Before either of the others could take her to task for the alarm, she babbled on about this being the kampong her amah came from. ‘I’ve been visiting here with her many times. She used to bring me on the bus. We waited by the rock. You remember, Mother! She might be here, might know something. She would have been to see Daddy since he was back. Sure to have.’
‘Have you time?’ Blanche consulted Sturgess but Liz was out of the vehicle.
‘No! I haven’t.’
‘Just ten minutes.’ The girl was already some paces away from the vehicle.
What should he do? Drag her back? She deserved to be left.
‘Anna was always a mine of local information,’ Blanche said. ‘Never seemed to miss anything. She would certainly know if Neville had been through here.’
‘It really will have to be only minutes.’ His tone was weary and grudging but Liz was too eager to have the chance to visit her old amah’s home to care.
‘Ten minutes,’ she promised.
‘And I’m counting,’ he said.
‘I’m coming,’ Blanche called after her as she hurried towards the centre of the village.
Built on stilts, the bamboo-framed houses thatched with woven attap, the plaited leaves of the nipa palm, had many tins and bicycles stored underneath, many hens and ducks scavenging all around and brilliant clay pots of flowers, mostly orchids and herbs. Dogs came to bark, but lethargically, for she was not afraid and no one encouraged them. There were no children, no old people, no wives sweeping and tidying their precincts. The realisation made her stumble mid-stride. This was quite wrong. Stopping to look around, she saw a boy being pulled back from the verandah of a house and a door being discreetly closed.
She stood in the middle of the village, isolated by — what? Suspicion? Fear? Her memories were that should any visitor set foot in a kampong, everyone came to see, children first, then the elderly, all to stare and wonder. One smile and the visitor would be surrounded by young smiling faces and ever hopeful hands.
There were covert movements and the sense of being observed was overwhelming but as she turned around and back it was as if the very houses held their bamboos rigid until her glance passed them by. ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ she muttered and walked on.
Eight years ago her amah’s parental home had been away to the left. She knew she would remember it, for she had always felt vaguely uneasy about the two great flowerpots like sentries either side of the front steps, each one lacquered green and shaped like two great turtles embracing each other in a most difficult-looking manner. They were still there.
She paused at the bottom of the verandah steps, as she had been taught to do, and called in that gentle voice her amah had taught her was polite, ‘Anna! Ann Leo! Please, are you there? There are visitors for you.’
There was a soft movement at the top of the steps and an elderly, plump Malay stood in a dark maroon sarong at the half-opened door. The dark eyes recognised, a hand covered her mouth and she stepped back inside, the door swinging closed.
‘What is the matter?’ Blanche asked as she came up to her daughter.
‘Let me go to her,’ Liz said. ‘She may talk to me.’
‘Yes, go on, learn as much as you can.’
With sudden insight, Liz knew that she and her mother were on the edge of devastating events. She hoped it was not their future that had been mirrored in her old amah’s startled face.
‘Anna, dear?’ she called again from the door, but the only sound that came was a soft keening. ‘Please. It’s Elizabeth Hammond. May I come to you?’
Her old amah sat on a small basket chair, her head bent and her upper body rocking. As Liz came nearer, her head went even lower over her knees, but she stretched out her arms, her hands opened wide, like someone making a dramatic and frantic appeal.
‘Anna, dear Anna!’ Liz knelt in front of her, tears springing to her eyes. ‘Anna, I do love you. I’m so pleased to find you.’
The rocking increased almost to a frenzy and still the woman did not look at her, but Liz could see the tears streaming down her cheeks. Liz could bear it no more. She pulled her old nurse into her arms and they rocked more slowly together.
‘Ah! Tidapah! Tidapah!’
Liz was not sure which of them spoke the old comforting word, it was certainly on her lips. Tidapah, never mind. Never mind! It had comforted many a grazed knee or bruised ego.
‘Anna, what is it? Tell me you’re at least pleased to see me.’
‘Ah!’ Anna’s hand came up and stroked her hair, their tears mingling as she kissed the girl’s cheeks with all the unrestrained smacking wet enthusiasm of old. Liz grinned at her. This she remembered as a proper kiss — unlike the dry and formal pecks her English grandparents had bestowed on her from time to time.
‘You are well, Anna?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ She shook her head at her. ‘And my naughty Elizabeth Hammond grown up. An English lady!’
‘But her heart is Malayan.’
They both laughed then, for Liz, clutching her amah’s hand, had made this declaration at the age of five as an English aunt had made the same remark.
In the release of laughter Liz saw the old Anna she knew so well, as full of fun as any child, her only sadness when her charge gave cause for complaint.
‘And baby Wendy, she is here?’
‘No, stayed at school in England. She sent her love.’
‘Better if you all stayed in England.’
The judgement was delivered with such quiet certainty that it was far more convincing than any advice, cajoling or appeal to reason. ‘What is it, Anna? What’s happened?’
The black eyes had lost any sparkle now and, as her head fell to her chest and her shoulders rounded, she looked an old, old woman.
‘Oh, tell me, amah dear?’ Liz used her childhood plea for a favour. ‘Please.’
‘I can tell nothing.’
‘Ah! Anna, please! My father … ’
‘I can tell nothing. Miss Liz, you and your mother go back to England. It is safer there.’
‘And for my husband — is it safe for him too?’ Blanche’s voice broke in upon the two earnest women and they both instinctively drew apart. ‘Hello, Anna, I’m pleased to see you,’ Blanche added.
Anna stood up and half bowed as Blanche took her hands and bent to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘It’s been a long time. We’re both older, Anna.’
Anna accepted the greeting with trembling lips, a slow shaking head and an offer of tea.
Blanche explained the briefness of their visit.
‘But we’ll come again soon,’ Liz added with enthusiasm, ‘when Daddy’s home and we find Lee and Mrs Guisan. Josef’s at Rinsey, did you know — ’
A savage crash brought her to her feet, her heart pounding. There was such ferocity in the sound, she was surprised to see it was merely the noise of the bead curtain at the far end of the room being suddenly parted.
A man pushing a young boy before him stepped authoritatively into the room, then stood stock-still. The man was Chinese, the boy Malay, about ten years old.
‘I thought,’ the man said, ‘your visitors would wish to see your grandson.’
Liz noticed how white the knuckles of the man showed as he gripped the boy’s shoulders. She glanced at Anna; sheer terror shone from the wide black eyes.
Her mother saw too and moved forward. ‘How kind,’ she said, as if taking the man’s words literally. She held out her hand to the boy, not looking at the man, and talking all the time. ‘I remember you being born. Anna’s first grandchild. Let me see if I can remember your name.’
The man was so disarmed by her unexpected approach that for a second he looked behind him as if for support, and let Blanche draw the boy away. Released, the boy ran to his grandmother, who covered him protectively with her arms, her hands over his head.