The way he said it, as if it were nothing. It astonished her.
‘Thank you. That was very kind.’
Somewhere across the room a tiny baby started to bleat.
‘Hear that?’ he said sharply. ‘It’s the sound of life, not death. Think of that when you are feeling buried under your curses.’
‘I delivered it.’
‘What?’
‘The baby. Here in this basement, an hour ago.’ She laughed at his expression of amazement. ‘I’ve never played midwife before, but there was no one else to help the poor woman.’
‘Hah!’ He clapped her on the back so hard it made her cough. ‘So you have broken your curse.’
She stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A life for a life.’
She looked away. She didn’t want him to see what his words did to her, her eyes suddenly hot and stinging. She stubbed out her cigarette.
‘I must go back to them,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to, you know. You look … as though you’ve done enough.’
She glanced down at herself, at her blood-stained clothes. Her hand touched her hair and found it caked with dirt and grit from the explosion.
‘Of course I have to,’ she said.
It wasn’t the first time Connie had seen this amount of blood, the smell of it heavy in the air. No, this wasn’t the first time. The first time was in the hut, that last day when everything changed.
‘What are you reading?’ Sho’s tone had been sharp when he woke. He had moved from sleep to total alertness in the course of one breath.
Connie was sitting fully dressed and cross-legged on the end of the bed in the hut. In her hand she had clutched the sheets of closely typed paper taken from his attaché case. Earlier, she had focused on the features of her lover’s face as he slept, on the familiar lift of his black eyebrow, the strong pad of flesh just beneath the cheekbone, the dormant line of his mouth. Her mind stumbled when she tried to reconcile the words on the paper with the face she thought she knew.
‘I’m reading about what I did last week,’ she said flatly, ‘and the week before and the week before and the …’
‘Those are my private papers.’
‘And this,’ she snapped them through the sultry air, ‘is my private life.’
He sat bolt upright in the bed and stretched out his hand. ‘Give them to me.’ His voice was cold.
She uncurled from the mattress. ‘You’ve had someone spying on me.’
‘Not spying. Watching over you.’
‘Spying!’ She lifted one of the pages. ‘Your fear that Mrs Constance Hadley is having affairs with other men is groundless – based on what I have been able to observe.’ She tossed the document on the floor. ‘And this! Mrs Hadley is, in my opinion, of stable mind and is well liked by the friends to whom I’ve spoken. And this! She and her husband sleep in the same bed. Which of my servants did you bribe to get that intimate titbit?’
He sat very still. ‘I needed to be sure of you.’
‘Well,’ she said angrily, ‘if you won’t trust me, you can be sure of this – that we are finished.’
His pale skin grew paler and his eyes changed as he moved smoothly from the bed to the door where he stood naked, blocking her exit.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘No!’
His outburst unnerved her. Never in all their previous meetings together had he given any sign that she meant more to him than a pleasant afternoon’s interlude. Yet now it seemed that their friendship lay in pieces, limp and colourless as the cigarette butts discarded at their feet. She saw his eyes slide to the leather attaché case on the floor, and something about the way he did it made her instantly alert. She darted forward and scooped it up.
Sho didn’t move from the door. ‘Put it down, Connie.’
She opened it. This time she looked in the zipped side flap, her fingers quick as she pulled out an object. It was a small shagreen diary. She flicked it open. Inside, every page was covered in tight, neat writing, mostly in Japanese script but some in English. She spotted Nigel’s name. Her own. Her fingers turned another page. A description of the plantation smoke-sheds, an account of the rubber process. Page after page of Japanese writing, then a sketch of the Repulse and of the dry dock in Palur harbour. Johnnie Blake’s name beside the words 300 aircraft. A list of regiments under the heading Malaya Command: Indian III Corps, 8th Division (Australia), 11th Division, Malaya Regiment, 53rd Infantry Brigade. Pages and pages of Japanese script.
Connie shut the diary with an angry snap, and saw on the back page in red ink the words: 300,000 whites tyrannise 100 million Asians and underneath it, KOTA BHARU is our way in. Her blood grew sluggish in her veins as she realised what Shohei Takehashi was. The shock of it jammed her brain.
‘A spy,’ she hissed. ‘You’re a spy for Japan.’
How much have I told him?
How many times had he listened at Nigel’s table of talk of the rubber industry in Malaya? Or discussion of the airfields with Johnnie? Or the impregnable state of Singapore’s sea-facing guns and its naval base?
Kota Bharu? Where the hell was that?
A knot of fear twisted in her stomach, and she dropped the book as if the pages burned her fingers. Sho’s face was without expression as he stepped forward and she thought he was going to pick it up but instead his hand shot out and slapped her face. The blow almost knocked out her teeth, and something exploded high up inside her nose sending tentacles of pain crawling through her face. Blood, warm and salty, trickled out of her nostril and down onto her lips.
Connie blinked, swore and shook her head to clear it. But when he came at her again she was ready and rammed both of her fists into the centre of his naked chest to push him away. She heard his lungs screech. She started to run for the door, but before she could reach it her hair was yanked from behind. She lashed out with a fist, but she stumbled as she was swung sideways by her hair like a rag doll.
She had a second for thought, a single spike of clarity. Take care of Teddy. I’m sorry, Nigel, but take good care of my precious son. Then the wall leaped forward and rammed into the side of her head. She felt her ear split. Blackness, thick as soot, stifled her mind and she forgot how to breathe.
17
When Connie led Teddy out of the library basement after the air-raid, the sight of the wanton destruction of Palur tore at her heart. Bodies were being extracted from the rubble but ambulances were caring for the living, so the dead were being laid out on the backs of trucks, each covered respectfully with a layer of sacking.
Fitzpayne insisted on accompanying Connie. ‘To see you safe,’ he said with a frown. ‘Looters are around.’
Teddy was pale and clung to her hand. ‘What are looters?’
‘People who take what is not theirs.’
‘Like pirates?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Will they go to jail?’
‘If they’re caught.’
All along the street people were bent over, sifting through broken masonry and girders. Looters? Or rescuers? Connie didn’t know and didn’t care. She just wanted to get Teddy home. Shadows had formed under his eyes that had never been there before.
‘Look,’ Connie pointed up ahead. ‘There’s our Chrysler.’ It was parked at the kerb exactly where she had left it.
‘I’ll see if Ho Bah is there,’ Teddy said and ran towards the car, eager for the journey home.
Fitzpayne glanced sideways at her. ‘Don’t look so worried. He’s young, he’ll get over this.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I see your windscreen is shattered.’
‘Damn them! Damn all Japs to hell!’
He made no comment on her sudden outburst. Ahead of them, Teddy had reached the car. She saw his mouth open and shut, and his stringy legs grow rigid as he stared through the side window. She broke into a run.
‘Oh, Ho Bah!’ she moaned.
He was there. In the car. Lying slumped across the front s
eat, a bullet wound in his forehead, almost no blood, just a neat round hole. Teddy uttered a single harsh cry when she wrapped her arms around him. Fitzpayne lifted the syce’s scrawny old body as easily as if it were a chicken’s carcass and placed it on the rear seat of the Chrysler. Connie covered it gently with a rug from the boot while Fitzpayne swept the glass from the shattered windscreen off the front seats. She climbed into the front passenger seat, pulling Teddy onto her lap, and Fitzpayne took the driver’s seat.
It took a long time to drive out of Palur. Roads were cratered, streets blocked by collapsed buildings and fallen telegraph poles, but with patience and care Fitzpayne eventually made it onto the road that ran through the plantation to Hadley House. On the front seat Connie cradled Teddy’s head on her shoulder and told her son how proud of him she was. He didn’t cry. He didn’t moan, but all the way his teeth chattered fiercely.
After the fight with Sho in the hut, Connie had come back to consciousness with a start. Her head hurt. When she opened her eyes she realised she was sprawled on her back on the floor of the hut, her hands roped together in front of her. Her whole face throbbed and her nose was blocked with blood so she breathed softly through her mouth. Her heart was banging in her chest. Shohei Takehashi was sitting on the bed fully dressed, studying her with an expression that was so sad it frightened her. She thought about sitting up, but wasn’t sure she could make it yet and didn’t want him to see her fail, so she stayed where she was.
‘Sho,’ she said. Her voice came out thick but steadier than she expected. ‘You said you loved me.’
‘I do.’
‘Then let me go. I will tell no one what I saw in your diary.’
He smiled, a slight twitch of his lips. ‘We both know that isn’t true.’
‘If you let me go I will come with you to Japan.’
For a moment something flared in his dark eyes, something like triumph. He had got what he wanted. ‘You would come?’
‘Yes.’
‘How can I trust you?’
When he moved off the bed and crouched close beside her, she quickly pushed herself upright. She didn’t want his help.
He stroked her hair. ‘You look a mess, my sweetheart.’
The room and his face were swaying in and out of focus. ‘Please, untie me.’
He continued to stroke her hair, but all the time shook his head slowly. She knew then. Knew that the hardness in his eyes and the sad shake of his head were not about the rope around her wrists. She was too much of a threat to him now – he intended to rid himself of her. With quiet determination she forced her legs into action and managed to stand. He rose to his feet and stared at her cautiously.
‘Sho, there’s no need to make this worse than it is.’
She tried to remember where her car keys were. How far down the jungle track was the Chrysler parked? Could she run?
Yes. Yes, I can run. I can run for my life, for Teddy’s life.
‘Sho, don’t do this. Let’s both leave our relationship here and walk away.’
‘I can’t walk away from you, Connie. You have bewitched me, and because of you I made mistakes. Because of you I wrote too much in English in my notes. Maybe …’ he leaned forward to caress her damaged face but she backed away, ‘maybe somewhere deep in my heart I wanted you to know.’
‘Why would you want me to know?’
‘Because then I would have to kill you, and that’s the only way I can be free of you.’
He said it calmly. No fuss, no threat. As if he were talking about kissing her.
‘I’m leaving, Sho. Don’t try to …’
Before the words were out of her mouth he had a knife in his hand. She had no idea where it came from but its blade was wafer thin, the kind of stiletto that she imagined assassins of popes had used in Italy through the centuries. She could picture the steel sliding neatly between her ribs. She drew a deep breath and prepared to scream, to batter him with her roped wrists and hurl herself out of the hut. She stood little chance, she knew that, but she wasn’t going to stay here and do nothing.
It was the Malayan jungle itself that came to her aid, the jungle she hated so much. A troop of gibbon monkeys came crashing down from the trees, howling and screeching at each other as they hounded an intruder out of their territory, filling the air outside the hut with their noisy aggression. Sho turned his head and glanced out of the window at them, but the moment his attention shifted, she raised her hands and slammed them between his shoulder blades to force him out of her path. He grunted and stumbled. She raced for the door knocking against him as she ran. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him lose his balance and topple forward, but she didn’t slow down till her hand was on the door.
Then a sound stopped her. Through the fog of pain and rage and fear, it penetrated. It was a thin, eerie scream. She looked back. Sho was lying flat on his face, a crimson flower blossoming around him, and from his throat came a sucking, gurgling noise that turned her stomach.
Run! Don’t stay!
But she stepped back into the room. Warily she bent over her lover and turned him over. The knife was sticking out of his throat, his hand still clutching the ivory hilt, and blood was pumping in a torrent over his shirt front. He had landed on the blade when he fell.
‘Sho!’
She tore her blouse over her head, thwarted by the rope on her wrists, and jammed it against the wound but air continued to bubble out of it, gurgling as he fought to breathe. Quickly, she withdrew the knife from his throat. It slipped out with a soft squelch that was to haunt her dreams every night for months to come. With her blouse clamped tight to try to stem the blood, she leaned close, her heart frantic in her chest, and she placed her lips on his. Slowly, she breathed out into his mouth, again and again.
‘Breathe, Sho!’ she cried. ‘Breathe!’
But there was no response. His body shuddered, then lay still. Within seconds she saw all signs of life slide out of his eyes. They became nothing but black holes in his skull, and she knew he was dead.
‘Sho!’ she screamed.
Yet she kept breathing air into his mouth. Harder and faster. As if she could force life back into his limp body against its will.
‘Sho, don’t go,’ she whispered.
She wiped the blood from his lips and tasted it on her own teeth as she drove air relentlessly into his lungs, hearing it escape in a whistle from the hole in his throat. Eventually, her chest heaving with exhaustion, she sat back on her heels and stroked his lifeless cheek.
‘Sho,’ she said softly, ‘I can’t let you take my son from me.’
Connie sat on the floor beside Shohei Takehashi’s body for three hours. The blood dried around her, turning as black and sticky as molasses. She felt his skin grow cold despite the heat of the afternoon, his flesh starting to shrivel on his bones as she fanned away the insects. A yellow lizard sidled across the dark patch on the boards beneath him, lifting its feet daintily one at a time. Glossy-backed flies came in swarms, drawn by the stink of fresh blood, and she flapped them away from Sho’s throat but they settled on her own face instead.
Finally, she rose to her feet and wrapped a pillowcase around Sho’s head. She used the blade, holding it awkwardly, to cut the rope around her wrists and then, tucking his feet under her armpits, she hauled him on his back out of the hut. His head bounced down the three steps, thump, thump, thump.
Her knees grew weak beneath her but she dragged him to the river’s edge. If she rolled the body into the brown, muddy river it might be devoured in hours and vanish. But it might also float like a log and wash up somewhere downstream where it could be found by villagers or fishermen. She squatted beside him with her face in her hands, rocking back and forth, a low keening sound escaping from her throat. She knew that if she told the police what she had done she would lose her son for ever.
She pushed herself to her feet, entered the hut, gathered up all their belongings, including the attaché case and diary, and made a bonfire of them. The
n she scattered the ashes on the water’s surface in a kind of burial service for her Japanese lover. Several times in the past month she and Sho had watched a monitor lizard, a huge seven-foot carnivore, emerge from the mangroves and pace out the beach as he marked his territory. She acted rapidly now. With the knife she made a diagonal cut across her left arm, and when the blood was flowing fast she threaded a trail of scarlet droplets all the way from the mangroves to the body of Sho on the riverbank. Come and eat me.
Her hands were shaking as they held the keys to her car, and to Sho’s Ford. She set off walking down the track, unaware of the tears streaking her face.
Nigel had been standing on the doorstep waiting for her when at last she drove home from the jungle that day.
‘What in God’s name has happened to you, Constance?’
‘I went for a walk. I climbed up the rocks around Malu, trying to find somewhere cool to sit and catch the breeze up there. I fell.’
‘You look as if you’ve been hit by a bus.’
‘I must go and wash. I don’t want Teddy to see me like this.’
‘I’ll call Dr Rossiter.’
‘No, don’t. I’m all right.’
‘No, I insist.’
‘Nigel, please.’
‘Look at you. You’re hurt. I’m telephoning …’
‘No. This once. Just … let me rest.’
‘Constance, other people’s wives don’t arrive home covered in blood. Why is it that it is always you who are different, always you who never fits in?’
‘No, Nigel, you’re mistaken. I’m not the one who is out of step with the rest of the world. It’s the rest of this damn world of Malaya that’s out of step with me.’
This time, when Fitzpayne drove her home from the raid in Palur, it was Johnnie Blake waiting on the doorstep, shading his eyes against the sun’s glare with his good arm. Fitzpayne made no move to climb out of the car.
‘Thank you, Fitz,’ she said gently.
‘Take care of that son of yours.’
‘I will.’
The White Pearl Page 20