The Rain Forest Read online

  ‘I could hear the music at the reception,’ Hugh said casually.

  ‘Thank goodness we did not have to dress up and go. Or buy a bloody present.’

  ‘You could have written it up. “Subject for a short story”.’

  ‘I could do that without the bother of going there. I can imagine every bit of it. A steaming bore.’

  Hugh mentioned the reception again over coffee but Kristy refused to talk about it. She knew he had been hurt by their exclusion and was brooding on the reason for it. He was prone to anxiety and she could see that in this place anxiety could become a parasite of the mind, continually seeking injury, insult, injustice or malice on which to feed. She would not encourage it.

  He, for his part, was irritated by her indifference. She, of course, had a more important matter to distract her. Whatever happened, she could remain apart, content and preoccupied by motherhood. He realized that her previous outspokenness and independence had been necessary to him. He had needed to blame her. He had needed to grind his teeth on her. Earlier than necessary, he went back to the office and heard the music again.

  Just before sunset, the helicopter passed over the Daisy, taking the bride and bridegroom to Réunion to board the Paris plane. Kristy, sprawled in the salon, knew the reception was over. Simpson was the first one back. Seeing her in her washed-out maternity garments, sandals on bare feet, he was so astonished that he stopped to stare with eyes wide open, shrimpish bristles twitching. Having stopped he came, at last, to the point of speech:

  ‘You not been to the wedding?’

  ‘No. We weren’t asked.’

  ‘Weren’t asked? But you should’ve been asked. You’d a right to be asked.’ He would have said more had the Axelrods not come in behind him and he hurried up the stairs. But that was not the end of it. After supper, Kristy, hearing a hiss, turned to find Simpson looking at her through the bead curtain. He beckoned her to come into the garden. Hugh was reading. Without speaking, she rose and went out into the warm, night-scented garden where the only light was the light of the stars.

  ‘Want to show you something,’ Simpson whispered. He led her across the lawn, moving like a waggish dog, and stopped beside a small citrus tree: ‘You stand just there,’ he said and put his hand into his pocket.

  She thought: ‘Oh, God!’ but all he produced was a box of matches.

  ‘Now, watch!’ He lit a match and played it gently about the leaves. There was a plop, like the plop of an igniting gas-jet, and the whole tree was surrounded by flame. Nothing seemed to be burning. The foliage was unharmed. It was simply haloed by the wavering blue-white flame that appeared to feed on air.

  She caught her breath and asked: ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘Not me. I didn’t do it. It’s nature. Nature did it.’ He explained that at certain seasons the heat drew a volatile oil from the leaves so they became flammable.

  They stood side by side, rapt, watching while the flame licked over the tree, consuming the oil.

  ‘A burning bush,’ Kristy murmured.

  ‘That’s right. Like a Christmas pud, isn’t it?’ Simpson was delighted by her pleasure in the glowing tree. Then, suddenly, the flame was gone and he gave an ‘Oh!’ of disappointment. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said.

  Strolling back with her to the salon, he said: ‘You’re very happy, you two young people; beginning a family, beginning life.’

  Kristy wondered what age he imagined they were.

  ‘Wish I could start again,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been married, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The wife went home long ago; never came back. Wanted to be with the children. I was in India then. She didn’t like India. Funny, I liked it, though it wasn’t a good time. You’d’ve thought to listen to them that there was nothing worse than living under British rule. Now what are they doing? All crossing the pani to get back under British rule. I say, I’m sorry you weren’t asked to the tamasha. Not nice, that; leaving people out. Not a nice thing to do.’

  ‘I didn’t expect to be invited. We don’t belong. You know that. Except for Ogden, you’re the only government person who’s even spoken to us since we came to the Daisy.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ Simpson was genuinely surprised but on reflection, added: ‘You know, they thought you looked down on them. You thought we were a lot of old fogies first time you saw us.’

  ‘No. We’d come to a strange place. We were confused.’

  Simpson laughed: ‘So were we. We’d never seen smart young people like you. You made us realize how the world has changed. We were young at a bad time. We thought things’d get better as we got older, but they’ve got worse. Our children despise us. Don’t want to talk to us. It’s no fun getting old, like a worn-out car. You think you’ve learnt the game, then you find all the young ones are playing a different game.’

  ‘Not so different, really. The trouble is, life seems so temporary now. There is to be no future for us.’

  Simpson stared at her in astonishment: ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Surely you know the world is being used up. Even England is becoming an over-populated, polluted slum.’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  He took a step away from her and looked as though he thought her a little mad. She went in through the bead curtain feeling that at his age, he might as well retain his innocence.

  6

  Hassan, serving the breakfast coffee, bent over the table and whispered: ‘Manager come.’

  ‘Today?’ Hugh asked.

  ‘Today, come.’

  Hassan told everyone the same news and it was taken as a cause for congratulation among the guests. Hassan, however, seemed more frightened than pleased and as he whispered the news around, he seemed to be appealing against the new management. What changes would it bring? The first was apparent that evening at dinner-time when the diners entered the room to see Akbar standing at his old place, beside the serving-table. He had grown heavier during his absence and he was wearing a new kaftan of dark blue silk with a gold cording at the neck. When the guests welcomed him, he gave each a nod of solemn dignity. His return had confirmed in him his sense of personal consequence. He did not smile. He controlled the servants with the utmost gravity, lifting a finger here, an eyebrow there, and they scuttled about, eager to obey him. Hassan, demoted to second-in-command, observed his power with reverence.

  Akbar, now, did not even draw corks from bottles. All his old duties had been delegated to Hassan who worked harder than ever. Then Kristy’s lemur came in through the window. The creature had found her out when the dining-room moved indoors so even Hugh had to admit it was her lemur and let her call it her friend and companion, her totem, her pet, her alter ego. Akbar knew nothing of these relationships. As the lemur leapt on to the Fosters’ table, he strode across the room, clapping his hands. The lemur sped off in alarm and leapt out of the window. Akbar closed the window.

  Kristy cried out: ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘Manager say no animals in dining-room.’

  As Kristy looked in helpless misery at Hugh, he realized how defenceless she had become. He did not want the lemur on the table but seeing her near tears, he said: ‘Don’t cry. I’ll speak to the manager. I’m sure he’ll understand.’

  Hugh asked Hassan where the new manager was and Hassan, too nervous to speak, jerked his hands right and left to indicate that the manager was here, there, everywhere, an all-pervading, terrifying force. In spite of that, he was nowhere to be found. Nearly a week passed before anyone saw him but there were more changes. Workmen arrived and boarded over the glass door to the Lettuce Room. A new door was constructed at the garden end of the room and marked ‘Private’.

  ‘What’s happening to the lettuces?’ Mrs Axelrod asked.

  Hassan sighed deeply: ‘Lettuces no more.’

  For a few days anyone in the garden could look through the glass and see the lettuces wilting and dying, then the workmen tore out the shelves and carted them away
. The lettuce boxes went with them. After that the bamboo blinds were pulled down and there was no knowing what went on inside.

  Like children bored by misrule, the servants had meekly returned to their routine, having learnt that without Akbar, their world was chaos. The food was more plentiful than it had been in Mrs Gunner’s day but it was coarse and uninteresting. Ogden complained that the meat – dark and tough, coated with bread-crumbs to hide its colour – was the same for every meal. He said to Akbar: ‘What’s Aly thinking about, sending this stuff every day?’

  The guests then learnt that the manager had taken the Daisy account from Aly and now bought direct from a Syrian wholesaler whose depot was at the Dobo. Ogden thought the meat was goat, probably frozen. It was served with large plates of chipped sweet potatoes but no green vegetables. Ogden asked: ‘And why don’t we get vegetables these days?’

  ‘Manager say vegetables too much money and bad, bad,’ said Akbar: ‘Make belly bad. Too much wind.’

  ‘Rubbish. Go and get the manager.’

  Akbar did not move.

  Ogden, speaking sternly and distinctly, said: ‘I told you to go and get the manager.’

  Akbar stared insolently at him then, from habit, turned and made a dilatory journey to the kitchen. He was back in a minute or two and, taking his place by the serving-table, said nothing. After a long interval, Ogden said: ‘You told the manager I wish to speak to him.’

  ‘Me told ‘um.’

  ‘Then where is he?’

  Akbar, his eyes protruding, said with barely a movement of his heavy lips: ‘What you think? You think Akbar keep the manager up him arse?’

  Mrs Ogden, who had been trembling throughout the exchange, now gave a gasp of horror. Ogden clenched his fist and raised it as though to fell Akbar to the ground. ‘You speak like that again before ladies and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .’

  Akbar, twice Ogden’s weight and half his age, advanced on Ogden and gazed contemptuously down on him: ‘What you do, sayyid? Yo’ tell Akbar what yo’ do.’ Getting no reply, Akbar swept round and went back to his post.

  Ogden, who seemed bemused as though he had received a blow, sank back in his chair while Mrs Ogden, bouncing from side to side, cried out: ‘How can you let him treat my husband like this?’

  Axelrod answered in a reasonable tone: ‘What can we do? We can’t band together and attack a coloured servant. Think what the F.O. would say!’

  ‘Besides,’ Mrs Prince spoke amiably, ‘we can’t have Akbar going off again. You know what this place is like without him! I think it’s better to take no notice.’

  There was a general murmur that suggested Mrs Prince had spoken wisely. It also seemed to suggest that Ogden had been in the wrong. Akbar was too valuable to be provoked in that way. Only Mrs Axelrod remained silent, looking down as though she would dissociate herself from the whole incident: while Akbar seemed unaware that the comments concerned him.

  That evening a man with a face like a vulture came into the salon and gave a batch of envelopes to Negumi. The new manager, seen for the first time, was Gurgur.

  The envelopes were handed round and found to contain the monthly accounts. They gave rise to considerably more indignation than had the fracas between Ogden and Akbar. The monthly rate, payable in advance, had risen by twenty-five per cent. A note was pinned to Hugh’s account: Mr Foster was required to see Mr Gurgur in the office next morning at ten a.m.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Hugh, ‘why did you have a quarrel with him? If he chucks us out, where do we go?’

  ‘He’s only a manager. Ambrose wouldn’t let him chuck us out.’

  But where was Ambrose? The Fosters had heard nothing from him since he went to the Praslin.

  Though he knew that Kristy would be the worst possible emissary in this case, Hugh said: ‘Well, I’ll be in the office at ten. You’ll have to see Gurgur.’ Kristy suggested that he change the time of the appointment but Hugh refused. She had brought trouble down on them and she could deal with it.

  When Kristy went to the office next morning, Gurgur took his time before acknowledging her presence. At last he asked: ‘What can I do for you?’

  The office had been cleared of Ambrose’s possessions but still had the stale atmosphere of an unaired sleeping-place. It was an atmosphere that was, she felt, suited to Gurgur’s self and she could scarcely speak for dislike of the man.

  ‘You wanted to see us.’

  ‘The note was for Mr Foster. My business is with him.’

  Gurgur’s tone was offensive, deliberately so. He made it plain that he saw her as an inferior and irresponsible partner in the marriage. She answered, mildly enough: ‘My husband is at work at this time.’

  Gurgur had a ledger in front of him full, Kristy noted with surprise, of Ambrose’s small, delicate handwriting. Gurgur picked up a pen and began to write. Ignored, Kristy felt she had had enough.

  She said: ‘Very well. I’ll ring up Mr Gunner.’

  The threat caused a lift of Gurgur’s narrow, vulpine head. He gave her an oblique glance of dislike: ‘I am arranging for you to change your room.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It is too big for two people. It is a room for three people.’

  ‘Three people? Three people can’t live in one room. It’s unheard of.’

  His face seemed to shrink in on itself and she knew she had said the wrong thing. To him three people in one room was not unheard of and he supposed she meant to reflect on his standards. She added weakly: ‘And there is no other room.’

  ‘Yes, I can provide another room.’ Gurgur pointed through the open office door towards the door of Mrs Gunner’s room: ‘There is a vacant room for you.’

  ‘Mrs Gunner’s room? But that’s much too small for two people.’

  ‘On the contrary. It is a good room and has a large bed and a large wardrobe.’ His eyes, more yellow than brown, were fixed severely on her: ‘This is a small island, Mrs Foster, and there are many people. A whole family – a man, a wife, eight, ten, twelve children – might live in such a room as that. Perhaps you are too proud. Perhaps you spurn such poor people . . .’

  ‘No, I do not. But Mrs Gunner’s room is noisy. The servants shout and laugh and there’s the clatter of the kitchen things.’

  ‘There will be no noise. If I give the order: “no noise”, there will be no noise. You will move, please, on Sunday.’

  She tried to speak but Gurgur held up his hand. She need say no more. She went, near tears, to her room, thinking: ‘The cleverness of the vulture.’ He would not challenge the government by unhousing them. He was merely taking back the room to which, in any case, they had no right, and offering an alternative. This way, they had no cause for complaint.

  ‘What did he want?’ Hugh asked, when he returned to luncheon.

  ‘He wants us to move into Mrs Gunner’s room.’

  Hugh ingested this fact in silence while Kristy sat with her head hanging, brought down by a sense of failure. She felt, had she been her old self, she could have dealt with Gurgur and somehow kept their room. But she was a fettered personality now, weakened as though by sickness. And what, in fact, could she have said or done? The quarrel over the moth had pre-defeated her. Hugh thought she had been a fool and perhaps Hugh was right. The clever ones, the ambitious ones, the ones who planned to get everything they could get, never quarrelled with anyone. They did not quarrel with the most debased. Not even with Gurgur, for who might not, by devious means, find his way to power?

  Her eyes glinting wet, she murmured: ‘I’m sorry.’

  Looking at her, Hugh said: ‘We’re not going to move.’ His face had taken on an expression that Kristy, during their married life, had seen only two or three times. He became pale, his mouth grew taut and his cheeks seemed to swell as though the muscles had thickened. It was an obstinate and yet vulnerable expression. She wanted to say: ‘No, don’t do anything. You’re not strong enough,’ yet he was doing what she wanted him to do. He was taking on Gurgur for her s
ake. He was summoning forces within himself. He had decided to fight.

  ‘I shall telephone Ambrose from the office.’ He spoke firmly but with the caution of one who moves in a bureaucracy. He would not use the Daisy telephone. No one must overhear his call. Gurgur must not be forewarned. He went back early to his office so he could put the call through from an empty room. The Praslin telephone girl took so long to find Ambrose that Hugh imagined him to be in some other world, a world so remote from the Fosters’ adversity, it seemed tactless to mention it. When at last Ambrose came on the line, his charming insouciance caused Hugh to apologize: ‘I do hate to trouble you but we hope you can help us. Gurgur’s forcing us out of our room.’

  Ambrose, who did not seem to grasp what Hugh was telling him, invited the Fosters to Sunday luncheon: ‘The buffet is famous throughout the southern seas. Yachtsmen call in here simply to have lunch on Sunday. You can tell me all about it then.’

  Kristy was relieved by the invitation, imagining that their absence on Sunday would confound Gurgur and delay the move. They felt it safer to slip away unseen so walked down to the harbour to find a taxi.

  Ambrose, who met them among the fountains and orange-trees of the Praslin’s main room, was wearing another new suit. When they expressed admiration, he said: ‘I had three made by the Indian tailor down on the Harbour. Not quite Maddox Street, but a good imitation. I feel I’ve earned them. No need to tell you: my life at the Daisy was not spacious. Mrs G. even nagged me not to waste the bath-water. I ask you! Things are very different here, I can tell you. Now, what are we drinking?’

  The dark amber of the window glass muted the outdoor dazzle and gave the interior the glow of gold. The half-light flattered Ambrose who looked that morning not much older than Hugh. As though suffused by his new life with new energy and impulses, he was attentive to Kristy in a flirtatious way. After seating her in one of the long cane chairs, he collected cushions to place at her back, treating her like an invalid, but a productive invalid whose condition called for approbation and respect. Hugh was irritated by her indolent acceptance of these attentions. They had come here to appeal to Ambrose. It seemed to him that Kristy, taken by Ambrose’s improved appearance, was diverting him from their cause. Hugh was the more irritated because he had come to rely on her forthright habit of speech. He felt it too bad that now, when it might have been of some use, she blandly said nothing and left Hugh to break the barrier of Ambrose’s urbanity. He could see he would be forced to do what he most disliked doing: make a complaint.