Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [181]
‘She won’t be back for ages!’
‘Probably not before supper!’
‘Oh, won’t she?’ Matthew looked rather baffled and again consulted his watch. ‘Couldn’t we go another time? Say, the day after tomorrow, for example?’
‘But that’s Sunday!’ screamed Melanie. ‘Nobody goes to the pictures on Sunday. It’s simply not done!’
‘Oh, well then …’ Matthew hesitated. He really wanted to return to the Mayfair to ponder his conversation with Walter and perhaps discuss it with the Major. ‘You’re sure Joan won’t be back till supper?’
‘Of course we’re sure, you dumb-bell!’ shouted Melanie, beside herself with excitement and frustration. By now she had sized Matthew up and she could see that he needed a firm hand.
‘Wouldn’t you like instead just to go and eat ices at John Little’s?’
‘No we bloody well wouldn’t!’ declared Melanie emphatically: she had noticed Kate brightening at the idea, just like a little girl, and knew it must be scotched immediately.
Matthew scratched his head uncertainly and looked around. Then he again looked at his watch but that still offered no assistance. The girls stood there like coiled springs.
‘Well, in that case …’ he murmured and came to a stop again. Melanie rolled her eyes to heaven at these hesitations. ‘All right then,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll ask the Major if I can borrow his car.’
The girls gave a great whoop of delight.
‘But you must bring your gas-mask cases.’
‘Have we got to?’ They had been issued, by some stroke of bureaucratic insensitivity, with (of all things!) Mickey Mouse gas-masks! As if they were little kids! It was too, too shaming! They tried to explain this to Matthew. They would rather be gassed! But Matthew was adamant … No gas-masks, no pictures. The girls were so overwhelmed, however, by the startling success of Melanie’s boldness that in the end they were prepared to concede gas-masks. Curiously, as they dashed back into the house to get them they were holding hands tightly like two little children, having forgotten to be sophisticated in their excitement.
Accompanying Matthew back through the compound to the Mayfair, Kate and Melanie were inclined to be furtive at first. They were afraid of being spotted at the last moment by some interfering adult. But once they had plunged into the corridor of pili nut trees they considered themselves fairly safe, barring some coincidence. Mrs Blackett never ventured this far.
Unfortunately, while borrowing the keys of the Lagonda from the Major, Matthew could not resist mentioning the conversation he had just had with Walter about replanting. And the Major, who was also concerned about this matter, mentioned the interesting fact that two or three of the other small rubber companies manged by Blackett and Webb had attempted, in the interests of the War Effort, to stop this replanting in order to maintain the highest possible rate of tapping. But faced with Blackett and Webb’s orders to the contrary they had been unable to do anything about it. Matthew was astonished. ‘But that’s absurd, Major! How can they stop a company doing what it wants? They only manage it, don’t they? They don’t own it.’
So, while the minutes ticked away and the girls grew fretful, the Major explained. Blackett and Webb were responsible not only for the daily management (buying of equipment and supplies, selling of produce, tapping policy, hiring of labour and so on) but for the investment of profits as well. For some years now they had made it their policy to invest the profits of one company in the shares of the other companies for which they acted as agents. The result of this incestuous investment as far as the Mayfair, to give an example, was concerned, was that the Mayfair’s shares were concentrated in other companies controlled by Blackett and Webb, while the shares of each other company were held by the Mayfair and other Blackett companies. Thus, a revolt against Blackett and Webb’s tapping policy by the directors of any single company