Separation, The (11 page)

‘We’d better go back,’ she said. ‘At least to the veranda.’

The air spun with screaming insects, and Jack appeared in his dusty clothes and jungle boots. His face lit up when he saw them, and they began walking back together. He stopped, bent down, and then scooped something up with his hands. Opening his palm, he showed Maz a delicate red and green moth, its wings outstretched.

‘Why does it not fly?’ Maz said, his eyes glowing with interest.

He shrugged. ‘It’s dead, I’m afraid. Come on, or we’ll be eaten alive.’

The light was fading fast and screeching monkeys echoed all
round. They got back just in time to watch the sun setting orange in the west.

‘Look, Maz,’ Jack said. ‘Before the light goes completely.’

Maz giggled as Jack pointed out a large, untidy nest under the veranda, loosely made from dried leaves, twigs, and moss. ‘It’s a magpie robin nest. But the birds have flown.’

Lydia looked up at the sky. ‘Sunsets here are beautiful,’ she said. ‘But over so quickly.’

He put an arm round her and squeezed her shoulder, then, looking worn out, leant against the railings, shoulders hunched.

There was the rasp of a door opening behind them. Lili walked over and bent to speak to Jack, her features unfathomable. The girl stood poised, waiting. He took a step away from Lydia and replied in Chinese. There was a restrained outburst as the girl narrowed her eyes, then, with what looked like a sharp expression, left. There was something unsettling about the look and Lydia went to Jack, frowning slightly when he didn’t explain.

‘She never smiles,’ she said, sitting again.

He sat opposite, tanned thighs spread apart. ‘No. Not at the moment. I guess you’re right,’ he said, and looked at her blankly, the skin around his eyes pinched.

The silence stretched and went on too long.

She made a point of looking at her watch. ‘Maz should be in bed. I’ll just sort him out.’

Jack seemed relieved.

In the bedroom she saw pebbles laid in a line all round both their beds.

‘Fifty-seven,’ Maz said. ‘For protection.’

She longed to cuddle her own daughters, but hugged him in their place. He held her hand and covered it with kisses.

Back outside she caught the citrus scent of pomelo flowers on a sudden breeze.

‘Tell me about your work,’ she said, pulling a chair closer to Jack. ‘Tell me about the plantation. What you do, day to day.’

‘Heck, it isn’t what I expected, I can tell you that. Falling in
streams, hacking through
lallang
grass as high as our shoulders. I guess it keeps me fit.’

Lydia closed her eyes.

‘There’s an art to rubber tapping,’ Jack said. ‘The cut has to be just right or the tree bleeds and dies.’ He sighed. ‘And I can’t tell you how grim it is to see dozens of good trees burning. They set them alight and there’s very little we can do.’

He was interrupted by the sound of a motor bike, then someone calling his name from the front of the house.

He stood up, stretched, and, flexing the muscles in his arms, went round the veranda to his office at the back. It was nearly dark. The still time in the tropics when the sounds of day have gone, and the world waits for the noises of night to begin. She fanned away the mosquitoes with her hands, and a sensation of being out of place ran through her. She was so far away from her real life. Her real self. The minutes inched by. She heard a flutter of wings and the scream of an unknown animal, then jumped as a flight of bats swooped over her head.

She heard Jack say, ‘Christ!’ After that, his voice became a murmur, and she listened to the increasingly subdued tone as he spoke.

I lay on my bed and tried to read, hoping that Mr Oliver was snoozing and wouldn’t move until the others came back. I already knew
Heidi
and
Black Beauty
. Now it was time for
Treasure Island
, one of very few books in the house. I was shocked when Gran said they handed them in during the war at a book drive. The paper was needed for ration books. Dad promised we could have comics delivered instead. I asked for
Eagle
but he said it was for boys, and
Girl
landed on the doorstep.

Boring.

Something really exciting had happened though. On Friday a letter with a Malayan postmark lay on the hall table waiting for Dad. Mum must have got home and read my letter, I thought, and wished she’d written to me as well as Dad. He was out at the time, but all day long I went back to it, picked it up, held it to my lips, sure it was from Mum, telling us when she’d be coming. It was typed so I couldn’t tell from the handwriting, but who else would be writing to Dad? I wanted to find out, but now I was in trouble again, it wasn’t a good time to ask Dad.

In the pale summery light of England, I longed to play under the hot Malayan sun, until it whizzed into the sea at night. I had missed my mum terribly and was so excited as I thought of all the places we’d go. The barn, the little alleyway behind the church where all the cats lived. The long walk round the village.

I tried not to think of Mr Oliver, and spent ages counting the faded roses on the carpet and the number of squiggly lines on the wallpaper. Spare bits of both had decorated the doll’s house we were making for Fleur. Granny had even made some artificial flowers and a little tree to stick on the side of the house.

I looked out at the field opposite, dotted with black and white cows now, and the same long line of dark trees at the very end. I thought about making a dash for it as the sun lit up the garden and the roofs of the village turned silver. I could keep a look out from over there, and hide until I saw the car come back.

But even though it was summer, the sun disappeared and it quickly became a grey watery day. I was hungry. I’d hardly eaten any lunch, and would give anything for a jam sandwich. There were Catherine wheels and walnut whips for tea, and Gran had made a Dundee cake, but I didn’t dare tiptoe down the stairs. If Mr Oliver was asleep, I didn’t want to risk waking him. I peered out of the window again, in case I could catch sight of the car coming back early. But only saw the Worcestershire fish ’n’ chip van, with ‘Meals on Wheels’ printed on the side.

I took out my exercise book, sat cross-legged on the floor, and made myself concentrate on my latest story. It was about a death in Spain and was set in a seventeenth-century monastery. I couldn’t wait to show it to Mum. The chief monk had died in a beautiful crypt, having taken poison. Everyone would know what he’d done, because he left a note saying he was going to take his own life as he could no longer live with himself. Though I hadn’t worked out why, it would be something dramatic. Suicide was a terrible sin, and the young monk who found the note decided to destroy it, in order to protect his master.

I was trying to figure out how he was going to get rid of it, but the smell of fish ’n’ chips from a hatch at the side of the van distracted me. I got up and looked out again, and saw the fish man in his white chef’s outfit, with a tall white hat. My mouth watered. It was only by chance that my eyes flicked back across the room, and I saw Mr Oliver blocking the door. I hadn’t heard him come up the stairs, but, with a sharp breath in, I ran to my bed, shuffled my bottom right back against the wall, then held a pillow across my lap. He came over, his face smooth and white. My stomach turned over and I wanted to pee.

‘Hello,’ he said, and closed the door.

I told myself to run while I had the chance, but my body wouldn’t obey. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t move.

His left eyebrow raised and he gave me a funny look. I saw the little flecks of white on his lapels when he sat on my bed. He cupped my chin with his hand, squeezed and sort of pulled my face a little way towards him.

‘Please go,’ I said.

‘But I’ve been looking forward to seeing you,’ he said, and started to stroke my forehead. ‘You liked this, didn’t you?’

I wriggled away.

‘Now there’s nothing to be frightened of, is there?’ His eyes narrowed, and he let go of my chin.

I thought for a minute he was going to go. But then he held me by my arms. ‘It’ll be easier, dear, if you keep nice and still.’

He pushed me down by my shoulders.

I wanted to shout, but all that came out was a squeak. I struggled, tried to roll out of the side of the bed. He held me firmly and with one hand threw off the pillow. With the other, he kept a grip on me.

‘Let me go. Please. I promise not to tell,’ I begged.

‘Don’t be silly, dear. Of course you won’t tell.’

He pulled up my skirt a little way, and put his hand just above the left knee on the inside of my thigh. I was so frightened, I thought I was going to wet the bed. The same fear I’d had before. But worse. Much worse. I tried to push him off again.

And even though tears filled my eyes, he shook his head and smiled.

I longed for my mother. I could see her so clearly it hurt. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Where are you? My pulse was banging in my ears, and in my mind I was out of the door and running to her. I knew about people leaving their bodies and how if you concentrated hard enough you could do it. I tried but it didn’t work.

I looked at the wallpaper and started to count the flowers there, but all I could think of was my mum. As his fingers poked
at my skin, my head filled with roaring and my chest hurt so much, I couldn’t breathe. He was strong, but if I waited until he was distracted and relaxed his hold. Maybe then. A wind whistled under the door. It was the only way. In that moment I didn’t care about any punishment. In my bedside table, that’s where they were. We were playing with them yesterday, Fleur and me. I shifted towards the edge of the bed.

‘So you have decided you like it after all,’ he said, mistaking my movement towards him as obedience, his fingers running just inside my knicker elastic.

A wave of sickness came in my throat, but I forced myself to wait.

His eyes were closed and a panting kind of breathing began. He removed the hand that had been holding me down, his left hand, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Now, I thought. Do it now. I slipped one arm out ever so carefully so as not to warn him, then whipped open the drawer. I clutched hold of the dart and with all the strength that I had, jabbed it into his neck.

His hand stayed at the edge of my knickers, not moving now, but his eyes opened wide and he turned scarlet. For a moment I thought his eyes would burst right out.

Then his head jerked sideways. He took his hand from me and put it to his neck. The dart was stuck. He lifted bloody fingers to look at them, puffed out his cheeks and started to cough and splutter. His started to speak, spat out the words through clenched teeth. ‘You – little – bitch.’

Then he lashed out.

I wasn’t scared of the blood, and dodged the blow. He took another swing at me. I dived out of the bed, charged down the stairs and ran.

I ran past the abandoned farm sheds where the boys played war and pirate ships: too scary when it got dark. Past the woods where Robin Hood plotted with Maid Marion. Too creepy. I went on running and when the stitch doubled me over, held my side,
my breath coming in gasps. By the time I reached the barn, the light was almost gone.

I climbed the ladder and sat on the wooden boards, my head down between my knees. After the sickness passed, I hid under the hay, pulled it all around me, to keep the world out. I didn’t even care about the rats. I imagined what was happening at home. Veronica’s shock. The blood. Dad’s anger. Mr Oliver would lie, tell them he did nothing, tell them I attacked him for no reason. And if I told them the truth, they’d believe him, not me. I was the one with an explosive temper. But what if he was dead? What if I had killed him? I trembled at the thought.

Billy will come in the morning, I thought, help me get away, hide me first, then help me get away. I’d go to Liverpool, stow away, find my mum. I was proud I hadn’t passed out at the sight of blood, though Mum would have.

Oh, Mum.

When the loneliness came rolling in, I felt as if I’d fallen down a deep hole that I’d never get out of, and I wept for my mother like never before.