The White Pearl (54 page)

Connie didn’t wait to finish the fight. She turned and ran.

Still he came after her. She’d thrashed her way through the undergrowth, her heart juddering in her chest, her hands striking
out at branches, indifferent to leeches and thorns or the snakes that slithered away from her running feet. She had to carve
out a path for herself. But all the time she could hear Nurul baying behind her, his curses reaching out to her, and she was
under no illusion what he’d do to her if he caught her.

But now the jungle became her friend instead of her enemy, and opened up dark green spaces for her to slink into. Thick foliage
enfolded her. Curtains of creepers hung down around her, silencing the noise of her movements, and when her feet found a narrow
animal track, she raced along it with gratitude. Sweat poured from her skin and her breath came harsh and raw in her throat.
Was this what she had been reduced to? An animal hunted through the forest? Did it take no more than one brutal man to strip
her of decency and the trappings of humanity that she had wrapped around herself so carefully for all those years on the Hadley
Estate?

She paused in her flight, listening hard. Her hands were quivering. She could have killed him. When she snatched up Nurul’s
knife and plunged it into his hand, she could just as easily have plunged it into his heart but she hadn’t. She still had
a hold on self, on who she was and how far she could trust herself. Life was something so precious that she could not allow
herself to treat it cheaply, despite …

The images kicked into her head. Sho’s body laid out for a monitor lizard. Sai-Ru Jumat’s eyes opened wide and full of blood
in the sunshine. The old man crippled in the street of Palur, Harriet with the crimson flower on her forehead. Nigel’s hand
raised above the waves when the rest of him had gone from her. Images that, during her idleness, she thought she had banished.

‘Thank them, Nurul,’ she whispered, ‘that you live. When you could have died.’

‘Fitzpayne.’

Connie spoke his name aloud. Not that he could hear it, but to comfort herself.

‘Fitz, which way?’

She was lost. An hour? Two hours? More? How long had she been tramping through the jungle? She’d stopped checking for the
sound of pursuit because Nurul had long ago given up on her and was probably hunched in his hut, pouring gin over his wounds.
At one point when she stumbled across a mossy stream, she washed her face and found her cheek swollen and split where he had
punched her. She’d squatted beside the trickle of water, peering upwards at the snatches of blue sky that flashed between
the foliage of the canopy, observing the progress of the shadows and trying to decide which direction was west.

‘Fitz,’ she said once more to the green space around her, ‘you’re the damn navigator, not me. Give me a clue.’

In the end she decided to follow the stream. Common sense told her that it must reach the coastline eventually, and from there
it would only be a matter of time before she found the camp.

The stream abandoned her. It plunged under a fall of rocks and vanished, leaving her alone. She continued to struggle in the
direction she believed was west, and found herself talking aloud to Fitz. Telling him things. About the horse she had as a
child, and about the jumps she used to take on him despite her father’s orders. About the kite she flew off the cliff at Beachy
Head and the desire she had to copy it, to spread her wings and fly in the face of the wind.

When she heard a dull booming sound, it took her a full minute to recognise what it was. Waves.

She ran.

‘Fitz, look! The ocean. I’ll soon …’

Her tongue caught on the words. She was higher than she’d realised. She must have been climbing all the time in the jungle,
and was now poised on the edge of a low escarpment that overlooked a vast expanse of blue water and a white sandy beach that
dazzled the eyes. She dropped to her knees, shuddering with relief. But her hands had to clamp over her mouth to silence the
cry that sprang from her lips.

Below her, about five hundred yards away, stood row after row of men. They were listening in the scorching heat of the sun
to the words of a squat figure who strutted in front of them, jabbing at the air with a sword. Every single man on the beach
wore the uniform of the Imperial Japanese Army.

What was it with men and war? With guns and rifles? Violence seemed to draw them like wasps to a melon.

Connie wiped sweat from her face. She stared down in disbelief at the beach and at the two attack boats that lay at anchor
offshore. Fear crawled like a cockroach down her throat. She ducked her head lower into the undergrowth and started to crawl
backwards. She had to warn Fitz. Had to find Teddy, find her son. Get off this island. What brought the Japs here? She heard
her own breath coming in great gasps. She knew she had to get back to the camp fast.

Fitz, help me.

The warm steel of a bayonet bit into the skin of her throat. A hand seized her hair from behind and yanked her to her feet,
and she caught the smell of stale sweat and leather. A voice jabbered something at her, words she didn’t understand. The pressure
of the blade eased a fraction and she slowly turned around to face the man behind her. The moment their eyes met, he released
his hold on her and stepped back a pace, waving the bayonet under her nose.

She didn’t know which of them was more frightened. He was a young Japanese soldier with a gentle child’s face, his mouth soft
and barely formed. He looked no more than fourteen and must have lied about his age to be taken into the army. His black hair
under his cap was cropped viciously short and his uniform appeared new and scarcely used, as though this were his first guard
duty. He clutched the bayonet nervously in his hand while Connie fought to bring to mind the few words Sho had taught her.

‘
Konnichiwa
,’ she said. ‘Good day.’

His eyes narrowed. He retreated another step before releasing a torrent of words that meant nothing to her. She kept her attention
on his eyes, dark and dangerous in their fear, rather than on the blade that still threatened her.

‘
Hai
,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

She edged forward as though to listen more closely, but he instantly backed off further and started to pull his rifle from
his shoulder. While he was half distracted by the awkwardness of handling both the rifle and the bayonet at the same time,
Connie recalled the lesson she’d learned from Nurul and struck. Hard and fast, when he least expected. Her fist smashed into
his throat. Pain from the impact rampaged along the bones of her hand, and when she heard his childlike cry of anguish, she
felt a deep anger.

He tottered backwards, screeching, but she knew she couldn’t stop now, so she clamped her hands on his rifle and saw his terrified
eyes widen with horror as she wrenched it from his grasp. It was as easy as taking a stick of barley sugar from Teddy. She
flicked the rifle over so that she was holding it by the barrel, raised her arms and swung it at the young boy’s narrow chest.
But neither he nor she had the heart for this fight. He ducked in an attempt to evade the blow and she hesitated at the last
second, which tipped them both off balance. All the rifle did was
nudge him, and all the Japanese soldier did was topple over backwards, but his heel became caught on a root half buried in
the leaf mould behind him.

He fell awkwardly, and the snap of a bone was audible to both. He opened his mouth wide, still gasping for air, and let out
a silent scream that would take its place alongside the other nightmare images lodged in Connie’s brain, but she didn’t waste
a second. She snatched up the bayonet from the ground, slung the rifle over her shoulder and raced off into the jungle.

Maya was searching for Jo-nee. Sometimes the bad thought came to her that he was hiding himself from her, that she was an
ugly crab scuttling after a bird of paradise, but she emptied that notion out of her head and trampled it into the mud as
she scoured the camp. He had spoken out, tried to save her. Risked his life for this crab when that no-good piss-pot Badan
wanted to tighten the noose in the Kennel.

Jo-nee cared for her. Why else would he do such a brave thing? He must care. But he was white and English, so he knew no words
for love. That was why she sought him out throughout each day and brought him things that she had snatched from the clutches
of the forest: a guava fruit, a rowdy red flower, a butterfly as golden as his hair, the tail feather from a macaw, and best
of all, a big brute of a lobster that she stole from a pot and which made him whoop with pleasure. He always accepted her
gifts with a smile and an upward swoop of one golden eyebrow, but she was not sure he understood … that she was wooing
him.

Always it lurked, like the shadow of a vulture’s wing in the back of her mind, the fear that he hid from her. She had learned
to scamper up and down the stupid ladders with her eyes good-tight shut, so that she could creep into the hut he shared with
the fat
tuan
who was no longer fat, and leave a handful of nuts wrapped in leaves on top of his bed mat, or four cigarettes that she’d
earned by letting one of the stinking pirates touch her breast.

She had in her hand now a tin mug of coffee beans that she had sneaked from one of the sacks being loaded onto a boat, and
she beamed from ear to ear at the certainty that it would make him love her. Maybe
just a tiny sand-grain of love. Maybe today enough to give her a kiss. She stuck her head in the Kennel. It was full of many
voices and the dog barking, its claws scratching on the boards as it raced from one end of the chamber to the other. Boys
shrieking like monkeys. So much noise but no Jo-nee, just
mem
’s son and a pack of native brats. They were rolling a ball of white latex up and down the floor and betting cigarettes on
whether the dog would catch it before it reached the other end. She noticed the Hadley boy was puffing on the butt-end of
a smoke.

‘Out of my way, girl.’

Maya jumped. It was Badan. He was leading a group of men with sacks on their backs through the door into the chamber. Razak
was among them, but her brother didn’t look at her, just swaggered past. She crept in behind them and scowled at Razak. She
wanted to pluck him out from among them just like she would pluck the finest feather from a scraggy cockerel. All the men
crewed on the same boat, and had come to divide up the spoils from the previous night. Is that where her brother went? Is
that what he did? They threw the bulky sacks on the floor and started to dig around in them, shouting and arguing, pulling
out handfuls of silver knives and forks which they played with like street urchins. One with tattoos where his ears should
be started to juggle with some spoons, but stopped when Badan tipped a sack of sugar on the floor. It glistened in the dim
light.

That was when the dog lost interest in the ball it was chasing and came scampering over. Instantly the Hadley boy called to
it, a sharp command that registered with the animal because its raggedy black ears twitched, but it wanted the sugar. The
children all knew better than to go anywhere near it. Maya saw the small pink tongues dart out of their mouths, ready to lick
the floor as soon as the men were gone.

‘Piss on you!’ Badan kicked the dog.

It yelped.
Tuan
Teddy shouted. But the dog dodged back to the tempting pile of sweetness, gobbling and snuffling, its black face covered
in sugar. Badan bent to yank the dog away, but the moment his hand touched the animal it snapped its head around and sank
its teeth into Badan’s fingers. Quick. Efficient. A death bite, if its attacker had been a weasel.

Badan roared. One young man laughed. The Hadley boy leaped forward, but he was too late. Badan had the dog by the scruff,
blood pouring from his hand, and raised it up in the air. Maya could smell fear. The
young man’s. The boy’s. The dog’s. She slunk back towards the doorway and gave a low whistle to attract Razak’s attention,
to draw him out of this place where shadows gathered. He glanced over to her, his black eyes anxious. But he didn’t move.
No one knew what would happen next – except Badan.

He snapped the dog from side to side till its eyes nearly popped out of its head, and then he took it over to the hanging
rope. The young pirate ran forward immediately, eager to help and to gain his master’s forgiveness for the laugh. He seized
the pole and drew down the rope, placing it in Badan’s free hand. Maya started to shake.
Tuan
Teddy was screaming. Another of the pirates, one with a scruffy beard and long cat-like eyes, was holding the boy, twisting
his arms behind his back.

‘No, no, no!’ Teddy begged. ‘He didn’t mean to bite, he …’

Maya crouched in the corner and covered her ears. Tears were flooding down the boy’s face. Badan grabbed hold of the noose
and yanked it tight around the dog’s tiny throat. The creature growled, flashing its white teeth and snarling at the hand.
Badan’s face creased with satisfaction and he uttered a contemptuous laugh as he looked at the boy, unmoved by his distress.

‘Stop your whining, boy,’ he roared in Malay.

‘Please,’ Teddy pleaded. ‘Please … I’ll give you …’

‘Shut up, whelp. You have nothing I want.’

‘But I do. I have something you want.’ Maya heard the words come out of her own mouth and wanted to cram them back in.

Badan frowned and glanced around to find the speaker. Still he shook the dog back and forth by its neck, as his eyes found
Maya. ‘Come here, girl,’ he ordered.

Her feet moved. Her brain had stopped working. But her feet carried her over and she stood before him, eyes downcast, heart
flying out of her chest as though it would not stay to face what was to come. There were mutterings around her but the pounding
in her ears sounded louder than the waves on the shore, drowning all other noise.

‘What do you have that I would want?’ Badan demanded.

Slowly Maya raised her eyes. In the room were men. Men were men all over the world. From the swirling panic in her head she
drew the thread that led her back to The Purple Pussy and, humming softly, she started to dance. Not the graceful movements
of Razak. Not the classical
ancient sweeps of the hands and feet, the way maidens had danced for their lords and for their gods through the ages in Malaya.
She swayed her hips, dipped a shoulder, undulated around Badan like a snake as she rolled up her
kebaya
, her cotton top, her eyelashes fluttering, her black eyes turning to smoke, soft and sultry. Her lips opened to him, pink
and inviting.