In the Mouth of the Tiger (14 page)

‘You are a natural rider,' Denis said as we dismounted. ‘I'm very proud of you indeed.' Even the syce seemed to regard me with more respect, and I insisted on rubbing Lucky down myself to confirm my graduation as an equestrienne.

All that day I wandered about the salon in a happy daydream, dropping scissors (I was learning to cut under Tanya's eagle eye) and forgetting the simplest things. At one stage Tanya had clicked her tongue in annoyance but the new Nona just gave her a comfortable grin.

‘You are different, Nona,' Tanya said as we were closing down the salon. ‘I fear you really are in love with Denis.'

‘Why do you fear that I am in love?' I asked. We were speaking in Russian, as Tanya and I often did when the subject was at all personal. Mother never spoke Russian to me as she had a theory that it would give me an accent when I spoke in English.

‘I fear that this Denis will use you, and then throw you aside. I think that would kill you.'

I shook my head. ‘Denis will never leave me,' I said. ‘Not that he has promised anything. With Denis and I it is not like that. We take it for granted that eventually, as night follows day, we will be together for ever.'

Tanya shook her head sadly. ‘Dear Nona, you know so little about men. Of course he finds you fascinating. You are young, and fresh and different. He feels he can mould you, change you into what he wants. Turn a little hairdresser into a woman of his own class. But eventually he will tire of you. You do not have his sophistication, his knowledge of the world. He will wake up one morning and see you as you are. A hairdresser. And then he will look for another challenge to his masculinity.'

It was a long speech from Tanya, and I appreciated the intentions behind it. I put my hand on her arm affectionately. ‘Dear Tanya. If Denis does leave me, so be it. But it has been in my stars for a long time that I would love him. Since I was a frightened, lonely little girl in Penang. Even if I knew for certain that Denis was going to leave me I could not do anything to stop myself loving him. So please don't try and separate us. And don't warn me about the future. Don't lessen my happiness while I have it.'

She frowned thoughtfully, then seemed to make up her mind about
something. ‘Then let me help you to become the fascinating creature you are capable of being,' she said. ‘Tomorrow we will come in early and I will cut your schoolgirl hair, and curl it as befits a woman. Perhaps I will give you a tint as well. Will you trust me?'

The business took over an hour. Tanya cut my shoulder length hair into a bob – what we called in those days the Tomboy style. She shampooed it and tinted it, then curled it with heated tongs. When she showed me the result in the mirror, I almost laughed. It looked like a shorter version of Shirley Temple's famous mop top. By the time she had finished I had a furious headache but a glorious head of bouncing curls.

‘Now we must choose an appropriate make-up,' she said, looking at me critically. ‘Coral pink lipstick, I think, and just the hint of powder on the cheeks. Dust Rose, perhaps.'

When we got home for lunch, Mother pretended to be shocked. ‘What nonsense is this?' she asked. ‘You are perhaps planning to join a circus, Nona?' But I could tell by the way she touched the curls and stood back regarding me from several angles that she rather liked the result.

Or perhaps she thought I had gone to all that trouble for Tim Featherstone, and approved this evidence of continued interest in him.

Tim and I had arranged to go to the Botanical Gardens on Sunday for afternoon tea at the Lakeside Tea Shop. I had decided that he should be told that things had changed between us, that we would no longer be an ‘item', as the Hollywood magazines now put it. He had acted magnificently when I had cancelled our date the previous weekend, not asking any questions or making any churlish comments even though he was obviously puzzled and hurt. He deserved better than to learn from a third party that I was going out with Denis.

We were sitting under a broad canvas sun umbrella on the timber deck beside the lake when I broke the news. I took a deep breath, looked him squarely in the eye, and began my prepared speech. ‘Tim, I feel I should tell you . . .' But Tim put his hand up with a gentle gesture. ‘You don't have to say anything, Nona,' he said so softly I had to lean forward to hear him. ‘It's been brought home to me pretty clearly that you love Denis, and that won't leave you much time to tag around with me. I'm not going to make a fuss about it, darling. But can we still be friends? For ever and ever?'

I just sat there looking at this lovely man who had come into my life when I had so much needed a friend. So solid, and thoughtful, and trustworthy.
I didn't answer his question but grabbed the hand he still held up in the air and squeezed it with all my might. ‘For ever and ever, Tim. I promise.'

‘Hey, I still need that hand for golf, you know,' he grinned, but I noticed the suspicious brightness of his eyes and my answering grin was just as suspect.

Our tea tray arrived with dainty teacups, a little Royal Albert teapot, a plate of scones and bowls of jam and Devonshire cream.

‘Tell me about Denis,' I said, ‘unless it hurts you to talk about him.' I knew it was a little insensitive to quiz Tim about the man who had supplanted him but I was desperately curious and Tim knew Denis better than anyone else I knew.

‘Of course it doesn't hurt to talk about Denis,' Tim said forthrightly. ‘He is one of the finest persons I know, and if I have to lose you, it could not be to a better man.'

‘Is he a bounder with women?' I asked bluntly. ‘Some people have told me he has a bit of a reputation that way.'

Tim flushed. ‘That is absolute rubbish!' he said emphatically. ‘Denis is a perfect gentleman, straight out of the top drawer. Good public school – Taunton, I think – and the only reputation he has is as a first-rate sportsman and a fair-minded businessman. He's captain of both the rugger and cricket teams at the Selangor Club, he's played wing-forward for Malaya, and he's a first-rate shot.'

‘Has he broken any hearts?' I persisted.

Tim looked uncomfortable on such sensitive ground. ‘Oh, one or two ladies, old enough to know better, may have thrown themselves at him over the years,' he said, blushing slightly. ‘But Denis always behaved impeccably.' He changed the subject quickly. ‘He's the darling of the Scots here in KL, you know, which is pretty good evidence that he's a sound chap. The Scots won't tolerate a man who's bent in any way.'

Endorsement by the Scottish community in Malaya was worth something in the 1930s. The Scots had a fearsome reputation for Presbyterian rectitude. They had carved out a unique niche for themselves in the FMS, dominating both the rubber industry and trade. One in three planters was a Scot, and virtually all the successful trading firms – including Guthries, Dunlops, Swires and Jardines – had been established by dour, upright Scotsmen who had come East to win their fortunes.

‘Denis doesn't strike me as particularly Scottish,' I said.

‘The Elliotts are a Border family. As well as doing his degree up at Aberdeen, Denis played rugger for London Scottish and he's ridden with the Deeside Hunt.'

Then I turned a little pink myself. ‘Er . . . Denis has asked me to go up to Kuantan with him next weekend to do some sailing,' I said, looking intently at my shoes. ‘We'd be in a party staying with some people called the Hornungs. Do you know them at all?'

‘Everyone knows Roger and Evelyn. Roger is in the Malayan Civil Service, and virtually runs Pahang single-handed. And Evelyn is the sweetest hostess on the peninsula. There would be nothing underhand, I can assure you.'

Tim's endorsement took a load off my mind. Denis had asked me to join him for the Kuantan weekend after our last ride and of course I had accepted without hesitation. But I knew Mother would put the worst possible construction on the outing and I wanted to soften the blow for her as much as I could. ‘Would you tell all that to Mother when we get home?' I asked. ‘She can get some funny ideas but she trusts your judgement implicitly.'

Just for a second Tim looked annoyed. ‘I know we're only friends, Nona, but I did once have my hopes. You're asking me to help Denis in his campaign for your heart. I think that's a little unfair.'

Of course it was unfair and I grabbed his hand again. ‘I was making use of you, Tim. I'm terribly sorry. I won't do it again.' I got up and dragged Tim up with me. ‘Let me take you to my special place.'

We stood holding hands in the centre of my little patch of jungle. It was silent, full of mystery, and as gloomy as twilight even though it was still the middle of the afternoon. ‘I love it here, Tim,' I said, ‘but I'm frightened, too. How can I love it and be frightened at the same time?'

Tim looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I think the thought of danger excites you, Nona. That's probably why you are so attracted to Denis. He has that aura, hasn't he? That's why you asked all those questions about him – because you're just a little frightened.' A trace of bitterness entered his voice. ‘He's the tiger and I'm the tabby cat.'

‘I love tabby cats,' I said. ‘But just while we're in here, pretend to be a tiger.'

He wrapped me in his arms and kissed me comprehensively. It was easily the best kiss we had ever shared.

Tim did raise the Kuantan trip with Mother when we got back home,
despite his earlier comment. Or perhaps because of it. ‘Mrs Roberts,' he said as we were all seated in cane chairs on the verandah, ‘I think Nona is very lucky to be invited to stay with the Hornungs.'

‘Why do you tell me this?' Mother asked quickly. ‘I know nothing of any such invitation. Why doesn't my little girl tell me these things?'

‘Oh, I've only just been invited,' I said airily. ‘It's a house party over at Kuantan.'

‘Over at Kuantan? On the other side of Malaya? Why go so far for a house party? What is wrong with a house party in KL?'

‘We'll be sailing out to the islands,' I said. ‘And anyway, Kuantan is where the Hornungs live.'

‘They're the nicest people,' Tim cut in breezily. ‘Roger is the civil administrator in that part of the world, and Evelyn is the best hostess outside of Parry Drive.'

‘How do you know these people?' Mother asked suspiciously, and I sighed. It wasn't going to be as easy as I had hoped, even with Tim's help.

But in fact it was as easy as I could have hoped, because Tanya, who was now thoroughly my friend, stepped in on my side. ‘Julia,' she said severely, ‘you must accept that your little girl has grown up. Tim would not approve anything that was not – how do you put it? – above board.'

That's not to say that she didn't explode when it came out – as it had to – that Denis was driving me over to Kuantan. But it was a rather dispirited explosion, muted by Tim's presence, and afterwards she made my favourite biscuits, cheese straws, as a peace offering.

The following day a bulky letter from the Convent was waiting for me when I arrived home. I knew that it was bad news even before I opened it, and my heart sank when I saw my own letter to Sister Felice enclosed. The covering letter from Mother Superior was short and to the point. Sister Felice had died in her sleep a few months after I had left the school, and was ‘at peace with God, her earthly remains interred in the place reserved for Sisters of the Order of the Holy Infant Jesus in the Cathedral cemetery'.

I had told Sister Felice that I would write regularly to her from KL, even touching my heart as I had made the promise. But I hadn't, and as a result she had died without knowing anything of my life in KL, or of my continuing love for her.

I cried, sitting quietly in my room and trying to stifle the sobs. We didn't have a piano at Parry Drive, so I couldn't ease my guilt by playing her favourite
tunes for her. So I made a promise to myself instead. Never again would I leave someone behind in my journey through life as I had left her behind. I would always find some way to carry them forward with me, even if it was only in a symbolic sense. How I could do that for Sister Felice I did not know, but I had a vague idea I might study and write about French history and her beloved Cardinal Richelieu, and dedicate my work to her.

Sister Felice's death cast a shadow that lasted all week, and I was still a little melancholy on Friday morning, the day of our trip. The run to Kuantan, over the mountainous spine of Malaya and through the jungles of Pahang, would take four or five hours and Denis had arranged to collect me from the salon about midday so that we would arrive in daylight. He could see I was a little down as I came out to the car with my overnight bag over my shoulder, and put an arm around me. ‘Not in the mood for a silly jaunt?' he asked quietly. ‘It's a jolly long way and if you'd prefer I could phone Roger and tell him we've had to stay in KL for the weekend.'

‘If you cancel this trip on me, Denis, I'll have you chucked into the Klang River with concrete boots,' I said in my best American gangster voice. ‘So let's hit the gas.'

We roared up and over the Main Range with the Alvis growling like a well-bred tiger and were soon descending into Pahang, with the rich green jungle of the lowlands crowding the road and the air full of butterflies. We stopped for a late picnic lunch just before Mentekab, and then pushed on. As we approached the East Coast the steamy air grew cooler, and the wall of jungle gave way to open paddy fields and graceful rows of nipah palms.

We picked up some fruit at the Cold Storage shop at Kuantan before taking the Coast Road north to Berserah where the Hornungs lived. Denis felt that fresh European fruit – apples and oranges – were more appreciated as an arrival gift than flowers in a country where flowers were ten a penny and English-style fruit as scarce as hens' teeth.

The Hornungs' home was right on the beach, a large, double-storeyed structure with a pillared porch out the front and surrounded by wellmanicured gardens. The magnificence of the place made me catch my breath, and I was so nervous getting out of the car that I spilled the bag of fruit I'd been carrying on my lap. It was a dreadful moment, with the houseboy scrabbling about at my feet collecting apples and oranges as Denis introduced me to our hosts. Roger and Evelyn looked like a couple out of the
Tatler
, Roger tall and elegant in a white sharkskin suit, Evelyn slim
and dainty in an expensive-looking creation made up of different coloured silks.