A Gentle Occupation Read online

  ‘No one is absolutely normal in abnormal times.’

  ‘Don’t make the times an excuse for your abnormalities, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘As good an excuse, if excuse were needed, as any. And true.’

  ‘Nothing to do with Public School and actors. What’s that all about?’

  ‘Tolerance? Sympathy? Broadness of mind …’

  ‘Oh hell, do clear off. My head’s splitting.’

  ‘So it should be. You’re shocked?’

  ‘No, not shocked. Bored rigid.’

  ‘And those shorts. Vanity? Sartorial pleasure? Come off it. Who’s teasing whom?’

  Rooke pulled his sarong tighter round his waist. ‘Not me teasing you, chum.’

  Nettles placed his hands together as if in a quiet prayer. ‘I know you loathe the word “replacement”. But we do need one here, at HQ. Our ADC. Remember? Timmy Roberts. Surprise! Surprise! I never thought of it at the time. The General also wants his little newspaper tarted up for morale … Came to me in a blinding flash! “The boy we need is up in the gallery, the boy we need is waiting there for me.” Got it? You’d be quite, quite mad to refuse.’

  ‘For pete’s sake. It’s after two. I’m dead.’

  ‘I could fix it all. Snap! Like that. “Got your replacement, Sir, frightful bit of luck. Ex-ADC himself, most presentable, a Gentleman too, Wilmington, splendid with newspapers.” He’d bite right away. Longs to have Gentlemen about him. Didn’t care for poor Timmy because he was a golfing pro. from Epsom.’

  ‘You’re soliciting.’

  ‘Prefer shopping. Isn’t it fun?’

  Nettles leaned back slowly and pulled the net a little wider apart.

  Rooke turned his head away. ‘Do pack it in.’

  The scent of sandalwood was closer.

  ‘Scouts’ honour? Really? You truthfully want to go down to the Brigade. To Pangpang? With that half-wit who came in with you and is now driving them all mad in “B” Mess. Lost his chess set and asked if there was a Church Parade on Sunday. You want that?’

  Rooke closed his eyes in misery, head splitting. ‘No … no … I don’t know …’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘I can’t. I just can’t, that’s all. It doesn’t work … I can’t do that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to do anything. I’m not suggesting rape. Just a … well, a laying on of hands? Is that better? Companionship? Mutual comfort…’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’

  ‘No. Yours. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘I can’t. Pack it in please. It’s no good; I like ladies.’

  ‘So do I. Adorable sometimes. But think of it. ADC: with your name in lights.’

  Rooke covered aching eyes with his wrists. ‘Don’t go on, don’t go on. It’s bloody blackmail …’

  ‘Utterly muddled and middle-class remark. All’s fair in love and war, to coin an appropriate cliché. However, I suppose if you admit it’s blackmail, it is a start. Don’t you think?’

  Rooke lay quite still, his fist clenched, wrists crossed over his eyes. ‘Just get out … piss off. I’m half-drunk, you know that … I’ve got to sleep.’

  Nettles watched him for a moment, sighed and slowly rose to his feet pulling the short kimono tightly about his lean frame. ‘A blunder. Ah well. Forget all about it. Good try, I thought. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, don’t they say? Picked up the wrong clues apparently. Let my baser instincts get the better of me. A blunder. Very silly indeed. My humble apologies.’ He turned and went across the shadowy room, neatly stepping over the stuffed crocodile. ‘Really ought to move this beast. Frightfully dangerous.’ At the door he looked back. ‘So you can leave here without a stain on your conscience: and play chess all over Pangpang with your chum. Between mortar attacks. I’ve been very stupid. Tasteless blunder. Very, very sorry.’

  Rooke opened his eyes blearily, rolled on to his side, leaned up on one elbow. ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry. It wasn’t the first time.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘But it just wouldn’t work out, you know.’ He ran a weary hand through his hair. ‘It wouldn’t work … I mean, well, you know … it’s never happened to me. I just wouldn’t know what to do …’

  Nettles was quite still, then dropped his hand from the key and moved one step into the dim circle of light.

  ‘You could remove that absurd little table-cloth of yours,’ he said, ‘to start with.’

  Chapter Two

  She stood before its sleek, shining virginity, motionless with a kind of awe; reverence almost. ‘Thou shalt not worship false gods.’ Oh, but I do! Her hands slid gently, caressingly, along its smooth metal flanks, across the neat chromium strip banding its top, round the cool glittering handle which, when she tentatively pulled, swung wide the heavy door to reveal a cavern of bright metal, shining racks, neatly fitted boxes and containers. EGGS said one, BUTTER another. Kneeling to seek further delights, she found them in the gilt letters CRISPATOR. New. Unused. Hers. Her symbol. Freedom. Normality. Life. Rising to her feet slowly, swinging the door closed all in one graceful movement, she pressed her body close to the smooth metal, tracing with a finger, the raised golden letters before her. FRIGIDAIRE. Laid her cheek hard against them, felt them bite into the flesh like a cold branding iron and the years of unshed tears spill hot and stinging from tightly closed lids. She wept. And in this act of submission astonished herself. Tears, burning tears. The first in three and a half years. Tears for a refrigerator.

  But let them go, don’t be ashamed, no one can see you, heal yourself; a good cry, they say, is beneficial. Release the strain, the pain. Above all the unspoken pain. Tears for the agonies of the swift surrender. Smooth Japanese faces suddenly there at the top of the stairs among the ashen astonishment of the dancers. ‘Please. The General asks that you continue your dance until midnight. There will be no National Anthem.’ Singapore had fallen, Borneo, the Philippines, Java and now the Island. Tears for Pieter’s last blown kiss, a frail movement among the three thousand European males herded together under the blazing sun in Rembrandt Plein, then he had turned and gone from her, leaving her with Wim alone. Can you be alone in a crowd of fifteen hundred women and children? Oh yes. You can. And were. Shuffling through the silent watching crowds of Chinese, Indonesians, Malays to the slum quarter of the City which was to be the camp. Tears for Wim’s slim arm, ripped from wrist to shoulder by jagged glass, as she sewed it up with carpet thread and a darning needle. Tears for the years of desolation, the filth, the crowds, the confinement. For the secret kindness of old servants, creeping to the wire, smuggling her fruit, an egg; once cloth for the bandages. For the squalor, the fighting, the frayed nerves, the fear, lack of privacy, of food, of water, the desperation not to give in, to comb one’s hair, to wash, to barter for food for Wim, to keep the last and only pretty cotton dress for the day which must arrive, and did. Three and a half years later.

  A scoundrel dawn as it proved. No laughing soldiers opening wide the high gates, instead, screaming extremists herding them back, brandishing guns and grenades, spitting at them, throwing dirt and rotten fruit through the wire. No Union Jack, streaming in the summer breeze from the sea, no Stars and Stripes; no joyful liberation under the fluttering Red Flag with its ill-drawn hammer and sickle. ‘Death to the Colonists!’ and, carried on banners through the jeering crowds, ‘Freedom or Bloodshed!’ New banners in the wind of change. Tears then for that; but also for the day the new flag did arrive. Modest but bravely held. A coiled white snake on red and yellow silk, scrubbed white faces, beaming dark ones from Bombay, Delhi and God knew where else. The Union Jack on the little four-wheeled truck, the tall, very crisp officer who offered his hand and the apology: ‘Sorry we’re late, but we’re here. Had rather a job to get through, but better late than never, what?’ Ah yes. Better late than never. Better by far. Tears then for all that. Tears which were never shed and which now had made her nose run and had swollen her eyes. Wiping them with her elbow, pushing the
fallen blonde hair from wet cheeks she looked ruefully at her shining steel symbol. You broke me. You: the proof of my survival. She heard wheels crunching on the gravel driveway outside, voices and a familiar laugh. But she was unable to move, sitting slumped back against the door of her freedom.

  ‘Clair! My dear Clair! What happened?’

  Pullen’s voice filled with sudden worry, his kind face creased with dismay. Swiftly he knelt beside her, taking a hand.

  ‘Are you all right? You aren’t ill?’

  She shook her head, and taking the hand which held hers so tightly, aided it to brush the hair from her forehead, the tears from her cheeks. ‘No, no. I’m well. I’m truly well. Happiness, can you believe?’ His consternation made her laugh. Roughly she thrust the hair back from her face. ‘It must seem very silly. Happiness. You sent this?’

  He smiled gently and helped her to her feet. ‘Couldn’t resist it. Whole godown crammed with them. All new. Unpacked even.’

  ‘A truck arrived an hour ago. Some Japanese and a nice smiling Indian.’

  ‘Have to have a refrigerator, don’t you? Essential in this heat. The requisition orders stated Basic Essentials, I seem to remember, eh?’

  She took his hand and held it close to her side. ‘You are so good to me. So kind. Feel my heart beating! Such happiness you can’t imagine.’

  ‘Well … funny way to show it. Crying on the floor. Gave me a frightful shock … thought you’d got tummy ache, you know—something. Funny creatures, you women. Anyway, that’s all over. Brought you a present, as it happens.’

  ‘Another one!’

  ‘Presents, plural, as a matter of fact.’

  Two tins of bacon, a bag of flour, a can of pineapple chunks. He laid them all carefully on the table, stuck the haversack under his arm, and from it, like a conjuror, produced two bars of chocolate.

  ‘For Wim. He about?’

  ‘In the garden, I think.’ Her voice was quiet; recovered. She stroked the can of fruit with wonder. ‘But where is this from?’

  ‘Hawaii or Florida or somewhere. I don’t know. It’s all Yankee stuff.’

  ‘No … all of it. Where did you get it?’

  ‘LST came in this morning from Calcutta, we call it “Cash and Carry”. Had to go down and meet a couple of chaps; replacements I think for 14 Brigade. I know an officer, good bloke, always brings me a bit of stuff. Got this too; at a price, I’ll tell you!’ He pulled a bottle from the haversack proudly. ‘Real White Horse, the pukka stuff. None of that Jap muck. Thought we might celebrate your return to your old house after all the years. Quite a good reason, I’d say.’

  ‘Christmas in September! Oh my dear, you are so kind; but you keep the whisky, we have so much now. Bacon, flour, pineapple…’

  Pullen raised his closed fist and pushed it gently towards her smiling face, head to one side, little beads of sweat on the neat moustache, pleasure in his eyes.

  ‘What is it? Show me.’

  ‘Hand out and say please, my girl!’

  ‘Please, sir, unless it’s a spider. Oh Nigel! No …’

  He dropped a small metal tube into her uncertain hands. ‘Probably the wrong colour, took what he gave me, I fear … maybe too red?’

  She held the lipstick cupped in her hands like a spilling of emeralds. ‘Even if it is royal blue I cannot thank you …’ the tears held back.

  ‘Oh Lor’. I say. I mean, don’t blub again. What a day! Just a lipstick, the boys use them as currency in the docks. You know what I mean, the ummm, Ladies of the Town. They won’t take guilders or something … I’m rather bumbling on, I’m afraid …’ He had suddenly embarrassed himself by his gift. She could have been offended, oh Lor’. But she wasn’t listening to him, had unscrewed the little top and touched her wrist with the sticky tip.

  ‘Pink! You see! Clever you. Even if it had been black … oh! I could cover myself all over with it. What do you think?’

  ‘Awful waste of you … if you take my point.’

  ‘Awful waste of “Dew Rose”. Go through to the verandah, Nigel. I’ll get you a drink, the sun is just over your yard arm, isn’t it?’

  He wandered into the hall and through the dim, still-shuttered sitting-room. He noted with a wry smile that she had already furnished her house with the stuff they had got from the godowns at the docks. Sparse, but enough. He heard her singing and a spoon fall to the tiled kitchen floor. On the verandah, overlooking the wilderness garden, tall yellow grasses, a straggle of giant sunflowers, crickets singing, a battered tin table, some odd glasses, a small bowl of orchid things, five deck-chairs. She came out with a tray, jug, bottle and a packet of ration biscuits.

  ‘I think that these were ours,’ she said with a nod at the chairs. ‘I can’t be sure. Wim is. Certain. He says he remembers them clearly. I suppose at twelve you can remember better than at thirty-two. I don’t know. Found them in the garage with some bits and pieces of fishing rods. Pieter’s perhaps. They could have been anyone’s really. I’m sure the table wasn’t ours, but it doesn’t matter, half the things I now have weren’t ours anyway. I followed the Requisition Form very correctly. Didn’t take more than we need for basic use, and there were some things still left here.’ She had poured the drinks and handed him a tall glass. ‘Sit down! You look so formal there!’

  He laughed and took off his cap. ‘Not sure I can trust those deck-chairs of yours … after so long the canvas might be rotten. I distrust deck-chairs infinitely. Beastly things, always jamming one’s fingers.’ He raised his glass towards her. ‘My goodness, I could do with this.’ They drank together and then he lowered himself cautiously into one of the chairs, and they both laughed with relief that he remained steady and secured.

  ‘You see, you didn’t trust me. I tested them all. Wim too.’

  ‘Very thoughtful woman. Well,’ he looked about the tidy, shaded verandah, ‘this is all very pleasant. You really have worked hard. Done wonders …’

  ‘But everyone has been so kind. Trucks to bring the things, that nice smiling Indian carried boxes and mattresses. I suppose I could have gone mad in that place at the docks. Grand pianos, cocktail cabinets, grandfather clocks, crystal and porcelain, everything. The loot of the city. All very Burger, Dutch and heavy. We had, I remember, a very pretty little Biedermeier desk, very slender, walnut and ebony, it stood just where …’ She stopped, smiled and shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter where it stood, or when, or where it is now. It’s today. A day of such happiness. You must realize that after such a silly exhibition just now.’

  ‘Of course I do. Jolly nice to see.’

  ‘Will you eat with us?’

  ‘Very good of you. There’s enough? Sure? I’m Duty Officer tonight so I won’t stay late … but it would be very agreeable.’

  ‘You could even have a shower if you like. I filled the bath quite full.’

  ‘No, no, very kind, must get back to the Mess. The driver’s still outside, I hope?’

  ‘He was. Don’t move. I’ll give him a drink, that would be all right, yes?’

  ‘Excellent. Not beer, remember … he’s a Moslem. Lime juice, something.’

  He heard her feet clacking across the sitting-room, a door open and shut; slowly he raised his glass. Funny woman. They all were really. Weeping just because of a refrigerator. Probably reminded her of something in the past. You could never tell. They don’t give much away. All bottled up still. Early days of course, early days. Being back in her own house must be a bit of a shock too; hadn’t really thought of that. So many changes in the years, everything carted off … stripped. Husband dead. Or missing. Worse really. Missing. One still hopes. Bloody war, bloody Japs, bloody Indonesians, bloody everything. Still, she’s better off than the others still in the camps; poor buggers, how the Hell we’ll get them out … He fumbled about slowly in his pocket and brought out his pipe, and from the haversack, his tobacco pouch, and saw the boy walking up through the high grasses towards him. Like her. Hair the colour of straw. Very brown of course from the year
s in the sun, but thin—really awfully thin—and that frightful scar down his arm.

  ‘Hullo there! Where have you been to, young man?’ Oh Lor’, patronizing idiot.

  Wim shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted through his fingers. ‘Is it Nigel? Major Pullen? Is it?’

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘Ah. So.’ He came on up the steps pulling a tatter of coloured papers behind him. ‘Good evening, sir,’ a formal handshake, a neat bow, indicating respect.

  ‘What have you got there, Wim? A fancy costume or something?’

  ‘No. A kite. I made a kite.’

  ‘Did you, indeed.’ Not awfully good at this kind of conversation.

  ‘But not enough wind, or I don’t know. Something.’ He dropped it listlessly to the floor.

  ‘Managed to get you a couple of chocolate bars this morning. Off a ship.’

  ‘Chocolate bars!’

  ‘Yes. They’re in the kitchen, I think.’

  ‘American ones with the nuts inside?’

  ‘I rather think so. Very fattening. Just what you need, old man.’

  Wim laughed; a wide gleeful spread of even white teeth. ‘I need many boxes of chocolate bars, I think. Is right? In the kitchen?’

  ‘That’s it. In the kitchen. By the way, your mother has a new refrigerator, she’s very happy.’

  ‘A refrigerator! Does it work already?’

  ‘Not yet. When the power comes on. We’ll have it fixed soon.’

  ‘So much we have now. Beds! Chairs! Everything!’ he clapped his hands and ran into the house.

  Pullen heard his voice calling out in Dutch and Clair’s voice replying in English. ‘Here, look. Isn’t it fine? So fine. And new, Wim … quite new.’ He looked at his watch, scratched his arm, looked at his pipe. Decided not to smoke. He was putting it back in his pocket when she came out onto the verandah.

  ‘You won’t?’

  ‘No. I’ll have it later. Ought to be running along. Matter of fact, I’m getting a bit low on tobacco. The Yanks have every blessed thing from bombs to baked beans but no ’baccy. I say! You do look pretty.’