A Different Sky, page 2
‘I’m hot, Mummy. I’m thirsty. Will the policemen kill the communists?’ Howard asked. Rose drew him to her breast again but he pushed her away, fractious at the touch of her hot, damp flesh, avid to see what was happening.
‘They will listen to the power of a gun,’ Mr Ho wheezed from across the aisle; he had loosened his necktie and taken off his jacket, revealing braces and an open waistcoat.
‘Soon now the trolley will move,’ the young Indian, Raj Sherma, predicted with a red-lipped smile; his eyes were bright and his manner more ebullient than fearful.
Howard kicked the seat in front of him again and the Chinese girl turned to frown at him. He stared at the birthmark on her jaw, at the delicate tracery of red lines and small blotches, and decided it resembled a gecko.
‘Children thirsty,’ the amah worried, speaking anxiously to Rose in broken Malay.
Rose suddenly remembered that in the bottom of her handbag there were a few boiled sweets a stallholder had given her in the Beach Road market the day before. She opened the bag and extracted the sweets, giving one to the girl and another to Howard. The children cheered up immediately.
‘This is Howard. What is your name?’ Rose asked the girl.
‘Name, Mei Lan,’ the amah answered for the child. Sucking silently on her sweet, Mei Lan stared at Howard while he crunched noisily upon the hard sugar. Although he returned her gaze, his eyes kept slipping to the mottling on her jaw. Aware of his interest the girl obligingly stuck out her chin, moving her lips to make the mark dance for him. Impressed but disappointed he could not compete, Howard scowled thunderously.
Outside, the Chief Inspector appeared to be making no progress. A new burst of shouting began and the bamboo poles were raised angrily once more. The demonstrators poked savagely at the inspector’s chest as if they were sticking a pig. Throwing up his hands in surrender, the Chief Inspector backed away in the careful manner of a man retreating from a snarling animal. To the sudden shout of pah pah the bamboo poles came down upon him in a rain of heavy blows. One thick staff smashed through the crown of his sun helmet; the hat fell off and rolled away, blood poured down his face. Two Malay constables ran forward. Supporting the injured man between them, they dragged him up the steps of the Kreta Ayer police station and into the building, pursued by the angry rioters. Then, the crack of rifles filled the air as policemen fired shots in quick succession over the heads of the demonstrators.
‘Get down, son. Do you want to be shot?’ Rose tugged frantically at Howard as he leant out of the trolley to follow events, pulling him down on the floor beside her.
Looking around, Howard saw that all the passengers were similarly positioned away from ill-directed shots. Mei Lan had begun to sob in fear against the amah’s shoulder. The suffering Mr Ho had collapsed on the floor, his legs stuck out in front of him. Rose surveyed him anxiously as she took hold of the excited Howard. Imprisoned against his mother’s breast, her heart beating wildly in his ear, Howard watched the man weakly roll up his sleeves.
‘Don’t give me trouble now, son,’ Rose hissed as Howard freed himself from her arms.
Crouched down between the seats, Howard found himself beside a louvred ventilation panel in the side of the bus through which a narrow slice of the world was revealed. Outside, there was renewed activity after the first shots. The agitators were now surging about the police station, attempting to enter the building, all interest in the trolleybus gone. The firing of guns had succeeded only in inflaming them.
From an upper window of the station a grey-haired Englishman leaned out and shouted an order. The constables levelled their guns once more and released their second volley of shots directly into the rioting crowd. Amongst the demonstrators Howard then observed the sort of implosion that occurred when his sister, Cynthia, maliciously moved a wooden brick in one of his elaborate architectural constructions. The mob disintegrated, backing away from the police station. Several bodies pooling blood could be seen lying in the road, limbs flung out at odd angles. Torn banners and bamboo poles littered the street as the demonstrators melted away. Rose turned from the scene with a sob of relief, aware once again of Mr Ho’s struggle to breathe. Looking up, she saw that the young Indian with the red lips was also observing Mr Ho in concern.
‘The uncle is needing only air,’ Raj Sherma informed her, making his way towards Rose and the sick Chinese.
He gave a wide smile and Rose smelled the aniseed on his breath. She nodded, anxious to be rid of the invalid and the responsibility she would feel if he died. As the traumatised passengers hesitantly returned to their seats, Raj helped Mr Ho to his feet and steered him down the trolley to a vacant place. Outside, the shooting was over, the shouting had ceased and the demonstrators were already disappearing into alleys and side roads.
As the trolley began to move again Mei Lan knelt up on her seat and stared at Howard. Although her heart was racing with shock, Rose smiled at the child and reached into her bag to find a further sweet. She gave one to the child and another to Howard and also found sweets for herself and the amah.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked the girl, still unable to believe she was safely free of peril.
‘I am going to Ah Siew’s kongsi fong,’ the child announced in perfect English.
Rose swallowed the boiled sweet in surprise. She was shocked that a well brought up child should go to a servant’s fong; she would never let Cynthia or Howard experience the misery of such a place. By the way she was dressed the child appeared to be from the Chinese upper class, and must go to an English mission school to speak so naturally in English. Why was she not riding in a car or even a private rickshaw instead of a common trolleybus? She was a pretty child, Rose observed, but for the birthmark on her jaw and must be about seven or eight years old, a little younger than Howard. The amah continued to smile at Rose, sucking noisily on the sweet. Although she had a pleasant expression, her weathered skin was pitted from smallpox and her teeth protruded.
At the back of the trolley the dapper Mr Ho appeared somewhat revived. He had rolled down his shirtsleeves and re-knotted his tie and, although he still wheezed, his smile returned. The young Indian helped him on with his jacket as his stop approached.
‘Uncle, I will accompany you home,’ he offered, seeing how the exertion of even standing up caused the man’s laboured breathing to return. Mr Ho turned to him gratefully.
‘You are a fine young man. What is your name?’ the Chinese wheezed, lurching forward on trembling legs and tipping his boater to Rose.
‘My name is Raj Sherma,’ the young Indian replied as he steered Mr Ho down the bus.
Rose watched them alight with a pang of regret. To have survived together such an ordeal made the men in some way her compatriots, and now they were gone from her life. The moment passed as the trolley travelled on towards Rose’s own destination. Soon, she tucked Howard’s shirt into his shorts, slicked down the damp curly hair that would never lie flat and, taking his hand, stood up and smiled at the Chinese girl and her amah.
‘Say goodbye,’ she instructed her son, but Howard stuck out his tongue instead. In reply Mei Lan pulled down the corners of her eyes, pushed two fingers into her mouth and stretched her lips open grotesquely; on her jaw the birthmark leapt about. As Howard began an answer of some further inelegance, Rose pulled him down from the trolley. She watched the vehicle continue its journey, like a nightmare receding as she opened her eyes to the day.
2
LOATH TO BOARD A further trolley, Rose had taken a rickshaw back across town. Soon the peaceful environs of Bukit Timah and then the gentle slope of Mount Rosie was before her again. When at last they entered Belvedere, the subdued clatter of cutlery and conversation could be heard in the dining room. Ah Fong had already served dinner and Rose was relieved to find they had not been missed. She hurried to take her place at the table before the window, where they always sat for meals. Howard followed his mother as she crossed the room, nodding apologies to her lodgers whenever she caught an eye. Cynthia was already eating, with the amah crouched attentively on her haunches beside the chair. At the sight of Rose the child jumped up, a whirlwind of tawny hair and milky skin, and threw her arms around her. Her face, pressed against Rose’s dusky cheek, could not easily be prised away.
With no more than a glance at his sister, Howard took his place at the table and stared about the dim and flickering room full of moving shadows. The glow of the candles that were lit each evening saved electricity and, said his mother, created a gracious ambience, but nothing for Howard could eradicate Belvedere’s intrinsic sadness. Whatever efforts were expended upon the house it remained to him cavernous, gloomy and secretive. The long windows were open to the evening, the perfume of night flowers and damp earth mixing with the odour of poached fish and the melting wax of candles. The lodgers, who sat two or three to a table, were exclusively young European men in Singapore on a first tour of duty.
Howard hated the way he must sit before them, subject to scrutiny and comment, evaluated over a sea of tables. He already understood it was his sister who held the lodgers’ attention; any cursory glances that came his way were solely of a curious nature. Sooner or later everyone remarked on the difference between the siblings, comparing Howard’s darker cast of skin to Cynthia’s creamy appearance and her startling green eyes. That a mother could produce at one time a swarthy son but at another a daughter of such delectable properties was, he already realised, one of nature’s foibles. Once, he had overheard a loud-mouthed man from Cardiff remark that Landlady Burns must have had it off with one of her lodgers nine months before Cynthia appeared in the world. Snorts of laughter greeted this remark. Howard had turned and run, his heart pounding. Although he had not understood the comment, he understood the besmirching of his mother and for some time afterwards he had secretly believed that he and Cynthia had different fathers. Later, he realised this could not be, for Cynthia had been born in Upper Serangoon before their father died, before they came to Belvedere and the world of lodgers.
After the happenings of the day, Howard’s knees still trembled and his stomach closed at the prospect of food. He pushed a fish fillet listlessly about his plate, remembering again the crack of bullets at Kreta Ayer. Looking up, Howard caught his mother’s eye and saw that she too could not eat her dinner. In the candlelight her face appeared unfamiliar, her eyes cratered in shadow beneath her brow. He hated the old house at this time of day. The lurking presence he sensed in the dark cavity of Belvedere was already actively stalking about. The only thing tolerable in his new home was its overgrown orchard. The gnarled branches of the mangosteen trees, hung with dark fruit the colour of burgundy, encircled a secret world of twisting vines and foliage. Sometimes, thickly smeared with a home-made insect repellent, he climbed up a tree to pick the hard globes of fruit, peeling off the thick skin, sucking on the white flesh within. Only the slither of snakes, the movement of lizards or the buzz of insects reached him in this place of hot rotting smells.
All he wanted was to return to their old home in Upper Serangoon with its green-latticed shutters and orderly garden and the cricket he played with his friends. There, the neighbourhood boys were Eurasian like Howard and rode with him to school in a mosquito bus, squashing into the vehicle together. The conductor balanced on the back step, clinging to a rail, and swung dangerously around corners. There were orchards about the houses in Upper Serangoon from which they stole rambutan, durian and mangosteen. The Eurasian boys made up two cricket teams and Howard’s father had coached them. Then, when his father died, they moved away and Howard found himself far from his friends and the small local school he had attended. Now, he went to St Joseph’s Institution, a school of Catholic Brothers who used the cane, and where he had no friends. He hated the new house, Belvedere, with its dilapidated façade and the European lodgers his mother was so happy to serve; it could in no way be called a home. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his father’s compass and, opening the lid of the flat wooden box, stared down at the red-tipped needle. Rose had found the compass while clearing out Charlie’s desk after his death and given it to Howard. When they moved to Belvedere he had set the compass to point in the direction of Upper Serangoon, so that he could find his way back there if needed.
That night sleep pulled him under quickly, the weight of his dreams heavy upon him. Howard heard again the shouts of the communists as they rocked the trolley and remembered the Inspector’s battered sun helmet upturned in the road, stained with the blood of its owner. He awoke with a start to his dark room, listening to the pipes in the belly of Belvedere grumbling with elderly flatulence. Outside the heavy splatter of rain could be heard. Lightning flashed and thunder froze him where he lay. He found he was bathed in sweat but dared not move or reach for the glass of water that stood on the table beside his bed.
Although, when the shots were fired, Howard understood his mother’s fear as the wounded Chief Inspector was dragged into the police station, he was disappointed that the man was not dead. He did not know who the communists were, but already he felt allegiance; they had demonstrated a daring that excited him. His heart pumped with outrage on behalf of the rioters whose courage before authority had met with such brutality. Now, in the darkness of Belvedere, he pondered what it was about the Chief Inspector that seemed to him so familiar. As a gecko clucked loudly from the wall, he realised with a start that the inspector resembled a man at Great World Amusement Park who Howard would never forget.
Not long before his father died, they had gone together to Great World. Howard loved these outings to the amusement park with its shooting galleries, eating stalls, theatres, musicians and the excitement of the boxing ring. In the cavernous dance hall the taxi girls with red lips and high heels danced for money with men, the moving bodies of the swaying couples were pressed together as one. Some women had skirts slit high up their thigh; others wore gowns exposing their cleavage. Howard’s hands became clammy and the muscles of his legs grew tight as he stared into this tawdry world. A band played in a dark corner and the music ran wildly through him. The strong odour of beer and cigarettes accompanied a licentiousness he recognised but could not frame in words.
‘I’ll bring you here when you’re older. We’ll find a real beauty for you to dance with,’ his father laughed that day.
Howard had been allowed to have two rounds at the shooting gallery and to buy a stick of candyfloss in an unhealthy shade of pink. His father drank a couple of beers and Howard an orange squash, and eventually they had made their way to the lavatories. These were situated to one side of Great World and were modern and clean with the novelty of a chain to pull that released a flush of water. In Upper Serangoon they were still visited each morning by the honey-cart with its odorous buckets. When Howard went out with his mother he was still young enough to go with her into the Ladies’ lavatories of public places. That day at Great World he was proud to be out alone with his father and enter the door marked Gentlemen.
Inside the lavatory Howard followed his father to the row of urinals. A tall Englishman stood with his back to them and Charlie Burns took a place beside him. From a skylight, sunlight fell on the Englishman’s greying head and his father’s chestnut hair, and burnished the fountain released from the Englishman to an arch of liquid gold. The remaining urinal lay in shadow, and Howard positioned himself before it. He noticed with pride that his father’s skin, in spite of some cricket under the sun, was paler in shade than the bronzed and leathery skin of the other man; he looked more English than the Englishman. At last the man buttoned up his fly and nodded to Charlie in a friendly manner. Then, as he turned away, his gaze settled on Howard who was still struggling to undo his shorts and he stopped abruptly. Stepping forward with a frown and grasping Howard by the scruff of the neck, he began to shout.
‘You are not allowed in here, you dark-skinned rascal. If you were older I’d call the police.’
Shocked by the sudden attack, Howard cowered in terror, sure the man was going to hit him. Instead, dragging Howard roughly forward, he frogmarched him to the door. Before being ejected into the noisy clamour of Great World, Howard turned in mute appeal to his father. Charlie Burns stood rigid at the urinal, his face turned away, his eyes on the wall before him and uttered not a word. Outside, the Englishman wagged a threatening finger at Howard as he strode away. Howard stared after him in confusion; his bladder was full and his shorts open to expose him. More than the shock of expulsion was his father’s refusal to acknowledge him. His throat constricted and he thought he might cry before the closed face of the door.
‘Sorry, son,’ his father whispered when, at last, he emerged from the lavatory. He pointed to the door next to the one he now shut behind him.
‘That’s the door for you, and me too of course if that man really knew. He thought I was a whitey, like him,’ Charlie chuckled, delighted. Directing Howard’s attention to a higher level, he pointed out the word EUROPEANS above the door from which he had just emerged, and the sign OTHERS over the door to which he now pushed Howard. He did not accompany his son inside this alternative toilet but waited outside, lighting up a cigarette, leaning back against a wall.
Now, in the darkness of his home Howard heared the gecko cluck once more, and he knew the dark presence of Belvedere had settled in the shadows thickening the corners of his room. In his mind the face of the Chief Inspector and that of the man in the lavatory of Great World had already fused into one. So it was that he had wished for the blood of the Chief Inspector, although he had no knowledge of why he wished this. He had just wanted the man to die. He knew these memories were part of him now and would live within him for ever. Something inside him seemed changed, as if he had grown several inches in just those few minutes at Kreta Ayer. Already he felt an old man.
Rose Burns tossed and turned and could not sleep. She stared at the parchment shade of the lamp hanging above her bed. The long electric wire was lost in the darkness of the high vaulted ceiling. Caught by moonlight the shade hovered luminously, disembodied as a ghost. The thunder had become more distant as the storm abated. Now, the low rhythmic boom of bullfrogs and the shrilling of crickets returned again from the garden. The scent of the sea and the faint stench of sardines drying on a faraway beach drifted through the open window. The night seemed full of strange perfumes, unsettling thoughts and the violent residue of the day. The shouts of the mob at Kreta Ayer still echoed in her ears, as did the terror she had felt when the trolley was rocked about. With each crack of thunder she remembered the sound of gunfire spitting through the air. She saw again the Chief Inspector’s sun helmet abandoned in the road, the empty cup a dark and bloodied hole, and knew in sudden terror the fragility of life.
