In the Mouth of the Tiger (11 page)

So that's how I first saw him in real life. Striding towards me, his dark red and blue Selangor cap in his hand, his hair tousled and his shirt half open.

I knew him immediately as the man from my dream, and stared into those level grey-blue eyes I knew so well. For just a moment our eyes met.

And then he looked straight through me, unrecognising, and was gone.

Chapter Five

D
enis's failure to recognise me came as a huge shock. I recall that I stood gaping after he had passed, quite unable to believe it, and that the feeling of unreality persisted for the rest of the afternoon. I had tea with Tim on the verandah, enthusing with him over the Selangor victory. I drove home with him, making bright conversation. I kissed him goodbye with affection and promised to meet him the following weekend. But all the while my head had been whirling and my heart tearing itself apart in my chest. As soon as the green Triumph had pulled away I rushed inside to my room, buried my face in my pillow and burst into tears. I must have cried for hours because I recall looking up eventually and being surprised how dark it was outside. I looked across at the pressure lamp I had kept on my bedside table since Penang, and at my little ivory tiger, and was caught by another storm of tears.

I had built my new, confident life around a firm belief that someone fine loved and believed in me. I had seen that man, recognised the familiar level blue-grey eyes, the line of his mouth with its hint of a smile, the angle of his shoulders – and he had looked straight through me.

I remember being so angry at one stage that I sat on the side of the bed and stamped my feet so hard they hurt. Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat – I had to keep pounding to mask the pain and disappointment. I took up the little ivory tiger, tried to break it from its black onyx stand, then flung it from me with all my strength.

The next thing I remember was my mother sitting on the bed by my side, looking at the thermometer. ‘One hundred and two degrees. You are a very sick girl, Nona. I must call Dr Lowe at once.'

My fever reached one hundred and four that night, and I heard them
talking, as I lay pretending to be asleep, of calling an ambulance. But in the early hours the fever broke, and I fell into a light doze as a fan cooled my sweat-drenched body and the morning light seeped into the room. It was not the dreaded blackwater fever, which Mother had feared, or even malaria. ‘Just a good old-fashioned dose of influenza,' Dr Lowe pronounced. ‘Lots of fluids for her, Mrs Roberts. Lots of bedrest. And nothing solid to eat until at least Tuesday.'

Influenza indeed. I knew precisely what it was I suffered from: my heart had been cruelly broken.

I don't know to this day whether the shock brought on the fever, or whether I had been succumbing to something all Saturday without knowing it, so that my disappointment on the padang hit me all that much harder. Whether it was cause or effect, the incident kept me away from work for a week.

On Tuesday afternoon, after I had eaten my first solid food, I was well enough to feel melancholy. I found my tiger and replaced him on my bedside table, reinstating him as my talisman with a kiss. Then I went looking for all the sad and lovely gramophone records I could find.

Our flat was on the first floor, with an open verandah overlooking Parry Drive. I dragged Mother's cane chaise longue out there, set up the gramophone, and lay listening to my favourites over and over again: ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes', ‘I Wish I Had a Talking Picture of You', ‘Love Has Gone' and ‘You Made Me Love You'. As I lay there, listening to the music and surrounded by the vivid lilac-blue of the jacaranda trees, my pain was transmuted into gentle, healing tears.

I didn't quite know what I was crying for. How could I grieve for the loss of a love that I had never really had? I suppose, I said to myself, I was really crying at the shattering of my illusions.

That week at home not only healed my wounded heart but also gave me time to do things I had forgotten about in the hurly-burly of life in KL. I wrote letters again, to Sister Felice, to Molly Tan, to my closest friends at the Convent. I designed an exciting new evening dress, all white like a wedding dress but in the Empire line, and trimmed with gold at the neck, arms and hem.

And I began to read the newspapers again, not just to find out what was on at the KL cinemas or the Prince's Theatre, but to find out what was happening in Malaya and the rest of the world.

Dreadful things were happening, some of them terribly close to home. There was a worldwide campaign being waged by the Communists to extend their power, and in Malaya they had arranged a series of ‘softening up' strikes throughout the country, designed to destabilise the government. Chinese labourers, usually the most disciplined of workers, were going on strike
en masse
, badly disrupting tin and rubber production.

And then the unthinkable happened. Nearly six thousand labourers seized Malaya's only coal mine at Batu Arang, and set up an illegal government with its own army and system of courts. I read the report in the
Malay Mail
with a sense of disbelief: Batu Arang was only twenty-six miles from Kuala Lumpur, and the declaration of a Communist government so close to home, and in the middle of Colonial Malaya, seemed inconceivable. The uprising didn't last twenty-four hours, but that it had happened at all upset Mother and Tanya deeply.

They had reason to be upset. After all, they had fled for their lives from the Bolsheviks in Russia, and to find Communism rearing its head on our doorstep, on the other side of the world from Russia, seemed the ultimate irony.

‘So now you know why Tanya and I have been so worried,' Mother said. We were sitting out on the verandah, I in my housecoat with the
Malay Mail
over my knees, Mother and Tanya eating dinner from trays on their laps. ‘Perhaps we should be thinking of leaving this country. If the Bolsheviks take over here they will kill us. We are White Russians after all, and the Bolsheviks never forget who their enemies are.'

‘Nonsense, Mother,' I said brusquely. ‘This is a British colony. Has a British colony ever fallen to the Bolsheviks?'

‘There is always a first time,' Mother said. ‘For myself, I believe that we are surrounded by Bolsheviks who are just waiting to pounce.' She gave a huge Russian sigh before shovelling another spoonful of
mee hoon
noodles into her mouth.

That night, I dreamed of Denis again. He was as he had always been in my imagination, solicitous, comforting and loving. In my dream we were in a car driving down a narrow jungle road, and I asked if there were any danger of our being ambushed by Bolsheviks. ‘Here in Selangor?' Denis had chuckled. And then we had turned a bend in the road to see a line of dangerous-looking men with guns. They had pointed them at us but not fired, and Denis had even seemed to wave in greeting as the car slid past. As usual in these dreams,
I felt invincible, surrounded as I was by a nimbus of love.

The next morning was Saturday, precisely a week since I'd seen Denis at the Selangor Club. I woke with a sense of peace and lay staring out of my window at a bright blue sky bisected by a spray of jacaranda. I was no longer hurt by Denis's rejection on the padang, but I was puzzled. What was the meaning of these dreams I had of him if they did not portend that we would spend our lives together? Were they merely the products of wish fulfilment? Creations of my mind designed to give me courage in an indifferent world?

Or were they – and my heart suddenly leapt at the realisation – not so much guarantees of what was to be but signposts pointing me towards my destiny? Good God, I told myself, what arrogance to think that Denis would be handed to me on a plate! I would have to meet him, talk to him,
win
the love I knew he had for me.

I got out of bed burning with happiness and resolution, and went straight to my wardrobe looking for a dress fit to kill. I had agreed to go on a picnic to the Batu Caves with Tim that afternoon, but of course those plans would have to change. I needed to be at the Selangor Club, and I needed to be seen hanging on Tim's arm.

Surely Denis would be there, if for no other reason than to receive the plaudits he had earned on the cricket field?

Tim was not happy about the change of plans. He had arranged for a special hamper to be made up at the Cold Storage, and was inclined to argue. ‘We can go to the Spotted Dick any old Saturday,' he said. ‘But today's special. We've got a really super lunch waiting for us. Club sandwiches like the Americans make, cakes, a salad – even a cold bottle of bubbly. And don't forget I cut golf to be here early.'

‘I'd really and truly love to come on your picnic,' I said bravely, one hand on my brow. ‘But the doctor was awfully firm. He said I've got to stay out of the sun for another week or I might faint. Apparently the fever has got into the brain or something . . .'

Tim took me in his arms, contrition all over his honest, sunburnt face. ‘You should have told me that straight away,' he said, crushing me to him. ‘What a beast I've been, Nona. I'm so awfully sorry.'

A young girl in love can be the cruellest creature on earth.

Denis was not at the club that Saturday. At first, I kept thinking he must be just around the next corner, and dragged Tim in and out of all the public rooms in my desperate, secret search. In fact, so frantic was my wandering
that at one stage Tim actually felt my brow, presumably thinking I must be feverish. But gradually realisation crept in and I gave up the game, to sit despondently beside the lily pond, my prettiest hat tilted forward over my eyes to hide my disappointment.

‘Any idea where your cricketing hero might be?' I asked eventually. ‘That fellow Denis who thinks so much of himself?'

‘I did ask Denis to join us on our picnic,' Tim said. ‘But the blighter was going out riding this afternoon. Someone gave him a young gelding to try out over the jumps.'

‘So he likes riding?' I asked, my heart sinking like a stone. I was frightened of horses, with their mad, rolling eyes and their quick, unpredictable movements.

‘Does Denis like riding?' Tim gurgled. ‘My dear girl, he's absolutely besotted by horses. He's got a string of nags down at the Riding Club. Spends half his time down there exercising them, or just talking to the beasts. Can't stand the animals myself.'

So the afternoon was a complete and utter disaster. The fact that both Tim and I hated horses made it impossible to suggest we drive out to the Riding Club for tea. Tim would guess immediately that it was because I wanted to meet his friend. And it was suddenly important that nobody, least of all Tim, should know how vital it was to me to meet Denis.

So I sat by the lily pond in a brown study, tapping my foot impatiently, hardly able to keep up a conversation. Fortunately Tim put my distraction down to the after-effects of my illness, and charitably drove me home early. I tried to make up for my churlishness by giving him a big kiss outside our flat, but my heart wasn't in it and I think he knew.

‘Go inside, little girl, and get some rest. Shall I see you tomorrow?'

‘I do feel a little light-headed,' I lied. ‘Do you mind if not?'

Dear Tim. He looked at me, a little glint of hurt in his eyes, but smiling brightly. ‘You get some rest,' he said. ‘And get thoroughly well. I think today might have been a bit of a trial for you, but we'll make up for it next weekend.'

Mother and Tanya were out so I went out onto the verandah, set up the record player, and lay down on the chaise longue. ‘You made me love you . . .' the Hollywood voice crooned silkily, and a comforting tear rolled down my cheek.

That night, the problem of how to meet Denis kept me awake, tossing and turning as plots and schemes chased themselves through my mind. Perhaps
I could join the Riding Club and learn to ride. I'd buy a horse and talk to it as Denis talked to his horses. He'd see me at the Club, cool and elegant, nuzzling my horse affectionately and whispering into its ear. Then reality interposed: horses could smell fear and by Jove I knew I'd be frightened, flinching every time the animal's slobbering mouth came anywhere near me. If Denis did catch sight of me I'd more likely be running panic-struck from one of the skittish brutes.

Golf, I wondered. Denis played at the Selangor Golf Club almost every Saturday morning. I could ‘take up the clubs', as they said in KL's sporting set. I was sure Tim would let me join his party. Nothing could be easier. The fact that I hardly knew which end of the club to pick up didn't worry me in the least. Men hated women who could beat them at their own sport.

I began to plan what I'd wear. A long, loose skirt that swished as I walked . . .

Then it struck me like a sandbag on the back of the neck. Women were only allowed on the course on Sundays. I sighed into my tormented pillow. The very fates were against me.

Strangely, inconceivably, it was to be through Mother that I met Denis, and it was to be the very next day. We had been invited to tiffin at the Selangor Club by Mr Aubrey. I had gone along dispiritedly, wearing one of my dreariest outfits and with my hair a mess. Eugene, as Mr Aubrey had now become, had picked us up in his large Chevrolet and we were climbing out of the car outside the mock-Tudor jumble of the Selangor Club when Denis pulled up beside us in a dark blue Alvis. I caught a glimpse of his face looking towards us and turned away hurriedly, my heart thumping painfully and my knees suddenly weak.

‘I don't feel very well,' I said to Mother desperately. ‘I'm awfully sorry but I think I should go home.'

Mother looked at me closely then gave one of her no-nonsense smiles. ‘You are perfectly all right, Nona. It was just a bit hot in the car. Sit for a while under a fan and you will be fine.'

I could see Denis looking at Mother as if about to speak, so I grabbed her arm and turned her away. ‘I think the germs might have got to my brain,' I said, now quite frantic. The last thing I wanted was to be introduced in my present frumpish state.