Saint Jack (6 page)

It was not my habitual worry about Gunstone's engine failing. It was the annoying suspicion that the seven or eight tourists there in the lounge were staring in my direction. They had seen me come in with Gunstone and Djamila and like Tony they had guessed what I was up to. The ones who weren't laughing at me despised me. If I had been younger they would have said, “Ah, what a sharp lad, a real operator—you've got to hand it to him”; but a middle-aged man doing the same thing was a dull dirty procurer. I tried to look unruffled, crossing my legs and flicking through the little pamphlet. Recrossing my legs I felt an uncommon breeze against my ankles: I wasn't wearing any socks.

How could I be so stupid? There I was in the lounge of an expensive hotel, wearing my black Ah Chum worsted, a dark tie and white shirt and shoes my
amah
had buffed to a high gloss—and sockless! That was how they knew my trade, by my nude ankles. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't without calling attention to myself. So I sat in the chair in a way which made it possible for me to push at the knees of my pants and lower my cuffs over my ankles. I tried to convince myself that these staring tourists didn't matter—they'd all be on the morning flight to Bangkok.

I lifted my drink and caught a lady's eye. She looked away. Returning to my reading, I sensed her eyes drift over to me again. You never knew with these American ladies; they made faces at each other in public, sometimes hilarious ones, a sisterly foolishness. The other people began staring. They were making me miserable, ruining the only drink I could afford. The embarrassment was Leigh's doing; the stranger had called my vocation “poncing.”

“
Telephone call for Bishop Bradley
. . .
Bishop Bradley
. . .” The slow demanding announcement came over the loud-speaker in the lounge, a cloth-faced box on the wall above a slender palm in a copper pot. No one got up. Two ladies looked at the loud-speaker.

It stopped, the voice and the hum behind it; there was and expectant pause in the lounge, everyone holding his breath, knowing the announcement would start again in a moment, which it did, monotonously.

“
Bishop Bradley . . . Telephone call for Bishop Bradley
. . .”

Now no one was looking at the loud-speaker.

I had fastened all the buttons on my black suit jacket. I stood up and turned an impatient face to the repeated command coming from the cloth-faced box. I swigged the last of my gin and with the eyes of those people upon me, strode out in my clerical-looking garb in the direction of the information desk. I knew I had made them sorry for staring at my sockless feet, for judging my action at the desk, and
There goes the bishop
, they were saying.

Outside I walked up and down Orchard Road until Gunstone and Djamila appeared, all the while blaming Leigh for this new behavior of mine, embarrassment and fumbling shame making me act strangely. His shadow obscured my way: I wanted him to go.

I
T WAS EARLY
lighted evening, that pleasant glareless time of day just before sunset; the moon showed in a blue sky—a pale gold sickle on its back—and it was possible to stroll through the mild air without hunching over and squinting away from the sun. It was the only hour when the foliage was not tinged with hues of sickly yellow; trees were denser, green, and cool. All the two-story Chinese houses set in courtyards along Cuppage Road had their doors and green shutters open for the breeze, and there was a sense of slowed activity, almost of languor, that the sight at dusk of men in pajamas—the uniform of the peaceloving—produces in me.

A formation of swallows dived into view, pivoted sharply like bats, and then chased, lurching this way and that, toward the brightest part of the sky, where a reddening millrace of cloud poured this brightness into a subdued rosy wash. The palms towering above the Bandung did not sway—they never did in Singapore—but I could hear the papery rattle of the fronds shaking, hearing a coolness I couldn't feel. To a northern-born American, the palm tree was when I was growing up, a graceful symbol of wealth: it suggested lush Florida, sunny winter vacations, certain movie stars and long days of play, white stucco hotels and casinos on wide beaches, and fresh fruit all year round; fellers had fun under nature's parasol. I looked up at the Bandung's palms, a tree I no longer associate with fun, so as to avoid looking at the top of the stockade wall enclosing the garden; on top of the wall glass shards were planted to discourage intruders and the sight of these bristling never failed to make my pecker ache.

I crunched down the cobblestone path, under the tunnel of vines, in the comfortable damp of the freshly watered garden; the sun had dropped behind the roof of the Bandung and was now dazzling at the back door, shooting brilliant gold streaks through two rooms, along the ground floor on the gleaming tiles. My jacket sat well on me for the first time that day, and with Gunstone's envelope of cash in my breast pocket, I was cool and happy.

But I knew what I was in for: I quailed when I heard Yardley's angry whoop of abuse echo in the big room. I paused near the wicker chairs on the verandah, and for a hopeless fluid moment I wished there was somewhere else I could go. It wasn't possible. A man my age, for whom a bar was a habit and a consolation—a reassurance of community that could nearly be tender—a man my age didn't drink in strange bars; that meant an upsetting break in routine; my friends interpreted absence as desertion, and they did not forgive easily. It would have seemed especially suspicious if I had avoided the Bandung after being responsible for bringing Leigh there the previous evening. Leigh had intruded and disturbed Yardley—Yardley's last joke was proof of that. The blame was mine and an explanation was expected of me. I had come prepared to denounce Leigh.

Yardley saw me and stopped whooping. Frogget was beside him; Smale, Yates, and Coony were at the bar, and over in an armchair drinking soybean milk and absorbed in the
Reader's Digest
sat old Mr. Tan Lim Hock. Mr. Tan, a retired civil servant, helped the regulars at the Bandung with their income tax—“He can skin a maggot,” Yardley said. He was a rather tense man whom I had seen smile only twice: once, when he saw what Hing paid me (“Is this
per mensem
or
per annum?
” he asked), and once—that day in 1967—when China exploded her H-bomb.

I crossed the tiles and ordered a gin. Yardley's defiant silence, and the sheepishness on the faces of the rest, told me what I had expected: that Leigh was the subject of the abusive shouts.

“What's cooking?” I said.

“Are you alone?” asked Yardley. Yates and Coony looked at him as if they expected him to continue, but all he said when I told him I was alone was, “Wally nearly got pranged this afternoon. Isn't that right, Wally? Got a damned great bruise on his arm. Show us your bruise again, Wally, come on.”

Wally, at the center of attention, was uncomfortable. “Not too bad,” he said, smiling at his bandaged elbow.

“That's not what you told me!” said Yardley. He turned to me. “Poor little sod nearly got killed!” Yardley was maddened; ordinarily, Wally's injury would not have mattered to him—he might even have mocked it—but Yardley was in a temper, and his anger about Leigh, which I had deflected by barging in, had become a general raging. It was at times like this that he called Frogget “Desmond” instead of “Froggy” (and Frogget didn't object: he had attached himself to Yardley and like Wally simplified his loyalty by surrendering to abuse for praise); and it was only in anger that Yardley remembered I was an American.

“It's these bloody taxis,” said Yates—the “bloody” was for Yardley's benefit. Yates was a quiet soul, the only one of us who did not work for a
towkay.
He got what were called “perks,” home leave every two years, education and family allowances, and could look forward to a golden handshake and one hundred cubic feet of sea freight.

“No, it's not,” said Yardley. “It's these jumped-up bastards who come here and act like they own the road.” He stared at me. “You know the kind, don't you, Jack?”

“I see them now and again,” I said.

“Who was it, Wally? Was it a Chink that ran you down?”

Mr. Tan Lim Hock was ten feet away; he chose not to hear.

“European,” said Wally, blinking and gasping at his own recklessness. “He didn't hit me, I fell. Assident.”

“He
hit
you, you silly shit,” said Yardley. “I knew it was a European, and I'll bet he doesn't live in Singapore either. No sir, not
him.
Wouldn't dare. Take someone like that friend of yours, Jack—”

Yardley began blaming Leigh for Wally's bruise. Not so incredible: a month earlier, in a similar series of associations, after he had been overcharged by the Singapore Water Board on an item marked “sewer fee,” he flung the crumpled bill in Wally's face and said, “There's no end to the incompetence of you fuckers.” Now, Yardley worked himself up into such a lather that soon he was saying—ignoring Wally and the bruise—“That pal of yours, that shifty little bastard would run down the lot of us if we gave him half a chance, I can tell you that. If Jack keeps bringing him in here I'm going to stay home—nothing against you, Jack, but you should know better. Wally, for God's sake look alive and give me a double.”

“Let me explain,” I said. They didn't know the half of it; I could tell them Leigh's lie about his club, the airport story about “What ship your flend flom?” and how he had suggested we go see Hing before having a drink (“Arse licker!” Yardley would have cried). But I flubbed it before I began by saying, “William arrived yesterday, and where else—”

“
William?
” Yardley looked at me. “You call that little maggot
William?
Well, I'll be damned.” He shook his head. “Jack, don't be a sucker. Even bloody Desmond can see that bugger's jumped-up, and he knows you're a Yank so he can get away with telling you he's governor general—
you
won't know the difference. Listen to me. I'm telling you he's so shifty the light doesn't strike him.”

“I hear he's a nasty piece of work,” said Coony.

“He's all fart and no arse,” said Smale, who then mimicked Leigh, saying, “I haven't the remotest idea.”

“He'd try the patience of a bloody saint,” said Yardley.

“Why don't you lay off him,” I said, surprising myself with the objection.

“Jack likes him,” said Yardley. “Don't he, Desmond?”

“Yeah,” said Frogget, turning away from me and rubbing his nose which in profile was a snout. “I fancy he does.”

“I don't,” I said, and although I had planned a moment earlier to denounce Leigh, I hated myself for saying it. When I first saw Leigh at the airport I had an inkling—a tic of doubt that made me want to look into a mirror—of how other people saw me. Now I understood that tic, and whatever I might say about Leigh did not matter: I could prove my dislike to these fellers at the bar facing me, but there was no way I could make myself believe it. It was not very complicated. Middle age is a sense of slipping and decline, and I suppose I had my first glimpse of this frailty in Leigh, the feeling of the body growing unreliable, getting out of control in a mournfully private way—only the occupier of the body could know. Once,
I
might have said, “He's all fart and no arse,” but hearing it from Smale was a confirmation of my fear. The ridicule involved me—it was fear, and I was inclined now to defend the stranger, for hearing him ridiculed I knew how others ridiculed me; defending him was merciful, but it also answered a need in myself by providing me with a defense.

It was so simple. But the peril of being over fifty is, with anger's quick ignition, the age's clinging to transparent deceptions. We let others confirm what we already know, and we get mad because they say it; what appears like revelation is the calling of a desperate bluff: the young wiseacre who, starting his story, says, “This feller was really old, about fifty or sixty—” drives every listener over fifty up the wall. We knew it before he said it. What is aggravating is not that the wiseacre knows, but that he thinks it's important and holds it against us. Our only defense is in refusing to laugh at his damned joke.

So: “He's not here,” I said, “and it's not fair to talk behind his back.”

“Look who's talking about being fair!” said Yardley. He had overcome his colicky anger and was laughing at me. “Who is it that imitates the maggot skinner when his back is turned?”

It was true; I did. When Mr. Tan left the bar I sometimes did an imitation of him with his
Reader's Digest
and bottle of Vimto soybean milk. I looked over and was glad to see that Mr. Tan had gone home; Yardley's “Chink” had done it. My other routines were Wally polishing glasses, Frogget's shambling, and Yardley, drunk, forgetting the punch line of a joke. My imitations were not very accurate, but my size and panting determination made the attempt funny. Mimicry reassures the weak, and the envious fool takes the risk as often as the visionary who mocks the error and leaves the man alone; I did not like to be reminded by my brand of mimicry.

“I'm turning over a new leaf,” I said.

“By wearing a suit?” Smale asked.

Of course. I had forgotten I was wearing a suit. That bothered them most of all. They were sensitive about fellers who dressed up and made a bluff of the success they felt was denied everyone because it was denied them.

“I had to go to a funeral,” I said. I took off my jacket and rolled up my shirt-sleeves. I knew instantly what Yardley's next words would be.

He said: “Don't tell me your friend's packed it in!”

“That'd be a ruddy shame,” said Smale.

“Let's drop it, shall we?” I said. After all my indignant sympathy that was the only rebellion I could offer.