Released, Liz held out her arms as Josef bounded up the steps. ‘Now it begins to feel like home,’ she said, her head level with the open V of his shirt — even, she thought, her mother’s antagonism towards her childhood friend was the same.
He hugged her, stooped to kiss her on the cheek, and exclaimed how she had changed. ‘A lady,’ he said, bowing with mock solemnity, totally Chinese.
Then he became formal and quite European again as he offered his hand to Blanche, expressing his pleasure that she was home. She shook hands but Sturgess only nodded as he introduced himself and asked, ‘You expected Mr Hammond to be here?’
‘He is not with you?’ Josef frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You know where he went?’
‘Where did he go — and when?’
Sturgess and Blanche questioned together.
‘To meet you. To Singapore.’
‘When?’ Sturgess snapped in the manner of cross-examination.
Josef frowned as if perplexed. ‘Several days, two or three — I am not sure.’
‘Which day of the week, then? You must remember that,’ Blanche said impatiently.
‘I’m surprised he remembers anything with both of you snapping questions at him like that,’ Liz remonstrated. ‘Let’s go inside and sit down like civilised people, friends who’ve just met again after eight years.’ She wanted to know about her father, but she wanted to hear Josef’s story too. These two were spoiling it all, putting Josef at a distance, Sturgess behaving as if he were tuan of Rinsey.
‘Where’s his jeep? It’s not at Ipoh station.’
‘Did he drive to Sungei Siput?’
It was only Liz who made any move towards the door as the other two continued their questions.
‘No … no ... ’ Josef shook his head, frowning. ‘Ah! Yes!’ he exclaimed. ‘I remember! He said he was going to drive all the way — said it would be easier with the luggage.’
The silence this statement created had its own presence. ‘All the way to Singapore?’ Sturgess asked.
‘It’s only like driving to London from — ’ Liz began, only to be swiftly interrupted as her mother vetoed any such calculations.
‘Your father would know I would not undertake such a drive in the heat and knowing the state of the roads. I can hardly believe ... ’ Her gaze questioned Josef more directly.
‘This is only what I remember, I did not see him leave.’
‘Mother! Are you doubting his word?’ She knew the answer. Blanche had always doubted Josef’s word. Liz had always had to defend him. ‘Surely it’s the answer! Daddy could have broken down anywhere and not been able to reach us.’
‘It is possible,’ Sturgess had to admit, for the telephone services were in many places widely spaced.
‘And if the local shop had sold out of petrol.’ Liz remembered that the supply of petrol was often a stack of cans outside a village store.
‘He could have had other reasons for driving, I suppose,’ Sturgess added, seemingly lost in thought. The next moment, he demanded of Josef, ‘And where have you just come from?’
The younger man appeared stunned by the abrupt delivery of the question and flung an arm vaguely towards the plantation behind him. ‘I thought I heard a vehicle, I came to see if Mr Hammond was back. I was,’ he added with an incline of the head, ‘at home.’
Liz rushed forward and took his arm, determined now to extract him from their questioning. ‘Come and have a beer, Josef. Is your father at home? And I want to know about Lee and your mother. What has happened to them in all this time? Are they all at your bungalow’?’
Her spirits lifted a little at the thought of her friends so close by, just some two hundred yards along a track lined with bananas and bamboo. ‘Would your father know more about my father?’ There were a million questions to ask. ‘When he comes home we must have a party — all of us.’ She led him inside, beaming at the idea of all her loved ones together. Turning, she saw his face was solemn, hard.
‘The old days can never come back, Miss Hammond.’
Perhaps it was the sudden formality that gave her some inkling of what was to come. ‘Liz!’ she corrected, waving him to a chair, but his reciprocal smile was brief.
‘My father is dead, I think. When he tried to sabotage the Japanese plans for taking over the estate, they took him away. I’ve never been able to trace even where he was taken.’ He tightly interlaced his fingers as he added, ‘I think they just shot him out in the plantation and left him for the ants to eat. There were many bodies when the Japanese came.’
Sturgess and Blanche had joined them in the lounge. ‘Neville never said any of this in his letters,’ Blanche stated. ‘You must have told him what you thought.’
Josef smiled ruefully. ‘Mr Hammond still thought we would find him.’
‘Your mother and Lee?’ Liz asked, fearful of his answer. ‘My mother and sister, they live far away, and I am pleased because they helped the Japanese — they were traitors.’
‘Oh, Josef!’ She was devastated to hear such a condemnation. ‘Lee was only a child, you were only a child, your mother probably collaborated to save you both — and with your father being taken away ... You must forgive them, they must come back to Rinsey. We need you all here.’
He shook his head. ‘I think not.’
‘We must make things as much like they used to be as we can,’ she urged.
‘I think not,’ he repeated and the tone was harder, held a greater note of certainty.
‘Then I must go to see them.’
Josef shook his head. ‘I do not know where they are.’
The stony response sounded like a lie.
‘And what did you do,’ Sturgess asked, ‘through the war?’
‘He was only a boy,’ Liz remonstrated.
‘I helped the Chinese guerrillas who stayed to fight the Japanese.’ For a moment the look he gave Sturgess was like an accusation that the officer belonged to the British dogs who ran.
‘Did you indeed?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Josef looked him straight in the eye. ‘That is what I did.’
‘And is it what you are doing now?’
The innocuous-sounding question had Josef springing to his feet, protesting, ‘I work for Mr Hammond. You are calling me a traitor!’
‘I am asking if you have contact with any of the Chinese still in the jungle,’ Sturgess repeated with a politeness that was curiously threatening. ‘If you knew them up to three years ago it’s likely you know them still now.’
‘No, no. I am no terrorist!’
The denial held fury but Liz was not altogether surprised. She remembered Josef had a temper when roused, and Sturgess was accusing Josef of associating with murderers.
‘Not all communists are violent criminals,’ Sturgess said evenly. ‘I’ve met many who were idealists, who really wanted equality for all people — weren’t ambitious just for themselves.’
‘I do not know any of these people,’ Josef said, sounding stubborn but chastened.
‘No, they are fewer and farther in between,’ Sturgess confirmed, ‘than the villains.’
‘No!’ Josef blazed again. ‘I mean, I did not know — ’
‘I think I can do without any of this shouting in my house, thank you.’ Blanche’s voice was cool, re-establishing the hierarchy.
‘Look at me!’ Josef moderated his voice but displayed his height, his fairness. ‘I was no use in the jungle fighting. I stayed on the plantation — my help was with food and money for the guerrillas.’
‘The kind of help they will be needing now,’ Sturgess persisted.
‘Not from me, tuan, only in the war.’
Liz looked at Josef sharply as he actually called his questioner ‘master’.
‘I have been too busy,’ he went on. ‘Mr Hammond will tell you.’