Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [198]
When he had finished eating the old man again looked at Matthew and said something to Vera. Vera, too, looked at Matthew and replied with a smile, saying then in English: ‘I tell him you are in rubber business.’
The old man spoke again, this time to Matthew, in a faint, grumbling voice.
‘What does he say?’
‘He ask you where your estates are … I tell him you son of Blackett and Webb.’
Matthew nodded and smiled winningly at the old Chinese, delighted to think that he was at last, thanks to Vera, coming into contact with the real roots of life in Malaya, not just its top dressing of Europeans.
But despite Matthew’s winning smiles the old fellow on his death-bed did not altogether give the impression of being won over. Indeed, he had begun to fidget restlessly on his tray, muttering indignantly. Matthew was not sure but he thought he could make out the words ‘Brackett and Webb’ recurring in the old chap’s mutterings. Vera was listening attentively: her face showed concern.
‘Well, oh dear … He say you swindle smallholders. He says European estates swindle him and other smallholders …’
‘Oh really, Vera!’ scoffed Matthew. ‘The poor old blighter’s just wool-gathering. But I can see my presence is upsetting him so perhaps I’d better …’ He was afraid that the elderly Chinese, who was now searching crossly with trembling, skeletal hands for something in the pile of rags he was using as a pillow, might suffer some terminal seizure brought on by excitement and indignation. To judge by his wasted body and blue lips it would not take very much to capsize the frail craft in which the old chap was now trying to navigate the final stages of his life’s voyage. Still, something caused Matthew to linger. Until now he had not given much thought to native smallholders. Their smallholdings seldom amounted to more than a few acres, at most. And yet, now he thought about it, these native smallholdings together produced nearly half of Malaya’s rubber and covered almost a million and a quarter acres! ‘What’s he saying now?’ he asked uneasily.
‘He says British steal money from his rubber trees.’
‘How did they do that?’ asked Matthew dubiously. Vera turned back to the old man who had fallen back now, exhausted by his efforts to find whatever it was he had been looking for. He was no longer looking at Matthew but into the distance; his chest hardly seemed to move but still that faint, grumbling voice went on and on, rising and falling, almost like the wind when it sighs under a doorway.
‘He says the inspector did not give him proper share of rubber to sell when he came to look at his trees for Restriction Scheme …’
‘I suppose he means when his production was being assessed before the scheme started … to see what his share of the total export rights would be. All right, go on.’
‘It was the same with other smallholders in this village, too. Inspector says he tells a lie how much rubber his trees are making, that they are too thickly planted to make so much rubber. He says inspectors are Europeans who work for the estates and do not want smallholders to get their proper share …’
‘Well, good gracious! Tell him … tell him …’ But Matthew could not think what Vera should tell him. ‘What a disagreeable old codger!’ he thought, taken aback by this list of complaints. ‘You’d think that at death’s door he’d have better things to think about. There might be some truth in it, mind you … but all the same!’ Matthew had discovered that he