‘You can still do that when we get back.’ She moved to his side as he lay down, so slowly, like someone afflicted by a new wound.
‘There was a photograph in the Times, I remember. I’m sure we’ll be able to get a copy from somewhere. Joan may even still have hers, they never throw their newspapers out until the print’s practically read off them.’
He did not answer and she saw he was asleep again. In the first few days she had been alarmed by these sudden lapses into sleep, fearing he might have slipped back into a coma. Now she saw it for the exhaustion it was, each new achievement tasking his strength to the limit.
Keeping watch by his bed, she was torn two ways. They did have to go back, but she felt that time here in this peaceful camp was what Alan needed. Once back they would undoubtedly be parted; she supposed he would be taken into a military hospital or sent on furlough somewhere like the army rest camp on Penang island — or even home to England. All she could be certain of was the time remaining to them in this jungle settlement — before the army in the shape of Major John Sturgess finally arrived.
It was a total mystery what had happened to the army unit he was supposed to have been bringing to recover Alan, travelling so quickly unhampered by women — that had proved a hollow boast! She had expected them within a day or two of Lee arriving.
She wondered if perhaps they had not even set out because she had disobeyed orders. But Sturgess had ‘lost’ Alan from a mission he was in charge of. Surely his duty would be to recover his man if the opportunity was given? Duty she would have thought to be a prime mover in the major’s life — and giving orders.
Then she remembered Sturgess needed Lee to identify some of the communist suspects the police had rounded up. He would come, she decided grimly.
Ch’ing, Lee and Liz had become aware that there was a growing unease in the settlement. Lee had heard Heng Hou’s name whispered fearfully among the women as they worked around the cooking fire. Their presence put the Sakais in extreme peril.
Liz’s task must be to help get Alan fit enough to travel as soon as Pa Kasut thought it safe. In the meantime she decided to emulate her mother; if there was nothing to be done about a situation, then there was no point in worrying about it.
She went quietly to the door and waved to Lee, who sat with her mother helping some Sakai wives and girls dye bark cloths for new sarongs. Lee yearned for two things; to hear that Heng Hou was dead, and to be out of the jungle.
The women often sat and made extravagant plans for shopping trips, telling the Sakai women they must come to Rinsey after the troubles and they would give them pretty materials and cooking pots. Lee always became quite animated as she talked of things she would buy — but first she was going to the cinema at Ipoh. ‘I’d like find boyfriend go with,’ she confided. ‘Then a trip to the shops of Kuala Lumpur.’
Liz proposed they should all go to Singapore for a holiday. ‘We’ll shop until we just can’t carry another thing and our feet are ready to drop off.’
‘Then we go eat fancy cakes in restaurant,’ Ch’ing had said, and a whole new topic opened up.
Alan stirred on the bed and she wondered how long it would be before they were all plunged back into their own lives. She realised that she had to treasure this time. What a place for a honeymoon! she thought.
Alan was still distressingly skinny, but already it was possible to see a difference. The bones in his shoulders no longer looked as if you could grasp them like handles.
The following morning she asked Sardin to come to help Alan down so he might walk about outside.
Alan hesitated at the top of the house ladder. As an interested crowd gathered, Bras and Sardin took his hesitation as an invitation to help and practically carried him down to ground level.
‘Terra firma — I think,’ Alan said, moving cautiously for the first time on real ground. ‘Though it still feels as if it has a spring in it, like the house floor.’
‘Afraid it’s your knees.’ Lee laughed.
‘I should have done more exercise, some knee bends,’ he said as he made a brave if unsteady attempt at just that.
‘You need swimming,’ Bras informed him.
The remark was greeted by the women putting their hands over their mouths to hide their smiles and Pa Kasut clearing his throat in the manner of all fathers mildly censoring their sons.
Alan thought of the last swim he’d had — in a river battling with a lethal packing case with Danny on the bank — and found nothing to laugh at.
‘Is there a swimming place?’ Liz asked.
‘Oh, yes.’ Bras pointed up between two high peaks of rock, then swooped his hand over and down.
‘Between those peaks? she asked. ‘It looks a long walk.’
‘No so far,’ Bras said. Again the Sakais, male and female, seemed to find it a big joke.
‘Is there something wrong with the place?’ Liz demanded of Pa Kasut.
‘No,’ he replied at once and with complete conviction, ‘very good place.’
‘Then why is everyone grinning? Does everyone come to watch or something?’
Bras looked very solemn. ‘No, very private.’
‘Lee and I will go and look,’ Liz decided. ‘While Alan builds up his walking strength around the village.’
‘Perhaps they’re just pleased for us,’ Liz pondered that afternoon as she and Lee headed up between the two sugar-cone peaks of rock.
‘They do have a right to be,’ Lee said, but then burst into laughter, ‘and ... ’
Liz stopped. ‘And what? Now you’re doing it.’
Lee ran on ahead. ‘I’ll tell you when we get there. I want to see it.’
It really wasn’t far. The path twisted almost back on itself and there between the high rocky peaks was a deep green miniature valley and in the middle a serene mountain pool. Its unruffled surface contained a perfect reproduction of the surrounding trees, the overhanging branches, the hills beyond.
The two young women walked towards the water feeling as if entranced. When they reached its edge, Liz turned to Lee for explanation.
‘This pool has a legend,’ she told her. ‘Many, many years ago a beautiful Kedan princess ran away with her lover. They were chased by her father’s men and he was killed. She escaped to this place but was so lonely and when she found she was with child she drowned herself in this pool. The folk story says that if any woman wants a child she has only to bathe in the waters, or just sip them.’
‘So that’s why they were all laughing.’
‘That Bras is a bit of lad, I think.’
Liz looked out across the pool and felt even the legend was no match for the beauty of the place. Then she realised that Lee was stripping off her sarong. ‘You’re going to — ’ She stopped; what a stupid question! She began to pull off her own slacks and shirt.
She launched herself into the cool, deep waters, swimming slowly, almost reverently. She felt as if the grime and the cares of all the world were washed away by the balminess of the water, by the green hills, the blue bowl of the sky tipped over and balanced on the tops of the peaks. She was indeed a stranger in paradise, she thought, and felt that tranquillity and insight were fleetingly hers. The whole mystic East held her thralled in its mountainous cup.
Turning on her back, she floated as high on the water as she could, so that she could feel the heat of the sun on her face, her breasts, her thighs, but could not look up into it because of its power. No wonder, she thought, the pool had a legend.
The next moment she gasped as a great smashing shower of water made her splutter. Lee had swum gently round and was now splashing her with her feet as hard as she could. Liz retaliated and the two played like the children they had been together. They thrashed around in the water as if suddenly making up for all the lost years during the war.
Once exhaustion had been reached, the two swam away from each other. The waves they had created became ripples and, as they finally climbed out and up to where they had left their clothes, they watched the waters become quite calm, and again reflect in stillness and serenity the surrounding scene: the near branches dipping in places to the surface; the green hills; the far peaks. ‘As if we never were,’ Liz whispered.