In the Mouth of the Tiger (24 page)

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 offended 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.'

I didn't answer. The boy had left to find our taxi, and there was a painful silence in the room. We hadn't even had time to sit down and were all still standing, looking at each other like actors in a play who had forgotten their lines. Nothing like this had ever happened, I was sure, in all the social annals of Malaya.

A grotesque antique clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and the sound of sudden heavy rain penetrated the room. Then my anger drained away and I felt that I simply had to do something to re-establish social normality.

‘I am sorry we have to break up the evening,' I said, turning to Dorothy and trying to keep my voice light and even. ‘But I really do feel that under the circumstances it wouldn't be right to stay.'

Dorothy shook her head. ‘Don't apologise, Nona. It's just how things are.' She gave her brother a tired, fond look. ‘Under that leathery skin of his, Malcolm is a sensitive and deeply emotional man, I'm afraid.'

Mother sat down on an arm of one of the armchairs. ‘For why do all the young men fall in love with my daughter?' she asked theatrically of the room at large. A small twinkle appeared in her eye and she turned to Malcolm. ‘I too am sorry that we must miss your dinner. I hear your cook is one of the best cooks in Selangor. I was very much looking forward to our meal.'

‘Juan is from the Philippines,' Malcolm said. ‘He cooked up something very Filipino for tonight. A chicken and pork
adobo
, which is quite special. I'll ask him to put the stuff in a basket for you to eat at home. Silly to let good food go to waste.'

‘Thank you, but no,' I said firmly. ‘We really must get going, Malcolm. We've spoiled too much of your night as it is . . .'

‘We have time to wait for the cook to prepare a basket,' Mother said, equally firmly. ‘My daughter, always the impetuous one! There is a Russian saying: “eat when you can, for famine lurks behind every tree''.'

The boy reappeared. ‘The taxi is outside,' he said smoothly. ‘It is raining but I have a large umbrella so that the ladies do not get wet.'

So the evening ended on a slightly farcical note, with Mother and me hovering under the shelter of the porch waiting for our basket of food while Malcolm and Dorothy stood awkwardly behind us. Finally the basket arrived, containing a multitude of pots and attended by a diminutive little man who tried his best to explain how to serve the food. He didn't seem to be able to speak English or Malay and we couldn't understand a word he said.

‘I won't know what to do,' Mother wailed. ‘It would be such a waste to spoil such a banquet! Let us go back inside. It won't take a moment to write down the instructions.'

Malcolm seemed to understand my mounting agony and suddenly took charge of the situation. ‘Mrs Roberts, you go on and take Nona home. I'll send the cook around in my car with the food. He'll prepare it and serve it, and then bring the pots and pans back home. Now, let's all get out of this confounded downpour.'

Mother gave him a quick, grateful look before making her dash for the car, accompanied by the boy with his huge umbrella. Dorothy had gone back inside the house with the cook so for a second or two I was alone under the porch with Malcolm.

‘I am sorry it turned out this way,' I said, trying to regain some poise with a worldly smile.

‘So am I,' Malcolm responded with an equally wry smile. He even managed a half-hearted wink. Just for a second, we were friends again.

And then the boy was back for me, wrestling with his huge umbrella in the gusting wind.

My rash promise to accompany Denis and Pat Noone into the ulu was taken up much sooner than I had expected. In fact, it was the day after Malcolm left for Johore when Denis rang the salon just on closing time. ‘How do you feel about coming on a tiger hunt?' he asked. ‘I'm quite serious. Krani Hondai – he's the Temiar headman up in the Telom Valley – has asked for a spot of help. Apparently, it's not only the seladang this time, but they're worried about a big brute of a tiger as well. Pat and I are going up on Friday to spend a couple of days sorting things out.'

‘I'd love to come!' I squealed. I actually did squeal, I am embarrassed to say, my voice breaking in panic in the middle of my answer. A tiger! To see a tiger across the water as we'd seen one at Pulau Orang Laut was one thing: the prospect of meeting the king of the jungle on its own terms and in its own wild domain quite another.

Like most people who had spent any time in Malaya I had an inbuilt fear of tigers, a fear conditioned by the local perception that tigers were simply killing machines, designed by some cruel god for the sole purpose of frightening the living daylights out of humankind. Certainly, stories about tiger attacks were rife in Malaya, and some of the more notorious beasts had entered local folklore.
There was the White Ghost of Perak, an albino tiger that had killed over twenty people before being shot by an expert especially sent from India. Even more legendary was the fearful Tuan Jalan Chepat (‘Lord Quick'), a giant beast who had killed over a hundred kampong Malays and Tamil coolies in Kelantan at the turn of the century. He had never been shot, and mothers still threatened their naughty children with his fearful name.