In her day Mrs Blackett had been considered beautiful, but all that now remained of her good looks were a pair of cornflower blue eyes, a shade or two darker than Walter’s, set in a puffy, handsome, disappointed face. She still retained, however, some of the mannerisms of a woman accustomed to being admired for her appearance: a habit of throwing back her head to shake away the ringlets which had once tumbled charmingly over her smooth cheeks, or of opening her eyes very wide while you were talking to her, as if what you were saying was of enthralling interest. It made little difference whether you spoke about the emergence of a Swahili literature, about training schemes for electrical engineers, or about the best way to stuff a field-mouse. She would still gaze at you as if fascinated, her lovely eyes open very wide. Sometimes this automatic fascination could have a numbing effect on her interlocutor.
Looking at Mrs Blackett’s disappointed, once-beautiful face, Matthew suddenly recognized that Joan was a beauty, though until this moment her appearance had not made much impression on him. It was as if, looking into her mother’s faded features, he was confronted by a simplified version of Joan’s and could say to himself: ‘So that’s the sort of face it’s supposed to be!’ It was a process not very different, he supposed, from thinking a girl was beautiful because she reminded you of a painting by Botticelli: if you had never seen the painting you would not have noticed her. But wait, what was it the Blacketts were saying?
For some moments the Blacketts, each ignoring the other’s voice as only a married couple can, had been raining statements, questions and declarations of one kind or another on the already sufficiently bewildered Matthew. In the course of the next few minutes of incoherent conversation they touched on the war, his journey, rationing in Britain, his father’s illness, his father’s will (Walter took him by the arm and steered him away down the other end of the room, thinking this as good a time as any to remind Matthew of the responsibilities which would accompany his inheritance, but his wife uttered shrill complaints at being abandoned on her sofa and they were obliged to return), the Blitz, the approach of the monsoon, the rubber market and his journey again. Then Walter was summoned to the telephone.
While Walter was absent Mrs Blackett took hold of Matthew’s wrist: she wanted to tell him something. ‘I think you met my children, Monty and Joan, earlier this evening, didn’t you? You know, I hardly think of them as my children at all. We are more like three friends. We discuss, oh, everything together as if we were equals.’
Matthew, who could think of no reply to this confidence, scratched his ear and gazed at Mrs Blackett sympathetically. But where was Kate? he wondered aloud. He had been looking forward to seeing her again. Was she away somewhere?
‘Oh, she was here a moment ago,’ said Mrs Blackett vaguely. There was silence for a few moments. Walter’s voice, speaking emphatically, could be heard from the adjoining room. ‘Yes, just three friends,’ added Mrs Blackett despondently.
Presently she groped for Matthew’s sleeve and with a tug, drew him to his feet. She wanted to introduce him to the people who had just come into the room. But these newcomers, on closer inspection, proved to be merely her children, or ‘friends’, Monty and Joan. She had evidently thought they might be someone more interesting for at the last moment she hung back, murmuring: ‘Oh, I thought it might be Charlie.’
Monty and Joan, ignoring their mother, subsided into armchairs and ordered drinks from a Chinese servant who moved silently from one person to another. They both looked hot, though the air here was pleasantly cool. Joan had exchanged her white cotton frock for a dress of green silk with padded shoulders and leg-of-mutton sleeves. Now that she had removed her turban her sable ringlets tumbled charmingly over her cheeks. Matthew, however, could not help staring at her legs; if he feasted his eyes on them so greedily it was not because they were unusually well shaped (though they were) but because she was wearing silk stockings which had become a luxury in England in the past year. Unfortunately, both Monty and Joan had noticed the direction of his gaze; he saw them exchange a sly glance.
‘Kate!’
Kate had been hovering for some time in the next room anxiously awaiting the right moment to make a casual entry. She had been allowed to wear her best dress for besides Matthew an important RAF personage had been invited to supper. Now here she was, looking self-conscious. There was a moment of awkwardness, then she and Matthew shook hands. Kate blushed furiously and, stepping back, almost fell over a chair she had not noticed.
‘You know what?’
‘What?’
‘If we were having steak for supper we could grill it on Kate’s cheeks.’
‘Mother, will you make him stop!’
‘Really, Monty,’ said Mrs Blackett wearily.
Snatching up a magazine Kate went to throw herself down on a sofa at the other end of the room. She did not open the magazine, however, but instead picked up a Siamese cat which had been curled up on the floor and began stroking and kissing it, ignoring the rest of the company.
‘It’s so nice to have a chance to talk,’ said Mrs Blackett, ‘before the others arrive.’
There was a murmur of assent but then silence fell again. Monty glanced at his watch; Joan yawned behind scarlet fingernails. Kate continued to stroke the cat at great speed, occasionally planting a kiss on the wincing animal.
Walter came back presently and took a seat beside Matthew, explaining that he had invited Brooke-Popham, the Commander-in-Chief, Far East, and a member of his staff to supper; earlier in the day he had attended a meeting with them about rice distribution. For the truth was, he went on, that in the event of hostilities in the Pacific, Malaya could find her food supplies in jeopardy, at least in the long run, because the greater part of the country’s rice had to be imported. Ten years of effort (he himself had served on the Rice Cultivation Committee set up in 1930) still had not induced the native smallholders to grow rice instead of rubber. They were too idle. What could you do with such people?
‘I suppose they think that rubber is more profitable,’ suggested Matthew.
‘I suppose they do,’ agreed Walter.
‘And they’re right, aren’t they?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, exactly.’ Walter’s tone was casual but he glanced sharply at Matthew as he spoke. ‘There have been great variations in demand, of course, for rubber. Point is they can’t eat it in bad times. Otherwise it would be the perfect crop for a country like this. Rice involves too much hard work. Anyway, there it is, we have to import it in vast quantities to feed the estate workers.’
‘Perhaps the estates should grow rice …’ murmured Matthew. ‘It seems unfair to expect the smallholders to grow a less profitable crop simply to allow the estates to go on growing the more profitable crop …’
‘Ah, but we haven’t agreed that rice is less profitable.’
‘In that case why do the estates …?’
‘Drat!’ exclaimed Mrs Blackett, hearing a distant bell. ‘They’re arriving already and just as we were beginning to have a nice talk.’
Walter had risen before Matthew had time to finish what he was saying. But even so, Mrs Blackett reached the door before he did. It opened to admit Dupigny in his billowing white suit. He and Mrs Blackett exchanged greetings. As she made to lead him deeper into the room she said: ‘You, François, who always keep so well in touch, must tell us what you think.’
‘Of what, Mrs Blackett?’
‘Of the situation,’ she replied vaguely.
‘My dear Mrs Blackett, if you want my opinion the Japs will overrun us in a twinkling. First they exhaust us in the jungle. Then they seize us by the throat.’
‘You terrify me, François, when you say such things. Except for Matthew you are the first to arrive so you must pay the penalty and come and sit down here with us for a few minutes … though I can see that what you have to tell us will scare us out of our wits.’
‘My apologies,’ murmured Dupigny with the exquisite tact of the diplomat and man o
f the world. He was evidently apologizing not for having cast Mrs Blackett into a state of alarm but for having arrived too early, for thus he had interpreted the words ‘first to arrive’.
Mrs Blackett, leading the way across the room, said over her shoulder: ‘How smart you look, François! I’m so glad to see you are managing in spite of your difficulties.’
In the meantime, Monty had slipped into the chair beside Matthew vacated by his father, and in a malicious whisper explained to him that Dupigny was penniless! a beggar! a total pauper! and that his mother, of course, knew very well that she was being pursued across the drawing-room not only by Dupigny but by his entire wardrobe as well, for the fellow was still clad in every single garment he had been wearing when he had slipped away from Saigon with General Catroux, give or take the odd pair of shorts or shoes he had been able to borrow off Major Archer who luckily for Dupigny happened to be an old chum of his from the Great War.
While Matthew listened to all this and watched Dupigny stoop to brush Joan’s knuckles with his smiling lips, he could not help wondering whether he would ever find anything in common with Monty. Dupigny looked up, still smiling, his attentions to Joan’s knuckles complete.
‘Well, François, what’s the joke?’
‘I smile because I remember that yesterday for the first time in my life I have been mistaken pour un macchabée … for a corpse.’
‘For a corpse?’ cried Joan, suddenly becoming vivacious again. She was evidently a willing victim of Dupigny’s charm and polished manners. ‘I don’t believe you, François. What a terrible liar he is!’ she grumbled to her mother.
‘But precisely, for a corpse!’ Dupigny struck an attitude. ‘I am just leaving the bungalow when a Chinese gentleman approaches and says to me: “Tuan, are you dead?” I assure him that to the best of my knowledge I am still alive …’ Dupigny paused to acknowledge the smiles of his audience.
‘ “But, Tuan,” says our Chinese friend, “are you not then seriously wounded?” On the contrary I tell him that I am never feeling better in my life … “But then, Tuan,” he says, almost in tears, “you must at least be ‘walking wounded’ otherwise you would not be here in this street!” ’
‘I know, it was an air-raid practice!’ exclaimed Joan. ‘I bet your Chinaman was wearing an ARP armband and a tin hat. But I thought that for corpses they always used Boy Scouts. Does this mean that they are now using grown men?’
‘Hélas! Every day they grow more ambitious!’
New arrivals had been shown into the room in the meantime and Mrs Blackett set off once more towards the door, stumbling against a low foot-stool on the way, for the truth was that her lovely blue eyes were far-sighted and she should have worn glasses. Two officers had just entered. One of these newcomers was Air Chief-Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, a solidly built gentleman in his early sixties whose appearance suggested slightly baffled good nature. He had a square head, bald on top and with very thin hair plastered down at the sides above large, protruding ears. Beneath his white walrus moustache his open mouth lent him the air of wary incomprehension one sometimes sees in people who are not quite sure they have heard you correctly. Each of his powerful forearms cradled a shaggy bundle of documents which he was now trying to shuffle into a single bundle so that he might grasp the hand of Mrs Blackett. But in doing so a few sheets detached themselves and subsided in a series of gentle arcs to the floor. As he stooped to retrieve them, a few more slipped from his grasp and his air of bewilderment increased. At his side a tall, saturnine staff officer in the uniform of a Major-General watched without expression as the Commander-in-Chief scrabbled on the floor to assemble his papers. ‘You’d better let me, sir,’ he said taking the bundle and stowing it firmly under his arm. Then he put his swagger-stick down on a side table; an instant later he neatly scooped it up again as Mrs Blackett, turning, failed to notice the table and stumbled into it. She smiled her thanks to Brooke-Popham who had kindly steadied her with a hand to her arm. After a moment’s hesitation the General put his stick down again.
Matthew’s attention was now diverted by Monty’s voice in his ear, whispering a further malicious commentary, this time on the Commander-in-Chief himself: it was common knowledge among those ‘in the know’ that despite his grandiose title Brooke-Popham had frightful difficulty finding anybody who was actually subject to his authority. Certainly not the Navy. And the Governor, too, if he wanted could go his own sweet way. And even General Percival and Air-Marshal Pulford who had replaced the dreaded Bond and Babington still took many of their orders from the War Office and Air Ministry respectively leaving poor old Brookers in his office at the Naval Base with nothing to do but stick flags in maps and, to make things worse …
But Matthew had to struggle to his feet to shake hands with the Commander-in-Chief. Brooke-Popham shook hands firmly with Matthew and gave him a somewhat rabbity smile. Then he moved on to greet Walter and his place was immediately taken by a dapper gentleman who was following in the Commander-in-Chief’s wake: this was Dr Brownley, the Blacketts’ family doctor. The Doctor was somewhat distraught this evening for, earlier in the day, after weeks, even months of inner struggle and deliberation, he had purchased an article he had seen in John Little’s window in Raffles Place, an article he had longed and lusted for with the passion of a lover. But now that it had at last become his, somehow the expected consummation had not taken place. Since buying the wretched thing, which he could ill afford, he had scarcely given it a thought. The joyous fever to which he had been subject for months had suddenly left him. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ he wondered, surreptitiously taking his own pulse. And now another distressing thought occurred to him: ‘This makes eighteen times in a row that they’ve invited me here and I still haven’t invited them back!’ ‘You must come to us one of these days’, he muttered as he shook hands with Matthew, rolling his eyes in a rather odd and desperate way … (but fortunately the fellow didn’t seem to hear).
‘D’you really think the Japs will attack us?’ Joan was asking Dupigny.
‘Without a doubt,’ replied Dupigny emphatically, and an expression of surprise and dismay passed fleetingly over Brooke-Popham’s honest features as he overheard these words.
‘My dear, François is in a most macabre mood this evening,’ said Mrs Blackett to her daughter. ‘I advise you not to listen to him. He has already had me shaking like a jelly.’
‘Ah, but it is not amusing, I assure you,’ said Dupigny, seeing that his words had caused Joan to smile, for with Dupigny it was often hard to tell whether he was joking or not and he frequently said the most outrageous things with a perfectly straight face.
‘But I understand, François, that the Japanese specialize in chopping the heads off Frenchmen. They raise a sword above their heads and go … chop! And Monsieur’s head is rolling in the gutter. They say it is quite a sight. I think I shall take my knitting like Madame whatever her name was.’
‘You think I am joking, Joan. Not at all! You forget that I know something of them, the Japanese. But what is the good?’ he added, turning to Matthew as Joan went off laughing. ‘You British are so serious. And when you think of France it is always in the manner of that grand emmerdeur, Charles Dickens. As for your self-confidence, that is something miraculous! Did you know,’ he pursued, taking Matthew by the arm and leading him aside, ‘that your Governor, Sir Thomas, went on holiday for eight months despite the outbreaking of war? That is an example of your phlegmatic British behaviour which fills a poor Frenchman like myself with awe, with admiration and, it must be admitted, with alarm!’ He surveyed Matthew with an ironical smile.
‘But never mind about that. Let me explain to you instead about this Air-Marshal. Sir Popham, for he is a most unusual sight. I refer not to his appearance, which is, I agree, awe-inspiring … but to his very presence here in this room. It is something quite unusual.’ And Dupigny went on to explain to Matthew in an undertone (how fond everyone seemed to be of whispering assessments of each other’
s behaviour behind their backs!) that years of living in Singapore had, it was well known, instilled in Mrs Blackett a deep contempt for the Armed Forces. It had been, in peacetime, a most surprising sight to see her heaping abuse on the old and respected profession of arms, members of which she had for years resolutely refused to invite to her table. Why, even Major Archer, the least martial of men, given an introduction to the Blacketts while making his first tour of the Far East in 1937, had had to be warned to demobilize himself before calling. The poor fellow would otherwise have left a card on which, printed in spidery script for all to see, was his guilty secret: Major Brendan de S. Archer. And Dupigny laughed heartily at the thought.
The fact was, he went on, that Mrs Blackett, though charming in every way, was something of a snob and this very drawing-room was the meeting-place of one of the most exclusive circles on the island, scarcely even rivalled by Government House. For, as Mrs Blackett willingly used to admit, she had one advantage over the Governor. She was not obliged, as he was, to invite the rabble of dignitaries, military and civilian, whom the war was bringing to Singapore. She could invite whom she pleased. ‘All those depressing generals!’ she used to exclaim sometimes in the presence of her own more carefully selected guests. ‘Poor Lady Thomas!’
And yet, not even the Blacketts, as it transpired, had been able to prevent the invasion of their circle by the War. Since the beginning of hostilities in Europe there had been progressive signs of weakening. He, Dupigny, had been there in person on one occasion when Mrs Blackett had asked Walter whether she should not relax this prohibition of military men from her dining-room ‘in the interests of the War Effort’. An admiral or two, perhaps?
Walter had stroked his chin as he pondered his wife’s difficult question, groping for the reply of a frank, straightforward sort of man. Well, no, he did not think so. After all, one’s principles don’t change simply because there’s a war on. The problem, after all, was not that the odd admiral was short of food, but that he was tedious company. This had not changed. Very likely it had become worse. With a war raging in Europe the admiral would doubtless feel encouraged to discourse interminably on military and naval matters at the expense of … well, of the more important things in life.
The Empire Trilogy Page 99