Wolf looked up again. The bottom of his lip quivered as he spoke. “Not in so many words,” he said. “Not specifically. But I have discussed with her the idea that we should have a trial separation. We did talk about that.”
Pat raised an eyebrow. “A trial separation?”
“Yes,” said Wolf. “We talked about that a few weeks ago. I suggested that we might not see one another for three or four weeks and then we could see how we felt.”
“And she agreed to this?”
Wolf thought for a moment before he answered. “Not exactly.”
Pat sighed. It was clear to her that Tessie was determined to keep hold of Wolf and that nothing had been agreed about their splitting up. Such cases, where one person was determined to keep the relationship alive, could only be brought to an end by brutality. He would have to dump Tessie, an action which, like the word itself, was unceremonious and unkind. It was not easy to dump somebody gently; and no wonder that somebody had started a service which involved other people doing the dumping for you. One contacted a company (the dumper) who then sent an e-mail to the dumpee that said, effectively: “You’re dumped.” In fact, the wording used was slightly more tactful. “The relationship between you and X is no longer in existence,” it said. “We advise you that you should not contact X about this matter.”
She looked at Wolf. He was, she realised, more beautiful than anybody she had seen for a long time. He could step into a Caravaggio, she thought, and go unnoticed, and for a moment her determination somehow to make herself immune to his charms faltered. Most girls confronted with an approach from Wolf would consider themselves blessed; and here she was spitting in the face of her luck. And yet, and yet…He was the property of another, and one did not trespass on the property of another unless one was prepared for conflict, which was exactly what Pat did not want.
A nun walked past. Pat had seen this woman before, and had been told by somebody that she was studying at the university and was in the second year of her degree. She did not wear a full habit, but had a modest black dress and white blouse, a uniform of sorts that set her apart from the run of female students, with their faded blue jeans and exposed flesh.
Pat looked up at Wolf. “No,” she said. “And look, I have to go now. I really do. Let’s talk some other time. Later.”
Wolf opened his mouth to protest, but Pat had turned away and was already walking along the corridor, following the nun. Wolf took a step forward, but stopped himself. “I won’t give up,” he muttered. “I won’t.”
Pat followed the nun through the glass door and out into the purlieus of George Square. It had been raining when she had entered the lecture theatre that morning, but now the weather had cleared and the sun was bright on the stone of the buildings, on the glass of the windows. She saw the nun ahead of her, making her way towards Buccleuch Place, and she quickened her step to catch up with her.
“Excuse me.”
The nun turned round. “Hello.”
The response was friendly, and Pat continued. “I’ve seen you around,” she said. “I mean, I’ve heard of you.”
The nun smiled. “Gracious! Are people talking about me? What have I done to deserve that?”
Pat had already placed the voice. One half expected nuns to talk with an Irish accent–the stereotype, of course, but then stereotypes come from somewhere–and yet this nun was Glaswegian or from somewhere thereabouts–Paisley, perhaps, or Hamilton, or somewhere like that.
“Is it true you’re a nun?” asked Pat, and added hurriedly: “I hope you don’t think me rude.”
“Not at all,” said the nun. “I don’t mind being asked. And, yes, it is true. I’m a member of a religious order.”
The older woman–older by ten years, perhaps, if that–looked at Pat. She was due at a tutorial in five minutes, but something told her that she should not go, that she should talk to this rather innocent-looking young woman. At any time, in any place, a soul may be in need of help. She had been taught that, and she had learned, too, that the requests of those in need often came at the worst possible time.
“Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?” she asked. “If you wanted to talk, then we could do that over coffee. It’s easier that way, isn’t it.”
“The Elephant House? “said Pat. “Half an hour’s time?”
“Yes,” said the nun. “Deo volente.”
34. In the Elephant House
They sat in the Elephant House, Pat and the nun, who had introduced herself simply as Sister Connie. They were at the very table which Pat had occupied with Wolf on their first proper meeting, and as Connie waited for the coffee at the counter, Pat thought about the strange turn of events that had brought her to this. One day I was here with a boy called Wolf, she said to herself, and now here I am with a nun called Connie. Why is that so strange?
Sister Connie brought over the coffee and set the two mugs down on the table. “I suppose you’re wondering about me,” she said. “I suppose you’re asking yourself about how I can possibly be a nun.” She paused, stirring her coffee with the tip of her spoon. “Am I right? Are you wondering that?”
“Yes,” said Pat. “It had crossed my mind.”
“And quite reasonably,” said Sister Connie. “After all, how many members of religious orders do you see these days? Very few. I believe that it was very different not all that long ago. There were several convents in Edinburgh. More in Glasgow.”
“I suppose it seems unusual,” said Pat. “At least, it seems unusual to my generation.”
Sister Connie nodded. “And why do you think that is?”
Pat shrugged. “Because…” She did not know how to say it. It was because of the me factor, she thought; because of the fact that nobody now was prepared to give anything up for the sake of…well, what was it for the sake of? For the sake of a God that most people no longer believed existed? Was that it?
She noticed that Sister Connie had blue eyes, and that these eyes were strangely translucent.
“Why don’t I tell you what happened?” said Sister Connie. “Would you like me to do that?”
Pat nodded. Lifting her mug of coffee to her lips, she took a sip of the hot liquid. The feeling of strangeness was still there, but she felt comfortable in the company of Sister Connie, as one feels comfortable with one for whom the demands of ego are quiescent. “Please tell me,” she said.
Sister Connie sat back in her chair. “I was a very ordinary schoolgirl,” she said. “Just like everybody else. When I was fourteen, I wanted to be a dancer. I used to go to a modern dance class, and ballet too, and I was serious about dancing exams. I thought that it would be a wonderful thing to do. I imagined being picked for the Royal Academy of Dance, or somewhere like that, and appearing in London. I really thought that it would be that easy.
“But then something happened–something which changed the direction of my life–changed my life, actually. It’s odd, isn’t it, how one little incident, one conversation, one experience, one thing you see or hear, can change everything? That’s odd, don’t you think?”
Pat thought of her own life. Had there been something which had changed the whole course of her life? Yes. There had been. There had been something on that gap year, something which had happened in Australia, which had done that. If she had not gone to that particular interview, if she had not seen the notice in the West Australian, then she would not have met…Well, it would all have been so different.
“We were from Gourock,” said Sister Connie. “We lived in a flat which looked out over the Firth. We were on the top floor, right up at the top, and there were one hundred and twenty-two steps from the ground floor up to our landing. I counted them. One hundred and twenty-two.
“On the floor below, there was a woman who lived by herself. She wasn’t particularly old–I suppose she was hardly much more than sixty, but at the time, when I was a teenager, that seemed old enough. She was a nice woman, and I liked her. I used to get messages for her from time to tim
e, as she had difficulty with those stairs. Her breathing wasn’t very good, you see. People like that should live on the ground floor, but ground-floor flats are more expensive and I don’t think she could manage it.
“She was frailer than I had imagined. She had given me a key to let myself in when I helped her, and one Saturday morning I used this key to let myself in when she did not answer my knock on the door. I went inside and found her on her bed, half in, half out. Her feet were on the floor, but her body was under the sheets. I thought that she was dead at first, but then I saw that she was watching me. Her eyes were open.
“I rushed over to her bedside and looked down at her. I saw then that she was still alive, and I reached out to take hold of her hand. It felt very dry. Very cold and very dry. Then she pointed to a piece of paper on the side of the table and whispered to me. She asked me to phone the number on the paper and…”
Sister Connie’s narrative tailed off. She had noticed that Pat was no longer looking at her, but was staring in the direction of another table, one closer to the door.
“I don’t want to bore you,” said the nun. “Perhaps I should tell you the rest of the story some other time.”
For a moment, Pat said nothing. Then she turned back to face her companion. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve just seen somebody I’m trying to…Well, I suppose I’m trying to avoid him.”
Sister Connie looked in the direction in which Pat had been staring. “That young man over there?” she asked. “That handsome young man?”
Pat lowered her eyes. Wolf’s presence could have been a co-incidence, but that seemed unlikely to her. “Yes,” she said.
Sister Connie frowned. “Is he bothering you?” she asked.
Pat hesitated. Was Wolf bothering her? Yes, he was. He must have followed her here and was presumably waiting until Sister Connie left so that he could talk to her. That was stalking, in her view, or something which was close enough to stalking.
Sister Connie leaned forward. “Troublesome men are easily defeated,” she said. “Just give me five minutes. That’s all I’ll need.”
35. Setting Off
Domenica had an early breakfast in the courtyard of her small hotel in Malacca. The couple who ran the hotel, the da Silvas, brought her a plate of freshly sliced tropical fruits–paw-paw, watermelon, star fruit–and this was followed by a fine white porridge, sweetened and flavoured with cinnamon, and after that by scrambled eggs in which chopped smoked fish had been mixed. She ate alone at her table; it seemed that she was the only guest in the hotel; she had seen nobody else since she had arrived, and the da Silvas had urged her to stay as long as possible. “There is plenty of room,” they said, wistfully, she thought.
The courtyard suited her very well, as it had two frangipani trees in blossom and she could just pick up the delicate, rather sickly scent of their white flowers. She liked frangipani trees, and had planted several in her time in Kerala, all those years ago. But not everybody shared her enthusiasm; the Chinese often did not like them because they associated them with cemeteries, where they often grew. Tree associations interested Domenica. In Scotland, it was well known that rowan trees protected one against witches, just as buddleia attracts butterflies. And then there were the ancestor trees in Africa–a tree which one should not cut down, out of respect for the ancestor who might inhabit it. In India, the same rule applied to banyan trees, and she had once travelled on a highway where a banyan tree had been left growing in the middle of the road. Surprising as it was, that, she thought, demonstrated a proper sense of priorities. In her view, the car should give way to spiritual values, although it rarely did. And, of course, there were places where the car was even accorded an almost spiritual status. Had somebody in the United States not insisted on being buried in his car? It was so absurd.
Her breakfast over, Domenica returned to her room and packed her bags. In an hour’s time, Edward Hong would be calling for her, as he had agreed to drive her to meet the contact who would lead her to the pirate village. He could not drive all the way, he explained, for reasons of security.
“I’m afraid that they’re a little bit unwilling to let me go to the village itself,” he said. “And you will be obliged to walk the last couple of miles. But everybody knows where it is, of course. I suppose they like to maintain at least some sense of clandestinity. Good for their self-image, I suspect.”
When Domenica expressed astonishment that the location of the pirate stronghold should be widely known, Edward Hong waved a hand in the air. “But that’s the way things are, you know. The police are probably rather frightened of these pirate fellows, I imagine. A policy of live-and-let-live is easiest.”
Domenica had experience of this in India, where the law could be enforced sporadically, but surely piracy was different…
Edward Hong sighed. “They make an effort,” he said. “They announced the hanging of a couple of pirates a few years ago, but nobody thought they were really hanged. Maybe just suspended.” He glanced at her sideways and they both laughed. It was difficult to tell these days whether people still appreciated humour. He was pleased to find out that Domenica did; but of course she would, he thought–she is clearly a woman of discernment and wit.
“It’s rather difficult for the authorities,” he went on. “Poor fellows. They have so much to do, and it does get frightfully hot out here.” He took a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. Domenica noticed, with approval, the gold embroidered initials on the corner of the handkerchief: EH, worked in fancy script.
Edward Hong looked at his watch. “If you’re ready,” he said, “we can go. My driver will take us to pick up this reprobate, and then we shall take a little spin out to the village, or as close as we’re allowed to get. Have you brought a good sun hat?”
Domenica nodded.
“And insect repellent?”
Again she nodded.
“I can see you’ve been in the field before,” said Edward Hong appreciatively. He paused. “Are you absolutely sure that you want to go on with this? You know, I doubt if anybody would think the less of you if you decided to do something different. We have a very interesting set of Chinese secret societies here in Malacca; I’m sure we could fix you up to study those.”
Domenica assured him that she was well aware of the risks and that she was determined to continue with her project.
“Oh, it’s not the risk I’m thinking of,” said Edward Hong quickly. “It’s more the discomfort. You know these people have a pretty primitive cuisine–I gather that pirate cooking is just awful. And the boredom of the conversation. They’re not brilliant conversationalists, you know, and you’ll be talking pidgin into the bargain. I’m afraid that you’re in for a rather thin time of it socially.”
Domenica pointed to her trunk. “I have a good supply of books,” she said. “I shall not want for reading matter.”
Edward Hong inquired as to which books she had brought with her, and she told him of the last six volumes of Proust that she had tucked away in the trunk.
“Proust!” he exclaimed. “The ideal companion for a mangrove swamp! That sets my mind at rest. I shall picture you in that steamy swamp with your little notebooks and your Proust.”
“I’m not so sure that Proust is the right choice,” said Domenica. “But at least it will fill the hours. And, of course, I shall be busy with my fieldwork. I have so many questions to ask these people. I doubt if I’ll have all that much spare time.”
They left the hotel and got into Edward Hong’s waiting car. Then, negotiating a series of pothole-ridden backroads and alleyways, they arrived at a small café on the front of which was a block of Chinese script and a large sign in Baharsa Malay advertising the merits of Tiger Balm.
Edward Hong said something to the driver, who climbed out of the car and walked into the café. A few minutes later, Domenica saw him come out with a striking-looking young man with a blue headscarf tied across his brow. He was wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of
denim jeans. His feet were in sandals.
The driver gestured to the passenger seat in the front and the young man got into it. He turned and gave Domenica a wide smile, exposing a brilliant set of teeth. Then he winked at her. She wondered if she had been mistaken, but then he winked again, and she realised that she had not. I cannot afford to have a romance with a pirate, she said to herself. Not at my stage of life. I just cannot.
36. Singapore Matters
As they drove out of Malacca, heading north, Edward Hong entertained Domenica with an account of his life. He had a strange way of talking–that style sometimes encountered which conveys the impression that the listener already knows what is being said and the narrator is merely adding detail.
“We’re a Malacca family,” he said. “My grandfather, Sir Percival Hong, was one of the first locals to be on the bench. He was a very popular man–everybody liked him, and he was the one who built our house, actually. He had a very good collection of early Chinese ceramics which he built up with the help of a dealer in Hong Kong. I remember that dealer coming to the house when I was a boy. I thought that he was the last word in sophistication back then. He had a pencil moustache and wore his handkerchief tucked into the sleeve of his jacket, which impressed me greatly, for some reason.
“Then, after my grandfather’s death, when we had the appraisers in to value the collection, we discovered that virtually every piece was a fake. A clever fake, mind you, and an aesthetically-pleasing one, but a fake nonetheless. My grandfather simply had not known enough to tell what was genuine. And the dealer, it transpires, was a charming crook. And I must say it was better that my grandfather never found out, don’t you agree?”
Domenica looked out of the window. They were on the outskirts of the town now and passing a small section of paddy field that abutted onto a warehouse of some sort. A group of children stood at the edge of the paddy field, throwing stones into the water. At the far end, a large white egret rose slowly into the air, circled, and headed off on some business of its own.