Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [151]
‘I don’t mind in the least, m’dear, but you’d better ask these gentlemen … though I’m sure they’re men o’ the world enough not to mind seeing a fat little piglet like you in your underwear … You don’t mind, do you, Major?’
‘Oh, me? Not at all, not at all,’ mumbled the Major, laughing and clearing his throat; and he puffed with embarrassment at his pipe, stopping and unstopping its bowl with two fingers to make it draw. He might have been thinking, as he cast a hasty, sidelong glance at Joan’s agreeable figure, that even with advancing years a man might still be troubled by thoughts of … well, never mind … who knows what he was thinking as he puffed at his pipe, for presently he had disappeared into a blue haze of tobacco smoke?
As for the patient, despite his weakened condition and his confused state of mind, his eyes wandered appreciatively over Joan’s gleaming skin as she stepped out of her sodden dress and he seemed to be thinking: ‘Well, a body’s a body, for all that,’ or something of the sort.
‘You don’t mind, Papa,’ asked Joan, smiling mischievously, ‘if I climb into bed beside Matthew until the rain stops? I’ll be much more comfortable. We can have the “Dutch wife” between us.’
‘Oh, the little rascal,’ chuckled Walter. ‘Oh, the little hussy! What d’you think of that, Major? And before her own father’s very eyes! And what, I should like to know, young lady, would your mother say if she could see you now?’ And while Joan hung her dress on a coat-hanger to dry before climbing into bed Walter beamed at Matthew more expansively than ever. ‘Well, there you are, my boy,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘There are the goods. You won’t find better. You can see for yourself. It’s a good offer. Take it or leave it.’
Presently, when the rain had stopped, Walter and Joan made their way back through the compound beside pools of rainwater which were now reflecting the stars. Father and daughter did not speak as they made their way through the drenched garden but they did not have to: they understood each other perfectly. Abdul, the old major-domo, was waiting for them, concerned that they should have got such a soaking.
‘What news, Master?’
‘Good news, Abdul!’ replied Walter in the conventional manner, but as he went upstairs to change his clothes he thought: ‘Yes, good news!’
33
‘Well, I suppose it might be true,’ the Major was saying doubtfully. ‘One never knows. I was in Harbin in 1937 and there was still a lot of White Russians there at the time. A lot of the poor devils were starving, too.’
The Major and Matthew were sitting in the office which had once been old Mr Webb’s. Matthew, drained of all energy, had at last managed to leave his bed and drag himself as far as his father’s desk where he sat drowsing over an untidy pile of reports, accounts and miscellaneous papers concerning the rubber industry. The Major, filled with concern by the young man’s sombre and listless frame of mind, attempted from time to time to engage him in cheerful conversation. But these days what was there to be cheerful about? Only the subject of Vera Chiang had aroused a tiny spark of interest in the patient: Matthew had remembered a dream conversation between Vera and Joan in which Vera had claimed that her mother was a Russian princess and her father a Chinese tea-merchant … or something of the sort. What did the Major think of it? The Major, it turned out, had heard the same story from Vera with one or two added details and had politely suspended disbelief. After all, far-fetched though it sounded, one never knew. Stranger things had happened in that part of the world in the last few years.
‘By the way, where is she? I thought she was supposed to have a