She took them in two self-conscious journeys to the hut at the top of the tunnel, trying to ignore the thought of what she might say she was doing if discovered. Then, feeling distinctly more like the villainous Red Queen than either Alice or the White Rabbit, she lowered them all down into the tunnel and pulled them after herself in the string bag.
She managed to be back on the right side of the wire only just before night fell. Later, at dinner, she could hardly contain her wish for Alan to see all that she had achieved. But even had she been tempted to tell him in a whispered aside there was not the opportunity, for her mother was particularly restless.
They all missed the stabilising influence of George Harfield. Blanche had taken a large gin before the meal and another after. Then, instead of, as Liz had hoped, taking her third drink to bed, she asked to see the account books her daughter had been working on all day.
‘If we’re going to run this bloody place, better get it right from the start.’ She cleared a businesslike space in front of herself at the dining table. ‘Right!’ she said, looking up at her daughter. ‘Let’s get started.’
‘I’ll leave you two to work,’ Alan said, rising. ‘Goodnight to you both. Thank you for the meal, Mrs Hammond.’
There was no answer; Blanche concentrated on making the tablecloth perfectly wrinkle-free for the books. Liz went with him to the back door and they were exchanging a brief hand squeeze as Blanche followed. He wondered if she saw or suspected anything, but it seemed she felt she had dismissed him too brusquely.
‘Goodnight to you,’ she said. ‘See you for breakfast, same time.’
‘Same time,’ Liz repeated with a remarkable degree of innocence.
Liz was at the dilapidated bungalow well before time, complete with vase and orchid sprays and some of the flame-red frangipangi blossoms.
She arranged them and put the vase near the mat and cushions she had placed in the middle of the old lounge which she had first swept clean with a bunch of banana leaves.
She stood back and imagined Alan there, the two of them together, and moved the flowers a little farther away. Like any other housekeeper, she did not want her efforts spoiled!
She smiled, imagining his arrival. He would look astonished and say, ‘But where did all this come from? How did you possibly manage?’
‘I did a few trips yesterday,’ she’d say casually, ignoring the sheer hard labour it had been pulling the four cushions and the mat through the tunnel.
He would take her into his arms ... She tried to find words for how safe she felt in his arms — unassailable, invulnerable, impregnable, a charmed life ... She laughed silently at her own game, wrapping her arms around herself. Then, thinking she heard a sound, she held her breath listening, waiting for his next footfall — but she was wrong. There was no one.
She gave herself a consolatory squeeze. He would soon be there, and he loved her, he cheered her. When the awful time came and he did have to leave, he had promised he would write; and when the army released him from his national service, they would plan a future together. She had never felt so sure about the rightness of anything in all her life.
She listened again. The appointed time had come; she bit her bottom lip with eager anticipation. She had a last look around the room as every enthusiastic hostess does before the keenly awaited guest arrives.
She noticed now that since the day before several leaves had blown into the far corner. Everything must be as near perfection as she could achieve. Just as she was about to dispose of them through the window, a spectacularly large white butterfly flirted in the air just outside, then fluttered in with all the hesitation of the uninvited. It had brilliant red quarters on its upper wings, the red outlined and with interstices of black making the sections look like old-fashioned red feather fans.
She stood perfectly still as it found the flowers and settled. How she wished Alan would come just at that moment! She listened, tense with excitement, then slowly she stretched out an arm and dropped the leaves out of the window. Still the butterfly found nectar in the blossoms and gently so as not to disturb it, she walked around the room to the door.
‘Look,’ she would say, ‘everyone can arrange flowers, but not everyone can arrange to have a butterfly.’
She glanced at her watch; he was late, a little late, fifteen minutes past nine. She wondered if her mother was up yet, whether she had been missed and how her mother might see this liaison. Like the squire’s daughter meeting the proverbial gardener behind the pigsty, probably. An old-fashioned view, now the war had, she thought, largely levelled out the class structure — a levelling for the worse and downwards as far as Blanche was concerned. Liz could not, she reflected wryly, have imagined such as George Harfield among her mother’s invited company before the war. The war had changed values, made people, even young people, aware of their brief lives.
After a few more minutes she fetched the bundle of banana leaves which she had stowed in the old kitchen and brushed the front step so she could sit down to wait. The revolver she had carried in her slacks pocket she placed on the step beside her and listened. She knew by the behaviour of the birds and the monkeys that there was no one about. She watched a chameleon, green as the leaves it stood among, as it waited for the insects to come within reach of its swift, long tongue.
What could possibly be making him late? Had someone like the major come to see him? Tomorrow perhaps — but not today! This was only their first full day of life as lovers.
She picked up the revolver and went back to the lounge. The butterfly rose as she entered, circled the flowers but then settled again. She went back to the step.
He was three-quarters of an hour after the time they had arranged. How long should she wait before going back? She remembered him being called to the phone just before they sat down for breakfast, but this was not unusual. It had happened several times, routine instructions regarding his radio watch, usually. When he came back to the table that morning he had merely smiled and said, ‘More red tape.’
She listened to the lesser sounds of the jungle — the birds, the insects. She peered around as she had not had time to do since she was a child here. It was like renewing acquaintanceship with old friends. She could make out the brilliant blue fluorescence of dung beetles under the leaf mould, the angular green praying mantis and along the old path to Rinsey an awesome column of soldier ants. Anna had taught her a healthy respect for these red, nearly inch-long carnivores. They marched in a meticulous line down the trunk of a tree, across the path and up a tree trunk on the other side, like guardsmen under orders — she wondered if their leader’s name was Sturgess.
Where are you, Alan? What is keeping you? She wondered if Anna had woken yet. If her amah had been anything like her old self Liz would certainly not have been able to slip away like this. But Anna, like her mother, had been sleeping in, while her grandson at George’s suggestion had been taken by one of the tappers, who had a son the same age, to join the school run by Kampong Kinta.
She finally allowed herself another look at her watch. It was an hour and twenty minutes after their appointed time. She rose and went back into the lounge.
The butterfly was fluttering along the walls looking for a way out. It panicked as she entered banging itself with audible thumps at its prison. She watched for a moment or two, then went over and, as it settled momentarily within her reach, gently cupped her two hands around it.
She could feel it struggling in the dark of her palms. She held it for a second or two longer, knowing it was like her heart, dark with fear of the unknown. Then she took it to the window and opened her hands. For a moment it rested before taking to the air, rising up into the clear sky.
‘Gone,’ she breathed.
Liz went first to Alan’s hut. She felt her heart burst in anguish as she stood in the doorway. It was as if no one had ever been there. All the bedding was gone, the wireless was gone and even as she stood there some of the tappers came, carrying pieces of furniture.