The White Pearl (27 page)

Nigel lay on his back under the mosquito net, eyes closed, his breath rising in a regular, shallow rhythm as though fast asleep,
but she didn’t for a moment believe it. Quietly in bare feet she padded over to his side of the bed, lifted the net and slipped
under it. She sat on the edge of the sheet, careful not to touch him.

‘Nigel,’ she said.

No response.

‘Nigel, we have to leave.’

His eyelids didn’t rise but a low murmur escaped his lips. ‘No.’

‘It’s too dangerous to stay.’ She spoke softly. ‘I’ve thought it all out. We have to shut down the estate and leave Palur.’

With a sigh he opened his eyes, and for a long moment he stared up at her. She had no idea what was in his mind. ‘And where
would we go?’

‘Singapore. It’s safer there. They say the Japanese will never get that far.’

‘No, Constance. I’m not abandoning my estate.’

‘They will come, Nigel. They will kill us.’

‘No, you’re wrong. I told you before that they’ll need the rubber, so they won’t harm us.’

‘Maybe not you, but they won’t need me. Or Teddy.’

In the uncertain light she saw his mouth tighten. ‘They’ll never get this far south. Our forces are the best in the world,
Constance. Have faith in them.’ He tried to smile. ‘Have faith in me.’

‘You must understand that I won’t risk our son’s life in exchange for a pile of rubber.’

Neither had spoken above a murmur. It was as though the words were less destructive if they were said softly.

‘I can’t, Constance. I can’t abandon everything my father and grandfather built up here. This is my home. This is your home,
and this is Teddy’s home. I can’t give it up.’

‘Can’t? Or won’t?’

Abruptly he closed his eyes, shutting her out. She placed her hand flat on his chest to remind him she was still here. His
heart was thundering under her palm.

‘Tomorrow, Nigel. We go tomorrow.’

The night was long, the images of the bombing and the injured still rampant in Connie’s head. Four times she went to check
on Teddy and found him tossing and turning, his limbs throwing off the sheet with restless jerks. She held him. Kissed his
damp hair and prayed that the scarlet buttons on the safari jacket would stay out of his head.

Dawn came with a bright-red haze that seemed to set fire to the treetops as she stood at her bedroom window.

‘So.’ Her husband’s voice startled her. She didn’t know he was awake. ‘Where are you thinking of going?’ he asked.

She didn’t turn from the window. ‘I told you – Singapore.’

‘The roads and rail have been bombed. Already they say our troops are finding bridges blown.’

‘I know. That’s why I plan for us to sail there.’

‘On
The White Pearl
?’

‘Of course. If she’s not damaged. Nigel, we have to go, you know we have to. For Teddy’s sake.’

‘You could go alone with him.’

She swung to face him. Behind the shroud of the mosquito net his hair was rumpled, his cheeks florid and lined with the folds
of sleep. ‘And leave you here?’

‘Yes.’

‘I won’t go without you.’

He laughed, a bark of sound that had an unpleasant edge to it. ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re my husband.’

Their gaze held across the room and they both knew her words were not true, not in the real sense of
husband
.

‘Damn it, I can’t sail
The White Pearl
, not with this bloody leg. And you can’t handle her on your own.’

‘There’s Johnnie,’ she pointed out.

‘He’s not exactly in top form, is he? Not with his crook shoulder.’

‘I’ve asked Harriet and Henry to come with us.’

‘You’ve what?’

‘I know they’re not sailors. But there’s someone else who is, and I could ask him to accompany us as well.’

‘Who?’

‘Johnnie’s friend, Mr Fitzpayne.’

‘Not that upstart who …’

‘He knows boats, Nigel.’

Silence edged into the room. Connie wanted to stride over to the bed, to shake her husband, to kiss his rough cheek and make
him see sense, but instead she remained where she was. ‘I won’t let Teddy be taken by the Japanese,’ she declared.

Nigel threw back the netting, his features jumping into clearer definition. ‘Very well, Constance, I agree to go.’

She started towards him, relief flooding through her.

‘But not today,’ he continued, stopping her in her tracks. ‘Not tomorrow. Nor the day after. Not until we know more about
what is happening
up in the north. If the Imperial Japanese forces are driven out of Malaya – which I’m convinced they will be – then we stay.
Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’ Her eyes didn’t move from his face. ‘But if things become worse for our troops …’

‘They won’t, I promise you.’

She left it there. It was enough. For now.

The SS Jaguar hated the sodden roads, despite its powerful 3.5-litre engine. With its low ground clearance it slid and scraped
in the mud from last night’s rain, bucking through the ruts however carefully Connie steered over them. She was driving to
Palur to check on
The White Pearl
, to see for herself whether any of the bombs had blown her to pieces at her moorings. The prospect filled her with rage.

On either side of the road stretched the plantation fields, waterlogged and sullen. Leaves and branches lay scattered over
the ground, but overhead the sky was a solid grey sheet with a breeze that was listlessly stirring the clouds. It tugged at
Connie’s hair through the open window of the car, but at least the air was cooler today and she sensed her mind becoming more
agile, felt her thoughts clarify as she picked her path into Palur.

‘How’s Teddy today?’

She glanced across at the passenger seat. Johnnie Blake had insisted on coming along as her chaperone, even though he couldn’t
drive with his damaged shoulder. She found she was glad of his company. It staved off the worst of her mind’s imaginings.

‘He’s very quiet. Too quiet.’

‘It must have been hell for the kid yesterday.’ He rested a hand on her arm for a moment, and then removed it. ‘And for you.’

‘Will you speak to him?’

‘To Teddy?’

‘Yes. Will you talk to him about how you cope with it, with the violence of war? You’re a pilot, and he has always hero-worshipped
you. Now that he’s seen some of the ghastly reality of war and that the aeroplanes he loves so much are for inflicting death,
he needs you to tell him it’s all right to be frightened. That it doesn’t make him a coward.’

‘Oh, Christ, poor little chap.’

‘I’ve tried, but he won’t listen.’

‘Of course I’ll talk to him.’

‘Thanks, Johnnie.’

He swivelled in his seat to face her, shifting his shoulder in its sling, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him smile.
‘Would you like me to talk to you, too?’

She laughed, enjoying the release of it, and corrected the front wheel as it slithered sideways in the mud.

Many of the streets in Palur were closed. Damage to buildings and roads was severe. There was a nervousness in the town, a
watchfulness, a quickness as people tried to resume normal life, but all the time they kept one eye on the sky above them.
The planes would be back. Everyone knew it.

By doubling back on herself time and again, Connie was able to weave the car down to the river but the sight that greeted
them made both Connie and Johnnie shudder. Huge craters had been gouged out of the quay, jetties were destroyed, boats smashed
to kindling, masts sprawled like broken limbs. Cargo ships were still on fire where they rode at anchor out in the deep channels
of the river, and the gawky legs of the derricks lay like drunks on top of trucks. Over everything hung a shifting curtain
of smoke.

‘No further!’ A policeman held up a white-gloved hand.

‘I’m trying to get to my …’

‘Sorry, madam.’ He leaned his Ronald Colman moustache through the side window. ‘We’ve got an unexploded bomb down here on
the quay. No one is allowed any closer.’

‘But you don’t understand, I must …’

‘Leave it, Connie,’ Johnnie said.

‘No, I have to find out if
TheWhite Pearl
is …’

‘Leave it, Connie.’

‘No, I can’t. I’m not going to let some blasted Jap bomb stop me getting to her.’

‘Don’t.’ Johnnie removed her hand from the steering wheel and held it quietly between his own. ‘Enough of this. The yacht
can wait.’

She made herself breathe deeply, regaining control. She reversed the car, parked it at a safe distance and then climbed out.

‘I’m sorry, Johnnie. You’re right. I didn’t mean to …’ Connie stopped.

Directly in front of her stood the rows of
godowns
, the warehouses that stored the country’s goods waiting to be shipped all over the world: the
tin, the rubber, the timber, the spices, the rice and the palm oil, the bananas and pineapples and a multitude of other wares
that she could only guess at. In pride of place at the centre of the warehouses stood the Hadley Estate
godown
. Except that it no longer stood. It had turned into a smoking, smouldering black mass that stank so bad, Connie had to clamp
her hand over her nose.

‘All Nigel’s rubber,’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, this will break his heart.’

‘He’ll be insured,’ Johnnie said in a curiously flat tone.

‘That’s not the point. His rubber is his life, it’s what he eats and breathes. It’s his …’ Her words died as she dragged
her eyes from the smoking ruin and looked at Johnnie.

Tears were running down his cheeks.

There was worse to come, far worse. Flash fire had ripped through the shanty huts at the railway embankment and reduced them
to nothing. Only the rain of last night had rescued a lucky few. The fire brigade had been too busy trying to save the
godowns
to bother with the filthy hovels. How many had died? How many ran?

‘They’re like rats,’ Johnnie said quietly. ‘They abandon one place and immediately build new nests in another. Many will have
survived. Don’t worry.’

But Connie did worry. She tramped through the filth and the ash, and she saw the misery and grief of people picking over the
ruins of what had been their home. She asked again and again for the Jumat twins, but nobody knew. Nobody cared. The acrid
air stung her eyes, but she wouldn’t give up until she had scoured every corner of the wretched place. Johnnie stayed at her
side throughout her search. At one point she found a native man squatting in the charred remains of a shack, covered in ash
and cradling the blackened bones of a child in his arms. His eyes were milky white and he was crooning a low chant.

‘You!’ he called out to Connie.

She detached herself from Johnnie and approached him. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said to him. But what use were words?

The blind man nodded his grey head. The skin on his cheeks hung loose, as if attached by no more than a few flimsy stitches.
‘You lose them,’ he muttered, and held out his filthy hand to her. She took it in hers.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘You come before.’

How can he know? He’s blind.

‘Do you know the Jumat twins, Razak and Maya?’ she asked with sudden hope.

He drew her hand to the burned bones cuddled in the crook of his arm and brushed her fingers over them. She shivered but did
not withdraw her hand. Yesterday this child was running in the sunshine. He bent his head and pressed his lips to the fleshless
skull.

‘This Maya’s,’ he whispered.

‘Maya’s child?’

‘
Ya.
’ He nodded. ‘Yes.’

Connie felt an overwhelming rush of sorrow for the young girl. She’d had a child – and yet there had been no sign of it in
their shack.

‘How old?’ she murmured.

He held up three fingers. Three years old. So Maya must have been twelve when she became pregnant, no more than a child herself.

‘Where is she?
Mana
?’

He uttered a weird, undulating sound. ‘She dead.’

Connie’s heart faltered in her chest.
No, please not dead. Not Maya.
‘And Razak?’

‘He gone.’

‘Where?’

‘To hell.’ The man chuckled and rubbed his fingers over his cheeks, tracing uneven paths through the ash on his dark skin.

Connie pressed her purse into his hand and he kissed her fingers, his lips dry and parched. She left the shanty town, her
hands trembling, her feet finding a path through the charred ruins.

‘Look!’ Johnnie declared. He had climbed up onto the embankment where the railway track ran. ‘I can see
The White Pearl
’s mast.’ He smiled reassuringly down at Connie. ‘At least she hasn’t sunk.’

‘Mr Fitzpayne, good afternoon.’

It had taken Connie two days to track him down to a dingy bar on the edge of town. She was surprised to find him in a rough
place like this, one with sawdust on the floor and native girls painted to look like dolls behind the bar. There was an unsavoury
feel to the smoky atmosphere, where men with hard faces and even harder fists leaned over their beers and spoke in undertones.
They spat on the floor and cracked their
knuckles to show satisfaction. Shady deals were made. Men were hired and fired. She could smell the greed dripping as thick
as grease down the walls as she walked in, and feel the many eyes that stared not at her but at the gold watch on her wrist,
at the pearl necklace around her neck.

‘Mrs Hadley!’

Fitzpayne rose to his feet. He had been seated at a table with two other men and a bottle of whisky. He swayed slightly before
he recovered himself, and with disgust she realised he was drunk, though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon.

‘Mrs Hadley, I didn’t know you were a patron of Goodrington Bar.’

He looked at her with a faint rumble of laughter in his chest, and she knew he was mocking her. She swallowed her annoyance.
She did not intend to be sidetracked.

‘Mr Fitzpayne, may I speak to you in private, please?’

She stared pointedly at his two companions, one of whom had a thick unruly beard. The other had recently been in a fight,
judging by his crooked nose and swollen eyes, but they just stared straight back at her, curious grins creasing their faces.