The White Amah (23 page)

‘It’s too late.’ Tears were brimming in Tuff’s sunken eyes, the dark circles contrasting starkly with her washed-out face.

Benny knew it was never too late. He had his strategy down pat. His research team had stayed up until midnight developing a plan that involved paying his friends in the press to flood the tabloids with sympathetic stories, creating a supportive blog and unearthing an alternative scapegoat.

‘Weren’t you just a kid when Sir Joshua Chadwick ran out on you?’ he said quietly, dropping the brash manner and sitting down beside her on the bunk. The springs groaned under his bulk.

‘Seventeen, but Josh never knew about –’

‘You were left penniless and pregnant.’

‘Yes, but it was more complicated –’

‘Don’t concern yourself with the details. If you’re willing to put yourself in my hands I’ll guarantee that by the time you go to court there’ll have been a shift in public opinion. Everyone will feel sorry for you and Josh Chadwick’s reputation will be in tatters. You can bet your shirt on it.’

Josh has been mean to me, Tuff told herself, looking for justification for throwing him to the wolves. She remembered all the insults she had suffered over the years. As recently as a month ago he had deliberately turned his back on her at the BRIT Awards. Everyone had noticed and she had felt small and dirty.

‘Josh is the baby’s father,’ she confirmed.

‘There you are then, Ducky. We’re home and hosed. There’s only one other small problem. We need to get you and your daughter together. The public will lap it up.’

Tuff couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘She won’t come, I know she won’t.’

‘She will after she gets your letter.’

‘I wouldn’t know where to begin –’

‘That’s why you need me.’ Benny opened his man-bag and handed her the contract.

She sighed. Benny thought she was flinching at his fee, but Tuff hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at the cost. She’d spent more than that just on shoes this year already. Why were the good ones always gay? It was enough to drive a girl mad. She looked across at her solicitor. ‘Sort it out, Bailey,’ she snapped. ‘That’s why I pay you, for christ’s sake.’

F
OR THE TIME OF YEAR, THE WEATHER WAS GLORIOUSLY HOT.
Summer was staunchly entrenched, standing its ground, defying the date on the calendar. It was perfect weather to be outdoors and even those who were obliged to be inside from nine to five were making the most of the sunshine. Come midday, office workers in cotton frocks or rolled-up shirtsleeves competed with tourists for the best picnic spots in London’s leafy parks and gardens. When David asked for a day off to take Adele sightseeing, his father, whose sharp intelligence went unrecognised behind a reserved, kindly manner, smiled to himself and told his son to take the rest of the week off.

Although they’d been in England for several weeks, neither Adele nor her amah had spent much time in London. Madam Ling preferred the countryside to the London flat her husband leased for the season and she had taken full advantage of the Entwistles’ invitation to stay with them as long as she liked – to both her husband’s and David’s delight. Both men relished the opportunity to spend time with the women they loved.

But while Joe Ling used pressing business as a manoeuvre to get together with Rubiah, David wasn’t so lucky. Although he was living in the same house as Mei Li, he hardly got to spend any time with her. Between them, his mother and Madam Ling kept her hopping, either dancing attendance on Adele or assisting the housekeeper, Mrs Smith, who complained forcefully to
anyone who’d listen about the extra work created by the Lings. Taking Adele out for the day had been a brainwave. Madam Ling never allowed her daughter to go anywhere without her amah in tow.

Guessing Adele wouldn’t be interested in the history and pageantry of the city, David had suggested they spend the day at the zoo. At seven o’clock he was waiting in the hall, checking his watch against the seventeenth-century grandfather clock in the polished fruitwood case. He couldn’t bear to lose a moment of Mei Li’s company.

The zoo was home to the stars of the animal kingdom: lions, elephants, gorillas and giraffes. Adele had never seen so many different kinds of animals. She ran excitedly from exhibit to exhibit, determined to see everything.

‘This is better than our menagerie back home,’ she exclaimed, finishing her ice cream and wishing it had been a double. Her eyes lit up when she saw the cafe. Pausing to wipe her sticky fingers on her skirt, she ran up to David and tugged at his sleeve.

‘Let’s all have one,’ he said, grinning boyishly, and when Adele hesitantly placed her hand in his he squeezed it and slipped his free arm round Mei Li’s waist.

At the end of the day, instead of driving all the way back to his parents’ home in Wiltshire, David had teed it up for them to stay the night in the firm’s flat.

When Mei Li came downstairs after putting Adele to bed, he’d already laid out the traditional Dayak betrothal gifts: three bamboo boxes, a ring and a length of black satin just the right length for a sarong. When Mei LI saw them she choked, too overcome to speak. She had to swallow hard to push back the
tears. Never had she expected to see the symbols of love spread out for her approval. Long ago she had given up hope of ever being courted and now suddenly here was David, so far above her that she hadn’t dared to let herself dream, apologising to her because he couldn’t find
sirih
leaves in London. The resourceful lawyer had googled Dayak courting rituals and found out it was customary for the suitor to climb to the top of the tallest tree to handpick the best leaves to present to his fiancée.

When David saw the tears in her eyes he was dismayed. ‘I’ll get you an enormous bunch when we go back to Borneo for the wedding. If you’ll have me, that is,’ he added, sounding worried. He hadn’t thought leaving out the leaves was such a big deal.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ answered Mei Li with such a radiant smile that it took his breath away.

Leaves, she thought. What do they matter? She’d been his from the moment he’d taken her in his arms and strode from the hospital like a warrior claiming his woman. But she’d kept the secret to herself. She’d learned to hide her feelings as a child when she realised she was the ugly duckling of the village. By the time she was ten, she was taller and skinnier than anyone else in the tribe. The young men were embarrassed at being shorter than a girl and made her the butt of their jokes. Even Granddad teasingly called her Chopsticks. It was all very well for Grandma to call her Little Lotus, but she’d seen the pity in her friends’ eyes when she was the only girl in the longhouse without a suitor.

Lada had told her to keep practising on the loom. ‘Every young man wants a wife who’s skilled at weaving.’

But Mei Li knew her mastery of the intricate traditional patterns didn’t matter a jot. Girls had to be pretty and petite to catch a young man’s eye, and she was tall and gawky. Only repulsive
old Langkup was willing to marry her and then only because he was getting Granddad’s boat cheap.

Engagement parties were torture. The worst part was when her grandfather would teasingly say, ‘Young man come knocking on our door soon. Make me proud man.’

Embarrassed, she would exclaim over her friend’s betrothal gifts.

David would have been dumbfounded if he’d known that Mei Li thought she wasn’t good enough to marry him. He had been swept off his feet, crazy in love since the first time he’d seen her working in the lovely garden in Luak Bay. He could scarcely believe she hadn’t guessed. Now that she’d agree to marry him he wanted to shout it from the roof tops or at least phone his parents, but Mei Li persuaded him to wait until they had a chance to know her better. ‘You have much, me just
amah,’
she exclaimed, ashamed by the inequality of their situations and the instinctive knowledge that she wasn’t the bride Lady Entwistle had in mind for her only son.

‘You little goose. Without you I have nothing. I’m going to have to work out how to stop you saying such foolish things,’ he said with a teasing smile before he covered her mouth with his own.

Their happiness was short lived. Two days later the news of Tuff’s arrest pushed an unruly minister’s peccadillo with his secretary off the front page of the
Telegraph
, to the prime minister’s profound relief.

Mei Li had come into the room on the tail end of the Entwistles’ conversation.

‘It’s the most repugnant thing I’ve ever heard,’ said Lady Entwistle. ‘Poor Xiang … I wonder if she’s seen the papers yet.’

‘That little maid,’ said Sir Roland, ‘the one that David’s so fond of, she’s the one I feel sorry for. How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out?’

‘Finds out what?’ said Mei Li.

‘Oh, my dear,’ said Lady Entwistle, apprehensively eyeing the tray of cut-crystal glasses Mei Li was carrying. ‘You better sit down.’

Those first days, and then weeks, after Rubiah’s murder, Mei Li felt like she was lost in a dense mist. Confused about her feelings towards the dead woman, she couldn’t fathom why Rubiah had pretended to be her mother and why she’d let her go on believing a lie. Nothing was clear. Her mind felt blurred and hazy. Tears were her only release. She would cry for hours, every day. When she remembered Tuff, the tears would turn to anger. Never would she accept that monster as her mother.

With the exception of David, everyone left her alone. Day after day he would knock on her door, intruding on her misery. She wished he’d forget about her. There was no way she could marry him now. She’d made her decision. Her place was with her grandparents, but how could she stand to leave him? She choked down a sob but it was no use. The tears welled up and ran unchecked down her cheeks and she cried herself to sleep again. A persistent and familiar voice in her ear had finally woken her.

‘Mei Li, get up.’ Grandma’s voice was soft but firm. ‘Wash yourself and do your hair. Come on, get dressed, you’ve grieved enough.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You never loved Rubiah. Not like I did.’ She looked at her grandmother bitterly and turned her back and her face to the wall.

The slap shocked her. Grandma had never hit her before. She
put her hand to her stinging cheek and the tears she’d been holding back flowed unchecked. ‘Grandma, what am I going to do?’ she sobbed.

A gnarled hand was placed against her burning cheek, cool and comforting. ‘Get on with life, Little Lotus. That’s all I can do, that’s all any of us can do.’ Grandma had such a look of sorrow on her face that Mei Li knew her accusation had been unjust. How could she compare her grief to that of Rubiah’s mother?

Ashamed, she washed and braided her hair, put on her uniform and went downstairs. It was three whole weeks since she’d spoken a word to anyone.

David had been trying to read a book. He looked pale, with dark shadows under his eyes. His hair was standing on end, and his shirt and trousers were crumpled as if he’d been sleeping in them. He looked up when he heard the door open.

‘Darling, thank god.’ He stood up and opened his arms. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No, not ready.’

‘Don’t shut me out, Mei,’ he said, disappointed because he wanted to hold and comfort her more than anything. ‘You have to talk about it sometime. You can’t keep it all bottled up inside. I want to help. I love you and I think … I hope … you still love me.’

‘Me see if Mrs Smith needs me.’

Not to be put off, David followed her into the kitchen. In the midst of so much misery there had been one piece of good news. He told Mei Li that his father had rung an old friend who worked in the Home Office about obtaining a British visa for Mei Li. Approval had been granted.

‘It’s an ill wind that blows no good. It’s going to be much easier
for you to stay in the country now. There won’t be any trouble getting you a visa because your mother took out British citizenship when she launched her career in Britain.’

‘What? You think me pleased to be daughter of murderer?’ she said indignantly.

‘That’s I, not me,’ David corrected and hastily ducked when Mei Li aimed one of the onions she was peeling at him. ‘Don’t be so touchy. I’m only trying to help. I don’t want my friends laughing at you when we marry.’

‘You better marry an English girl then, one who knows the right thing to say. Like that Rosemary your mother invited to your welcome-home party,’ she spat out, then wiped her angry tears with the hem of the copious apron she’d borrowed from Mrs Smith.