Just as they were both striving to have positive, strong thoughts, the telephone rang and made them jump.
‘Yes! Hello!’ Blanche said, motioning Anna to stay where she was. ‘Inspector Aba. Hello, I was going to be in touch with you ... ’ Blanche turned towards Anna as she listened, her face becoming ever more grave. She put down the receiver after some time with just the briefest of thanks.
‘The inspector was ringing to say he is planning to bring two guards to Rinsey. He’d hoped tonight, but they’re fully stretched dealing with a workers’ riot near Ipoh and another terrorist killing at Slim River. He also thinks there’re still communists near Rinsey.’ She went to Anna and caught her hand as the amah rose in alarm. ‘We must make plans to defend ourselves as best we can. I shall double up the guards until the police can get here, and you and I will take turns resting during the night, keeping watch over Datuk.’
Anna put her unfinished brandy down. ‘I go clean all guns.’
‘I’ll go and see Chemor. Thank God we’ve got him.’ She silently also thanked God for George, for this new relationship they had moved towards. Even banged up in prison he gave her the will to struggle on.
She did everything she could think of for their safety, moving beds out of the line of windows, making strict rules about lights. They would use only the dimmest of bulbs in the lounge, which had good shutters, and in the rest of the house, they would feel their way around. For all the precautions, she knew there was a last thing she had to do.
While Anna prepared their evening meal, Blanche took her rifle and went to sit by Neville’s grave. There was something she had to tell him. It’s a little like telling the bees, she thought. We used to have a gardener who went to the hives and told the bees all the births and deaths. This news is about both, Neville.
She shuffled her rifle butt in the dust. I’m not sure how much you lot know. Or how long it takes. I mean, are Aubrey and Joan there? There were a lot of reunions at the funeral. Voices from the past, Neville. I thought more about you and Liz, really. So are all your troubles over — or are you just all over?
That’s the trouble, isn’t it? How much should our consciences here be bothered about over there?
So I’ve told the death bit. The birth bit is more difficult, but I shouldn’t like to meet up with you under any false pretences. I mean, if we’re attacked and wiped out tonight ...
You know I was more enamoured of you than in love with you, Neville — all through. I was enamoured of your gaiety, your special capacity for enjoying life — you were a bit like the social grasshopper, and totally unbusinesslike. I suppose I was enamoured too with Pearling the house, the history. But if I married you for Pearling it got its own back — it became the millstone I had to carry around my neck all through the war on my own, with the girls.
About the girls ... If you hadn’t been killed, this new thing would never have happened. It certainly would not have occurred to me, and I’m sure George would never had spoken out. But Liz is all you — well, nearly all, occasionally I hear myself in her words, but the artistic bit — that girl worships you, always will. Wendy’s more like me. She’ll be a good businesswoman. She’s coming out to Rinsey.
God, that gives me pause. We can’t let Wendy come out for another funeral. Blanche broke off the internal monologue to pull her rifle nearer. I must do what I told George Harfield in prison this morning, I must stop assing about.
I find I love the man. She paused, then restated it plainly in her mind. I love George Harfield. He’s everything I might have said I disliked ten years ago; bluff, blunt, earthy? Not sure about that last — more down-to-earth — whatever, the chemistry works between us. So that’s it, really. I’ll be staying at Rinsey. I was a bit surprised you’d left Rinsey and Pearling to me outright, no strings.
You were my springtime love, Neville, and it was a real crush, as that love should be. Perhaps the war ended that feeling. It was a kind of innocence, you know. But now I’ve found a man I love in a way I’ve never loved before — with all my mature heart. A love to sustain me in this bloody awful time. You’re not missing much, my old love.
She sighed and looked up to see Anna standing a little way off, head bowed, hands clasped as if in prayer. The trouble is, Neville, now I’ve admitted to myself that I love him I want him out of that bloody prison even more.
They ate together early that evening, the three of them. Datuk was irrepressible, full of talk about a pet mongoose a boy had brought to school, which had found and killed a snake in the playground. ‘It was poisonous, but it killed it!’ He grabbed his own throat, nearly knocking himself off his chair, demonstrating how the mongoose had lunged at the reptile.
‘Useful to have around, a mongoose,’ Blanche commented as Anna looked about to censor the boy.
‘Wish I’d got one!’
‘Your grandmother and I will think about it,’ She told him, thinking he deserved some reward for bringing a touch of normality into their lives.
‘Wow!’ he said, eyes wide.
‘Thank you,’ Anna corrected.
‘Oh! Thank you, Mrs Hammond. Thank you!’
‘I seem to remember a boy who used to have his mongoose, on a lead around the house, with a proper pen for it at nights. Does that sound a good idea?’
‘Wow!’ He caught his grandmother’s eye. ‘Yes, thank you Mrs Hammond. Wow!’
Anna raised her eyes and sent him off to do his homework.
‘I’ll just have a walk round to check on the guards,’ Blanche said when he had gone. ‘Don’t want any slackness tonight. Then early bed, I think, I feel exhausted. Emotionally torn to shreds.’
She had noticed that when she sat near Neville’s grave the guards tactfully moved away. She wanted now to be sure the patrol of the perimeter wire was being properly covered.
Thoughts of Wendy arriving made her determined to be much more assiduous about the defence of the plantation, and with two police guards coming soon it was perhaps just tonight that was the biggest danger time.
Starting at the back of the property she walked slowly around to the side, then to the front gates, where she spoke to Chemor. He reported that two of the men were just having their meal, but every post would be covered before nightfall. She walked on until she came to the spot where it was still possible to see the old path to the Guisans’ bungalow, severed now and made a no-man’s-land by the triple barbed wire. She could visualise the children running up and down, Lee always by Liz’s side. She remembered Neville expressing a wish to see his grandchildren playing there — ‘green freedom’, he had called it. Now she just prayed their daughter was safe — grandchildren seemed a dim and distant prospect.
Moving on, she passed the hut which contained the entrance to their escape route. Near the wire she walked circumspectly, anxious not to be seen by any of the Malay families, who would certainly press her to eat again with them, and it was considered very discourteous to refuse.
The guards at the back acknowledged her from a distance and, seeing her going back towards the area of Mr Hammond’s grave, tactfully gave her space. She stood and watched as the falling sun gathered power and glory until it reached an intensity of brilliance only seen in the tropics. The evening sounds from the jungle were beginning, the crickets always first, then the others would follow.
Her hearing was acute and she found herself listening more intently as there came a different sound from the undergrowth. The wind lifted and let fall the foliage in a soughing sweep, but this was quite a different rhythm. She held her breath. This was the sound of something or someone pushing through the beluka. She looked both ways along the wire. The guards were out of her sight. She was about to move away when a soft voice spoke her name.
‘No, don’t move, Mrs Hammond, I have you covered. Don’t make me shoot. Please stay and talk to me, Mrs Hammond. Listen to what I have to say.’