The Hills of Singapore

by Dawn Farnham

  “Iskandar,” the Munshi turned to Charlotte. “A noble name and one well suited to our world. In a few years I will be his tutor, if you agree.”

  Charlotte looked at him. To have such a man tutor her son as he had herself! To have him spend the pleasant hours discussing language and literature with Zan, opening Zan’s mind, this fatherless boy, now Tigran was gone, expanding his world view, his whole being. She felt, she knew absurdly, that he was as Aristotle to the ancient Alexander, and she felt a tear come to her eye.

  The Munshi saw her face and was touched. He very quickly said, “Will you join me soon to visit Kampong Glam and the Sultan’s Palace? There are stories I can tell and a tiger to see.”

  He looked at Zan and saw the boy’s eyes gleam, and felt the same attraction and liking he had for his mother. He turned his gaze to the small Chinese boy. “And Ah Soon too, if his father agrees. You know the boy’s father very well, Charlotte,” he said, smiling conspiratorially.

  Ah Soon looked down shyly and said nothing, and Charlotte looked quizzically at the Munshi. Zan tugged at her hand and she could see a friendship had formed. But who was the child’s mysterious father that she knew so well? Not Zhen—he had girls.

  The Munshi smiled even wider. “This is your pupil, Qian’s, first-born son.”

  Qian’s son! She looked at him intently and now saw a certain likeness in the pointy ears and the shape of his jaw.

  The Munshi departed with promises as yet uncertain to be fulfilled and Ah Soon joined his amah, who was waiting with the carriage to take him home to High Street.

  They went outside into the afternoon sunshine. The day was hot but the wind from the sea cooled them, and Charlotte had chosen to walk home. They wandered through the shady gardens of the Institution slowly, Charlotte asking Zan questions about his day, Zan filled with the excitement of school and learning and friends.

  Then there was a small squeal behind them, a girlish squeal, and they stopped and turned. A pretty little girl, brown-eyed with dark ringlets shining and jumping round her face, came running down the path, followed by a young woman. Charlotte’s eyes were taking in the girl, pretty now of course, but whom she could see would be a great beauty, so it was some moments before she looked up and with a certain shock, recognised the face of Shilah, Robert’s nyai.

  Shilah too, was in a state of some confusion. The children had quickly joined hands and gone to chase some squirrels which were racing around the big trees. It was obvious that they knew each other. Charlotte remembered that there was a girl’s school in the central part of the building. There were only eleven students, six boarders and five day students. This girl was a day student, obviously.

  Charlotte had not seen Shilah for years. A silence developed, unbidden, as they watched the children. “Her name is Amber,” Shilah said finally.

  Charlotte opened her eyes very wide. Amber! It was an unusual name, so very unusual, yet it was the English way of saying the name of her own mother, Ambre, the Mauritian Creole woman who had married her Scottish father. Amber! How could she be called Amber … unless … She looked intently at Shilah and Shilah nodded.

  “Yes, Robert’s daughter. He did not tell you.” She smiled ruefully. “They are cousins.”

  Charlotte was astounded, absolutely. A daughter! Robbie had a child, and he had not told her. She could not believe it. Since his marriage Robert had not talked of Shilah. But not to reveal this! It was incredible.

  Charlotte looked again at Shilah. She was unchanged, still a very lovely woman, but something different about her eyes. Charlotte knew she had seen sadness. Robert’s marriage, of course, it must have caused profound pain. She felt her heart go to this woman but Shilah was guarded and showed no emotion.

  “I …” Charlotte faltered, feeling the injustice of this relationship which Robbie had begun, feeling the guilt of a sister. Shilah said nothing, watching her, watching with one eye the children playing.

  “I am sorry,” Charlotte said finally. “Sorry for this trouble Robert has caused you.”

  Shilah did not move. It was some minutes until she spoke, “I would like the children to be friends, cousins, to know each other. Robert has recognised her legally, you know.” Shilah looked up, into Charlotte’s eyes. “He has recognised her as his daughter. She has his name and he supports us. He is a good man. His wife will soon have her baby but she too knows about Amber. Do not blame him. My life is of my making, I wanted your brother.”

  Charlotte looked down at her shoes. Shilah took a step forward and put her hand onto Charlotte’s. “Do not blame him please,” Shilah said. “He loves Amber, remembers your mother in her name. It pleases him I think; he does what he can. This is the world we live in. I would ask only that Amber, Alexander and Adam can be friends, cousins. Is that possible?”

  Charlotte looked at Shilah’s hand on hers. She remembered everything Robbie had told her of this woman. Shilah had been the illegitimate and unwanted result of a momentary encounter between an English soldier and an Indian convict woman, both gone or dead before she was six months old. George Coleman had taken her into his house and given her an education, taught her English and to read and write, but she had known no true mother or father. He had sought a husband for her, but she had fallen in love with Robert, and that had been that. She had been Robbie’s nyai for years, until he had contracted to marry Teresa. Charlotte had met her only once before, years ago, and her abiding memory of Shilah had been her quiet assurance and her confidence in Robert.

  Shilah had not changed though her life had obviously been turned upside down. And she still loved Robert, Charlotte could see that. It was something that always shook Charlotte’s heart, a love for her brother, for she too loved Robert unconditionally, unreservedly, utterly. Their life since they had been no more than ten and eleven had been together: parentless, alone, transported by strife from the warmth of climate and family in Madagascar to Scotland and the chilly embrace of their widowed grandmother. Their Aunt Jeanne and their cousin Duncan had loved them, though, and this—and more than this, their own closeness and devotion—had got them through childhood and beyond. Charlotte must love anyone who loved Robert; she covered Shilah’s hand with hers.

  “Yes, that is right. They are cousins, she is Robbie’s daughter. They must be friends. And we must be friends.” She looked into Shilah’s eyes and smiled. Shilah too, smiled, and they recognised something within the other: a love unacknowledged perhaps, by any but themselves. Emotionally, how was she different to Shilah? Silently, secretly and hopelessly loving one man. Charlotte looked over at these two children who could never know their fathers properly and felt a deep sadness.

  Shilah could not know any of this, of course, but Charlotte admired as she had years before, this woman’s smart and deep resourcefulness. She would abide and deal with her life as it came. It was an admirable quality. Charlotte would only learn later the price Shilah had paid for this calm and accepting nature.

  “Tomorrow, after school, let us take the children to my home on North Bridge Road. They can play in the garden and we can talk,” she offered. Charlotte thought at first Shilah was going to refuse but the other woman’s body suddenly lost its tension and she smiled and nodded, withdrawing her hand.

  “Thank you, yes.”

  Now Shilah called to Amber and the girl came running, flushed and pretty. Zan followed her, his long hair flowing around his face, sweating, and Charlotte bent and kissed his damp, salty cheek. Tomorrow she would make sure he knew that Amber was his blood and he should love her as she loved Robbie. And Amber too, would know Charlotte was her aunt. Charlotte smiled suddenly, happy to have this niece, to be as kind and loving to her as Aunt Jeanne had been to Robert and herself.

  But she would like to have a few words with this brother of hers.

  11

  Boat Quay was teeming with its usual crowded and noisy bustle. John Thomson’s bridge felt sturdy underfoot. It had replaced the Monkey Bridge built over twenty years before, which had
become so shaky, worm-ridden and unsafe that it had been demolished, leaving Coleman’s seven-arched brick span as the only means to go, by foot or carriage, from one side of the river to the other. The walk was longer and since most people went on foot, there was a great brouhaha. Butterworth had gotten into a tussle with the merchants; it was not the government’s business to replace the bridge and they might as well get used to it for he would not change his mind. The Free Press had been full of the business and the matter was resolved, ultimately, when someone had searched the records and found that indeed, the government had engaged to maintain a bridge at this place. With a great deal of annoyed mutterings, Butterworth had been forced to find funds and Thomson had been engaged.

  The bridge was a simple wooden construction joining North and South Bridge Roads. A footbridge on one side allowed a view down over the town and river. Charlotte stopped and gazed on the town. Adam, at her side, knelt, holding the railings and peering down at the mass of kajang-roofed boats lying below. A young native boy looked up at him curiously. Adam smiled and waved but the little boy remained expressionless.

  He looked up at his mother and she shrugged. He was little and loving and wanted everyone to be his friend, even the little boy on the boat, so far removed from him in everything. His babu trailed behind them, and when she saw Adam pout a little she came up quickly and took him into her arms, hugging him. Charlotte shook her head—such a spoilt child he would be if she let him. But she let it go, and they continued over the bridge and down onto the quayside.

  Alexander was in school. She had arranged to lunch with Teresa on Commercial Square and to view the extraordinary new invention from America, the Howe’s Automatic Sewing Machine, which was being demonstrated at Little, Cursetjee & Company.

  She deliberately chose to direct her steps in front of Baba Tan’s godown. She would greet him if he was there. Why not? She knew him well. And if Zhen happened to be there too, well … The little rush of blood to her face she brought under control immediately and fanned herself.

  Whampoa greeted her. He was outside his vast godown, which serviced the British Navy. They knew each other well. Whampoa’s English was formidable. He spoke it as well as any Englishman and better sometimes. Charlotte knew now, that his real name was Hoo Ah Kay, Whampoa being the island of his birth and the name taken by his father for his business. They chatted a little while, Adam, shy, hiding his face in the babu’s sarong.

  Whampoa whispered a word to a boy and he ran off, returning within a few minutes with the old sweet maker, his daughter and his cart. Charlotte smiled. She had seen the sweet maker at work before but Adam had not.

  He was making dragon’s beard, a Chinese sweet. The man took a pliable yellow disc of palm sugar. He began to knead and stretch the disc until it had a large hole in the middle. He wrapped the disc around his hands, dipped it quickly in rice flour to prevent sticking and began to pass it through his fingers, like a skein of wool, stretching and folding. As if by magic the one strand became two, then four. He dipped again, the rice flour flying and floating as the strands doubled and redoubled. Again and again, that’s eighty, now two hundred and twenty, more rice flour, now six hundred and forty. Whampoa smiled at Adam’s face, watching entranced as the sugar became more and more strands, finer and finer, the rice powder filling the air like snow. Finally the man stopped; the yellow orb was transformed into the finest silk-like threads, ten thousand of them, shimmering like a snow maiden’s hair, as the powder drifted down to the ground, surrounding the sweet maker in a field of white.

  The man laid the delicate bundle of threads on a tray. He cut them quickly into short lengths. His young daughter sprinkled roasted peanuts, sesame seeds and shredded coconut into each of the beards and folded them into a cocoon. The whole entertainment had taken no more than a few minutes. Adam’s mouth was standing open.

  Whampoa took one of the sweets and offered it to him. All shyness fled. He took the dragon’s beard candy and put it into his mouth, then smiled. Whampoa gave some coins to the sweet maker, who quickly wrapped the remaining sweets in a banana leaf cone, handed the cone to Adam’s babu and with a toothless grin, moved off.

  Charlotte turned then to see what Whampoa was looking at. It was the top-hatted figure of Baba Tan, who had come up to her. She curtsied very deeply to him and made Adam bow. She knew very well Baba Tan was utterly charmed by these English gestures.

  “Mrs Mah Nuk, how sad to see you in this way, but how nice you have returned to Singapore.”

  She nodded at Baba Tan and introduced him to Adam. As he shook hands cheerfully with the little boy, he took her in. She was even more beautiful than before.

  Children had not affected her figure, still willowy and graceful. She was dressed in that tight fashion, the bodice revealing curves the way the English women did so immodestly for one’s delectation but yet so modest, he supposed they thought. The bodice was high for daytime dress but Tan had attended enough English dinner parties to know that the neckline ebbed a good six inches after sunset, revealing the white European bosom, sometimes to excellent effect depending on the wearer. Charlotte’s skirt was full and flowed gracefully around her. The colour was very becoming, a dark blue muslin, trimmed in white, her hat the same. She was in half-widow’s clothes. He prided himself on knowing a great deal about the customs of these quaint people. He was also curious as to what would happen when she saw Zhen whom he knew was working in the godown today with Ah Teo, his other son-in-law, on the accounts.

  Tan knew a thing or two about Zhen and Charlotte, the main one being that they had been lovers: before she married and after. The other was that it was over, he had been assured. But then she had been away; now she was back. He hoped he would not have to be severe with Zhen. He could see her appeal though. Most English women he found appallingly unattractive but her … jet-black hair, beautiful, exotic eyes, like a princess from a far land. An ebbing neckline would, he knew, look very well on her. She was the sort of woman, he imagined, that if you were rich enough you sought as a foreign concubine. He dismissed these thoughts as a little unworthy but was plagued still with curiosity.

  Tan invited Charlotte into the shade of the verandah, for the day was getting hot but she declined charmingly and with just the barest glance into the cool, dark shadows of the godown, she opened her parasol. The babu swept Adam into her arms and they quickly walked down the quay to Tavern Street and turned, disappearing from view.

  Zhen turned back into the godown. He had watched from the darkness as she talked to Tan and had looked at the little boy by her side. He could see a resemblance to the father. He had made love to her as she carried this child, caressed the swelling belly, felt its movements under her skin. It was as if it was his own, as if he had nurtured the seed inside her, given her the strength of his very essence.

  He had known his resolution would be difficult, but until now, he had not realised how difficult. Every emotion was the same as the day he had seen her on this very spot years ago. She was like light, surrounded by light. He loved her. It was irresistible, this feeling for her, like a mighty bore on a river, swamping the banks of his heart. He clenched his fist and stayed his mind from running down these uncontrolled ways. But he was filled with gladness that she was here on this island.

  He heard Tan come in from the street and moved quickly to the back. He could not bear to talk of her to anyone just now.

  Charlotte swallowed her disappointment. She should not long to see him as she did but her thoughts would not always obey her. Then she smiled and took a deep breath. Meeting was inevitable, and how she would smile at him and wish him happy. She took Adam’s hand and he began skipping by her side.

  12

  Charlotte put down her cup and gazed around her. This was a room she knew very well. It was the drawing room of the Mission House on the corner of Bras Basah and Victoria Streets, where she had so often sat with Benjamin Keaseberry’s first wife. The second Mrs Keaseberry was Elizabeth Scott, niece of the harbour mast
er.

  When first they met, Elizabeth had been a flame-haired, buxom thirteen-year-old. Now she was twenty-two, still buxom and flame-haired, with very white skin which she took pains to protect from the sun. She was also very pregnant.

  Elizabeth was irate and Charlotte suspected that she was often irate or at least irritated. Benjamin, she had told Charlotte, was as scandalised as herself. They were discussing the actions of Butterworth in relation to her uncle. Under the pretext of the man having entered his illustrious presence dressed incorrectly—that is, as he always dressed—Butterworth had dismissed him and replaced him with a favourite of his own. After so many years of service. It had taken him down, yes. Certainly he was very low. “Poor Uncle,” she wailed and Charlotte waited for her to regain her composure.

  Her grievance was justified. William Scott had been harbour master for twenty years. To be summarily dismissed on such a flimsy accusation! It was a sign of things to come, she was certain. Soon the new people coming from England would be at home as much in this wonderful exotic island as they were in Watford! The thought was shudderingly awful. The two other women present sighed in sympathy.

  Maryanne Norris was the wife of the Assistant to the Resident Councillor. She had just finished bemoaning the terrible situation for civil servants. The officials were in a pitiable way. The East India Company ran Singapore on a shoestring. Government salaries had remained the same for more than fifteen years despite the steep rise in the cost of living, the quadrupling of the population and a threefold increase in trade. It was a disgrace.

  The government in Calcutta was obsessed with reports and statistics and with no literate clerical class, it fell to all the civil servants to spend pointless hours in their compilation. The schemes which had formerly existed to pay tuition fees and bonuses to officials who attained proficiency in Malay, Siamese or Chinese had been abolished years before. Charlotte had read about this in The Straits Times.