Separation, The (6 page)

I woke up to a frozen jungle, the windowpanes iced with giant white lotus blossoms. Cold seeped round the frames and under the door. I shivered and my breath rose in clouds. It made no difference if the window was closed or not, so I opened it, heard pigeons coo in the neighbour’s garden, and stretched my neck to catch a glimpse of them on the ridge of the pigeon house.

Opposite, a field lined with brown ridges went all the way to the church, with a row of black trees behind. You could see the spire poke up above the other buildings. I called Fleur to come and look, but she’d already gone to find Dad.

Downstairs, Granddad Cartwright patted us on the back, and Gran wiped away her tears. Gran was small and round. She nodded and smiled a lot, had deep blue raisin eyes with crinkles at the sides, and wore a complicated thing on top of her blouse and skirt. It went over her shoulders and round the sides and did up with strings. She called it a pinny, and it made her kind of baggy looking. She wore slippers and had fine grey hair, pins falling out at funny angles. Not a bit smart like Mummy.

Granddad was old too, with a shock of white hair. He made a painful sounding wheeze as he moved and he had black hairs sprouting from his nostrils, and big brown liver spots on his hands.

They showed us round the house. It had brown flowery wallpaper, carpets the colour of sick, and so much furniture there wasn’t any room to play. The kitchen was Gran’s world, the only cheery room, and she beamed as she pointed out the brightly coloured pictures of chickens and pigs on the wallpaper. Granny was proud of the house, though there wasn’t much to see. Just a square semi-detached, down a country lane
in Rampton, Worcestershire. What it did have was an enormous garden, surrounding the three sides of the house that were not joined to the house next door. At the back, a wire fence separated the garden from the field.

In the only room with a fire, I asked Granny where the servants’ quarters were. She clapped her hands together, wiped her eyes with her pinny, and dug Granddad in the chest.

‘Goodness, ducks, the only servant you’ll find here is me. Isn’t that so, Eric?’ Eric was Granddad, and he nodded and sat in the chair smoking his pipe.

Fleur nudged me and whispered behind her hand. ‘We’re not ducks, are we, Em? Why does she call us that?’

I shushed her, and my eyes fixed on a tin of boiled sweets on the shelf. Gran saw me look, gave us some, and kept giving us more, forgetting how many we’d had.

‘Do you the world of good,’ she said.

‘What are you on about, Mother?’ Dad said.

She made a gentle tutting sound.

‘Too much sugar spoils kids’ appetites.’ He loosened his tie. ‘And it’s too hot in here. Don’t you know coal smoke’s bad for Fleur. She needs fresh air. Look, she’s already coughing.’

Fleur gave an obliging cough.

‘No need to get aerated,’ Granddad protested.

Dad turned on him. ‘You have no right to a say.’

‘Now, now,’ Gran said. ‘You don’t want to drag all that up again. Least said, soonest mended.’

Granddad looked away, but I noticed Dad’s lips tighten and he stomped off.

Once he’d gone we sat on the doorstep, playing a game with Daddy’s old tiddlywinks and eating sweet cigarettes, while keeping an eye on the street. I pretended I was smoking real cigarettes, until it got too much and I had to chew. We watched a boy come cycling up the street. His bike was too big and he had to stand to ride it. He wobbled a lot, because of wide baskets attached to each side, and a lovely smell of baking followed
as he called at every house. When he stopped at ours, Fleur shouted for Granny.

I stared hard at him, wanting very much to like him. He was skinny, wore a cap on his head, and had teeth too big for his mouth. But he had smiley brown eyes, and a nose dotted with freckles. When he grinned you forgot about the teeth, because they fitted better.

The next day we started school. I didn’t ask Father again, but I wished Mum was with us and couldn’t wait for her to come. I wondered if she’d got back to our house in Malacca, and if she’d read my letter yet. It was always Mummy who had made everything okay. In my grandparents’ house, she would have been the smile that said goodbye in the hallway. And at our school, I imagined her waiting outside and waving, while we ate iced buns and were forced to swallow freezing milk in miniature bottles.

At playtime there was a buzz when someone from my class overheard me say to Fleur the iced bun was stale. The baker’s boy spun round with a furious face, and without his cap. I saw his hair was badly cropped, with a few tufts left on top.

‘They’re lovely, they are. Not stale,’ he said.

‘They are too. We had better ones in Malaya. Nyonya cakes, and lovely Chinese kuehs.’ I thought of the sweet rice cakes, and my mouth watered.

‘Oooh, Malaya, is it? Where’s that when the cows come home?’

Hands on hips, I stood my ground, though I was shaking inside. ‘In the east if you must know. And we didn’t have horrible frozen milk either. We had freshly crushed sugar cane juice, or coconut milk.’

‘Why don’t you go back there then? We don’t want you here. Stuck up, you are. You’re not even English. You’re an immigrunt.’

A little group of kids gathered round to chant in sing-song voices. ‘Immigrunt. Immigrunt. Back to where you came from.’

Fleur burst into tears, but I grabbed a fistful of the boy’s tufts,
and yanked as I yelled in his face. ‘I’m as bloody English as you are, tuft head!’

We landed on the ground, kicking and pulling at each other. The other children whistled and laughed, and shoved each other to get a better look. I got hold of his jumper and tugged. He grabbed my tunic and I heard it rip at the back. Oh no, I thought, Gran’ll kill me.

‘Fight. Fight,’ the others shouted. ‘Come on, Billy. You show ’er.’

We rolled around a bit, but the noise died down when the head teacher loomed over us, blocking the light. I looked into his pigpink face, while his voice crashed into the silence.

‘Emma Cartwright, you can’t behave like a savage here,’ he said. ‘This is England.’

He came so close I saw red veins in the whites of his eyes.

The boy got a clip round the ear and a beetroot face, and I had five ruler smacks on the palm of my hand. I didn’t cry and I wasn’t scared. I was angry.

The girls were worse, sniggering behind their hands, skipping and chanting, or juggling balls, and not letting me join in. They gave me mean looks, then turned away and talked in loud voices. I blinked away tears and stuck my nose in the air, though I suppose with tanned skin and hair lightened by the sun, I was different. In any case, they hated me for it, talked over me in class, pushed me to the back of the queue at lunchtime, and at the end of the day they stood in my way, hands on hips. They were nicer to Fleur because she was really good at skipping.

At home, Dad announced he’d had a letter from Veronica, and she wanted to come to tea one Saturday. I didn’t know what Mum would think of that. I quite liked Veronica, but what if she brought her brother? I asked my father, but he told me not to be nosy. Father and she were friends, Gran said. Veronica had a flat in London, but she rented a cottage in a village called Drake Broughton, about fifteen miles from Cheltenham. She liked
Cheltenham and might sell her London flat to buy one there. Gran looked very impressed, when she told us Veronica had
private means
.

When I was in bed that night, no longer safe beneath a mosquito net, I thought of Mummy. I imagined her sitting beside me like she used to, singing ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’
.
It always sent me into laughing hiccups, because in Malaya it was so hot. It made more sense here.

Though I hadn’t cried in the playground, I cried in bed after Fleur was asleep. Gran heard me and tiptoed in. She gave me a hug when I told her about being left out.

‘Giving you the cold shoulder, is it?’ She screwed up her eyes and her chubby cheeks went even rounder. ‘I know, ducks,’ she said, nodding and lifting up my wild hair. ‘We’ll make you look the same as them. With bells on. You’ll see. Now sleep tight.’

‘Is Mr Oliver coming to tea too?’ I asked, before she left.

‘He might be. He’s staying with Veronica, while he looks for a new position abroad.’

I crossed my fingers, hoping he’d find a job quickly, before he had a chance to come to tea.

Under the hot sun, Lydia couldn’t bear to see the lifeless bodies still tied to the tree, their heads rolling forward like abandoned puppets. She turned away, but something about the horror drew her back, as if only by looking could she convince herself that what had happened was real. Maznan whimpered, and Lydia fought her instinct to pass out at the smell of blood. She pulled the boy closer to her, wrapped her arms round him and brushed away the flies settling on his skin. He buried his face in her dress, and she lifted her eyes to the sky to say a silent prayer.

The rebels approached. She took a step back when one of them cupped the child’s chin in the palm of his hand. She attempted to pull the child back with her, but Maznan stood his ground, wiped his eyes, and stared at the man. She saw the man was small and gaunt, his eyes sunken, the deep lines on his face blackened with grime. She heard the drone of insects behind his head, then at either side of him. The sound moved closer. She felt dizzy, closed her eyes. Now, it was inside in her head. Buzzing. Buzzing. She opened her eyes, looked at the man’s face again, cringed at the open hatred in his eyes.

He muttered to the other, and lifted his gun. She made out only one heavily accented word, ‘English.’ She held her breath, forced herself to stand tall, despite legs that threatened to buckle. The other, a stockier-looking man, with puckered skin on his cheek, took a step towards her. Clearly the boss, he shook his head, and pushed her against a broad-trunked tree. Her breath caught – for a moment she considered resisting, but noticed the child give a slight shake to his head and appear to acquiesce. She followed his lead and squeezed his hand. While the stocky man roped them both to the tree, she tried to make out the expression
on his face. It was blank. The thin man tied the Indian woman beside them. The stocky man stepped away.

Her muscles constricted, and her throat was so dry that she couldn’t swallow. Would they kill the boy too? Would it be now? Should she beg for his life, for her life too, plead for her daughters’ sake. But the Indian woman put a finger to her lips. As Lydia closed her eyes, memories flashed through her mind. Fair-haired, snub-nose Fleur, squinting up from the table. Em racing in with a banana spider in a jar.

The thin man lowered his rifle and moved close to Lydia, so close she smelt his sour breath. As she felt the cool tip of the rifle against her leg, she forced herself not to scream. He slowly lifted the hem of her dress with the rifle. She froze. With his other hand he touched the bare skin beneath her collar bone, slid a finger down between her breasts. She noticed Maznan was staring at the ground, and for a moment did the same, but glanced up as the stocky man returned. He waved the smaller man aside and grinned at her, then pushed her head back against the tree and held her by the throat, just beneath the chin. She felt his hand tighten, the fingers digging into her flesh. With his other hand he made a cutthroat movement across her neck. Her heart twisted, and she bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she finally pleaded to be spared.

But the man immediately spun away from her, and she gasped as he fired two shots at the front tyres of the bus. With hands on hips he rocked with laughter. Lydia watched the wide-eyed shock of the few remaining occupants as the bus tilted, then jerked them about as if they were at the funfair.

She caught the flash of colour as a pair of blue-crowned parrots flew past into the trees. Beyond them, a troupe of suddenly silent, long-nosed monkeys viewed the spectacle from high branches. What little remained of the clear morning was fast disappearing behind black clouds, and in the stinking air the world seemed to stand still. She gulped and closed her eyes. Naive she’d
been. Reckless. Now everything was at stake, nothing mattered but her girls. Nothing.

She came back to the smell of blood and urine. To the unearthly cackle of hornbills, and the Chinese barking orders.

The boy spoke softly. ‘Do not worry, Mem,’ he said, in precise English. ‘They will not kill us.’

She held her breath.

‘And they have not set the bus on fire.’ Tongue loosened by the shock, it was the most he’d said so far.

The boy was right. The men crossed the road, slashed the
lallang
between tall trees, and edged back into the fringes of the jungle, glancing behind to jeer at the two corpses they dragged, heads bouncing on the ground. The remaining people climbed off the bus. Faces pale, eyes dark, they stepped over slippery trails of blood, speaking in whispers, and lifting their shoulders in bewilderment.

The Indian woman freed herself, then worked on releasing Lydia and the child. In answer to Lydia’s puzzled expression she said, ‘All show. These days they do not kill women and children. They need our help.’

‘But the ones they killed?’

‘Traitors.’

Maznan wandered off, and Lydia, trembling with relief, turned to see him hunched up and talking with a group of Malays from the bus. Without any warning she vomited into the bushes.

As she wiped her face with her skirt, the child ran across.

‘This man knows the way to a village,’ he said in a rush. He smiled at her, their shared ordeal uniting them. ‘Come.’

A quick look at the Indian woman was rewarded with a grin. ‘Go. He takes those others too.’

‘What about you?’

The woman shrugged. ‘God’s will. Another bus tomorrow.’

The fear had been replaced by an overwhelming feeling of fatigue, and doubt fogged Lydia’s mind. From force of habit, she glanced around for her girls, but of course, they had gone ahead.
Should she stay and wait for another bus, and whatever other dangers might lie in wait? Or should she just go with the child? It’d be too dangerous to remain on the road once night fell, especially if this was a curfew area. Maznan stood waiting, one hand outstretched.

‘You look after me: I look after you,’ he said with a shy grin.

‘Deal,’ she said, and took his hand.

At least he was talking, and now the terror was over, it seemed they were in it together.

As the straggly group veered off the road a little, the monkeys set off howling and screeching again. Lydia looked back over her shoulder for a moment, still uncertain, her scalp itching, and sweat pouring from her head. She smelt the sickly scent of wild climbing orchids, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and her stomach turned over. She wiped her hairline, and tried to appear calm for the sake of the child, but there was no way of knowing if the man was leading them into a trap.