‘I’m afraid I’ll have to take him to the vet this evening. We may as well bring him along at the same time as you go to the boat, poor creature.’ At these words The Human Condition rolled his eyeballs up to the Major’s face and uttered a piteous whine, licking the Major’s hand at the same time.
‘I think that dog must be rotting internally,’ remarked Dupigny objectively.
62
Ehrendorf made his way, carrying a towel and swimming trunks, towards the Blacketts’ compound, lingering for a moment among the exotic blooms which glowed like lamps amid the dark leaves. For a while he watched the butterflies which still swooped and fluttered in this little glade, impervious to the bombs that had fallen round about. Then, with a melancholy sigh which was partly counterfeit because he was now seeing himself as the ill-starred hero of his novel in its first version (innocent American abused by cynical Europeans), he moved on in the direction of the swimming pool.
Although he had paid a brief visit to Walter by darkness the other evening, it was several weeks since Ehrendorf had last seen the Blacketts’ house by daylight. It seemed to him to have a forlorn and deserted air. During the raid on Tanglin a bomb had fallen at one edge of the lawn, uprooting the ‘flame of the forest’ tree beneath which, several months ago, he had been standing with Joan when she had thrown wine in his face at the garden-party. No effort had been made to fill in the crater on whose raised lip the grass lawn continued peacefully to grow; in the façade of the house itself several of the windows which had once been glazed for the air-conditioning now gaped darkly where once they had sparkled with reflections from the pool.
He plodded past the tennis courts whose white lines, washed out by the monsoon rains and not repainted, were by now scarcely visible. Normally, too, there would have been several Tamils working in the flower-beds or cutting back the lalang but today he could not see a soul. He paused to stare uncomprehendingly at an untidy mass of broken spars and tattered paper which stood at the margin of the nutmeg grove and which he failed to recognize as the remains of damaged floats for the jubilee celebrations. Can Walter and Joan have left already? he wondered and, resigned though he already was to the fact that he was unlikely ever to see Joan again, he was nevertheless surprised by the intense and chilling sadness which suddenly enveloped him.
The summer-house, in which the Blacketts in happier times had invited their guests to change their clothes, remained undamaged; Ehrendorf changed rapidly and plunged into the pool which was full of dead leaves and other flotsam. He dived and swam under water for a few feet but the water was murky and disagreeable. How different everything was! Surfacing he bumped into a piece of floating wood on which the words ‘… in Prosperity’ were written. He took a deep breath and dived again; this time he dragged himself on and on through the silent grey corridors, counting the grey tiles on the bottom, inspecting weird grey objects which lay there: a broken flowerpot from which still trailed a slimy grey plant which wavered slightly at his passage, a brick, a rusting metal golf club, a slimy, swollen, disintegrating grey head, horribly merry, which had once belonged to one of the floats and which he also failed to recognize. He would have liked to drag himself on and on through that grey world but his lungs insisted that he should return to the surface. Shaking the water out of his eyes he saw that Joan was walking rapidly towards the pool. Her face was flushed and agitated.
‘Oh, hiya. I hope you don’t mind me using the pool. I didn’t see anyone around. I thought you’d all gone.’ He was aware of an extraordinary stiffness of the muscles of his face as he spoke.
Joan had stopped at the edge of the pool and was gazing down at him with an odd expression on her face, restlessly fingering the turban she was wearing. She ignored his greeting, turned away, looked at her watch, turned back to him. At last she said: ‘You must help me get to the boat. I’ve been trying to ring people but everyone else has gone. There’s only Abdul here and he’s too old … They say there’s already a terrible traffic jam beginning … All the “boys” have cleared off, even the kitchen “boy”, and Father has gone off somewhere … and Monty, I don’t know where he is … Nigel had to go and settle some business at the last moment and I’m to meet him at the boat but unless you help me … You see, they’ve all gone! Father was supposed to be back ages ago to take me down to the docks himself, but even the syce isn’t there and it’s getting late … Jim, I can’t manage the luggage by myself, d’you see? Oh, go away! You’re completely useless!’ she screamed at Abdul suddenly for the elderly servant had followed her out on to the lawn and was rubbing his hands anxiously. Shocked, he fell back a few paces but continued to watch Joan.
Ehrendorf had turned over on to his back and was no longer looking at Joan but straight up at the sky which was cloudless though covered with a white haze. Floating with arms and legs outstretched he thought: ‘From above I must look as if I’m floating like a star-fish … or perhaps like a piece of flotsam.’ In spite of the water bubbling in his ears he could still hear Joan’s voice, though quite faintly now. He could tell from its pitch that she was panic-stricken. And this was the girl who had refused to help Matthew get Vera away! He said to himself, floating placidly: ‘I wouldn’t help her even if my life depended upon it!’
When he turned over to swim to the side he could no longer hear her voice, but she was still there, kneeling in tears of rage at the side of the pool, hammering at it with a piece of broken wood. As he gripped the rounded lip of the pool and heaved himself out of the water he glanced at her, musing on the wonder of a beautiful woman with a disagreeable personality. Such a woman, he mused, was like a lovely schooner with a mad captain. The custodian of this lovely body was a hardhearted bitch. It was altogether astonishing.
‘Of course I’ll help you,’ he said. ‘Just wait a moment while I get changed.
Mr Wu’s Buick, which had been under repair for some days, was now on the road again and heading towards Wilkie Street where The Human Condition was to be left at the vet’s en route to Collyer’s Quay. The dog sat on the front seat and stared out uneasily at the darkening streets. But when they reached Wilkie Street they found a large crowd of harrowed-looking people grasping dogs, cats and birds of all shapes and sizes already waiting. It seemed that these doomed creatures had sensed the anguish of their owners, too, for they were setting up the most distressing din of shrieking, whining, miaouwing, barking and piping. The Major had no appetite for this and said: ‘We’ll call on the way back from the boat. There won’t be anyone there after the curfew. Besides, we’d better not waste any time.’ The Human Condition, who had been staring with dismay at this frantic queue of fellow-victims, uttered a heart-rending groan. For how long had he been reprieved?
When they reached Collyer’s Quay they were thankful that they had not delayed any longer for already the quay itself and the surrounding area was jammed with cars full of anxious people. Holding the paper that Vera had been given at Cluny Matthew plunged into the crowd of people trying to get tickets and embarkation instructions. He was gone for a long time; meanwhile the traffic jam around them had worsened considerably. When he at last returned he had Vera’s ticket but he was looking worried: he explained that they still had to drive to the P & O wharf some three miles away and the traffic by now was scarcely moving. To make matters worse, passengers were only allowed to board the ship in groups which had been staggered alphabetically in order to prevent everybody arriving at the dock at the same time. Because Vera’s surname began with C this regulation should have worked to her advantage, but by some error the official who had taken her name, perhaps assuming that she had given her surname first in the Chinese fashion, had reversed her names and allotted her to the last group. In any case passengers were not arriving at intervals as had been expected and some of those who had arrived too early were being made to wait, blocking the quayside. Nevertheless, although the boarding arrangements were no longer achieving what had been expected of them and were, indeed, only adding to the confusion, they we
re still being rigidly adhered to by the authorities in charge of the embarkation.
‘We should still make it all right. The boat doesn’t sail till one o’clock. We can always walk if the worst comes to the worst.’
It took several minutes before there was even an opening that allowed them to pull into the line of traffic crawling along Collyer’s Quay; then, for long stretches, they were obliged to stop altogether. Sometimes they discovered the reason for these delays, a car that had overheated or run out of petrol perhaps; then they would overtake a demented man peering at his engine in a cloud of steam, or a weeping woman sitting by herself with a pile of luggage, while those behind cursed and hooted at her to get her car out of the way.
‘This is dreadful.’ The Major’s face grew increasingly grim as the minutes ticked by. Presently a whole hour had fled. They still had not reached the shell of the Sailor’s Institute at the end of Anson Road.
‘Perhaps they’ll delay the time of sailing.’ But this, Matthew knew, was unlikely for if the Félix Roussel was to escape the Japanese bombers she would have to be well on her way from Singapore before dawn.
For some time now they had been following a large open Bentley which contained a party of elegantly dressed young ladies sitting on pigskin suitcases plastered with gaily coloured steamer and hotel labels. Since it was already quite dark and all street-lights had been extinguished in accordance with the blackout regulations there only remained the Buick’s papered-over headlights to cast a faint glow on the party travelling in front. But from time to time a match would flare as a cigarette was lit … (it appeared that the young ladies in the Bentley had no inhibitions about smoking in public) … then a cheerful little scene would be briefly illuminated, for to celebrate their departure from Singapore the ladies had brought two or three bottles of champagne and some glasses. And so, while another hour went by, the grim party from the Mayfair, with their doomed little dog sitting on the front seat, sat and watched the beautifully marcelled tresses in front of them and listened to the clink of glasses and the giggles, shrieks and popping of corks. Presently it occurred to the Major that there was something familiar about the Bentley.
‘Isn’t that one of Walter’s cars?’
‘I’ve been wondering the same thing. But what are those young women doing in it? There’s something familiar about them, too. But it surely can’t be Walter driving, nor his syce either, come to that.’ The driver, whoever it was, remained invisible slumped far down in the seat in a manner which by contrast with the exuberance of his companions, was almost furtive.
‘I have an idea it’s that singing team,’ said the Major, ‘the Da Sousa Sisters … the girls Walter wanted to have in his jubilee procession. He must have arranged for someone to take them to the boat in his car.’
After a while, in support of this theory as to their identity the young women sitting on their luggage in the back of the Bentley put their marcelled heads together and their arms round each other’s shoulders and began to sing:
Singapore, hulloa, hulloa!
In silk and satin and boa
We are the girlies from Goa!
The Major was too preoccupied, however, to be greatly concerned with the identity of some tipsy young women in Walter’s car. He was more worried by the glowing clock on the dashboard (had it stopped or was it a quarter-past eleven already?). It was true that they had now almost reached the corner of Trafalgar Street but the nearer they came to the docks the slower their progress. Now increasingly they found themselves halted in the same place for several minutes at a time. The heat, the exhaust fumes and the ever-present drifting smoke from burning buildings made it hard to breathe. Vera lay with her head slumped against the back of the seat, her eyes closed. The minute hand on the dashboard crept on.
In the car ahead of them as time went on the gaiety of the Da Sousa Sisters was replaced by a rather sullen silence: evidently they, too, were becoming anxious about reaching the boat in time. Soon a squabble erupted and they began to scream, either at each other or at their driver, it was hard to say. Then they began to shriek abuse at the car in front of them which for some reason was being abandoned by its passengers. Eventually the Bentley managed to pull round it and the column advanced a few more yards. On the sea side of the road a warehouse which had been damaged in an earlier raid had been left to burn, casting a red glow over the line of cars ahead and bringing an intolerable increase in the temperature for some distance round about. It now became clear that a number of the cars ahead had been abandoned and were blocking the road beyond redemption.
‘I think we’d better walk,’ Matthew said. Vera said that she felt well enough to do so but it was obvious that the smoke, the heat and the fumes were making her feel ill.
‘You go ahead,’ the Major said. ‘I’ll see if I can get rid of the car and then come back and help.’
Matthew opened the door, threw out Vera’s suitcase and helped her out into the road. As he was doing so The Human Condition suddenly sprang off the front seat into the darkness and vanished. ‘Hey! Come back!’ called the Major feebly, but this was no time to worry about a lost dog. Matthew picked up Vera’s suitcase and, supporting her as best he could, set off with her into the flickering night. As they were passing the Bentley another squabble suddenly broke out between the young ladies and their driver. It was clear that they considered him to be responsible for the traffic jam in which they found themselves.
‘You said you taking us to bloody boat!’ they screamed. ‘You damn well better take us to bloody-damn boat, OK!’
‘Matthew!’ called a despairing voice from the Bentley and Matthew stopped, peering at the car in astonishment, for there, slumped in the front seat, his face weirdly illuminated by the flickering light of the burning building nearby as if by infernal flames was Monty Blackett.
‘I say, you couldn’t give me a hand with some of this luggage, could you, old man? It’s so heavy I can’t manage it all. Go on, be a sport!’
‘Impossible! I have all I can manage already.’
‘Look here, Matthew, there’s a good fellow,’ pleaded Monty in a more confidential tone, ‘these young ladies here, who are simply charming, by the way, will let us hide in their cabin till the boat has sailed, in return for helping them, I mean to say … We’ll be in Bombay in two shakes and no one will be the wiser. And they’ll probably let us have some fun with them into the bargain. It’s our only chance. Don’t be a chump! Singapore’s done for! It’s common knowledge. And I promised these girls that I’d get them on board, you know, and they’ll be frightfully sticky if I don’t! We just go on board saying we’re helping them with their bags and stay there. Things are in such a mess that no one will know the difference!’
‘Sorry, Monty, I can’t help you. But you’re nearly there. I’m sure you’ll make it. Goodbye.’
While Monty had thus been pleading for help two of the Da Sousa Sisters, who had begun to pummel him and pull his hair in their indignation, had desisted and fixed their glittering, anthracite eyes on Matthew, allowing their victim to make this last appeal. In the meantime, other Da Sousa Sisters had come hopping forward over the suitcases to perch like leather-winged harpies on the back of the seat, on the door at his side, and even on the windscreen, clutching on with long red fingernails and staring down at him with their cruelly glittering eyes, one or two of them already beginning to dribble from scarlet-lipsticked mouths.
‘Be a sport!’ wailed Monty.
But Matthew was already on his way with Vera towards the distant P & O wharf. He looked back once, just in time to see Monty’s flickering, terror-stricken features disappear under a tide of biting, scratching, hair-pulling Da Sousa Sisters. In a moment there was nothing to be seen but an inner circle of feeding marcelled heads and an outer circle of tight-skirted bottoms. ‘Poor Monty!’ thought Matthew. ‘What a fate!’ But he hurried on with Vera, for by now it was getting close to midnight and the Félix Roussel was due to sail in a little over an hour.
&nb
sp; As they advanced they saw that the road was jammed, not only with empty cars but with all sorts of other objects as well. Clearly no one had taken seriously the instruction to bring only hand luggage. Household goods of all sorts had been abandoned with the cars that had been conveying them: tables, chairs, chests and boxes were to be seen strapped on to car roofs: rolled-up carpets poked through windows. In places, abandoned possessions had been disgorged into the road, which was gradually coming to take on the appearance of a nightmare furniture store: some of them had been dragged by their reluctant owners a little distance in the direction of the wharf; in other cases their owners had not yet been able to make up their minds to forsake them: here and there a man with bulging eyes and swelling veins could still be seen wrestling with some possession too precious to leave behind, a mahogany dining-table perhaps, or a set of carved Chinese chairs, while at his side his wife groaned under a heavy brass Buddha or some other such fearful fardel.
Matthew and Vera now began to find that the litter of furniture and packing-cases, trunks and suitcases had become so dense in places that there was nothing for it but to climb over. They found themselves having to squeeze between wardrobes or clamber over pianos, their path lit only by the distant light of burning buildings, now seeing themselves faintly reflected in long mirrors, now listening to the sobs and groans of shadowy figures on their knees by the wayside. On one dark stretch they found themselves crunching through a tea-set of finest bone china; in another, stopping to rest because Vera was tired, they groped their way to a chesterfield sofa and sat down on it without realizing that a man and his wife, one at each end, were still trying to trundle it towards the wharf.
At long last they began to near the dock gates and could even make out the funnels of the Félix Roussel silhouetted against the pink glow of the night. Suddenly a rickshaw loomed out of the darkness along Keppel Road in the jostling crowd that flowed towards Gate 3 and the Empire Dock. Matthew, astonished, just had time to glimpse Joan sitting in it amidst a pile of luggage while Ehrendorf, stripped to the waist and streaming with sweat, galloped onwards as best he could between the shafts. Unable, like Matthew and Vera, to get through in the car Ehrendorf had wanted to abandon it, but Joan had refused to leave her luggage, which included a number of valuable wedding-presents, a set of pewter mugs, bed-linen, material to be made up into curtains according to a colour scheme she had already devised for her first home, a canteen of solid silver and other things. What was to be done? Ehrendorf had happened to spot an abandoned rickshaw beside the road and now here he was, head down and gasping for breath, scattering people right and left as he charged for the open gates.
The Empire Trilogy Page 145