Leila

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Yes, I was speaking to Leila.’ He made an effort to smile. ‘She was asking about you.’

  ‘What was she saying about me?’

  ‘She said I was to take you to Scotland with me.’

  She nodded. ‘Are we going soon?’

  ‘Very soon.’

  But he could not leave Savu while he thought Leila might still be alive; at the same time he could not bear to wait until he knew for certain that she was dead.

  There was nowhere for him to go, nothing for him to say, nothing for him to think. All he could do was endure.

  Mary held his hand. She would endure with him.

  Twenty-Five

  WHILE HE was waiting for Jean, not looking forward to it but hoping that she would not change her mind, he had a visit from his staff, all twelve of them, including Mr Srinavasan. The Indian could not quite dissemble his delight, not at the Principal’s misfortune, he was over-sorrowful about that, but at the good fortune about to fall on him. He peered about the house with the satisfaction of its next occupant.

  Miss Leithbridge was their spokeswoman. She spoke quietly, with restraint. ‘We’ll not stay long, Andrew. We know you’ll want to be alone. But we want to tell you, all of us, that we’re very sorry indeed at what has happened.’ Then she did what a moment before she had no idea she was going to do: she burst into tears. ‘It’s dreadful. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Such a beautiful woman.’ She could not go on and hid her face behind her hands.

  Everyone was silent. Even Mr Srinavasan had nothing to say. Everyone knew what everyone else was thinking; that Leila, such a beautiful woman, would soon be dead, shot or hanged. It certainly did not bear thinking about but they couldn’t help thinking about it just the same.

  Baker saw that Sandilands was in danger of breaking down. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he muttered, and led the way.

  The rest followed but not before the Asians among them had solemnly shaken Sandilands’ hand and Miss Leithbridge had embraced him.

  Only Mr Srinavasan spoke. ‘I shall pray for you, Mr Sandilands.’

  What good was prayer? thought Sandilands, the atheist. But he would have liked to have asked Srinavasan to pray for Leila.

  When they were all gone he sat on the verandah, sipping whisky and gazing at one of Savu’s magnificent sunsets. The sky was blood red; so were his hands. So were the trees and the ribbon in Mary’s hair. She sat beside him, heedless of mosquito bites on her bare legs.

  She said she had been looking for Scotland on a map of the world.

  ‘Did you find it?’

  ‘Yes. Is it cold there?’

  ‘Sometimes. A lot colder than Savu.’

  ‘Does everybody speak English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I will have to learn, won’t I?’

  ‘You’ll soon pick it up.’

  He had heard her practising in her room.

  Something was troubling her. God forgive him, he should have guessed what it was.

  ‘Are they going to hang my mother?’ she asked.

  It was the second time she had mentioned her mother to him. She had spoken matter-of-factly but he wasn’t deceived.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Is Leila going with us?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Will we fly in an aeroplane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you have a house in Scotland?’

  ‘Yes.’ The arrangement was that the tenants of his flat would move out if given a month’s notice.

  ‘Is it a big house like this one?’

  ‘No, it’s quite small.’

  That seemed to please her. ‘Will I go to school?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He realised then what a difficult experience it would be for her. That she trusted him to help her through it could be his salvation.

  * * *

  Jean arrived shortly after seven, when the sunset was fading. In a white dress with red collar and cuffs, and with her fair hair tied up with a red ribbon she was handsome enough, and therefore formidable enough to cause Mary to take one look at her and then slip off to her room.

  ‘Hello, Andrew,’ said Jean, as she came into the living-room. ‘Was that your little guest I saw?’

  ‘Yes, that was Mary.’

  ‘Mary isn’t her real name, is it?’

  ‘No. That’s what we decided to call her.’

  ‘I see.’

  She kissed him, on the cheek, and then sat apart from him. ‘Shy, isn’t she?’

  ‘Proud too.’

  ‘Proud?’ Jean could not keep out of her voice a little incredulity, a little amusement, and a little indignation perhaps, that this child, whose parents were brown-skinned, poor, and illiterate, and whose mother was in jail accused of a horrible crime, could possibly be proud, as Jean understood the word.

  ‘She never complains.’

  ‘Perhaps because she doesn’t really understand the horrible position she’s in. Who could blame the poor wee thing?’

  ‘She understands too well.’

  ‘Quite a little paragon.’ Jean then concentrated her sympathy on him. ‘Poor Andrew. How are you? Silly of me to ask. You must feel shattered. What’s going to happen, do you think?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Is there any possibility of a pardon? Alec Maitland doesn’t think there is. He’s got no say in the matter, of course. You’ll have to face up to it, Andrew. Alec thinks all the leaders will be sentenced to death, and she’s one of them, isn’t she? I hate to say this, Andrew. What would you do in that case?’

  ‘I’d go home.’

  ‘But what if she was sentenced to imprisonment for life?’

  ‘I’d stay here.’

  ‘Perhaps they wouldn’t let you.’

  For a minute or so she contemplated that situation. Life here would mean life, there would be no remissions. Surely he would seek a divorce. Not immediately, but in a year or two. Jean would wait that long but not any longer.

  ‘If you do go home what about the little girl?’ she asked.

  ‘I shall take her with me.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be a bit irregular for a single man to be given custody of a child, especially a little girl, who’s not in any way related to him? I don’t think they’d permit it, Andrew.’

  ‘They’ll permit it.’

  ‘You seem very sure. Have you spoken to anyone about it?’

  ‘Yes. His Highness. He said it would be permitted.’

  ‘Well, you couldn’t go any higher than that. By the way, aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He got up and went over to the sideboard. ‘Whisky and water?’

  ‘Need you ask? Are any of your students involved?’

  ‘One present student, two former students.’

  He brought over her drink.

  ‘Thank you, Andrew. Foolish young men.’

  ‘Brave young men. What are they fighting for? Democracy? Freedom? Which, I believe, was what the last war was fought for.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d approve, Andrew, especially when we see how it’s turned out. And you can’t really call them fighters. Those that turned up at the hospital were a rabble, to tell the truth, a rather cowardly rabble, to be frank.’

  ‘Why do you call them cowardly?’

  ‘Well, for heaven’s sake, there were at least twenty of them, some with guns and others with parangs, and they surrendered to me, a woman. I didn’t even have a bedpan in my hand.’

  ‘That didn’t show they were cowards. It showed they didn’t want anyone to get hurt. If they’d been the terrorists that the British press will no doubt call them they’d have cut your throat. Instead they turned you into a heroine.’

  She hid her annoyance. ‘I don’t see myself as a heroine. Not like Leila. I can understand why you’re bitter, Andrew, but they brought it upon themselves.’

  ‘They were outrageously cheated. They voted for democrac
y. They won by a large majority. Then they were told it was all cancelled. What do you think they should have done?’

  When Lo had put that question to him how feebly he had answered it.

  Jean’s answer was forthright. ‘What they shouldn’t have done was start a rebellion and use guns.’

  ‘They didn’t start it. It was a peaceful demonstration to hand in a petition. Their petition was rejected. An attempt was made to arrest Dr Abad.’

  ‘Alec was simply doing his duty.’

  ‘The guns they have they took from the police, to keep them from using them. Major Simbin shot a man in the crowd.’

  ‘It was an accident, Alec said.’

  ‘I haven’t heard of a single instance when they’ve used their guns. Those at the hospital gave theirs up, didn’t they? At this very minute they’re occupying the Council Chamber: a symbolical act. They think they have a right to be there. So they have.’

  ‘No point in getting upset about it, Andrew. Maybe they have a right of some sort but not a legal right, and that’s what matters.’

  ‘So British soldiers, Scottish soldiers, will come all the way from Cyprus to force them out. If I had any guts I’d go there now and stand by them.’

  ‘Stand by her, you mean.’

  ‘She’s my wife, you know. If you want to call anyone a coward call me one.’

  ‘It would have been madness if you’d taken part. What business is it of yours? What good could you have done?’

  ‘I could have died with her.’

  Jean put her drink down. Her hand shook.

  ‘You’re not serious?’ she cried. Her voice had become shrill.

  Well, he thought, was he serious? He imagined himself breaking through the police cordon, entering the building, and seeking out Leila. They would embrace. They would weep together. He would tell her he had come to die with her.

  No, he wasn’t as serious as that.

  As for Jean she was tempted to jeer: ‘Go ahead then.’ She would have said it with some contempt, for she knew, as he certainly did himself, that he didn’t have the audacity.

  She managed not to say it. She had known his weaknesses when she had fallen in love with him; perhaps they had been part of the reasons she had fallen in love. She had always thought that he needed a woman like her who would make him face his real self and do the best with it he could. In spite of his years abroad his was a stay-at-home temperament. As a teacher in some fee-paying Edinburgh school, as the husband of a nursing-home matron there, as the father of, say, three children with fair skins and Edinburgh accents, as the owner of a semi-detached villa in Fairmilehead with laburnum in the garden instead of frangipani, and as a member of some exclusive golf club, he might grumble now and then and yearn for the beach at Tanjong Aru and the jungle with the orchids growing wild, but in his heart he would feel content and safe.

  So she determinedly said nothing, looked at him with pity and love and a little reproach, and took another sip of whisky.

  ‘Well, amn’t I to be allowed to meet Mary?’ she asked.

  He was sulky. ‘Do you really want to?’

  ‘Of course I want to. She could be as important to me as she seems to be to you.’

  ‘She’s very sensitive.’

  ‘Heavens, Andrew, you don’t think I would be unkind to a little girl, especially one as unfortunate as her?’

  ‘All right.’ He got up and went out.

  She breathed deeply. She had kept her temper but it had been a near thing. Even if she found the child off-putting she would treat her with kindness. She might never love her as she would in time her own children but she would try to cherish her for Andrew’s sake. His affection for this child was to his credit. He would love his own children even more.

  What mattered now was whether he loved Jean herself. She was sure he did, though he had jilted her to marry his Malay adventuress.

  Sandilands knocked on Mary’s door. She opened it at once. She must have been expecting him.

  ‘May I come in?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’ She made way for him.

  He was glad they were speaking in Malay, that pleasant and intimate language.

  He had to be fair to Jean. ‘The lady would like to speak to you, Mary. When you come to Scotland you will meet lots of ladies like her. She is a nurse at the hospital. She looks after sick people.’

  ‘I’m not sick.’

  ‘No, you aren’t.’

  ‘Why does she want to meet me?’

  ‘She’s my friend, so she wants to be your friend too.’

  She considered that, nodded, and then went and looked at herself in the dressing-table mirror. It wasn’t vanity. She was gathering her resources, before facing another ordeal. It took less than a minute.

  Back in the living-room, he watched the confrontation between the child who was to be his adopted daughter and the woman who might become his wife and therefore her foster mother. Mary would not openly show dislike and distrust even if she felt them, she was naturally too well-mannered for that, but he knew her well enough now to be able to read her reaction, and in the same way he would be able to judge whether Jean’s compassion was genuine or put on to impress him.

  Jean did not get up. She did not gush: that was not her way. She smiled but her scrutiny was sharp and professional. Could she see this very ordinary Malay child as hers, in the villa in suburban Edinburgh? As step-sister to her own children? Dressed in school uniform, attending a private academy in Edinburgh? Being introduced to friends and relatives? No, not yet anyway. Later perhaps, when the child had learned English, when she had become accustomed to civilised ways, and when the coarseness of her features had been modified.

  That was his interpretation of Jean’s various smiles.

  She took Mary’s hand and, in adequate Malay, asked her name.

  Mary gave her Malay name.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve to call you Mary, haven’t we?’

  Mary nodded. She did not turn to look at Sandilands for guidance and protection. She kept staring at Jean with a chessplayer’s intentness.

  ‘My name’s Jean. I’m a nurse. You know what a nurse does?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Would you like to be a nurse one day?’

  This time a shake of the head.

  ‘Oh. What would you like to be then?’

  Another shake.

  ‘Of course you don’t know that yet. You’re too young. I come from Scotland like Mr Sandilands. It’s very far away. It’s often very cold. They all speak English there.’

  Sandilands interrupted. ‘Are you trying to discourage her?’ he asked, in English.

  ‘Surely, Andrew, it’s only fair to let her know what to expect. It’s possible that it would be in her best interests to stay here where she belongs. Besides, there’s her mother. Should you be taking her away before, well, to be blunt, before her mother’s been tried?’

  ‘What good would her staying here do?’

  ‘She’s got feelings, Andrew. Goodness knows, I’ve often been mystified by the way they react to things, so differently from ourselves, but their feelings are as human as ours.’

  ‘They’re not orang-utans.’

  ‘Don’t be bitter. You know what I mean. Listen, Andrew, I came here to speak frankly and I’m going to. This is an awful time for you. The next two or three days are going to be absolute hell. You can’t possibly be in a state of mind to make a sound judgement on such an important matter as whether or not to adopt this child and take her away thousands of miles to a country she’s never seen and might not be happy in.’

  ‘When will I be in a state to make a sound judgement?’

  ‘I don’t know, Andrew. But I want to help you make it. Remember how we used to talk about our future together in Edinburgh?’

  She had talked about it, he had listened.

  ‘It’s still there for us, that future. Isn’t it?’

  He didn’t answer. He was thinking of a future without Leila.

  �
�Isn’t it? You’ve got to tell me now, Andrew. I don’t want to be let down again. I couldn’t bear it. I’m not proud. I’ll accept almost any conditions. I’ll take this child, even if I have doubts as to whether it’s the best thing for her. I’ll be as good to her as if she was my own child, or I’ll try very hard. But you must tell me now if we do have a future together. I love you, Andrew. That’s why I’m asking you now, at this terrible time.’

  But if he agreed that his future lay with her he would be acknowledging that he had no future with Leila. He was not ready to face up to that yet. When would he be ready? In five years’ time when his memories of her had faded, like the colours of the sunset? Or in the next day or two when he learned that she was dead and his memories of her were still vivid and bloodstained, like the sunset at its grandest?

  Jean would not wait five years.

  He would need her help. Hadn’t Leila advised him to marry her?

  She was still waiting for his answer.

  There was then a distant roaring in the sky. Aeroplanes, big ones, three at least, were coming down to land. The troops had arrived.

  He hurried out to the verandah where the roaring was louder. The sky was dark now, with streaks of red.

  Jean was beside him, gripping his arm.

  He thought, wildly, that he must drive to the airport and talk to the officer in command. He would explain that they had come all that way to quell not a gang of terrorists but a democratic party that had just won a fairly contested election.

  ‘I’ll stay the night,’ whispered Jean. ‘Just to keep you company. I’ve got the day off tomorrow.’

  The roaring was gone. The planes had landed. The soldiers would be coming out into the warm night, making jokes and eager to stretch their legs after the long flight.

  ‘Scots, most of them, Alec said,’ murmured Jean. ‘I’ll go and get my bag.’

  He turned and saw Mary, in the corner, behind plants.

  For a few seconds he felt a spasm of hatred. This child represented all his present misfortunes and all the difficulties ahead of him. It was grotesquely unjust, but he needed something or someone to blame, and there she was, dark-faced and secret, a small malign presence.

  Contrition and shame followed, but that insane hatred could occur again. He needed help all right but the kind that Jean could not provide. It would have to come from the child herself.