The Empire Trilogy

by J. G. Farrell

  Another crash shook the wall and Anthony Eden went clip-pety-clops once more.

  ‘Uh … uh … uh … aaaaaaah!’ Monty belched deafeningly. His expression, which had been careworn, brightened a little and he looked with more interest at the row of women. The Indian, however, was already signalling them to be on their way. Evidently they were not what doctor ordering.

  Now he approached Matthew with a large leather-bound album of photographs and beckoned Monty to come and have a look, too. These pictures were of his better, high-class girls, he explained. Matthew gazed at them in wonder. The photographer had surprised many of them in intimate moments and some of them had prices pencilled against them, as on a menu. In a few cases there was the instruction: ‘Client must ordering in advance’ or ‘Miss Wu (20 mins.). She weighing one hundred pounds of tropical charm.’ Or even ‘Miss Shirley Mao (2 pers.)’.

  The Indian, seeing Matthew reading with interest, pointed with a grubby finger and said: ‘She personally recommending, sir.’

  ‘Are some of these girls refugees from the war in China?’ asked Matthew.

  The Indian’s eyes narrowed as he tried to penetrate the signification of this remark. ‘You wanting refugee-girl?’ he asked carefully. And he, too, studied the album, wondering which of the girls would best accommodate this special interest. ‘I finding Japan-bombing-Chinese-refugee-cripplegirl. Very interesting. You drink beer waiting ten five minutes. I find.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Monty. ‘Give the man a dollar for the beer and a couple of dollars for the girls. Otherwise we’ll be here all night.’

  ‘You staying, please, nice gentlemen,’ cried the Indian. ‘No, you going out,’ he shouted at his mother who was trying to sneak back in again with her bedding. ‘No, you must signing police book,’ he howled as Monty made for the door. He produced a grimy ledger. Monty made a quick scribble in it and handed the pencil to Matthew who signed carefully, looking at the list of other signatures.

  ‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed, hastening down the stairs after Monty. ‘Did you see whose names were in the Visitors’ Book? The Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir Robert Brooke-Popham have both been here tonight!’ He paused dizzily to steady himself against the wall. Monty rolled his eyes to heaven and plunged out into the night, saying over his shoulder: ‘People don’t sign their own names in places like this, you idiot!’

  ‘I say you are not a wirgin!’ echoed after them into the empty street. A distant crash, a faint cry, and all was quiet. Singapore slept peacefully under the bright, equatorial sky. The shadow of a cat slipped through the street. A child cried. A weary coolie dragged his rickshaw home. An old man sighed in his sleep somewhere. Presently, in two or three hours from now would come the first faint drone of Japanese bombers approaching from the north-east. But for the moment all was quiet.

  26

  The taxi-driver (it was still the grandfatherly Malay with white hair who had been driving them earlier in the evening), seeing Matthew stagger as he got out of the cab at the gate of the Mayfair, assumed him to be drunk and asked him if he would like a massage because he knew of a certain place … But Matthew shook his head. He felt weak and dizzy: all he wanted to do was to plunge into bed. He said good night to Monty and set off up the short drive towards the Mayfair Building; with a growl of its engine the taxi was gone, leaving only a deep sigh of relief floating in the empty air where it had been standing. Monty, bound on pleasure, this time did not intend to be thwarted.

  ‘I must have caught some fever,’ Matthew thought as he climbed the steps and dragged open the protesting outer door to the verandah. This thought was followed by another, still more distressing: perhaps he had caught the Singapore Grip! Certainly an illness of some kind had taken hold of him. He had half expected to find the Major smoking a cigar on the verandah, but though an electric light was burning, there was no sign of him. Nor was Dupigny anywhere to be seen. So tempting, however, was the prospect of resting his weary body without delay that Matthew allowed himself to be diverted into the nearest rattan armchair, where he lay panting and perspiring while he recovered a little of his strength. Almost immediately his eyelids dropped and he fell into a doze.

  But in only a matter of moments he was woken again by the screeching hinges of the outer door. Someone was coming in. He struggled to sit up and look alert but his eyes seemed to have slipped out of focus and for some moments only presented him with a grey blur. Then he found himself face to face with Joan who was saying: ‘We saw the light from the road as Jim was on his way home and we thought we’d just call in to say good night.’

  ‘That was nice of you,’ said Matthew warmly. Ehrendorf had come in with Joan but was sitting on the arm of a bamboo chair half in the shadows of the door.

  ‘And Jim wanted to have a word with you,’ Joan went on.

  ‘If it’s about what we were discussing earlier,’ said Matthew, aware that his eyes were trying to slip out of focus again, ‘about, you know, the colonial question and so forth, well, the point I was trying to make is that we must allow the whole country to develop. At the moment what it amounts to is that we only allow the native people to work in agriculture because we insist on selling them our own manufactures. Let me give you an example…’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t about that,’ cried Joan hastily. ‘Jim will tell you. Go on, you said you would,’ she added accusingly while Ehrendorf stirred uneasily on the edge of the circle of light and perhaps contemplated whatever it was that he had had in mind to say to Matthew.

  In the meantime another layer of gauze had been removed from Matthew’s memory of what had gone on earlier in the evening, so that now at last he began to think: ‘What a miracle that they should have made it up after the row they were having an hour or two ago!’

  ‘Go on, you did say you would.’

  Ehrendorf’s pale, handsome face continued to stare mutely at Matthew from out of the semi-darkness and he sighed. A motorcar passed up the road with a deep, chugging sound; the reflected light from its headlights glowed in thin slices through the unrolled blinds of split bamboo. Finally Ehrendorf said: ‘I just wanted to say, Matthew, that I expect I shall be leaving Singapore in a day or two … Another posting, I guess you’d call it. Not yet sure where to. I realized this evening that Joan and I … Ah, no future in our relationship … Best of friends … Hm, wish each other well, naturally …’ He fell silent.

  ‘There,’ said Joan.

  ‘What? You’re leaving? And I’ve only just arrived! That really is a shame!’ exclaimed Matthew, distressed. Ehrendorf had sunk his head briefly in his hands to give his face a weary polish. ‘It’s time I was getting home,’ he said. But whether he meant to America or to his flat in Singapore it was impossible to say.

  For some moments Matthew had been aware that there was something odd about Ehrendorf’s appearance. It was this: his uniform clung to him as if it were sopping wet. Indeed, staring more closely at it Matthew saw that it was several shades darker than it should have been and clung to his skin. His hair, too, was plastered down as if a bucket of water had been emptied over him. Moreover, a pool of water had collected round his shoes and was advancing slowly into the circle of light.

  ‘We shall both certainly miss you,’ said Joan brightly.

  ‘I guess it’s about time I packed my grip and moved on some place else,’ said Ehrendorf with a wry, bitter smile.

  Matthew, on the point of bringing up the question of Ehrendorf’s sodden clothing, was diverted by this last remark into asking if, by the way, either of them happened to know what a Singapore Grip might be, was it a fever of some sort? Ehrendorf seemed taken aback by this question: after a moment’s consideration he said he thought it was a suitcase made of rattan, like a Shanghai Basket, as they were called, only smaller. If that was what they were he had one himself. Joan, however, said no. In an authoritative tone she declared it to be a patent double-bladed hairpin which some women used to curl their hair after they had washed it. This brief excursion into l
exicography served to add a further element of confusion to a scene which Matthew had already found sufficiently puzzling. There were questions which must be asked, he felt, to straighten everything out. And he must think of them immediately for Ehrendorf, plucking dejectedly at his wet trousers, was already getting to his feet. He must ask about the pool of water where Ehrendorf had been sitting, and about his departure and Joan and the Singapore Grip. But his eyes chose this critical moment to become a blur through which nothing could be seen, though his mind remained as keen as ever and he heard a voice which reminded him of his own saying a cheery good night to some people who were leaving. Some moments went by while he sat quietly waiting for clear vision to be restored. When it had been, he found himself sitting opposite an empty chair beneath which was a little pool of water. Something else glistened on a rattan table not far away: it was a small handbag of white leather which Joan must have forgotten.

  ‘I must be quite seriously ill and undoubtedly I should call a doctor before it’s too late.’ But again he closed his eyes and, again, within a few moments, was obliged to open them, this time because he had heard a crunch of gravel and a creak of the wooden steps which led up to the house. The Major, perhaps, or Dupigny returning home, he surmised. They would certainly help him to make contact with a doctor. It was Joan, however, in excellent spirits.

  ‘It’s me,’ she cried gaily. ‘I forgot my handbag. Come for a walk outside. It’s lovely. The moon’s just rising or perhaps it’s the starlight. You can see as clear as day and it’s getting cool at last. Come on, stop day-dreaming. You’ll be telling me next that you want a “serious talk”. But I’ve had enough “serious talks” for one evening. Well, come on, let’s enjoy ourselves.’ With that she grasped his hand and pulled him up out of his chair, ignoring his protests and pleas for help. Soon, with his head spinning, he was blundering down the steps beside her. Once in the fresh air, however, he felt a little better and decided that perhaps he was not so ill after all. Joan was right. It was cooler and the heavens were so bright that two shadows accompanied them across the lawn, past the gymnastic equipment, unused since the death of old Mr Webb, the vertical bars, and the high bar like a gibbet with a background of stars, into the denser shadows of the little grove of flowering trees and shrubs which lay between the Mayfair’s grounds and the Blacketts’ and then on through the dark corridor of pili-nut trees.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ Joan said as Matthew shied away from entering this funnel of darkness. Despite his dizziness he was aware that voracious animals might be lurking there and he did not intend to dispense entirely with prudent behaviour. Joan tugged him through the darkness, however, and presently they reached the open space of the lawn with the swimming pool and the house behind it rising white and clear in the moonlight. But instead of heading towards the house, Joan now drew him aside into the blue-black shadow of a ‘flame of the forest’ tree. There, to his surprise, she slipped into his arms and he felt her lips on his. His arms tightened round her convulsively and the blackness around them became drenched in magenta with the pounding of his blood. He felt her teeth begin to nibble at his lips; her hand found its way inside his shirt and began to travel over his damp skin, leaving a trail of awakened desire wherever it went. He released her to unbutton the top of her cotton dress. But as he did so she slipped away from him laughing, deeper into the shadows.

  ‘Matthew, are you in love with me?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he muttered, blundering in the direction from which the voice had come. But he found the shadows were empty and again he heard her laughter from where he had just been a moment before; and her voice asked mockingly: ‘Are you in love with me, Matthew?’

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘First you must answer. Are you in love with me?’

  ‘Yes, oh, that is …’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Well …’ Matthew found a handkerchief and mopped his steaming brow. He felt somewhat unwell again.

  ‘Here I am, over by the swimming pool. Come and look at the moon’s reflection. That water is so still tonight!’

  Matthew left the shadow of the trees and went to where she was sitting on her heels at the edge of the pool gazing down at the bright, motionless disc of the moon stamped like a yellow wax seal on the surface of the water. He attempted to put his arm round her but immediately she drew away, saying that there was something he must do first. She told him but he did not understand what it was.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, you must jump into the water with your clothes on.’

  ‘I must do what?’ cried Matthew in astonishment. ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘No, you must jump in with your clothes on’

  ‘But really …’

  ‘No, that’s what I want you to do.’

  Matthew said crossly: ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m going to bed now so … goodnight!’

  ‘Wait Matthew, wait!’ pleaded Joan. ‘Wait!’

  Matthew paused. The edge of the pool was rounded and raised a little, like the rim of a saucer. Joan was now walking along it, arms outstretched like a tight-rope walker. As he watched she allowed herself to lose her balance and fall backwards into the moon’s reflection. There was a great splash and a slapping of water against the sides of the pool. Joan, smiling, lay back against a pillow of water and did one, two, three strokes of a neat overarm backstroke which caused her to surge out into the pool with a bow-wave swirling back on each side of her head. Matthew shook his head in bewilderment, scattering drops of perspiration, as if he himself had just stepped out of the pool. But really, this was the limit! He was invaded by a feeling of unreality. Moreover, the moon and the stars had begun plunging and zooming in the heavens. Any moment now he would collapse if he did not reach his bed and lie down. He plodded back over the moonlit lawn which tilted now this way, now that, like the deck of a ship in a storm, and on through the dark corridor of trees, pausing only to vomit into the shrubbery.

  ‘Wait, I’m coming too,’ came Joan’s distant voice. ‘I still haven’t got my handbag.’

  But when he had wearily clambered up the steps of the May-fair Building and once more dragged open the creaking door of the verandah he found another surprise waiting for him. So slippery had reality become to his grasp that, for a moment, it seemed to him quite likely that the young woman who came forward, smiling, to greet him, was Joan who had somehow managed to rearrange time and space to her convenience and arrive back there before he did. It was not Joan, however, but the Eurasian girl with dark-red hair whom he had met earlier in the evening at The Great World, Miss Vera Chiang. At the very sight of her the palm of one of his hands began to tingle deliciously.

  ‘You are most surprised, I expect, to see me here, are you not? (You remember, yes, Vera Chiang.) Well let me put things straight for you, Matthew, and then you won’t be any longer looking in such a condition. You see, I still have in this house the bedroom which your dear, dear father gave to me when I was “on my uppers”. Your father, Matthew, was such a good, kind and generous man. You can be pretty sure I’ll always say one for him for the help he gave me … And so here I still have some of my precious bits and pieces, such things like my books (because I always have my “nose in a book”) and “snaps” of your dear father with no clothes on and of my family (all now having “kicked the bucket” I’m sorry to say) who were very important in Russia and obliging to leave in Revolution and so this evening, when we were split up by those rowdy sailors, I remembered I must look at them again, which I haven’t for some time and I heard you come in and I thought Matthew will also enjoy looking at my “snaps” … There! And, are you all right, dear? You look rather “hot about the collar”, I must say.’

  Matthew, who was very hot indeed and distinctly unwell despite the pleasant surprise of finding Miss Chiang again so soon, had been obliged to steady himself against a table as the bungalow gave a lurch. After a moment, however, he felt sufficiently recovered t
o say: ‘As a matter of fact, I’m not feeling very well. I seem to having an attack of the Singapore Grip, or whatever it’s called.’

  It was Miss Chiang’s turn to look surprised at this information and she even went a little pink about the cheeks, which made her, thought Matthew, look prettier than ever. For a moment she appeared nonplussed, though. What a pretty girl she is, to be sure, he mused, and what a pity that everything seems so unreal.

  ‘Matthew!’ called a voice from outside and in no time there came the by now familiar sound of the door being opened. Joan stopped short when she saw that Matthew was talking to Miss Chiang. She raised her eyebrows and looked far from pleased.

  ‘D’you know Miss Chiang?’ Matthew managed to say. ‘I think she said she was going to show me some photographs …’ he hesitated and eyed Miss Chiang’s face carefully: it had occurred to him that she might already have shown him the photographs, in which case what he had said would sound rather odd. Miss Chiang agreed, however, that that was what she had been about to do and Matthew gave an inner sigh of relief.

  ‘Gracious, Miss Blackett, you’re all wet! Let me get you a towel.’

  ‘No, thank you, Vera, I shall have dried out in no time. Besides, I find it pleasantly cool.’ And Joan slipped into a cane-chair not very far from where Ehrendorf had sat and dripped only a few minutes earlier. As she did so, despite his fever (or perhaps even because of it), Matthew could not help noticing how the thin cotton of her dress stuck to her body, outlining its delicious shape and revealing a number of things about it which he had had no opportunity to notice before. In the meantime, Joan, who still had not quite swallowed her irritation at finding Vera and Matthew together, was asking superciliously whether Vera was pleased with the dress which she was wearing. Was it not lucky for Vera, she asked turning to Matthew, seeing that the poor girl was penniless when she came to work for Mr Webb, that her cast-off clothing had proved to be a perfect fit?