by Dawn Farnham
He went quickly back to Market Street and called Wang to him. ‘Her ship is the black brig. Queen of the South. Find out what is happening with it.’
Wang disguised his annoyance. Still the master thought of this woman. The stupid maid was supposed to release the snakes, both of them, near her. Instead she’d got scared and dumped the damn things on the child. Since that death, he’d had her sorely beaten and now she was back in the brothel. Served her right. Within an hour he returned.
‘It loads a cargo of iron goods, English cloth, guns, gunpowder and opium and sails for Batavia in three days. I cannot be sure but the gossip is that she will be on board with her son and her niece.’
Wang was disconcerted by this news. On the one hand she would disappear, on the other, she had not received the justice he believed she deserved.
Zhen thought furiously. In a few days she was leaving, sailing away with Alex. What was happening?
* * *
The tiffin rooms were new. A trader named Ellington had given up his business and started these rooms where one could eat Indian food, drink India pale ale or porter and read the newspaper. They were already crowded at eleven o’clock with the English, Armenian, Chinese and Eurasian merchants from the quay, the streets and the Square or Raffles Place as it was now known.
He ordered rice and curry and looked around. The noise was tremendous. He greeted several of the merchants who recognised him, and waved as he saw Ah Soon.
‘We are being watched,’ Ah Soon said as he took a chair. ‘Beer,’ he said to the boy who came up. ‘I got your letter.’
Alexander waited. Ah Soon was ditheringly slow. He waited until the food and beers had arrived. Then he took two pill boxes from his pocket and took two pills from each which he drank down.
‘What’s that?’
‘This one is Du Fu Ling. Zhen makes me take them. He says they prevent the pox and help with the sores and sweats I get. The other I forget, herbs all mixed up which he says will stop me craving the opium and improve my qi.’
‘Have you had it, the pox?’
‘Course, everyone’s had the pox.’
‘Me too, got it in a whorehouse in London.’
Ah Soon nodded. ‘Nasty, isn’t it. I’m not bothered about sex, not really. Got rid of all that in my father’s whorehouses when I was sixteen and then found a new love.’
Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘I love sex. Randy as a goat all the time. Hand over the pox pills. You can get some more.’
Ah Soon laughed and handed the pill box to him. Alex swallowed two pills and set about his beer. ‘Randy, but no whoring for me. I don’t want to get it again and give it to Lian. I need to be clean for her.’
The two men sat and watched the crowd for a while.
‘So, what do you think of my plan?’
Ah Soon grinned. ‘I think it is a diabolical and brilliant plan.’
Alex laughed, a great guffaw of pleasure that made eyes turn onto him.
‘But Lian must know too. She must agree,’ Ah Soon whispered, his head close to Alex’s.
‘I will tell her. She has been moved out to the old grandma’s estate at River Valley Road. I will go there and tell her. I know she wants to be with me.’
Ah Soon looked surprised. ‘How do you know?’
‘Never mind.’
Ah Soon looked doubtful, his lower lip falling between his yellow teeth. Alex grimaced.
‘You can’t touch her. You marry her and pretend like the marriage has been consummated. Take some blood into the bedroom somehow. I know what these old bibiks look out for. As soon as you are wed, you will show your father the letter I will send offering you a position at Brieswijk as a manager. I will pay the passage for you both.’
Ah Soon nodded. The plan seemed foolproof. ‘What shall I do at Brieswijk?’
‘Whatever you want. Grow rice, live in a kampong. Smoke opium all day if you wish. Have young maidens hanging all over you. Make lots of brown babies, or Chinese babies. I will endow them all with money galore and your children and mine will grow up together as we did.’
Both men grinned but a sudden doubt wormed into Ah Soon’s brain. ‘But you will be married to Amber. What will she say?’
Alex waved a hand in disdainful dismissal. ‘She will do has her husband tells her.’
‘But Lian is her school friend. I don’t know.’
Alex attacked his curry and rice, his face set hard. ‘Shut up. I want Lian. That’s all. You agree or not. If you don’t, I’ll come and get her anyway and if you’ve slept with her, I’ll kill you.’
Alex shot Ah Soon a look of pure venom. Ah Soon drank the rest of his beer. He knew Alexander meant every word.
24
The house at River Valley Road was one he remembered well. He had come here with Ah Soon, Qian and other children to play, for his Uncle Zhen always invited him and taught him Chinese expressions and how to do tai chi.
He left his horse tethered beyond the lake. When darkness fell he made his way to the house and watched as the evening meal preparations took place. Lian was in the kitchen with her grandmother. Lian never said a word as the old woman’s mouth moved constantly and she raised her finger time and again. Lian kept her head bowed and cut vegetables. The food was made and the odours of it wafted to him. Of the mad aunt he saw nothing.
He trailed Lian and finally saw where she slept. It was a small bedroom off the verandah. These houses were all built the same way. The shutters were locked with a small lever and, if it wasn’t more closely bolted inside, it was a matter of slipping a knife through and flicking it up.
The old woman seemed insomniac and he watched as she chewed her sireh and played cards with another old woman. A pretty young nonya seemed to be at their beck and call, preparing sireh, bringing drinks and snacks, hanging there, obediently waiting at the old woman’s elbow for the next order.
‘God,’ he thought, ‘will they never be done.’
It was two hours more before the lights were extinguished and the house settled down for the night. He took a close look at her room. On the verandah, directly under her window was an Indian guard on his cot. These guards were everywhere in the houses in the country for everyone feared Chinese burglars. But as a Chinese family, and the family of someone like Zhen, this house would never be attacked. English houses, Indian houses, Malay houses, those were the targets of the Chinese gangs.
Which meant the ancient Indian guard was the most relaxed man in the world and lay snoring, sleeping the sleep of the dead, on his cot on the edge of the verandah.
Alex stepped over the man and within a second he had opened the shutter and slipped into the room.
‘Lian,’ he whispered. ‘It’s me, Alex.’
The darkness was so total that he only heard her feet patter lightly on the floorboards and then she was in his arms, the soft material of her nightgown, her body against him.
‘Alex, my goodness. I’ve been so frightened,’ she whispered and he held her tight. ‘They will hold the vowing ceremony in three days. I shall be married.’
She began to cry quietly and he held her more tightly. His body craved her but his mind gave it pause. He wanted their first time to be wonderful, not fast, here in the dark like furtive creatures.
‘Come on. We need to talk.’ He climbed outside and lifted her into his arms, over the guard and onto the grass. ‘Go, quickly, to the pavilion.’
He closed the shutters and raced after her. They ran and ran, down to the Chinese pavilion by the lake, where the half moon lay resting in the water. Panting, they stood next to each other, her hand in his, looking at the beauty of the scene.
‘Listen to me. We have no time.’ Quickly he told her the plan. When he finished, she turned her gaze on him, pulling her hand from his.
‘Are you mad? I shall be your whore. That is your plan? Amber, my friend, will be your wife, and I will be your whore.’
‘No, you will be my wife in all but name, honoured and loved.’ Alex began to pace.
‘Lian, don’t think this way. What else can I do? Do you want to have Ah Soon’s brats, live a life of misery with him, under the constant eye of your grandmother or your aunts. Don’t you want to be with me?’
An owl hooted loudly and the wind rose and sighed in the trees. It made them jump but somehow the tension drained away.
‘How can we know the future? You must come and get away from here. We can decide when you are there.’
‘I can’t think. Oh God. Everything is going so fast. I don’t know what to do.’
‘I do. You will marry Ah Soon like a good obedient girl. You will not consummate the marriage. You will come to Batavia and we shall begin our life together, far from here, far from parents and grandmothers on my estate, where I will be the king. You understand.’
She said nothing and he felt all her fears and doubts.
‘My father …’
‘He has no power once you are married to Ah Soon. As his wife you must follow where he goes.’
‘But Amber …’
‘Don’t think about Amber. You go twenty steps ahead. I can divorce Amber. Right now I have to get you away from Singapore somehow.’ He took her hand, willing her to stay these objections. ‘I love you. Do you love me? That’s all that matters right now. Not a week from now. Right now. Don’t you see?’
She suddenly felt the iron enter her soul. She had endured chaos and misery living with her aunt. She did not even know her sisters or her brother. She had been given a certain kind of life, and now it was to be snatched away. The voice of her grandmother rang in her head. Other than the day all her wedding clothes had been chosen, when the old sangkek um was present in the house, she had not ceased to berate and bully her. Everything had been organised so fast she hardly had time to breathe, like some kind of military operation.
She and her aunt had been taken from their home and installed in River Valley Road. The date for the marriage ceremonies had been chosen. It was all done with unseemly haste. Within a fortnight she would be married.
This is what it would be like. Ah Soon was too weak to stand up to anyone. He would probably be dead of his addiction in a few years. And she would be here, with children, under the eye of her grandmother or aunts. Never free again. Alex was strong and resolute. He knew what he wanted and nothing would stand in his way.
‘Yes.’ She came into his arms and he breathed a sigh of relief.
‘I will write to you. The letters will be at the Post Office and Ah Soon will collect them.’
He took her hand and led her back to the house, walking silently, the feeling of absolute union fizzing through their hands. They loved each other and they were in this together. It was thrilling and wonderful. In the shadows he put her palm to his lips, then released her. She climbed into the window and pulled the shutters closed. He smiled, a feeling of triumph rilling through his blood.
25
Charlotte found her brother’s house in disarray. Robert was distressed and incoherent. Amber had sent for her and she had come as quickly as possible. Amber rushed out to greet her, trembling with agitation.
‘She is deathly sick, Aunt,’ she said hysterically and burst into tears.
Her distress for her sick mother was real but it was mingled with the disappointment at Alex’s proposal to her. He had not gone down on a knee, nor even declared his love for her. She knew he didn’t love her yet, but she had hoped that he might at least show some affection. But nothing like that. The ring had been on the table, when she had entered the living room. He had taken it and put on her finger, just like that.
‘There,’ he had said with not even a smile, ‘we are engaged.’
She had looked at the ring and up at him, smiling and he had looked so coldly down at her, then, as if he had recalled something, he put her hand to his lips and kissed it. She had come close, turned up her mouth to his, wanting his kiss. He had dropped her hand and turned, and, without a word had left. She had stood in the middle of the room, bewildered and withered.
Charlotte ran up the stairs. Shilah lay in the semidarkness. The room was oppressively hot and the fan the maid was moving across the bed did nothing to cool the air.
Dr. Cowper was in attendance. He shook his head as she entered. They had all got to Shilah too late.
Shilah was burning hot, the sweat pouring from her. Her face was waxen and Charlotte knew that she was on the verge of death. She had seen this before. The fever burned you up from the inside and left nothing. She hardly moved, the rise and fall of her breath barely visible.
Amber came and put her head on her mother’s thin, hot hand. Charlotte took the cloth and bathed her forehead and face. Shilah opened her eyes. Amber sprang forward and put her lips to her mother’s cheek.
‘Mother, don’t die. Oh please. Look, I am engaged to Alexander. We shall be married. You mustn’t die.’ Amber put the ring in front of her mother’s eyes and began to sob. Charlotte put an arm around her shoulder.
‘Amber, kiss your mother. There is no time.’
‘Mama,’ Amber sobbed and put her lips against her mother’s skin, her tears splashing down over her lips onto the dying woman’s cheeks.
Shilah closed her eyes and took her last breath, a small rattle in her throat. Amber fell away from the bed onto the floor and pulled at her hair and screamed and screamed.
The screams resonated throughout the house and Robert fell to his knees and put his hands together and prayed for her soul, tears pouring over his cheeks. He was to blame. Charlotte had been right. Why hadn’t he listened?
Charlotte took Amber from the room and ordered the maid to stay with her.
She came to her brother and took him into her arms. ‘Stop praying, Rob, for heaven’s sake. This is not God’s but the British medical establishment’s doing.’
He put his head on her shoulder and held her. ‘Don’t go Kitt, please. Stay.’
‘I will not leave until you feel ready,’ she said and he nodded.
Alexander arrived and rushed to his uncle’s side. ‘Uncle Rob, I am so sorry.’
Robert rose. ‘I want to go to her.’ He staggered from the room. Alex made to follow him.
‘Leave him,’ Charlotte said. ‘He will grieve how he must. You had better comfort Amber. She will need you.’
Alex threw himself into a chair. ‘Yes, of course. Let her have a good cry first.’
Charlotte raised an eyebrow.
‘You too, eh? A grieving woman does not earn your sympathy. You are more like your …’ She stopped abruptly and turned away. ‘I will go to her.’
Alex rose, shamed by her words. ‘No, sorry. I’ll go.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She is to be your wife, don’t forget; she is due, at least, if not your passion, then your compassion.’
He threw a dark look at her and left the room. Charlotte sat heavily. She felt as if a shadow lay over the house and she herself was mere air within it. She took the letter from her purse. He asked her to meet him at the cottage in Katong this evening. She read it again and again, his handwriting conjuring him in her mind. She crumpled the letter and called Raja, Robert’s Tamil majordomo.
‘The mistress has died. Have the salon prepared for the lying in and send for the Reverend. And have the maids bring water to wash the body and get the muslin winding cloth. There is a quantity in the store.’
He bowed solemnly. These Indian majordomos were all so similar. Stoic, quiet, unfathomable and endlessly efficient. Houses without them simply did not run.
She rose with a sigh. There was no time to wait. In the tropics a body would rapidly decay. She had to pull Robert away from Shilah and get on with the business of her funeral. Mr. Tivendale, the shipwright, also made coffins, and she sent a boy to fetch him.
As she went to the hall, the door opened and Dr. Little appeared.
‘Ah, Doctor,’ she said. ‘You have done your worst. Just in time to sign the death certificate.’
He threw her a look of bewilderment.
‘Well,’ sh
e said. ‘What’s one more dead mother more or less.’
He spluttered slightly but she ignored him. She looked up and out of the window at the head of the stairs. The sky was as blue as the shallow island seas.
‘Merely a passage, isn’t it, anyway?’
* * *
‘A most propitious choice,’ the old sangkek um said.
Widow Tan looked over the costumes she had chosen. Rose and white for the lunch for the female guests. The most spectacular for the wedding day – red silk embroidered with gold thread, resplendent in peonies and butterflies. Purple for the third day ceremony. The jewellery of the Tan family lay spread out, gold and diamond necklaces and earrings, a spectacular array of diamond pins which would form the bride’s headdress. The child had no idea how to embroider so an array of slippers had been arranged from a family who specialised in such high quality items.
Though she cared nothing for this girl, she cared for her own pride and reputation. Nothing but the finest would be allowed. It was a credit to her abilities that such a lengthy and monumental event as a Baba wedding could be organised so well and on such short notice. Of course, money helped.
The exchange of gifts had taken place and the announcement had been sent out by Wak Chik and her helpers to be taken to every Baba house in the town. The wedding would take place inside the house on China Street that Zhen had leased for Lian and Ah Soon. Here they would be wed and live. Qian, when he found out how quickly this was happening, had been surprised but pleased. Also Zhen had told him about the liquor syndicate. Things were looking up. Now if only Ah Soon could stop smoking long enough to do his duty as a husband.
Widow Tan looked nervously at the clock. The tailor had yet to come for the cutting of the cloth for the vowing ceremony. The importance of this hour was such that even a few seconds either side meant bad luck.
She rose and looked outside to the verandah and breathed a sigh of relief to see her carriage carrying the tailor. He entered, sweating copiously and wiping his face, and laid the white cloth and large scissors out on the table. At the exact time chosen for maximum good luck, this cloth would be symbolically cut and from it the tailor would make the identical simple pyjamas for the vowing ceremony. The house waited silently, all eyes on the clock. As the clock struck eleven, the tailor rose and snipped the cloth. Widow Tan felt a small tear come to her eye. She recalled the costumes made from this cloth for her vowing ceremony. She had buried her husband in one pair and she would be buried in the other and in death the cloth and they would come together again. It was the most moving ritual.