everything—love, patience, tolerance. She'd tried talking to him to
convince him to find help, but he had laughed at her worries and
refused. He was always sorry after he'd come out of one of his awful
moods. Still, he would unleash his frustration on her more frequently
all the time. He was unhappy with his work, frustrated by the lack of
talent in his students, by the lack of recognition of his own work. His
aspirations went far beyond being the Head of the Art Department of
a small college in rural Pennsylvania, but he seemed incapable of
doing anything about breaking out and doing what he wanted to do.
Sitting in the train staring out at the Malaysian countryside, Linden
involuntarily gritted her teeth. I can't take anymore, she thought. He
refused to get help and I couldn't do anything for him. I have to think
of myself now—I did all I could. I did all I could! But tears blinded
her eyes and the ache in her chest was still there.
She was hungry when she arrived at Butterworth and while she
waited for the ferry she had a bowl of Chinese noodle soup with
shrimp and snowpeas which she bought from a food cart by the road.
Across the water she could see Penang and the ferry slowly making
its way to the shore.
Once on the ferry, it didn't take long to cross to the island. The
waterfront was still as she remembered, with the Clan Piers jutting
out far into the sea— boatmen and fishermen's villages built on stilts
over the water. George Town, the one real town on the island, bustled
with colourful life. Everywhere the shops carried vertical signs with
large Chinese characters. Foodstalls by the road offered all manner of
exotic foods—Malay, Chinese, Indian. Linden could feel excitement
rise warm inside her. Oh, it was good to be back! She'd stay here the
rest of the day, explore the markets and shops and stay at a small
hotel tonight. Tomorrow morning, early, she'd take a taxi to the
village of Telok Bahang and find a fisherman willing to take her
across to Pelangi in his boat. If the house was uninhabitable, she'd
have plenty of time to get back to the main island for the night.
She exhausted herself walking along Jalan Penang, through the Pasar
Malam and the Art Gallery, where she looked with longing at the
batek paintings and the Chinese ink drawings. Waite would like this,
she thought, and the pain was back deep and sharp, and the loneliness
faded the colours and the life around her.
She did not stop for a proper dinner, but bought a spring roll at a
roadside foodstall and later a hot steambun with a filling of meat,
practising her rusty Malay on the vendors, who were amused and
impressed at the same time. She bought a couple of oranges to take
back with her to the hotel, where she slept fitfully despite her fatigue,
troubled by dreams of Waite, who looked thin and haggard and swore
never to hit her again.
He'd made too many promises, broken them too many times. Next
time he might knock her teeth out, break her arm. How could she live
with the fear?
'No!' she cried out. 'No! No!' But she was in his arms and he was
kissing her and she was kissing him back, wanting him, needing him.
She awoke sobbing. She sat up and pressed her fists into her eyes.
'Oh, damn,' she groaned. 'Oh, damn, damn, damn!'
The taxi drove her out of town, past the State Mosque and Kangaroo
Town, the residential area for Australian Air Force people, past
sweeping stretches of sandy beaches with waving palm trees and
colourful fishing boats.
'What hotel do you want to go to in Batu Ferringhi?' the taxi driver
asked. 'Golden Sands? Rasa Sayang? Casuarina?'
Linden shook her head. 'I'm not staying in a hotel. I want to go to the
pier in Telok Bahang. I'm going to Pelangi.'
For a moment the Chinese driver took his eyes off the road and gave
her a quizzical look. 'Not many people go there. There is no hotel. It's
very small.'
'I know.' One sprawling fishing village and some countryside with
rice paddies, coconut groves, spice and fruit trees. That was about all.
Less than a thousand people on the island. No cars, no electricity. At
least there had not been eight years ago and probably wouldn't be
now.
The driver let her off at the fishing wharf of Telok Bahang.
Fishermen looked curiously at her suitcase. Tourists brought their
cameras to photograph the colourful boats, the baskets of fish, the
shaky wooden pier, the fishermen. They didn't often bring their
suitcases. She walked up to the closest one and smiled.
'Selamat paoi,' she said, and he gave her a big grin.
'You speak Malay!' he said in English.
She held her thumb and index finger half-an-inch apart. 'Sedikit
sahaja.'
He pointed to her suitcase. 'Where are you going?'
'Mau pergi ke pilau Pelangi.' She pointed across the sea where the
small island faintly showed on the horizon. 'You think somebody can
take me there?'
He nodded. 'Bisa.' He looked at her curiously. 'You're going to see
your friend?'
'Friend? Yes, sure. I'm going to see my friend.' She didn't know what
he meant, but was willing to go along just so she wouldn't spend the
rest of the morning talking and explaining. But she knew what he had
meant when she arrived at the island forty-five minutes later and
found the white man on the wharf watching her climb out of the old
blue fishing boat that had brought her there.
He was tall and lean, wearing old jeans and an open- necked batek
shirt. He was in his early thirties, she guessed. His hair was very dark
and wind blown, and his brown eyes looked at her calmly as she
approached him. He seemed vaguely familiar, but she didn't know
why.
Her hair was a mess and she probably smelled like fish, but then,
neither of these would surprise him, she imagined.
'Good morning,' she greeted him, meeting the watchful dark eyes.
'Good morning.' He didn't smile, but looked at her intently as he
extended his hand. 'Justin Parker.'
'Justin Parker,' she echoed, putting her hand in his. 'Oh, I remember
now! I know you!' His hand was hard and firm and held hers only for
a moment before releasing it.
He nodded slowly, frowning as if trying to remember too. 'Yes, yes .
. .'
'I'm Linden Mitchell.'
He smiled, a funny crooked little smile as if he wasn't used to smiling
much. 'Yes, of course, Linden.'
They'd met once before, right here on this little island. One Christmas
vacation he'd been on Penang with his father and had come to
Pelangi to have Christmas dinner with her family. They'd stayed the
night, sleeping on mats on the floor in the living room. It had been a
hilarious time. Cooking a Christmas dinner without an oven was a
challenge. There was only the smallest of kerosene refrigerators
(shipped over on a rickety fishing boat) without a freezer
compartment. They'd eaten chicken roasted on charcoal and stove-top
stuffing and canned cranberry jelly. The kampung chicken
had been
tough as uncured buffalo hide. The wine they'd brought had been off,
a big disappointment for Linden. The first time her parents let her
have wine, and it was bad. Some luck.
Justin's father had worked in Malaysia for three years. Justin had
been at university in the States and had come to see his father only
once. They'd spent a week in a luxury hotel on Penang, and two days
on Pelangi. After that she'd never seen him again.
'I hadn't expected to see you here,' she said, feeling awkward.
He looked at her suitcase. 'You've come back to the house?'
She nodded. 'If it's still there.'
'It's still there.'
A thought occurred to her. 'Are you staying there?'
He shook his head. 'No. I have my own place.'
'Oh.'
He bent to pick up her suitcases. The muscles of his arms rippled
under the brown skin. 'Come, I'll walk you over.'
She followed him along the beach, away from the village, past the
fishing boats and the small open air restaurant where some men sat
drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. The beach was strewn with old
coconut husks, pieces of driftwood and shells.
Then she noticed the houses on the edge of the beach. Where once
had only stood her family's house among the coconut palms, now
were three others. All were typical Malay fishermen's houses, built
up on poles with thatched roofs and wooden steps leading up to the
front door. Potted plants stood around the yards and chickens pecked
around searching for food.
'Well, look at this!' she said in amazement. 'They built a village
around me.'
They walked up to her house and he put the suitcase down. 'It's not a'
kampung,' he said levelly. 'The houses are mine.'
She stared at him. 'They're yours? What do you mean?'
'I had them built. I own them.'
'What do you do with the other houses?'
'I rent them out.' He took her arm. 'Come, let's have something cold
to drink.'
She looked at the house carefully for the first time. It looked in fine
shape. Obviously someone had been taking care of it.
'Let me put the case inside first.' She took the key from her bag.
'It won't fit,' he said. 'I had the locks changed. The keys are at my
house.'
'You've been taking care of the house all this time?'
He nodded. 'I couldn't just let it sit there and get into disrepair. I've
tried to contact your father several times, but without success.'
'He died three years ago.'
'I'm sorry to hear that.'
She looked away, trying not to remember. 'I haven't had a chance to
come over here and do something about the house. It's an expensive
trip. Thank you for taking care of it. Let me know what I owe you,
please.'
He waved a hand in dismissal. 'It was nothing major. Forget it.'
Well, she'd have to see about that.
They'd started walking again and he led her to his house, not far, and
they went up the steps and inside the door.
The inside was cool, with a breeze coming in through the open
windows. There were coconut fibre mats on the floor, simple rattan
furniture with kapok cushions, several bookshelves along the wall,
and a couple of kerosene lamps on a small table in the corner. A large
wooden desk with a typewriter and piles of paper was positioned in
front of the windows. She wondered what he was doing here on the
island.
'Do you work?' she asked impulsively, gesturing at the desk.
'It keeps me from starving,' he said drily.
'What do you do? Write?'
He nodded. 'Spy novels.' There was no expression :n his face.
'Oh.' Somehow she had not expected that.
'Sit down.' He waved at a chair. 'What can I get you? A Coke? Seven-
Up? Beer? Juice?'
'Juice, please.'
'Mango all right?'
'Great.'
He disappeared into the kitchen and she stared after him. There was
something strange about him. He was so cool and aloof. Not
unfriendly or hostile, just lacking in ... in what? Warmth, life. That
was it.
It was not the way she remembered him at all. That Christmas day
ten years ago came back in vivid detail. Sixteen she was, and quite
impressed by Justin, this college man with his laughing mouth and
warm brown eyes and his vast store of interesting stories about
university life. She couldn't wait to go to college herself.
The atrocious Christmas dinner over, she'd taken him on a walk
around the island, and had shown him her favourite spot near the
waterfalls. It had been a half-hour hike in the hills and afterwards
they'd sat down on the rocks and cooled their feet in the water.
In her girlish way she had flirted with him and the surroundings
certainly had been idyllic enough for romance. He had kissed her
there near the waterfalls, but he had been teasing her, and she'd
known it. She was too young for him, and she'd known that too. But
she'd dreamed about that kiss for weeks afterwards and weaved
romantic reveries, fantasising about a passionate love between them.
All of that had no link with reality and she wasn't fooling herself with
impossible hopes and expectations. It was just so nice to dream about
love and to have someone to dream about.
The fantasies about Justin had died an unglorious death not so much
later, when she'd fallen in love with a warm-blooded French boy at
the International School in Kuala Lumpur. Bertrand stuck around
longer than two days and when he kissed her he wasn't teasing.
Justin came back into the room and handed her a glass of juice. He
had beer for himself and he settled down in a chair across from her.
'Are you on vacation?' he asked, his eyes surveying her face intently.
She shrugged lightly. 'I suppose you could call it that. I just quit my
job.'
'What did you do?'
'I taught art at a small college in Pennsylvania.'
He looked at her shrewdly. 'A man?'
'What makes you think that?'
He shrugged. 'The look in your eyes. Your face. You don't give the
impression of having had a lot of fun lately.'
Neither do you, she was tempted to say, but didn't. She only nodded.
She sipped her mango juice. 'And why are you here? Hiding from the
world on a miniscule island in the Indian Ocean? A woman?'
One corner of his mouth turned down in a crooked smile. 'Among
other things.'
'How long have you been here?'
'Three years.'
She groaned and he gave her a funny look. 'What's that supposed to
mean?'
'I hope it won't take me that long to get over it. Hell and death must
be more fun than a broken heart.'
He smiled again, but this time it reached his eyes. 'Welcome to
Rainbow Island,' he said.
The house looked like it always had. There was a sitting room, two
small bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a small outhouse
building in the yard. The bathroom had a sink, but no taps with
running water. Water was carried up in buckets from the well. Her
father had rigged up some sort of primitive sh
ower—a small tank
with holes in the bottom that could be closed and opened by pulling a
chain. It was still there. The kitchen had a sink, counter and cabinets,
two gas rings to cook on, and the tiny kerosene refrigerator they'd
brought out on a fishing boat.
The mattresses on the wooden cots had disappeared.
'They were so mouldy, I had to throw them out,'
Justin said. 'Nobody had been in the house for I don't know how long
and they hadn't been aired in the sun.'
There had always been a caretaker, a village girl, while her father
was still alive. Linden grimaced. 'Yuk, nothing worse than the smell
of mouldy kapok. I'll buy a new one in the village.'
Linden went into the village and purchased a new kapok mattress, the
cotton covering a bright pink with white roses. She bought kerosene
for the refrigerator and the lamps, some candles and matches and a
tank of gas for the cooking rings. It was all bundled up in a bicycle
cart and transported to her house, where she found a teenaged Malay
girl waiting for her. She wore a pink, shortsleeved shirt and a batek
print sarong around her waist. She had short, shiny black hair, that
curled around her ears and over her forehead. She looked at Linden
shyly.
'Mr Justin sent me to help you. I will clean the house for and bring
you water.'
'Wonderful! Thank you. What is your name?'
'Nazirah.'
'You may-call me Linden. Let's get this stuff inside first. Then I'll
give you money and you can buy a broom and a bucket and soap and
whatever else you need. I'm going over to Mr Justin's house for lunch
and I'll be back later.'
He had invited her to have lunch with him so she would have time to
get organised. For dinner she intended to get some food from one of
the foodstalls in the village. When she'd stayed here with her family
they had often 'dined out' at the small open restaurants or the
moveable stalls by the road, standing up or sitting at rickety tables.
The food was plentiful, cheap and delicious—fried rice, skewered
meat, noodle soup, spring rolls, dumplings, curry puffs, fried fish and
shrimp. She was looking forward to it already.
'There's no water at my house yet and I'm filthy,' she said to Justin
when she arrived at his house. 'Do you mind if I wash in your
bathroom?'
'Sure, right here. Did Nazirah come?'
'Yes, thank you very much. Is she available for employment on a
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