The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [452]
The Pontiac had cleared the last of the narrow streets and could now accelerate … but still the child clung on, panting more desperately than ever. Meanwhile, the syce was steering with one hand and using the other to reach behind Ehrendorf and hammer at the little fingers gripping the chassis.
‘Stop!’ cried Matthew to the driver. ‘Stop! … Make him stop!’ he shouted at Ehrendorf. But Ehrendorf sat as if in a trance while the Pontiac hurtled through the dusk swaying violently, the child panting, the syce cursing and hammering.
‘No father, no mother, no makan, no whisky soda!’ howled the child.
Monty had calmly selected a couple of coins from his pocket and was holding them out, almost in the child’s reach, and making him grab for them with his free hand. Having enjoyed this game for a little he negligently tossed the coins out of the speeding car. A moment later the boy dropped off the running-board and vanished into the rushing darkness in their wake.
‘That’s one of their favourite tricks. The word makan means “grub” by the way, and you could probably do with some yourself, I should think. We thought we’d take you first to the Mayfair to leave your things and then on to our house for some supper.’
They were now on a wider thoroughfare; in front of them rattled a green trolley-bus: from the tips of its twin poles a cascade of blue-white sparks dribbled against the darkening sky. Despite the advance of darkness the heat seemed only to increase. The sun had long since dropped out of sight somewhere behind Sumatra to the west but in the sky it had left a vast striated blanket of magenta which seemed to radiate a heat of its own like the bars of an electric grill.
Soon they were on a long straight road, still lined with Chinese shophouses but with here and there an occasional block of European shops or offices. This was Orchard Road, Monty explained, and that drive that curved away to the right led up to Government House. The large white building a little further along was the Cold Storage: in there homesick Britons could buy food that reminded them of home.
Presently they turned off Orchard Road and found themselves in a residential district of winding, tree-lined streets and detached bungalows with now and then a small block of flats set amidst tennis courts. They lurched up a sharply curving slope past a tiny banana plot.
‘It may not be much … but given the hordes of brass hats commandeering living quarters in Singapore these days one is lucky to find a roof at all. Here we are, anyway.’
The Pontiac keeled over sharply and pulled off the road with groaning tyres. The Mayfair Building was a vast and rambling bungalow built on a score of fat, square pillars. Because the ground here was on something of a slope these pillars grew taller as they approached the front of the building, exaggerating their perspective and giving them the appearance of a platoon on the march beneath an enormous burden. The bungalow itself was encased in louvred wooden shutters and open balconies, along the sides of which partly unrolled blinds of split-bamboo hung beneath the great jutting eaves. The apex of the bungalow’s roof of loose red tiles was left open in the manner of a dovecot to allow warm air to escape, and was crowned by a second, smaller roof of red tiles. Despite the metropolitan grandeur of its name the Mayfair Building had a slightly decrepit air.
While Joan performed a quick and efficient inspection of herself in a hand-mirror, Matthew