“She’s trying to break them open.” Hannah turns and mouths this news to Darshan. Behind her, he too is frozen, eyes riveted on the furthest orangutan.
Before long, the two adults abandon the closest durian trees, swinging up the line and scooping up children as they go. At first Hannah fears that her comment has caused the animals to move, but they appear to be focused on the durians. Hooting to each other, or perhaps more so to their children, two of the mothers descend fully to the forest floor. It is here that she and Darshan creep around the fallen tree for a better view. The apes are taking up each fruit and smashing it against the edge of the rock with casual emphasis. The impact is enough to crack the woody rinds open—she can hear the durians splintering. Once split, the females toss the orbs above them, where the younger crew are waiting.
Soon, all of the furry redheads are smacking their lips, settled in the branches of the trees. They pry open the durians and scoop out their pulpy flesh with long dark fingers and wildly roaming tongues. Hannah’s mouth waters as she eases a little closer to observe the feasting. The adult orangutans now finally appear to take notice of her and Darshan, apparently without concern. Have they never known humans? Or are the durians too good for them to care?
The orangutans have certainly known durians. There is slurping, chomping, sucking, licking. Full bellies that are smacked and rubbed. Feet flex. Noses are picked. In the pauses, when their mouths are not busy, the family members hoot at one other and blow sounds with their lips. Hannah is mesmerized, and a little embarrassed, to be spying on these naked persons so intently. One of the youngsters distinguishes himself by stretching out on his belly along a limb of the tree and letting out a loud belch. By the time the last of the rinds has been picked clean and tossed to the ground, the sky is greying. The orangutans seem to awaken suddenly to the fact that night is falling. Giving Hannah and Darshan a last glance, they leave as quickly and noisily as they came, swinging off into the forest.
She and Darshan move immediately toward the aftermath, examining the area below the feast. Rinds and trampled vegetation are evidence of the party. The boulder retains a few smears.
Hannah touches one. “If you hadn’t seen it, you wouldn’t have believed it, would you?”
“We have seen it, Mrs. Inglis.” There is reverence in his voice. “Now we’d best get back to the estate. It’s late.”
They arrive as the Peterboroughs are sitting down to their evening meal, though it is Hannah alone, of course, who enters the mansion and weaves her way toward the sounds of cutlery chiming on crockery.
“Thank God you’re not lost,” says Eva in her unflappable manner.
“Oh, no! The sergeant is an excellent navigator.” She can’t contain her excitement and offers a rushed account of their orangutan encounter.
“Stay for supper,” Eva interrupts, “tell us all about it.”
Famished, Hannah hesitates. Charlotte is picking at her plate, head down. Next to her, Charles has half-turned toward her, perhaps to appear hospitable, but he looks lost in his own thoughts, or perhaps simply tired. She says, “I’d best get home. George will be waiting for me.”
By the time Hannah arrives home, the colonel has made his way upstairs.
“He eat, he eat, not worry,” Suria informs her as they make for the dining room. The dark little chamber, lit with a single candelabra, is like a surgeon’s waiting room in comparison to the Peterborough’s spacious, elegant surroundings. A portion of roasted chicken and vegetables sits at Hannah’s spot. The colonel must have had Suria serve him in her absence. To prove a point?
She’s not surprised to find the colonel awake. He pats the bed.
On the ride in she contrived an excuse for her lateness. God forgive her, she is good now with excuses.
“Come to bed,” he says, voicing the directive this time.
She is about to tell him how hungry she is and remind him of the food waiting for her downstairs. The orangutans. How incredible, when they came swooping through the trees! And the little one who had looked at her, how indescribably…
“Hannah.”
She climbs onto the bed. “It’s durian season,” she remarks. The orangutans hadn’t looked particularly powerful but they were incredibly strong. To toss durians as if they were oranges. To smash them open, too.
“What of it?” He pulls a face. “You like the taste of durian?”
It’s an acquired taste, admittedly. One most Europeans didn’t try to acquire. As Hazel once put it, “They smell like the insides of house slippers!”
The colonel runs his hand down her side. “You’re losing weight.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Too much walking.”
She must be cautious. As far as George is concerned, she is no longer walking. Not in the forest. Why would he say this?
“Skipping meals doesn’t help,” he adds. “You missed supper.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that. Eva and I—the time escaped us.”
“Did you eat supper there?”
“No. I came home.”
He is touching her breasts. “And the time just ‘escaped’ you, did it? What were you two doing? Something so compelling you lost track of hours.”
Her plan is to transpose something she did in fact do on another occasion, so as to sound convincing in the details and to be able to answer questions confidently.
“Did you know Mrs. Peterborough is a scientist?” she says, prefacing her story. Stalling.
“Mrs. Peterborough?”
“Yes. Thus far, Eva has published her research under a male pseudonym. I won’t get into the irony of that being a necessity within a community of truth-seekers.”
The colonel looks at her strangely. “What are you trying to say?”
She wishes now she’d invented something mundane.
“The point is that Eva is studying birds, for the book she is writing.” Hannah doesn’t bother to mention evolutionary theory, natural selection or sexual selection. These things would be of no interest to the colonel. “And she bought two birds from the menagerie in the town market. Birds of paradise, they’re called. She’s been studying their behaviour. This sounds odd, I know, but Eva wanted to show me their mating dance. It’s, well it’s a bizarre sort of performance. And it’s somewhat unpredictable.”
Hostility, it seems to her, is lurking under the colonel’s skin as he listens. The recognition of this startles her into silence for a moment.
“We waited ever so long to catch a glimpse of the male dancing. How comical the bird is!” She forces a laugh. “I’ve never seen the likes of it, George, the way this poor bird darts from side to side. He has a bit of plumage, like bait on a fishing line, dangling in front of his own head.” She forces another laugh, then yawns loudly.
“You’re saying that Mrs. Peterborough had them hold off on supper for the entire household until this bird did his mating dance for you?”
“Why, yes, I suppose she did.”
“And she had you waiting…outside I take it? Absurd.” He mutters something about the priorities of the upper classes.
Hannah pushes the heel of one hand into her empty stomach when it growls audibly. “I didn’t want to be impolite,” she says, for he’s about to protest. Surely you could have told her you have a husband waiting, a household to attend to. “Let’s not argue,” she whispers.
Without waiting for the colonel to reply, she leans over and kisses him softly on the cheek. Something occurs to her and she kisses him on the lips, deeply, hungrily. As if she has been waiting all month to be alone with him.
Twenty Five
The colonel brings his morning coffee into the conservatory. It consoles him that the room is unchanged and unchanging these past months; the same catalogues and newspapers arrayed in their holding pattern, the same half-dead plants in their pots. Not one scrap of sketc
hing paper. Not one whiff of paint, nor stick of charcoal. He chooses one of the lesser-used armchairs, allowing his gaze to wander in case his eyes happen to pick out a hidden detail. It is useful to review matters from different vantage points.
This morning he feels balanced in his limbs—a pleasant, almost drowsy heaviness that radiates from his center to all corners of his world. He is not so stupid as to believe his wife cares for him any differently. Though he recognizes her as being obedient, and this pleases him nearly as much. Perhaps more. If he loves Hannah more deeply than she will ever appreciate, then that is her failing, not his. There is even something noble in this inequity.
A strange shape under the chaise longue. George gets down on his hands and knees. It turns out to be a curled leaf, fallen from a nearby potted tree.
What to make of all this time spent with Eva Peterborough, and Hannah’s new friendship with the strange woman? Of all the diversions she could have turned to, she decides to find company out there, where that doctor has the Malay women coming and going. Mind you, he can understand Hannah holding a bit of a grudge against her old circle of friends. He tried to explain this tactfully to Lucy when she appeared at the door the other day.
“How is Hannah?” Lucy asked with some gravity, after they’d exchanged pleasantries.
“Very well,” he answered, hinting that she was causing no further concern.
At this, Lucy looked disbelieving. She fluttered her eyelashes. “She’s very well? I have to tell you something, George. Something odd has happened, and it’s why I’ve come over, to be honest.”
“Oh?” He exhales slowly. Once Lucy got hold of you, it was difficult to extricate yourself.
“Hannah still won’t return my calls.”
“I reckon she’s been, well, licking her wounds, as it were.”
“Wounds?”
He feels his colour slowly rising. God give him the patience for Lucy flaming Finch after a hot day’s work. She must have seen him arriving home and beetled over. He says, “It was something for her to live through, wasn’t it? That night of the festival. Us ganging up on her.”
“Goodness. George, it was all for her benefit.” Lucy looks past him into the house. In the kitchen, Suria is singing, if you can call it that. “Is Hannah in now?”
If Hannah were in, would he have come to the door? “She’s out.”
“At this time of day?”
It’s just gone half past four, hardly the witching hour, though the sky has blackened like night in preparation for its daily thunderstorm. George steps through the mesh outer door, closing it behind him and causing Lucy to back up further on the veranda. “What is this odd event you mentioned?”
“Ah. Last week I bumped into Hannah in the village. Fortunately, for as I say, she’s not returning my calls. I invited her to join us for a game of bridge this Friday past.”
“Did you? Nice of you.” He doesn’t recall anything special about the Friday past.
“She agreed to come. Hazel is my witness. I thought at first I must have been losing my mind! But Hazel is my witness: Hannah quite clearly agreed to come at half past two. ‘I’d love to, Lucy,’ she said to me. Now, I don’t know if she was in a hurry—she seemed to be heading to the east side, perhaps to the market? That was all she said, really, was ‘I’d love to, Lucy,’ and she was off again.”
George frowns at the mention of the market. “She sometimes shops at the market rather than sending our girl.”
“Oh, I’ve gathered that. The odd thing is that she never showed up on Friday to play bridge. Which, as you can imagine, when one is arranging numbers it’s quite inconvenient to have players go missing. We had to fetch Anicka Gnudsen as a stand-in, and nobody wants that, George.”
He tries again to remember anything at all about the Friday past. There is a crack of thunder, an opening gambit. Shaking his head, he says, “I…I’m sorry, Lucy.”
“Oh, you don’t be sorry!” she flutes. “It’s not your fault, George. I just thought you might have had a bad turn with your stomach. Or, I thought, maybe she became ill. She’s so slim, it’s a wonder—”
“No, not that I recall, no.” Though his gut was feeling worse by the minute. He looked out at the road—that cheeky little gibbon was strolling by, chittering to himself—and told Lucy that he’d speak with Hannah.
George redirects his thoughts to the moment when he’s first pushing himself inside her. It gives a precise sensation, and an echo of the pleasure that shouted from him. He tours the conservatory one last time and sets his empty mug down on a hall table, smirking to himself. Hannah could sleep for hours yet. He might as well go in to the office.
“What is he up to, this doctor?” George will simply ask point blank. As it concerns his wife, he will simply ask Finch for the truth.
At the office, George bides his time, smoking. It’s better if Finch comes to him, as he will, the gregarious creature. Finch soon appears in the doorway. “Hallo, Pinky. You’re here early today!”
“Am I? Not really.”
The Resident enters the room and takes a seat. “And you look…chipper.”
“I slept well,” George mumbles.
“Yes, you do look chipper.” Finch twirls a moustache, regarding him. “Ah! Another tiger in the bag, is it? I saw them hauling it up your lane. Well done, I say! Looked like a cracking specimen.”
“Yes,” he agrees. A smaller cat, with a lighter hide. A female. This time the head was better preserved. The two talk about work matters for some time before Finch gets to his feet. “Uh, before you go?” George comes around the desk to shut his office door. It’s still early enough they won’t swelter without the air flow. “I…don’t know whether to be concerned about this…”
“Spit it out, Pinky. Not worth bottling anything up.”
“It has to do with the Peterboroughs.”
Finch’s face falls. “Does it now?”
“It seems Hannah has been seeing rather a lot of Mrs. Peterborough. Out at their estate.”
“And?”
“Well, I don’t know.” He lowers his voice even more. “We’ve arranged for those women to go there. The Malays. For…for whatever purpose…”
“Hannah is not party to that,” Finch says. It sounds like a warning.
“Of course not. That’s why I’m asking. I don’t want her to be inadvertently involved in…whatever it is that…look, do I have cause for concern here, James?”
Finch has turned to the wall, arms crossed over his belly. His chin triples as his head falls forward. “God, I hope not. What is she doing out there?”
“She seems to have become fast friends with Mrs. Peterborough. Says she’s a ‘fascinating woman.’” They exchange glances. “I stopped Hannah from painting, James. We all did.”
He points a finger. “No, we didn’t all do that.”
“I’m saying, well, she’s been left with a good deal of time on her hands. And no desire to be friendly to the women who’ve…intervened.”
“Hmm.” Finch rubs his chin. “What a cock-up. Wouldn’t Hannah be nice all plumped up with a babe, eh, Pinky? She would make a wonderful mother.”
George doubts this is true. But it’s no reason not to want her pregnant. A family may not be far off now, he tells Finch with conviction. The feeling memory comes again—of his cock pushing, pushing, prying. Into Finch’s silly grin, he says, “Until then, Hannah won’t appreciate any further restrictions. But there’s no need for that, yes? There’s nothing to worry about with her visiting this Idlewyld place?”
Finch frowns. “Can she not socialize with this ‘fascinating woman’ at your house?”
“I rather think they’re avoiding the rest of the civilization.” George sighs. “But, yes, point taken.”
“That would be my advice, then, Pinky. Keep her away from the estate as much as possible.”
&nbs
p; “Right.”
“And get her pregnant.”
Twenty Six
Sergeant Singh rides out to Idlewyld on the lone horse owned by the Kuala Kangsa police squad.
“What if there’s an emergency?” she teases him one afternoon as they head out from the stables. “What if Merrylegs is needed to chase down a criminal?”
He waggles a finger. “Not so very funny. I have been lying awake concerning this eventuality.”
“Oh.” She bites her lip. “And?”
“I am taking my chances.” He looks so disturbed that Hannah offers an apology. She wonders whether any of the other policemen know where the russet mare disappears to on a regular basis.
Hannah is lying awake nights, too, thoughts hopping around her head like rabbits. Though she now lets the colonel win her over in bed on most occasions, she avoids conversation with him. Suppers, practically speaking the only occasions they are forced together, feel long and dismal. Too much time spent feigning interest in his affairs whilst trying to avoid accidentally exposing her own. And all of it seems to point at how poor a wife she is. How poor a person. And yet they are all unreal, the events of Ridge Road, as if they are happening outside of life, outside of the time she is truly alive, painting and moving through the wilds.
“Are you worried your colleagues will discover where you’re going?” she asks him as they enter the forest.
“They know I am trekking with you.”
“They do?”
“Certainly. What they don’t know is that your husband has now forbidden it.”
She laughs. George’s decree is exactly the sort of open secret that travels like wildfire through one community and not a hair beyond.
The Parasol Flower Page 17