In the Mouth of the Tiger (63 page)

But what should we do? The air-raid shelter was just a muddy hole in the ground. I thought of getting into the car and driving somewhere, but I didn't know where Ahmet was, and anyway, where would we go?

I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself. Perhaps the best thing would be to stay where we were. It was a moonless night and there were no lights on in the house, so presumably we were invisible to the bomber pilots.

I remembered reading that during the London blitz, people sheltered under the stairs, or a table, both of which provided some sort of protection from blast. ‘We'll stay together in the house,' I said firmly. ‘In the dining room. We'll sit under the dining table until the all clear.'

So my beloved pale green enamelled dining table became our air-raid shelter. Chu Lun came over to see if we were all right, and piled the cushions from the lounge suite around us as a makeshift splinter shield. And then we just sat there, hot and frightened, listening to the bombers droning above and then the dreadful sound of bombing in the distance.

‘It's like playing cowboys and Indians,' Tony said. ‘But scarier. Are the planes trying to kill us, Mummy?'

‘They won't know where we are if we stay nice and quiet and still,' I said. ‘The best thing to do is to try and go to sleep.' Just as I finished speaking a plane screamed desperately low overhead, shaking the whole house before the sound suddenly ended with a shuddering explosion somewhere just out to sea. ‘You don't expect me to go to sleep with all that racket, do you?' Tony asked a little querulously. ‘Because I just can't.' I thought at first he really was annoyed, but then I felt him trembling and knew he was being brave. I didn't
say anything, but hugged him as tightly as I could.

‘Now you're squeezing me to death,' he complained, and we all laughed.

It was a short raid, and after the all clear I walked to the edge of the lawn and stared out to sea. Something was burning out there, a thin, flickering blue flame. Petrol on the water. And then I saw the tail fin of an aeroplane poking above the small waves. The blue flames lit it for a brief moment and I saw the dark disc of a Rising Sun emblem. So, we have brought down a Jap, I thought with satisfaction.

The stab of triumph quickly left me. Lying in bed later that night my mind could not leave the little circle of burning petrol and the shattered piece of aeroplane. Men had died out there. Men with wives just like me waiting for them to return. They didn't know their men were dead but I did, and I hated myself for my earlier exultation.

Denis didn't come back for nearly a week, and before he did we suffered three more raids. But we were now getting our act together. Chu Lun had finished the air-raid shelter and each time the siren sounded I shepherded everybody inside and solemnly closed the blast-proof door. It was hot and stuffy but we would sit there, insulated from any sound by the plank-lined earthen walls and the sandbagged roof, and nibble the treats that Amah always brought with her.

‘So you coped?' Denis asked as I showed off the shelter. ‘I knew you would.'

‘I had the ARP people come out and talk to us,' I said proudly. ‘The Chief Warden from Changi is a very nice man. He's covered all our ceiling lights with cardboard so that we can brown out the house if there are planes about.' Denis inspected all these wonders, and then called the boys over.

‘Mummy tells me you both helped her by being very good when the air raids were on,' he said. ‘So I've decided to reward you each with a bar of Cadbury's chocolate.' Then he took advantage of the happy confusion to steer me into our bedroom. ‘I've also brought you something.'

‘And what have you brought home for me?' I asked coquettishly.

But Denis's face was quite serious. He pulled a slim envelope from his jacket pocket and passed it to me. I took the letter out and read it twice before it made any sense. I read it a third time, slowly, then flung my arms around him and kissed him on the mouth.

It was a short letter from Mark Morrison, telling me that the title to the
Burnbrae Tea Plantation was now in my name, the ‘estate and all appurtenances thereto' having been conveyed to me by Deed of Gift. Happy Valley was mine. Or rather, it was ours.

‘There is an apology that goes with it,' Denis said. He seemed suddenly stiff and awkward, and I drew back, looking up at him curiously.

‘I've misled you a bit about Burnbrae,' he said quietly, looking down at his hands. ‘I know how important the place has been to you, which makes what I have to say rather hard.'

‘What on earth do you mean?'

Denis cleared his throat. ‘To begin with, you must understand exactly how important Burnbrae's always been to our plans for the stay-behind parties,' he said. He looked suddenly desperately tired and there were fine lines around his eyes that I had never seen before.

‘Come and talk about it,' I said gently, and we went and sat in the cane chairs by our open windows. We often sat there of an evening before dinner, gathering the energy to get changed. Nobody bothered us there. It was our
sanctum sanctorum
.

‘Cameron Highlands is the linchpin of the whole stay-behind exercise,' Denis went on, staring out at the darkening garden. ‘It's smack bang in the middle of everything. Right in the middle of the jungle, and it's on the Dividing Range. There is a good road in, and its market gardens are the richest in Malaya. It's also the hub for all the Sakai pathways in that part of the world.'

‘What's that got to do with you giving me the place?' I asked.

Denis pulled out his silver cigarette case, selected a cigarette and lit it, the flame of the match lighting up the lines of his face.

‘Let me tell it to you my way,' he said. ‘It's important that you understand.' He paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘You see, Norma, because the Sakai paths lead to the estate, and because it's a commercial enterprise, Burnbrae is absolutely perfect as a secret staging point for shipping stuff into the jungle. Nowhere else we know of is half as good. Fresh food, medicines, clothing, radio parts, materials for shelters, and so on. No one is going to notice trucks and so on going in, or strangers hanging around.'

‘Is that why you bought Burnbrae?' I asked.

Denis cleared his throat again. ‘I'm afraid I've owned it for many years,' he said softly. ‘That's the point of what I'm trying to tell you. Taunton Estates bought the place in 1935. Taunton Estates is one of my companies.'

I stared at him, uncomprehending.

‘I didn't tell you I owned the place because I didn't feel the knowledge was mine to give away,' he went on.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. I felt utterly, completely betrayed. We'd talked so often about Burnbrae, about Happy Valley, and Denis had always seemed to understand my feelings. He'd
shared
my loss with me.

But now he was telling me he'd owned the place all along. It just didn't make sense.

We sat in silence, and then after a while Denis continued. ‘When I was up there just now I couldn't stand the thought of deceiving you. Even if it was for good reason. So I decided to make amends. I decided to tell you the truth, and to give you Burnbrae as a way of saying sorry.'

‘So there
is
an arms cache in Happy Valley?' I asked. I remembered the moment when we had both stood in the valley and Denis had promised me – his eyes looking deeply into mine – that no arms would go into the valley because it was such an important place to me.

‘We put a dump in there some time ago,' he said. ‘The reason I went up there last week was to set up links between the local Chinese and our stay-behind people. The local Chinese are solidly Communist, and they're prepared to cooperate because we're going to let the MCP jungle parties use Burnbrae.'

‘You told me in front of John Morton that you wouldn't be putting an arms cache into Burnbrae,' I said. ‘Did you want to deceive him too?'

‘I didn't want Morton to list Burnbrae in his confounded reports. Reports get leaked, and Burnbrae is just too important to risk. Morton doesn't know about the place even now. Not many people do. You're one of the very few.'

I shook my head. ‘I believed you,' I said. ‘I believed you completely. You were so awfully convincing. I don't know what to think now.'

Denis grimaced. ‘I'm not proud of some of the things I've had to do,' he said. ‘I told you the way I did because it was important that you believed me. I thought it was better for
you
if you believed me.'

We had
see hoon
for dinner, a delicious Nonya dish that is one of my favourites. But that night the noodles tasted just like paper and I had to force them down. We ate in silence, and it was a relief when a sudden downpour rattled on the slate roof and cool, rainy air billowed in through the open
windows. The rain seemed to break the tension that had been building up between us, and Denis reached across and put his hand tentatively on mine.

‘Are you awfully angry with me?' he asked.

I was hurt and puzzled rather than angry. I was hurt because I thought we had an unspoken pact between us, and deceiving me wasn't part of it. I was puzzled because the revelation that Denis had bought Burnbrae from me so many years ago seemed to fit an emerging pattern, the significance of which was beyond me.

All through my childhood I had thought of myself as a lonely, forgotten child. But I had been wrong. Many of those who were around me now had been with me back then, unseen shadows amongst the shadows. Malcolm had been there, keeping a caring eye on me. Denis had been there too. He had known Robbie and me, and had kept an interest in me after Robbie's death. Now I found that the relationship had been much more complicated than mere friendship. Denis had bought Burnbrae. It had been Denis's money that allowed us to buy Salon Tanya and set ourselves up in KL.

Who was Denis? Who in fact was I?

‘I am a little hurt,' I said. I couldn't help it but a tear rolled down my cheek. I smiled to try and hide it, but Denis saw and came around to take me in his arms.

‘I was in Happy Valley,' he said. He was on his knees by my chair, both arms around me. ‘Early in the morning. The whole place was draped with mist. It was indescribably beautiful, Norma. I suddenly thought of what I'd said to you there, how you'd trusted me so completely, and I felt the most dreadful heel. There had been reports of air raids on Changi, you see, and I realised you might be dead, and that if you were I could never correct the lie I had told you. I realised then that you and the children are the only important things in my world. Far more important than all the monumental nonsense we get up to in the name of war. The stay-behind parties. Cajoling the Communists on side. Playing the Intelligence people off against each other. I knew then that I'd chuck the lot in the dustbin rather than see you deceived or hurt.'

I put my finger on his lips. ‘Don't say that,' I said laughing through my tears. ‘I think it might be treason or something. Or at least it doesn't sound terribly patriotic.'

Denis snorted. ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,' he said. ‘I won't ever take that refuge again, Norma. I'm going to tell you the truth from now on, and patriotism can go hang.'

‘Then I'd better be jolly careful about what I ask,' I said. I remembered Stewart Menzies comment about patriotism killing a million times more Englishmen than murder ever had, and felt an almost superstitious shiver.

‘I mean it,' Denis said seriously, climbing to his feet as Agatha brought Tony in to say goodnight. We kissed our sleepy son, a ragged half bar of Cadbury's still clutched in his hand, and then Denis took me into his arms again and kissed me properly.

Just as I was dozing off that night I suddenly thought of something and joggled Denis awake. ‘Did you buy Kuala Rau too?' I asked. Mother's complaint about Denis buying up worthless properties had triggered the question, and I stared down at Denis through the darkness, trying to read his face.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes I did. I still own the place. I bought it in case we ever needed somewhere in the jungle near Raub. Though I rather think I also wanted to give your mother some money.'

I relaxed back on the bed, my whole body tingling with happiness. Our code was well and truly back in place.

I dreamed about Happy Valley that night, something I hadn't done in years. I was sitting amidst the ferns, looking down from Robbie's path, and I saw Malcolm and a line of policemen scouring the valley below me. Malcolm looked up, his dark, handsome face tense with anger. ‘We'll get him, Nona,' he shouted. ‘It's only a matter of time, but we'll get him.'

I woke up with a feeling of dread. I didn't know who they were looking for, but I could guess.

Denis left at dawn the next day for the Naval Base, and again Tony and I waved goodbye as the little Marvelette bounced off down the drive. We were both subdued. The harsh reality of war was that it went on and on. One could keep a stiff upper lip, and smile, and be brave for only so long, but every instance of danger, every parting, chipped away at one's resources. And for us the war had only just begun. I thought of those in Europe who had already been at war for over two years. How weary they must be, how sick of telling themselves that everything would be all right.

I expected Denis back that night but instead I had a call from Captain Mulock, the Extended Defence officer. He was brief but kind. ‘
Penghulu
is on long patrol,' he said. ‘Probably for a few days. Thought I'd put your mind at rest. You would have been expecting him back tonight.'

‘Have they gone up north?' I asked, and immediately wished I hadn't
because there was a long silence on the phone.

‘You know I can't answer that, Norma,' he said finally, his voice firm but still kindly, and I felt my heart sinking.