The collected stories (32 page)

'Your father must have been quite a character,' I said to Lester on one occasion. Harry and Elizabeth were in another room sampling a sort of rice dumpling very popular here with the Chinese.

'Oh, he was,' said Lester, and with that he brushed his hand neatly across the curve of my bottom, so neatly that I could not accuse him of getting fresh, barely comprehending what he had done to me. I thought at the time that it was a skirt pleat freeing itself and touching me softly. I know better now. He never spoke again about his father, nor did I ask.

Our relationship, because it was not a relationship at all but rather an awareness of each other, had a forced heartiness about it and a bonhomie (how Elizabeth made a shambles of the pronunciation of this simple French word!) that was impossible to suppress. We were not good friends of the Crowleys' and never had been; this resulted in an uncertain distance which compelled us to do more for them than their best friends would have done, though God only knows who or where their best friends were. It is easier to say no to a friend than to one of these fumbling strangers; I

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much prefer the honesty of friendship, so does Harry. One is always doing something one finds unpleasantly intimate with someone one barely knows. It is always the way and it is the reason Harry and I make a point of 'screwing our courage to the sticking place,' so to speak, and getting to know people really well. As we have no children (Harry has a low 'count') this is usually quite simple. We tried with the Crowleys but it never worked: we were always the new visitors, obliging them with kindnesses and remembering not to interrupt or offend either of them, and often going out of our way for them, always an inconvenience. Harry is such a dreadful sleeper; I remember how they used to urge us to stay on and dope Harry with coffee. We could not say no. We only said no once to the Crowleys, and that was the last time we saw them, when our so-called friendship ended; and this happened shortly after the incident I intend to tell you about right now.

It was near midnight when they rang. I know that because Harry was soaking his teeth, and he never does that before midnight. It is a small but useful courtesy he has practiced throughout our marriage and I am grateful to him for it. It is my luck that I have been blessed with very strong teeth, and let me note here that Lester, although of Irish stock, had an unexpectedly fine set of teeth which he said were all his own. 'That,' I ribbed him, 'comes of a long residence in England. In Ireland they'd be rotted to stumps!' Lester did not, happily for me, take offense at my harpish dig.

They spoke of two separate items when they rang and they did this in a rather clever way. Lester spoke to Harry first and told him of the ship disaster in the harbor. Apparently a tanker approaching the harbor spied another tanker just leaving. They were in the deep channel, near the islands called the Sisters, that leads to Collyer Quay. The approaching tanker signaled the other (two short blasts) to turn off. But it was early morning and the captain who had signaled had the impression he had not been heard, and so shortly after gave two more strong blasts on his whistle, or whatever it is they signal with on tankers. Here destiny dealt another card. Two short blasts means 'turn to port' (left) but four short blasts means 'turn to starboard' (right). The second tanker turned to starboard, was rammed amidships and sank in seventeen minutes, just long enough for four wild Chinese to find

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life jackets and leap to safety. The rest perished, the Scots captain and thirty of the crew. As for the other tanker, the one that had done all the signaling and ramming; well, that tanker steamed out to sea and was last heard of in Japan where it discharged its entire crew, including its (Liberian) captain. It suffered a bit of damage in the bow (front). A tragic tale, and one worthy of a Humphrey Bogart film if not a Joseph Conrad novel.

Then Elizabeth spoke to me. Were we interested in getting up a swimming party? I said an emphatic yes. One is able to see a great deal of one another on a swimming trip; there is candid revelation in seminakedness. We fixed it for the following Sunday and I said I'd bring sandwiches and my own liver pate if they could be responsible for fruit and drink (I hinted at a jug of simple orange squash so that they would not feel obligated to hump a crate of beer). I was beside myself when I rang off.

Harry was pale. He told me what Lester had said about the ship disaster and added, 'I fancy the poor blokes didn't have a chance.' Poor blokes, you see; it sounds frightfully low, and Harry's father was a bishop. But I have said somewhere above that the middle class often uses working-class language when the thought expressed is unbearably serious. Harry, you are forgiven for this. I understand.

Then I told Harry what Elizabeth had said to me about swimming. Harry said fine, 'as long as it isn't near the Sisters,' and he tried a charmless laugh.

The scene at the Jardine Steps where we booked our motor launch was so picturesque: sampans and fisherfolk here, smugglers in undervests there, mothers giving suck to their round-cheeked kids on the quayside, and over there a foursome of RAF hearties with goggles and flippers setting out for a day of snorkeling in the Straits! Much as I would like to linger here on the steps and allow a thorough consideration of the colorful comings and goings, I feel I must press on. Landscape is all very well, and there is much to say of the quaint splendor of these 'pampered jades of Asia,' but for my present purpose 1 am afraid it would only delay the telling of what is a far more important (to me, at any rate) if less pretty story.

Leaning against the gunwales (sides) oi the launch as we putt-putted out into the harbor, I realized that we were not headed in the direction of Pulau Blakang Mati - where the bathing facilities

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are excellent and 'the water is like ginger beer' in the unambitious simile of one of the local poets - but for the Sisters. These two heaps of stones, topped with stunted cacti and patient pitcher plants, loomed up in the channel of swirling water. And behind them, the low blue blancmange of Indonesia.

The two druids sat inside, leafing through the Sunday papers and smiling to themselves. Harry, poor Harry, tried to strike up a conversation with the Chinese pilot. The unmuffled engine roared, Harry shouted, the pilot replied in clacking Cantonese. The pilot's small daughter had come along, though for no more sinister reason than the daughter of the Hesperus' captain: 'To bear him company.' She stared in an intensely embarrassing way at Harry, who does not know a word of Cantonese but talks a great deal when he is upset.

I put on a brave face. I was not going to let the Crowleys know they had succeeded in spoiling what could have been quite a pleasant swimming party. But though my expression did not betray my alarm, I searched the water anxiously for the wreck of the tanker and thought at one point that just beneath the surface I saw the funnel (chimney) of the sunken ship. It turned out to be a rotten basket astir with seaweed.

The pilot communicated to us by means of clever wrist play and a series of little grunts that the tide was down and that he would have to drop anchor there while we swam ashore to the Sisters. This was agreed upon. There was no need for an elaborate change of clothes as we were wearing our bathing costumes under our street things. We folded our slacks and jumpers and dived into the channel and made for the shore, the Crowleys with morbid slowness, Harry and I thrashing desperately.

I felt the tug of the ripping tide on my arms, the slimy uprooted loofahs brushing my knees, and I thought with horror of the ghostly hulk which lay - who knew how close? The Crowleys probably did - beneath me, manned by the corpses of thirty Chinese and one valiant Scot. I have no idea how I made it to shore, but I did, and so did Harry. How ironic that the sun should beat down on us, that the sky should be so impossibly blue! A blasted heath would have been more appropriate, especially as in trendy bathing costumes the Crowleys crawled up the beach.

It was clear that both of them wished to raise the subject of the tanker, for they remarked on the rainbows of oil slick that slapped

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in the shallows. 'Must be from our launch,' said Harry, who is nobody's fool and certainly knew better than that. They also spoke about the curious shadows in the water, and Lester said in that pompously knowledgeable way of his: 'Modern science really hasn't a clue what goes on under the sea.'

'Another one of your detective stories?' I remarked, and I could tell it wounded him because he visibly winced at me.

Seeing that they were getting nowhere, the Crowleys then began telling Harry and I of something that had happened to them in I think Panama. The story does not bear repeating; it is too horrible for that. But simply let me say that it was about a stray dog they picked up, thinking it was a worthy little animal. They fed it and cared for it; it loved them and appeared perfectly docile. After a month or two of care its coat was glossy and it showed tenderness, fetching sticks and wagging its tail. The family next door, imitating the Crowleys' example, bought a small puppy at a pet shop in the city. On seeing the puppy, the Crowleys' hound leaped the hedge that divided the gardens and set upon the poor animal and tore it to pieces. It turned out that the dog the Crowleys had befriended was a 'fighting dog' which is trained from birth to kill other dogs, but is in all other respects quite normal. Apparently your Panamanian enjoys such sport and makes bets on these dogfights in the same way as other savages gamble on fighting cocks. I have told more of this story than I had planned to. I don't have to say it chilled me to the bone. And Lester had the impertinence to add, 'You see, there's a lesson in that.'

The only lesson I could see was that one should be careful in choosing one's friends, and I as much as told him so.

We lunched on the launch. Another frantic swim. They remarked politely on my cucumber sandwiches ('frail but cooling') and ate all the pate. Harry, who will let himself be bullied, had their leavings. I made up for their gluttony by having more than my share of wine (they did after all bring a few bottles of a very acid Australian red). Harry, sampling the wine, remarked, 'It's a sincere little chappie' -very much to the point, I thought. And then we dozed, eyed by the Chinese father and daughter from the stern (back).

Around three I suggested returning home, saying that the sun had given me a rather splitting headache and didn't they think enough was enough? They insisted on another swim; Harry refused to stand by me, he let himself be chivvied by them once again. We

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remained on board while the Crowleys floated on their backs and spat infantile little waterspouts into the air. 'Thar she blows!' said Harry, but he ceased this when he detected an expression of severe reprimand on my face. It was at this point that, gazing off the side of the launch, I noticed a long and bejewelled snake slithering through the water, making its way amongst the rocks and coral. I did not call attention to it; even Harry was unaware of its existence (yes, dear). They are said to be quite poisonous and I thought then as I think now, that death can end an unsatisfying relationship as soon as rudeness, and I don't mind saying that I was hoping with all my heart that one or both of the Crowleys would sustain the fatal bite of that snake. It was not to be. Laughing absurdly they clambered into the launch and gave the pilot instructions for the voyage home.

Instead of taking the direct route back, we made what I thought was a pointless detour around St John's Island, where the mental hospital is. It is also, at the south shore, the place where the channel meets the open sea, and consequently there is a terrific choppiness in the water. I was absolutely disgusted and decided to sun myself on the roof of the launch; but the pounding of the waves across the rocking bow of the launch was too much for me, and I realized that it was the express intention of the Crowleys to drown Harry and me, as they had signally failed to cow or frighten us. The sea hit and broke, hit and broke, setting the launch into an indescribable pitching, and tossing up bundles of lathered flotsam onto the foredeck.

And here, just south of that island madhouse, in the frothy sea, I looked up and saw that very strange thing. I peered at it for a long moment.

'Look at that,' said Harry, who had also seen it. 'Is it a lobster trap?'

Neither of the Crowleys spoke, though they watched it intently. On the cabin bench the small Chinese girl was peacefully, mercifully asleep.

It bobbed toward us, bloated to a grotesque buoyancy, very high in the water, rigid in the attitude of a resting swimmer.

'A sack of meal,' said Harry.

We all watched it pass twenty yards off. It had limbs, but the hands were out of the water, and black, and clawing the air. It was much worse than seeing a corpse far off and deliberately

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averting your eyes. We did not take our eyes off it for a second! We pretended it wasn't human! Then it was too late: we knew we had been staring at a dead man for ten minutes or more.

The Chinese boatman threw his head back and laughed, for a corpse is considered unlucky, and it is by laughing hysterically that your Chinese reacts to mortal terror.

'You can't fool me,' I said. 'I know it's dead.'

'No one is trying to fool you,' said Lester. 'But look - it's spinning so grandly.'

The corpse wheeled around and around, like an inflated beach toy in a breeze.

'It is floating rather well,' said Elizabeth, and she smiled: the lewd satisfaction of the torturer.

I closed my eyes and instantly wanted to kill them both. With my eyes shut I heard Harry say, 'Quite possibly a fugitive bale of jute.'

Poor Harry. That was no bale of jute. You knew what it was. But why didn't you say so then? Why did you wait until after we had paid the boatman and were home to agree with me? Don't you see that we could have confronted those two hellhounds with their beastliness? And why, whenever I bring this matter up, do you simply say that 'we learned our lesson'?