In the Mouth of the Tiger (33 page)

‘I saw her yesterday, standing in the rain outside the railway station, crying because she thinks she has lost you,' I said, perhaps exaggerating just a little. ‘She is desperate, Eugene. She feels ashamed. She feels very much alone. She did try and contact you, but you had left the
China
when she rang the ship. She came back to KL because she could not believe that you would ever forgive her for the hurt she has caused you. I told her not to give up hope so easily because you are a far more sterling character than that. So she asked me to talk to you. Please forgive her, Eugene. Please take her back.'

Tears had started in Eugene's eyes as I had been speaking, and when I finished he took out a handkerchief and honked loudly. ‘What sort of a chap do you take me for?' he said, his voice curiously distorted. ‘Of course I will forgive her.' He stood up abruptly and dragged me to my feet. ‘Tell me where I can meet her, Nona. I feel I should go to her as soon as possible.'

I told Denis the whole story at dinner that night. We were dining at the Colosseum, and he listened thoughtfully all the way through the soup and fish, and then reached out and took my hand. ‘You have done something rather special,' he said. ‘I can imagine a lot of people dithering about, not wanting to get involved, but you marched in and did what you thought was right. Stepping in where angels fear to tread. And it looks as if it might work?'

‘Eugene and Tanya are going to give it a jolly good try,' I said. ‘He's not going to touch her for a year. Just live with her platonically until she can exorcise the demons herself. He even said he'd be prepared to wait all his life.' I felt tears rising in my eyes as I recalled the scene in the dingy little lounge at the Empire. Eugene had been magnificent, holding his arms around Tanya without actually touching her, like someone guarding a precious object. I knew that they sometimes called Eugene ‘a little dago' at the Club, but at that moment he was a more perfect English gentleman than his detractors ever could be.

I had a little more wine that night than was good for me, and insisted on Denis taking me back to Ampang Road before going home. As we lay in his bed I cupped his face in both my hands and stared into his eyes. ‘Would you do what Eugene is doing for me?' I asked. ‘Marry me, even if we never had sex again?'

Denis pretended to consider the point. ‘Not a chance,' he said finally. ‘You are far too attractive for any man to promise you that.'

I felt vaguely disappointed, and he sensed it. ‘A marriage certificate is merely a bit of paper,' he said gently. ‘It's worth everything – or nothing at all – depending on the feelings of those concerned. I'm not the sort that puts a lot of store on bits of paper, as you may have gathered. And I've seen too many fine relationships spoilt by a woman's need to drag her man to the altar. There's a rattling good short story by Somerset Maugham you should read . . .'

It must have been the wine, or reaction to a trying and emotional day, but what Denis was saying suddenly seemed utter nonsense. Special pleading by a man determined not to be ‘dragged to the altar'. I climbed out of bed, grabbed my clothes, and headed for the bathroom. I snapped on the light, locked the door, and dressed myself, trembling all the while in a cold fury.

Denis tapped on the door once, then left me to it. When I came out he was also dressed, and was leaning casually against the outer door of his room, the car keys in his hand.

‘I'm sorry I upset you, Nona,' he said. ‘I can be damned insensitive at times. Will you let me drive you home, or do you want me to dig out poor old Ismail? He's had an awfully long day.'

I walked past him, down the stairs and out to the Alvis parked under the porch. ‘I would prefer it if you didn't touch me,' I said frostily as he climbed in beside me.

It was our first row, and it was over before we were halfway to Parry Drive. Denis put his arm around me and I snuggled wordlessly against him. It seemed such a silly sort of argument, but I think it probably cleared the air for me. Tanya's marriage had had an impact on me that I had not admitted even to myself. If she could get married – with a proverbial snap of the fingers, just like that! – why couldn't Denis and I? I realised that what I was feeling was old-fashioned jealousy.

But knowing
why
I was feeling as I was didn't solve the underlying problem. I might say, with a careless wave of my hand, that marriage was an unnecessary and bourgeois institution as far as Denis and I were concerned. But that didn't alter the fact that at the bottom of my heart I wanted to be Denis's wife. I thought it over in bed that night, frowning up at the pale loom of the mosquito net above me. It seemed to me I could take one of two courses. I could lay down marriage as a condition of our continuing relationship, or we could go on as we were, trusting that the strength of our love would resolve
the matter in the end in a way that would make us both happy. I far preferred the second option. It seemed to me the nobler course, and truer to the person that I wanted to become.

I had seen earlier that night just how easily the green dragon could snare me, and I wondered if I had the strength to keep true to my ideal. ‘Well, you will just have to try,' I told myself firmly, lifting up my chin. But that night I dreamed I was in a church, dressed in white, and I woke with tears in my eyes.

It was about a week later that I received a long, chatty letter from Molly Tan. She knew of my relationship with Denis, and said lots of kind things about him. ‘He is a real champion of our cause, the Kuomintang, and a bit of a hero for many young Chinese,' she wrote, which surprised me greatly because Denis had never said a word about the Kuomintang to me. ‘My kinsman, Mr Tan Kah Kee, is organising a banquet in Denis's honour next week, and I am coming down from Penang to take part. No doubt you will be at the dinner and that will give us a chance for a long chat . . .'

I flew over to Ampang Road immediately after work, Molly's letter in hand. I thought of Molly as my closest woman friend, and I was looking forward to renewing our friendship. Also, to be perfectly frank, the thought of being Denis's partner at a banquet given by Tan Kah Kee, Malaya's richest man, had set my head into a gentle spin.

‘What is all this about you being feted by the Kuomintang?' I blurted out as I ran into Denis's arms. ‘Molly Tan has written to me about you being the guest of honour.' Denis didn't react so I waved Molly's letter in his face. ‘I assume I'm coming with you?'

Denis' reaction, when it finally came, was almost distant. ‘Oh, the dinner. Did you really want to bother?'

It was a bit like being splashed in the face with cold water. ‘Of course I want to bother,' I said, quickly adjusting my tone to his. ‘But only if you invite me. Molly will be there and she is one of my closest friends.'

Denis saw my disappointment and sighed. ‘Of course I'll invite you,' he said. ‘You will make a very boring evening bearable. But it really won't be much fun, Nona, I assure you. These Chinese banquets are awfully formal and they go on for hours.'

I was a little hurt by this attitude, and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘You wouldn't have invited me if Molly hadn't told me about it, would you?'
I asked. ‘Don't put me off by saying it will be boring. Tell me the real reason you weren't going to invite me.'

Denis gave a slow, wry smile. ‘Frankly, I
hadn't
intended that you come along,' he said. ‘For several reasons. One is that it really will be boring. I don't know if you've ever been to a Chinese feast but there will be fifteen or twenty courses, and a lot of long-winded speeches. But more importantly, I didn't really want you to become involved with the Kuomintang.'

I gave my head a puzzled shake. ‘I don't know anything about the Kuomintang, except that they support the Nationalists in China and are the sworn enemies of the Communists. My mother rather likes them for that. Why don't you want me involved with them?'

We sat down in the cane chairs on Denis's porch, and he offered me a cigarette. ‘That's a good question and it deserves a straight answer,' he said. ‘You know the Kuomintang were illegal in Malaya until a few years ago? Well, they were rehabilitated precisely because they are anti-Communist. In fact, the government has given them a lot of support in one way and another. The thought was that a strong Kuomintang movement would provide a bulwark against Communism in Malaya. But since the war in China, local Chinese sentiment has switched from the Kuomintang to the Communists with a vengeance. Nor for ideological reasons, but simply because the Communists are opposing the Japanese more vigorously than the Nationalists ever did. So now we want to cut the painter with the Kuomintang, and bring the Communists on our side. Unfortunately we can't side with them both because they're sworn enemies.'

I frowned. ‘Isn't that rather callous? Dicing the Kuomintang after they helped keep Communism under control in Malaya for so long?'

Denis shook his head. ‘I'm afraid it's dog eat dog in the Intelligence world, Nona,' he said. ‘We have to back the winner at all costs. In Malaya, it looks like the Communists are about to displace the Kuomintang as the top dog in the Chinese community.'

I thought about that and shivered a little. Surely the British weren't intending to go into partnership with the Communists? It would be like going into partnership with a rattlesnake. ‘Why do you think the Kuomintang want to give you this dinner?' I asked. ‘Are they trying to win back support?'

Denis grimaced. ‘That's why there will be some unholy flattery and no doubt an award or two. My ears are burning already.'

Tan Kah Kee's banquet wasn't boring at all. On the contrary, it was more
glamorous and exciting than I could possibly have imagined. It was held on the roof of one of the Tan godowns on the outskirts of KL, the usually drab and utilitarian area being transformed for the night into a scene straight out of a Chinese fairytale. A moat a few inches deep surrounded an artificial island, turfed with lawn and covered with artificial cherry-blossom trees and feathery stands of bamboo. Chinese lanterns and brightly coloured paper birds hung in the trees, and a waterfall tinkled out of sight in the darkness.

‘This is sublime,' I whispered to Denis as we were led across a tiny willow-pattern bridge and onto the island. Our host was waiting for us, a stocky man dressed in a rich Chinese robe.

Tan Kah Kee was one of a new breed of Chinese businessmen. Until recently, the commercial world in Malaya had been dominated by the Englisheducated Peranakan Chinese, Straits-born and loyal to Britain. Molly's family was an example: her brothers called England ‘home' and spoke English by preference. The Peranakans were automatic selections for the Legislative and Executive Councils, and were regularly rewarded for their loyalty with Imperial honours.

But over the past few decades, a new class of Chinese merchants had arrived on the scene. Chinese-born and Chinese-educated, they spoke only Hokkien, or Cantonese, or sometimes Mandarin, and their prime loyalty was not to Britain or to the Western way, but to the China they had left behind. Their strength was in the support they derived from their respective tangs (their dialect groups) and their kongsis. They also had a freshness and vigour about them that the Peranakans had lost through generations of privilege. They were the ‘wolves from the hills' who had descended into the rich valley, and they were cutting swathes through the existing Chinese elite. Tan Kah Kee was perhaps the most successful of these robber barons. A member of the Tan kongsi and the Tung Ann tang, he had been born in the Fukien province of China and had arrived in Malaya as a teenager. The Tung Ann are seafaring people, known for their courage, initiative and doggedness, and Kee epitomised all these characteristics. He made his first fortune during the Great War, seizing the opportunity created by escalating shipping costs to build his own shipping company. He had gone on from that to dominate the rubber and palm-oil processing industries in Malaya. When Denis and I met him on that balmy February night in 1937 he was at the peak of his power and influence, a forceful, ruddy-faced man in his sixties with a personal magnetism that crossed the cultural divide.

Molly was in his immediate entourage and she advanced to grip my hand. ‘You are sitting with me, Nona,' she said proprietarily. ‘I hope you don't mind being separated from Denis, but it will not be by far. They will be speaking Hokkien at the head table, and I know you won't understand a word.'

I smiled my thanks. Molly was dressed in a midnight-blue cheongsam, and with her lustrous black hair piled on top of her head she looked the very picture of a Manchu princess. I had heard that she was now something of a power in the business world, having become the company secretary of all the Van der Staaten enterprises in Penang and Perak.

There were about fifty guests present, seated at a series of tables arranged amongst the blossom trees. Denis was placed beside Kee at the top table, both of them ensconced on carved mahogany thrones. There were only two other Europeans at the dinner, honoured guests who also sat at the top table. The elder of the two was Mark Morrison, a swarthy, jovial lawyer who ran one of the biggest law firms in the Far East, while the younger, Donald Hawes, was a good-looking man in his early twenties whom I learnt worked with Denis in Guthries.

The remainder of the guests were Chinese. I had no real knowledge of the commercial world in Malaya but even I had heard the names of many of them. Chan Kang Swi, the rubber and tin magnate. K. H. Oon, one of the wealthiest men on Penang and a benefactor of my Convent. Cheng Swee, the Singapore trading millionaire. And Lim Nee Soon, a banker so powerful he was reputed to hold half a dozen near-insolvent English companies in the palm of his hand.

‘We really are in illustrious company,' I said to Molly. ‘What on earth could Denis have done for the Kuomintang that has earned him this honour?'