The Rain Forest Read online

  Who, Kristy wondered, would she have chosen for a neighbour? She looked down the table and paused at the ex-sultan who sat with his handsome face bent meekly over his steak and kidney pie, quite unaware of her.

  Mrs Hampton was saying: ‘Do you know why the Arabs called this island Al-Bustan? Bustan is a garden and desert people see paradise as a garden. The island seemed a garden to them and they thought it must be paradise.’

  ‘Would that,’ Hugh asked, ‘be a sequitur or a non-sequitur?’

  ‘Oh, naughty!’ laughed Mrs Hampton and Miss Urquhart, pressing closer, whimpered at so much wit.

  Mrs Hampton asked eagerly: ‘Tell me, who have you met on Al-Bustan? Anyone remarkable?’

  ‘Yes, you.’ When this had been appreciated, Hugh added the names of his two new friends, Ambrose Gunner and Simon Hobhouse.’

  ‘Oh, Hobhouse! He’s quite, quite lunatic.’

  ‘He struck me as unusually sane.’

  ‘That’s the form his lunacy takes.’

  ‘And I met some young English people with a dying baby.’

  ‘English?’ Mrs Hampton was astounded that death, prevalent enough among the infants of Al-Bustan, should dare to threaten an English child. She exclaimed so loudly that those about her stopped to listen. She asked: ‘Whose baby did you say it was?’

  Hugh described the two men and the girl who had brought the child to Simon, and Mrs Hampton held her hands up in horror: ‘How do such people get here?’

  Finding himself the centre of attention, Hugh was inclined to retreat but Mrs Hampton, with every eye on her, expanded. She shouted across to the large man with police buttons: ‘Come now, Mr Culbertson, tell us all about them.’

  In a solemnly matter-of-fact tone, Culbertson gave a little lecture: ‘They make their way here from different places. Usually they hitch-hike to Afghanistan or Turkey and we get them when those countries throw them out. They trek down to Zanzibar one way or another then beg or steal enough to make their way here.’

  ‘But why here?’

  Culbertson shrugged and helped himself to the pudding that was going round. Mrs Hampton turned back to Hugh and raised pleading eyes. Hugh, who had long ago accepted drug addiction as a fact of life, answered happily: ‘They say this is a likely place to get hash or heroin or some other fix.’

  There was immediate commotion. Hugh, shocked by the protests to which he had given rise, realized he had upset almost everyone around him. He looked at Murodi and there met with understanding. The ex-sultan, his head bowed, was smiling at so much dissension among his deposers. For the rest, Culbertson was the most enraged. Hugh had grown red but Culbertson was redder. His voice rose: ‘Who told you that? I heard you speaking of Hobhouse. That’s just the sort of bunk he’d put about.’

  Catching Kristy’s delighted gaze, Hugh tried to speak and could not.

  Culbertson’s hoarse voice grew hoarser: ‘Those kids are kept under strict surveillance. If one puts a foot wrong, he’s out on the next boat.’

  ‘Then where does he go?’ Kristy asked.

  ‘How do I know?’ Culbertson snatched up his table napkin and scrubbed the sweat from his face: ‘And why should I care? Those kids are a bloody nuisance, if the ladies’ll excuse my French.’ He threw the napkin down angrily then, remembering where he was, picked it up and bowed to Lady Urquhart.

  She gave him an uncomprehending stare and returned to her pudding.

  The solace of food, Kristy thought; not a happy woman.

  ‘Newcomers,’ muttered Culbertson. ‘Ignorant busybodies’ and Kristy turned on him.

  ‘The fact is,’ she said, ‘you neither know nor care what happens to them. They’re our own young people yet you do nothing to help them.’

  Hugh, glancing round to see what effect this was having, saw the matron had lost her vapid gentility. As she observed Kristy, her washed-out face lit with the malicious hope that Kristy would talk herself into trouble.

  Culbertson, awkwardly turning in his chair, looked directly at Kristy. He was indignant and she was indignant but she had an advantage. In her indignation, she had smudged her mascara and her face was softened by what Hugh called her ‘panda look’. Culbertson, disarmed by it, gave a laugh! ‘What do you want me to do? Put them in prison? There’s a clink up at the barracks but I don’t recommend it.’

  Mrs Hampton said fiercely: ‘I’d put them in prison.’

  Mrs Ogden, heated but vague, also spoke up: ‘It’s disgraceful: it really is. I’ve heard they actually beg for drugs in the market. What sort of impression does that give?’

  ‘The worst possible, mem,’ Culbertson said.

  Kristy, looking towards Mrs Ogden, asked: ‘Have you asked yourself why they beg for drugs? They want dreams or oblivion. Why? Don’t you ever ask what’s wrong with the world when the young try to opt out of it?’

  Culbertson gave a sardonic snort: ‘I wonder what’s wrong with them?’

  ‘You don’t wonder what’s wrong with yourself?’

  ‘Really!’ Mrs Ogden looked about her. She was not the only one aghast at Kristy’s pertness. Even Sir Beresford had been jolted from boredom and thrusting his head out, he stared at Hugh. Realizing he was about to speak, the guests were hushed.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken,’ he said, ‘you’re the chap who hands out passes to the forest area?’

  Kristy, who had not heard of Hugh’s misdemeanour, was startled by this accusation while Hugh looked as though he wished he were anywhere but where he was. When he did not reply, Sir Beresford, having reduced the Fosters with a sentence, shouted down the table to Ogden: ‘Well, Ogden, how did you find the fishing in Devon?’

  ‘First class, Your Excellency.’

  The women sat in respectful silence while the men talked of fishing, a diversion that on Al-Bustan came second only to alcohol. When there was a pause, Lady Urquhart got to her feet and, without signal or warning to the other women, bolted from the room. Millman lifted a finger to Mrs Ogden then hurried into the hall. When the women came out, he indicated to Mrs Ogden that behind a certain door there was a cloakroom. This done, he returned to the dining-room and she tactfully passed the information on to everyone except Kristy. Lady Urquhart, who had gone upstairs, reappeared and still with nothing to say, led the women out to the terrace where the safragis waited with coffee.

  The women guests gathered about their hostess, carefully excluding Kristy who, realizing she was outcast, went to the edge of the terrace and stood where the lawn began. The lawn, that had the spacious grandeur of parkland, sloped from its enclosing crescent of cliff down to the edge of the lower cliff which was masked by a spinney of trees. Within the curve of the upper cliff flowers and flowering trees were massed with dramatic effect. All over the lawn were hoopoes, that played under the water-jets, and cranes that walked like men on stilts, and Kristy saw no reason why she should not walk with them.

  When the men came out, Hugh looked for her and could see no sign of her. He was beset by the possibility that Lady Urquhart had asked her to leave. He, too, went and stood by himself and Millman, seeing him alone, came and talked to him about the garden which, he said, had been laid out by the wife of the first governor.

  Millman pointed to the trees and flowering creepers under the cliff: ‘Some of those are very unusual for these parts. Different people have added to the garden, bringing plants from the new world or Australia or South Africa. The scent at night is unbelievable. The house is full of it. There are several species of gardenias and these large trees on the lawn are different sorts of bombax. You see how the seeds hang down on strings; rather nice! And we have a night flowering cereus – a particular treasure. Note how it has spread along the cliff. The hospital, that big building on the top, must get the benefit of it. And here, near the house, is a lemon vine, the perskia; very sweet-smelling. It’s interesting to see how non-native plants adapt to this climate. The cereus, for instance, blooms, on and off, all the year round.’ Millman turned towards the under cliff and pointed
to the spinney: ‘Those trees are all chinaberries.’

  Hugh, for a frightful moment, thought that he could see, among the blue flowers of the chinaberries, the yellow of Kristy’s dress. Unable to bear more, he whispered: ‘Can you tell me, what has happened to my wife?’

  ‘Isn’t she here? Dear me! I’ll inquire.’

  Millman went to Lady Urquhart and returning, said in a concerned voice: ‘She’s over there among the trees. You really ought to bring her back. The Chief Secretary lives just below the cliff and I fear it’s not done to look down upon him.’

  Hugh set out at once. As he crossed the lawn, the water sprays drenched his trousers and his feet squelched in the soaking grass. Passing through the belt of trees, he found Kristy unashamedly gazing down at the scene below.

  ‘Come away from there.’

  ‘No, come and look. If the island was named for paradise, then I think I’ve found it.’

  Before he could pull her away, Hugh glimpsed, in spite of himself, a large white villa amid palms and a small enclosed bay. The sand was of a dazzling whiteness, the sea in translucent bands of blue, violet and green. A motorboat was speeding across the water pulling after it a man on water-skis. Backed by the cliff, shut in by rocks at either end, the scene suggested to him an impregnable privacy. He said severely: ‘It’s not done to look down there.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. See what I’ve found.’ Kristy pointed to the branch of a tree where a large reddish spider sat, still and suspicious.

  ‘For God’s sake, don’t touch it.’

  ‘I lifted it up. It was down there and I was afraid someone might tread on it. It wasn’t at all frightened.’

  ‘Sometimes I think you’re insane. Why did you leave the company?’

  ‘No one would speak to me, so I went for a walk.’

  ‘And ruined your shoes.’

  She took them off. The guests were departing but those still on the terrace were entertained to the sight of young Mrs Foster walking across the lawn with her shoes in her hand. Millman intercepted her as she stepped, wet-footed, on to the terrace, and conducted the pair of them out of Lady Urquhart’s sight. He was still so good-humoured, Hugh felt a wild hope that, in spite of everything, Millman might prove a friend. At the front steps, he paused and shook hands with each of them, saying ‘Good-bye. We may run into each other at the club.’

  Hugh said eagerly: ‘Yes, and thank you,’ but he knew that the club, a shabby sort of place, was scarcely a resort for such as Millman.

  Kristy sat on the steps to put on her shoes just as the Ogdens appeared at the top. Hugh, wandering ahead of her, wishing he could disown her, was disconsolate, and not even able to reprimand her because he had suffered reprimand himself. He felt, nevertheless, that his annoyance was justified. He had defaulted by accident while she, he felt, had been deliberately troublesome.

  They walked in silence down the hill to the Government Square. Though it was still early afternoon, Hugh decided to go back to his office: she could, if she wished, take this as an intimation of his disapproval.

  ‘And,’ he said, having said nothing before: ‘You ought to stop putting that black stuff on your eyes. In this sticky climate, it smudges badly. Now it’s half-way down your cheeks.’

  She took out her glass and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  He realized she was agitated and under strain, and said contritely: ‘As a matter of fact, it’s rather fetching. Culbertson was quite bowled over. His wrath subsided before it.’

  Her mouth quivered as she tried to wipe the mascara from under her eyes and he squeezed her arm: ‘Why worry? What do we care about those people?’

  ‘I’m not worried about them. I don’t feel well. I don’t think the food here agrees with me.’

  ‘You’ll soon be conditioned to it.’

  She gulped and as she turned to go, she shouted: ‘Go to the office, if you want to,’ and ran to get away from him.

  As she reached the front lawn of the Daisy, the official wives, smirking under the dominion of Mrs Axelrod, came out of the front door, carrying swim-suits, knitting-bags and Japanese sunshades, and sighing and grumbling about the heat.

  Now, having observed Mrs Axelrod, Mrs Prince and the lesser women over the weeks, Kristy had decided that Mrs Prince was a harmless creature who did what was expected of her, but Mrs Axelrod had individuality of sorts. Though she was sedate, even severe, when upholding her official status, she had a touch of grotesquerie in her make-up. While the other women would have been happy to spend the afternoon indoors, Mrs Axelrod demanded action. She would appear on the stairs and, taking a theatrical pose, would shout in a threatening way: ‘Girls!’ If she did not get immediate attention, she would call ‘Girls, girls’ until every eye was on her. She seemed about to make a sensational announcement but at the end it was only: ‘I vote we go for a swim at the club!’ or ‘Let’s all off to the hairdresser’s, girls!’

  If she had not roused them, the other women, become lackadaisical in the heat, would have remained indoors, in the salon or their own rooms, lying about in a stupor of nothing to do. It was Mrs Axelrod who kept them alive. At times, instead of her ‘Girls, girls’, she would run down the stairs, spring into the salon and dance round, clapping her hands, forcing them out of their chairs and on to their feet. Though they moaned at the effort, they obeyed, proud to be included in her regard, and knowing that to survive, they must combat their own lassitude. One woman, already overweight, called her ‘the voice of conscience’ and all of them, behind her back, laughed at her energy. When she had driven the last of them out into the sunlight or the hot, heavy rain, silence came down on the pension.

  ‘Blessed silence,’ Kristy thought and she told herself she could be thankful that Mrs Axelrod ignored her. She had the freedom of the excluded and need neither obey nor find an excuse for her disobedience.

  Yet, lately, she had felt she had less cause for self-congratulation. Her malaise, whatever it was, had slowed down her work and was gradually bringing it to a stop. The impetus of the ‘suicide story’ was dying on her. Sitting down to her desk, she was threatened by boredom.

  But she still had the habit of work and would try to drive herself, telling herself to ‘get on with it’. Her irritation did not carry her very far. Her mind was like a lazy horse that refuses to be driven. She had lost her enthusiasm for the novel, feeling that brilliance had gone from it. At other times, her memory, like a bottomless lucky dip, had offered her entrancing pieces of the past from which she constructed a personal mosaic that always worked out. This way she transmuted reality and made it bearable. She could almost claim she got the better of it. But now, for Heaven’s sake, when she ordered her pen to move, she wrote ‘just like everyone else’.

  In England, having to give so much of her day to shopping and housekeeping, she had jealously conserved the time put aside for her writing. And even here, where she could write all day, she was so confirmed a timesaver, she had on Ambrose’s advice, asked Akbar to do her shopping.

  Ambrose had said: ‘He has to go to the Harbour every day to buy stuff for Mrs G. If she ordered everything by phone, she’d be thoroughly gypped. Akbar’s such a power down there, they always give him the best. Just tell him what you want and slip him a few rupees now and then. He’ll bring up whatever you want.’

  Ambrose was mistaken about this. Akbar’s importance was such, he would not diminish it by the purchase of trifles. Kristy had given him the money to buy soap but the soap did not arrive. Asked for it, he said: ‘Me no remember. Too much busy.’ Next day, he swore that soap had disappeared off the market. She then told him to spend the money on toothpaste. When asked for toothpaste, he said ‘Bukra’ which was supposed to mean ‘Tomorrow’ but which, Kristy was beginning to realize, meant any time between now and eternity. For the next three days he shrugged her off in a lofty way, saying each time ‘Bukra’ then, on the fourth day, he said: ‘Madha Yahihm?’ Knowing that the toothpaste would never be bought by Akbar, she
asked for her money back. He looked over her head and said ‘Bukra’.

  Thinking she might find a more reliable messenger, she approached the Malay whose job was to polish the landing floor, using half a coconut shell which he gripped under his foot. Her request seemed to terrify him. He hung his head and whispered: ‘No speak me. Speak Akbar.’

  Now, sitting at her desk, looking out at the view with a bleak sense of mental emptiness, it occurred to her she might do her own shopping. And she would get her money from Akbar.

  She found Akbar where he usually was: lolling in the short passage that separated the salon from the kitchen. This was a place he had made his own. His kaftans, too valuable to be left in the servant-quarters, hung in a row with his prayer-rug rolled up beneath them. He had an old, lop-sided basket-chair where he dozed, or pretended to doze. He was dozing now but when Kristy spoke his name, he was instantly on his feet. Rolling out his prayer-rug with a single skilled movement, he dropped down to his knees and gave himself to prayer. His devotions must not be interrupted. By the time she reached him, he was inviolable.

  She stood and watched as he put his brow to the floor, straightened himself, lifted his arms to heaven and then went down again, muttering all the time. He had his back to her. He had kicked off his heel-less leather slippers and she saw the soles of his feet, their rosy colour meeting the upper brown in an exact line all round the sole and the pads of the toes. The feet of a colossus.

  As the ritual went on, she felt she was being exorcized. He would not rise till he had rid himself of her presence. She turned to go. A door opened beside her and Mrs Gunner, coming out, asked her: ‘Want anything, dear?’

  Kristy explained why she was there and Mrs Gunner considered Akbar’s gigantic backside with a quizzical smile: ‘’Fraid this could go on quite a while. Why don’t you cut along and get what you want. I’ll make him cough up the money.’