But to send her off on a false trail? To cause her such utter grief. And for George to have deceived her in the way he did. She shook her head. The affair with Jack must have hurt Alec more than she knew. By the time dawn was rising and narrow bands of red had spread across the sky, the sound of weeping reached her from another open window. Harriet, she thought, and with heavy eyelids, finally fell asleep.
48
It was the autumn half term, 1957. I pictured our first February in England, back in 1955, when we’d just arrived. I started to write about the shock of frosts that iced our bedroom windows, and the novelty of coal smoke that hung in the air as we walked home from school. But it brought back too many memories of leaving my mum.
Veronica popped her head round the door. She and Dad were still not married, thanks to the delay caused by her visit to Africa.
She came across, put an arm round me and looked over my shoulder. ‘A new story?’
‘Nothing really.’
‘Look, Emma, I’m in an awful rush, but I just dropped by to tell you there’s some exciting news.’
I looked up, my skin starting to tingle. ‘Has someone found Mum?’
Her face fell a little as she sat on the bed. ‘No, sorry, darling. We’ve been over that, and you must know it isn’t going to happen. But I promise you will be pleased.’
At the same time as that, Fleur clattered into my room, shutting the door behind her.
I swung round and gave her a cross look, annoyed at the interruption. ‘We were talking, Fleur.’
‘Guess what?’ Fleur said, ignoring me. She couldn’t keep still, eyes shining and cheeks bright pink. ‘You didn’t see it, did you?’
‘See what?’
She sat on my bed, next to Veronica, and bounced. ‘I saw the boy deliver it. He was ever so smart. In a navy blue uniform with red piping and a pillbox cap too. He whistled at me.’
‘Fleur, what on earth are you jabbering on about?’ Veronica said, as she picked up her bag.
‘The telegram. It had Em’s name on it. Dad took it.’
‘Was this just now?’ I said.
‘A little while ago. It looked foreign. Dad took it upstairs.’
Despite everything, Fleur’s loyalty remained firmly with Dad, so it was odd she was telling me this. She frowned and looked at the floor. ‘I thought he was going to give it to you. But then you didn’t say anything. I wanted to know what it was. Are you sure he didn’t give it to you?’
I shook my head. Since the day he hugged me, we’d kept away from each other, both of us too embarrassed to speak of what had passed.
‘Don’t say I told,’ Fleur pleaded, her eyes huge.
‘Well, how else can I ask him?’
She pulled a face.
Veronica nodded to me. ‘I think you’d better ask him. But look, I really have to be off. I’ll see you tomorrow, Emma. Okay?’
I nodded but I was furious with Fleur. Now I’d have to wait until the next day to find out Veronica’s news.
‘Aren’t you having any lunch?’ Fleur said.
Veronica shook her head.
After she’d gone, Fleur and I went downstairs.
Dad was in the kitchen heating Campbell’s cream of chicken soup. It was Fleur’s favourite, though I preferred Gran’s homemade split pea. I swallowed the lump that came whenever I thought of Gran, and folded my arms.
‘Can I have the telegram please?’ I said, trying to sound calm.
He looked at me, his face severe. I stood my ground.
‘The one addressed to me.’
His shoulders sagged. ‘I only wanted to protect you.’
I stared at him. ‘But, Dad, it was addressed to me. Fleur saw it.’
Fleur sat with her eyes glued to the Formica tabletop. As if the pictures of saucepans, carrots, and casserole dishes were completely absorbing.
I thought of something else. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you planned to sell the house? Billy told me.’
‘You know it’s been on the cards,’ he said, his back to me as he stirred the soup.
I felt my skin prickle, but controlled my temper. ‘No, Dad, I don’t know. I don’t know anything, because you don’t tell me.’
The room went silent, but for the soup bubbling on the stove, and his wooden spoon stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan.
‘And anyway I don’t want to move.’
He whirled round to face me. ‘That decision is not up to you.’
I held out my hand. ‘Please can I have the telegram?’
‘Fleur is mistaken. The telegram was not for you.’
I saw Fleur’s mouth fall open in surprise. To her, Dad could do no wrong.
‘Well, what was it then?’
‘You have overstepped the mark, Emma. The telegram was no concern of yours.’
Then the air sort of went out of him and he looked at the floor. ‘Serve your soup. I’ll be back in a minute.’
The new venetian blinds were down in the kitchen, just slices of light lit the gloomy room. I served up and we ate our soup in silence.
When Dad didn’t come back, Fleur went to turn cartwheels outside, and I tiptoed up to his room. He wasn’t there. No sign of the telegram either. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t show it to me, if only to prove it wasn’t mine. It had to be something about Mum. It had to be. I saw my reflection in his dressing table mirror, a pale face with dark circles under the eyes. Outside, a flock of starlings whistled as they spun across the sky then flew out towards the village.
I felt uneasy. Heard the hiss of the jungle snakes. Softly they came through the long grass. I shook myself out of it. This was England. No snakes. No jungle.
In my bedroom, Veronica had scribbled a message on my notepad.
Town Hall, tomorrow, ten o’clock sharp. See you there, and bring your letter from Johnson, Price & Co. x
49
At last, after several weeks, the article was published, but with no reply to the telegram she’d sent Emma, and nothing on the passenger lists, Lydia’s spirits remained in turmoil. At the post office, she requested an airmail sticker, folded the article in four, and slipped it into a large brown envelope. With an aching head, she wiped her brow, then flipped open her diary, and searched for the address. She didn’t believe he’d gone to England, nor that he’d informed his parents of his whereabouts, but she had to try.
Somerset House had written back with a kind letter, but had no marriage to report. The Inland Revenue in England had not been at liberty to divulge information, and so far, there’d been no reply from the Ministry of Pensions. Adil had even driven to the new British High Commission, in Kuala Lumpur. While housed in a stunning building, with multiple pillared verandas and a leafy garden, the systems were in disarray. Come back in a couple of months, they’d said. She and Adil agreed to work through each country, systematically, until something turned up. But letters, even airmail, took an age, so what was she going to do for cash? Her savings from Singapore would only last another month or two, with enough for one long trip besides, but any more than that, and she’d be looking for a job again, this time in Malacca.
Back at Adil’s, she took a sip of bitter black coffee, and glanced uneasily at the street hawkers. The hum of city life melded in an indistinguishable noise. Chinese, Indian. The strains of jangly Malay music. A single movement opposite drew her eyes. In the shadow of a doorway she saw a woman stare up, her eyes narrowed against the light.
Lydia stared back and the woman beckoned. She blinked. The woman in the doorway wore a pale blue dress, blue flowers at the hem – surely not – it couldn’t be. She felt dizzy and rubbed her temple. Side effects from the Chinese pills Adil had given her for her headache? She picked up her bag and slipped down the stairs, noticing an envelope on the mat and stuffing it in her bag on her way out. Outside, the heat hit her like a wall. She swivelled to check the street, packed with rickshaws and traders. The woman had gone. She turned to go back in, but then caught a flash of pale blue skirt
at the street corner. The woman beckoned again, and Lydia couldn’t help herself. She followed, sweat beginning to drip beneath her dress.
The woman continued deep into the maze of streets that crawled down to the old Chinese quarter by the docks. The sounds around her clashed. Bells rang, dogs barked, and birds sang in cages. A pack of feral children chased thin Malays on bicycles. She stepped back. The Malays escaped, but amid a mass of noise and fingering, the kids hemmed her in. She panicked, heart pounding. The woman in blue heard, turned, and yelled in standard Chinese. The children melted away.
At the juncture where torn posters of acrobats fought for attention with propaganda leaflets pasted by the old British Administration, the streets narrowed, and she blundered into strings of washing hanging right across. She hesitated. Fear of assault closed her throat. The woman remained a few steps ahead, slipped across a bridge and turned to summon Lydia with a quick gesture. It was midday, and from the open door of one building came the aroma of chilli and crispy duck, from another tamarind and coriander.
At close quarters, the houses were narrow and squashed. Lydia clung to her bag, pressed it hard into her chest. Her head spun with the noise. She’d reckoned without the crowds of people and found it hard to breathe, but she wiped her forehead with her hand and picked up her pace. The woman was too far ahead to see clearly, but still Lydia went after each flash of blue, further into the depths of the quarter. Once the people thinned out, she sped past herbalists, jewellers, and the shops selling paper goods for burning at the graves in the Chinese Cemetery. In one window she glimpsed a paper guitar, a pagoda, a tiny paper sampan.
On one of the narrow bridges that crossed the canals she stopped for a moment to get her breath, and looking down, caught sight of minnows flashing by in glittering silver shoals. She had no idea where she was, hadn’t seen any cabs for ages and she realised she’d never find her way back. But then she saw the woman standing near the edge of an open sewer.
The smell was sickening, and now that she had a chance to look properly, it was obvious the woman wasn’t well. Her skin was pallid, her body too thin. A spark of dislike fired in the woman’s eyes as she waited, then she spun round and threw open a pair of dragon gates on to the dock itself. She took a few steps to the left, turned into a narrow passageway, and stopped at one of the shabby tin huts at the water’s edge.
The woman went in and squatted on a worn rush mat. Lydia followed and looked for a chair. There was none. The dismal room smelt of cheap scent and rotting pineapple, and the ceiling was black with flies. But for a dented paraffin lamp at one end, and a pair of trousers hanging from a nail, it was bare. Mat-covered wooden planks formed a bed that wobbled when Lydia perched on the edge. As she grew accustomed to the gloom, she focussed on the woman’s face and saw that, though her appearance was shabby, her manner declared her to be proud.
When the woman spoke again, her words were deliberately slow.
‘You do not recognise me?’
Lydia shook her head. ‘Should I?’
The woman gave her an exasperated look and spat on the ground. ‘No. Your sort never does.’
‘My sort?’
‘Spoilt white woman sort. Mem.’ She spoke the last word scornfully.
Lydia was taken aback by the open enmity. ‘What do you want?’
The woman narrowed her eyes. ‘Did you read it?’
Lydia frowned.
‘You did not read it?’
Lydia thought for a moment, then reached into her bag. ‘You mean this?’
The woman nodded as Lydia pulled the envelope apart, and a slip of paper floated to the floor. She reached down and picked up a cheque. She couldn’t read the name, but someone had received a cheque from Alec worth several hundred dollars.
She was puzzled.
‘My price for silence,’ the woman said, without removing her eyes from Lydia.
‘Your silence?’
‘You cannot be that stupid.’
Lydia bristled. ‘I have no idea what this is for.’ She studied the cheque. Dated three weeks before Alec had vanished, it obviously hadn’t been cashed. She turned it over. Nothing on the back.
‘Your husband paid me to keep my mouth shut. Gave me that cheque.’ She spat on the ground. ‘What use is a cheque to me? I told him. Cash. No cheque. So he turned up with cash, demanded I give the cheque back. I told him I threw it away.’
‘He believed you?’
‘I do not know, but what could he do? It is my insurance policy.’ The woman laughed, but it was a bitter laugh that didn’t reach her eyes.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Not what – who!’
Lydia frowned.
‘Maznan. My silence. Never to say who his father is.’
She stared hard at the woman. Could it be true? She took in the compacted dirt floor, the rough wooden walls, the flies on the ceiling. Surely Alec hadn’t come here. It was unthinkable.
The woman stared with a satisfied smile, and then nodded her head.
‘Let me get my mind round this,’ Lydia said. ‘You’re surely not telling me that Maznan is Alec’s child?’
‘Ah. She understands. But that is just the first part.’
Lydia suspected a demand for money, but none came.
‘Take Maznan to his father.’
Surprised, Lydia shook her head. ‘I have no idea where Alec is … and isn’t Maz happy in the village?’
‘Resettlement village!’ The woman snorted. ‘Without money my sister will not keep him. I have no money and I am sick. Soon I will be dead.’
‘Why should I believe that Maz is Alec’s son?’
The woman pulled out a small pile of photos from a pouch at her waist and handed them to Lydia. Every one showed Alec naked with this woman, each shot more compromising than the one before.
‘He didn’t know these were being taken?’
The woman smiled. ‘Of course not.’
‘But why?’
‘Insurance policy. I told you before.’
She shook her head. ‘What a way to live!’
‘We cannot all have your comfortable life, Mem.’
Lydia flicked through the remaining pictures. Four showed Alec holding a small boy on his lap, the child cuddled up to him, with one arm curled round Alec’s neck.
‘Very cosy.’ She spoke more confidently than she felt. ‘This doesn’t prove anything.’
She threw them back at the waiting woman and watched them flutter to the floor. The woman carefully returned them to her pouch.
‘What about Maznan’s grandparents? Wouldn’t they want to look after him?’
‘Too old,’ the woman said.
‘Even if I believed you, why should I help?’
The woman considered her words. ‘It is not for me. It is for Maznan.’
‘What about Jack? Nobody helped him.’
‘I stopped them from killing you too. They wanted to.’
The woman could be lying. Where was the proof? The cheque might have been for something else, and the child might not even be Maz. She hesitated. No, that wasn’t true. In one of the shots it had been clear the child was Maznan, and Alec would never let an unknown mixed race child snuggle up close.
The woman folded her arms across her chest. ‘Did you never think about his pale eyes, almost blue?’
Lydia held her breath, completely shaken. My God, the deception was bad, but a child he had simply abandoned. That was far worse.
‘So that was why I was the perfect person to accompany the child,’ she said. ‘Keep it in the family, so to speak.’
There was a pause, as Lydia rubbed her temples, the pain there beginning to throb. She thought of Alec’s sneer when she’d told him about Jack. Yet he had slept with Cicely, and if this was true, had a son by his driver’s daughter. Another unwelcome thought occurred; had Adil known about this but hadn’t said? Was that why he had discouraged her from taking the child, when they first spoke on their way to
Ipoh?
She then thought back to when she had first met Maz. ‘He was injured when your sister brought him to me. Why was that?’
The woman smiled, ‘Just an accident, but it helped you to decide.’
There was a noise at the entrance. An elderly woman with white hairs growing from her chin, pushed a child into the room, smiled toothlessly, and left.
Lydia stood. ‘Maz!’
His mother got up, put her arm round the boy and took a step forward, the sneer gone. ‘So will you take him?’
Lydia was struck by the sadness in the woman’s eyes.
‘But he’s your son.’
‘I cannot give him a life. Your husband can.’
Lydia felt torn. She was very fond of Maz, but this was crazy. She recalled Adil saying Maz’s mother would end up dead, and then what would happen to the child?
With a grin Maz came across and put his hand in hers. Lydia knew when she was beaten and smiled back.
The woman led them out through the maze of alleyways and back to Adil’s district. Lydia felt she was juggling with life, hoping she’d find the place where Alec had taken her girls. And now that fate had thrust Maz into her care for a second time, she had to find Alec, for the boy’s sake too.
The woman kissed Maz on the forehead, and handed Lydia a folded scrap of tissue thin paper. ‘You need this for the passport.’
Lydia opened it out. My God, she thought, it’s his birth certificate. In the space where it requested father’s name, Alec Cartwright was clearly printed. Why on earth hadn’t the woman shown it to her at the start?
As they walked away, Lydia thought of the poverty she’d seen. Remembered how her old gardener scraped together his living. How he scared the girls with stories of spirits, snakes that swallowed small children alive, and witches who only came out at midnight, in search of people to capture. Emma raced in once, breathlessly telling a tale of a frog-faced demon that killed a Siamese cat in the back garden.
Separation, The Page 31