She stood perfectly still as it found the flowers and settled. How she wished Alan would come just at that moment! She listened, tense with excitement, then slowly she stretched out an arm and dropped the leaves out of the window. Still the butterfly found nectar in the blossoms and gently so as not to disturb it, she walked around the room to the door.
‘Look,’ she would say, ‘everyone can arrange flowers, but not everyone can arrange to have a butterfly.’
She glanced at her watch; he was late, a little late, fifteen minutes past nine. She wondered if her mother was up yet, whether she had been missed and how her mother might see this liaison. Like the squire’s daughter meeting the proverbial gardener behind the pigsty, probably. An old-fashioned view, now the war had, she thought, largely levelled out the class structure — a levelling for the worse and downwards as far as Blanche was concerned. Liz could not, she reflected wryly, have imagined such as George Harfield among her mother’s invited company before the war. The war had changed values, made people, even young people, aware of their brief lives.
After a few more minutes she fetched the bundle of banana leaves which she had stowed in the old kitchen and brushed the front step so she could sit down to wait. The revolver she had carried in her slacks pocket she placed on the step beside her and listened. She knew by the behaviour of the birds and the monkeys that there was no one about. She watched a chameleon, green as the leaves it stood among, as it waited for the insects to come within reach of its swift, long tongue.
What could possibly be making him late? Had someone like the major come to see him? Tomorrow perhaps — but not today! This was only their first full day of life as lovers.
She picked up the revolver and went back to the lounge. The butterfly rose as she entered, circled the flowers but then settled again. She went back to the step.
He was three-quarters of an hour after the time they had arranged. How long should she wait before going back? She remembered him being called to the phone just before they sat down for breakfast, but this was not unusual. It had happened several times, routine instructions regarding his radio watch, usually. When he came back to the table that morning he had merely smiled and said, ‘More red tape.’
She listened to the lesser sounds of the jungle — the birds, the insects. She peered around as she had not had time to do since she was a child here. It was like renewing acquaintanceship with old friends. She could make out the brilliant blue fluorescence of dung beetles under the leaf mould, the angular green praying mantis and along the old path to Rinsey an awesome column of soldier ants. Anna had taught her a healthy respect for these red, nearly inch-long carnivores. They marched in a meticulous line down the trunk of a tree, across the path and up a tree trunk on the other side, like guardsmen under orders — she wondered if their leader’s name was Sturgess.
Where are you, Alan? What is keeping you? She wondered if Anna had woken yet. If her amah had been anything like her old self Liz would certainly not have been able to slip away like this. But Anna, like her mother, had been sleeping in, while her grandson at George’s suggestion had been taken by one of the tappers, who had a son the same age, to join the school run by Kampong Kinta.
She finally allowed herself another look at her watch. It was an hour and twenty minutes after their appointed time. She rose and went back into the lounge.
The butterfly was fluttering along the walls looking for a way out. It panicked as she entered banging itself with audible thumps at its prison. She watched for a moment or two, then went over and, as it settled momentarily within her reach, gently cupped her two hands around it.
She could feel it struggling in the dark of her palms. She held it for a second or two longer, knowing it was like her heart, dark with fear of the unknown. Then she took it to the window and opened her hands. For a moment it rested before taking to the air, rising up into the clear sky.
‘Gone,’ she breathed.
Liz went first to Alan’s hut. She felt her heart burst in anguish as she stood in the doorway. It was as if no one had ever been there. All the bedding was gone, the wireless was gone and even as she stood there some of the tappers came, carrying pieces of furniture.
‘We have best hut now,’ one of them told her with a broad smile.
‘But the soldier?’ she asked.
‘Gone, miss.’ The grin was wider. ‘Have our home back now.’
Her heartache was such that she wanted to lash out and on the tip of her tongue was the sentiment that they could have their bloody country back too.
Fighting hard to discipline tears of disappointment and anger, she approached the kitchen door, determined to find out exactly when Alan had been sent for, where he had been ordered to go and by whom — though the last was not too much of a problem.
The sound of John Sturgess’s voice as she approached the back door infuriated her and banished immediately any tears. How dare he still be here if he’d sent Alan away? She was about to burst into the kitchen and confront this Jekyll-and-Hyde character when she heard her mother’s raised voice.
‘Rape! For God’s sake!’
Liz stood transfixed, hand raised in the act of opening the door. Inside, her mother had also paused as if to try to understand what she herself had exclaimed, then repeated with terrifying anger, ‘Rape!’
Liz stepped away from the door. Is this what they believed? Was Alan in prison? Had he been arrested? Was that where he had gone? ‘No!’ she exclaimed and went quickly in, ready to defend and absolve her lover.
Her mother and John Sturgess both turned to look at her, but their eyes had that look of being focused elsewhere. She felt she just caught Alan’s defence in her teeth, as she realised there was no accusation for him, or for her. This was some quite other problem.
As if to reinforce her impression Blanche turned sharply away, walked across to the sink and
threw
the glass she held with some force into the washing-up bowl. Liz heard it crack. John Sturgess winced and held his teeth askew, obviously not quite sure what to say next for the best.
‘Rape? Did I hear the word?’ Liz asked.
‘Yes.’ Sturgess frowned and looked at his feet. ‘I’m sorry about that — ’
‘George Harfield has been arrested in Ipoh for rape!’ Blanche burst out. ‘Did you ever hear anything so bloody senseless in all your life?’
The extraordinary news so overwhelmed them all that Liz knew her own misunderstanding had passed unnoticed. She took hold of a chairback to steady herself as John Sturgess revealed the reason for his swift reappearance in full jungle-green kit and laced jungle boots.
‘The trouble is time. I have to make a quick visit to my headquarters, then we need a final briefing before our next operation, which must begin promptly or we’ll lose all the advantages of the raid on your amah’s village. We have more information than we dared hope for. I just
cannot
take time to go and see George, but neither can I just leave things — we go back too far together.’
‘How can we help?’ Blanche asked.
‘All I know is the charge and that he was taken to Ipoh police station. I … ’
In the pause Liz thought he looked like a man doing his duty against the odds. An honourable pose? She wondered.
‘I know it’s an awful presumption, particularly at this moment,’ he went on, ‘definitely not a good time.’
‘Shouldn’t think there’s ever a good time to be charged with rape,’ Blanche retorted; then, looking at Liz, she nodded and confirmed, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll go. We’ll sort it out!’
‘Find out all you can. I didn’t know who else I could ask … ’
‘We’ll be glad to do something for George,’ Liz replied. With unplanned swiftness and dishonesty she added, ‘Could you do something for me in return? I have a book belonging to the guardsman who was here. Could I ask you to return it for me?’
‘Cresswell!’ There was something between censure and surprise in the exclamation. ‘I do have to leave straight away.’
She nearly commented that he often seemed to have to rush off — when duty called — and take his men whether they were willing or not. ‘I’ll fetch it from my room at once,’ she said, turning away so he should not see her satisfaction. At least she had extracted the tacit information that the major was going to be seeing Alan again, so presumably they were going on the same operation.
Liz went to her room, her mind racing over what she could send to him and what it might mean if she did. Picking up a slim book titled
New
Zealand
Poets
, she found a clean flyleaf and swiftly in bold outlines she sketched the figure of an anonymous guardsman in jungle gear with rifle, standing in a far from anonymous empty room. As an afterthought she added, ‘Waiting to hear’ as a kind of caption. She dared do no more and take no more time. She slipped the book into an envelope and took it back to the kitchen where the major was preparing to leave.
She held it out. ‘Of course, if Mr Cresswell was coming back here, I need not trouble you?’
He reached for the book. ‘There will be no call for any of my men to be at Rinsey now you have your own guards organised.’
‘Thanks to George,’ Blanche said.
‘But I shall come again as soon as I’m able,’ he added.
Liz returned his coldly questioning stare without, she hoped, giving away her true feelings, but something flickered in his eyes like a camera lens as if he had registered an impression for future use.
He left as Anna came into the kitchen.
‘I do washing now, mem,’ she said. When Blanche protested, she said, ‘No, I want to, be busy, please, mem. You fetch towels and you,’ she said to Liz, ‘your dirties, please.’
‘I’m going to telephone for a car to take us to Ipoh first,’ Blanche said.
Anna watched Blanche go, then beckoned Liz back, whispering, ‘Your young man, he touch pocket with your photo in and nod to me to tell you what happened.’ She paused to throw up her hands like a magician producing a rabbit. ‘He had no time to do anything. That major come and — ’ she paused to stand with her hands on her hips and, curving down her lip, went on in tones of extreme bossiness, ‘said pack
now
, would answer no questions and did not leave for one second. All pack and gone in ten minutes. I think that major — ’ she made a significant downward thrust of her thumb — ‘but I think young man you give your photo to ... ’ She gave thumbs up and nodded sagely.
Liz embraced Anna. ‘Did he say anything at all?’
‘No time. Major no answer questions, no speak, only orders: Do this! Do that! Now!’
‘Thanks, Anna.’ In the background she could hear her mother negotiating very loudly for a car. ‘You won’t tell … ’
Anna shook her head. They had shared too many secrets for there to be any need to spell out what should not be told to whom.
‘What we’re getting, basically, is a taxi,’ Blanche said, coming back, ‘as far as Ipoh, anyway, then we can talk to the man at the garage ourselves and buy something.’
Liz nodded and the two exchanged looks which acknowledged the fact that they really had no man to advise them now.
‘Anna.’ Her mother’s tone softened. ‘Will you be all right on your own here?’
Anna gave a rough, short laugh. ‘Mem, I’m safer here than I’ve been since the end of the war, with that Josef coming and going to see them communists — using my house! I’m
glad
it burned down!’
‘Oh, Anna!’ Liz was quietly appalled that anyone should be driven to wish their home destroyed. ‘But your home is here now, isn’t it, Mother?’
‘We will always see you’re provided for,’ Blanche agreed, then asked, ‘Would you tell us more about all those years while we wait for this car?’
‘That boy Josef was always greedy for more and more,’ Anna began as they sat at the table. ‘The Guisans move here when you all left.’
‘Into the bungalow?’ Blanche demanded, and Anna nodded confirmation.
‘Not the Japanese?’
‘Them too, later.’ Anna went on, ‘I went home to my village. Then there was much killing by the Japanese — my family, Mr Guisan ... Long time, years, before I see Josef again. Mrs Guisan and Lee came once to see me after her husband shot slashing trees so Japanese cannot have rubber. I have never seen since.’ The old lady paused and the incomprehension on her face was echoed in both her listeners’ minds.
‘Josef said his mother was a traitor in the war — ’
‘Josef traitor now,’ Anna commented matter-of-factly before going on with her story. ‘At first it was all buddies using my home to leave messages for Chinese fighting in the jungle against the Japanese. Then I thought we were all helping Mr Hammond win the war.’ She paused to sip the sweet lemon tea Liz had made for her. ‘But I knew he really wicked when Mr Hammond come back. Josef he so,
so
angry.’ She shook her fists in the air to emphasise the point.
‘Why should he be angry, for God’s sake?’ Blanche asked.
‘Josef thought he was new tuan until Mr Hammond came back.’ Anna nodded with deep conviction. ‘Soon then the communists with the red stars on their hats came to village and demanded money to pay their soldiers. I told I must store things in my roof — and hide terrorists — or they would kill grandchild and cut out tongue, make me “dum-dum amah”. They laughed about that; one caught and twisted tongue out, pretended slice off.’ Anna’s voice fell as she admitted, ‘I very afraid.’
Liz remembered her visit and how the old lady had refused to speak. ‘Anna, I’m so sorry, we didn’t know ... how awful!’
‘The bastards!’ Blanche breathed.
‘They gave me papers to give out, but ... ’ She stopped and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never ... I let them burn in house, all but one in pocket.’
‘Papers?’ Blanche queried.
Anna fumbled in the pocket of her sarong and brought out a folded leaflet.
Blanche took it, spread it out on the table and read:
The Min Yuen, the masses’ movement of the Malayan Communist Party, call for all members to prepare for more effective violence. The people cannot tolerate British imperialist suppression any longer and are pledged to use action to smash their reactionary legal restrictions.
We drove the Japanese out when the British ran away. Now it is time for us to drive out the imperialists.
DEATH TO THE RUNNING DOGS!
‘Where do these papers come from?’ Liz asked. ‘Where are they printed?’
‘Josef brings them out of the jungle,’ Anna answered, ‘is all I know.’
‘We should ask Joan about the best guns to get,’ Blanche said thoughtfully, ‘and where’s best for us to set them up.’
‘I should learn shoot,’ Anna said.
The laugh that rose in Liz’s throat at the thought was silenced as her mother answered, ‘Yes.’
In the back of the Sikh-driven hire car Liz asked whether her mother thought Anna would be able to settle again at Rinsey.
‘She gives every sign of knowing her role will be different.’ Blanche’s tone was brisk, unsentimental, as if she was already preparing herself to deal with the authorities in Ipoh.
‘We mustn’t ever, ever let her down again,’ Liz urged. ‘She’s been through too much.’
‘Again! I didn’t think we ever had.’
‘No, perhaps not … ’
‘Definitely not.’ Blanche settled the matter and went on to what was before them. ‘You know it’ll be that same precise little Inspector Aba. Well, we can deal with him!’
‘No problem,’ Liz agreed and put her fingertips together in the fastidious manner of the Ipoh police commander before asking, ‘Do you think the police will be involved in this latest thing Major Sturgess is planning?’
‘No idea, though with this being an “emergency” and not a declared war they are the ultimate authority, so quite probably. Why?’
‘I wondered how busy the inspector might be.’ Be still my heart and my conscience, she ordered. The silent yearning to know where Alan was and what the new mission involved quite blotted out what her mother was saying, though it sounded like a mighty tirade.
When they arrived at the police station and walked inside, the man behind the desk rose and backed up a step as Blanche demanded, ‘Is the inspector in?’
‘Inspector Aba busy, can I help you?’ the man asked hesitantly, obviously recognising them from their last visit. He appeared somewhat flustered as at that moment they all heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.
The inspector came in, holding out a handful of blown-up photographs. He looked, Liz thought, as if he wished he had the courage to spin on his heel when her mother waylaid him in no uncertain manner.
‘Ah, Inspector Aba, just in time! We may be just the people you need to save you a lot of trouble. We can take Mr Harfield home with us.’
‘Mrs Hammond.’ His features spelled resignation as he bowed in the direction of Liz and her mother. With a little shrug, as if he had absolutely no alternative, he said, ‘Perhaps you should come into my office.’ He ushered them towards the stairs, then went back to speak rapidly to the man behind the desk. The withering tone of his voice was so different it sounded like quite another man.
‘This ludicrous charge against Mr Harfield,’ Blanche began as the inspector closed the door of his upstairs office.
Inspector Aba held up a hand. ‘Madam,’ he began, ‘Mrs Hammond, I do not have to speak to you, but out of respect for your grief I do so. Mr Harfield is, however, held under damning evidence so damning I could not possibly release him.’
Liz could see her mother was shocked but she did not give up. She was insisting that bail be arranged when Liz noticed the photographs that lay on top of the inspector’s pad of blot-ting paper. They were blown-up photographs of a Chinese girl’s face. One eye was swollen, one lip split and bleeding, and there seemed to be marks on the girl’s neck. She could see one photograph underneath was of the upper legs; these bore marks as if clawed by an animal. She swallowed and looked away so quickly that Inspector Aba turning his glance to her momentarily, did not realise she had seen.
Was this the girl George Harfield was supposed to have raped? Someone had viciously attacked her, that was for sure.
‘I cannot believe you are actually going to keep him locked up,’ Blanche went on. ‘He has a mine to run! His people rely on him. Surely he can prove he was not there?’
‘Mem! He was there.’ The Inspector seemed to become aware again of the photographs under his hands, for the fingers were suddenly spread and still over the glossy prints. For a moment Liz thought he was going to display them, but instead he picked them up, levelled the stack with a quick tap on the desk and slid them into a drawer. ‘We had a call and he was found in the room with this distressed girl.’
‘Then we’d like to see him,’ Blanche demanded, taking hold of her handbag and preparing to rise. ‘And arrange for him to consult a lawyer?’
‘His solicitor has been. All the business has been done, all statements taken and Mr Harfield was transferred to Pudu Gaol, Kuala Lumpur, early today.’
Blanche rose, all formal courtesies forgotten now. ‘All damned quick, isn’t it? All a bit cut and dried, isn’t it? Does the British high commissioner know?’
‘He is being informed.’
‘Is being? George Harfield fought in the jungles against the Japs for you lot, is this how you reward him?’
‘I know Mr Harfield before the war,’ the inspector said with some quiet dignity, though Liz noticed his fingertips shook a little as he meticulously put them together. ‘I was there, Mrs Hammond, when the arrest was made — the girl who accuses him is the daughter of one of his foremen. At Pudu Gaol they have facilities for visiting; you must apply there in a few days’ time. Until then ... ’ The fingertips pressed together until the ends were noticeably paler. ‘Regulations must be kept and rules obeyed.’