The White Pearl (3 page)

How on earth could it not be your fault when you run a woman down on the pavement? Were they blind?

I curse you.

The words pinned her to the guilt.

I …
the woman’s hot breath smelled of cardamom.

Curse …
her broad nostrils had flared, scenting death.

You …
the blood in her eyes was drowning the fury in the dark pupils.

Connie didn’t even know her name. She shivered, her hands shaking on her lap. Was this what Malaya had done to her? Turned
her into a person who went around killing others, who took lives as carelessly as the houseboys stamped on cockroaches? Another
memory surged forward into her mind, one that she had fought to bury under a daily avalanche of committee meetings and tennis
matches, of estate concerns and childish laughter over model plane construction. Anything to drown out the sound of a human
head bumping down wooden steps. Thump, thump, thump. A soft, insidious noise that woke her up night after night, thumping
through her dreams when her sheets were drenched with sweat and the song of mosquitoes was whining on the other side of the
mosquito net.

‘What on earth are you doing, sitting here in the dark?’

The overhead light flashed on, blinding Connie and she blinked. She hadn’t heard Nigel arrive home.

‘Didn’t the good-for-nothing houseboy switch the lamps on for you?’ he demanded in a disgruntled tone.

‘Yes, he came but I sent him away.’

‘Whatever for, old thing?’

‘I felt like …’ she paused.
Seeing what it was like to exist in the darkness of a grave.
She smiled up at her husband. It never failed to amaze her that even after a long, hot day that started in the dark at five-thirty
in the morning when he set out for the daily muster of field coolies, Nigel could still look crisp and fresh in his white
shirt with rolled-up sleeves and khaki shorts.

How did he do it? Others wilted and their clothes looked like wet rags hanging on them. She experienced a ripple of pride
in him. He wasn’t exactly good-looking, with cropped brown hair and rather long features, but he possessed a certain presence.
It was the kind of self-assurance of an Englishman who believed he had a right to own and civilise other countries, without
questioning whether they wanted to be civilised.

‘I felt like,’ she said, ‘enjoying some peace and quiet.’

‘Bad day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mine too. Absolutely bloody.’ He walked over to the cocktail cabinet, a stylish piece of modern furniture made from sycamore
and shipped over from Maple & Co. of London. He opened its curved front to reveal
shelves of pale green glass and a row of bottles. ‘Let’s have a drink,’ he suggested. ‘Gin sling?’

‘Why not?’

Why not? Why not drown in gin slings? Why not pour them down her throat until the noises in her head blurred into a dull,
unrecognisable murmur that had no meaning? Why not? Well, for one thing she didn’t have much of a taste for alcohol, and for
another she had a son to watch over. She had to make certain Malaya didn’t get the chance to choke him the way it was choking
her.

‘Thank you, Nigel,’ she said as she accepted her glass. ‘So tell me, why was your day so bad?’

‘It’s the damned Restriction Committee.’

‘Oh? What are they up to now?’

The Restriction Committee was an international organisation set up to restrict the supply of rubber onto the market to prevent
the price dropping through overproduction. The scheme allotted each country – Malaya, Dutch East Indies, Indo-China – a specific
tonnage, declaring that they could export that much and no more. Their dictats were a constant thorn in the flesh of plantation
owners, who preferred to work in cartels that set their own agreed limits.

‘I received a cable today. They are refusing to raise the allocation,’ he grumbled, and sank into a battered old rattan chair
that was his favourite.

‘But that’s absurd. Don’t they know there’s a war on?’ She meant it as a joke to lighten his mood, but he set his jaw and
took it seriously.

‘It doesn’t look like it, damn fools. But a young officer from the American attaché’s office flew up from Singapore to see
me today, and admitted that America and Britain are stockpiling the stuff like mad in case the supplies get cut off by Jap
warships and …’ He stopped. ‘What’s the matter, old thing? You’re shaking. Not going down with fever, are you?’

‘No, of course not. It’s just that the word gives me the shivers.’

‘Warship? Can’t say I blame you.’

No, not warship. Jap.
She experienced a flash of memory, of long, narrow eyes staring intently into hers, lean male shoulders and an exquisite
neatness in the incline of a shapely Japanese head in greeting.

Nigel lifted his glass to his lips and studied her over its rim. ‘What’s up? You look a bit peaky, old thing.’

Old thing. Old thing. Old thing.

She was more than
a thing
, and not
old.
Not yet.

‘I’m fine.’ She sipped her gin and let it slide down to her stomach before she added, ‘I had an accident in the car today.’

‘What?’

‘Another car scraped my wing and I lost control of the steering.’

‘Oh, Christ! Much damage?’

‘I killed a woman.’

Four small words. Like a bomb going off in the room, deafening them both. Nigel put down his glass and rose to his feet, his
cheeks flushed, his lips tight. He ran a hand over his short hair and came to stand directly in front of her. He leaned over
her. ‘Constance, my dear, are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Don’t worry, I’ll ring Tommy immediately.’

Tommy Macintyre was their lawyer, a big man prone to a stammer unless oiled by Scotch whisky. Nigel moved quickly to the telephone,
lifted the earpiece and dialled a number. He was staring back over his shoulder at Connie, and the expression on his face
startled her. It was one of such sorrow, of loss, as if he could already see her behind bars. She looked away and finished
her drink in a long swallow, feeling its heat scorch her stomach. After a moment of brief conversation, Nigel hung up.

‘He’s over in KL tonight,’ he said.

Kuala Lumpur was the capital of Malaya, originally a small and scruffy tin-mining town set up by Chinese miners in the middle
of the nineteenth century, but now it had grown into a bustling city since the British set up business there and put in a
Colonial Office Resident to work with the local sultans. Nigel started to pace the room in swift, uneasy steps that made her
want to soothe his distress.

‘I’m sorry, Nigel,’ she said quietly.

‘This is a bad show, Constance. Tell me exactly what happened.’

‘I told you, a black car scraped my wing and the Chrysler was catapulted up onto the pavement where it hit a woman.’
I hit a woman.
That’s what she meant, not
it hit a woman.
‘She died.’

‘In the street?’

‘Yes. Her son and daughter were there.’

‘Dear God, that’s even worse.’

‘I know. A thousand times worse. Watching their mother – no older than I am – die in front of them like that. It was horrible.’

‘What did the police say?’

‘They let me come home.’

‘I’ll ring Duffy at once. He’ll know what’s going on and when they are going to charge you.’

She wanted to say
it wasn’t my fault
, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice the lie. Duffy was Chief Inspector George Duffery, a cricketing companion of her
husband’s. He dialled again and spoke in low tones with his back to her. She watched his shoulders change, starting up around
his ears and slowly descending as the conversation continued until they slumped and she heard a sigh escaping. He replaced
the earpiece on the hook, and took a moment to turn to face her. When he did so it was obvious he was annoyed.

‘Constance, what a scare you gave me!’

‘What do you mean?’

He picked up his glass, strolled over to the open cabinet and topped up his drink, throwing in a handful of ice from the cork
ice bucket. ‘You didn’t tell me the damn woman was a native.’

‘Does it make any difference?’

But she knew it did. She could see it in his face.

‘The police are bringing no charges,’ he told her. ‘So we can breathe again.’

‘The Malay woman can’t.’

‘What?’

‘She can’t breathe again.’ Connie stood up and put her glass down on the side-table for one of the houseboys to collect later.
‘I think I’ll take a cold shower.’

‘Constance.’

She hesitated, but he said nothing more. His footsteps sounded on the polished floors as he crossed the room till he was standing
close to her, inspecting her face with worried eyes. Brown teddy-bear eyes, she always thought. It was one of the things that
had attracted her to him when they first met at a party in Kensington in London. Within a month they were engaged. He had
proposed to her in the tropical hothouse in Kew Gardens. It was a long time since she had thought of that.

‘It’s all right, Nigel.’ She rested a hand lightly on his tanned bare arm and felt the muscles instantly grow tense under
her palm. ‘You can forget
about it now, and concentrate on your American attaché.’ She made an effort to smile at him one more time, and resisted the
urge to throw herself against his crisp white chest, to beg for some kind of comfort. Instead she removed her hand and watched
the tiny muscles around his mouth flicker with relief. He never showed it in his eyes, but he always forgot to control his
mouth.

‘Do remember to pop in on Teddy,’ she said brightly. ‘He’s been building a new aeroplane.’

Just the mention of his son’s name softened her husband’s long features, and he glanced fondly towards the door. ‘As soon
as I’ve finished my drink, I’ll go and say goodnight to the little blighter.’ He lifted his glass to his lips, but before
he took a sip he said in clipped tones, ‘By the way, old thing, next time make sure you take the
syce
into town with you. That’s what chauffeurs are for, you know. If you’d done as I asked and let our
syce
drive you into town, maybe this accident would never have happened and that woman wouldn’t be dead.’

Connie left the room.

After her shower, Connie headed along the landing towards the master bedroom. Hadley House was a large, rambling building
dating back to 1875, built by Nigel’s grandfather, the one who created the family fortune out of rich red Malayan soil. But
the original construction had been extended haphazardly by Nigel’s father, so that it branched off in unexpected directions.
The result, surprisingly, was a comfortable home, not as grand and imposing as some of the more elaborate estate mansions,
but Connie was fond of it. She especially appreciated the verandas and wrought-iron balconies that surrounded it on all sides,
where she could sit with a book in the evening to catch the faintest breeze from whichever direction it was blowing.

Her only criticism was that the house was overly masculine, with an excess of sombre teak panelling and dark polished floors.
A heavily carved central staircase swept down into the wide entrance hall, and set the mood of masculine dominance that she
had come to learn epitomised life in colonial Malaya. She had tried to lighten the tone with bright curtains and had replaced
the gloomy overbearing furniture with paler modern pieces, but there was nothing she could do about the blasted staircase.

As she passed her son’s bedroom she heard the steady murmur of
Nigel’s voice, reading a bedtime story to Teddy. He had a good voice, clear and even-toned, that was unfailingly gentle with
his son. He never raised it, not even with his field coolies when he was angry about something, and its calm control inspired
confidence. Just occasionally she found herself wishing that the calmness would slip, that the control would crack and lay
bare whatever it was that was hidden underneath.

The door to the bedroom stood half open and she paused. Nigel and Teddy were sitting on the edge of the bed alongside each
other, with her son’s bristle-haired terrier, Pippin, curled up on his knee. The sight of them gave her a sense of touching
her feet on solid ground after the shipwreck that had been her day. She loved their closeness, the way Teddy’s slight frame
in his striped pyjamas leaned against his father, unconscious of how he nodded his head whenever his father did, and drew
his eyebrows down in imitation of Nigel when the words grew serious. On a chair beside the bed sat Teddy’s
amah
, Chala, his nurse. She was a tiny little Malay woman, dressed in a patterned tunic over a long straight skirt, her hands
clasped under her chin as she listened, entranced by the story.

‘
Teddy shouted to the house
,’ Nigel read with animation, ‘“
Oh, look here! Our mongoose is killing a snake.
”’

The words made Connie smile. This was Teddy’s favourite story, Rudyard Kipling’s tale about the boy called Teddy and Rikki-tikki-tavi,
a mongoose in India. She lingered in the corridor outside till the end.

‘
He kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its
head inside the walls
,’ Nigel finished with a flourish.

On silent feet, she made her way to the heavy door of Burmese teak at the end of the corridor.

Hold my hand.

Connie’s unspoken words fell into the gap that cut a chasm along the centre of the white sheet of finest Egyptian cotton,
between her side of the bed and her husband’s side.

Hold my hand. I’m here and I need you. Can’t you hear me?

The night was sultry, the weight of air pressing down on her skin, her scalp tight and aching as she lay stretched out naked
under the muslin tent of the mosquito net. She couldn’t make out its milky shape above
her in the darkness but she knew it was there, hanging like a shroud around her marriage. Beside her, Nigel was lying on his
back, snoring gently, a polite and controlled sound, as though even in his sleep he made a point of not disturbing her.