Pact without desire Page 9

  Rede shook his head. 'She's not lonely, and while she is wallowing in this slough, I'm keeping an eye on her. She'll pull out of it; she knows she can dance, that it's the best thing she does, and I'll back her not to let any of us down when the crunch comes.' He paused. 'This passing-out concert, for instance. That's a kind of watershed for her. Once successfully on the other side of it, she'll be all right, par-

  ticularly if we're both there, rooting for her for all we're worth. You've got it as a date? You won't miss it on any account?'

  'Of course not,' Sara assured him, still no nearer to knowing whether he was dispassionately concerned for Mai, or whether he was papering over the facts of their affair.

  His tone of voice had ordered her, rather than advised her, not to attempt to see Mai. But after they had both gone to their rooms that night, Sara knew she was not going to be able to sleep until she had seen the girl, whatever the outcome. Mai, guiltily unhappy for love of Rede, or Mai, unhappy for loss of faith in herself, must surely prove more vulnerable to questioning than Rede had been. Which meant that when she met him tomorrow Sara would be on the firm ground of knowing the truth—either way, and she could not wait.

  There was no sound from Rede's room as she slipped quietly from her own. Behind the curtains of the cottage a light still burned, but there was no answer to Sara's soft knock upon the door. She knocked again without result, then tried the handle which, to her surprise, turned. The key which had so delighted Mai when she took over the place had not been used tonight. Had Mai been expecting a clandestine visitor—Rede? But when Sara stepped into the living-room on to which the door gave it was clear that Mai had not sat up waiting for anyone, for through the half-open door to the bed-

  room Sara could see her prone and asleep fully dressed, her face turned sideways upon her crossed arms.

  Sara tiptoed nearer without her waking. The flesh above her delicate cheekbones was puffed and tears still glistened on her lashes. Without locking her door or switching off her light or undressing, she must have dropped asleep in the exhaustion of some despair which Sara couldn't bring herself to probe by waking her and asking the questions she had intended.

  She went back into the living-room, hesitant and wishing she had not come. A now familiar aroma hung upon the air—the scent of the sticks of perfumed wood which the custom of Mai's religion burned in supplication to its Buddha. Mai must have been praying for help ... She had also, it seemed, used a joss-stick as a taper to burn a pile of paper scraps in the waste-backet, Sara noticed. On the table was an unburned sheet with a line or two of Mai's fine disjointed script upon it

  'Please, dear Rede, let me go,' Sara read. am no good to you. There is no future for

  That was all. Mai had abandoned it there. Sara re-read the words over and over, asking herself whether or not they answered the questions she had come to ask Mai—was Rede. in love with her? Did she love him?

  Sara left the cottage, still not knowing but fearing.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE was little doubt, Sara felt, that the papers Mai had burned had been her earlier attempts to write to Rede. Would they have been more explicit as to their relationship than the One the girl had abandoned on the table? Sara wondered, until her judgment of it was utterly bemused.

  It was like a misspelt word, stared at for too long, which seemed to defy correction. 'Dear Rede'- that meant nothing sinister in Mai's openly affectionate phraseology; Sara had often heard her address Rede so. 'Let me go'. Rede himself admitted that she wanted to quit the School, but it could mean she was struggling in vain, against her own will and his, to part from him. 'I am no good to you.' Good' to his ambitious concern for her? Or 'good' to his need of her? And 'There is no future for ' That broken sentence could have ended in the clarity which Sara sought. But Mai had not finished it, leaving Sara's doubts where they were, and somehow by morning, after a night when the few words had turned to a meaningless jumble in her dreams, she had lost the spirit to pursue the search to certainty.

  She would wait for more evidence that her fears were real, and if that were rank cowardice, so it had

  to be. She had become a coward. The dread of losing Rede to another woman had made her one.

  In the days which followed neither his nor Mai's outward manner betrayed anything. Whatever her private troubles, in Sara's presence Mai hid them behind a serene, readily smiling face. She went to dance school every day as usual and claimed in Sara's hearing that she was practising hard. Rede seemed satisfied that his dealing with her misgivings was having effect, and he did not discuss them with Sara again.

  He brought none of his business affairs home with him either, so that it was from Isabel, met by chance in a department store, that Sara heard first that Cliff was leaving Temasik.

  'Well, apart from passing over Cliff whenever he could, for about a month now Rede has made his position intolerable,' Isabel complained. 'Round about then Rede had him on the carpet—Cliff said it was a private clash between them and wouldn't tell me what—and ever since he's been able to do nothing right. And when George Merlin at last came across with an offer to him, I made Cliff tell Rede he wanted out and Rede has let him go. I'd have thought Rede would tell you. Hasn't he?'

  Sara began, 'I've told you before—he doesn't discuss his work or the personnel with me—'

  'Huh! Cliff—mere "personnel" trash to you now? Dearie me, just how detached can we get, once we've married the boss! ' scoffed Isabel as Sara controlled herself enough to continue,

  "

  'What will Cliff be doing for George Merlin?'

  'As if you're interested! Cliff will be flattered! Anyway, he'll be superintending the freightage of orchids for shipment abroad and he'll be accompanying some of the consignments. Fabulous pay too, and a smack in the eye for Temasik, losing a man who might have been one of their brighter boys to Merlin Enterprises,' Isabel claimed.

  'But they're not in competition. Temasik doesn't deal in orchid export,' Sara pointed out.

  'Though how they'd like to, if Merlin hadn't cornered the market. Just watch Rede's reaction when he hears Cliff is going over to the enemy. Me, I can hardly wait!' triumphed Isabel before going on her way.

  In fact, had she been present, she might have been surprised by Rede's 'reaction' to Sara's mention of the news, which he claimed to know already.

  'It's a pity that if Iden wanted to get into orchids, he didn't wait until we went into exporting them ourselves,' he commented calmly.

  'I thought Isabel said George Merlin had all the trade there was?' Sara queried.

  'Pretty well all the local and mainland output— yes, I daresay,' Rede agreed. 'But Temasik is in process of drawing up contracts with a big group of Thailand growers, and if they go through, we shall be in a totally new export market, with the sky the limit. Iden should have bided his time a bit longer.'

  'But he couldn't have known about this?'

  'Of course not. It's still at hush-hush boardroom

  level. Anyhow, he was always something of a square peg in his job. I thought when I trained him he had the makings of a good man, but he's only mediocre, and Isabel has too many delusions of grandeur to be the right wife for a mere junior who isn't going to make the grade.'

  That was a chance to ask him about Isabel. 'You know her—or did know her—well enough to be able to say that?' Sara ventured.

  'I think so. I saw a good deal of her—or rather she saw to it that I did—when she came out to her relatives every year. Wherever I looked, there the girl was, as russet-and-cream and willowy as a woman in a Burne-Jones painting, and just about as cold.'

  That bore out Ina Belmont's version of their relationship and contradicted Isabel's own. Carefully, her spirit lifting a little, Sara asked, 'You weren't ever attracted to her yourself?'

  'Attracted to--no. Interested in—yes, as a type.' 'Which was?'

  'What she is now—still sexlessly lovely, ambition-ridden and as restless as a moth lacking a candle to flutter at:

>   `Oh—' Taken slightly aback by so crisp a measurement of Isabel, Sara said, 'That sounds as cut-and-dried as if you were in the habit of typecasting people by private computer. Did you slot me into it somewhere when we met?'

  His long look studied her. Then, 'No', he said. 'That day my computer went on the blink.'

  'But since?' For almost the first time they were

  on the verge of badinage and, high upon the relief that he hadn't ever cared for Isabel, Sara felt bold.

  'Since then,' he said, 'its assessment has varied. But I'd have thought the general trend was plain enough?'

  Her brief euphoria faded. 'Yes. Yes, it has been— quite plain,' she admitted.

  'You'd rather I didn't spell it out in clear?'

  Expect him to enlarge upon the contempt in which he held her? Never I 'No, thank you. I think I know—have known for some time what you think of me and where I stand with you,' she said.

  It was a lie. But pride had dictated it.

  On the day of Mai's passing-out concert, which she had ringed in her diary as a date not to be missed, there was nothing to warn Sara that the ill fate which dogged her brittle relationship with Rede was to be at work again.

  Mai, whatever her inner turmoil, seemed to be suffering no more than the examination nerves with which Sara could sympathise. Perhaps the girl's eyes were too bright, her manner too restless, but outwardly she seemed to be in control, though her dependence on Rede's and Sara's approval of her performance was total.

  'I believe you care more for Rede's opinion than you will for the judges,' Sara managed to tease her. 'Oh, but for yours too,' Mai bubbled. 'If I couldn't know you were both there, watching me, I should crumple, I know I should!' To which Sara, warmed

  against her will by such naïve enthusiasm, returned an emphatic, 'Rubbish!'

  Apart from her chorus work, Mai had three assignments—a solo role of a princess, rescued by a knight from a horde of robbers to whom she was captive; a trio taper dance performed in darkness, but for the pattern of light made by the weaving movements of the girls' graceful hands, each finger elongated by a lighted taper fastened to it, and a mime in which a Buddhist girl bade farewell to her sweetheart, leaving her for his obligatory period of service as a monk.

  'That is a very sad one,' Mai explained. 'They can hardly bear to part.'

  'But it's only a matter of months for him, isn't it? The boy will be coming back?' Sara questioned.

  'Oh yes. But the dance has also to show their fears of what may have happened for either or both of them before he comes back, and though the dancers may understand such fear, it is not easy to dance it to make other people feel it too,' explained Mai.

  In the late afternoon Sara had an appointment with her hairdresser, who suggested that, to save her the trouble, he should dress the long fall of her hair into the high-piled style which she usually wore for formal evenings out with Rede. Lim had called for her by car and when she got into it, sitting beside him by choice, he handed her an oblong packet.

  'For me, Lim? What is it?'

  Lim shook his head. 'Tuan ask me to deliver it to you.'

  Sara tore off the white paper wrapping. Inside was a jewellers' box and Rede's card. On a pad of black velvet inside the box lay a three-inch-long diamond bar-brooch, and Rede's card read, 'A memento of Mai's debut. Wear it, won't you?'

  The diamonds sparked fire, Lim, seeing them, pursed his lips in admiration, then said, 'Apologies, mem, but they are very beautiful, are they not?' and Sara thought, Lovely ... but if only Rede did not send flowers by his florist and diamonds by his chauffeur, how much, much lovelier they would all be.

  It was one of the busiest hours of the day for traffic. Long queues of cars and taxis formed at each intersection, and crawling to the next, met similar conditions there. It was at one such junction that as the lights turned to amber, a girl on a moped shot across the path of the car immediately ahead of Lim's. The car had the right of way and it sped on, the driver probably not aware that it had caught the moped a glancing blow. The girl swerved wildly, lost control of the machine and came down with a crash, the moped a mess of buckled handlebars, whirring wheels and revving engine on top of her.

  Pedestrians gathered about her. 'Heavens! Get out and see what we can do for her,' Sara ordered Lim, and got out herself.

  Lim picked up the mangled moped. The girl had

  been helped to her feet. As she stood shakily, brushing herself down while people clucked sympathy and advice over her grazed bare legs and hands, Sara recognised her instantly as Katin, George Merlin's temperamental 'cook'.

  Sara touched her gently on the elbow. 'I know you, don't I? May I drop you anywhere by car?' she asked.

  The beady eyes met hers in recognition. 'You don't have to,' Katin said in the English which Merlin had told Sara she could use very well when she chose.

  'But please! Wherever you were going, you can't use your moped now. Look, there's a garage over there'—Sara pointed to it, 'so won't you let my chauffeur leave it there for you and we'll take you on in the car? Where do you want to go?'

  Katin, bent double to examine a cut on her ankle, was understood to mutter, 'Home. To his place.'

  'Mk Merlin's house, where I once came to lunch, you mean?'

  A sulky nod. 'That's where.'

  'Oh—' Fifteen miles out and fifteen back. Sara looked at her watch but calculated they could do it before she had to be ready for the concert. She sent Lim away with the machine and put Katin into the back seat of the car. For all Katin appeared to heed her advice about disinfecting and bandaging her cuts as soon as they reached the house, she might have been deaf. She sat in glum silence, and presently Sara gave up talking to her.

  Before they arrived Sara asked if George Merlin

  were likely to be at home, and when Katin said No, Sara went into the house with her, asking Lim to wait.

  'First, your grazes. Hot water for bathing them— may I help you?' she asked. But Katin, ignoring her, marched straight into a bedroom, took an old-fashioned wicker holdall from a cupboard and began what looked like a thorough packing of her belongings.

  Sara could only stare, bewildered. 'What now?' she asked.

  'I am leaving,' said Katin.

  'Leaving? For good? Before Mr Merlin comes home?'

  'When he comes home I shall not be here. For when he does, he might beat me,' said Katin with dour candour.

  'Rubbish!' scoffed Sara for the second time that day.

  'And when he comes he will bring his new woman with him, and they will turn me out. So—I go first.' Katin finished scooping articles into the holdall, closed it, strapped it and took it up by the handle.

  'But where do you propose to go? And how?' Sara asked.

  'Home.'

  'Really "home" this time? 'Where?'

  'To my people. On the mainland.'

  'Over the Causeway? But how? You haven't your moped now,' Sara reminded her.

  Katin shrugged. 'I shall walk and ' she lifted

  her thumb in a hitch-hike gesture.

  'You'll do nothing of the kind I It'll be dark in less than an hour.' Sara calculated again. 'How far inland must you go?'

  'Not far,' said Katin vaguely.

  'Then we'd better take you on. But before you go, you're going to bathe those legs and hands, and I'll bandage them for you.'

  With Katin obstructive, complaining that 'he' would come home, this took longer than it need, and when they went out to the car, Lim was dubious.

  ' Mem will be very late back,' he warned.

  'I can't help that.' Privately Sara did not trust the girl not to resort to hitch-hiking, and she was not going to shoulder the responsibility of leaving her to it. After they had got under way, it occurred to her that they might have put Katin on a bus. But if it were indeed not far inland to her village, it did not seem worthwhile to do so now.

  However, 'not far' was to prove the understatement of the year. Whenever they reached a junction in Johore and Lim would ask
for directions, Katin would send him left or right or straight on, and it was only after nearly another hour's travelling along flat, dark roads bordered by rubber plantations that at a huddle of lighted houses, Katin announced that this was journey's end, and she was home.

  Lim saw her into one of the houses, none of which appeared to have a telephone. Sara told Lim to stop

  at the first one they came to on the return journey.

  But here again was frustration. All lines to Singapore Island woe temporarily engaged, and rather than wait indefinitely to tell Rede how late she was going to be, she decided to press on without stopping again.

  A worried Buppa met her at the door. 'Tuan and Missee Kluai Mai gone nearly two hours,' she an- nounced. 'Tuan say

  'Yes, I know. I'm terribly late, and I've still got to change,' Sara cut in.

  ' Malee to help you, mem?' Buppa offered.

  'It doesn't matter. At least my hair is done,' Sara said over her shoulder as she sped up the stairs, not realising that the elaborate effect created by her hairdresser was by now somewhat the worse for wear.

  She was so hot and sticky that she couldn't resist taking a quick shower, and it was as she stepped back into her bedroom, clad only in a towel, that Rede came in.

  She hadn't heard him knock, and one glance at his face warned her of his anger. She began breathlessly, 'I'm terribly sorry, but Buppa said you'd gone without me. Why have you come back?'

  He countered icily, 'Why do you suppose? To see what had kept you, and whether you had any intention of attending Mai's concert before it was half over, or perhaps even at all '

  The very fact of his being handsome in tropical evening clothes and herself being nude under her

  towel put her more on the defensive than she need have been. 'Of course I meant to be there. I promised you, didn't I? And you sent me that exquisite brooch to remind me—as if I needed reminding! But what do you mean—"half over"? Mai hasn't danced her items yet, has she?'