The Great Fire (22 page)

'Things will happen for you, too.' Girls with white smiles and long legs; girls known as Blondes, and called Baby.

'For now, this will hold up, one way or another.' He would have been preferred by the parents, welcomed as a relief: a simple American matter, at least as presented: Boy meets Girl. He could not picture Helen in Cincinnati; or, by now, see himself there.

He released her hand. 'Will you kiss me, Helen?'

She did so. And he thought, with bitterness, that she had learnt her lesson.

12

Audrey Fellowes set sail for Yokohama in a ship of the American President Lines. Peter Exley saw her off, sharing champagne in her cabin with her cousins from May Road, and a handful of colonial well-wishers, pleasant enough, who had brought flowers, chocolates, oranges, books, and who took stock of Peter as a possible match — some of them feeling that Audrey might do better, others that it was high time.

It was time, at any rate, for visitors to go ashore. Briefly alone, she and he kissed, with kindness if without passion. Peter might very well come to Japan, where she would now stay at length. They would keep in touch. He gave her Leith's address, should she get to Kure. Each wondered if they would really become lovers, or even meet again. Each awaited, from the other, something more. Her eyes were untroubled, nearly indulgent, as if she were his elder. But women are often that way, after twenty-five; and he could see how they might become guarded.

She was less handsome but prettier, in a soft wool dress with flowered scarf. A small circular cameo was pinned near her shoulder. The moment touched them, and they said that they would miss each other; which was painlessly true.

From his windows at MacGregor Road, he watched the
President Polk
leave the harbour. He knew nothing of President Polk, but assumed that the shipping company would have checked the record, beforehand, for anything scandalous. Then he did miss Audrey, with whom he could have spoken of such things.

In the colony, mornings were now crystalline, the mountain majestic. News from Europe was dark and pinched. They feared another winter like the last, no fuel, little food. A friend at Swindon wrote to thank Exley for a food package: 'The corned beef saved us, actually.' England was living out of tins.

In late October, there was the wedding of the chief translator, Mr da Silva. In silver script, Peter was invited to attend the marriage of Mercedes Prata and Jeronymo da Silva at the Catholic church near Happy Valley, on a Saturday afternoon. A similar envelope was propped on Miss Xavier's desk. The head of the office, Colonel Glazebrook, had also been asked. Just these three.

Peter left his written acceptance with da Silva, and shook da Silva's hand, at the same moment that Glazebrook brought his regrets — appearing in the doorway cap in hand, for he was off to the airfield to meet a brigadier: 'My best to your good lady.'

The day before the wedding, Peter said to Rita Xavier, 'If you're going to da Silva's wedding —'

'I don't think so.'

'I was going to say, we might go together.' When she didn't reply, he added earnestly, 'Miss Xavier — forgive me — I hope you'll go.'

'Captain Exley,' said Rita Xavier, 'I have no need to condescend to Jeronymo da Silva.'

'You mean that I do. That I do condescend.'

'You intend to be kind. But just — so far.' Small, delicate chopping gesture. Hands reclasped.

She was on to him. He had never sought da Silva's company; strongly suspected that da Silva might be boring. But he would go to the wedding and count himself a decent chap for giving up an hour of his far from precious Saturday. And was eager to enlist others in his undemanding humanity.

He would have said, 'You're right,' but the realisation might seem too swift.

She said, 'Since you mind, then, I'll come.'

Monica told him, 'There'll be tears before bedtime.'

On Saturday, Peter took Rita Xavier to Happy Valley in a downpour. Rain rocked the cab, and drenched them as they ran for the church. They were shown to a forward pew, where Rita sank at once to her knees and Exley took short breaths of church air languid with incense and tuberoses, and with emanations from the mould that streaked the apse. In the half-dark, Asian women under hats of Western tulle turned to see them. Da Silva, pin-striped and trembling, stood by the altar. A pin-striped brother was best man.

Lights went up to the sound of an organ, and the congregation stood. A priest appealed to God in the tone of a cabaret crooner. The Latin seemed bizarre, but Latin has many nationalities.

In front of Peter Exley, a heavy woman was showing fear of thunder.

The bride's veil was being lifted. Her hand, inert, was linked with da Silva's. In the curio shops of Queen's Road, there were armies of just such ivory Madonnas, an impassivity not quite Christian.

The priest resumed the Latin service, in which the congregation joined. Peter Exley, from Australia, was the solitary European.

After the ceremony, the bride and groom stood in the portico. The bride's free hand, in white glove, repeatedly touched her throat. There were depressions below her eyes. Above her head, the veil was bunched like mosquito net. Her father was crying. Exley hardly knew, in the circumstances, how to congratulate da Silva. But did so heartily, and was introduced all round.

How often one could be both moved and bored at the same time.

When the rain let up, the guests stood in a soggy enclosure beside the church, dodging drops from trees. Photographs were taken, the women dabbing away raindrops and tears. Da Silva thanked him too much for coming. They would all have a better time when he was gone.

Crunching on sodden gravel towards a taxi, Exley invited Rita for a drink.

They sat in the upstairs gallery of a small café in Wellington Street. Below them, in the pit, there was a smoky crowd. Youth and uniforms recalled the time of war, but nothing of war's suspense. In wartime, in such a place, there would have been the hopeful songs — 'When the Lights Go On Again' or 'There's a Great Day Dawning.' When that dawn came, it seemed that all Europe had died in the night.

Rita put back her hair, and it fell behind her shoulders. The crown of her head was spangled with rain. Her silk dress was patterned with small roses, and the gold cross hung at her throat.

She said, 'This is pleasant.'

He thought so himself, and hoped she wasn't being appreciative.

Coffee came in a white crock. Peter had a glass of whisky. In the pit below, the officers sat in twos and threes, mostly without women. Other ranks were nonexistent. There was a wet-weather Saturday crowd of Chinese couples, but no families.

'What happened to you in the war?' It hadn't occurred to him before to ask this off-duty question.

'We moved to my uncle's place at Macao. People left Hong Kong, if they could, when the Japanese came. We thought there would be air raids, another bombardment.'

She would have been in her early twenties: a family of pious girls, hiding from soldiers.

'Many Chinese left, too, for the countryside.' She was nursing her cup in both hands, a wintry gesture unfamiliar in that climate. 'This island was never empty, but when there's fear, there's a kind of emptiness . . .' She looked in the cup, seeking her right to a complex notion.

'I know,' said Peter. 'Silence falls.'

'So — we were at Macao. Portugal being neutral, Macao had many refugees.' She was younger, speaking of her youth, her hair about her shoulders; her good silk dress and silky skin. 'We were crowded into my uncle's house. We missed our home. Loneliness, but no privacy — a small thing to complain of in a war.'

The five girls — and the male presence in which they ate, washed, dressed, undressed. 'You have four sisters, if I'm right?' So Brenda or Monica had told him.

'Only two.' Surprised.

'And both are nuns?'

'One is a nun. The other is married and has children.'

Below the balcony where they sat, the pianist was taking his seat. Rita, looking over the railing, remarked, 'He's Russian.' She ate a little dod of cake, Chinese translation of the scone. 'His parents live in Shanghai. When Mao takes over, what will become of them? They fled once, where can they go now, having no passport?' She said, 'Stateless people cannot even become refugees.'

The pianist was playing Chopin. Rita said, 'He himself has a French wife.' After hesitation, continued. 'She's old, an invalid. Some say mad.'

'So he married a nationality.'

Slight smile. 'Such people must pick up any nationality going.' They could not expect to enjoy national pride, or other dangerous perquisites of birthright.

Now, from the piano, it was Cole Porter. The piano was quietude itself, as he recalled the blare of Rysom's gramophone. He said this to Rita, adding a few words about his months at the barracks: the incautious relief of telling about oneself, not indulged for a long time. With Audrey, he had been reticent.

'I've just moved to "D" Mess, uphill, a great improvement.'

'Couldn't you have done that earlier?'

She was right, of course, but disappointing. Woman's sympathy should be complete, untainted by the reproach of common sense.

The pianist had come round again to his first number.

'What's that song?'

'It's an étude by Chopin.'

'I thought there was a song.'

'You're right, someone put words to it. "Deep in the Night," something like that.'

'"So Deep Is the Night.'" In a low, tuneful voice she sang some phrases: '"No moon tonight, no friendly star to guide me with its light . . ."' The occasion had gone to her head, tingeing her cheekbones a tipsy pink. '"Be still my heart. . ."'

The pianist was on to Rachmaninoff: 'Floods of Spring.'

'I should leave soon.' She felt that she had shown excitement.

He saw that their mild goodwill now appeared to her as a source of possible trouble. However, fairness soon rolled over him again, like fog. Evasion, after all, took many forms: in her, this repressiveness; and, in himself, the general amnesty for humankind.

He said, 'I suppose da Silva's reception is in full spate.' The wedding was already a damp memory.

'Oh yes. There are two or three places where those things are held, Kowloon-side. The families expect it. It wouldn't be possible to do differently.'

He supposed her married sister had toed the line; the other, also, in a way, by entering the convent. He realised how few choices she had — intermarriage in the small community, or the nunnery. Or the marginal position in the ill-paid office. He thought, incorrigibly, of all the girls, affectionate and aware, who had shed their bloom.

As they went out, Peter was greeted here and there from the crowd. In a smoky mirror saw himself — tall, with conventional good looks; slightly stooping, with khaki strokes of uniform and hair. And Rita beside him, subsumed in the noisy but decorous scene. He wished for the unequivocal company of Aldred Leith, or — unexpectedly — of Archie Crindle, for whom endless allowances need not be made. He thought that, when his cases had all come up for sentencing, he would sail for Yokohama.

The next wedding invitation was from the Glazebrooks, who were giving, in gilt letters, cocktails at the Hong Kong Club on the occasion of the royal marriage. Colonel Glazebrook's good lady, ethereally fair and interestingly young, was said to have been an actress or a model. Exley had sometimes seen the Glazebrooks in the street, arm in arm. A previous good lady had been bettered.

Before the party, Peter had to go to the parade ground, where guns were fired for the far-off princess — whose photograph in that morning's newspaper had shown her buxom, bridal, smiling: bedecked for lineal procreation.

It was November, but summer flared that day for the last time. On beaten sand the men marched in the heat, saffron kilts swirling, blue bonnets undulant. Complex formations intersected, to a barbaric skirl of pipes. 'Flowers of the Forest' was played and, by the Royal Marines, 'Hearts of Oak.' The climactic anthem brought collective rigidity, followed by slow dispersal.

There was one misadventure. During the parade, a huge soldier fainted, left in the sun on the maidan until taken up with other debris when all was over. The incident enlivened the hot watching — the show of precision having created, in onlookers, a desire for some conspicuous error. The image of the collapsed soldier — pleats rucked over raised belly, pale knees awry — lingered with Peter as he walked down to the Club. A discarded man, like the bole of an uprooted tree. By disowning and dishonouring the failure, authority had transformed it to an assertion.

The Glazebrooks' party was held in an upstairs room at the annex. There were flowers, long windows, and a floor of polished teak. Mrs G., in fragile dress, stood near the door. As Peter arrived she drew him aside: 'Do something about that potted palm and I'm your slave.' He slid a ficus in its brass cachepot over glossy boards, and looked back for her approval. She blew him a kiss, lifting a lacy sleeve. She was called Hermione: fair curls, a red laughing mouth, and the loose pale dress with lavender ribbons.