Jane Gardam - The Man in the Wooden Hat

“Shall I come up to the room with you?”

The new, easy, happy Edward faltered. “No. I don’t think they care for that here. I’ll be back in ten minutes. I’ll order you some tea.”

“It’s a strange betrothal,” Betty told the lily-leaf-shaped tray, the shallow cup, the tiny piece of Battenburg cake and the cress sandwich so small that a breeze from the fountains might blow it away. A trio behind her was playing Mozart. Two Chinese, one Japanese, very expert and scornful. She remembered how people in England used to say that no Oriental would ever be able to play Mozart. Just like they used to say that there would never be Japanese pilots because the Japanese are all half blind behind dark glasses. She was all at once overcome by the idiotic nature of mankind and began to laugh. God must feel like me, she thought. Oh, I love Hong Kong. Could we live here? Could Edward?

Here he came now, washed and shaved in a clean shirt and linen jacket, loping over from the lift, smiling like a boy (I’m going to be with this person all my life!) and he dropped a little cloth bag into her lap and she took out from it the most magnificent string of pearls.

“Yours,” he said. “They’re old. Someone gave them to me. When I was sixteen. In the war. Just in time. She died a few minutes later. She was lying next to me under a lifeboat on deck. We were limping Home up the Irish Sea — everybody sick and dying. She was very old. Raj spinster. Whiskery. Brave. Type that’s gone. She said, ‘One day you can give them to your sweetheart.’”

She thought: He’s not cold at all. Then, Oh, OH!! The pearls are wonderful. But they’re not what matters.

“There’s a condition, Elisabeth.”

“About the pearls?”

“Certainly not. They are yours for ever. You are my sweetheart. But this marriage, our marriage. .”

“Hush,” she said. “People are listening. Later.”

“No — NOW,” he roared out in the way he did; and several heads turned. “This marriage is a big thing. I don’t believe in divorce.”

“You’re talking about divorce before you’ve proposed.”

Mozart behind them sang out, Aha! Bravo! Goodbye! And the trio stood up and bowed.

“Elisabeth, you must never leave me. That’s the condition. I’ve been left all my life. From being a baby, I’ve been taken away from people. Raj orphan and so on. Not that I’m unusual there. And it’s supposed to have given us all backbone.”

“Well, I know all that. I am an orphan, too. My parents suffered.”

“All our parents suffered for an ideology. They believed it was good for us to be sent Home, while they went on with ruling the Empire. We were all damaged even though we became endurers.”

(“May I take your tray, madam?”)

“It did not destroy me but it made me bloody unsure.”

“I will never leave you, Edward.”

“I’ll never mention any of this again.” His words began to stumble. “Been sent away all my life. Albert Ross saved me. So sorry. Came through. Bad at sharing feelings.”

“Which, dear Eddie, if I may say so, must be why you haven’t yet proposed to me.”

“I thought I had—”

“No. Your Chambers stationery has. Not you. I want to hear it from you. In your words. From your lips.” (She was happy, though.)

“Marry me, Elisabeth. Never leave me. I’ll never ask again. But never leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you, Edward.”

A waiter swam by and scooped up her tray though she called out, “Oh, no!”

Bugger, she thought, I’ve had nothing all day but that rice at Amy’s. Then: I shouldn’t be thinking of cake.

In the lift on the way up to the Judge’s party, her bare toes inside the sandals crunching the sand of the distant sunset harbour, she thought: Well, now I know. It won’t be romantic but who wants that? It won’t be passion, but better without, probably. And there will be children. And he’s remarkable and I’ll grow to love him very much. There’s nothing about him that’s unlovable.

They stood together now at the far end of the corridor where the Judge had his suite. They could see the open doors, gold and white. The noise of the party inside rose in a subdued roar.

Edward said, “Unclutch those pearls. I want to put them round your neck.” He took them, heavy and creamy, into both hands and held them to his face. “They still smell of the sea.”

She said, “Oh, ridiculous,” and laughed, and he at last kissed her very gravely in full view of the waiters round the distant door. She saw that his eyes brimmed with tears.

Why, the dear old thing, she thought.

The Judge was standing just inside the doors of his suite to welcome his guests and ostentatiously waving about a glass of Indian tonic water to make clear to everyone that tomorrow morning he would be in Court. He was a clever, abstracted little man with a complexion pale and freckled like cold porridge. He had been born in the East and his skin still didn’t seem to know what to make of it. His wife, Dulcie, much younger and here with him on a visit, was vague and dumpy in paisley-patterned silk. The arrival of the up-and-coming Edward and the unconventional-looking young woman appeared to mean little to either of them. The Judge was looking everywhere around.

“Aha, yes. Eddie Feathers,” said the Judge (he was known as Pastry Willy). “Well done. Arrived safely. Good flight? Well, don’t let me monopolise you. We’ll be head-on for months. Sick of the sight of each other. I’ve said exactly the same to the other side for the same reason. They’re all over there.”

Gales of laughter were arising from across the room and there was the impression of someone bigger than the rest buffooning about. He had a flap of flaxen hair.

“I can’t remember how well you know Veneering?”

“Quite well.”

Pastry Willy quickly looked away. Something about a mutual and inexplicable loathing.

“May I introduce Elisabeth Macintosh?” said Edward. “She is about to become my wife.”

“Delighted, delightful,” said the Judge, and his wife Dulcie blinked at the gingham dress and pearls.

Elisabeth leaned forward and kissed Pastry Willy on the cheek. “Hello, Uncle Willy. I’m Betty Macintosh.” She kissed him again on the other cheek.

“Oh, my goodness! Little Betty! Joseph’s girl!”

“Father died,” she said and disappeared into the crowd.

“But this is splendid! Splendid, Feathers! I used to read fairy tales to her on my knee.” Edward was hurrying after her. “In Tiensin!”

“Elisabeth!” He caught up with her. “You kissed Willy?”

“Well, I knew him when I was seven,” she said.

In the heart of the throng Edward, looking joyous, began to declare to left and right, “Hello, my — my fiancée.”

The room became more crowded still, the talk all London Inns of Court and how the Colony was awash this month with English lawyers. A drift of excited wives just off the plane surged by in new silk dresses they’d already had time to buy, their hair and lipstick all in place and shiny. A lovely Chinese woman in pale yellow with chandelier earrings was reclining on a chaise longue. She had a face of perpetual ennui. From the corner of the room where the noise was wildest the flaxen-headed man separated himself from his friends, roaring with laughter. He was wearing khaki shorts and a khaki shirt, which made him seem not eccentric but ahead of fashion and in the sartorial know. “No, not that way,” Edward commanded Elisabeth, and the man with the bright hair cried out, “Oh, God! It’s Old Filth!” Then he saw Elisabeth in the pearls and gingham and stood perfectly still.

“I’m Veneering,” he said to her, “Terry Veneering.” His eyes were bright light blue.