Ah King (28 page)

“Well, which is it to be?” said the Captain after a while. “Made your choice yet?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I’ll just wait and see you settled and then I’ll fix myself up.”

“Oh, I don’t want either of them. I’m going home to bed.”

“Why, what’s the matter? You’re not scared, are you?”

“No, I just don’t fancy it. But don’t let me stand in your way. I’ll get back to the hotel all right.”

“Oh, if you’re not going to do anything I won’t either. I only wanted to be matey.”

He spoke to the middle-aged woman and what he said caused the girls to look at Neil with sudden surprise. She answered and the Captain shrugged his shoulders. Then one of the girls made a remark that set them all laughing.

“What does she say?” asked Neil.

“She’s pulling your leg,” replied the Captain, smiling.

But he gave Neil a curious look. The girl, having made them laugh once, now said something directly to Neil. He could not understand, but the mockery of her eyes made him blush and frown. He did not like to be made fun of. Then she laughed outright and throwing her arm round his neck lightly kissed him.

“Come on, let’s be going,” said the Captain.

When they dismissed their rickshaws and walked into the hotel Neil asked him:

“What was it that girl said that made them all laugh?”

“She said you were a virgin.”

“I don’t see anything to laugh at in that,” said Neil, with his slow Scots accent.

“Is it true?”

“I suppose it is.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Till I marry.”

The Captain was silent. At the top of the stairs he held out his hand. There was a twinkle in his eyes when he bade the lad good night, but Neil met it with a level, candid, and untroubled gaze.

Three days later they sailed. Neil was the only white passenger. When the Captain was busy he read. He was reading again Wallace’s
Malay Archipelago.
He had read it as a boy, but now it had a new and absorbing interest for him. When the Captain was at leisure they played cribbage or sat in long chairs on the deck, smoking, and talked. Neil was the son of a country doctor, and he could not remember when he had not been interested in natural history. When he had done with school he went to the University of Edinburgh and there took a B.Sc. with Honours. He was looking out for a job as demonstrator in biology when he chanced to see in
Nature
an advertisement for an assistant curator of the museum at Kuala Solor. The Curator, Angus Munro, had been at Edinburgh with his uncle, a Glasgow merchant, and his uncle wrote to ask him if he would give the boy a trial. Though Neil was especially interested in entomology he was a trained taxidermist, which the advertisement said was essential; he enclosed certificates from Neil’s old teachers; he added that Neil had played football for his university. In a few weeks a cable arrived engaging him and a fortnight later he sailed.

“What’s Mr Munro like?” asked Neil.

“Good fellow. Everybody likes him.”

“I looked out his papers in the scientific journals. He had one in the last number of
The Ibis
on the Gymnathids.”

“I don’t know anything about that. I know he’s got a Russian wife. They don’t like her much.”

“I got a letter from him at Singapore saying they’d put me up for a bit till I could look round and see what I wanted to do.”

Now they were steaming up the river. At the mouth was a straggling fishermen’s village standing on piles on the water; on the bank grew thickly nipah palm and the tortured mangrove; beyond stretched the dense green of the virgin forest. In the distance, darkly silhouetted against the blue sky, was the rugged outline of a mountain. Neil, his heart beating with the excitement that possessed him, devoured the scene with eager eyes. He was surprised. He knew his Conrad almost by heart and he was expecting a land of brooding mystery. He was not prepared for the blue milky sky. Little white clouds on the horizon, like sailing boats becalmed, shone in the sun. The green trees of the forest glittered in the brilliant light. Here and there, on the banks, were Malay houses with thatched roofs, and they nestled cosily among fruit trees. Natives in dugouts rowed, standing, up the river. Neil had no feeling of being shut in, nor, in that radiant morning, of gloom, but of space and freedom. The country offered him a gracious welcome. He knew he was going to be happy in it. Captain Bredon from the bridge threw a friendly glance at the lad standing below him. He had taken quite a fancy to him during the four days the journey had lasted. It was true he did not drink, and when you made a joke he was as likely as not to take you seriously, but there was something very taking in his seriousness; everything was interesting and important to him-that, of course, was why he did not find your jokes amusing; but even though he didn’t see them he laughed, because he felt you expected it. He laughed because life was grand. He was grateful for every little thing you told him. He was very polite. He never asked you to pass him anything without saying “please’ and always said “thank you’ when you gave it. And he was a good-looking fellow, no one could deny that. Neil was standing with his hands on the rail, bare-headed, looking at the passing bank. He was tall, six foot two, with long, loose limbs, broad shoulders, and narrow hips; there was something charmingly coltish about him, so that you expected him at any moment to break into a caper. He had brown curly hair with a peculiar shine in it; sometimes when the light caught it, it glittered like gold. His eyes, large and very blue, shone with good-humour. They reflected his happy disposition. His nose was short and blunt and his mouth big, his chin determined; his face was rather broad. But his most striking feature was his skin; it was very white and smooth, with a lovely patch of red on either cheek. It would have been a beautiful skin even for a woman. Captain Bredon made the same joke to him every morning.

“Well, my lad, have you shaved today?”

Neil passed his hand over his chin.

“No, d’you think I need it?”

The Captain always laughed at this.

“Need it? Why, you’ve got a face like a baby’s bottom.”

And invariably Neil reddened to the roots of his hair.

“I shave once a week,” he retorted.

But it wasn’t only his looks that made you like him. It was his ingenuousness, his candour, and the freshness with which he confronted the world. For all his intentness and the solemn way in which he took everything, and his inclination to argue upon every point that came up, there was something strangely simple in him that gave you quite an odd feeling. The Captain couldn’t make it out.

“I wonder if it’s because he’s never had a woman,” he said to himself. “Funny. I should have thought the girls never left him alone. With a complexion like that.”

But the
Sultan Ahmed
was nearing the bend after rounding which Kuala Solor would be in sight and the Captain’s reflections were interrupted by the necessities of his work. He rang down to the engine room. The ship slackened to half speed. Kuala Solor straggled along the left bank of the river, a white, neat, and trim little town, and on the right on a hill were the fort and the Sultan’s palace. There was a breeze and the Sultan’s flag, at the top of a tall staff, waved bravely against the sky. They anchored in mid-stream. The doctor and a police officer came on board in the government launch. They were accompanied by a tall thin man in white ducks. The Captain stood at the head of the gangway and shook hands with them. Then he turned to the last comer.

“Well, I’ve brought you your young hopeful safe and sound.” And a glance at Neil: “This is Munro.”

The tall thin man held out his hand and gave Neil an appraising look. Neil flushed a little and smiled. He had beautiful teeth.

“How do you do, sir?”

Munro did not smile with his lips, but faintly with his grey eyes. His cheeks were hollow and he had a thin aquiline nose and pale lips. He was deeply sunburned. His face looked tired, but his expression was very gentle, and Neil immediately felt confidence in him. The Captain introduced him to the doctor and the policeman and suggested that they should have a drink. When they sat down and the boy brought bottles of beer Munro took off his topee. Neil saw that he had close-cropped brown hair turning grey. He was a man of forty, quiet, self-possessed in manner, with an intellectual air that distinguished him from the brisk little doctor and the heavy swaggering police officer.

“MacAdam doesn’t drink,” said the Captain when the boy poured out four glasses of beer.”

“All the better,” said Munro. “I hope you haven’t been trying to lure him into evil ways.”

“I tried to in Singapore,” returned the Captain, with a twinkle in his eyes, “but there was nothing doing.”

When he had finished his beer Munro turned to Neil.

“Well, we’ll be getting ashore, shall we?”

Neil’s baggage was put in charge of Munro’s boy and the two men got into a sampan. They landed.

“Do you want to go straight up to the bungalow or would you like to have a look round first? We’ve got a couple of hours before tiffin.”

“Couldn’t we go to the museum?” said Neil.

Munro’s eyes smiled gently. He was pleased. Neil was shy and Munro not by nature talkative, so they walked in silence. By the river were the native huts, and here, living their immemorial lives, dwelt the Malays. They were busy, but without haste, and you were conscious of a happy, normal activity. There was a sense of the rhythm of life of which the pattern was birth and death, love, and the affairs common to mankind. They came to the bazaars, narrow streets with arcades, where the teeming Chinese, working and eating, noisily talking, as is their way, indefatigably strove with eternity.

“It’s not much after Singapore,” said Munro, “but I always think it’s rather picturesque.”

He spoke with an accent less broad than Neil’s but the Scots burr was there and it put Neil at his ease. He could never quite get it out of his head that the English of English people was affected.

The museum was a handsome stone building and as they entered its portals Munro instinctively straightened himself. The attendant at the door saluted and Munro spoke to him in Malay, evidently explaining who Neil was, for the attendant gave him a smile and saluted again. It was cool in there in comparison with the heat without and the light was pleasant after the glare of the street.

“I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed,” said Munro. “We haven’t got half the things we ought to have, but up to now we’ve been handicapped by lack of money. We’ve had to do the best we could. So you must make allowances.”

Neil stepped in like a swimmer diving confidently into a summer sea. The specimens were admirably arranged. Munro had sought to please as well as to instruct, and birds and beasts and reptiles were presented, as far as possible in their natural surroundings, in such a way as to give a vivid impression of life. Neil lost his shyness and began with boyish enthusiasm to talk of this and that. He asked an infinity of questions. He was excited. Neither of them was conscious of the passage of time, and when Munro glanced at his watch he was surprised to see what the hour was. They got into rickshaws and drove to the bungalow.

Munro led the young man into a drawing-room. A woman was lying on a sofa reading a book and as they came in she slowly rose.

“This is my wife. I’m afraid we’re dreadfully late, Darya.”

“What does it matter?” she smiled. “What is more unimportant than time?”

She held out her hand, a rather large hand, to Neil and gave him a long, reflective, but friendly look.

“I suppose you’ve been showing him the museum.”

She was a woman of five-and-thirty, of medium height, with a pale brown face of a uniform colour and pale blue eyes. Her hair, parted in the middle and wound into a knot on the nape of her neck, was untidy; it had a moth-like quality and was of a curious pale brown. Her face was broad, with high cheekbones, and she had a rather fleshy nose. She was not a pretty woman, but there was in her slow movements a sensual grace and in her manner as it were a physical casualness that only very dull people could have failed to find interesting. She wore a frock of green cotton. She spoke English perfectly, but with a slight accent.

They sat down to tiffin. Neil was overcome once more with shyness, but Darya did not seem to notice it. She talked freely and easily. She asked him about his journey and what he had thought of Singapore. She told him about the people he would have to meet. That afternoon Munro was to take him to call on the Resident, the Sultan being away, and later they would go to the club. There he would see everybody.

“You will be popular,” she said, her pale blue eyes resting on him with attention. A man less ingenuous than Neil might have noticed that she took stock of his size and youthful virility, his shiny curling hair and his lovely skin. “They don’t think much of us.”

“Oh, nonsense, Darya. You’re too sensitive. They’re English, that’s all.”

“They think it’s rather funny of Angus to be a scientist and they think it’s rather vulgar of me to be a Russian. I don’t care. They’re fools. They’re the most commonplace, the most narrow-minded, the most conventional people it has ever been my misfortune to live amongst.”