Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [225]
Vera was worried about the progress of the war. She had already told Matthew that she had first come to Singapore in order to escape the Japanese in Shanghai. Now, every day, despite what it said in the newspapers, the Japanese seemed to be coming nearer and nearer. Where would she go if they reached Singapore? she asked Matthew, looking innocent and defenceless, but perhaps wondering at the same time whether all the monkey soup he had consumed might not have put him in a protective frame of mind.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ll look after you,’ said Matthew protectively, folding her comfortingly in his arms (how light and lithe her body felt against his own!). ‘Besides, I don’t think we need to worry about them getting this far.’ He nudged his spectacles up on his nose and added more cautiously: ‘At least, I’ll do my best. Let’s talk about something more cheerful.’ Vera agreed, aware that contact with this attractive man had caused her own yin essences to begin to flow in spite of her worries. They strolled on. Time passed in a dream. Presently, they found that The Great World was closing: these days, because of the war and the black-out, it was obliged to close early.
They spilled out of the gates in the departing crowd and sauntered through the warm darkness along a street of dilapidated shop-houses. A vast yellow moon was just rising over the tiled rooftops. A man with an ARP armband and a satchel over his shoulder flashed a torch in their faces and muttered something in Cantonese, but he did not try to stop them and they walked on. Matthew wanted her to return to the Mayfair with him but she refused with signs of indignation. She would not go where she was not wanted!
‘But you are wanted! What are you talking about?’
‘Mr Blackett and Miss Blackett have told me …’
‘But it’s nothing to do with them. The place belongs to me.’
‘It doesn’t matter. They behave badly. I am not going to fall over backwards to please them!’
‘Oh, really!’
But Vera had upset herself by remembering this injury done her by the Blacketts. For a few moments she became tearful, even blaming Matthew for having allowed her to be slighted, though she was by no means sure how he could have prevented it. ‘You should tell them to behave properly towards me,’ she said sulkily. ‘I am not going to Mayfair again.’ As it happened, it would have suited her quite well to go to the Mayfair since she felt too ashamed of her own tenement cubicle to take Matthew back there; having taken up such a strong position, however, she felt she could not now abandon it without loss of face. There was a drinking establishment round the corner: perhaps one of the booths there would be free.
They entered an open doorway where a number of men and women, all Chinese, sat at tables drinking and playing mah-jong, some on the pavement, some inside where there was a little light. They passed between the tables and entered an even dimmer corridor where a strong smell of garlic hung on the stagnant air. The proprietor hurried along beside them, chattering, but Vera paid no attention to him. The corridor was lined with curtained booths and as she went along she opened and closed one curtain after another to look inside; in each of them a man and a woman sat close together, drinking; despite a rich atmosphere of sensuality, however, nothing untoward appeared to be happening. Vera grimaced at Matthew. There were no unoccupied booths and she