The White Amah (16 page)

‘Why didn’t you check on him?’ asked Mei Li, determined to have everything out with her mother. ‘I don’t understand. It’s not just the money – why did you never come to see them … or me?’ Tears started down her cheeks. ‘I’m your daughter and you never came to see me, not even once in seventeen years! How do you think I felt?’

Rubiah felt indignant. Mei Li should be down on her knees thanking her. Mei Li had had a good life with Rubiah’s parents, a lot better than if she had given the girl to Dedan when she was a baby. If it wasn’t for the fact that Rubiah needed her help she would have told Mei Li the plain truth and washed her hands of her.

‘I’d have come if I could, but I’m Joe Ling’s concubine. That’s like a second wife,’ she explained when she saw Mei Li’s puzzled expression. ‘Joe’s very generous to me. Well, you see how I live.
But I haven’t dared tell him about you. I don’t know what he’d do if he found out I’ve got a child by another man. He can be very vindictive if he’s crossed. That’s why you must keep our relationship secret when you go to work for him. I told him you were just a girl from my village. Promise me you won’t tell him, or any of his family, that I’m your … mother.’

‘All right, but I don’t see why I have to live with strangers. I want to stay with you.’

‘I’d like that too, but it’s impossible,’ said Rubiah, trying to stay calm. ‘Right now you’re going to have to work at the Ling’s place; otherwise you’ll have to go back to the longhouse. You’ve put me in an incredibly awkward position turning up like this, Mei Li. I’m trying to work things out so we can be together, not just you and me but Mother and Father too. But it’ll take a while to organise. You’ll like it at Joe’s. He lives in a big mansion right on the beach at Luak Bay. It’s a great opportunity for you. Who knows, it might be fun. What do you say? Will you do it?’

‘I’ll go on one condition.’

‘Yes?’ Rubiah was barely managing to keep her temper.

‘I want you tell me about my father.’

Rubiah’s heart sank. It was all getting so complicated. She really didn’t want to lie to the girl but she didn’t have much choice. ‘Let’s have another drink. It’s a long story.’ She poured herself another cognac and juiced a pineapple for Mei Li. She’d seen the girl grimace when she’d taken her first sip of the expensive brandy.

‘Your father’s name is Roger and he lives in Canada. He could be dead for all I know.’ she said, unmoved by Mei Li’s look of distress. ‘I haven’t seen him for, oh, seventeen years. When I first came to Miri I worked for him and his wife as an amah. I was an
innocent girl just like you, straight from the jungle. One night he came to my room and forced himself on me. I tried to fight him off but he was a big strong man.’ She shrugged. ‘After that he came to my room every night when his wife had gone to sleep. What could I do? He said he’d beat me if his wife found out about us. I couldn’t go back to our longhouse. I’d run away. My parents were trying to force me to marry a man I didn’t love.’

‘Just like me,’ said Mei Li, amazed by the coincidence.

‘That’s why I don’t blame you for running away from home. Sometimes there’s no other way. Soon after you were born I heard him talking to his wife about taking you back to their country. I was frightened. I thought I’d never see you again. I begged Dedan to take me back to our longhouse. I knew my parents would care for you. I would’ve stayed but Gelungan still wanted to marry me and I was frightened of him. He’d been married before and Dedan told me he beat his first wife.’

Poor mother, thought Mei Li, remembering her own ordeal at the hands of Langkup. She could have ended up pregnant and then what would she have done? How could she support a baby on her own? She gave Rubiah a watery smile of understanding and mopped her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘You did the only thing you could and I’m sorry I doubted you. It must’ve been hard on you, having to give me up.’

‘Of course, lah. So you’re okay about going to work for Joe?’ Rubiah tried to conceal her jubilation.

Mei Li could only nod. She still felt too emotional to speak.

‘You don’t look it. Come on, give me a smile.’

‘Sorry, Mother. It’s hard to leave just when we’re getting to know one another. There’s such a lot I want to ask you. When can I see you again?’

‘I’ll let you know when it’s safe. But you’ll be able to get a message to me any time.’ She handed Mei Li a mobile phone. ‘Don’t look so worried. It’s only a phone. This is how it works …’

T
HE LIMOUSINE CLIMBED UP THE LIME-EDGED PRIVATE GRAVEL ROAD
before Mei Li got her first glimpse of the mansion. Armed guards waved them on, the elegant wrought iron gates swung open and the magnificent estate owned by her mother’s lover was revealed in its breathtaking beauty. The stately home had been built by Madam Ling’s father. He had consulted a Chinese geomancer and the park had been laid out according to ancient oriental principles. The south-facing mansion was set halfway up a slope, protected by higher hills on the north side and with a stream flowing from the valley to the bay. Mei Li had never heard of
feng shui,
but instinctively she knew this was a place where she could live happily.

The staff quarters were tucked away at the back of the compound and screened from the house by a high hedge. The elderly housekeeper was tall, almost as tall as Mei Li. She wore black silk trousers and a matching jacket. Her hair was combed into a neat bun. She looked coldly at the barefoot girl in the tattered sarong through the thick lenses of her horn-rimmed glasses.

‘What’s your name, girl?’ asked Madam Huang sharply in Cantonese.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’

‘She’s a Dayak,’ the driver said helpfully. ‘Come straight from the longhouse. She only speaks the native lingo.’

‘She doesn’t look like a native to me. Some bargirl’s fling with
a Westerner, no doubt. It’s a disgrace. Girls like this, they bring shame on all of us.’

‘Well, you can’t blame the girl. It’s not her fault. She seems nice enough.’ He smiled at Mei Li sympathetically.

The housekeeper frowned when she saw the driver staring at Mei Li in her tight sarong. A girl like this was a bad influence. She sighed. ‘I’m run off my feet. I’ve got a dinner party for thirty-six tonight. I’m understaffed and they send me an ignorant savage straight out of the jungle. What good is she to me if she can’t follow orders?’

‘Why don’t you get her to help Old Gong in the garden? He’s a Dayak, isn’t he?’

‘He’s draining the fishpond this morning. Get him to come here and when you come back you can join me in a cup of tea,’ she said in a friendlier tone. ‘Hurry, hurry! I can’t waste any more of my morning on this useless slut.’

David was sitting in the garden, which was where he spent most afternoons after he’d finished tutoring the children. Sometimes he would take a book to read in the pavilion that overlooked the lakeside garden, or join his pupils in a game of tennis. David fitted right in with his host family and he was fascinated by the far-off Asian city. Everything about Miri intrigued the young English lawyer: the Niah Caves, where he stared in awe at the fragments of a 40,000-year-old skull; Loagan Bunut, the legendary disappearing lake; the mysterious mist-shrouded Bario Highlands. He would miss the luscious paradise when he went home next month, but he supposed it was time he got his head down.

David’s father, Sir Roland Entwistle of Entwistle and
Murthwaite, the legal firm that handled the Baram Hardwood Timber Company’s affairs in Europe, had encouraged David to take up Joseph’s Ling’s proposition to tutor his two younger children in English. It meant David could improve his own Cantonese and Mandarin before returning to Britain to work in their expanding Asian division, and the experience had worked out well for everyone. David was pleased with his pupils’ progress: little Adele’s English was improving, and he hoped that Clarence’s application for a place at Oxford University would be successful.

Their elder brother Pau, named after his maternal grandfather, was currently sitting his final examinations in economics at Oxford and on graduation was expected to return to Miri. One day Pau would take over from his father as chairman of the company, and David would be taking instructions from him in the same way that his own father took instructions from Joseph Ling. Pau had an open invitation to stay with the Entwistles at their large country estate. He had taken up the offer once and had brought along three companions that David’s mother had found brash and ill mannered.

‘Isn’t it always the way with the children of the nouveau riche?’ Lady Entwistle had said to her husband disapprovingly. ‘They live these lives of decadence, driving expensive cars, wearing flashy clothes and dating dim-witted models and starlets.’

‘The acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree, my dear,’ Sir Entwistle had replied.

Neither of them approved of Joseph Ling, even though he was a major client. They were pleased that their only son was more interested in fly-fishing and playing cricket for the village team than running around like a rich brat-playboy.

David often saw the gardener and his assistant and thought they made an odd couple: the stooped old native and the tall, slender, beautiful girl. He would look at her admiringly when she reached up to prune the white magnolia, thinking that she could be an international model. At first he had mistaken her for a friend of the family, holidaying like him in the luxurious mansion, but Clarence had put him straight on that score.

‘She’s just one of our maids, a half-caste,’ Clarence said dismissively. ‘There are hundreds of girls like her on account of so many single men coming over to work.’

‘And they just leave their kids behind?’ asked David.

‘Not necessarily. Loads of ex-pats fall in love with local girls and take them back to their own countries, but there are others who just use them as playthings.’

‘It’s a pity they don’t see how their children are forced to live when they go back to their own countries.’ David looked over at the gardener, who was waving a stick and yelling at the young girl. He hoped the man wasn’t going to hit her.

The bad-tempered old gardener often shouted irritably at the girl and cuffed her across the head. Now he shuffled off to the staff quarters for the midday meal, and Mei Li hurriedly finished loading the wheelbarrow with branches and wheeled it over the bridge. She had to clean out all the animal cages before she could think about having a break.

Joseph Ling paid native trappers to capture the endangered wildlife to put on display in his home as a status symbol. David thought it ironic that the timber tycoons that were responsible for the destruction of the creatures’ habitat were the very ones setting up private zoos, but he didn’t voice his disapproval. The Baram Hardwood Timber Company was a very lucrative client.
One of the reasons for his current employment was to get to know Mr Ling on a personal level, and his father wouldn’t be pleased if he offended the firm’s wealthy client.

When it was evident that Mei Li wasn’t coming back, David picked up his book and headed back to the house, passing plump, doll-like Adele dressed in delicate, pink satin pants and tunic with matching ribbons in her shiny plaited hair.

‘I’m going to look at the monkeys,’ Adele called out. She scooted across the wooden bridge and disappeared through the Chinese archway towards the menagerie.

A pair of aviaries, of commercial zoo proportions and shaped like ornate Victorian birdcages, housed the family’s collection of rare eagles and parrots. Mei Li had dumped her load on the compost heap and was now busily raking the bottom of the eagles’ cage. Off to look at the monkeys again, she thought, smiling as the chubby little girl ran past. Caring for the menagerie was one of the gardener’s duties, with the exception of the dogs, which had their own handler. It was work that Mei Li enjoyed best. Some of the animals – like the sun bear and gibbons – she hadn’t set eyes on since she was a young child; they had disappeared from her valley when the surrounding jungle was logged.

The guard dogs threw themselves frenziedly against the steel mesh of their cage and began to bark excitedly as the young girl rushed by. Adele was frightened of the pack of mastiffs, and so was Mei Li. There were many criminal gangs that targeted rich families, and while it was unlikely they’d raid the notorious gangland leader’s estate, Joe employed armed security guards and had four specially trained attack dogs to guarantee the safety of his family and property. The dogs were penned up for the greater part of the day and evening, but as soon as the family
retired for the night they were turned loose and left free to roam the grounds.

‘Never
go into the compound when the dogs are out of their cages,’ Gong had warned Mei Li. ‘They’re trained to kill.’

Today, for some reason, the eagles were agitated. Perhaps they’ve been stirred up by the barking dogs, Mei Li thought. She had to duck as the female swooped at her and she hurriedly backed out of the cage. She was about to padlock it when she heard Adele screaming in terror. Grabbing the rake, she ran towards the dogs’ pens. Alpha, the largest dog, too savage to be housed with the others, had found a weak spot at the back of his cage and ripped his way out. The savage mastiff was tugging at the child’s tunic, trying to drag her down on the ground. Without thinking of her own safety, Mei Li ran to Adele’s aid and swung the rake at the dog with all her strength. The protruding iron teeth buried themselves into the dog’s heavy shoulder and he yelped in surprise, raised his massive head and, fiery-eyed, stared at the intruder, sizing up both her and the weapon. He turned his back on Adele and circled Mei Li, growling menacingly, hackles up, while the other dogs jumped and threw themselves at the mesh, barking wild encouragement to the leader of the pack.