by Anne Weale
“Hey, how about some music,” Tom said. “You dance, don’t you, Alex?” He went over to the stereo on a side table and shuffled through a pile of records. The lilting strings of a Kostelanetz waltz echoed out into the darkness. Tom held out his arms and shyly, very much aware of Jonathan looking on, Alex entered them.
Dancing lessons had been included in the school curriculum, and after a few moments Alex found herself following Tom’s lead easily and with enjoyment. It was the first time she had been held in masculine arms and it was, she discovered, a pleasant sensation. They danced for half an hour and then collapsed laughing and exhausted on the couch.
“Oh, I’m stifling.” Forgetting her earlier shyness Alex slipped off her cotton jacket and accepted the lemonade Tom handed her. Her bare shoulders and arms gleamed pale and satiny in the soft glow of the oil lamps. The tight bodice outlined her young breasts, her narrow waist. To both men, had she known it, she was the tantalizing personification of their secret longings, the warm lovely creature who haunted them on those long nights when the frogs croaked unceasingly in the lallang and the rubber forests seemed alive with menace.
“Well, I suppose I ought to get back,” Tom said finally. “My dear Mr. Higginson thinks assistant planters should be up with the first tapper seven days a week. How I love that man.” He winked at Alex. “Now remember, when the admiring masses start packing your compound, I saw you first.”
He clapped Jonathan’s shoulder, shouted good-night to Mat and ran down the steps.
“Has he far to go?”
“About ten miles. It’s not a bad road.”
Listening to the engine dying away in the distance, thinking of the dark road banked by undergrowth, Alex shivered. How terrible if that big, merry fellow were to be killed, too. A dreadful clammy sense of fear crept over her. Supposing tonight a horde of bandits crept up through the trees. What real good would the perimeter lights be, or the sandbagged emergency post between the thick concrete columns supporting the bungalow? Jonathan might shoot down the first few terrorists, but by sheer force of numbers they would win in the end. They did ghastly things to their captives. She remembered reading how they put hot boiled eggs under a prisoner’s armpits and strapped his arms down...
She began to shake uncontrollably, terror taking hold of her. Jonathan, remarking for the second time that it smelled like rain and receiving no reply, looked up.
“Alex.” Two strides and he was beside her, his hand gentle on her arm. “It’s all right. Tom will get home safely. Don’t worry about him.”
She saw now the horrible pictures her mind had refused to acknowledge before. Her father lying riddled with bullets ... hostile faces peering down at him ... laughing ... taking his gun ... a heavy boot kicking him. He was dead. Buried under the ground. Gone as if he had never been alive, as if the old happy days had never existed. If only she had stayed with him, refused to go to England. A gasping sob tore at her throat and then an agony of weeping shook her slender body.
Jonathan, holding her, knew that this storm of grief was the best thing for her. The flare-up this afternoon followed by the evening’s dancing had been too much for her overtaxed nerves. At last the painful sobs subsided and she struggled for composure.
He produced a clean handkerchief and with extraordinary gentleness dried her wet cheeks and made her blow her nose.
“I’m sorry. What an exhibition.”
“Your eye stuff has come adrift. Here...” Holding her chin with his left hand he wiped away the smudged mascara. “That’s better.”
He lighted a cigarette and put it between her lips, lighting a second for himself.
“My last smoke was in the school washroom,” she said with a shaky grin.
“This school of yours sounds like a den of vice.”
She drew inexpertly on the cigarette and tipped a fragment of ash carefully into an ashtray.
“I’m being a nuisance to you already,” she said in a low voice.
Again he tilted her face up.
“You’re not to think that. Your father was my greatest friend. You’re as welcome here as he was. If I fly off the handle at you it only means I’ve had a hell of a day at the factory. Just shout back at me. Now, swallow a couple of aspirins and pop off to bed.”
She was at her bedroom door when he called her back “Yes?”
His glance ran over her.
“I’ve changed my mind about your dress,” he said coolly. “Wear it again.”
To Jonathan’s great relief, Miss Emmeline wrote that she would be delighted to chaperon Miss Murray and would arrive by train at Taiping the following Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning Alex, who had received this news without comment, went to the station with Jonathan. For once the train was punctual and he led the way to the air-conditioned coaches where Miss Bray was most likely to be found.
Emmeline Bray had come out to the Far East in an era when to go out without topee, parasol and gloves in the heat of the day was unthinkable. As a concession to the changing order of modern life, she wore nowadays a wide-brimmed garlanded hat instead of a topee, but in every other detail, from her buckskin shoes and white cotton stockings to her oiled paper sunshade, she was a perfect example of how to dress in a tropical climate circa 1920.
When Jonathan and Alex found her, she was piling an assortment of wicker baskets, knitting bags and paper parcels onto a bemused Tamil porter. She shook Jonathan’s hand, acknowledged Alex with a benign nod and said, “Now before I do anything else I must just run along and thank the engine driver for a safe journey.”
They followed her onto the platform, along the dusty track to the engine where an elderly Chinese man in an oil-stained vest was wiping his forehead with a rag.
In fluent Cantonese Miss Emmeline thanked him for bringing her safely to Taiping, whereupon the little man beamed from ear to ear, flashed two rows of gold-ornamented teeth and babbled a reply.
“I don’t think people appreciate how their lives depend on the drivers, especially now that the lines are so often torn up,” Miss Emmeline said as they returned to the station yard. “So you are Edward Murray’s daughter. A fine man. I met him once, years ago, at a residency garden party. Your mother, too. Titian hair, I remember.”
“Well?” Jonathan said when they were back at the bungalow and Miss Emmeline was supervising the unpacking of her trunk. “What do you think of your duenna?”
“She’s amazing.”
“They call her The Invincible Bray in Kuala Lumpur. She was here all through the war, nursing and organizing in a Japanese camp.”
Over lunch Miss Bray said, “A delightful bungalow, Jonathan. I shall enjoy the quietness of a private house. Just lately the hotel has been full of the most extraordinary people, clinking bottles and shouting half the night. Most disturbing. How old are you, child?”
“Eighteen, nearly nineteen,” Alex said, a little startled by the sudden question.
“At eighteen I was practicing scales in a dreadful red brick house in Bognor Regis. Never thought I would escape. Girls had a fearful life in those days.”
When Jonathan had gone back to the estate office, Miss Emmeline asked Mat for a third cup of coffee and, ferreting in the chintz handbag that went everywhere with her, produced a box of black cigars called cheroots and selected one. Catching Alex’s astonished eye, she cackled good-humoredly and said, “At my age, child, one is entitled to a few peccadilloes. A good cheroot and a glass of stout at bedtime are my two indulgences. So you are going to stay out here?”
“It’s my country,” Alex said.
“A pity all the Europeans who do well in Malaya don’t share your views,” Miss Emmeline said tartly. “Far too many of them live in the lap of luxury for years and then retire to England leaving nothing behind but a reputation for bad manners. Thank heaven there are also men of your father’s caliber who give their best. Jonathan is another of the pioneer breed. He was a prisoner of war, you know.”
“I would have thought aft
er that he would have hated the country,” Alex said.
“He had enough vision to realize the beauty and the opportunity it would offer when the war was over.” Miss Emmeline blew a smoke ring. “Once the bandits have been cleared and the roads are safe again it will be an ideal country for young people. As it is, Jonathan and his kind are bearing the burden. I only hope they reap the benefit.”
Alex wondered if his prison camp experiences were responsible for Jonathan’s taciturnity. Had he no family in England? He never mentioned relatives and there were no photographs around the bungalow. She wished her father had told her something about her guardian in that last letter.
“He ought to marry,” Miss Emmeline said suddenly. “Trouble is, most of the young women who come out East are out for a good time. I suppose you will be off to one of the towns yourself before long.”
“I don’t know. It depends how much money there is. I shall probably have to earn my living.”
“Jonathan tells me he wants you to stay here for a month or two till you’re readjusted to the climate,” the old lady observed.
“Yes, he did say so. But I feel I’m in the way.” A shadow crossed the girl’s face. “I don’t expect either he or my father ever really thought he would have to become my guardian.”
“Far from being in the way, I would think you will do him a great deal of good,” Miss Emmeline said. “He needs young company. Well, my dear, I’m going to lie down until teatime. No need to creep around. I read, not sleep.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Far from finding that the restrictions of the emergency made life on the estate narrow and monotonous, in the following weeks Alex was busier and happier than she had been since childhood. She worked hard to perfect her Malay, and every morning Miss Emmeline, a fluent linguist, gave her an hour’s instruction in Mandarin, the musical high-pitched idiom of the cultured Chinese.
Jonathan taught her to fire a revolver and handle a rifle. The first time she fired the heavy service rifle she instinctively shut her eyes as she pulled the trigger, whereupon he told her coldly that if the bungalow was ever attacked she would have to fend for herself as neither he nor the police guards would have time to look after her.
He was an exacting tutor and had little sympathy when, forgetting his instructions, she held the rifle too slackly and the butt recoiled viciously against her collarbone.
“If you hold it properly, tucked well into your shoulder, it won’t kick,” he said, standing behind her. “Now use your sights this time. Firing blindly is just a waste of cartridges.”
Alex gritted her teeth, dreading another blow on her bruised shoulder. This time she managed to hit the target and Jonathan allowed her to rest her aching arms for a few minutes. He was a crack shot and she watched enviously as he demonstrated the correct stance, his bullets hitting the center of the target with unfailing accuracy.
In the evenings he made her practice loading cartridges into the magazine, timing her by his wristwatch. At first Alex’s fingers seemed all thumbs as she fumbled with the ammunition, but gradually her speed increased until she could load almost as fast as Jonathan.
She was practicing target shooting in the compound one afternoon, hoping to surprise Jonathan with her increasing prowess, when Tom Major drove through the gates.
“Annie Oakley, I presume,” he teased as Alex put the rifle down and mopped her hot face. “Enough of this Amazon display, girl, you’ll be giving me an inferiority complex. How about a cool drink for a weary visitor?”
They strolled across to the bungalow and Alex fetched a jug of orange crush from the refrigerator.
“Jonathan certainly keeps you at it. Is he expecting a siege?” Tom sat beside her on the couch.
Alex laughed. “He wants me to be able to look after myself just in case.”
“Never heard such nonsense. What are we strong men for if not to protect girls like you in a spot of trouble?” Tom moved closer.
He was holding her hand and flirting outrageously when Jonathan suddenly strode around the corner of the bungalow and sprang up the veranda steps.
“Did you leave this rifle in the compound, Alex?” he asked curtly, ignoring Tom.
“Yes, I did.”
“I suppose you know it’s loaded and that if the kebun had touched it he would probably have blown himself to pieces.”
Alex remembered guiltily that Jonathan had repeatedly warned her never to leave loaded firearms around the place.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said humbly. “I forgot it.”
“The next time you forget I’ll put you across my knee and beat some sense into you.”
He disappeared into his bedroom.
“Don’t look so downcast. Everybody makes a mistake sometimes. Actually it was my fault for not reminding you to bring the darn thing indoors.” Tom patted her arm comfortingly.
“It was a frightful thing to do,” Alex said in a small conscience-stricken voice. “Suppose the kebun had been hurt.”
“He’d be much too scared to go near it, let alone touch it. Cheer up, honey. Jonathan’s bark is a lot worse than his bite.”
It was not until late that night when Miss Emmeline had gone to bed that Alex had a chance to apologize for her misdeed.
“Jonathan, I really am sorry about the rifle. I’ll never be so careless again.”
He looked up from his book.
“I should hope not. I don’t make idle threats. If you ever do it again I’ll whale the daylights out of you.”
“It’s a pity I’m not a boy,” Alex said thoughtfully. “It would be much less trouble for you.”
A glint of amusement lighted his eyes. “I daresay I shall survive,” he said mockingly. “Incidentally, I ordered a couple of books on first aid. If I am ever wounded you can justify your unfortunate sex by ministering to me. If you want someone to practice tourniquets on, I imagine Tom will be a willing victim.” He tossed a package into her lap.
Alex colored, wondering if he had seen Tom holding her hand.
“It’s time you were in bed,” Jonathan said. “Good night.”
The following Wednesday was her nineteenth birthday, and having kept this secret she was surprised to find two parcels beside her place at the breakfast table and to be greeted by good wishes from Jonathan and Miss Emmeline.
“Ah, how I wish I were nineteen instead of nearly sixty-nine,” Miss Emmeline said regretfully. “The perfect age. Everything before one.”
Alex opened the packages. From Miss Emmeline there was a carved ivory fan. From Jonathan, Kelantan silver earrings shaped like lanterns.
“How lovely! Thank you both very much.”
Impulsively she bent to kiss the old lady’s wrinkled cheek and checked, just in time, a spontaneous movement to do the same to her guardian. To cover this she held out her hand to him and he took it in his strong grip, smiling down at her with the unexpected warmth that was hard to reconcile with his more frequent severity. She wondered impishly what he would have done if she had kissed him. Somehow one could not imagine Jonathan indulging in any expression of sentiment.
“I had better warn you we’ve arranged a small party for tonight,” he said. “Tom is bringing a police friend of his and I’ve asked an American chap from the Leong estate to come over. It’s a pity there aren’t any girls of your age around here, but apart from Cladburn’s wife, who’s having a baby at the moment, we’re very short of women.”
“Alex would be a fool if she complained on that score,” Miss Emmeline said dryly.
Jonathan grinned. “You’re a corrupting influence, Miss Bray.”
On one of the periodic trips to Taiping, Alex had discovered a Chinese tailor who for twenty dollars would copy a fashion photograph or a rough sketch with results that would not have shamed a couturier.
An hour before the guests were expected, she took a cold shower and put on old Ah Bee’s latest creation, a simple tunic of white jersey silk copied from an illustration in Vogue. She screwed Jonathan’s silve
r lanterns on her ears. With each movement of her head they swayed gently, glittering in the muted glow of the oil lamp on her dressing table.
While she was dressing, Mat had set the dining table. Instead of the usual centerpiece of flowers, there was a beautifully iced cake mounted with nineteen white candles.
“Oh, Mat. How lovely!”
He flashed gold-rimmed teeth in a pleased grin.
“Tuan Fraser say tonight makan besar for little mem.”
The furious tooting of a jeep horn through the trees heralded the arrival of Tom. He bounded up the steps, followed more leisurely by a tall youth with red hair.
“Hail, birthday girl. A small token of my devotion.” He pushed a packet into her hands. “What-ho, Mat. Champagne flowing? Alex, this is Pete Carpenter, a pillar of our redoubtable police force.”
“Glad to meet you, Miss Murray.”
Tom’s present was a topaz brooch.
“The color of your eyes, poppet,” he said lightly when she thanked him.
If any terrorists did skulk in the rubber groves around the bungalow that evening, they must have been astonished at the gusts of uproarious laughter that echoed out from the veranda until after midnight. The American planter, Jake van Luren, a small paunchy man with the loose jowl and mournful eyes of a discouraged bloodhound, revealed himself a facile wit and dinner passed with a flow of easy conversation and lively repartee.
Afterward, when the cake had been cut and the two women toasted, Alex excused herself to take slices of cake down to Rama and the drowsy children. When she came back the party had divided into two groups—van Luren, Miss Emmeline and Jonathan relaxing on the couch with coffee and Cointreau while Tom and Peter shuffled through a pile of records looking for dance tunes.
“You know,” Tom said, leading her into a fox-trot, “when I heard you were coming out, I was pretty sure you’d have buckteeth and muscles and an earnest manner. How wrong I was. How does it feel to be a pretty girl in this country of love-starved manhood?”
Alex laughed. “What has happened to all those luscious native girls you told me about?”
He shook his head sadly. “A harem is too expensive.” His voice dropped and he said seriously, “I wish social life wasn’t so damnably communal out here. If this was England I could ask you to come out with me.” His arm tightened around her waist. “You look marvelous in that dress.”