In the Mouth of the Tiger (37 page)

‘Donald Duck wallpaper,' Denis said firmly. ‘Cheer the blighter up if he wakes in the night. But I think you're wrong about cabbages. They grow well enough up in the highlands, but I don't think they flourish this far down on the plain.'

‘I will
not
have Donald Duck wallpaper,' I said, outraged. ‘It's much too American! How can you even
suggest
Donald Duck wallpaper for our firstborn child?'

‘Bobby Shaftoe, then. Or Little Bo Peep. They're not American. Ladyfingers – that's what we want to plant! Ladyfingers grow jolly well in KL. One can eat them as delicacies for breakfast, you know. Grilled with butter and garnished with salt and pepper . . .'

‘I really don't think we could have the same taste,' I said crossly. ‘I think a nursery should be in the very best of taste – bright and cheerful, but definitely not looking like a page torn from a child's comic book. I'd have a fit if I woke up in my crib to see some great big cartoon figure staring at me . . .'

‘I think you've forgotten what it's like to be a child, darling. A child has absolutely no taste whatsoever. The brighter the wallpaper the better. But I don't think you've been listening to a word I've said about our under-crop . . .'

We were a married couple nagging at each other on a slow, wet afternoon, and I absolutely loved it.

Chapter Fourteen

O
ur days in Rifle Range Lane developed a comfortable, familiar pattern. We'd usually ride before breakfast (I had decided to ignore Dr Lowe's advice until it was physically impossible to climb aboard my horse), then shower and breakfast at the Riding Club before Denis dropped me home and took the Alvis on to his office. We usually met again for lunch, generally at home but sometimes at the ‘Hash House' – the Selangor Club Annexe which had a particularly good lunchtime menu.

We always read during lunch at home, our respective books propped up on the table, our conversation lazy and desultory. We both loved books and reading, and had very similar tastes except that Denis rather laughed at my enthusiasm for Baroness Orczy and I didn't approve of his fascination with Somerset Maugham. To me, Maugham seemed a cold fish and a cruel commentator on the human condition, and he was obviously a confirmed misogynist.

Late in the afternoon, the swimming pool came into its own. The sun would have dipped behind the casuarinas and long shadows would make the pool a cool, inviting spot. I'd usually be in the water by the time Denis arrived home. I'd hear the crunch of tyres on the driveway, and minutes later he would dive cleanly into the water to surface by my side. We'd stay there until dusk, and then it would be a pleasure to emerge from the water and wrap ourselves in the warm, fluffy towels the boy would leave by our chairs on the patio.

Saturday mornings were dedicated to Denis's golf. He still played at the Selangor Golf Club with the group including Tim Featherstone, and that gave me the opportunity to keep a weather eye on my dear friend. Tim had met a girl, I discovered, and fallen for her with all the unrestrained enthusiasm of
his sunny nature. Her name was Amai Rais, and she was a niece and ward of the Sultan of Perak.

The affair caused uproar throughout the whole of Malaya. I don't quite know what the public outrage was about – whether it was because she was of royal blood and he was a mere planter, whether it was because she was a Muslim and he was a Christian, or whether it was because he was white and she was Malay. Whatever the reason, it revealed just how inconsistent, artificial and laughable social distinctions were in Malaya. In fact, how laughable they were throughout the world, because almost in step with the agony of Tim's romance with Amai the King of England was having his own troubles with an American divorcee called Mrs Wallis Simpson.

We invited Tim and Amai for afternoon tea one Saturday. They arrived by taxi, and my first sight of Amai was of an elfin little creature in a gold and blue sari that was demurely arranged so that a fold covered half her tiny, pointed face. She was accompanied by a chaperone, a thin, aristocratic Malay lady who was clearly under Amai's gentle thumb. Tim and Amai sat close together at the tea table on our patio, two lovesick youngsters with the weight of the world on their shoulders. There had been another veiled, scurrilous report about them in that morning's
Malay Mail
, and it had clearly upset them both.

‘Look, don't take too much notice of what the damned papers say,' Denis said kindly. ‘It's all froth and bubble, you know, and it'll fade away as soon as they have something more current to get their teeth into.'

‘It's not only the talk, and the pestering reporters,' Tim said passionately. ‘It's that this whole damned country is so unbelievably hidebound. We'd be pariahs in whichever community we chose to live – European or Malay!'

‘So you two are really serious?' I asked Tim. ‘Are you thinking of getting married?'

‘I'm studying to be a Muslim,' Tim said simply. ‘You see, Nona, when you went off with this brute Denis, I thought I'd never fall in love again. But when I met Amai I realised that up until then all I'd experienced was calf love. This is the real thing. Amai is the sun and the moon to me.'

Calf love indeed. ‘I'm glad you got over me so smartly,' I said a little tartly. And then I smiled. ‘You do look different, Tim. More responsible. I think probably you really are in love.'

‘Tim is food and drink to me,' Amai said softly in Malay. She could speak English but like many high-caste Malays she limited herself to her own
tongue when in unfamiliar company.

Tim turned to Denis. ‘I think we need some sound advice,' he said, ‘and there is nobody whose advice I respect more than yours. We love each other, but if we were married all hell would break loose. I'd risk getting a kris stuck into my ribs by one of Amai's relatives. Or at the very least I'd lose my job – Dunlops have made that crystal clear. They need to be in the Sultan's good books. And Amai would very likely be seized by the Sultan's ruffians and held in some gloomy
istana
until she's sixty. So what do you think we should do?'

Denis thought for a moment. ‘To be frank, Tim, I'd let things cool down before you do anything. Convert to Mohammedanism if you want to, but stay a little clear of Amai and her people until she is a little bit older. Passions are high and they will need time to cool. And you two have the whole of your lives ahead of you.' He turned to Amai. ‘How old are you, Amai?'

‘I am eighteen,' Amai said, once again speaking in Malay. ‘Old enough to be married. There is no need for us to wait any longer. And Tim and I do not want to wait. Time is a dragon which will consume our youth if we allow it to.' I recognised those words. They were from one of the Malay love quatrains which mooning adolescent girls used to sing at my school. The fact that Amai used them worried me a little, because they are associated with love that can never be fulfilled, and of suicide. I looked across at Amai's chaperone, sitting discreetly out of earshot, and couldn't help thinking of Juliet and her nursemaid.

‘We're both keen to be married as soon as possible,' Tim confirmed. ‘I don't think either of us can wait until things cool down, as you put it.'

‘Then I'd take your young lady and do a bunk,' Denis said cheerfully. ‘Show Malaya a clean pair of heels. What about going to Australia? Or America?'

‘We'd never get out of the country,' Tim said. ‘The Civil Service doesn't want to upset the Sultans so we'd be separated on the wharf. And even if we did manage to get away, we've not got a penny between us. I do need my job.'

‘I could get you out of Malaya,' Denis said quietly. ‘I've a towkey friend in Singapore who regularly moves people in and out of the country. He owns a couple of small ships. And as for money to live on, I need a chap overseas to look at some prospects I'm interested in. The job is yours, Tim, if you want it.'

Tim was about to speak but Amai stopped him with a graceful gesture of her hands. ‘You are a very good friend, Tuan Denis,' she said, suddenly
speaking in perfect, unaccented English. ‘And we appreciate the offer you have made. But I could never leave Malaya. I would rather die than have to live as an exile in a foreign land.' She still looked a child, but she had an air of tragic maturity about her that caught at my heartstrings.

Denis took the matter as seriously as I did, and after our guests had left we talked late into the evening.

‘Malcolm Bryant says that you have what he calls the big battleships on your side,' I said. ‘I think he means that you know how to pull strings. Do you think you could pull some strings and do something for Tim and Amai? Something official?'

Denis stubbed out his cigarette and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. ‘I wish to God Malcolm was right,' he said. ‘But the truth is, Nona, I'm at an utter loss about what to do. It's clear that the boy is infatuated with Amai and intends to play the story out to the end. So unless something is done to stop him, he's in for an almighty crash and he'll pull Amai down with him. Tim will survive, of course, because he's English and the English will eventually rally around him. But Amai is playing for keeps.'

I got up from my chair, distracted with worry. Denis was quite right. Nobody would rally round Amai if things went wrong. She'd be cast to the wolves, a casualty of the rigid Malay sense of honour. She really was playing for keeps.

A thought struck me. ‘What if someone were able to split them up for a while, just until things had a chance to cool down? You know, trick Tim into taking a trip up the Amazon for six months, or something like that?'

Denis rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Actually, that's a pretty good idea,' he said. ‘Perhaps nothing quite so dramatic as a trip up the Amazon, but I think you're on the right track.' We talked some more, and the idea began to look quite feasible. Tim had said he needed his job. If Dunlops could be induced to keep him busy out of Amai's way, there was a chance passions might cool enough for common sense to prevail. And if in time they found they were still in love – well, as Denis had said, they had their whole lives ahead of them.

The more we talked about it, the better the plan sounded. ‘I'll talk to Bertie Perkins first thing tomorrow,' Denis decided. Bertie Perkins was the Dunlops manager in KL, and a member of Denis's Scottish Mafia. ‘At the very least, a separation will buy everyone some time.'

The next morning I was positively cheerful. I remembered some words
of Admiral Nelson's: ‘Nothing banishes concern so well as the prospect of action'. Well, we were not going to just sit back and worry about Tim and Amai, we were going to take action in their interests. It made me feel good.

We rode and breakfasted at the club, and after Denis had left for the office I worked in the garden, re-potting some petunias for the back patio. All the time I hummed with happiness. It seemed to me that Denis and I were once again involved in a gay adventure, setting out in secret to save a couple from themselves. It was like the adventure we'd had in saving Nathan all over again. Perhaps not as dangerous, but just as exciting.

At about ten, the boy brought me out a cup of tea and the morning paper. I took off my gardening gloves, stretched out in a cane chair, and glanced idly at the paper as I sipped my tea. Somehow I missed the item until I was just about to get back to work. I had folded the paper and was placing it on the patio beside my chair when a headline caught my eye: ‘Tamil Terrorist Shot Dead by Police'.

I picked the paper up again with a sudden feeling of dread, somehow knowing precisely what I would read. ‘A Tamil terrorist was shot dead by police on the outskirts of Seramban yesterday afternoon', the paper reported. ‘Nathan Srinivasan, wanted by police for over twelve months for terrorist activities in the Tanjong Malim area, was attempting to flee police when shot. He ignored repeated calls to halt before being brought down by a single bullet fired by a Malay constable.'

I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach, and let the paper drop by my side. If Denis and I had not intervened when the police had raided his mother's house a year ago, Nathan would have been tucked up safely in the KL gaol instead of lying stiff and dead in a police morgue. Of course he had refused calls to halt: hadn't Denis and I taught him how easy it was to get away from the police? He obviously thought it would be just as easy the second time.

I rang Denis at the office. He had already heard the news and was hoping I wouldn't hear what had happened until he was home. He had found out the details from Calliper MacPhail. The newspaper report had suggested that the shooting had been the culmination of a smooth police effort, but the truth was very different. It had been a piece of pure bad luck for Nathan. A police patrol had sealed off a street in Seramban as part of an operation to catch an organised gang of bicycle thieves. Apparently Nathan had seen the police vehicles pull up on the road outside his aunt's home and thinking they
were after him had decided to make a break for it over the back fence. Of course men had been stationed behind the row of houses to pick up anyone flushed out by the patrol. Thinking Nathan was one of the bicycle thieves, they had called on him to surrender with every expectation that he would do so. Instead of stopping Nathan had made a bolt for it. There had been confusion and shouting until one of the policemen had fired low, hoping to bring the boy down with a leg wound. As luck would have it Nathan had stumbled at the very moment the shot had been fired and the bullet had hit him in the back of the head, killing him instantly.

‘We dropped Nathan off on the Seramban road,' I reminded Denis. ‘He must have been staying at his aunt's place since then. I feel awful, Denis. I feel it's our fault that he's dead. What on earth must Mrs Srinivasan think of us?'

There was silence at the other end of the phone, and then Denis cleared his throat. ‘Don't feel bad, my dear. Always remember that we did our best and that one can't do more than one's best.'