Suddenly at Singapore (18 page)

A visitor had once said our rockery was chilly, which was an odd way to describe something in Singapore. But it certainly was cool, holding shadow a lot of the time, and in a curious way its own air conditioning. It wasn’t easy for a breeze to work around that heaped rock, but a stillness held never seemed oppressive. Sound, too, was almost completely shut out.

The party began well before the tropic dusk and by five there were cars parked solid along the drive up to the house. In the living-room and the spreading porches beyond it was that steady bellow from three hundred people all drinking fast and beginning not to care what they said so long as they said it.

I liked playing host on this scale, the exhibitionism of it, the new surprise thought out each time. This year it involved a long section of veranda railing removed, with temporary steps put up, and streamers of Japanese lanterns leading out over the lawn as far as a kidney-shaped carp pool which was illumined, so that you saw huge fish moving in a sort of pinky translucence. The big tree sat by itself, glowing, on a little heaped up mound of packed turf.

I knew that when the dark came the focus would shift to the garden and by that time the women would all have seen what their friends were wearing and be ready to move out.

We would have the main food outside, too, and this was to be pretty solid, much more than the canapés Ruth had been willing to make.

Ruth liked the big parties best, where as hostess she had an automatic status and not too onerous duties. She had only to move about, dressed slightly better than anyone else, and the shouting clumps opened to let her in and to let her out again when she wanted. She wore pale green taffeta, inspired by Balmain, but created by Miss Lottie Woo of Bintang Road. The dress was loosely draped at the neck, then tight fitting to above the knees where it boxed out suddenly. It had been designed for Ruth’s emeralds, a small necklace, ear-rings and a bracelet, which I’d given her after Booney came, but until to-night I hadn’t seen the set for years.

Something had gone wrong with Ruth’s hair at the last moment and when I knocked to call her for the pre-guests drink she had shouted out:

“No, don’t come in. Everything’s gone wrong. I look like an old hag.”

I had that drink by myself and Ruth appeared as I greeted the first foursome and car doors were beginning to slam. She came sailing down the hall looking as though she had enjoyed the services of three maids working on her for a couple of hours.

Russell Menzies came with Kate. He was wearing a cream coloured pongee suit which suggested he had just got up from a long afternoon nap in a deep chair and Kate had made the mistake which nearly every European woman in the Orient makes once. She was in a
cheong sam
of white brocaded silk in which she looked bigger and bonier than she was. White isn’t a good colour for the tropics, either, and Kate looked as though she had suddenly realised this, conscious of the fact that my boys and the ten hired waiters were wearing it. And no one else.

“Lead us to the champagne,” Russell said. “That’s my sole purpose in being here. You’ve got some?”

“We’ve got everything, bud.”

Russell looked at Kate.

“There’s a new spirit abroad these days. The rich aren’t ashamed to be ostentatious any more. This boy’s an absolute flash Harry. And right here in these rooms, my dear, is a concentration of money the like of which you probably couldn’t assemble anywhere else in the Orient, except perhaps Hong Kong.”

“Chinese, too,” Kate said in a low voice.

“All millionaires, every one. Otherwise they wouldn’t get past the door. Paul doesn’t really like them.”

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “Have you been drinking?”

“I had my usual preliminary tonic, just to get me over the first five minutes. And there’s a client I want to nab. Look after Kate.”

She looked at me.

“I rather feel I need looking after, Paul. A newspaper woman ought to know more people than I seem to.”

Her bag was too large for the skin-tight brocade. She shifted it from one arm to the other, and then looked down.

“I look like I was going marketing. I thought all this was a brilliant idea. I thought I was the type, you know, non-busty. But I’m not.”

“Kate, you need a gin. Here.”

“Thanks. That’s just what I do need. I’m a big girl but I always feel like this coming to a party, shivery at the outer edges.”

“The thing is to plunge in. Come with me. What kind of millionaires interest you?”

“I’ve been investigating the oil palm business. Anything to offer?”

“Yes. There’s de Roocher. He’s a kind of king of the French interests. He likes American gals.”

“Don’t try to comfort me. In a minute or two I won’t be suffering.”

I felt, though, that she wanted me to stay around and I did. De Roocher was at once charming, still in the company of his wife, who, like so many French women of the upper classes, was elaborately chic with a face of surprising ugliness under hair that sat on her head like a wig. But after all they marry for practical considerations, not sentiment, and this is never forgotten. De Roocher hadn’t the smallest qualm about elaborate gallantries to other women in front of his wife. In a remarkably short while he had contrived, in some way, to be holding Kate’s free hand. I led Madame away to meet an amiable old president of an ointment company called Wan Win Fung. It is always safe to lead the French to the Chinese, the only other people in the world they will allow any claim to be
civilisé
.

I was keeping my eye on the time. It wouldn’t be long now before the lights came on in all those garden lanterns. I looked about for Ruth, but there were many scrums in which she could be hidden, and then, the host inspecting arrangements about to be revealed, I went down steps to the lawn.

No one was out there yet, the carp still undisturbed in their pool, only the tree glowing. I was certain no one saw me find shadow and use it, making my way to the rock garden.

Amongst the great chunks of cemented lava it was suddenly still, the sounds from the house cut off. The sunset had gone and the grey light remaining wouldn’t last for long. My feet made a crisp sound on the freshly raked gravel.

Kim Sung was waiting for me, sitting on the marble seat, back in the little artificial cave. He stood, a short, little man, thick chested, tidier now than I remembered seeing him, in a khaki shirt and trousers, with an odd peaked cap. He grinned.

“Tuan. It’s a long time since we’ve met.”

“Too long, Kim. How are you?”

“Excellent, and highly respectable.”

“You mean it bores you?”

“A little.”

“I’ve wanted to thank you about de Vorwooerd for a long time.”

“That was nothing. The old man is now happy, back in Kuantan.”

“And we’ll never use that route again, Kim.”

“I’ve thought of another, tuan. Across the Kra Isthmus, just south of Singora.”

“I don’t like the idea of getting mixed up with the Thais.”

He grinned again.

“They have a worse police force than Malaya. Especially down there. It’s wild country. We’d have to use porters, but we could.”

“Are you talking about the stuff hidden in Johore?”

“No, tuan, I want to take that by sea. The patrol situation seems good just now.”

I looked at Kim. I was fond of him, and I think he was of me.

“Was I a damn’ fool suggesting you come here like this?”

“No, tuan. It was an excellent idea. Especially with the policemen at the gate.”

“What?”

“Yes, they’re there.”

“You don’t mean Kang?”

“Oh, not his excellency. He’s too important. His boys. Plenty of them.”

“But they haven’t been watching me since I came from Penang. Kang said he wasn’t going to.”

“He must be suspicious of parties.”

“How did you get in, Kim?”

“Easy. I came as a chauffeur. Driving one of my honourable cousin Tong Fatt’s hire cars.”

“I didn’t even know you drove a car?”

“I’m better with a boat,” Kim said, and laughed.

What he had to say took another five minutes. Then I handed over the fat bundle of notes which was the real reason for our meeting. Kim put them inside his shirt where they bulged slightly more than they had in the inner pocket of my suit.

“Take care of your health, tuan,” he said, turning away.

I watched him go around a projection of that twisted agonised rock. I had just moved when I heard a sound like a cork coming out of a wine bottle. The bullet came by my ear, I heard it, that close. It pinged against rock and ricocheted upwards, whining.

My first thought was the cave. Someone with a gun fitted with a silencer was in this maze. I hadn’t a gun. I’d better not be a target any more. It was getting dark. I could wait.

But I didn’t wait. I ran up the path, though it hurt my legs, round a corner of the rock. I wasn’t sure where the bullet had come from at all. Sound was tricky in here. I hadn’t seen the flash of light.

Then I saw the Goldfish. He was standing where the path widened, in his long white robe, his eyes stuck out of his head, staring. I couldn’t really see the colour of his face, only the man standing there, rigid, frozen.

“You …” I said. “What the …?”

His hands were empty. I went up to him and ran mine down his body. There were no bumps.

“What did you see?” I shook him, holding him by the shoulders. “What did you see?”

“Tuan! Tuan!”

His voice was an echo, feeble. He was shivering.

“You must have seen something! Tell me!”

“No. Nothing. Nothing.”

He began to weep, a dismal snivelling. I had the feeling that he could scarcely stand, that if I took away my hands he might crumple.

It couldn’t have been the Goldfish. He hadn’t the guts. I was certain. But he might have seen something. It was no use trying to get it out of him now if he had. He was making a sound like a whine, that went on and on.

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

I went on up the path, and I was afraid doing it. I was sweating.

There was no use looking, the dark was near, dripping down, and there were twenty paths, twisting in and out, and other little caves, too. The man with the gun wouldn’t have loitered, he’d have got clear while I was standing shaking the Goldfish. Bloody fool I’d been!

A gun with a silencer, it wouldn’t be small. How the hell could you bring a thing like that to a party?

Sound reached me again, that roar of a lot of people. The lights were on in the lanterns, and the whole effect was the thing I’d planned, the house and verandas bright, the garden beyond them glowing with softer colour. Almost everyone seemed to have moved out on the grass.

I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped my hands, then my face. I didn’t loiter in shadows, wanting people about me. I decided not to say anything, I didn’t see what good it would do now, and I didn’t want Ruth to know. I didn’t want more horror to come near her.

Ruth was coming towards me, as though she’d been watching out for me.

“Paul! I sent the Goldfish to find you. What an odd time to wander in the garden. Alone, too? I hope you were?”

“Yes. I was just having a breather.”

“I didn’t know what to do about the lights. So I had them put on.”

“That was right.”

“Paul, you look odd. Aren’t you enjoying this?”

“Yes. A lot.”

She laughed.

“I’ve got a feeling we’re not going to lose our guests for ages. I heard someone say this would be a perfect lawn to dance on. Shall we just carry on, put on the gramophone? We could put a speaker out on the veranda.”

“Why not?”

“Paul, are you really all right?”

“I’ve got a bit of a headache. I might get an aspirin.”

Ruth put a hand on my arm. She was smiling.

“You’ve been drinking too much.”

“It’s in the morning you get a head, remember? I’ll be right down. Have them fix up the speaker if you want it.”

“Don’t be long. You know I can’t go on playing hostess unless I can look up and see you somewhere.”

“I won’t be long.”

I went to the bathroom off my bedroom, and even in there the sound of the party followed me. I was glad of it. The last thing I’d have wanted was the house empty to-night, and those acres of garden taken by blackness. Ruth was right, you could have a house that was too big, with too much ground around it.

I felt sweaty and my shirt was damp. I took a shower and changed completely. Then I took the aspirins.

Should I go on keeping quiet about this? To-night, yes. There would be no good in telling anyone. A little whisper might start travelling amongst the guests, and there were lots of reasons why I didn’t want that.

I thought of Jeff, standing by the mirror combing my hair. I’d thought of him earlier when the party started, remembering what inevitably happened when he came to us for something like to-night. Before very long there was a bull session in one corner of business men talking about markets. Ruth had said he was hopelessly anti-social and that he didn’t like European women, didn’t know how to behave with them. It was probably true enough.

But I could have talked to Jeff, pushed things off on him, and done what he told me. I still wasn’t quite used to this hugging things to myself.

I got downstairs to find the music had started, softly still, a kind of invitation, but no one was dancing yet. It was pretty out there under the lanterns and my lit pool was popular. I found Kate and Russell standing by it, alone on the far side, though there were quite a few opposite.

Kate looked up at me.

“Your carp don’t like cheese straws or smoked salmon. What do they eat?”

“Red ants’ eggs.”

“Just that?”

“Nothing else.”

“I’ve got a feeling,” Russell said, and his voice was a little slurred, “that they don’t like all this publicity. Poor old fish. They are old, aren’t they?”

“The biggest had passed his fortieth birthday when I got him.”

“Forty years on ant eggs,” Russell said. “We’re a long way from the champagne. If you’d been a proper jolly
bourgeois
you’d have seen it was pink. It is not pink. What about the ladies?”