Jane Gardam - The Man in the Wooden Hat

“I’m not surprised,” said Audrey and began to harangue the girl in execrable Cantonese. The girl drooped again, but said nothing.

“I think we should report this. I really do. Betty, have a word with Edward. I’ll speak to Ronnie. We’ll see they hear about it in Government House. It isn’t fitting.”

“But it’s their religion,” said Elisabeth. “It’s nothing to do with us. Perhaps dust doesn’t matter to Buddhists.”

“Oh, but it’s more than dust. It is slovenly.”

“And neglected,” said the banker’s wife.

“It’s theirs to neglect, I suppose,” said Elisabeth. “If they wish to.”

“Hong Kong is still ours to administer,” said Audrey, and Elisabeth walked away, handing some dollars to the girl as she passed. The girl was pregnant.

Elisabeth went down the temple steps, stopping to stroke the dog, and her eyes were full of shame and tears as she stood in the glaring courtyard looking across at the chess players.

There was now a third man pondering the board. He was standing facing her, a blond European, dressed in khaki shirt and shorts, and when he looked up and across at her she saw that it was Veneering.

The querulous voices of the women floated out from the temple behind her and she walked forward across the courtyard towards Veneering’s beckoning arm. He put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Come with me. There are some seats lower down in the trees,” and they dropped down to a wooded track, passing the old men by. The old men did not stir.

There was a red-painted bench and they sat down and Veneering said, “ Whatever are you doing out here?”

“I’m on the way to buy a rocking horse.”

They looked at each other for a minute or more and Veneering said, “I heard that you have been ill.”

“Yes. The rocking horse is not for us. It’s for one of the others. She’s a granny.”

“Then she should have had the tact not to bring you.”

“She’s one for soldiering on. Getting over things. Following the flag.”

“She sounds like my son Harry. He’s a blimp.”

“How is he?”

Veneering smiled and said, “Skiving off cricket. Says he has a limp. I’ve told him to go running. He’ll get to Eton all right. Probably be a scholar.”

“Is he happy?”

“Oh, Harry’s always happy.”

They fell silent and Elisabeth said, “I didn’t know you played chess.”

“It’s just to keep up with Harry in the holidays.”

“Does Elsie. .?”

He gave her a look.

“Give Harry my love,” she said. “Is Elsie. .?”

“It’s Saturday. She’s at the racecourse. Elisabeth, are you going to live here always with Edward?”

“Why?”

“Because if you are I’ll have to go. I’m going to apply for a judgeship in Singapore. Hong Kong, the English Bar here — it’s too small.”

She said nothing for a long time and then they heard the women coming back down the steps of the temple and passing by them through the courtyard above.

“I want to go back to London now,” she said. “I was so happy there after the — honeymoon.”

“And Edward?”

“Who knows where Edward is happy? He belongs to Asia. He was born here.”

“So they tell me. Betty, we can’t go on. Both of us living here. You look so ill. So sad.”

“We may change.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“And I will never leave Edward. I must go. They’re shrieking about, looking for me.”

“Give me your London number.”

“It’s — we’re — in the phone book. Don’t ring me.”

She ran up the track and joined the other women in the car.

“Elisabeth! — Where were you? You look exhausted.”

“Just wandering about.”

They roared off, erratic and talkative, towards the rocking-horse maker.

Elisabeth began to be elusive. She was not seen at anything. She sat staring out to the harbour below and said very little. “You’re not picking up,” Edward said one evening at the Repulse Bay Hotel where he’d taken her for dinner, the stars and moonlight magnificent. “Betty, they’re telling me you are ill.”

“Who?”

“Well, Willy and Dulcie, among others.”

“And are you worried?”

“I want you to see a doctor. Have a check-up. You were told to go back to a hospital in three months.”

“Was I?”

“You were. When they let you travel out here with me, you promised to see someone. They said the medicine here is very good. Well, we all know it is.”

“Oh, I’m just low.”

“I know. You are bound to be. It will take time. They told me you would need — er — cherishing.”

“And do you cherish me, Edward?”

“Well, I try. You frighten me these days, Elisabeth. I — well, I still can’t”—the stutter threatened—“quite get over my luck in having you. All the time.”

“Edward, how sweet!”

He looked at her. Watched for a sneer. Betty — sneering!

“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m scared of losing you,” he said.

One day, while he was at work, she rang up Amy who said, “Come over.”

“Could you come here, Amy? It’s not easy for me,” and Amy soon — though not as soon as she would have done once — arrived, and without a child in tow. They sat in Elisabeth’s smart sitting room with drinks.

Amy said, “You’re drinking whisky.”

“Yes.”

“In the morning.”

“Yes. It’s for the pain.”

“What pain?”

“Well, if you want to know, I’m bleeding. Most of the time.”

“You’re what ?! Great heavens, I’m taking you straight to the hospital. Now!”

“Oh, it’s all right. I’ve always had trouble. For years after the Camp. There was nothing for years. Nobody menstruated. Then with me it began to go the other way. Embarrassing. Scarcely stopped. One of the pleasures of pregnancy was the relief from it.”

“Does Edward know?”

“Of course not. I don’t think he’s ever heard of menstruation. We sleep apart now, mostly.”

“But someone. .”

“No. I’d probably have told Delilah. But you know we don’t talk about it, do we? Look at novels.”

“Be damned to novels, you’re seeing a consultant.”

“Well, let’s keep it from Edward.”

“Not on your nelly,” and she rang Edward to say she had made an appointment with a mainland-Chinese gynaecologist. Edinburgh-trained.

“Ah, Edinburgh-trained. That sounds very good, Edinburgh.” (The Scot speaking, though he had never been to Scotland.) “I perhaps should go with her?” he said faintly.

“I don’t want him,” said Elisabeth.

But the consultant thought otherwise and, after X-rays and examinations, telephoned Edward to tell him that he was to come with his wife to the hospital and bring with him a decent bottle of wine.

He told Edward that Elisabeth needed surgery. There was every sign of trouble. He believed that a complete hysterectomy might be necessary.

“But I’m not even thirty. I’m childless. No !”

“You’ve put your body — no, history has put your body — through hard times. You were half starved in the Internment Camp. And I believe you lost your parents?”

“Yes. It was all jolly rotten.” (Who is this speaking through my lips?) “But I’m basically strong as a pit pony. Well, I look like a pit pony, don’t I?”

Nobody laughed.

“Think about it. I can do the operation here or I can send you to the best people in London. No, no — not Edinburgh. Too far from home. Your friends will be in London.”

“But Edward’s in the middle of an Arbitration.”

“Think about it. But not for long. You should have it done now .”