by Alec Waugh
The chairman turned to the other applicants. Each made a certain modification, but it was soon apparent that there would not be room for Angus’s machinery.
‘Then I’ll wait till the next sailing,’ Angus said. ‘Everyone can then have what he wants.’
‘But in that case,’ the Messageries representative interposed, ‘the ship will be sailing with empty cargo space. If Mr. Hallett could make one or two concessions, then everyone would be satisfied.’
Basil flushed; he had had a late party on the previous evening and his head was throbbing.
‘Nine hundred was the figure they gave me,’ he snapped.
‘But surely,’ said Angus, ‘that figure can be broken up. Or does it consist of a single order?’
It was not said aggressively. Angus scarcely knew Basil. To him Basil was merely one of the young men in Pearl who came out for their three-year contract and then moved on. ‘If, for instance, you were to let us know the various items on your list. …’
Basil interrupted him. He was on edge, angry with himself for not having foreseen this situation and with Angus Macartney for exploiting it. What right had this dago to cross-examine him? ‘It is not customary for Pearl to give details of its requirements,’ he retorted. ‘Pearl has a priority understanding with every shipping line. Pearl states what it requires and the other companies ration themselves to what space remains.’
There was silence. Everyone waited for the chairman. Colonel Kingsford smiled.
‘I have been a Pearl man almost as long, Basil, as you have been alive. I do not need telling that Pearl has a very special position in this country; a great deal of the country’s prosperity is due to Pearl, but at the same time we have to adapt ourselves to new conditions. There are a number of laws on the statute book of England—Sunday observances, for instance —that have never been repealed and would be ridiculous in operation now. I think that is the way that we should look, in this particular instance, on Pearl’s right to as much shipping space as it requires. If you can give us some idea of the specific goods that you want to ship from Singapore, then we can help you to decide which of them should have priority.’
It was said benignly; its benignity exasperated Basil. He was being treated as a child. ‘Help you to decide’ indeed. ‘Perhaps if you would read out the list. …’
‘I have no list.’
‘But surely …’ Angus began then checked himself. It was no business of his to expostulate with the way another man ran his job. The chairman was in Pearl. He was the man to remonstrate if there was need for it. But all the same he was surprised. He stared perplexed at Basil.
The stare was ample, or would have been without that spontaneous ‘But surely’. Those two words had been like a blow across the cheek; for that blow to be followed by a stare. For this young puppy to look at him like this. Of course he should have had the list; but no one had ever asked for one before. I’ll never forgive him, Basil thought, and to that came as a corollary the vow, I’ll show him one day. I’ll show him which is worth the more.
He was so consumed with irritation that he scarcely listened to what the chairman was saying.
‘If you haven’t a list, Basil—and I do think that another time it would help us if you were to bring one—there is only one way that we can solve this little problem. Let Angus have the space he needs for his major requirement, let us accept the modified lists put forward by the other applicants, then we can make available to Pearl what space is left. If, Basil, you find on your return to Kassaya that certain pieces of equipment that you badly needed have been delayed, I think we agree you must admit only yourself to blame for not having been able to put us in the picture; at the same time I will concede both that this is an exceptional occasion and that in theory you have the right on your side; I am sure therefore that you will all agree that when next we meet we all accord to Pearl all the priorities to which it is legally entitled.’
There was a general laugh; cordiality had been restored, as it always was sooner or later in the Orient. People, Basil reminded himself, made allowances for you in a place like this. Everyone was under strain. You drank too much because, unless you did, you got no kick out of a party where you were meeting the same people whom you’d been meeting every week for the last year. Next day you had a hangover; it was steaming hot; then there would be a drenching downpour, then out would come the sun, dazzling you, exhausting you. The climate tore at your nerves, tempers were short. Everyone snapped at times, but that was why people made allowances. Nobody would leave the meeting, as they would if a similar incident had taken place in London, saying to one another, ‘Young Hallett’s become impossible.’
There was no ill-will, but even so they were thinking, all of them, that was pretty careless of young Hallett. He had got a bad mark. They did not mind his having been upstage about Pearl’s prestige. That kind of thing was to be expected in the tropics, but inefficiency was another matter. A man was expected to bring his proper papers to a conference.
They don’t think I’m any good, he thought. Well, let them think it, I’ll show them soon enough.
He sat in silence while the others made their dispositions, arranging this, allocating that. It took half an hour.
‘So that,’ concluded the chairman, ‘leaves Pearl with space for eight hundred cubic yards. I daresay that many firms would be very glad if they had enough business to take care of eight hundred cubic feet.’ There was again a general laugh. The Colonel was a pompous person, but he was popular; he had the attraction of a period piece. ‘And that,’ he said, ‘concludes our business. We shall be meeting ten or twelve days from now, when P. and O. has a sailing.’
The Colonel pushed back his chair, levering himself to his feet. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with a paunch. He had a ruddy complexion and a small dark moustache, his tussah silk suit was freshly laundered. He was wearing a Free Forester tie. He made a sign to Basil.
Basil knew what was coming.
‘This makes me feel thirsty,’ the Colonel said. ‘I’m going to the Country Club. Why not come too and have a curry tiffin afterwards?’
It was exactly what Basil had expected—the old military technique of ‘On Parade, on Parade; off Parade, off Parade’. An adjutant would slang a subaltern on the barrack square though not before his own men, and twenty minutes later would discuss with him in the mess the possibilities for the next week’s point-to-point as though nothing had occurred. Basil knew that during the pre-lunch drinks and the curry tiffin no reference would have been made to his lapse that morning, not even at the end. Yet at the same time the Colonel would not have asked him unless there had been that lapse.
‘I’m sorry, sir, it’s very kind of you, but I’ve too many shopping chores for people at the camp. They seem to think I’ve nothing else to do when I come into town.’
He had no chores but he was not in the mood for the Colonel’s well-bred, old-world tactics; he wanted to be alone, to let his irritation simmer down, to work himself back into a friendly mood towards himself. Besides, he always enjoyed a stroll through Kuala Prang.
Travelogues and travel-agent folders described it as the most intimate city in the Orient. It was not only a mingling of the West and East, but of all the peoples of the East.
Karak had been a small and unimportant piece of territory in those early colonial years when Stamford Raffles was consolidating British power in Malaya, when the Dutch were establishing themselves in Java and Sumatra, the French in Indo-China and Cambodia, and Rajah Brooke was becoming a benevolent despot in Sarawak. The treaty, which the British had signed with the present King’s grandfather, had been a precautionary measure to ensure that the Dutch or the French did not set up a naval base here. Karak had been rich in rice and potentially rich in rubber, but it was not till the beginning of the century that the big firms who had reached saturation point in Malaya, turned their attention to its possibilities.
Kuala Prang had grown up haphazardly, to meet its own requirements.
The series of water-colours painted in 1904 by the wife of the British agent that were displayed in the museum, showed the various types of civilization that had put down roots here. Clustered round the open roadstead, with its protection of a group of islands, were attap peasant huts standing on poles out of the water; there were bright-tiled Buddhist temples in red and green and gold, reminiscent of Cambodia and Siam; there were Moslem minarets; there was a river bank lined with Chinese sampans; there were canals lined with houseboats; there was a street hung with Japanese lanterns; there were large European-style houses, with palm trees lining an avenue that led to a Georgian portico.
As it had been then, so was it in essence now. The word ‘intimate’ had not been misapplied, Basil reflected, as he sauntered slowly up its main shopping thoroughfare, a broad street shaded by mango trees.
Many of its buildings were set with balconies, a survival of the days when merchants lived above their stores. They were built of brick and timber; some of the roofs were of corrugated iron but many were tiled. The pavements were thronged with people of every nationality. There were Malays, Indians, Chinese, Europeans. The men for the most part wore European clothes, neat tropical-weight suits, with ties and collars, but the women wore the distinctive clothes of their separate races. There were Indians wrapped in embroidered saris, Koreans with long, voluminous skirts and shapeless blouses, Chinese trim and elegant with tight short skirts slit upwards to the knee; Thais with sarongs and short jackets: often costumes were worn that had been abandoned in the country of their origin. Occasionally a Buddhist priest would pass, with shaven head and long saffron robe. Now and again there would be a group of American tourists, slung with cameras, the men in open, short-sleeved sports shirts. An occasional Indian would wear a solar toupee, but the men for the most part wore light straw hats.
The roadway was crowded with a corresponding variety of vehicles. The Karakis for the most part rode on bicycles or drove in trishaws, the post-war equivalent of the rickshaw. There were automobiles of every make. There were broken down Renaults of an unguessable vintage; there were long, low high-powered American machines; there were M.G.s and Jaguars. Down the centre of the avenue, dividing it into east and west bound traffic, were the rails of clanking, rattling trolley cars.
It was close on twelve and the heat was heavy. Though he was walking at a pace of barely a mile an hour, Basil’s forehead was damp and he was conscious of a rivulet of sweat running down his cheek. The car for the airport left the company’s offices at two. He had planned to lunch at a Japanese restaurant. He enjoyed Japanese food, the raw fish and the shrimps that were fried in batter, and the hot sweet sake that you drank with it. But even more than the food he enjoyed the ritual of it, the girl in the kimono, with hair pulled back tightly off her neck into a high comb, who sat beside you, preparing your food, replenishing your plate. It made you feel spoilt and cherished and important. But he did not want to reach the restaurant till half past twelve; he had plenty of time yet. He sauntered slowly, looking in the shops. He wanted to bring something back to Julia, a scarf or a piece of costume jewellery. He always brought her something. If only he were rich and could bring her back the kind of thing that Charles Keable could bring to Barbara. ‘It’s the thought that matters.’ That’s what Julia would say, but how different it was when you could adorn your thoughts with emeralds.
Because of the heat he kept to the shady side. But even in the shade his eyes were dazzled by a car to which an entire window had been devoted. It was lovelier even than Barbara’s Austin-Healey, a Cis-Italia, with a long low body, painted silver-grey. It was bullet-headed. It had no look of flimsiness, though it had grace and elegance, a feminine elegance. Probably it was second-hand. No price was marked. That’s clever of them, he thought. A lure to get customers into the shop.
He accepted the lure. A young man of African origin in a dove-grey suit came forward. ‘It is beautiful, is it not, sir, yes?’
‘It’s very beautiful.’
They looked at it in wondering silence, as though it were a picture in a gallery.
‘Is it second-hand?’ Basil asked.
‘It is second-hand.’
‘How much are you asking for it?’
‘In what currency would you propose to pay?’
‘Pounds sterling or Karaki dollars.’
‘If it had been in U.S. dollars it would have been a little different.’
‘I’m sure it would have been. But I am English.’
The salesman shrugged. ‘I am selling it for a client, on commission. It would be a matter for negotiation. I believe I could persuade my client to accept nine hundred pounds.’
It was said with an undertone of racial arrogance; the salesman was putting a white man in his place. He knows I can’t afford it, me, a white man, Basil thought. When that car eventually goes to a Karaki he’ll get a special kick out of remembering that it was outside my reach. It’ll be a proof of the Asian superiority. What wouldn’t I give to be able to say, ‘Nine hundred pounds? I consider that very reasonable.’
He looked longingly at the car. He pictured Julia at the wheel. How she would dress the car. What a kick he would get out of it. That exquisite girl and the car that set her off. His wife and the poor car he had given her. Mentally he shook himself. That was pipe-dream stuff. Where could he find nine hundred pounds?
The salesman was psychologically conscious of the mental shrug.
‘We have access, of course, to a great many people who want to change their cars. If you could perhaps, sir, indicate the type of car in which you are interested and the kind of price that you are prepared to pay…
To Basil, in his hypersensitive mood, it seemed as though the man was saying, ‘Come clean now, lay your cards on the table. Tell us what you’re worth. You may be white, you may wear a clean pressed suit, but there’s any number of Chinese men in business who could eat up thirty-five of you.’ There was now, or Basil thought there was, genuine insolence in his voice. ‘No thanks, it’s the Cis-Italia that I like. I’ll think it over. I may be back in a few days.’
‘You will be very welcome, sir.’
In the street, once again Basil looked longingly, lovingly at the car. There was nothing in the world he would not give for it.
‘Yes, Mr. Hallett, it is a very lovely car.’ He turned. Beside him was a thin, short Indian, hatless, wearing a dark blue pinstriped flannel suit. He seemed to be in his early fifties. Basil was not aware of having met him, but he looked so like many other people that he might well have done. He hesitated. The man smiled: a friendly, tired smile: the kind of smile that seemed to be taking a lot into account.
‘No, Mr. Hallett,’ he said, ‘you do not know me, but I have often seen you at the races, with your charming wife. I make a point of knowing about the people who go racing. I am often able to be of help to them, and they can be of help to me. That is how I earn my living, by helping and being helped by the kind of people who go racing. There are so many ways to help.’
He paused. His voice had the same quality of tired friendliness as his smile. There was an undertone of indifference, too, as though he were saying, This world is a rather foolish place, but when you have reached my age, you will realize that there is nothing very much that you can do about it, and that you can have a great deal of amusement, if you are not stupid.
‘I watched you looking at the window from across the street,’ he said. ‘I guessed at what you were thinking. That beautiful car needs, you thought—or at least had I been in your position, I would have thought— all that beautiful car needs, is an attractive lady at the wheel, and your wife is so very attractive, Mr. Hallett. I have admired her so often. She has the air both of a gamine and an aristocrat. That is very rare. Yes, she would look very right driving it. I am sure, Mr. Hallett, that you thought that. And then you went into the shop and asked the price. How much does he want for it?’
‘Nine hundred pounds.’
‘Too much. He would take less. But even sev
en hundred pounds is beyond, very much beyond your scope. That is very nearly half what you earn as your basic salary, from Pearl. On your salary there is no chance of saving seven hundred and you cannot acquire this on the instalment system. I felt very sorry on your account, Mr. Hallett. I would very much like your wife to have that car. And I wondered if I could not do some little thing to help. So I thought I would go across to you, Mr. Hallett, and ask whether it had occurred to you to make a little investment at the King Cup Race on a horse called Potiphar which is priced today at twenty-five to two. If you were to invest a hundred, you might own that Cis-Italia.’
‘I’ve never heard of Potiphar.’
‘Very few people had three weeks ago. You could have got forty to one on her. That is when I put my own money on. But the gallops on the Savannah have been watched. In a week’s time the odds will be at five to one. She may start as the favourite. I think you would be very wise to make that little investment, Mr. Hallett.’ He paused again. He smiled, in that same tired friendly way. ‘One must take risks sometimes, Mr. Hallett. One has to take short cuts. And I should very much like to see Mrs. Hallett at the driving wheel. Potiphar, don’t forget the name.’
The Indian walked slowly away, turned right, then left, then right again, into an unpretentious side street whose shops catered for the minor white-collared class, lawyers, doctors, dentists, insurance agents. In most of the houses, the owners lived above their offices, letting off a room or two to indigent, but respectable young men. By the front door of one of the houses was a notice, ‘Kuala Prang Chess Club’. The Indian went in.
The club was on the second floor. It contained three rooms, each room furnished identically, with tables set with chess-boards. There were no easy chairs, no pictures on the walls, but each room had a writing desk. Inside the door, in the small dark hall, sat a clerk who issued members with chessmen and kept a record of their visits. The Indian asked for a set of chessmen, two sheets of paper and an envelope. He wrote out two sentences on one of the sheets of paper. He then set out a chess game studying the sentences that he had written. He took a small notebook from his pocket and consulted it. He drew a chess-board on the second piece of paper. He copied on to it the positions of the pieces as he had set them on the board. He wrote under it, ‘White to play and mate in three moves’. He then burnt the paper on which he had written the two sentences. He folded the chess problem into the envelope, addressed it to Akmed Abbas Moslowi and put it in the letter rack.