Jane Gardam - The Man in the Wooden Hat

“Of course not. Of course not. Look, I’m feeling cold—”

“And that you will never leave Edward.”

“He knows. I’ve told him I’ll never leave him. I swear it.”

“If you leave him,” said Ross, “I will break you.”

At their destination the driver got out to open her door, and Ross tossed over to her a green silk purse.

“You left your passport behind,” he said.

She heard laughter. Cheerful shouting. English laughter and across the terrace saw Eddie’s legal team all drinking Tiger beer. There were six or seven of them in shirts and shorts, and Edward standing tall among them without a tie, head back, roaring with laughter. The cotton dress would have been right.

Edward came striding over to her, stopped before he reached her, held out a hand and took her round a corner of the terrace out of sight of the others. He looked young. He held her tight. He took both her hands and said, “Did you think I’d forgotten you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what’s happened?”

“Yes. You’ve got Silk. You’re a QC.”

“No. Not that. Do you know that the Case has settled?”

“No!”

“It’s taken sixteen hours. Sixteen solid hours. But we’ve settled out of court. Neither side went to bed. But everyone’s happy and we can all go home. Ross is packing the papers. The other side’s off already. Veneering left this morning so the air’s pure again.”

“Eddie — you’ve all lost a fortune. How much a day was it? Thousands?”

“No idea,” he said, “and no consequence. I’ve got the brief fee. It’ll pay for the honeymoon. I’ve told Ross and the clerks to get it in, and then that I don’t want any more work until I’m back in London. I’ve said two months. I’ve told him to give everything to Fiscal-Smith.”

“Whoever’s that?”

“Someone who’s always hanging about. Takes anything and pays for nothing. The meanest lawyer at the Bar. An old friend.”

She sat down on the parapet and looked across the sea. He hadn’t asked her one thing about herself. Her own plans. He didn’t even know whether she had a job she had to get back to. If she had any money. About when her holiday ended. She tried to remember whether he’d ever asked anything about her at all.

“We might go to India,” he said. “D’you want a cup of coffee? You’ll have had dinner somewhere, I hope.” He and the noisy group of liberated lawyers had dined very early. Final toasts were now going round. Taxis arrived. Farewells. More laughter. Edward and Elisabeth were alone again under the same stars as before. After a time she said, “I’d like to stay in the hotel here tonight, Eddie. I love this place. And no, I haven’t had dinner.”

“But we have our hotel rooms Kowloon-side. And haven’t you the Australian friend? She’ll wonder where you are. And I haven’t a shirt up here. For tomorrow.”

“She’s left for Home, tonight, I think. We only met up here. We’re old friends. We take it lightly.”

She watched him.

“There’s the wedding to plan.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I keep forgetting. I suppose that’s my job. By the way, I haven’t any money at all.”

“Oh, I’ll deal with that.”

“Not until I’m thirty. I’ll be quite well-off then.”

He smiled at her, not interested.

They hardly spoke on the ferry. At Kowloon the lights of the Peninsular Hotel blazed white across the forecourt. The Old Colony was lit down the side street with its chains of cheap lights and was resounding with wailing music and singing. It was still only nine o’clock.

“It’s only nine o’clock,” she said. “Goodnight then, since you say so,” and at last he seemed to come to himself.

“Yes. Nine. All out of focus. I’m sorry. Come in. Come in to the Pen and I’ll give you dinner. We’ll both have some champagne. Betty?”

She was staring at him. “No,” she said. “I’m going over to some friends in Kai Tak.”

“Kai Tak! Isn’t that a bit off-piste?”

“Yes. So are they. They’re missionaries. Hordes of kids. Normal people. In love with each other. My friends.”

“Elisabeth — what’s wrong? It is on , isn’t it?”

Sitting in the taxi she said, after a minute, “Yes. It’s on. But I need the taxi fare.”

“Shall I come with you?”

“No. I’ll be staying the night. Maybe longer,” and she was gone.

She saw him standing, watching her taxi disappear, and then the hotel’s white Mercedes roll along with all the legal team waving at him, making for the airport and Home. In very good spirits.

He was, in fact, unaware of them, but saying to himself that he’d made some mistake. Had made an absolute bloody bish. I wish Coleridge were here. I’m not good at pleasing this girl.

Betty, bowling along through the alleys round Kai Tak, was thinking: He’s shattered. He looked so bewildered. He’s so bloody good. Good, good, good.

Well, I’ll probably go through with it. I’ll be independent when I’m thirty. I’ll probably put a lot into it. I’ll damn well work, too. For myself. QC’s wife or not. And at least I have a past now. No one can take that away.

Since the night of celebration at Repulse Bay and the end of the land reclamation Case and the horrible parting outside the Peninsular Hotel, Elisabeth had moved in with Amy at Kai Tak. It was at Amy’s command.

“Have you room for me?”

“Yes. There’s a camp bed. And don’t be grateful, you’ll be very useful. Take the baby — no, not that way. Now, stick the bottle in her mouth — go on. Right up to the edge. She won’t choke, she’ll go to sleep and we can talk before Nick comes in.”

The other children were already asleep. Mrs. Baxter must at some point have been taken up to her barbed-wire fortress. The Buddhists were practising silence on the floor below.

“Now then,” said Amy. “Date of wedding?”

“Edward’s arranging everything. The licence. I expect I’ll have to be there at some point for identification. In case he should turn up with someone different.”

“You’re being flippant.”

“Not that he’d probably notice.”

“Now you’re being cheap. Seriously, Elisabeth Macintosh — is it on? It is a Sacrament in the Christian Church.”

“I’m being told yes from somewhere. Probably only by my rational self. There’s no way I will say no, yet I don’t quite know why. Marriage will be gone in a hundred years in the Christian Church. There’ll be women priests and homo priests. Pansies and bisexuals.”

“You’re tired. You live alone. What does Isobel say?”

“She’s disappeared. As she always did. She was never any help with people’s troubles, was she? She just stared and pronounced — if she could be bothered. She’s burdened with her own secrets but she never lets on.”

“I suppose she must tell someone. Some wise and ageing woman with a deep, understanding voice. And a beard.”

Elisabeth laughed and said, “Can I pull this teat out now? She’s asleep.”

Nick came in. It was very late. Very hot.

Elisabeth, lying on the camp bed near the kitchen sink, listened to the clamour outside in the sweltering streets, the thundering muted lullaby of the mah-jong players in all the squats around.

“I have no aim,” she said. “No certainty. I am a post-war invertebrate. I play mah-jong in my head year after year trying to find something I was born to do. I have settled on exactly what my mother would have wanted: a rich, safe, good husband and a pleasant life. All the things she must have thought in the Camp were gone for ever. Impossible for me, the scrawny child playing in the sand. Hearing screams, gunfire, silences in the night, watching lights searching in the barbed wire. I should be the last woman in the world to recreate the old world of the unswerving English wife. I am trying to please my dead mother. I always am.” She slept.