The White Pearl (9 page)

‘Flight Lieutenant Blake, you are an outrageous flirt,’ she smiled.

Johnnie Blake kissed both her cheeks in the French fashion, holding onto her hands so that she couldn’t escape his admiring
gaze. She had changed her frock for a pale blue one that she knew sat well on her slight hips, and had twined her long blond
hair up in a loose pleat with a pearl clip for a more sophisticated look. Somehow Palur and its fusty colonial ways felt very
provincial whenever Johnnie was around.

Stylish was the word for him. None other fitted him so well. As he swung Teddy up in the air in greeting, Connie sensed the
atmosphere in the house brighten, and even the dark staircase lost its gloomy mood. He was tall and elegant in his RAF blue-grey
uniform and careless in the manner with which he tossed his jacket aside for Teddy to seize upon.

‘Constance, let me introduce Mr Fitzpayne.’

Nigel turned to a figure who was standing behind him, still in the doorway. Connie had an impression of strength as the man
stepped
forward. He was shorter than her husband and bulkier, the muscles of his forearms clearly visible in the dark short-sleeved
shirt he wore, and his grey eyes did not smile at her. Something in the coldness of his gaze made her want to move back, away
from him. Instead, she held out her hand.

‘Welcome to Hadley House, Mr Fitzpayne.’

‘I’m sorry to intrude on your Sunday, Mrs Hadley. But your husband was kind enough to invite me to lunch.’

‘Couldn’t let the chap starve, now could I?’ Nigel laughed.

‘It’s my fault,’ Johnnie said with an apologetic smile. ‘Fitz and I travelled up together on the train from KL and took a
bit of a shine to each other. He’s a real sea dog, aren’t you, Fitz? Knows a hell of a lot about boats, and I was sure Nigel
would want to talk to him about
The White Pearl
.’

The White Pearl
was the love of Nigel’s life; his sixty-five-foot sailing yacht that rode the waves like the thoroughbred she was.

‘You’re very welcome to join us for lunch, Mr Fitzpayne,’ Connie said. ‘We will be delighted to learn about the secrets of
life as a sea dog.’

Fitzpayne’s heavy brows pulled together. ‘We all like to keep our secrets, Mrs Hadley.’

Connie felt her throat tighten.

‘Indeed we do.’ She forced a laugh.

‘Some bigger than others,’ Johnnie cut in, and waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Singapore. ‘They say that General
Gordon Bennett …’ he raised a querying eyebrow at Teddy.

‘The Commander of the Australian Imperial Force in Malaya,’ the boy responded at once.

‘Spot on! Well done, Teddy. You certainly know your stuff.’ He ruffled the boy’s hair.

‘I don’t want to hear about the general’s skeletons, thank you,’ Nigel stated. ‘Not in front of the nipper, anyway.’

‘Save it for the brandies, Blake,’ the newcomer commented.

He glanced around the room, taking in its elegant proportions, its silk hangings, its mahogany glass-fronted cabinet displaying
shelves of antique silver, the copies of the newspaper, the
Straits Times
, their pages rustling in the draught from the whirling brass fan on the ceiling overhead. Connie did not warm to this man
who was inspecting her room with such a critical eye.

‘Let’s have drinks on the north veranda,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s shady there.’

‘Good idea,’ Nigel agreed.

‘Come on, Pilot Officer,’ Johnnie said to Teddy, ‘let’s see what might be hiding in this bag, shall we?’ He swung a leather
satchel from his shoulder and held it aloft, so temptingly that Pippin started to bounce up in the air like a black rubber
ball. Teddy’s face lit up. He trotted after the Flight Lieutenant like a miniature shadow. Nigel followed, interested.

‘Shall we join them?’ Connie said to Fitzpayne.

His attention flicked from the room to her. He seemed about to say something, his grey eyes quick to register her unease,
but instead something like a satisfied smile tipped one corner of his mouth. Slats of light and dark lay on the parquet floor
where the sunlight had sidled in between the shutters, and he walked across them without a word, picking his feet up as if
he was treading on glass.

The lunch was unusually animated. Maybe it was all the talk of how the British Forces were planning under Sir Robert Brooke-Popham
to strengthen Malaya’s defences. Or maybe it was just that her own unsettled mood made her drink too many glasses of wine.
She talked too much. She was aware of it, but her tongue wouldn’t stop, as though frightened to lie still. She asked Johnnie
about Singapore, where he had been at a dinner with the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas.

‘What else?’ she asked. ‘What else did you do there?’

‘I went to the pictures. Watched Orson Welles in
Citizen Kane
at the Cathay Cinema. You should see it if it comes to Palur,’ he urged. ‘It’s a great film.’

‘Were there aeroplanes in it?’ Teddy asked hopefully. He had never been to the cinema.

‘No, but the film for you is
Dumbo
. He’s an elephant that flies.’ He laughed at Teddy’s expression. ‘And I came across a shop on Tanglin Road selling this.’
With a flourish, Johnnie drew out a package from the satchel and handed it across the table to the boy.

Teddy unwrapped it eagerly and drew out a cardboard box containing a flying model of an aeroplane. ‘It’s a Frog Interceptor!’
he squealed.

He opened the box and inspected its contents with awe. His small fingers caressed the foil fuselage of the aircraft, only
ten inches long and
driven by a rubber band. He touched its wings tucked neatly at its side. When out of the box, they would slot onto pegs attached
to the body of the plane.

‘Thank you, Uncle Johnnie, thank you.’ Beaming from ear to ear, he turned to his father at the head of the table. ‘It’ll fly
for three hundred feet when you wind it up. That’s what my friend Jack says, but he’s not getting one till Christmas.’

Nigel smiled. ‘You spoil the boy.’

‘Can I fly it, Papa?’

‘Of course, but don’t be in such an almighty rush. Wait until we finish tiffin.’

Teddy’s impatient eyes flitted around their plates. He started pushing forkfuls of roast lamb into his mouth, trying by example
to encourage the others to speed up. On Connie’s left Mr Fitzpayne was observing her son in moody silence. The stranger had
said so little during the meal that she wondered why on earth he bothered to come at all. He had a broad face with heavy features
and thick dark eyebrows, and the way he studied the room, as well as his four luncheon companions and even the dog who was
sniffing at his boots, made her faintly uncomfortable. She wished Johnnie hadn’t brought him along.

‘Mr Fitzpayne.’ She made a polite attempt to include him in the conversation. ‘Have you also been down to Singapore recently?’

He laid down his fork and regarded her solemnly. ‘I have.’

‘What is the mood down there? I read in the
Straits Times
that there is talk of war.’

‘There is.’

‘Surely not in Malaya itself.’

‘Very probably.’

‘It’s preposterous,’ Nigel burst out. ‘The Japs wouldn’t risk it. They may have a go at Siam or Java but not here, I promise
you. We have fifteen-inch guns facing the seas around Singapore. We’d blast the yellow bastards out of the water.’

‘There’s always the jungle,’ Fitzpayne pointed out flatly. ‘They could come down from the north, you are forgetting that.’

It was the way he said it. Something cold crept up Connie’s spine.

‘That’s absurd, Fitz,’ Johnnie responded. ‘No army could hack its way through the jungle and the mountains of Malaya – with
tanks, for God’s sake – to attack Singapore from behind. They are impenetrable.’ He
raised his wineglass good-naturedly. ‘Come on now, no scaremongering, my friend. Especially not with ladies and children present.’

But the damage was done. Connie was filled with foreboding.

‘Is a war really coming?’ Teddy asked. His young voice was as excited as if he had asked if Christmas was coming.

‘Of course not,’ his father insisted. ‘Our job is to supply the Allied Forces with rubber and tin and rice. They need us.
We can’t afford to let ourselves get caught up in …’

Fitzpayne laughed, a dry sound with no humour in it. ‘I’ll take a wager with you, Hadley.’

Nigel coloured and Connie felt for him, seeing him torn between his irritation at his guest and his role as host.

‘Blast your damn cheek!’ he muttered, and signalled to a servant to refill his glass. He swirled the wine around violently
for a moment, creating a whirlpool that seemed to settle him in some way. ‘The Japs have already bitten off more than they
can chew, they won’t be sticking their nose in here. General Percival will see to that, he’ll protect our airfields. You and
your RAF boys will give any Jap warships a hammering, eh, Johnnie? No chance of any enemy troops getting a foothold here.’
He smiled at his son. ‘So no need to worry, young man.’

Teddy nodded and prodded a piece of carrot across his plate. He looked disappointed. Connie abandoned her meal – the day was
far too hot to eat anyway – and concentrated on Fitzpayne. She was trying to work out why he had tagged along with Johnnie.

‘Are you with the military, Mr Fitzpayne?’ she enquired.

He looked at her a beat too long for politeness before he answered, ‘No. I’m in boats.’

‘Really. How pleasurable. My husband loves to sail, don’t you, Nigel?’

Nigel grunted into his wine. There was an awkward lull at the table, and this time Connie let it lie there like a sick dog.
Johnnie Blake was the one to give it a shake.

‘I heard in the Club in Palur yesterday that they are contemplating rounding up any Japanese still hanging around and putting
them to work in camps.’

Connie looked up sharply. ‘In camps?’

‘Yes, in case they’re spying for Japan.’

Why did she feel it, like a blow beneath her ribs even now?

‘There aren’t many Japanese in Palur,’ she pointed out. She was breathing too fast. Suddenly she longed for a thin black cheroot
with a tiny gold band around the filter. To have one lit for her. To feel its gossamer brown tip placed between her lips.

‘That’s true,’ Nigel agreed. ‘They’ve mostly vanished into the woodwork.’

‘What happened to the one who used to hang around here a while back?’ Johnnie asked. ‘The one in the silk business. Ever hear
from him these days?’

It was like a black fog. It descended in front of her eyes so quickly she had to hold onto the edge of the tablecloth. The
noise of a river in spate drummed in her ears, and she knew it was her own blood pounding its way up to her brain.

‘Remember him, Connie?’ Johnnie asked.

From a long way away, rising from the bottom of a dirty disused well, the words climbed up to her, hand over hand, clinging
to the bricks, fighting to get at her.

Remember him, Connie? What was that blighter’s name?

She remembered him. His name was Shohei Takehashi. Sho for short.

‘Will you dance?’

Those were the first words he spoke to her. He had been observing her all evening from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke at
the next table at the Mayfair nightclub in Palur, and she had pretended to be totally unaware of his black eyes fixed on her
as the band played Cole Porter’s
Don’t Fence Me In
. The band was called Siroc, and the music was as hot as the wind from the desert. She could feel her pulse at her wrists.

Will you dance?

She opened her mouth to refuse. But someone else at her table – was it Harriet’s husband, Henry? – rose to his feet and greeted
the elegant Japanese stranger like a long-lost cousin, the way businessmen tend to do until they no longer need each other.
Images burned in her mind, even now. The way his neck bent forward to bow a courteous acknowledgement, the skin as rich and
smooth as butter. The grace of his movements, the delicacy of his bones. The fullness of his lips.

He had stood there, patient as one of his Shinto monks, listening, talking, waiting. He didn’t move from the edge of their
round table. There were ten people in their party, four of them already on the dance floor,
the others drinking and laughing. And when Nigel was deep in conversation about the replanting tax with William Barratt from
Jardine’s, the largest trading house in the Pacific, Sho leaned forward once more and asked again.

‘Will you dance?’

This time she said yes. The dance floor was crowded and he drew her body close. He was taller than she was but not by much,
and she could feel the tension in his muscles under the silk of his jacket where her hand lay lightly on his shoulder. He
smelled of a musky spice that set the fragile skin in her nostrils on fire. They barely spoke. Just her hand in his, her eyes
drawn to his neatly manicured nails and the pearly colour of them, their half-moons white and silken. Clearly he did not work
with his hands.

Their feet moved in time together, his fingers firm in the small of her back, their tips moving over the curve of her spine.
How long was it since a man had touched her like this? As if his skin drew something from hers. A thirst, a need, a hunger,
the rumbling of an undercurrent when the tide goes out? She could sense it, the way she could sense his gaze on her lips,
on her hair and on the bones of her cheeks even when her eyes were turned away from him. When the music stopped, the movement
around them ceased and she looked him full in the face.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘For what?’

‘For waiting.’

‘Waiting for something worthwhile is not hard.’

‘It depends, doesn’t it?’ she said softly. ‘Something that is worthwhile to one person may be worthless to another.’

‘We all make our own choices.’ His long almond eyes smiled at her, but didn’t hide the desire behind the polite words.

‘And we all have to live with the consequences of our choices,’ she pointed out.

But this was not a man who would ever call her
old thing
. They danced one more dance, a slow waltz, and that was all. He walked her courteously back to her table, bowed and left.
But they met the following day. And the next.