The Plantation - Di Morrissey [97]
‘Didn’t Dad stay with her on school holidays sometimes?’ interrupted Peter.
‘Yes, I think so. Later, when she was living in Scotland, she used to come out to Malaysia every winter and stay on Langkawi Island at a holiday house Dad owned there. We sold it a few years back, but she still went to the island for holidays. Then she bought an apartment on the hill in Penang. We had lunch with her at the E&O not long ago. We’d have her phone number somewhere. She’s a great old stick even though she’d be about eighty now,’ said Shane.
‘I’d love to speak to her. If she was friends with Uncle Philip she’d remember Great Aunt Bette as well. Oh, this is so amazing,’ said Julie.
‘Yes, perhaps we could do something about it in the morning,’ said Shane. ‘Er, could we put the sound of the game back on?’
Julie laughed. ‘I know this doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to me, so, please, go ahead and finish watching the football. I’m going to re-read parts of Grand-father’s book. Thank you so much for showing it to me.’
The next day, as soon as she knew her mother would be at home, Julie rang.
‘Darling, lovely to hear your voice,’ said Caroline. ‘Is everything all right? Why are you calling?’
‘I’ve found out something amazing about Bette, and your brother. It’s stunning. You weren’t all that close to your brother, were you? I mean did Uncle Philip ever talk to you about the war?’
‘No, not at all. Why should he?’ Caroline paused, trying to remember. ‘As I’ve already told you, I was ten years younger than Philip, and he was sent to boarding school in the UK. Then Mother and I came back to Australia to live and I really never got to know him. No. I never talked to him about the war. But what was there to talk about?’
‘And Bette? Where was she during the war?’
‘Back here, too, I assume. Why? What have you found out? This is all very intriguing. Are you having fun? Are the boys nice?’
‘Lovely. I’m enjoying myself immensely. Wait till I tell you about the orangutans and the Iban. It’s all been such an adventure. But that’s not why I rang. I’ve just read a small memoir that Grandfather Roland wrote and, in his version of events, the family and the war in Malaya is quite different from what we have always assumed.’
‘Goodness, whatever do you mean? I’m not sure that we assumed anything about the war in Malaya, because my mother never talked about it. Kept her own counsel. If she talked about Malaya, she only wanted to talk about the fun days before the Japanese.’
‘Hmm. I know why.’ Julie drew a breath. ‘Great Aunt Bette and Philip didn’t escape on the ship out of Singapore. I don’t know what happened, but Gran made the ship and Bette and Philip didn’t.’
‘What do you mean? How did they get out of Malaya, then?’
‘Mum, they didn’t. They were sent to a POW camp in Sarawak.’
There was an intake of breath from Caroline. ‘What? You are joking. No, you’re not. So Mother lived here in Brisbane while her sister was with Philip in a prisoner of war camp. How dreadful for them. How awful for Mother.’
‘Yes. Obviously it couldn’t have been deliberate, but why didn’t Gran ever talk about it?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she felt guilty and thought that she had failed her son. It would certainly explain why she only wanted to talk about the times before the war. Oh, if only I’d known and could have asked her the right questions. Poor Mother, poor Bette and Philip. How terrible.’ Caroline sighed. ‘Do the boys have any more information?’
‘No, but there was a girl in the camp with Bette and Philip, and, although she was older than Philip, she was his friend and they kept in touch.’
‘Oh, how nice. I suppose that when Philip was killed, that changed,’ said Caroline.
‘Apparently not. Shane and Peter regard her as an old family friend as she comes out to Malaysia regularly from Scotland. She doesn’t like cold winters. Peter and Shane think that I should call her.’
‘Well, it would certainly be interesting to find out more,’ agreed her mother.
‘I’ll let you know what happens. I’m going over