‘Where are we going?’ I asked breathlessly. ‘Aren’t we going to ride today?’
Denis didn’t say anything until we were both in the Alvis and then he turned to me. I had never seen him looking so angry and I felt for a moment that he was angry with me and my heart lurched. But when he spoke his voice was so soft, so loving, that I could hardly hear his words. ‘You do not deserve this, my dear. I am dreadfully sorry that it happened.’
I was suddenly worried by the depth of his concern. ‘Don’t take it too seriously,’ I said. ‘I’m not all that terribly upset. I don’t want you to do anything silly.’
Denis revved the Alvis and spun out of the car park, heading for KL. ‘I’m going to take you home,’ he said after a moment or two. ‘I want you to rest at home for the day. Will you do that for me, Nona? I’ve got some sorting out to do.’
I spent the morning desperately worried that Denis might do something rash. I had visions that he might give Malcolm or one of the other policemen a bloody nose, and knew that it would only make things worse than they were already.
When the telephone rang just after midday I jumped for it. It was Malcolm Bryant and I felt like banging the phone down, but he seemed to anticipate the thought. ‘Don’t hang up on me, Nona,’ he said quickly. ‘I really do need to speak to you.’
‘There is nothing you can say that I want to hear,’ I said.
‘Don’t hang up,’ he said again, an edge of desperation in his voice. Then, after a short silence: ‘He’s brought in the battleships again, Nona.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ I snapped.
‘I’ve been ordered to apologise to you for our visit this morning. And to tell you that the Commissioner of Police would also like to apologise to you, in person, this afternoon. I’ve been asked to tell you that if you are available, the Commissioner’s car will be around to pick you up at four o’clock. Oh, and I have to tell you that there is no question of your residency papers being reviewed.’
I breathed out a long sigh of relief. ‘Anything else?’ I asked, a little sarcastically.
‘Just a bit of news. It might not be of any interest to you, Nona, but I’ve been posted out of KL. I’m being moved to a kerani job in Johore. I’ve got one week to clear things up here.’
It took a moment or two to sink in. Denis had said that he had a few things to sort out. It looked as if he had just sorted Malcolm out to within an inch of his professional life. My first feeling was one of extraordinary exhilaration. The four police officers thundering on our door at the crack of dawn, the barely disguised threats, the feeling of utter helplessness in the face of officialdom at its belligerent worst – these things had disturbed me far more than I had cared to admit even to myself. To have the tables turned so unexpectedly and so comprehensively gave me such a feeling of relief and joy that I was literally dancing from foot to foot.
But within an instant I saw the other side of the equation. Malcolm had tried, in his maladroit way, to save me from something he feared would harm me. He had tried to be my guardian angel, even if there had been an element of self-interest in the equation.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been chucked out of KL and given a desk job’ I said. I tried to find words to continue without giving him the impression that I had any affection for him, but the words just didn’t come.
‘Are you really sorry I’ve been chucked out?’ Malcolm pursued the point in an odd voice.
I paused before replying. ‘I suppose I am. You were one of Denis’s and my first friends. It is sad our friendship had to end like this.’
‘It doesn’t have to end like this,’ Malcolm said. ‘I would very much like us to part as friends. Will you come and have dinner with Dorothy and me before I go? Bring your mother, of course. I really would hate us to part as enemies.’
Oh God! ‘I’ll have to ask Mother,’ I temporised.
‘You owe me that much, Nona. I’ve done myself a great deal of harm on your behalf. It would help put things right with my superiors if they felt you had no hard feelings.’
‘All right,’ I said reluctantly. ‘You will have to ring Mother tonight and arrange with her when we could come over.’ As soon as I had said the words I regretted them but of course it was too late.
The Commissioner of the FMS Police sent not only his car and a syce, but also his personal assistant, a smiling, pleasant young man called Bob Randall. Bob handed me into the Commissioner’s Bentley, and then joined me on the back seat and chatted amiably during the short drive to the Secretariat Building. He had been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, he told me, but had chosen to forgo thrashing around the North Sea in a battleship in favour of thrashing around Malaya in search of criminals. ‘I love catching crooks,’ he said ingenuously. ‘But I’d far prefer to bag a tiger. Done a spot of hunting, but never even seen one of the beasts.’
I gave a slight smile. ‘Oh, it’s all luck, you know. I saw one up in Pahang the other day. Bit of an undersized brute, but pretty ferocious all the same.’
The Commissioner of Police in those days was a man called Robbie MacPhail, a friendly and respected figure known throughout the Far East as ‘Calliper’ because his long legs gave his walk the curious look of a pair of callipers opening and shutting. In the flesh he proved to be a smiling, likeable man who shook my hand warmly and escorted me to one of two leatherbacked chairs in the corner of his spacious office. ‘Please sit with me for a while, Miss Roberts,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’ve ordered tea and biscuits. They won’t be too long.’
We sat together in a slightly awkward silence for a moment or two, and then the Commissioner cleared his throat. ‘I suppose we’d better get the business side of things over and done with so that we can relax.’
‘Malcolm Bryant rang me earlier today and apologised,’ I volunteered. ‘I accepted his apology.’
The Commissioner shook his head sadly. ‘I told him to ring. Least he could do under the circumstances. You have no idea how mortified I was when I heard what my people did this morning. It was quite improper, quite inexcusable, and I unreservedly apologise on behalf of the Police Force of the Federated Malay States. I’ve put all that in writing.’ He handed me an envelope with the police crest in one corner, and continued. ‘If you wish to take the matter further, particularly the threat to cancel your residency, we do have people to whom you can lodge an official complaint. Such a complaint would be thoroughly investigated, and appropriate disciplinary action taken.’ He paused, looking me straight in the eye, and then suddenly smiled. ‘But I have already disciplined the officers responsible, and I do rather hope we can close the book on the whole dreadful episode here and now.’
I returned his smile. ‘As far as I am concerned the matter is already closed,’ I said, putting the envelope into my handbag. ‘I was terribly upset at the time. But I can’t see any point in continuing the matter for another moment.’ I felt very grown up and mature.
‘Good for you.’ The Commissioner rose from his chair and I rose with him, and we shook hands rather formally before sitting down again. It was a little like a scene from a film, with the Pukka Sahib and the sanguine Memsahib disposing of the childish infractions of lesser mortals. But then there was a pause as we both wondered what happened next. ‘Why on earth did they do it?’ I ventured, more to break the silence than in expectation of an answer. ‘What possible reason could they have had?’
‘I suspect that they might not all have had the same reason,’ the Commissioner said dryly.
I thought about that for a moment and it made sense. Malcolm’s actions – at least in part – had been clearly aimed at protecting me. As far as James and Jocelyn were concerned, their motives were as clear as pikestaffs: they wanted revenge for the way Denis had made them look foolish at Mrs Srinivasan’s.
But Mr Onraet’s motivation puzzled me. He had seemed far keener on protecting Denis than protecting me.
‘Mr Onraet asked me to stay away from Denis for Denis’s sake,’ I said. ‘Have
you any idea what he had in mind?’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them, because I realised precisely what Onraet had had in mind.
‘No idea at all,’ the Commissioner said, but the emphatic way he said it told me that he also knew.
You see, I was probably illegitimate. Coupled with the fact that I was an alien, and a Russian alien to boot, that made me a most inappropriate match for a man on the rise like Denis Elesmere-Elliott.
When Mother had escaped from Communist Astrakhan as a nineteenyear-old with a baby in her arms, she had been helped and accompanied by a man called Carl Gustav Brayer, a brash, worldly Russian Pole twice her age. Brayer had allowed himself to be named as my father on the travel documents given to us in Ankara, but his real relationship with Mother had always been ambiguous. He had accompanied us halfway around the world to Penang, but then had simply disappeared, it was said back to the fleshpots of Paris. Without a marriage certificate or a birth certificate, that left Mother and me in a kind of social limbo.
As a small girl, of course I had asked mother who my father was. But she had folded her arms and stared back at me almost angrily. ‘For why do you wish to know about the past? The past is a closed book and if you are a sensible girl you will never try to open it.’
It made painful sense that Establishment people like Onraet would do their best to save Denis from my clutches. An old familiar pain, a pain I thought I had long since exorcised, began to throb within me. In reaching for Denis, I realised, I was reaching for the stars, and when you reach for the stars a gulf can open up beneath your feet.
The Commissioner must have seen me falling into painful reverie. ‘Where the deuce is that tea?’ he said with sudden fierceness. ‘You must be dying of thirst. My dear girl, you must think I am the worst host in the world.’
We sat over tea and biscuits for a good hour, with poor Calliper doing his best to cheer me up and put me at my ease. ‘I’ve seen you and Denis around the Spotted Dog quite often,’ he said. ‘Been tempted to join you, but you’ve both seemed quite content with each other’s company.’
I tried hard to put my sudden uncertainty behind me. ‘Why do people call the Selangor Club the Spotted Dog?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t seem to fit the image, does it?’
‘There are a couple of explanations. One is that since the Club has started taking in Asians as full members it isn’t pure white any longer. But the explanation I prefer is that it got the name years ago, when the wife of the first Commissioner of Police in KL used to visit regularly. She had a couple of pedigree Dalmatians that she would tie up outside the front door. Chaps started referring to their visits to the Club as “visits to the spotted dog”.’
‘I think I prefer that explanation too,’ I said.
Mother was waiting for me on my return to Parry Drive, having come home early when her phone calls had not been answered. ‘I have been so worried!’ she wailed, standing in the hall with her arms akimbo. ‘I thought perhaps you had been already arrested!’
I gave her a hug. ‘If you must know, I’ve been having tea with the Commissioner of Police, Calliper MacPhail. He is a very nice man, Mother. He wanted to apologise for all that nonsense this morning. He has even given me an official apology in writing.’
Mother put me at arm’s length and looked into my eyes. ‘My daughter would not joke about such things with her mother?’ she asked.
I handed Mother the letter of apology and went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. When I came back to the lounge she was sitting in one of the armchairs, the letter open on her lap, a look of total bemusement on her face. ‘What do we make of this, Nona?’ She asked. ‘I see that Malcolm is to be punished for coming round here and talking to you. What do we make of all this?’
‘We don’t make anything of it, Mother,’ I responded simply. ‘Malcolm has been a silly idiot and stirred up a hornets’ nest. He’s only got himself to blame if he’s been stung.’
I told Denis about my visit to Police Headquarters that evening as we sat on his verandah overlooking the tennis court, our feet up and gin and tonics by our sides.
‘Serves Malcolm right,’ Denis said. ‘And it will do him good to get out of KL and see a bit of the real Malaya. He’s not a bad chap. Just needs to be put back on the rails now and then.’
‘I’ve agreed that Mother and I will have dinner with him and Dorothy,’ I said, ‘to say goodbye. Would you mind? If you would, of course we’ll cancel.’
Denis had looked across at me, the lean lines of his face looking incredibly handsome in the subdued light from the room behind us. ‘There is far too much misery in the world not to stop a row if one gets half a chance. Malcolm has swallowed his medicine like a man, so I’m jolly glad you’re going to have dinner with him. Perhaps it will make the silly ass see that the whole world isn’t against him after all.’
I had thought that the dinner with Malcolm would be a trying, tedious affair, but I was dead wrong. It wasn’t trying or tedious. It was a total and unmitigated disaster, scoring an easy ten on the Richter scale of social catastrophes.
Malcolm had a flat in Chamberlain Street – the whole ground floor of a two-storey mansion – and we arrived promptly at eight to be met by a boy in a crisp white jacket who conducted us into a large, overdecorated drawing room. The walls were covered with the stuffed heads of poor animals that Malcolm had obviously shot, and two or three tiger skin rugs lay like casualties on the polished wooden floor.
‘Tuan and Miss Bryant will be down soon,’ the boy said in a soft, educated voice. ‘Can I get some drinks for you?’ He puzzled me a little. He looked Chinese but didn’t fit into any of the categories I was familiar with. Five years in the Convent had made me an expert at picking the various ethnic types which made up the population of Malaya. There had been all sorts at the Convent, from an Eskimo to the descendants of a mixed marriage between an Englishman and a Siamese princess.
‘Where did you come from?’ I asked him. ‘You don’t look Baba to me.’
‘I am from Korea,’ he told me proudly. ‘Tuan Bryant will not have any locally born boys in his household. Half of them are traitors and the other half are fools.’
I first realised that things were going to be really bad when Malcolm appeared, standing theatrically in the doorway with Dorothy on his arm. Mother and I were in simple evening frocks, but Dorothy was wearing a ball gown and Malcolm was in the full dress uniform of an officer of the Malay Volunteer Force, the silver aigrettes of an honorary ADC to the Governor across his chest.
Mother stiffened by my side. ‘For why you dress up like actors in a play?’ she asked loudly.
If Malcolm was discomfited by her comment he didn’t show it. ‘I have dressed as I have, Mrs Roberts, as a mark of respect for our elegant and lovely guests. Particularly – if you will beg my pardon – for Nona, whom I have loved for many years.’ He sounded just a little slurred, as if he had been drinking.
Mother would not be put off. ‘Respect? It would have been more respectful to warn us that you were dressing up. You see, Malcolm, you have ruffled my feathers already. I am going to have to try hard not to be angry with you.’
I had been concentrating on what Malcolm had said, and I wanted to put the record straight. ‘You have only known me a few months, Malcolm,’ I said quietly. ‘You couldn’t have loved me for many years.’
Malcolm clapped his hands, and the boy appeared instantly, carrying the glasses of sherry that Mother and I had asked for. ‘Give the ladies their drinks, and then go and get the photo from my bedside table,’ Malcolm ordered.
For a long moment we stood in an awkward group, and then the boy returned and handed the photo to Malcolm. It was in an ornate silver frame, and Malcolm examined it, then passed it to me. It was an ordinary Kodak snap, perhaps enlarged, and it showed me as a small girl, eleven or twelve at the most, standing outside the manager’s bungalow at the Kuala Rau gold mine.
I felt slightly sick and handed the photo back without a word. It off
ended me that Malcolm had intruded into my childhood without my knowledge or consent. It was all right for him to keep a distant, caring eye on me, but to carry my photograph about for years on end seemed intrusive and somehow wrong.
‘That was taken – for identification purposes – on the day I first met you, Nona. You were a small girl, but I could see the full-grown woman in you even then. I have loved you, unreservedly, ever since.’
‘He idolises you, Nona,’ Dorothy put in. ‘He has followed your every move with loving care. And now it has cost him his career.’
Mother took the photo and studied it. ‘She was only a child, Malcolm,’ she said reproachfully. ‘You are a sick man to put a picture of my little daughter in a frame and idolise it.’
I felt fury mounting in my breast and turned on Malcolm angrily. ‘This whole evening is a dreadful mistake, Malcolm. You promised that we were coming to dinner only so that we could say goodbye in a civilised way. It was most unfair of you to say the things that you have said. It puts me in an impossible position.’
Malcolm spread his hands helplessly. ‘I tried, Nona,’ he said. ‘I really tried. I was going to be well behaved and say nothing of my feelings for you. But it’s quite hopeless. I love you, you see. More than life, or my duty. I could no more keep my mouth shut than I could wrench off an arm or a leg.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Then I think it is better that we leave immediately. Please have our taxi driver told that we are ready to go. He will be waiting outside.’
Mother gathering her evening shawl about her. ‘My daughter is quite right,’ she said brusquely. ‘I think we must leave immediately. You have brought us here under false pretences.’ I could have blessed her for perception and her common sense.
I had expected an outburst from Malcolm but instead he sighed and ran his hand through his hair. ‘You are perfectly right, of course. You must leave, Nona, I understand that. I was a fool to expect that I might change your mind at this late stage. But I really am sorry we won’t part as friends.’
In the Mouth of the Tiger Page 18