He was coming after her. Her heart jammed in her chest, hot and unwieldy. Still she wouldn’t turn her back on him. It was how she had always handled an ill-tempered dog – face it down – so that when Nurul shot out a hand to seize her arm, she was ready and slapped it away.
‘Don’t! Stop this! I am not interested in …’
He struck her. The speed of the attack caught her off guard. She reeled backwards, her head ringing where his fist had slammed into her ear. Before she could recover her footing he was on her, throwing her against a tree, knocking the breath out of her with his body crushing hers. There was a scornful joy in his black eyes as his legs forced hers apart while his hands pulled and squeezed and invaded. She screamed. But she knew that the jungle would swallow her voice. She raked the side of his face with her nails. But his lips started to devour hers, thick and suffocating. His fingers tore open her shirt and seized her breast.
He was too strong. Connie fought him, her chest heaving. She kicked and thumped and sank her teeth into his cheekbone, tasting blood. But still his hands moved relentlessly over her body, dragging at the waistband of her trousers. A fierce drumming raged in her head and she struggled to clear it, to think without panic because she wasn’t going to win this battle on strength alone. She let her limbs go limp, allowed his mouth to take bites of her neck and his hand to crawl into her trousers, degrading her. Belittling her.
Then, when he was panting hard, she opened her mouth and threw her whole soul into a cry. ‘Fitz!’ she screamed. ‘Thank God you’re here!’
It was enough. Nurul jerked back, half turned his head to look behind him. In that split second when his attention was elsewhere, she slammed her head against his nose with all her strength. Blood splattered over her skin and up into her nostrils as she gasped in air. The pirate whinnied, high and ragged, his face a scarlet mask of fury, but before he could recover she crashed her knee into his engorged groin. He buckled, but still one fist gripped her wrist. She leaned over him, snatched his knife from his belt and drove the point of it so hard into the back of his hand that it stuck there, swaying. He made no sound, but his fingers slowly opened up to release her and his eyes fixed on her with hatred.
Connie didn’t wait to finish the fight. She turned and ran.
Still he came after her. She’d thrashed her way through the undergrowth, her heart juddering in her chest, her hands striking out at branches, indifferent to leeches and thorns or the snakes that slithered away from her running feet. She had to carve out a path for herself. But all the time she could hear Nurul baying behind her, his curses reaching out to her, and she was under no illusion what he’d do to her if he caught her.
But now the jungle became her friend instead of her enemy, and opened up dark green spaces for her to slink into. Thick foliage enfolded her. Curtains of creepers hung down around her, silencing the noise of her movements, and when her feet found a narrow animal track, she raced along it with gratitude. Sweat poured from her skin and her breath came harsh and raw in her throat. Was this what she had been reduced to? An animal hunted through the forest? Did it take no more than one brutal man to strip her of decency and the trappings of humanity that she had wrapped around herself so carefully for all those years on the Hadley Estate?
She paused in her flight, listening hard. Her hands were quivering. She could have killed him. When she snatched up Nurul’s knife and plunged it into his hand, she could just as easily have plunged it into his heart but she hadn’t. She still had a hold on self, on who she was and how far she could trust herself. Life was something so precious that she could not allow herself to treat it cheaply, despite …
The images kicked into her head. Sho’s body laid out for a monitor lizard. Sai-Ru Jumat’s eyes opened wide and full of blood in the sunshine. The old man crippled in the street of Palur, Harriet with the crimson flower on her forehead. Nigel’s hand raised above the waves when the rest of him had gone from her. Images that, during her idleness, she thought she had banished.
‘Thank them, Nurul,’ she whispered, ‘that you live. When you could have died.’
‘Fitzpayne.’
Connie spoke his name aloud. Not that he could hear it, but to comfort herself.
‘Fitz, which way?’
She was lost. An hour? Two hours? More? How long had she been tramping through the jungle? She’d stopped checking for the sound of pursuit because Nurul had long ago given up on her and was probably hunched in his hut, pouring gin over his wounds. At one point when she stumbled across a mossy stream, she washed her face and found her cheek swollen and split where he had punched her. She’d squatted beside the trickle of water, peering upwards at the snatches of blue sky that flashed between the foliage of the canopy, observing the progress of the shadows and trying to decide which direction was west.
‘Fitz,’ she said once more to the green space around her, ‘you’re the damn navigator, not me. Give me a clue.’
In the end she decided to follow the stream. Common sense told her that it must reach the coastline eventually, and from there it would only be a matter of time before she found the camp.
The stream abandoned her. It plunged under a fall of rocks and vanished, leaving her alone. She continued to struggle in the direction she believed was west, and found herself talking aloud to Fitz. Telling him things. About the horse she had as a child, and about the jumps she used to take on him despite her father’s orders. About the kite she flew off the cliff at Beachy Head and the desire she had to copy it, to spread her wings and fly in the face of the wind.
When she heard a dull booming sound, it took her a full minute to recognise what it was. Waves.
She ran.
‘Fitz, look! The ocean. I’ll soon …’
Her tongue caught on the words. She was higher than she’d realised. She must have been climbing all the time in the jungle, and was now poised on the edge of a low escarpment that overlooked a vast expanse of blue water and a white sandy beach that dazzled the eyes. She dropped to her knees, shuddering with relief. But her hands had to clamp over her mouth to silence the cry that sprang from her lips.
Below her, about five hundred yards away, stood row after row of men. They were listening in the scorching heat of the sun to the words of a squat figure who strutted in front of them, jabbing at the air with a sword. Every single man on the beach wore the uniform of the Imperial Japanese Army.
What was it with men and war? With guns and rifles? Violence seemed to draw them like wasps to a melon.
Connie wiped sweat from her face. She stared down in disbelief at the beach and at the two attack boats that lay at anchor offshore. Fear crawled like a cockroach down her throat. She ducked her head lower into the undergrowth and started to crawl backwards. She had to warn Fitz. Had to find Teddy, find her son. Get off this island. What brought the Japs here? She heard her own breath coming in great gasps. She knew she had to get back to the camp fast.
Fitz, help me.
The warm steel of a bayonet bit into the skin of her throat. A hand seized her hair from behind and yanked her to her feet, and she caught the smell of stale sweat and leather. A voice jabbered something at her, words she didn’t understand. The pressure of the blade eased a fraction and she slowly turned around to face the man behind her. The moment their eyes met, he released his hold on her and stepped back a pace, waving the bayonet under her nose.
She didn’t know which of them was more frightened. He was a young Japanese soldier with a gentle child’s face, his mouth soft and barely formed. He looked no more than fourteen and must have lied about his age to be taken into the army. His black hair under his cap was cropped viciously short and his uniform appeared new and scarcely used, as though this were his first guard duty. He clutched the bayonet nervously in his hand while Connie fought to bring to mind the few words Sho had taught her.
‘Konnichiwa,’ she said. ‘Good day.’
His eyes narrowed. He retreated another step before releasing a torrent of words t
hat meant nothing to her. She kept her attention on his eyes, dark and dangerous in their fear, rather than on the blade that still threatened her.
‘Hai,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
She edged forward as though to listen more closely, but he instantly backed off further and started to pull his rifle from his shoulder. While he was half distracted by the awkwardness of handling both the rifle and the bayonet at the same time, Connie recalled the lesson she’d learned from Nurul and struck. Hard and fast, when he least expected. Her fist smashed into his throat. Pain from the impact rampaged along the bones of her hand, and when she heard his childlike cry of anguish, she felt a deep anger.
He tottered backwards, screeching, but she knew she couldn’t stop now, so she clamped her hands on his rifle and saw his terrified eyes widen with horror as she wrenched it from his grasp. It was as easy as taking a stick of barley sugar from Teddy. She flicked the rifle over so that she was holding it by the barrel, raised her arms and swung it at the young boy’s narrow chest. But neither he nor she had the heart for this fight. He ducked in an attempt to evade the blow and she hesitated at the last second, which tipped them both off balance. All the rifle did was nudge him, and all the Japanese soldier did was topple over backwards, but his heel became caught on a root half buried in the leaf mould behind him.
He fell awkwardly, and the snap of a bone was audible to both. He opened his mouth wide, still gasping for air, and let out a silent scream that would take its place alongside the other nightmare images lodged in Connie’s brain, but she didn’t waste a second. She snatched up the bayonet from the ground, slung the rifle over her shoulder and raced off into the jungle.
34
Maya was searching for Jo-nee. Sometimes the bad thought came to her that he was hiding himself from her, that she was an ugly crab scuttling after a bird of paradise, but she emptied that notion out of her head and trampled it into the mud as she scoured the camp. He had spoken out, tried to save her. Risked his life for this crab when that no-good piss-pot Badan wanted to tighten the noose in the Kennel.
Jo-nee cared for her. Why else would he do such a brave thing? He must care. But he was white and English, so he knew no words for love. That was why she sought him out throughout each day and brought him things that she had snatched from the clutches of the forest: a guava fruit, a rowdy red flower, a butterfly as golden as his hair, the tail feather from a macaw, and best of all, a big brute of a lobster that she stole from a pot and which made him whoop with pleasure. He always accepted her gifts with a smile and an upward swoop of one golden eyebrow, but she was not sure he understood … that she was wooing him.
Always it lurked, like the shadow of a vulture’s wing in the back of her mind, the fear that he hid from her. She had learned to scamper up and down the stupid ladders with her eyes good-tight shut, so that she could creep into the hut he shared with the fat tuan who was no longer fat, and leave a handful of nuts wrapped in leaves on top of his bed mat, or four cigarettes that she’d earned by letting one of the stinking pirates touch her breast.
She had in her hand now a tin mug of coffee beans that she had sneaked from one of the sacks being loaded onto a boat, and she beamed from ear to ear at the certainty that it would make him love her. Maybe just a tiny sand-grain of love. Maybe today enough to give her a kiss. She stuck her head in the Kennel. It was full of many voices and the dog barking, its claws scratching on the boards as it raced from one end of the chamber to the other. Boys shrieking like monkeys. So much noise but no Jo-nee, just mem’s son and a pack of native brats. They were rolling a ball of white latex up and down the floor and betting cigarettes on whether the dog would catch it before it reached the other end. She noticed the Hadley boy was puffing on the butt-end of a smoke.
‘Out of my way, girl.’
Maya jumped. It was Badan. He was leading a group of men with sacks on their backs through the door into the chamber. Razak was among them, but her brother didn’t look at her, just swaggered past. She crept in behind them and scowled at Razak. She wanted to pluck him out from among them just like she would pluck the finest feather from a scraggy cockerel. All the men crewed on the same boat, and had come to divide up the spoils from the previous night. Is that where her brother went? Is that what he did? They threw the bulky sacks on the floor and started to dig around in them, shouting and arguing, pulling out handfuls of silver knives and forks which they played with like street urchins. One with tattoos where his ears should be started to juggle with some spoons, but stopped when Badan tipped a sack of sugar on the floor. It glistened in the dim light.
That was when the dog lost interest in the ball it was chasing and came scampering over. Instantly the Hadley boy called to it, a sharp command that registered with the animal because its raggedy black ears twitched, but it wanted the sugar. The children all knew better than to go anywhere near it. Maya saw the small pink tongues dart out of their mouths, ready to lick the floor as soon as the men were gone.
‘Piss on you!’ Badan kicked the dog.
It yelped. Tuan Teddy shouted. But the dog dodged back to the tempting pile of sweetness, gobbling and snuffling, its black face covered in sugar. Badan bent to yank the dog away, but the moment his hand touched the animal it snapped its head around and sank its teeth into Badan’s fingers. Quick. Efficient. A death bite, if its attacker had been a weasel.
Badan roared. One young man laughed. The Hadley boy leaped forward, but he was too late. Badan had the dog by the scruff, blood pouring from his hand, and raised it up in the air. Maya could smell fear. The young man’s. The boy’s. The dog’s. She slunk back towards the doorway and gave a low whistle to attract Razak’s attention, to draw him out of this place where shadows gathered. He glanced over to her, his black eyes anxious. But he didn’t move. No one knew what would happen next – except Badan.
He snapped the dog from side to side till its eyes nearly popped out of its head, and then he took it over to the hanging rope. The young pirate ran forward immediately, eager to help and to gain his master’s forgiveness for the laugh. He seized the pole and drew down the rope, placing it in Badan’s free hand. Maya started to shake. Tuan Teddy was screaming. Another of the pirates, one with a scruffy beard and long cat-like eyes, was holding the boy, twisting his arms behind his back.
‘No, no, no!’ Teddy begged. ‘He didn’t mean to bite, he …’
Maya crouched in the corner and covered her ears. Tears were flooding down the boy’s face. Badan grabbed hold of the noose and yanked it tight around the dog’s tiny throat. The creature growled, flashing its white teeth and snarling at the hand. Badan’s face creased with satisfaction and he uttered a contemptuous laugh as he looked at the boy, unmoved by his distress.
‘Stop your whining, boy,’ he roared in Malay.
‘Please,’ Teddy pleaded. ‘Please … I’ll give you …’
‘Shut up, whelp. You have nothing I want.’
‘But I do. I have something you want.’ Maya heard the words come out of her own mouth and wanted to cram them back in.
Badan frowned and glanced around to find the speaker. Still he shook the dog back and forth by its neck, as his eyes found Maya. ‘Come here, girl,’ he ordered.
Her feet moved. Her brain had stopped working. But her feet carried her over and she stood before him, eyes downcast, heart flying out of her chest as though it would not stay to face what was to come. There were mutterings around her but the pounding in her ears sounded louder than the waves on the shore, drowning all other noise.
‘What do you have that I would want?’ Badan demanded.
Slowly Maya raised her eyes. In the room were men. Men were men all over the world. From the swirling panic in her head she drew the thread that led her back to The Purple Pussy and, humming softly, she started to dance. Not the graceful movements of Razak. Not the classical ancient sweeps of the hands and feet, the way maidens had danced for their lords and for their gods through the ages in Malaya. She swayed her hips, dipped a shoul
der, undulated around Badan like a snake as she rolled up her kebaya, her cotton top, her eyelashes fluttering, her black eyes turning to smoke, soft and sultry. Her lips opened to him, pink and inviting.
She could feel his gaze on her body, thick as tar on her breasts, and her throat refused to swallow. The boys stared – she could see the moist insides of their open mouths – and the men breathed hard, edging closer. She brushed against Badan’s arm and walked her fingers through the trickles of blood up to his wrist. She twitched her chest muscles to a steady rhythm, making her small breasts dance, until she could see the flesh around Badan’s mouth grow slack with desire and his spectacles mist over with the heat of it.
She reached for the rope. The dog’s eyes were starting to bulge and small coarse coughs rose from its throat but she scarcely heard them because there was a voice screaming inside her head, demanding to know why it was she couldn’t bear for the animal to die. She grasped the rope. It was abruptly ripped away, jerked from her hand as someone behind her seized her arm and dragged her backwards. It was Razak, his face dark with fury.
‘You shame me, sister!’
He yanked down her kebaya to cover her breasts, and shook her ferociously so that her bones rattled like twigs and the thoughts in her head crashed into each other. Dimly she was aware of a sudden shouting outside in the clearing, of loud voices and rushing figures. Someone screamed. She tried to think straight, but the shame in her brother’s eyes had scorched her mind to ash. Through the grey dust of it she saw Badan tighten his mouth and release his hold on the dog so that it swung loose at the end of the rope, its back legs kicking frantically. Teddy lunged forward, but too late. Badan tugged hard on the animal’s tail and the small black body grew limp.
He did not even glance in Maya’s direction, but wiped his spectacles and hurried from the chamber with the men and the boys behind him to join the commotion outside. In the dim wretched place of death Maya watched the Hadley boy, his thin limbs stiff and spiky. He stood beside the dog where it hung like a piece of meat, but he didn’t touch it.
The White Pearl Page 42