Derek Beaven - If the Invader Comes

She’d been mystified by the play, its lengthy preambles, and the hesitancy about committing to the action, but had grasped there was a reason. To the accompaniment of drumbeats and the clash of cymbals, the drama had lasted late into the night, by which time most of her party had fallen asleep. Even then the story had been only half told. It was the ancient epic of the Ramayana : of the lovers, and the forest; of the hermitage, the war, the wickedness of the abductor; and of the great bridge across which the avenger went forth upon the sea. It occurred to her that the new war might have the same self-indulgent pace. The thought chilled her.

She stooped now to poke at a web in the flower-bed. The cords were strung thickly under the great speared arch of a leaf, and the spider came running out into the sun. It stopped. She agitated the threads again. ‘I’m being a butterfly. Look. Come on, then. Can’t get me, can you?’ The spider raised one minutely furred leg, in suspicion. It failed to budge. ‘Can’t be bothered, after all.’ She straightened up. ‘Just like men.’

Her father’s laugh was brief and preoccupied. She plucked a thought. ‘Did you send Phyllis anything? Dear Phyllis and … Victor. And their brat. What was its name, I forget?’

‘Not pregnant, are you?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Daddy.’ He astonished her. ‘Just because I mention … How dare you!’

‘A girl without a mother. Someone has to ask. Once in a while.’ He was embarrassed amidst his red mottle and doctor’s manner.

‘If that’s what you mean by being a better father …’

‘Sorry. I don’t know how a woman would go about it. Doesn’t someone have to? Keep tabs, I mean?’

‘No, they damn well don’t. And I’m not – as far as I know.’

He coughed and adjusted his hat. ‘Jack. I sent him a suit of clothes.’

‘All right, then.’ She found herself putting her arms around her father’s neck, hugging him more fiercely than she could understand. Then she broke away. ‘All right, Daddy. It won’t be “over by Christmas”, as all the barroom experts have been predicting. It has that in common with last time. And all right, there’s an expeditionary force in France. But nothing’s going on. That’s why they call it “phoney”, Daddy. It isn’t happening.’

‘It’s happening to the Poles.’ He shamed her. ‘And something’s happening to the Finns, the Jews, the poor benighted Chinese.’

‘But it’s not happening to me. Is it? It isn’t happening to me.’

‘For God’s sake, Clarice!’

She bit her lip. ‘It’s just I don’t understand you. There’s always something going on in the world. Always something awful being done to someone. It’s not like you to come over like this. You’re not yourself. You always said, didn’t you, look after the next man and the world will get better. I thought that’s what you did, as a doctor. That’s how I imagined you, Daddy. I admired you. I thought we were safe here. I thought you were happy. Aren’t you?’

‘Happy enough.’ He looked sharply at her.

‘Well then. Why ruin it all because of some potty idea – about me ? What’s making you like this?’ She felt Singapore slipping away, Malaya itself receding. Terrified – and piercingly glad – she seized on the next unkind remark that came to mind. ‘Not the Scotch, is it? You’re not going the way of all white men?’

Yet he seemed in such a pinch, and she was sorry. She caught the implication of something serious going on; sensed almost his impotence. Was he in love, she wondered? Had some affair at the tennis club gone awry?

‘What troubles me is that I’m probably too late. I’ve failed you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is where we live. You’re needed, Daddy. You can’t leave.’ She checked her emotions again, but knew he’d seen her.

‘You sound just as though you were six.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said.

This time he put his arm around her. ‘Look, darling. Take it on trust, will you? There’s nothing for it. I’ve got to take the risk now. If it all goes well and everything calms down … You know? If there’s a stand-off of some kind … Well, I can come back easily enough, can’t I?’

‘Can you? Can we?’

‘Just another leave, eh?’

‘If you say so.’ She stood quite still. ‘If you say so, Daddy.’

‘ Tuan !’ Musa called to them from the veranda. Her father went to enquire. Then he came back, black bag in hand. A company employee had sent about a sick child.

‘Sorry,’ he said. She watched him stride up the garden and thought how he was growing old. ‘Probably shan’t be long,’ he called over his shoulder. Then he disappeared round the side of the bungalow to get the car started.

BUT HE WAS a long time. And, yes, I do hold matters too much in abeyance, lingering here in Malaya, in paradise, because of the payment that was demanded later that evening. It was a sacrifice in return for a fair wind, so to speak, and it was Selama who chose to make it. We try to avoid coming to the pain of such things; for if Vic and Phyllis were bitterly joined in England, Dr Pike was anchored to his spot by a supreme tenderness.

It had rained and was dark before he returned, and he brought with him the Malayan nurse, Selama Yakub, whom Clarice had met several times before. She watched from the veranda as her father helped the woman out of the car and past the puddles; then she went down in the glow of the lantern to greet them.

‘My assistant, Mrs Yakub,’ her father said. ‘Working on a case at the hospital. Of course, you know each other, don’t you.’

The nurse wore a neat, white uniform, but had exchanged her headgear for a scarf. She clutched it around her face as she entered, then threw it back. ‘How are you, Miss Clarice? So nice to see you again.’

‘Oh fine, thanks. Nice to see you.’

‘So kind of Dr Pike to invite me – after so long.’ Mrs Yakub darted a piercing glance at him, then looked straight at Clarice. She seemed about to say more, but turned away instead.

Their meal of lamb curry was conventional, and the conversation strained. Selama Yakub sent the kuki away. She served as though she were the mistress of the house, but hardly touched her food. Clarice felt uncomfortable. The inkling of disturbance she’d felt earlier continued in the air. She hadn’t known such an atmosphere for years – in fact since her mother was alive. Selama’s lack of appetite did not help.

Clarice’s mother had used to excuse herself from table, saying she felt a little ill; and when she thought no one could see her out beyond the veranda, Mattie had a method of making herself sick, leaving most of her meal in the back of the flower-bed – where by morning, the younger Clarice had noted with interest, all evidence of distress had been eaten by less troubled creatures.

After dinner they sat, she and her father, in the study, playing old-fashioned dance tunes on his wind up gramophone. They were alone. Selama Yakub had claimed she wanted to dispense some of the doctor’s prescriptions; but when Clarice went to use her bathroom she bumped into the nurse bringing in a tray of cups from the veranda. And someone had obviously been tidying the sitting-room.

On her return Clarice said nothing about it. With the Aladdin lamps aglow in the study, the various insects constantly getting in to crash at the flame, the air fugged and prickly with cigar smoke, she thought neither of Selama nor her mother, but of Phyllis, because of the dance tunes. She saw more vividly that leggy girl in plimsolls who, out of her element on visits to the house at the end of the railway line, would cling to the gramophone and put on certain records again and again.