Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [103]
‘Monty, I can assure you …’
They had now joined Joan and Ehrendorf in the queue of people, many of whom were in uniform, waiting for admission to the dance-hall. Monty lowered his voice a little so that his sister should not hear what he was saying. She was clean, she had imagination (which was something one didn’t often find), she was good-tempered and sober, she was not narrow-minded in her approach (in fact, you could do almost anything you liked) and it would only come to $17.50 a month per person. It was such a bargain that Matthew probably thought he meant American dollars, but not a bit of it! He meant Straits dollars. It was an incredible opportunity! For $17.50 Matthew would have, at least to begin with, one evening a week guaranteed and the possibility of another, if one of his three partners did not exercise his option for two evenings in that particular week, as would most likely very often happen because of some social occasion they couldn’t get out of, OK? Because Matthew was the last to join it was only fair, after all, that the others should have first choice but he, Monty, for one would be most surprised if it did not work out that Matthew found he had two evenings on most weeks …’
‘Hey, Yank! Why don’t you join in the bloody war then?’ demanded a perspiring, drunken Tommy, waving a beer bottle at Ehrendorf.
‘Because we don’t want to make it too easy for you guys,’ replied Ehrendorf cheerfully.
‘Give us some gum, chum!’ shouted someone else and there was a cackle of laughter.
‘Because you’re a lot o’ pissin’, cowards, that’s what!’ shouted the first man belligerently.
‘Who needs the bleedin’ Yanks anyway? Old Adolf would only give ’m a spankin’!’
Raucous cheers greeted this remark but Ehrendorf, still smiling good-humouredly, had reached the bamboo cage and handed over fifty cents for himself and each of his companions. Then he waved to the boisterous crowd in khaki behind him and vanished into the throbbing darkness followed by a medley of cheers, insults and ribaldry.
‘Yankee ponce!’
‘They ’ave ’em ’orizontal wi’ teeth in ’em ’ere, sir!’
‘Can I do yer now, sir?’
Blundering after his friend, Matthew presently found himself at the edge of a dance-floor, covered but open at the sides for ventilation, gleaming with French chalk in the semi-darkness like a subterranean lake. So this was the famous dance-floor taken from the old Hôtel de l’Europe which, Joan was now whispering huskily into his ear, at the turn of the century had been the finest in Singapore. No doubt his father, together with the wealthy and influential in the Colony, in his day had waltzed or fox-trotted on those very boards! But now the beau monde had been replaced by that bewildering array of races and types he had noticed earlier in the evening in the open air, even two members of the family of pygmies could be seen executing a perfect tango close at hand. Matthew gazed enchanted at the teeming dance-floor. Abruptly, he realized why this sight gave him such pleasure. He tried to explain to Monty who had taken Joan’s place at his side: this was the way Geneva should have been! Instead of that grim segregation by nationality they should have all spent their evenings like this, dancing the tango or the quick-step or the ronggeng or whatever it was with each other: Italians with Abyssinians, British with Japanese, Germans with Frenchmen and so on. If there had been a real feeling of brotherhood in Geneva such as there was here (the Palais des Nations turned into a palais de danse) the Disarmament Conference would not have got stuck in the mud the way it did! ‘It was the feeling, perhaps even the confidence that men of different nations and races could get on together that was so tragically missing. And yet here is the evidence! Men are brothers!’
‘Yes, er, I see what you mean,’ mumbled Monty cautiously, ‘but about that other matter we were discussing. I