The Rain Forest

by Olivia Manning

  Hugh paused, unable to describe the final indignity that had brought him to Al-Bustan. He had gone to the club, the worthlessly expensive place in Curzon Street, thinking that someone must see him and offer him a job. When he entered the dining-room there were a dozen or more men known to him, all in the same position, all there with the same idea, all caught in the same despairing fantasy. They had looked up hopefully and seeing him, had looked away.

  ‘Some of them moved to television but the work’s sporadic and the rewards small. Besides, I wanted to get away. A new environment, a different part of the world. Something to revive me. I knew someone at the Foreign Office and he offered me this.’

  ‘There are worse places.’ Ambrose, nodding his understanding, lifted his large, moist face into the white light of the risen moon: ‘And the film world will pick up.’

  ‘In time, yes, but it will never be the same. Younger men were coming in and now they’re working for peanuts. The good days are over.’

  ‘I may say,’ Ambrose’s small voice became confidingly smaller: ‘This chap we’re seeing down here: he’s extremely well heeled. There’s no knowing! If he takes a fancy to you, he could put you back on your feet.’

  Hugh laughed. He did not know how any one person could put him back where he once was, but Ambrose was convincing and Hugh, for no reason at all, began looking about him with a new excitement. He ceased to see his job as a pending prison of office routine. It was temporary. It would tide him over into better times. Meanwhile he could enjoy the equatorial sky, the shadows of the pepper trees black, like black ostrich feathers, on the white sandy road, the white distant shore where the Indian Ocean, again and again and again, rolled in with a long curling wave. Elated, he bent down and sifted the sand through his fingers.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Coral. Everything here is coral. They make it into blocks for building. The villas are built of coral, so are the Government Offices, the Praslin, all the new buildings. The others, like the Daisy, are adobe.’ Ambrose smiled at Hugh’s wonder but to him the island was a commonplace: his mind was elsewhere. ‘This chap we’re seeing’s called Lomax. I think you’ll like him. He’s a bit spoilt by his money, of course. To people like us – intellectuals from the great world – ownership of cash is not, in itself, admirable. But here,’ his voice dropped impressively, ‘it cuts a lot of ice.’

  ‘Is he a native of Al-Bustan?’

  ‘No, no. Oh, dear me, no. God knows what he’s native of. He lives at the Praslin, calls it his “home from home” but I doubt if he has any other.’

  Walking downhill with flat-footed dignity, Ambrose swayed under his own weight. His jacket was too tight to meet across his belly which stood out some distance in front of him. Hugh was surprised to find, when they stood together, that he and Ambrose were much of a height. Sitting, Ambrose looked enormous. On his feet, with his vast shoulders and chest, he gave the impression of a giant dwarf or dwarf giant, and Hugh was less overawed by his bulk. Still, as he walked with head thrown back, the wind sweeping his fine hair this way and that, the street lights illuming the rubbery mounds and runnels of his face, his appearance was grandiose.

  At the bottom of the hill, he was becoming breathless. He gasped: ‘I have a little project in which Lomax is interested. I’ll tell you later. I know you’ll keep it under your hat.’

  Flattered by this trust in his discretion, Hugh felt he had already made a friend.

  The road opened on to the broad, cobbled area of the harbour. The shops here were brilliant and busy and young men were out walking in the night breeze. Some of the men were Indian; others were of no certain race but made up for their indefinite skin colouring with patterned shirts and western trousers, all in the most definite colours they could find. Ambrose pointed to the largest of the shops, a balconied, embellished wooden structure, like a rambling lop-sided Swiss chalet, and said ‘Aly’s. That’s where Mrs G. buys the bacon. Great shop; sells everything. There’s a hairdressing establishment upstairs where the Daisy girls get their hair done.’

  Through all of Aly’s lighted windows, Hugh could see the movements of customers: Indians, Arabs and Mulattos, but mostly Indians. He asked if the harbour were an Indian quarter.

  ‘More or less. The Indian shopkeepers drove the Arabs out and the blacks can’t compete. Africans give credit to all their relatives then wonder why they don’t make a profit. The Arabs aren’t much better but they still own the cafés.’

  There were three or four cafés and the chairs and tables, mingling and covering the cobbles on either side of the road, reached out to the verge of the quay. The Arab customers lolled on the chairs, whiling away the hours before empty coffee cups. The more energetic played trictrac or ran their fingers over their amber worry beads. Hugh, following Ambrose among the tables, met here and there a sleepy stare and thought the Arabs too long defeated to care who held the island that had once been theirs. Then a voice spoke quietly behind him: ‘Go home, Englishman.’ Hugh turned but the faces he saw expressed nothing.

  ‘Was that meant for us?’

  ‘Possibly. There are, I suppose, troublemakers here but the Arabs, on the whole, are charming. Now, here we are at our little pleasure spot.’

  A few doors from Aly’s there was a brick building that looked like a nonconformist chapel. It had been built, Ambrose explained, by the Wesleyans but converts had been few and, in the end, the missionaries had to sell up. Now the arched entablature carried a neon sign that said: GURGUR’S GIRLS.

  The manager, a sad-looking Malay, intercepted Ambrose in the hall and in an awed voice told him that Mr Lomax had telephoned to book them a banquette. He led them into the club where tables, topped with yellow plastic, stood round a dance-floor and the banquettes, scalloped round the walls, were covered with dirty yellow velvet. Lomax’s booking had not been necessary: the banquettes were all unoccupied.

  The lights were masked with Chinese lanterns but nothing, not even the musak, played at top pitch, could dispel the aura of Gothic vaulting and pitch-pine walls. The air was chilly and Hugh started to sneeze.

  ‘It is a bit over-conditioned,’ Ambrose apologized, ‘but I like it. One can take a drink without loss of body fluids. Bit empty, isn’t it. Still, early yet.’ He ordered whisky to be charged to Lomax’s account.

  The other patrons were five young men sprawled over a table at the edge of the dance floor. As soon as they saw Hugh, they sat up and gazed at him as though his appearance confounded them. They took in the cut of his silk jacket made by a Maddox Street tailor, the line of his shoes, the set of his shirt and tie, and the length of his fair hair that curled into the nape of his neck, and then, putting their heads together, they discussed him anxiously. Hugh, disliking this attention, frowned. When they started to shout above the howl of the musak, slapping each other on the back and saying ‘How are you, old bean?’ and ‘What’ll you have, old top?’ he became red and said, ‘They’re laughing at me.’

  ‘Au contraire. They’re impressed by you. They had thought themselves the height of Western elegance until they saw you. You dress with a difference. They want to be like you.’

  ‘But that out-of-date slang!’

  ‘Everything’s out of date here. Change begins at the centre. It takes a long time to reach us.’

  ‘What are they? Arabs?’

  ‘Gracious me, no. No pure-bred Moslem or Hindu would be seen in this place. They’re mixed breeds. Some pass for white and some for black, but they suffer the abject humility of belonging to no tribe or race.’

  ‘I imagine they’re a problem?’

  ‘Far from it. They manage the plantations and they’re the government’s most loyal supporters.’

  The whiskies, when they came, were the largest Hugh had ever seen. He decided that one would be enough for him. When Ambrose downed his glass and ordered another round, Hugh said he could drink no more.

  ‘Come now! When do you most need a drink? When you’ve just had one. And don’t worry about
our host: he can afford it.’

  ‘How did he make his money?’

  ‘God knows. How does that sort of man make money? I wish I knew. He’s a money man: he bets on certainties. But – and this one must admire – he will take a gamble for the good of his soul.’

  The particular complacency with which Ambrose spoke made Hugh laugh: ‘I take it you’re referring to your project?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Ambrose’s large, sad brown eyes fixed themselves on Hugh: ‘I would like to describe it to you but I’m afraid . . . you will think it fantastic. You’ll treat it with derision.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise you.’

  Ambrose considered the project with solemn face then spoke as one launching into a life story: ‘This island, I suppose you know, was uninhabited before the pirates turned up. There were only the dodos, poor trusting, wingless creatures who couldn’t get away. They were at the mercy of the pirates but the pirates were at the mercy of other forces. They collected riches but if they tried to spend them, they were likely to be seized and hanged. So they were always burying the stuff. These south sea islands are full of buried treasure. There’s a cache not a hundred miles from here.’

  ‘And you know where it is?’

  ‘I’ve a pretty shrewd idea. The search, however, calls for money – and faith.’

  ‘I suppose it does.’ Hugh’s interest in Ambrose was dulled by this unlikely tale and Ambrose, aware of Hugh’s incredulity, looked injured. His eyes, watery with emotion, shifted from him and at once their expression changed. He nodded gleefully to some object in view: ‘There’s Gurgur.’

  A thin, sagging man was standing on the dance-floor, his head protruding from his rounded shoulders, his neck stretched, taut and wrinkled, like the neck of a rampant hen. His face, as taut as his neck, was watchful and seemed to be intently sneering at nothing.

  ‘What does he remind you of?’ Ambrose asked.

  ‘A vulture.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Ambrose was delighted: ‘And the curious thing is that his name means “vulture”. When he first arrived here, the blacks called him “Gurgur” and he kept the name. I don’t think he knows what it means – to him one name is as good as another; and one place is as good as another. When he appears, the cabaret begins.’

  At once, as though word had gone out to the quay, the hall became full of young men. Every chair and banquette was taken and those who could not find a seat, stood behind the rest. No one spoke. The hall was in a state of avid suspense. The musak ground to a stop and Gurgur, in a voice like a computer, announced ‘Miss Baba and Miss Nikki in their Bubble Dance’.

  The speakers relayed ‘Rustle of Spring’ as the girls ran out. They were fat, elderly girls dressed in scraps of chiffon, who giggled wildly as they tossed the ball about, occasionally taking a jump and thumping down to the floor. Their limbs quivered. The young men pressed forward until there was scarcely room for the dance and Gurgur ordered them back again. When the girls kissed their hands and tripped off, the men, frantically pushing Gurgur out of the way, ran after them. Gurgur watched with a bleak grin as the first half dozen got through the curtains and the rest slunk back again.

  ‘So that’s what Gurgur is up to?’ Hugh said.

  Ambrose smiled. ‘And he’s never short of custom. The girls are imported, of course. Local girls – anyway the Indian and Arab girls – are kept on a very tight rein. They have to be virgin to make a good match.’

  Two more girls came out, younger girls, plump and brown-skinned, who shook their breasts and hips till the floor groaned, the woodwork creaked and the men were in a frenzy. Ambrose, speaking beneath the uproar, said: ‘Lomax.’

  The tall figure in the doorway did not move until the dance ended. As the young men went pelting and crying after the girls, Lomax came slowly across the room. He observed Hugh as though displeased at finding him there. Ambrose was quick to introduce him as ‘a new and desirable resident of our island. Hugh Foster, influential member of the government, and a famous writer.’

  Hugh murmured: ‘Please!’ but it did no good. Some of the young men, frustrated in the race for the girls, were returning to the banquettes, and they gazed on Hugh in open admiration. The words ‘famous writer’ were breathed among them.

  Their admiration, however, was not shared by Lomax. As he seated himself on a chair opposite Hugh, he flatly asked: ‘What have you published, Mr Foster?’

  ‘One novel. Some time ago.’

  Lomax smiled. His smile was not so much a smile as a painful grimace as though, at long last, he had seen the point of a not very good joke. ‘And you have done nothing since?’

  ‘He’s a film man,’ Ambrose broke in eagerly: ‘Oddly enough, it was in my mind that a film should be made of our treasure hunt and, lo and behold, a film man turns up.’

  Lomax, who sat with his head down, raised his thick, pale eyelids to look again at Hugh: ‘You are here to make a film, Mr Foster?’

  Hugh laughed to hide his embarrassment: ‘I was only a script-writer. I’m here to do a temporary job for the government. I’m setting up a news-sheet.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Lomax’s eyes, of a very light blue, were moving rapidly, taking in Hugh’s appearance as though to assess his background: ‘What are you drinking, Mr Foster?’

  ‘I think it’s my turn.’ Hugh looked about for the safragi but Lomax, ignoring his attempts to buy a drink, called to the manager: ‘Order me a whisky and see these gentlemen are served with what they are drinking.’

  Hugh, having got through two triple whiskies, was incapable of protest. He sank against the back of the banquette and watched Lomax, as from a considerable distance. He had, at first, seen Gurgur and Lomax as similar but now, melting under the influence of his third glass of whisky, he began to think better of his host. He decided that where Gurgur was mean, Lomax had substance of a sort. He was a physically colourless man. His skin and hair reflected the biscuit tint of his tussore suit. He was perhaps fifty but his movements and manners were those of someone much older. His face, built round a long, curving, nose, should have been lean, but instead, was puffy, reminding Hugh of a picture, seen outside a police station, of a drowned man who had been a month in the water.

  Ambrose was saying: ‘Some cases of mine have arrived. The purser rang me and said they’re pretty heavy. Think they contain books.’ This information was left on the air a while then, as it gave rise to no comment, Ambrose augmented it: ‘I’m expecting to find a chart in one of them.’

  When Lomax said nothing, Ambrose looked expectantly at Hugh. Hugh, who had faded almost beyond the range of conversation, pulled himself together and did his best to oblige. ‘What chart is that?’

  Ambrose was quick to tell him: ‘It’s a chart which my old dad bought the first time he came here. It was his first commission. He was only a lad. One of those half-breed Portuguese – Canarians, they call them – offered it to him for five rupees. He bought it more as a memento than anything else. In those days no one could hope to raise a ship sunk in twelve fathoms of water.’

  Hugh keenly inquired: ‘How did it get there?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Ambrose, ‘an interesting story. A pirate called Morgo was taking his gold by sea, meaning to bury it in the forest on the other side of the island. He never got there. The ship sprang a leak and went down in the bay they call Morgo’s Bay.’

  Hugh was beginning to believe all this: ‘Where is Morgo’s Bay?’

  ‘Not far.’ Turning heavily, Ambrose faced Lomax to say: ‘I really think we should take a drive round to the bay. I suggest you see it before finally making up your mind to finance this venture.’

  Lomax declined his head but remained silent. The lack of response did not seem to worry Ambrose whose manner became increasingly grand as he said: ‘The money is nothing, of course. The initial outlay for men and equipment would be no more than 300,000 rupees. And in return, what would you get?’

  Lomax smiled: ‘I’d guess, nothing very much.’

  Ambrose earnest
ly amended this: ‘Au contraire. You’d get a spiritual adventure; a search comparable with the search for the Holy Grail. A search for gold. Think of the interest it would rouse! If you had any business of your own on hand – any building, that is; selling of real estate; that sort of thing – think how this would draw them in. And, as I said, what a subject for a film! You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?’

  Lomax nodded.

  Ambrose looked grieved: ‘I really did hope you’d been thinking to better purpose than this.’

  Lomax’s lips, as full and defined as those of a stone pharaoh, lifted slightly in an expression, perverse and obstinate, that startled Hugh.

  Ambrose, very hurt, shuffled to the edge of the banquette and bent towards Lomax: ‘I do wish you’d give it serious thought.’

  Lomax said evenly: ‘I have done so, and will continue to do so.’ His tone dismissed the matter and Ambrose, realizing he would get no better assurance, sighed and drooped like a dejected bear. Hugh thought it was time to go but Lomax, having put the treasure behind him, clearly thought the evening had just begun. Before Hugh could get to his feet, the safragi came to the table with three more glasses of whisky. Gurgur accompanied him.

  Standing at one side of Lomax and bending close to his ear, Gurgur spoke rapidly in Arabic. Hugh, who had learnt a little of the language before he came out, understood that some of the words were proper names. There were African, Indian and Arab names, and, among them, the English name of Culbertson.

  He asked Ambrose: ‘Who are they talking about?’

  ‘Police officers. He says it’s costing him a pretty penny to keep this place open. It’s the old story. He buys people, but they don’t stay bought. Now, if he won’t pay up, they say they’ll close him down altogether.’

  Hugh felt depressed because it was an old story. His mellow mood was failing and he was near sleep. Watching the sick overhanging face of Gurgur, he asked, as Kristy had asked: ‘What are we doing here?’ Simon Hobhouse could not understand why he need come four thousand miles to take the job offered him, but the job had meant nothing. If you could not do what you wanted to do, did it much matter what you did? The island had offered sanctuary – but was there such a thing? He had imagined he was coming to a different place: a place still held by an ideal of innocence, so far from the Western world that corruption could not find it. But the world had grown too small for innocence and he saw that corruption was everywhere.