A Different Sky (51 page)

After lunch was finished and Raj had returned to his rooms downstairs, Leila lay down upon the old string
charpoy
; like her husband she too rejected her brother's purchase of the hard new Western-style bed. Krishna had stormed out of the house and might not return until the early hours; she had not confided to her brother the extent of her worry about him. Across the room the wooden crib on rockers that Krishna had found before her first miscarriage was now used as a receptacle for all manner of oddments, its homely status representing her acceptance that she would never now bear a child. Yoshiko Ho had two sons who Leila knew looked upon Raj as an honorary uncle, if not an honorary father. It was more than she could bear. There was so much she wanted to do, so much that might have been.

Within a week Mr Ho died and was given a Christian burial. Raj stood at the graveside with the family. As the coffin was lowered into the grave Mrs Ho slumped forward as if in grief. Yoshiko and Raj bent to her in concern, but saw with horror that she too was dead. The grave was left open and quickly widened to take two coffins instead of one. Within a day Raj stood at a further funeral beside Yoshiko Ho and her sons.

‘Uncle, we have no one now but you,' the elder of Mr Ho's grandsons said tearfully as they left the cemetery. Yoshiko nodded agreement, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Thanks to Mr Shinozaki she had soon returned home, but her old parents were still interned at Jurong. Raj put a fatherly hand on the boy's shoulder, looking over his head at Yoshiko's tearful face, and knew he would do whatever he could to help them.

Howard sat wedged behind a small round table, a remnant from Belvedere's heyday of lodgers and that Rose had salvaged from the house. Mavis cooked him breakfast on a primus stove; the hot room was full of the smell of frying egg.

‘Soon the British will have things back to normal; at least now we live without fear.' Rose looked up from darning Howard's socks, to stare hopefully out of the window at the huddle of makeshift dwellings that still filled her garden.

Howard frowned and finished in one mouthful the tiny Bantam egg that Mavis had bartered for a spoonful of sugar from a squatter who kept a hen. Their shabby life, crowded into one room of Belvedere amongst an army of malnourished strangers, and queuing all day at the ration shops, did not give him hope.

‘The British may be back but unemployment is phenomenally high and the cost of living is just, well, unliveable,' Howard remarked, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘Restoring life to a broken city is a daunting task,' Rose replied reprovingly, continuing with her darning. Howard felt a moment of fury as he stared at his mother's bent grey head.

‘Nothing will ever be the same again, and the British know it. When they knew they were losing the war the Japanese gave Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam their independence, handing over to nationalist movements. If the Japanese surrender had been just a little later, Malaya too might have been independent by now. We have a right to rule ourselves; that's the one thing we've learned from the war.' Howard could not control his impatience and his voice rose angrily. He remembered the gangs of starving British prisoners of war forced by the Japanese to clear the town of corpses. That sight alone had altered everyone's perspective of British invincibility.

Howard still woke with bad dreams and experienced bizarre flashbacks, but the sores on his limbs had healed, his hair had thickened and his gums no longer itched. Although the dank green chamber of the jungle with its grim secret life still held him, its grip had lessened in the months since his return to Belvedere. Small things no longer upset him so quickly, and at every turn the familiar reasserted its hold on him. Slowly, he reclaimed himself.

‘No one here wants independence.' Rose put down her darning heel, observing him anxiously. She viewed Howard's extreme political views as a further residue of his unspeakable ordeal in the jungle and hoped that like his gums and his hair, this too would respond to loving care. Although it had taken some months, there was flesh on Howard's bones again and his defensive expression had eased; he looked much more himself, Rose thought with relief.

Howard decided not to pursue the subject of change that always irritated his mother. Life in the jungle with Wee Jack, for all its fear and hardship, had forced upon him a political awareness from which there was no turning back. Through the comrades in the camp, he had gained painful insight into lives of grinding poverty and the struggle to live without education or privilege. He had begun to think about things as he had not before.

After many months, Howard had returned to the Harbour Board, one of a lucky few to get a job. He found everything much as he had left it and yet, like everywhere else, irrevocably changed. He had returned resignedly, in need of money, depressed by the place as it closed around him again. Working from the same office, he once more overlooked the dock and the sea, but what remained of the quay was just a pile of bomb rubble. The arrival of ships was still infrequent, and even these could not dock easily in port because of wrecked vessels in the water. The port was awash like everywhere else with gamblers and prostitutes and opium dens, all of which had been legalised by the Japanese. Secret societies proliferated and strikes were to be expected each week. The only thing that heartened Howard was meeting Teddy de Souza again. It had shocked him to see the man no longer sitting at a desk, but doing the lowly work of a messenger boy, stooped and emaciated. When he had first seen Teddy's bent figure hurrying along a corridor, he had not believed it.

‘The days of Calthrop were halcyon ones,' Teddy de Souza sighed.
He had been just a month in England with his daughter before war broke out and trapped him there. They sat outside in the shade of the building, and shared some tapioca chips Rose had packed for Howard's lunch.

‘Took the first boat I could find back here when it all ended. We didn't see the best of England,' Teddy sighed sadly again.

‘Olive died in the Blitz, you know, buried beneath our daughter Elizabeth's home. When peace came Elizabeth and her husband Jim decided to emigrate to Australia. They told me to go with them, but I'm too old to make a fresh start. Besides, there's no place like home. Couldn't wait to get back here,' Teddy said, chewing contemplatively on a tapioca chip. His hair was now no more than a few sparse grey strands stretched over an oily scalp, and his sad eyes were deeply pouched behind a pair of cheap glasses. He had come back to live in a crowded rooming house, and shared a bed with another man.

‘He does a night shift and I do a day shift. Works out just fine; he has the bed by day and its mine each night,' Teddy gave a weak chuckle.

‘How can you come back here and do a
peon
's work?' Howard asked, distressed at Teddy's plight.

‘Didn't think a bright boy like you would still be at the Harbour Board,' Teddy retorted defensively.

‘What else can I do?' Howard replied, seeing again the powerlessness of his life. His mother talked about making his way up the ladder, but when he looked up there was always the inevitable European backside above him.

‘You're just a young sapling, boy. You've still got a chance to do what you want with your life. No doubt the British will get it back together again, but the calibre of the men they're sending out now leaves something to be desired.'

Howard knew what Teddy meant. These days he worked under someone much younger than Calthrop. Mr Lambeth, with his narrow jaw, wide forehead and deep-set watchful eyes had fought in the war and killed Germans. The effect of such deeds had undermined him; he was a man in search of opportunity and the lining of his pockets. He was not averse to petty black market trading or even weightier work, and Teddy de Souza knew all about it.

‘I've heard it said he's pilfering large quantities of goods from the harbour warehouse, commodities that are meant for the ration shops
and selling it on the black market. Also buys watches and jewellery from anyone here, small things to put in his pocket and sell again in England. Making a packet on it all – many of these new men are doing it. Whatever his faults, our Mr Calthrop would not have stooped to that; shows how times have changed.'

Howard had been given a supervisory position as a section manager, but like everyone else worked hard for low wages. As Calthrop had done before, he now took his own boarding parties to the ships, checking cargo and tonnage, and found himself responsible for his team of men and involved in the training of harbour labour. The problems of his men concerned him, as did the living conditions of the workers and the sight of gangs of emaciated coolies hauling unthinkable weights. The war and life in the jungle had changed him; he had accepted such sights before.

I
T WAS THE END
of the day and he had left the office, pushing his way past the beggars and agitators at the gate. As Howard walked towards the trolley stop he noticed that the crowds of workers who filled the street were all hurrying in one direction. In the distance he heard shouting and cheering. He wondered if another strike was brewing. Following the crowd he turned a corner into a cul-de-sac, and was faced with the unexpected sight of Wee Jack standing on a table haranguing a mass of men. Howard halted in shock. Already, excited workers were pushing up behind him and he found he was trapped in the crowd. Wee Jack was his usual bony self, and Howard knew by the familiar rasp in his voice that he was waiting to cough up a globule of phlegm. Wee Jack punched the air with his fist, shouting out well-worn slogans.

‘Our Imperialist masters have not seen the hovels their workers live in, in which our children must die for want of food and medicine. They know nothing of the wretchedness of their workers' lives and yet they suck your blood, grind out your lives. Without us to carry their loads, dig their fields, build their mansions, they could not reap their harvests of gold. And for this, what do they pay you? What do they care if tomorrow you die leaving fatherless children?' Fury erupted in the showers of caustic words and the crowd responded in angry agreement, raising their fists with Wee Jack. Behind Howard the assembly had increased uncomfortably, and he was wedged against a wall. The ragged, malnourished men about him, their faces aflame with emotion, filled him with apprehension even though he understood their need to strike; without work or food he might do the same. When at last it was over and the men began to disperse, he knew he could no longer put off the need to face Wee Jack.

‘You saw the crowd?' Wee Jack laughed, effusive after his oratory, the blood still high in his face. He had changed only in a sharpening
of features, a more concentrated gaze, a receding hairline and a healthier tone to his skin. Howard stared into the same emotionless eyes and was thrown back into a bog of fear from which he thought he had struggled free.

‘There's a place down here that serves good toddy,' Wee Jack suggested affably, and Howard followed, unable to protest.

Night was already upon them and the alley full of dark shadows. In a cul-de-sac the liquor stall, stacked with earthenware toddy jars, released the raw smell of spirit. The cart was surrounded by labourers, who turned to observe Howard as he walked up with Wee Jack. When at last they were sitting on a low wall with the toddy, Howard sniffed at the cup apprehensively. The stuff had a strong and foul aroma; it smelled nothing like the toddy Lionel had brewed.

‘Whatever it is, it's alcohol,' Wee Jack said impatiently, seeing Howard's hesitation and tipping up his own glass. ‘There's to be a general strike; everyone is coming out – firemen, bus drivers, hospital workers, food hawkers, cabaret girls, trishaw riders; every union has given notice to their management. There's no work, no food, the cost of living is rising and the rice ration has been reduced to three
kati
a week. How can the people live?' Wee Jack demanded. He sat now in the office of the General Labour Union, organising its growing following of workers and expanding union power.

‘I'm a member of the Singapore City Committee,' he told Howard proudly. Any organisation Wee Jack was involved in, Howard was sure, must have communist sympathies.

‘Drink up. We're going to force constitutional change, bring about a world in which the workers have power,' Wee Jack picked up his cup and threw back the toddy. Howard too raised the thick glass to his lips and drank down the foul brew, aware of how obediently he followed Wee Jack's bidding, and he knew he must get away. As he stood up, the alcohol burned through him and his head began to spin.

‘We'll meet again soon.' Wee Jack laughed, as Howard took his leave.

The alley was full of potholes and for a while Howard stumbled forward, his head rolling and his innards on fire. Then his knees buckled beneath him and he fell, hitting his head on a stone. Vomit rose on his tongue and spewed out of him as he lay in the gutter
unable to move. He heard voices and the passing of feet near his head. Once or twice someone stopped, prodded him with a foot, turning him over, feeling in his pockets, and he knew he was being robbed. These wretched lanes were home to gangsters, hired killers and violent secret societies, besides prostitutes and thieves. He wondered lethargically if he would soon be murdered and, if he was, how long it would take for the news to reach Mei Lan. She had left the week before for England. He had gone to the dock to see her off on a ship that had seen better days. He thought of her now steaming over the ocean, and wondered when, if ever, he would see her again. He closed his eyes and knew nothing more. When he awoke again first light was breaking, and his face lay in a stinking pool of his own stale vomit. He stood up with difficulty, wiped his face with a handkerchief and stumbled on, eventually finding a rickshaw to take him home to Belvedere.

Howard lay half conscious on a mattress beside his mother's bed. A few yards away beyond a dividing curtain he could see Wilfred who, still physically weak and emotionally fragile, spent many hours of the day asleep. Rose had wanted to call a doctor when Howard returned, but Cynthia had pronounced that he would live.