Jane Gardam - The Man in the Wooden Hat

The shadows did not rest. Sometimes they came up close to the cab. They were moving, sometimes quite close to the cab’s closed windows. They were in twos and threes, not speaking. Not one head turned. They even seemed unaware of the cab which was moving through them now quite fast, but still silent, the driver never once flashing his lights or sounding his horn. Nobody moved out of their way. Nobody turned his head. There seemed to be a white mist near the ground and the cab became very hot.

The strangeness of the crowded forest was its silence.

To left and right in the trees, a little off the road, a bright light would now and then shine out, then vanish, masked by trees and trees. There must be big houses up there, she thought, rich men’s second homes. She had seen the sort of thing long ago in Penang, most of the year empty, shadowy palaces locked inside metal armour lattice and on the gates the warning with a zigzag sign saying Danger of Death , blazing out in English and Chinese and Malay.

The hosts of the shadows paid no attention to the houses hidden in the trees. The shadows swam altogether around the cab in a shoal. They concentrated on the dark. They became like smoke around her in the forest and she began to be afraid.

I want Edward. He has no idea where I am. Nor have I.

The driver’s little Chinese head did not turn and he did not speak when she leaned forward and tapped his shoulder and shouted at him in Cantonese, “Will it be much longer? Please tell me where I am. In God’s name.”

Instead, he swung suddenly off the road, obliterating the moving shadows, and up a steeper track. After a time, a glow appeared from, apparently, the top of some tree. In front of the light the cab swung round full circle and stopped.

The light was glowing in a small wooden house that seemed to be on stilts with tree branches growing close all round it. There was some sort of ladder and a gate at the bottom bore the electric charge logo and Danger of Death. All Admittance Forbidden .

She looked up at the top of the ladder and saw that a wooden cabin seemed held in a goblet of branches. Its doors stood open and light now flowed down the ladder. Veneering was beside the cab. He opened the door and took her hand. He stood aside for her at the ladder’s foot and at the top she looked down at him and saw that behind him in the clearing the cab was gone.

So was the silent, shadowy multitude and so were all the dotted lights of houses among the trees. This house seemed less a house then an organic growth in the forest, sweet smelling, held in the arms of branches. Veneering shut the door behind them and began to take off her green dress.

The next morning Do Not Disturb was still hanging from the door handle of room 182, the beds still unmade, unslept in. There was the untouched chaos of scattered clothes and belongings, the smell of yesterday’s scent. Nobody there. And no light flashing from the bedside telephone. No messages pushed under the door.

Perhaps no time had passed since yesterday morning. The hairdresser, the green dress, the taxi standing waiting, the strange journey, the glorious night, the dawn return with the black cab again standing waiting in the trees, perhaps all fantasy? A dream of years can take a second.

But I’m not a virgin any more. I know that all right. And it’s about time. Oh, Edward! Saint Edward, where were you? Why wasn’t it you? Pulling off the dress, she stuffed it in the waste-paper basket. She made the dribbling shower work and stood under it until it had soaked away the hours of the sweltering, wonderful night, until her hair lay flat and brown and coarse. It’s like a donkey’s hair. I am not beautiful. Yet he thought so. Who was it? Oh! It must have been Edward! I’m marrying him. He hates — she couldn’t say the name. I’ve been bewitched. Then, thinking of the night, she moaned with pleasure. No, it was you. Not Eddie. Eddie was preparing the Case. He had no time. Yet you had time. The same Case.

And it’s always going to be like this. She watched, through the window behind the shower, white smoke puffing up from the air conditioning into the blue sky. His work will always come first. He’ll sign and underline and ring for it to be collected by the typists, before he comes home to me. And where is he? And Lizzie? I’m alone here now. I can’t stand here all day, naked. My new, used, happy body. I suppose I should sleep now. I must need sleep, but I’ve never felt so awake. I’ll ring Amy.

“Yes?”

In the background to Amy’s voice was a hornet’s nest of howling and shouting.

“I must see you, Amy. I have to see you. Please !”

“I’ll come now. I’ll do the school run and then I’ll drive in. What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you. Well, not wrong . Well, yes — wrong.”

Amy’s tin-can car appeared in less than half an hour outside the Old Colony, stopping where last night’s cab had stopped. And this morning’s. Elisabeth saw it, put on some cotton trousers and a shirt, and ran out. The alternative had been the crumpled cotton check or the green silk in the trash basket. She fell into the clattering car and, as they drove away, said, “Oh, Amy! Thank God!” Amy had less than an inch of space between herself and the steering wheel. The coming child inside her was kicking. You could see it kicking if you knew about such things. Betty, who didn’t know, sat staring ahead.

“Where are we going, Amy? This isn’t your way home.”

“No, it’s my day for health visiting. New babies. Home births. I’ll say you’re my assistant. You can carry a clipboard. Now then, what’s the matter?”

“I can’t actually tell you. Not yet. I’ve just got in. I was out all night.”

“Sleeping with Eddie Feathers? Well, about time. That I will say.”

“No. No. He won’t do it. He thinks if it’s serious, you don’t do it before marrying.”

“He said this?”

“Not actually. But he sort of indicates.”

“Well,” she said. “It’s a point of view. Mine, as a matter of fact. And Nick’s. But we couldn’t stick to it. So who were you with on the night you became engaged? You’d better tell me. Oh, we’re here. Get out and I’ll tell you how to behave. Then tell me what’s going on.”

They were on a cemented forecourt of what looked like an overhead parking block ten storeys high. “Take the clipboard. Walk behind me with authority. O.K.? We are weighing and measuring babies born at home. Every family will greet us with a glass of tea. If there is no tea it will be a glass of water. If there is no water then it will be an empty glass. Whichever is handed to you, you greet it as if it were champagne. O.K.?”

Inside the rough building among the shadowy wooden joists Elisabeth was reminded of the unseen people of the wood. At doorways they were bowed to, and tightly wrapped babies were presented, unwrapped and hung up by Amy from a hook above a little leather hammock. Like meat, thought Elisabeth. The baby was examined, peered at with a torch, tapped and patted, then measured and returned. The mother or grandmother — it could have been either — bowed and offered the glass. The babies’ eyes shone black and narrow, and looked across at Elisabeth with the knowledge of Methuselah. She caught one proud young mother’s glance and smiled in congratulation. “Beautiful,” she said and the mother made a proud disclaimer.

“That last one will die,” said Amy as they walked back to the car. “We’ll go home and I’ll get you some breakfast. Let me hear your earth-shattering experiences with your substitute future husband.”

“He wasn’t. I told you.”

“Then who was it?”