The clock struck midnight. It would be late afternoon in the UK. Hugh would be back in the flat he called his temporary home. She picked up the phone and placed her call.
***
Hugh was stunned by the news. For a moment he held the phone some distance from his ear staring at it as though it was guilty of some profanity that he could not quite bring himself to believe. Mark had not given the slightest indication that he was going to divorce Ruth. Quite the contrary, he had been affable and charming with all the guests the following morning. The shoot was a resounding success. A row of dead pheasants, carefully laid on the lawn, was testimony to that. Amidst much chatter, laughter and backslapping, the weekend had ended with a successful business agreement for the British side. Their Malayan counterparts seemed equally pleased. Both parties felt that they had the better deal. Hugh was glad that Mark had at no point raised any questions regarding Craig. And now this bombshell! It could only mean one thing; Mark had not believed him and thought that he had been cheated on by May and his best friend. He was out for revenge. He was out to smear Hugh and May’s reputation even at his own expense. Hugh, however, did not understand why Mark was divorcing Ruth. What did he hope to gain from that? Surely he could not have believed that he had a chance with May. Didn’t Mark know that he was a lucky man with such a devoted wife, willing to forgive him even when he was the guilty one?
“Let’s think carefully about Ruth’s suggestion.” Hugh’s voice rasped over the phone. The line was breaking up. He moved his lips closer to the mouthpiece. “Telling Mark that you don’t love him is one thing. It is the truth,” Hugh crossed his fingers and squeezed his eyes shut willing himself to believe it, “but never having loved him is another. Mark is a driven man, driven with hate and suspicion. I don’t know him any more. That might be the final straw for him. It would clinch his suspicion that you and I cheated on him while you were still with him.”
May’s silence was palpable. “May, are you there?” Hugh asked. The phone crackled and buzzed.
“Look, sweetheart. The line is breaking up. Can you hear me?” Hugh waited but the line remained disjointed. “I am coming back in two days time. I have to finish some business here. We’ll talk then. We need to think it through carefully. Don’t do anything until we have discussed it. I love you.”
The phone clicked. The line was cut. May placed the receiver down. The realisation hit her like a thunderbolt. So much so that she hardly heard Hugh in the last few minutes of their conversation. She did not love Mark, not any more. When Ruth told her of Mark’s intent to divorce her, May had not, for a single moment, rejoiced. She would have if she had still been in love with Mark. Instead all her thoughts were for Hugh and her family. She smiled and the joy lit up her eyes. She had been plagued by doubts about her own feelings these last months, especially with Fu Yi putting the thought in her head and Hugh’s continued questioning about her feelings. She was free. She could face Mark and tell him to his face that she did not love him. If he pressed her, she would even tell him that she had never loved him. It would be a lie she was willing to tell to compensate Ruth. Perhaps he would go back to Ruth. Perhaps then the divorce would not be initiated. She, May, would not be named and shamed.
***
The air hostess stopped next to Mark. “Anything for you sir?” she asked. She pointed to the row of bottles sitting on the trolley. “We have red and white wine. There is gin, brandy, whisky, vermouth or perhaps a glass of sherry.” She smiled, flashing dazzling white teeth.
“Whisky, straight,” Mark replied.
“And you sir?” she asked the man seated next to Mark.
“Gin with a dash of tonic and a slice of lemon, please.” The man eyed the quick way Mark downed his whisky.
“Trouble?”
Mark did not want any conversation. He closed his eye and feigned sleep, his hand still clasped round the glass of whisky. It did not stop the man.
“The tropics do get a man down after some time. Drinking becomes one’s passport to bliss. We have our Government to thank for that. We might be short of many things when posted out to the Colonies but never gin and tonic. As Winston Churchill once said, gin has saved more Englishmen’s lives and minds than all the doctors in the Empire. When I was in Germany just after the Second World War, the NAAFI ensured gin was available even when other essentials were not. It was the same in Ceylon.”
Mark shifted in his seat. It was clear that the man would not stop his chatter. Moreover, he could hear the trolley returning. He wanted a refill. He sat up straight and opened his eye. The trolley was just a yard away. The bottles glittered like jewels. He could feel his lips twitching. A surge of longing for another drink rose from the pit of his belly to his throat. Beads of sweat sprouted on his forehead and upper lip. Impatiently he wiped them away with the back of his hand. He had promised to curb his drinking when he got his appointment with Guthries, the drinking that had been his downfall. Until the past few weeks, he had been successful. He released his glass and pushed it away. The man next to him was staring. Mark met his eye.
“Another drink sir?” The trolley and the whisky bottle were tantalising close. The whiff of alcohol hit his nostrils.
“Thank you. I don’t need another.” Mark busied himself, searching for the newspaper he had tucked in the pouch in the front seat. His hands shook.
“Good man.” His portly neighbour eyes twinkled with amusement and respect. “I am sorry for the impertinence. When you get to my age, you say things you wouldn’t when you were younger. You showed all the signs I had when I was about your age.” He pushed his own full glass away. “I stopped drinking for many years. I test myself by ordering one and having it in front of me. I drank to drown my problems but the drinking only magnified them. I learnt the hard way. But, you, young man, have a life before you.”
Mark turned away. He did not want a conversation. He certainly did not need a lecture from a stranger. He flipped open the newspaper and turned to the page of personal advertisements. He had put a notice in the paper for anyone who had known him in Tanjong Malim to get in touch.
“I lost my son. He would be thirty now. I saw the papers you were riffling through earlier. Divorces are nasty business. One should avoid them where possible. I believe that marriages are for better or for worse. Believe me, they are never a clear ride. If you want to talk, I am here. After all who better to talk than to a stranger whom you will probably never see again?”
“Will you bloody well mind your own business?” Mark rounded on the man, teeth bared, head jutting forward ready for a full confrontation. The commotion caused some of the passengers to turn. Mark saw an air hostess making her way towards them.
Mark settled back into his seat and closed his eye. The air hostess retreated. Quiet once more descended the cabin. Not for long.
“I am a dying man. I have only a few months. I see you in me. I mean it. If you wish to talk, I am here. I will be in KL for the next month or so. I have affairs to tidy up before the final event.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I am Robert Haskin. People call me Bob.”
Reluctantly Mark grasped the extended hand. It felt dry, the skin mottled like a mosaic of faded brown spots against thin pale skin. He looked into the man’s eyes. They were hooded. Loose flesh hung over pale blue eyes; eyebrows once bushy were mere strands of sparse sandy-coloured hair. Yet the eyes themselves, despite their pallor, were still bright with intelligence. Mark felt himself drawn to Bob. Perhaps it was the burning need to talk to someone, perhaps it was being thirty odd thousand feet above ground level in a confined cabin filled with strangers, perhaps it was the burring therapeutic mechanical sound of a running engine, perhaps it was tiredness, perhaps it was sitting on a reclining chair with a captive audience, but suddenly Bob didn’t feel like a stranger.
“When I was twenty, I joined the army,” Bob continued. “I was posted to Burma. I loved Burma. I had never met young maidens with skin the colour of mulled honey, skin that smelt of cloves and cinnamon i
n a land of sunshine and smiles. At least that was what I thought. I fell head-over-heels in love with one. I gave up my English girlfriend and the army. I took up with my Burmese girl. She had expectations; she insisted that I bring her to England. For her I was a ticket out of hell while I viewed her as my beauty in paradise. We never spoke much; I was too eager to be in her arms.” Bob tapped his head; his lips curled in disdain at his own recollection of himself.
“What happened?”
“Within a year we broke up. I returned to England and married my old girlfriend. Then I had another posting, this time to Ceylon. I was unfaithful to my wife. I blamed her for my infidelities. I thought her cold. You see, it is always easier if the fault lies with someone else.” Bob chuckled and again tapped a finger to his temple. “I didn’t appreciate my wife. I confused physical desire with love. She came out to join me. Our son was born in Ceylon. I went from affair to affair. Each time she forgave me and I grew to expect forgiveness as a matter of course. When our son died, the source of forgiveness dried up. She divorced me and went back to England.”
Bob’s voice broke. Mark saw a glimmer in his eye and a tear rolled down his wizened cheek.
“Until then, I did not know how much I loved her, depended upon her to right my wrongs, depended upon her for comfort and support, depended upon her for love. Now it is too late. She passed away last year.”
“You are where you are,” continued Bob. “Whatever happened in the past is not important. It is the future that matters. Give your marriage another chance.”
Chapter 30
“HERE, HAVE MY ice lolly,” Craig said pushing the fast-melting stick of pink ice into Libby’s hand. Libby hesitated for a moment before taking the stick. Then closing her eyes, she licked, sticking her tongue out like a scoop. A dribble of pink stained her chin.
“Are things really bad at home?”
Libby thought of her mother’s tear-stained face. Her own glistened. A swell of emotion, like soured limes, rose from her chest to her throat. Her nose filled. “Pretty bad,” she replied mustering a nonchalant shrug that belied her face.
“So what’s going to happen?” Craig asked.
They were sitting on a low wall separating the two schools. The late afternoon sun was scorching. Clusters of children lined the pavement vying for a space under the two huge trees that stood on either side of the gate. They were waiting for their parents to collect them. Libby was told to wait with Craig. Her mother would be coming with May to collect both of them.
“I don’t know. Even my mum doesn’t know, although she tries to tell me otherwise. My dad didn’t say goodbye to me when he left. I must have done something bad. He doesn’t love me. He never talks to me. Maybe that is why he wants to leave us. It is my fault.”
Libby swung her legs letting the heels of her shoes hit the wall before bouncing forward. Both her knees were grazed. Tiny spots of blood oozed from broken skin to trail down to her ankles. She didn’t care. Nothing could match what she felt inside her. She sniffed, stifling the snot that threatened to roll down from her nose. She threw the lolly stick away and crashed her heel on the wall even harder, catching the back of her calf.
“My mum lied to me. Nina told me that my father is going to leave us. My mum denied it. But I can see from her face that it is true! I don’t trust her any more.”
Libby looked away. She didn’t want Craig to see her. She rubbed her nose. A trail of mucous appeared, milky white and slug like, on one cheek. Craig pushed his handkerchief into her hand. He felt responsible for Libby. His mother had told him to look after Libby like a sister. “Don’t worry,” he said. “My mum will help. She is always helping people. She likes your mum.”
***
Ruth eased her foot away from the accelerator as she approached the roundabout. She was not comfortable going to May. Yet, where would it be safe to meet? May couldn’t risk coming to Ruth. That would be reported to Mark immediately.
She took the first exit leaving the busy main road. She was late. They were to talk and then to collect the children. Trees and houses whizzed by. Her mind was elsewhere. She paid scant attention that she was passing through Kampong Baru, a small village that sat smack in the centre of a burgeoning city. A man on a bicycle with a child on the bar in front of him was suddenly ahead of her. He was meandering unsteadily in the middle of the road. She swerved narrowly missing the bicycle. The man waved, revealing yellowed stumps of teeth. The temporary lifting of his hand caused the bicycle to veer sharply to the verge. He smiled as though it didn’t matter that he and the child were nearly killed. His basket filled with papayas and bananas toppled over. The fruits spilled onto the road, covering it with bright orange flesh, clumps of shiny black seeds and stems of yellow, mashed to a pulp.
Ruth’s car screeched to a stop, juddering violently as it did so. Ruth fell forward. She hit the steering wheel setting off the horn. It blared straight into her ear. A crowd gathered around her car. Somehow, dazed and disorientated, she clambered out. A hand guided her to the wayside and sat her down on the grass edge. Someone pushed a sweet syrupy drink that smelt of roses into her hand.
“Are you hurt?” The accent was clipped and precise above the melodic rabble of sounds and words still unfamiliar to Ruth.
“No,” she replied, glad not to have to struggle in Malay. “I am all right.” Ruth looked around for the man with the bicycle. “Did I hurt anyone?” Her voice sounded strange to her, almost disembodied, hollow and hoarse.
“No harm done, except for some fruits mashed to pulp. His fault. I have taken care of things. He has left.”
She tried to rise. Her legs gave way with the mere effort. She looked at her watch. She was late! “I have an appointment. I have to go.” The words came out in a tumble as she tried to muster strength in her wobbly legs.
“Take it slowly.”
For the first time Ruth looked at the man who had spoken. His eyes were chocolate brown with lashes that were almost too pretty to belong to a man. His brown arms were extended towards her. Ruth took his hands and drew herself up from the grass. She reached just above his shoulder. She was suddenly very aware of her dishevelled state, her wind-blown hair, her creased skirt and the height of the man. Two months into her stay and she had got used to people being smaller and shorter than her. “Where am I?” she asked, her hand straying to pat a wayward curl in place.
“Kampong Baru. Where do you wish to go? I shall drive you. You are in no state to drive after that excitement.” His voice brooked no dissent.
“I am fine. Really.” Ruth took an unsteady step. He stopped her. She was conscious of his firm grip on her bare arm.
“I insist. I’ll drive you. You can pick up your car later. Or I can deliver it back to your house.” Without waiting for her reply, he propelled her forward to his car. “I am Omar.” He didn’t ask for her name.
Ruth allowed herself to be led. Exhaustion from sleepless nights paralysed her. She resigned herself to being taken care of, even if by a stranger. She was past caring. She was burning. Her head ached and her throat was sore. She didn’t want to fight, make decisions and do things. She was done with doing. She was weary; she would grab whatever was offered. In a short time, she realised, she would have to make decisions, plot and plan to survive. But for the moment, she would allow herself to be cared for.
***
May paced up and down the room. Ruth was late. There would not be enough time to talk. She looked at her watch for what must be the tenth time. School would be over soon. She parted the curtains and peered out of the window. The hot sun had created a haze. Trees shimmered and a mirage formed over the tarmac. A Jaguar swept into the drive, its sleek body painted racing green. A flurry of dust rose in its wake. It slowed and then nosed its way to the front of the house. A man stepped out and opened the passenger door. Ruth emerged. May gasped. She recognised him. One had only to open a newspaper and almost inevitably he would be there. Why was he here with Ruth?
May ran down the stai
rs. Her feet barely touched the floorboards. The front door opened. She heard her maid greeting Ruth and then the roar of a car departing.
She stepped into the front hallway. “The man who brought you here, how do you know him, Ruth?” she asked without preamble.
“I had a slight accident.”
“Accident! Are you okay?” All thoughts of the gentleman she had seen flew out of May’s head. She took Ruth by the elbow and placed an arm around her waist. “What happened? Shall I call the doctor?”
“Fine, just shaken. He said he was Omar. He kindly gave me a lift.”
“Omar! Did he not say anything about himself ?”
Ruth shook her head. They had travelled in silence. She could hardly keep her eyes open during most of the journey. Every sinew in her ached and her head felt as though it had been compressed and was now a mass of roaring pain.
“He is the son of Tun Zikri and Toh Puan Siti,” May continued, “and one of the most eligible men in town, rich, well educated, Oxford no less. A powerful man. It is rumoured that his parents are busy arranging his engagement. No one apparently is good enough for Omar.”
May stole a glance at Ruth. It was strange that he should go out of his way to rescue a stranger. His family was renowned for their snobbery. Sombong was the word people used to describe them. She recalled the picture of Omar’s mother decked in diamonds in that morning’s newspaper.
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