The Man in the Wooden Hat Read online

  “Won’t Edward wonder? Worry?”

  “He knows you are with me.”

  “But where are we now?” She looked through the one-way glass window. “You can’t be driving a car like this up here.”

  “It will take little harm. I agree that my London Royce would be more appropriate. And the card tray there is firmer.”

  “But this is an awful place. Wherever are we going?”

  Stretching away were building sites and ravaged landscapes. Squalor and ugliness.

  “It is your bread and butter—shall we say our bread and butter? And also our caviar. We are approaching the reservoirs, the sources of legal disputes that will support us all for years to come. Off and on.”

  “But it’s horrible! It’s a desecrated forest. It’s being chopped down. Miles and miles of it.”

  “There are miles more. Miles more scrub and trees. They will all, of course, have to go in time, which is sad since so much was brought here by the British. Like English roses in the Indian Raj the trees here grew like weeds. It was once a very good address to have, up here, you know. The dachas of the British. I still have a small one here myself, just to rent out—here we are in the trees again—which I intend to sell. The area is not safe now after dark. The reservoir workers begin to frighten people. They troop through the trees at sundown, like shadows. Here we are. My little investment.” And the car stopped in a glade on a mud patch where a dilapidated wooden box of a dwelling seemed to have become stuck up a tree.

  “Oh, no!” she said. “Oh, no—oh, no!”

  The zigzag notice Danger of Death was in place at the foot of the ladder. The driver lifted Ross out of the car and locked the car again behind him and Elisabeth inside watched the little man unlock the gate, shuffle painfully up the ladder stair, unlock the front door and disappear. When he came out again the driver lifted him back to his seat, relocked the car doors.

  Ross sat on his perch and said nothing.

  “Can we go? Can we please go now?” she said. “Please, I don’t like it here, it’s horrible.”

  “I let it by the hour,” he said. “Night or day. It has been a good investment.”

  “It’s disgusting. Vile. Please can we go to Edward? Tell him to start the car. Does Edward know you own this?”

  “Certainly not. When I bought it, it was for myself. A haven of peace in my difficult life, watching the cards. But I have let things slide. I live in so many places. I let it, in a very discreet way. And I am getting rid of it now.”

  “Yes. Please. Can we go?”

  “On one condition,” said the dwarf. “That you will never think of it or of any such place again.”

  “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.

  CHAPTER NINE

  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.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Since the night of celebra
tion 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.

  And woke to Mrs. Baxter flopping about with teacups saying, “I tried not to wake you. Are you staying long? Shall we say a prayer together?”

  She and Elisabeth were alone, except for the baby, whom Mrs. Baxter ignored. Nick, Amy and the rest were already about the Colony and the nursery school and the clinics. The noise from the streets was less than in the night and the monks below were still silent. The telephone rang and it was Edward.

  “Found you at last. Are you safe?”

  “Of course. I’m going shopping.”

  “Shall I come?” He sounded afraid of the answer.

  “No. Do I have to come and sign things?”

  “Not yet. I’m organising it. I’m planning our trip. Oh—Pastry Willy wants us to dine with them tonight.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “Sorry. Next week? I must earn my keep here.”

  “As to that, are you all right for money?”

  “Rolling in it,” she said.

  “Unexpected expenses—? Wedding dress and presents for . . .”

  “You’re the one for presents. First, Eddie, to Amy. She needs them. Don’t dare to give her money; she’ll just put it into a savings account for the children. Look—I’m staying here. They’re my family. Until the wedding.”

  “Willy’s wife will be upset.”

  “No. I want to be married from Kai Tak with the planes all roaring overhead.”

  “Can you—I mean. Darling”—“Darling!” Progress?—“is there anywhere to wash there? A bathroom. To get ready on the day?”

  “No idea. I must get on. I have to clean the kitchen.”

  “Shall I come over? I think I should.”

  “It’s a free and easy place. Don’t come in spats.”

  “What on earth are spats?”

  “Oh, stuff it, Edward.”

  Mrs. Baxter, pale as a cobweb, had been listening at the kitchen table where she was doing something with needle and thread. “Was that a conversation with your fiancé?”

  “I suppose it was, Mrs. Baxter.”

  She was silent as Elisabeth scoured away at the scum in the rice pot, black outside, silver within. Huge and bulbous. The black and silver raised a sense of longing in Elisabeth, of memory and loss: the outdoor kitchen in Tiensin, the servants’ shouting, the stink of drains and cesspits, the clouds of dust, the drab sunlight and her mother appearing at the veranda door. The amah would come and pick up little Elisabeth, wiping her face with a grey cloth. She saw her mother’s plump arms open towards her as she stretched her own stubby ones up to her mother. They all laughed. Her mother had been a blonde. She had twirled around with glee, swinging her baby. The servants were scouring the rice pots until their silver linings shone.

  “You are not looking happy, Elisabeth.”

  “But of course I’m happy, Mrs. Baxter.”

  “I am not a happy woman, either. I believe that you and I are very much alike. I thought so as soon as I saw you. I thought, She is born to tears and wrong decisions and she will need the consolation of Jesus Christ.”

  “You’ve got me wrong, Mrs. Baxter. I was thinking of my mother who never stopped laughing. I was a baby. She was beautiful, loving and hardly ever went to church.”

  “Died in the Camps, I hear? Well, I shall pray for you,” and she took out her handkerchief.

  “Mrs. Baxter. I am about to be married. I intend to be very happy. I’ll discover no doubt if I need Jesus Christ. And in what form. If it is in the form of sex and married love, then Jesus is for me. But I haven’t much hope.”

  Mrs. Baxter sat thoughtfully. Later in the day when the family were all home again, she still sat thoughtfully. When Amy said that it was time for her to be taken home she said, “I was a bride once.”

  “And I bet you looked lovely.”

  “Yes, Amy, I did. I had a very good dress, and it has survived. Elisabeth could wear it.”

  “Thank you, but I . . .”

  “Yet I feel that I should like to buy her a new one. I know a dressmaker and his wife who can complete it in three days including covered buttons down the back. I shall see to it all if you will draw me a pattern. I still have my wreath of orange blossom that went round my head, but it is rather flat and discoloured.”

  “Oh—I’ll get one made for her,” said Amy. “It can be my present. And I’ll get the shoes. Those green ones she has are the shoes of a whore.”

  “What I do possess,” said Mrs. Baxter, “and it will be in perfect condition in a tin trunk against weevils, is a veil of Indian lace. It is patterned with birds and flowers. St. Anne’s lace—a little pun—my name is Anne—made by the nuns in Dacca in what was then Bengal. You shall wear it—no, you shall have it. What use is it to me but as a shroud?”

  “Betty—you could keep it for the baby,” said Amy, and the baby hiccuped on yet another bottle, and the other children put rice in their hair.

  “My wedding day,” said Mrs. Baxter, “was on a green lawn at the High Commission in Dacca and there were English roses.” She wept.

  “Accept,” said Amy. “Quick. For God’s sake.”

  “Thank you very much indeed,” said Elisabeth. “I believe your veil will bring me happiness.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t count on that,” said Mrs. Baxter.

  PART TWO

  Happiness

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sp; CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When he was very old and had retired to the Dorset countryside in England, and Betty dead, Old Filth, as he was always called now, reverentially and kindly, would walk most afternoons about the lanes carrying his walking stick with the Airedale’s head, pausing at intervals to examine the blossom or the bluebell woods or the berries or the holly bushes according to the season. The pauses were in part rests, but to a passer-by they looked like a man lost in wonder or meditation. A dear, ram-rod straight man of elegiac appearance. As he grew really old, the English countryside was sometimes on these walks shot through for an instant by a random, almost metallic flash of unsought revelation.

  One November day of black trees, brown streams blocked with sludge and dead leaves, skies grey as ashes, he found himself in his room at the Peninsular Hotel again, and it was his wedding day.

  It was early and he was looking down at the old harbour-front YMCA building, everything ablaze with white sunlight. The flash of memory, like an early picture show, was all in black and white. The carpet of his hotel room was black, like velvet, the curtains white silk, the armchairs white, the telephones white. In the bathroom the walls and ceiling were painted black, the towels and flowers were white. There lay on a black glass table near the door of the suite a white gardenia and he, Edward Feathers himself only just taken silk (QC), at all of eight a.m., ready dressed in European “morning dress” and a shirt so white that it mocked its surroundings by looking blue.

  All these years later, he saw himself. He had been standing gravely at the window wondering whether or not to telephone her.

  Breakfast?

  He had not ordered a cooked breakfast. It would seem hearty. Others no doubt would be sitting down in their suites to bacon and eggs on the round black glass table, napkin startlingly white. But for Edward—well. Perhaps a cup of coffee?

  Should he ring his wife-to-be? Amy’s number? His—his Elisabeth? But then the telephone shouted all over his room.