I rocked her gently as the train in turn rocked us. ‘I won’t.’
‘If you ask me, I will kill the man with the burned face,’ she said.
I froze, shocked by her simple words. Jenny was capable of saying such a thing in jest, but I knew she was not joking.
‘You will not.’
‘Wouldn’t it be for the best?’
‘It might. But if anyone should kill him it should be me, and yet I do not think I ever could.’
‘Wouldn’t it … wouldn’t we be happy?’
‘I don’t know. According to my understanding, desperate folk who resort to such deeds never resolve their problem but set in train a cycle of events beyond their control and which inexorably lead to their doom. We are not such people, Jenny, or if we could be I do not think we have reached the point of desperation. It strikes me as being some way off.’
Jenny listened, and nodded. ‘In a way we passed it five months ago now, I think. Ever since we met we have been fugitives of a sort, and yet I have never been so happy, even when afraid. In fact, those words don’t even come close … it is not about being happy or not … it’s … it’s, oh I don’t know. Have you ever watched a heron catch a fish, Jack?’
‘I think I may have but without paying attention.’
‘I saw one once. He stood on a branch at the pool’s edge and watched the water. Half an hour he stood unmoving, and then flash! His head dipped into the water and was out again before you knew it and in his beak was a fish. He paused before swallowing it, almost as if wanting to show it off. And for a second, there was a look in his eye. That look, Jack, that is how I feel all the time with you, and running in fear for our lives is a small price to pay for it.’
‘That is rather a splendid way of putting it, Jenny. I hope you won’t find me unoriginal if I say I feel the same.’
‘You won’t send me away?’
‘No. I could more easily take out my heart and post it to England.’
‘In a parcel wrapped up with brown paper and white string?’
‘Of course, how else?’
‘When you said … to go away … for a moment I believed you.’
‘Well, then you are a bloody fool.’
She paused and then giggled. I had never before used such language to her, least of all in jest.
‘We’ll find a way, Jack. I know it. After all, Princess Elizabeth is on our side.’
‘I am determined that we should find a way, Jenny, but I have to say I don’t set much store by the possibility of an intervention in our fate by Buckingham Palace.’
She giggled again in a way that made plain she didn’t set much store by it either. ‘I’m sure there is nothing Her Majesty wouldn’t do for a Gosling’s Friend badge.’
I was about to reply when she raised her face to me and I noticed her grin. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s probably the only thing in all the world that a queen can’t buy. Have you still got yours?’
‘No, I threw it away the day after you gave it to me.’
I laughed. ‘It really is jolly sporting of you to joke at such a dark time. But you are right. We have plenty of fight in us yet, for all the pickle we are in.’
‘I can’t imagine where I would rather be than in a pickle with you, Jack.’
We listened as if in a dream to the soft melancholic chuffing. When the causeway reached the mainland we passed through a station called Johor Bahru and glided slowly past a goods train held up in a sidings. The wagons were empty but for one, on which was lashed the giant tin of Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup. What did it mean? Was it following us? Or showing us the way?
INT. LOWER DECK. NIGHT
MILLIE, BIG JIM, MOWGLI, SCARFACE stand before a cupboard.
SCARFACE
Did you get the key as I told you to?
MILLIE hands over a key to SCARFACE, who puts it in the cupboard lock and turns.
MILLIE
It’s very strange for him to lock away the fancy dress.
SCARFACE
The Captain is a strange man. He locks the joy away from his own heart.
MILLIE
Yes, I have seen it.
SCARFACE
But on his own birthday we must force the gates of his heart open to admit our joy.
MILLIE
Yes, yes we must!
MILLIE
(Sings)
Long ago when I was a little girl
I dreamed of a dance where my heart would whirl
And a man riding in on a sugar-white charger
A duke or a lord or maybe an earl.
I grew up and my dreams got larger.
BIG JIM, MOWGLI, SCARFACE
(Sing)
Long ago when she was a little tot
She dreamed about the world as the world is not.
Now she’s promised in marriage to a big brown bear,
No princes or dukes or similar rot.
Throw away your dreams because the world don’t care.
SCARFACE opens the cupboard. It is filled with firearms. He hands them out.
SCARFACE
Happy birthday, Captain Squideye!
EXT. DECK. DAY.
Two sailors pinion the arms of SQUIDEYE, who has been badly beaten. Another sailor holds the struggling MILLIE. Other sailors, openly drinking from flagons of liquor, look on.
SQUIDEYE
I’ll have your heart for this, you snake!
SCARFACE
I do not doubt it, but first you will have to find me. And how will you do that when you are blind?
SQUIDEYE
I still have one good eye.
SCARFACE
I fear the prospects for that eye are rather dim.
SQUIDEYE
No!
BIG JIM brings out a flask of chloroform.
SCARFACE
Hold him fast now, boys!
More sailors take hold of SQUIDEYE.
SCARFACE
What shall we do, boys, has he seen enough of this wretched world?
SAILORS
(Sing)
Aye, aye Captain!
No eye captain!
If you ever need a gaoler
Don’t have a drunken sailor.
They prise open his ‘good’ eye. SCARFACE pours on the chloroform.
MILLIE
Please don’t!
SQUIDEYE
No! Damn you!
(Laughter)
SCARFACE
Throw him in the drink!
SQUIDEYE
No!
The sailors throw SQUIDEYE over the side. SCARFACE grabs MILLIE by the arm.
SCARFACE
I claim my prize!
(Laughter)
Chapter 9
The arrival of the overnight train from Hat Yai at Hualamphong Station in Bangkok occasioned a bustling frenzy. People who arrived to greet and receive vied with shoeless porters in vest and shorts. They thronged to the doors, luggage was passed out over the heads through windows, while girls walked with trays for hats from which grilled chicken and fried insects were offered for sale. We followed, or were swept along with the throng as it surged towards the main building, a vast, high-ceilinged space filled with travellers, many of them sitting on the floor.
All railway stations are noisy cathedrals in which life’s sacred rituals are enacted. No one would build a vast public space at great cost to house those departing at a bus station, and yet it is regarded as a necessity for trains. The gathering of so many people filled the building with a buzz like a hive. High up a clock presided. We picked our way through the groups seated on the floor. It was hot, but outside the heat hit us like a blow.
‘Poo!’ laughed Jenny. ‘What a pong! Where’s it coming from?’
I looked around and said, ‘Do you know, I think it’s coming from … everywhere.’
‘What is it?’
‘Lots of things, I believe. Rotting vegetables, stagnant water …’
‘Flowers.’
‘
Yes.’
‘Jasmine,’ said Jenny, ‘medicine, ointment, lavatories, grease … and things I’m not sure I want to find out about.’
We found a taxi and showed the driver a brochure for our hotel. He drove out of the station into a broad and modern thoroughfare. It was clogged with dusty Fords and some cars that I fancied must have been made in Japan before the war. Men pushed carts. Passing between them and the cars were rickshaw drivers, skinny and gnarled and barefoot. We also saw two elephants amid the traffic.
Along either side of the road ran canals. From time to time, thin boats passed down these, overloaded with people. The waters were the colour of cocoa. Other, smaller canals, more like drainage culverts, lay stagnant, filled with junk and emitting a mouldy stench.
We passed a grand building that stood out amid the rather shabby architecture that lined the street.
‘General Post Office,’ read out Jenny.
‘It’s a shame Mrs Carmichael is not here to try her envelope test,’ I answered.
‘Definitely what she would have called a Type-B country,’ she said. She gave me an impish look. ‘Bear that in mind if you have to bribe a policeman.’
We turned right into a side road and entered a narrower, more congested district. Chinese script began to predominate. Glimpses of brown river flashed intermittently to our left as we drove further into the neighbourhood. The road narrowed but filled with more and more people. There were more rickshaws and fewer cars, until soon we were the only car, pushing slowly like a snowplough through the throng. Wheeled food stalls lined the road now. Men scooped up tentacles of noodles and strained them through giant colanders, steam enveloping them, while other stalls were hung with the innards of unknown animals, bits the butcher normally throws to the dog.
Along the ground stood rows of baskets, from which you found cockerels’ beady eyes observing you. The smell had intensified and grown sweeter, with the putrescence now mingling with liquorice and aniseed, burning charcoal, steam, jasmine. We passed a temple with a lurid green- and red-glazed roof, and smelled the heady scent of incense. From the gloom came glimpses of shimmering gold, jade and dragon faces. The driver hit his horn and turned left into a lane barely wide enough to fit the car, and up before us, fronting the river, rose a building of yellow stone five storeys high and lined with balconies. It was our hotel, The Garden of Perfect Brightness.
The building was painted the same yellow ochre as Colman’s mustard. The windows were faced with louvred shutters, each painted the shade of dark green that is common for the railings and benches of municipal parks in England. The upper windows had small balconies and wrought-iron railings. The building was in a compound surrounded by a wall that had once been plastered and painted cream. There was a gate wide enough to admit a car, and the driver drove through and up a small drive to stone steps and a portico. Two boys dressed in off-white trousers and short-sleeved shirts with epaulettes opened the car doors and organised the retrieval of the travelling cases. To the left through a small gate in another wall we could see a lawn, and beyond that the river.
We climbed the steps and walked into an airy lobby that took up most of the ground floor. The floor was dark polished teak and studded here and there with potted plants and large empty jars. Ceiling fans swirled high above our heads. Immediately to the right was a reception desk with three liveried officers in attendance. Despite the slightly run-down exterior of the hotel, the desk seemed very efficient. A manager calling himself Mr John strode forward to greet us, and conducted us to some lounge chairs in the centre of the lobby, set around a table strewn with issues of the international press. Orange juice was brought for us and Mr John took our passports away to finish the formalities. Jenny gave me a look of approval and I had to admit it was rather grand.
The centre of the lobby was dominated by a grand staircase that rose with unusual steepness because it omitted the first floor, ascending instead to a landing on the second floor. On the landing there was a table and glass case containing a rattan ball about four feet across.
A boy showed us to a room on the third floor, opening the door with a brass fob the size of a shoehorn. The bathrooms were shared with two other rooms on the floor, but the boy assured us these were currently vacant. The room was very pleasant, filled with bright dappled light of the sort that you find in rooms overlooking water. It had a teak floor, a big slow ceiling fan, some rattan furniture and a bed enveloped in a mosquito net. We both strode over and threw open the doors to the balcony. ‘Chaopraya River,’ said the boy proudly. The lawn below looked very beguiling, leading directly to the river, which was quite a bit wider than the Thames. The lawn was strewn with chairs and tables under wide parasols. We could see a young girl seated at one table, and beyond, in the river, a most remarkable sight: a flying boat floating on her belly like a swan, bobbing gently in the river swell.
Instead of unpacking we returned to the lobby and walked outside onto a small terrace set with reclining chairs, before following a path across the grass towards the river. The girl we had seen from the window sat in a bath chair, loosely wrapped in blankets despite the oppressive heat. With an air of great absorption she picked up a piece of paper and began folding it carefully, into the shape of a little bird. We stood and watched, and it was some time before the girl became aware of our presence. She looked up at us and smiled.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Jenny. ‘I hope we are not disturbing you.’
‘Hello,’ said the girl. ‘Have you just arrived? You are English. My name is Hoshimi. It’s Japanese, but I am a great admirer of England.’
‘How wonderful,’ said Jenny. ‘We are Jack and Jenny Wenlock.’
‘How did you learn such excellent English?’ I asked.
‘Mr Wenlock, you are very kind, but I know my English is … perfectly awful! The scraps I have managed to learn are from my father, who for many years taught English at the Technical High School.’
‘How interesting!’
‘In Nagasaki my father used to take me every Saturday to visit Marmaduke’s Emporium on Tenjimbashisuji street. The most wonderful English merchandise could be obtained there. Pears soap, Robertson’s jam, Tate and Lyle Golden Syrup, “Out of the strength came forth sweetness”. Heinz ketchup, tennis balls, Winsor and Newton watercolours. It was such a marvellous place. They also had the most beautiful model railway that ran round the perimeter of the shop. A 4–6-0 Great Western Railway ‘Castle’ class, engine number 4070 Godstow Castle. It was painted in shiny apple-green livery, and pulled six coaches painted chocolate and cream.’
‘We got married on that train,’ said Jenny.
Hoshimi’s face lit up with delight and surprise. ‘My word! Did you really? How spiffing!’
‘The ceremony took place on the footplate,’ I added.
‘The footplate? I never knew such things were possible.’
‘Oh yes,’ I continued. ‘It used to be the case. The driver of a mainline steam locomotive on the Great Western Region was permitted under certain circumstances to perform the marriage ceremony.’
‘I have heard that the GWR is … sadly no more.’
‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘Sadly.’
‘Such a shame. The model in Marmaduke’s Emporium had a sleeping carriage attached. Have you ever been in one? I can’t imagine anything more wonderful than sleeping in a train.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I can assure you, there is nothing more wonderful.’
‘I didn’t think there could be. Mr Marmaduke also had every edition of the Railway Gosling Annuals. Except the 1931 one. For some reason we were not able to procure it in Japan.’
‘You weren’t alone,’ I said. ‘They only printed one copy and then destroyed the printing plates.’
‘Surely not!’ said Hoshimi, her face flushed with concern. ‘Why on earth would they do that?’
‘It contained some unflattering remarks about His Majesty King George the Fifth.’
‘Was he not a splendid fellow?’
‘Not everyone thought so,’ I told her.
‘Dear me,’ she said. ‘It sounds like I had a lucky escape. I can recite all the names of the kings of England. I should not like to read unkind remarks about them.’
We left her once more to her origami and walked down to the river. It felt more like an inland sea than a river, with a succession of tiny wavelets lapping rhythmically against the bank. Boats plied the river in all directions. Thin motorised ones carrying people sped past in the centre of the stream, overtaking giant barges laden with stone, moving with glacial slowness seawards. At other places we could see ferries criss-crossing from side to side, stopping at jetties and disgorging hundreds of people before resuming their journeys.
The floating plane was a Short ‘C’ class Empire Flying Boat. She was moored quite far out in the stream, at the end of a wooden jetty some 20 yards long. I was struck by her size, more like a double-decker bus than a plane.
I had known from my reading that there were twin decks inside, but had never quite pictured what that entailed in terms of size. And when you see a photo of one sitting out in a tropical lagoon, you get very little idea of scale. Standing this close gave one to understand why they talked of casting off when travelling in a flying boat. The fact that there were multiple decks could be gathered from the siting of the cockpit, which sat very high on the front, like a pince-nez perched on someone’s nose. The letters beneath the cockpit windows gave her name, Connemara. The paintwork here did not quite match the rest of the fuselage, suggesting that her name had recently been changed.
A chap in a linen suit stood to our left, staring at the water and smoking a cigarette. On noticing us he sauntered over. ‘Are you the pilot?’ he asked. He was short, probably no more than five foot five, and had a nose that had been broken long ago and set slightly to the left of the centre of his face. He smiled amiably.
‘I’m afraid not,’ I said.
‘Jack’s more of a steam-train man,’ said Jenny brightly.
‘I was joking,’ the man said. ‘You look far too sane to be the pilot.’
‘Oh,’ I said, rather shocked by the bitter edge to his voice. ‘Is the pilot insane?’
The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness Page 10