin. The bed had been turned back; as the silk sheets caressed her bare skin she luxuriated in utter sensuality. Then he was beside her, his warmth merging with hers, his body crushing, mastering. And winding her arms around his neck, she abandoned herself to the most ecstatic experience she had ever encountered on God’s earth.
‘When do you expect your husband?’ Brit asked.
They were lying together in the huge bed, scene of the previous night’s sensuous union, the silk sheets draped luxuriously across their nude bodies, their legs and arms entangled.
‘The steamer arrives in four days.’ Elise felt languourous, happy, totally satisfied. Not even the prospect of Gordon’s arrival could shake her mood. There were still four days before he reached Singapore, four days when she could be with Brit – provided she made no demands on him. She would not look ahead. She would not look back. Nothing must mar this precious, stolen time– four days to last for the rest of her life.
‘I love him,’ she thought. ‘ I love him, but I mustn’t even think about whether he loves me. I must just be glad I had the chance to find out what love could really be like.’
At the thought that she could have lived out her life and still never known, she shivered. Ignorance of something so vital, so totally basic was an awesome prospect.
For nearly six years I have shared a marriage bed, I have borne a son and crossed the world with a man, and yet I never knew it could be like this. Elise Sanderson, wife, mother – and emotional virgin. Thank you, Brit. Thank you for giving me this, for showing me something within myself I can still hardly believe really exists, for exposing me to forces beyond my comprehension …
‘Four days,’ Brit said thoughtfully and the unspoken agreement was there between them. They would take what they had; she had passed the acid test. She would not be an encumbrance or a clinging vine. There would be no duel at dawn.
The first knife-thrust of preconceived pain penetrated her happy mood and she thrust it away, sitting up, pulling the sheet off him to expose strong brown legs, one with its hollow-cave scar.
‘You’re lazy! Come on, I’m hungry – I could devour breakfast. And then I want to look round Singapore.’
‘Why? You’ve seen it all before.’
‘But not with you. I want to see it with you.’ She didn’t add that she wanted memories to store up, hundreds upon hundreds of memories to sustain her over all the years ahead.
‘All right – you want the tourist bit, you shall have the tourist bit!’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and she watched the muscles ripple up his back as he sat up. ‘Just don’t blame me if your husband wants to know how you got your blisters.’
‘Blisters!’ she scoffed.
But by dinner that night she had to concede that blisters were indeed a possibility. Together they had explored again places which were already familiar to them and seen them through new eyes – Change Alley, with its bargains and bargain hunters; Chinatown, where butchers slaughtered ducks before the customers’ very eyes; and Bugis Street, which turned at night from a busy thoroughfare into a gathering place for beautiful but totally deceptive transvestites, who danced and drank together like broken butterflies.
They had stopped to buy meat doused in coconut sauce from a gross Indian and eat it with their fingers from a banana-leaf plate. They had listened with amusement to the claims of the Chinese medicine men, mixing their cure-alls of rhino horn, snakesoup and lizard skins. They had laughed, holding on to their valuables, as families of small monkeys surrounded them in the Botanic Gardens. And they had stopped to watch the calligraphists bent over their portable desks, carefully lettering ribbons of red paper in gold.
Because she was so fascinated – and because it seemed to sum up the shining look of her eyes – Brit bought her a good luck paper reading ‘Double Happiness.’ But when they were approached by a fortune teller with the small bird he had trained to pick out a reading, she shook her head.
‘Go on – they all say the same, anyway – you’ll be lucky and healthy, but you will have to work hard,’ Brit told her, laughing, but still she shook her head, moving on away from the wizened brown man with the all-seeing eyes. Fun it might be, but she did not want to be reminded of the future. Today was for living and loving. Tomorrow …
Time seemed to be gathering speed now, like a bicycle running away down a hill with wheels and pedals and moving ever faster, Elise began to experience something like panic: one day gone, three to go! Rushing by – rushing away with her – time gone and no way to stop it. Oh, slow down, please! Don’t take me back to the real world just yet!
On the afternoon of the second day they visited Tangs, her favourite little shop in River Valley Road. From the outside it was scruffy and unprepossessing, but once through the long bamboo curtains the interior opened up to show a veritable Aladdin’s cave. Pieces of beautiful oriental furniture lined the walls, grotesque masks grinned at haughty porcelain dogs, piles of embroidered slippers winked and glinted to brighten the dimmest corners.
Unable to resist, Elise bought slippers for Su Ming to replace those lost in the torpedo attack, and a delicately woven bamboo tray. But it was an oriental urn in the shape of a dragon that really won her heart. Perched p
recariously on a rail rosewood stand, it glowered at her with metallic ferocity, and she laughed with the delight that bubbled up in her so easily since Brit had taught her to love.
‘Just come and look at this! He’s trying so hard to look fearsome, but somehow it’s just not coming off. All he’s managing to do is look sweet!’
Brit smiled vaguely, amused by her enthusiasm but unmoved himself by the piece. His home at Shek-o was full of oriental treasures – he took them for granted and had never shown much interest in them.
‘I wish I could buy him.’ Elise traced the outline of the urn with a reverential finger. ‘He would remind me of Singapore. Singapura – the Lion City.’
‘But that thing’s not a lion. It’s a dragon.’
‘I know that. But it’s similar.’
‘Women!’ He shook his head. ‘Well, if you want it – get it!’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. It’s an awful lot of money …’
Even as she said it she was surprising herself. The value of money was not something she had ever considered before. Except for that time as a child when her father had been on the verge of bankruptcy and she had been afraid – really afraid – for the first time in her life that there would be no money for what she had been brought up to consider the bare essentials, she had ordered what she wanted and not given a thought to the cost.
Perhaps, she thought, there was a link there from one line of insecurity to another. Or perhaps her values were changing along with so many other things. Maybe, after too long as a feckless, spoilt child, she was growing up …
‘But you would like it?’ She looked up to see Brit’s eyes on her and something she read in them melted her soul. Not desire now, not blatant sexual attraction, something more, something deeper … or was that just wishful thinking?