The Other Side of Paradise Page 9

  ‘All right.’ It would be a pleasure to see him grovel.

  She’d half-expected him to collect her in an ambulance – wouldn’t have put it past him – but it was an ordinary old car. Nothing special at all. Instead of taking her to one of the usual watering holes he drove out of town to a stony hillside overlooking the sea. The bar was only a tin shack but it had a spectacular view of the lights of Singapore and a three-piece Hawaiian band was strumming away softly. A nice little warm breeze fanned her hair as she listened to the South Seas music and watched the lights twinkling below. Ten thousand miles away in freezing cold, winter London there wouldn’t be any lights at all.

  She sipped her drink through a straw. ‘I bet you were surprised that I passed.’

  ‘No. I knew you would – if you wanted to. Now, let’s see if you can stick it out.’

  He wasn’t exactly grovelling. Quite the contrary. She’d imagined him apologetic, at the very least. Impressed by what she’d done.

  She poked around in her glass with the straw, hooked out a chunk of pineapple and chewed on it. ‘You don’t think much of me, do you, Ray?’

  ‘I reckon you’re pretty spoiled.’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve. You don’t know me at all.’

  ‘You don’t know me either, Susan. So let’s call it quits.’

  She fished out another piece of pineapple. ‘Does this dump serve any food? I’m absolutely starving.’

  ‘No. We go somewhere else for that.’

  It was another out-of-town shack, but Indian this time. There were bare wooden tables, rusty ceiling fans clattering overhead, and instead of plates, wet banana leaves. The food was very hot and very spicy.

  ‘Makes a change from Raffles,’ he said.

  ‘It’s certainly different.’ Her mouth felt as though it was on fire.

  ‘Food too hot for you?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She took a gulp of lemonade. ‘Tell me, what do you eat in Australia? Kangaroos?’

  He smiled. ‘Kangaroos are tough. We eat beef. Lots of steaks.’

  ‘I’ve heard you even have steak for breakfast.’

  ‘Too right. With a fried egg on top.’

  ‘How revolting.’

  ‘We don’t think so. We eat lots of seafood, too.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Barramundi, snapper, salmon, prawns, oysters, lobsters – sharks, sometimes.’

  ‘Sharks?’

  ‘They taste pretty good and we’ve got plenty of them in the sea.’

  ‘We have them here, too.’

  ‘They’re tiddlers compared with ours. Ours are a lot bigger and meaner. They ride right in on the surf and grab hold of you in a few feet of water, if you’re not careful. When I was a student on the wards there were always patients with terrible shark bites – they were the lucky ones.’

  ‘Lucky?’

  ‘The others were dead.’

  She said, ‘You come from Sydney, don’t you?’

  ‘Born and brought up there. Biggest and best natural harbour in the world, wonderful sailing, wonderful beaches, wonderful surfing –’

  ‘Wonderful everything?’

  ‘That’s about it. I reckon I feel about Sydney the same way you feel about Singapore.’

  ‘Have you ever been to England?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll have to go one day to take my Fellowship exams in London. We can’t do those in Australia.’

  ‘Don’t all you Aussies have a huge chip on your shoulder about the English? That’s what I’ve always heard. We’re bloody Poms.’

  ‘Too right you are.’

  ‘I suppose you think we’re frightfully stuck-up.’

  ‘In Australia Jack’s as good as his master.’

  ‘Well, you’re all descended from convicts, so he would be.’

  She’d hoped to annoy him, to get under his thick skin, but not a bit of it. He only smiled.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but my grandfather came from a respectable and law-abiding family in Devon. His father kept a chemist’s shop.’

  ‘How fascinating.’

  ‘He emigrated to Australia when he was eighteen.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘Adventure. He didn’t like the idea of staying put in Devon for ever.’

  ‘I can’t blame him for that. I don’t like England that much either. It’s got a horrible climate. What’s the weather like in Australia?’

  ‘Depends where you are. It’s a big country so it’s got different climates. The further north you go, the hotter it is.’

  ‘Well, you’re upside down, aren’t you? So everything would be the wrong way round.’

  ‘True enough. We have summer in winter, and winter in summer.’

  ‘It sounds awful.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  She gulped some more lemonade to put out the fire in her throat. ‘My father thinks my mother and I ought to go there – to be safe from the Japs. Rather a joke, really.’

  ‘Nothing to joke about. It’d be a whole lot safer than staying in Singapore.’

  ‘You’re the one who said I ought to be doing something useful here.’

  ‘But you don’t want to stick around too long if the Japs ever land on Malaya.’

  ‘They wouldn’t get very far, even if they did.’

  He set down his beer glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘That’s what everyone here believes, but I wouldn’t count on it, Susan. Not if you’re smart.’

  ‘You think I should run away, then? Personally, I don’t think that’s a very decent thing to do.’

  ‘It may not be decent, but it’d be bloody sensible. Look at it like this. If Malaya turns into a battleground, you white women are going to be in the way and in big danger. You’d be doing the men a favour by getting out.’

  He drove her back in the ordinary old car and without stopping in a secluded spot which most men did, if they could. She half-hoped that he’d try to kiss her when they reached the house so that she could have the pleasure of giving him the brush-off, but when he leaned across, it was only to push open the passenger door.

  She put on her gracious, being-very-nice-to-colonials voice. ‘Would you like to come in and have a drink?’

  ‘If I thought you really meant that, I might.’

  ‘I do mean it.’

  ‘No, you don’t, Susan,’ he said in his maddening way. ‘Goodnight and good luck with the ambulance.’

  Soojal met her in the hall. ‘Good evening, missee. The tuan is on the verandah. I bring lime juice there for you?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Her father was sitting in one of the rattan armchairs, drinking his whisky stengah and smoking a cigar. He smiled at her but she could tell that he was in a bad mood.

  ‘Nice evening, poppet?’

  ‘Nothing special.’

  ‘Who were you out with?’

  ‘That Australian doctor from the Alexandra that I told you about.’

  ‘Oh yes, the one who said we ought to be worrying more about the Japs.’

  ‘He’s still saying that. It’s awfully boring.’

  ‘It may be boring but he’s absolutely right.’

  She flopped on to the divan and Soojal brought the ice-cold lime juice. Her father drained his glass and held it out to the houseboy for a refill.

  ‘I telephoned your grandmother earlier. She’s refusing to leave Penang. Being very stubborn about it.’

  So that was the cause of the bad mood. Susan could imagine the conversation – hear her grandmother’s voice. Leave Penang! Certainly not, Thomas. Your father and I spent nearly fifty years together here. The Japs don’t frighten me one bit.

  ‘I told you she would be.’

  ‘It’s absurd. The servants would look after the house. They’ve all been with her for years and they’re completely trustworthy.’ He flicked the ash off the end of his cigar. ‘And she’d be much safer down here with us in Singapore.’

  Soojal brought another steng
ah. She waited for a few moments for it to take effect before she said casually, ‘By the way, I passed the test.’

  ‘What test?’

  ‘Driving an ambulance. I told you about it, Daddy. They’ve been teaching me.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten about that – what with everything else going on. I’m still not too keen on the idea but at least you’ll be doing more good than me filling in my wretched forms. For the time being, anyway.’

  ‘The time being?’

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to stay here much longer, poppet. It’s getting too risky.’

  ‘I’m not going to Australia, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘You may not have any choice. And it’s not such a bad place, from what I hear. Why don’t you ask that Australian doctor of yours over to dinner one evening? He can tell us all about it.’

  ‘He’s not mine.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him, though. He sounds interesting.’

  ‘He isn’t.’

  ‘Ask him, just the same. I’d like to meet him.’

  The uniform was better than she’d expected: khaki cotton slacks, a khaki shirt and a cloth peaked cap which she bashed around a bit and arranged at a fetching angle. By the time one of the amahs had taken in the slacks at the waist and darted the shirt, it looked quite reasonable and a bright-red lipstick worked wonders.

  Her first job was to collect six army patients who were being sent down by train from the mainland. A Chinese medical orderly went with her to the Keppel Road railway station and everything was plain sailing. She stayed at the wheel, eyes front, window blind pulled down behind her, while the soldiers were carried out on stretchers and loaded into the back of the ambulance. She didn’t have to see them and, for good measure, she dabbed some Je Reviens on her wrists so that she couldn’t smell them either. Once the patients were on board, she drove them to the hospital. One of them groaned a lot – she could hear him above the engine noise – but the rest were quiet.

  On the next trip she picked up a group of ten soldiers from their barracks in Dempsey Road. They had minor ailments and were far more trouble than the ones on stretchers, wolf-whistling as she drove up and shouting cheekily to her through the cabin door on the journey.

  But, as she told Milly when they met over a cup of tea in the canteen, there was nothing to it, really, and there was still plenty of time to play tennis or go for a swim. Still the time and the energy to go to parties or out to dine and dance. Best of all, it was a wonderful excuse to skip lessons at Pitman’s. She scarcely bothered to turn up for them any more.

  She met Ray when she was waiting by her ambulance outside the hospital and he happened to come along.

  ‘How’s it going, Susan?’

  ‘Fine. By the way, my father wants you to come to dinner one evening.’

  ‘That’s nice of him.’

  ‘He wants to talk to you about Australia. I can’t think why. How about tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m on duty.’

  ‘The day after? Eight o’clock.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be there.’

  He walked on without a word said about the uniform or how she looked in it. Not that she cared.

  ‘Susan tells me you come from Sydney, Captain Harvey?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘A fine city, from all accounts. I hear the harbour is magnificent and that bridge of yours must be an amazing sight.’

  ‘We think so, but then we’re prejudiced.’

  ‘I’d like to go to see it for myself one of these days.’

  ‘It’s worth the trip.’

  Her father liked Ray, she could tell that. So did her mother, who was hard to please. He’d done all the right things, said all the right things, used all the right knives and forks. Her father went on asking questions about Australia and after dinner, when they sat out on the verandah, he said to Ray, ‘I’m thinking of sending Susan and her mother to your country, if the Japs take it into their heads to try attacking us.’

  ‘It makes sense to me, sir.’

  ‘Of course they won’t want to leave, but it might come to that. What do you think of the situation here in Malaya?’

  ‘I think it’s very bad.’

  ‘So do I. Most people wouldn’t agree with us – only a few have grasped the real truth. Everyone else has their head stuck firmly in the sand. They can’t see how dangerous the Japs are. Refuse to see it.’

  Her mother said, ‘Oh, do stop going on about the wretched Japanese, Thomas. I’m sure Captain Harvey would far sooner talk about something else. Tell me, Captain, what is the weather like in Australia?’

  She listened to him answering her mother, explaining to her about their upside-down temperatures and opposite seasons. And she watched him while she listened. Dishy, Milly had called him, but she couldn’t see it herself – except for the eyes. A sort of green-grey and with smoky depths so that you couldn’t exactly tell what he was thinking. Well, she knew what he thought of her because he’d told her. Pretty spoiled.

  At the end of the evening she went to the front door to see him out.

  ‘You weren’t much help,’ she told him. ‘My father’s more determined to send us off to your ghastly country than ever.’

  ‘Would you sooner he didn’t care about what happened to you?’

  ‘He’s in a flap because some newspaper correspondent keeps telling him scary stories. That’s all.’

  They were standing out on the step beneath the portico and it was raining.

  ‘I bet they’re true.’

  ‘I’m sick of hearing about the Japs,’ she said. ‘It’s spoiling everything.’

  ‘You’ll be hearing a lot more, I reckon.’

  Ghani was bringing the ordinary old car round, driving it under the portico out of the wet, stopping by the steps, getting out, standing at ramrod attention as he held the driver’s door open.

  She said, ‘Your carriage awaits, sire.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d noticed.’ He looked down at her. ‘Well, thanks for the evening.’

  ‘It was my father who invited you.’

  He said drily, ‘I know. But you were there.’

  He gave her one of those Aussie swatting-away-flies salutes as he drove off. The rain was coming down in torrents.

  When she went back into the hall, Soojal was still hovering. He would have heard the conversation at dinner and afterwards on the verandah and probably what had been said just now. Nothing was secret from him.

  ‘You wish for anything, missee?’

  She sighed. ‘What I wish for is that everything could stay just as it’s always been, Soojal.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘I understand, missee. I also wish the same.’

  She rubbed the Buddha’s fat tummy as she passed him on the way to bed. He smiled but it seemed to be a sad smile.

  November turned into December. Roger Clark had been sent somewhere on the mainland and kept writing her letters that she didn’t answer. It was kinder not to.

  The usual scare-rumours were circulating. A Jap submarine had been spotted surfacing in the Johore Straits. Jap warships had been sighted off the southern tip of Indo-China. Jap planes had been seen in the skies over the peninsula. Nobody took them any more seriously than before, least of all the men that Susan transported to and fro in her ambulance.

  ‘Don’t you worry, love. We’ll see them Nips off all right,’ one of them told her breezily. ‘Nothin’ to it.’

  Two big Royal Navy ships arrived from England. The new and reputedly unsinkable battleship, the Prince of Wales, and the battle cruiser, the Repulse – Lawrence Trent’s ‘old lady’. They steamed majestically into Keppel Harbour, their great grey bulk magnificent against the blue sky and the misty green islands. They were greeted by crowds of sightseers, loud cheers and a lot of patriotic flag-waving.

  On the first Sunday of the month Susan went with a group of friends to the Sea View Hotel for the customary pre-lunch drinks – a dozen or so of them squashed into two cars, care
ering along the coast road to Tanjong Katong.

  The hotel was even more crowded than usual but they commandeered a table and chairs and the Chinese boys brought drinks – cold Tiger beers, gin slings, iced lime juice. The laughing and the talk drowned out the orchestra’s selection from The Desert Song and rounds of drinks were called for as though it was some big party – a grand celebration. She caught sight of fat, sweaty Paul and rabbit-toothed Marjorie, Clive’s dreary friends from the time she’d been there before – still in Singapore and probably still feeling guilty about it.

  Once again, the orchestra played a loud chord and there was a dramatic roll of drums. The singing began. Not so much singing as yelling.

  There’ll always be an England

  And England shall be free …

  Later, they went to swim at Tanglin where there was a lot of horseplay in the pool and shrieks of laughter. They spent the afternoon lounging idly in the shade of the trees and, afterwards, there was an impromptu party at someone’s house with smoochy dancing to gramophone records. When Susan finally got home it was dark, a full moon shining down brightly on the city.

  ‘Missee look very happy.’

  ‘It’s been rather a jolly day, Soojal.’

  ‘That is good, missee. I bring lime juice?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m off to bed.’

  She rubbed the Buddha’s fat tummy, skipped up the stairs and danced along the corridor.

  At first she thought it was another violent thunderstorm that had awoken her during the night. But the noise wasn’t a storm. It was the staccato firing of guns, the distant drone of aeroplanes, the muffled boom-boom of explosions. She ran out on to the upstairs verandah to see searchlight beams sweeping to and fro across the sky. The planes came closer, their engines louder. A high-pitched, whistling sound was followed by a deafening explosion that made the verandah shake beneath her bare feet.

  Over in the servants’ quarters, an amah started screaming hysterically. Much later, the air raid siren began its warning wail.

  Six

  AT BREAKFAST THE kebuns were beavering away at the shelter by the tennis court, but otherwise everything seemed quite normal, as though the bombing raid had been nothing more than a bad dream. Amith brought orange juice, fruit and coffee, Rex was stationed under the table, Sweep stalking some quarry on the lawn. The sun was shining, the songbirds twittering, cicadas chorusing, her father calmly reading the Straits Times.