“EAST? THEY WOULDN’T know the bloody East if they saw it. Not if you was to hand it to them on a plate would they know it was the East. That’s where the East is, there.” He waved his hand wildly into the black night. “Out there, west. You wasn’t there, so you wouldn’t know. Now I was. Palestine Police from the end of the war till we packed up. That was the East. You was in India, and that’s not the East any more than this is. So you know nothing about it either. So you needn’t be talking.”
Nabby Adams, supine on the bed, grunted. It was four o’clock in the morning and he did not want to be talking. He had had a confused coloured dream about Bombay, shot with sharp pangs of unpaid bills. Over it all had brooded thirst, thirst for a warmish bottle of Tiger beer. Or Anchor. Or Carlsberg. He said, “Did you bring any beer back with you?”
Flaherty jerked like a puppet. “What did I tell you? What am I always saying? May God strike me down dead this instant if I wasn’t just thinking to myself as I came in that that’s the first bloody question you’d ask. Beer, beer, beer. For God’s sake, man, haven’t you another blessed thought in your head at all but beer? And supposing I had put a few bottles for myself in the fridge, don’t you think it would be the same as always? You lumbering downstairs with your great bloody big weight and that dog after you, clanking its bloody anti-rabies medal against the treads of the stairs, and you draining the lot of it before breakfast and leaving the bloody empties on the floor for any self-respecting decent man who keeps Christian hours to trip over. I did not bring any beer back, though those soldiers is generous to a fault and was for plying me with loads of the stuff and as much as you want, they said, any time you like and all at N.A.A.F.I. prices.”
Nabby Adams stirred on his bed and the dog beneath it stirred too, the medal on its collar chinking like money on the floor. Should he get up now and drink water? He shuddered at the thought of the clean, cold, neuter taste. But thirst seemed to grip his whole body like a fever. He levered himself up slowly, six feet eight inches of thirst, ghostlike behind the darned and frayed mosquito-net.
“I’m worried about you, Nabby,” said Police-Lieutenant Flaherty. “Worried to death. I was saying to-night that you’re not the person I made you into at the end of your last tour. By God, you’re not. By Christ, you’re back to the old days in Johore with the towkays round at the end of the month waving their bills round the office and me not able to go into a kedai at all for fear of the big bloody smarmy smiles on their yellow faces and they saying, ‘Where’s the big tuan?’ and ‘Has the big tuan got his pay yet, tuan?’ and ‘The big tuan has a big kira, tuan, and when in the name of God is he going to pay?’ Christ, man, I was ashamed of my white skin. You letting the side down like that. And I got you right. I got you clear. I got you on that bloody boat with money in your pocket. And now look at you.” Flaherty dithered in a palsy of indignation. “I’ve covered up for you, by God I have. There was the other day with the C.P.O. round and you on the beer again in that filthy bloody kedai where I’d be ashamed to be seen, boozing away with that corporal of yours. Leading him astray, and he a bloody Muslim.”
“You leave him alone,” said Nabby Adams. He was on his feet, a little unsteady, a huge hand stained with tobacco-tar seeking support from the dressing-table. Gaunt, yellow-brown, towering, he moved another step. The black bitch came from under the bed and shook herself. Her medal clanked. Her tail stirred as she looked up, happy and worshipping, at the vast man in shrunken dirty pyjamas. “You leave him alone. He’s all right.”
“Christ, man, I wouldn’t touch him with my walking-stick. They’re talking, I tell you, about you letting the side down, slinking from kedai to kedai with your bloody corporal at your tail. Why don’t you mix a bit more with your own race, man? Some damn good nights in the Club and they’re the salt of the earth in the Sergeants’ Mess, and that fellow Crabbe was playing the piano the other night, a real good singsong, and all you do is prowl around looking for credit in dirty little kedais.”
“I do mix with my own race.” Nabby Adams was moving slowly towards the door. The dog stood expectant by the stairhead, waiting to escort him to the refrigerator. Her tail beat dully on the door of the bedroom of Police-Lieutenant Keir. “And you wouldn’t speak like that if you wasn’t tight.”
“Tight! Tight!” Flaherty danced on his bottom, gripping the chair-seat as if he thought it would take off. “Listen who’s talking about being tight. Oh, God, man, get wise to yourself. And make up your mind about what bloody race you belong to. One minute it’s all about being a farmer’s boy in Northamptonshire and the next you’re on about the old days in Calcutta and what the British have done to Mother India and the snake-charmers and the bloody temple-bells. Ah, wake up, for God’s sake. You’re English right enough but you’re forgetting how to speak the bloody language, what with traipsing about with Punjabis and Sikhs and God knows what. You talk Hindustani in your sleep, man. Sort it out, for God’s sake. If you want to put a loincloth on, get cracking, but don’t expect the privileges —/—” (the word came out in a wet blurr; the needle stuck for a couple of grooves) “the privileges, the privileges …”
Nabby Adams went slowly down the stairs. Clank, clank, clank came after him, and a dog’s happy panting. He switched on the light in the big, bare, dirty room where he and his brother officers ate and lounged and yawned over the illustrated papers. He opened the refrigerator door. He saw only chill bottles of water. In the deep-freeze compartment was a rich bed of snow with incrustations of month-old ice on the metal walls. He took a bottle of water and gulped down mouthful after mouthful, but the thirst abated not at all, rather the lust for a real drink mounted to an obscene pitch. What day was it? Confused, he wondered whether this was late in the night or early in the morning. Outside the smeared uncurtained windows was solid black, heavy and humid, and there was not a sound, not even a distant cock-crow. It was near the end of the month, of that he was sure, a day or two off at the most. Must be, because of the petrol returns. But then, what difference did that make? Gloomily he watched bills parade and curtsy before his inward eye.
| Lim Kean Swee | $395 |
| Chee Sin Hye | $120 |
| Tan Meng Kwang | $250 |
And these shadowy bills, further back, grown as familiar as a wart or a jagged tooth. And the accounts in the drinking-shops. And the club-bill, three months old. And the letter that blasted swine Hart had written to his boss. Hart, the treasurer, the Field Force major, hail-fellow-well-met with the Sultan’s A.D.C., bowing with joined pudgy hands to H.H., well in, the man with the big future. ‘I’ll get him,’ thought Nabby Adams. ‘I’ll get that bloody car of his. I’ll have the Land Rover waiting next Friday because he’s always at the Club on Fridays and when he drives out I’ll give him a nice bloody little nick on his offside mudguard. He can’t do that to me.’ Proud, tall, unseeing, clutching the belly of the waterbottle, Nabby Adams stood, thinking up revenge, while the dog adored, panting.
“That was the East, man. Palestine. You wasn’t there, so you wouldn’t know. There was one place I used to go to and there was a bint there who did a bit of the old belly-dancing. You know, you’ve seen it on the pictures. If you haven’t, you’re bloody ignorant. You know.” Flaherty got up and gyrated clumsily, lifting arms to show sweat-soaked armpits in his off-white shirt. He crooned a sinuous dirge as accompaniment. Then he sat down and watched Nabby Adams move to his bed and fall heavily upon it. With a clank the dog disappeared under the bed. “You know,” said Flaherty, “you’re not bloody interested. You’re not interested in anything, that’s your bloody trouble. I’ve travelled the world and I tell you about this bint and what we did in the back room and you don’t take a blind bit of notice. Here.” Flaherty took a cigarette from the tin on Nabby Adams’s bedside table. “Here. Watch this. And I bet these aren’t paid for either. Here.” He lit the cigarette and puffed till the end glowed brightly. Then he began to chew. Nabby Adams watched, open-mouthed, as the cigarette disappeared behind the working lips. It all went in, including the red glow, and it did not come out again. “Easy,” said Flaherty, “if you’re fit, which you’re bloody well not. Watch this.” He took a tumbler from the table and began to eat that too.
“Oh, no,” groaned Nabby Adams, as he heard the brittle crunching. Eyes shut, he saw, white against red:
| The Happy Coffee Shop | $67 |
| Chop Fatt | $35 |
“Easy.” Flaherty spat blood and glass on the floor. “By Christ, it was a good night to-night. You should have been there, Nabby, drinking with decent people, salt of the earth. Laugh? I never laughed so much. Here, listen. There’s a Malay sergeant-major there. They call him Tong, see? That’s Malay for a barrel, but you wouldn’t know that, being ignorant. I never seen such a beer-belly. Well, he told a story …”
“Oh, go to bloody bed,” said Nabby Adams. Eyes closed, he lay as in death, his huge calloused feet projecting beyond the end of the bed, pushing out the mosquito-net.
Flaherty was hurt, dignified in sorrow. “All right,” he said. “Gratitude. After all I’ve done. Gratitude. But I’ll show you the act of a gentleman. We still make gentlemen where I come from. Wait. Just wait. I’ll make you feel bloody small.”
He lurched out to his own room. He lurched back in again. Nabby Adams heard an approaching clink. In wonder and hope he opened his eyes. Flaherty was carrying a carrier-bag covered with Chinese ideograms, and in the bag were three bottles.
“There,” said Flaherty. “The things I do for you.”
“Oh, thank God, thank God,” prayed Nabby Adams. “God bless you, Paddy.” He was out of bed, alive, quick in his movements, looking for the opener, must be here somewhere, left it in that drawer. Thank God, thank God. The metal top clinked on the floor, answered by the emerging clank of the dog. Nabby Adams raised to his lips the frothing bottle and drank life. Bliss. His body drank, fresh blood flowed through his arteries, the electric light seemed brighter, what were a few bills anyway?
Flaherty watched indulgently, as a mother watches. “Don’t say I don’t do anything for you,” he repeated.
“Yes, yes,” gasped Nabby Adams, breathless after the first draught, his body hungering for the next. “Yes, Paddy.” He raised the bottle and drank life to the lees. Now he could afford to sit down, smoke a cigarette, drink the next bottle at leisure. But wait. What time was it? Four forty-five, said the alarm-clock. That meant he would have to go back to bed and sleep for a little. For if he didn’t what the hell was he going to do? Three bottles wouldn’t last him till it was time to go to the Transport Office. But in any case if he drank another bottle now that would mean only one bottle to wake up with. And no bottle for breakfast. He groaned to himself: there was no end to his troubles.
“Those Japanese tattooists,” said Flaherty. “Bloody clever. By God they are. I seen one fellow in Jerusalem, wait, I’m telling a lie, it was in Alex, when I went there for a bit of leave, one fellow with a complete foxhunt on his back. Bloody marvellous. Horses and hounds and huntsmen, and the bloody bugle blowing tally-ho and you could just see the tail of the fox, the bloody brush you know, disappearing up his. What’s the bloody matter with you?” He writhed in petulance, his lined frowning face stern and beetled. “In God’s name what’s the matter? I bring you home food and drink and expect a bit of gratitude and a bit of cheerful company and what do I get? The bloody miseries.” He loped round the room, hands clasped behind, head bent, shoulders hunched, in a mime of lively dejection. “Here,” he said, straightening, “this won’t do. Do you know what the bloody time is? If you can sit up all night I can’t. We do a bit of work in Operations. We help to kill the bloody bandits. Bang bang bang.” He sprayed the room with a sub-machine-gun of air. “Takka takka takka takka takka.” Stiff-legged he moved over to Nabby Adams and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Never you mind, Nabby my boy, it’ll all be the same in a hundred bloody years. As Shakespeare says. Listen.” Eagerly he sat down, leaning forward with crackling eageness. “Shakespeare. You’ve never read any, being bloody ignorant. Or Robbie Burns. Drunk as a fiddler’s bitch.” He leaned back comfortably with closed eyes, singing with wide gestures:
“Oh, Mary, this London’s a wonderful sight,
With the people all working by day and by night.”
“You’ll wake them up,” said Nabby Adams.
“And what if I do,” said Flaherty. “What have they ever done for me? That bloody Jock Keir with the money rattling in his pocket. Tack wallah’s joy-bells. Saving it up, bloody boat-happy, but he’ll down another man’s pint as soon as look and with never a word out of him. Have you seen his book at the Club, man? Virgin soil. Three bucks’ worth of orange squash in six bloody months. Where is he till I get at him?” Flaherty sent the chair flying and tore raggedly out of the room. On the landing he forgot his mission and could be heard bumping and slithering down the stairs. Nabby Adams listened for the flush of the lavatory, but there was no sound more to be heard. Nothing except the dog truffling for fleas, the tick of the rusty alarm-clock. Nabby Adams went back to bed, the dog rattled her way under it, then he realised he hadn’t put out the light. Never mind.
He dozed. Soon the bilal could be heard, calling over the dark. The bilal, old and crotchety, had climbed the worm-gnawed stairs to the minaret, had paused a while at the top, panting, and then intoned his first summons to prayer, the first waktu of the long indifferent day.
“La ilaha illa’llah. La ilaha illa’llah.”
There is no God but God, but what did anybody care? Below and about him was dark, and the dark shrouded the bungalow of the District Officer, the two gaudy cinemas, the drinking-shops where the towkays snored on their pallets, the Istana—empty now, for the Sultan was in Bangkok with his latest Chinese dance-hostess, the Raja Perempuan at Singapore for the race-meetings—and the dirty, drying river.
“La ilaha illa’lah.”
Like a lonely Rhine-daughter he sang the thin liquids, remembering again the trip to Mecca he had made, out of his own money too, savings helped by judicious bets on tipped horses and a very good piece of advice about rubber given by a Chinese business-man. Gambling indeed was forbidden, haram, but he had wanted to go to Mecca and become a haji. By Allah, he had become a haji, Tuan Haji Mohammed Nasir bin Abdul Talib, and, by Allah, all would be forgiven. Now, having seen the glory of the great mosque at Mecca, the Masjid-ul-Haram, he despised a little his superstitious fellow-countrymen who, ostensibly Muslim, yet clung to their animistic beliefs and left bananas on graves to feed the spirits of the dead. He had it on good authority that Inche Idris bin Zainal, teacher in the school and a big man in the Nationalist Movement, had once ordered eggs and bacon in a restaurant in Tahi Panas. He knew that Inche Jamaluddin drank brandy and that Inche Abu Zakaria sneaked off to small villages during the fasting month so that he might eat and drink without interference from the prowling police.
“La ilaha illa’lah.”
God knoweth best. Allahu alam. The nether fires awaited such, a hot house in naraka. Not for them the Garden with the river flowing beneath. He looked down on the blackness, trying to pierce it with his thin voice, seeking to irradiate with the Word the opacity of Kuala Hantu. But the town slept on. The white men turned in their sleep uneasily, dreaming of pints of draught bitter in wintry English hotels. The mems slept in adjoining beds, their dreams oppressed by servants who remained impassive in the face of hard words and feigned not to understand kitchen-Malay made up of Midland vowels. Only in a planter’s bungalow was there a dim show of light, but this was out of the town, some miles along the Timah road. The fair-haired young man in the Drainage and Irrigation Department was leaving, sibilating a sweet good-morning to the paunched planter who was his friend. He stole to his little car, turning to wave in the dark at the lighted porch.
“Good-bye, Geoffrey. Tomorrow night, then.”
“To-morrow night, Julian. Be good?”
But soon the dawn came up, heaving over the eastern edge like a huge flower in a nature-film. The stage electrician, under notice, slammed his flat hands on the dimmers and there was a swift suffusion of light. The sky was vast over the mountains with their crowns of jungle, over the river and the attap huts. The Malayan dawn, unseen of all save the bilal and the Tamil gardeners, grew and grew and mounted with an obscene tropical swiftness, and morning announced itself as a state, not a process.
At seven o’clock Nabby Adams awoke and reached for the remaining bottle. The dog came from under the bed and stretched with a long groan. Nabby Adams put on yesterday’s shirt and slacks and thrust his huge feet into old slippers. Then he went softly down the stairs, followed closely by the clank clank clank of the dog. The Chinese boy, their only servant, was laying the table—a grey-white cloth, plates, cups, two bottles of sauce. Nabby Adams approached him ingratiatingly. Though he had been in the Federation for six years he spoke neither Malay nor Chinese: his languages were Hindustani, Urdu, a little Punjabi, Northamptonshire English. He said:
“Tuan Flaherty he give you money yesterday?”
“Tuan?”
“Wang, wang. You got wang to buy makan? Fat tuan, he give wang?”
“Tuan kasi lima linggit.”
Lima ringgit. That was five dollars. “You give lima ringgit to me.”
“Tuan?”
“You give lima ringgit to saya. Saya buy bloody makan.”
The squat, ugly, slant-eyed boy hesitated, then pulled from his pocket a five-dollar note.
“Tuan beli sayur? Vegitibubbles?”
“Yes, yes. Leave it to saya.”
Nabby Adams went through the dirty stucco portico of the little police mess, out into the tiny kampong. The police mess had formerly been a maternity home for the wives of the Sultans of the state. Faded and tatty, peeling, floorboards eaten and unpolished, its philoprogenitive glory was a memory only. Now the spider had many homes, the chichaks, scuttling up the walls, throve on the many insects, and tattered calendars showed long-dead months. The cook-boy was not very efficient. His sole qualification for looking after four police-lieutenants was the fact that he had himself been a police-constable, discharged because of bad feet. Now he fed his masters expensively on tinned soups, tinned sausages, tinned milk, tinned cheese, tinned steak-and-kidney pudding, tinned ham. Anything untinned was suspect to him, and bread was rarely served with a meal. The porch was littered with flattened cigarette-ends, and the bath had a coating of immemorial grime. When plaster fell from the ceiling it lay to be trampled by heavy jungle-boots. But nobody cared, for nobody wanted to think of the place as a home. Nabby Adams thirsted for Bombay, Flaherty yearned for Palestine, Keir would soon be back in Glasgow and Vorpal had a Chinese widow in Malacca.
Where, in the old days of many royal confinements, there had been a field and a lane, now straggled a village. Villages were appearing now in the oddest places; the Communist terrorists had forced the Government to move long-established kampong populations to new sites, places where there was no danger of ideological infection, of help given to the terrorists freely or under duress. This newish village, on the hem of the town’s skirt, already looked age-old. As Nabby Adams moved like a broken Coriolanus through the heavy morning heat, he saw the signatures of the old Malaya—warm, slummy comfort as permanent as the surrounding mountain-jungle. Naked brown children were sluicing themselves at the pump, an old mottled Chinese nonya champed her gums at the open door, a young Malay father of magnificent physique nursed a new child. His wife, her sarong wound under her armpits, proffered to Nabby Adams a smile of black and gold. Neither he nor his dog responded. They both made straight for the kedai of Guan Moh Chan, where he owed a mere hundred dollars or so. Would this tribute of five soften the hard heart of the towkay? He could feel already the sweat of anxiety more than heat stirring beneath his shirt. He needed at least two large bottles.
The shutters were being taken down by the youngest son of the large family—huge planks that fitted into the shop-front like the pieces of a Chinese puzzle. The towkay, in working costume of vest and underpants, grinned, nodded, sucked a black cigar. His head was that of an old idol, shrunken, yellow, painted with a false benignity. Nabby Adams addressed his prayers to it.
“Saya bring wang. Saya bring more wang to-morrow.”
The towkay, happy, chirping laughter, produced a book and pointed to a total with a bone of a finger. “Salatus tujoh puloh linggit lima puloh sen.”
“How much?” He read for himself: $170.50. Christ, as much as that. “Here. Give us a couple of bottles, big ones. Dua. You’ll get some more wang to-morrow.”
Clucking happily, the old man took the five-dollar note and handed Nabby Adams a single dusty small bottle of Tiger beer. “You mean old bastard,” he said. “Come on, be a sport.”
It was no good. Nabby Adams went back with the one bottle hidden in his vast hand. He felt, irrationally, cheated. Five dollars. One dollar seventy a big bottle. The bloody old thief. Man and dog entered the mess to find Keir and Vorpal already at breakfast. Keir, in jungle green, sneered up at Nabby Adams, and Nabby felt a sweat of hatred for the Glasgow whine and the smug meanness. Vorpal, eupeptically bubbling greetings, bathed a sausage in a swimming plate of sauce. The cook-boy stood by, anxious, and said:
“Tuan beli vegitibubbles?”
“Yes,” said Nabby Adams, “he’s sending them round.” He prepared to mount the stairs with his bottle. Keir said:
“I hope you made enough row in the night. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep with your banging around and your drunken singing.”
Nabby Adams felt his neck-muscles tighten. Something in the mere quality of the impure vowels smote at his nerves. He said nothing.
Vorpal had the trick of adding a Malay enclitic to his utterances. This also had power to irritate, especially in the mornings. It irritated Nabby Adams that this should irritate him, but somewhere at the back of his brain was the contempt of the man learned in languages for the silly show-off, jingling the small change of ‘wallah’ and charpoy. The irritation was exacerbated by Nabby Adams’s realisation that Vorpal was not a bad type.
“Let the boy have his fun-lah. If you took a wee drappie yourself you’d sleep through it like I do.” He crammed a dripping forkful in his mouth, chewing with appetite. “Old Nabby’s quiet enough during the day-lah.”
“Paddy’s ill, too,” said Keir. “He can’t get up this morning. You might have a bit of consideration for a sick man.”
Nabby Adams turned to reply and saw at that moment a sight that brought a fearful thirst to his throat. His beating blood had dulled his ears to the sound of the approaching car, the car that now slid into the porch and stopped. Next to the Malay police-driver was the Contingent Transport Officer, Hood, who now, tubby and important, slammed the car door and prepared to enter the mess. Nabby fled up the stairs, the dog panting and clanking after him.
With the dry rázor on his chin, Nabby Adams listened to salutations below, condescending, servile. The bottle stood on the dressing-table and grinned mockingly at him.
“Adams!”
Adams. Usually it was Nabby. Things must be bad. Nabby Adams called down, “Yes, sir, shan’t be a minute, sir,” in the big confident voice, manly but not unrefined, he had learnt as a regimental sergeant-major. He tore into uniform shirt and slacks, cursing the dog as she lovingly got under his feet. He clumped down the stairs, composing his features to calm and welcome, putting on the mask of a man eager for the new day. The unopened bottle sneered at his descending back.
“There you are, Adams.” Hood was standing waiting, a high-polished cap shading his flabby clean face. “We’re going to Sawan Lenja.”
“Sir.” Keir and Vorpal were out on the porch, waiting for transport to the police station. “Anything wrong there, sir?”
“Too many vehicles off the road. What’s these stories I’ve been hearing about you?”
“Stories, sir?”
“Don’t act daft. You know what I mean. You’ve been hitting it again. I thought that was all over. Anyway, I’m getting all sorts of tales up at Timah, and Timah’s a bloody long way from here. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, sir. I have given it up, sir. It’s a mug’s game. A man in my position can’t afford it, sir.”
“I should bloody well think not. Anyway, they tell me they couldn’t find you anywhere last week and then they picked you up half-slewed in a shop in Sungai Kajar. Where did that come from?”
“Enemies, sir. There’s a lot of Chinese on to me, sir. They want me to fiddle the accident reports and I won’t, sir.”
“I should bloody well think not.” His face creased suddenly in a tight pain. “Christ, I’ll have to use your lavatory.”
Nabby’s face melted in sympathy. “Dysentery, sir?”
“Christ. Where is it?”
When Hood was safely closeted, Nabby Adams wildly hovered between two immediate courses of action—the telephone or the bottle? The bottle would have to wait. He picked up the dusty receiver. Fook Onn was at the other end, and Fook Onn spoke English.
“Alladad Khan? Where the hell is he? Get him, get the lot of them. Get them lined up. Hood’s on his way.” Normally the Transport Pool began its operations at nine o’clock or thereabouts; this was a convenient arrangement for everybody. Officially it began to function at eight. The Chinese at the other end of the line was maddeningly urbane and slow. “Get a move on,” urged Nabby Adams. “He’s coming now, I tell you.” As he replaced the receiver there was a flushing sound from the water-closet. Nabby recomposed his features as Hood re-entered.
“Better, sir?”
“It’s an awful bloody business. Never know when it’s going to come.” Hood sat down gingerly.
“What you could do with is a nice strong cup of tea, sir. I’ll tell the kuki to make you one.”
“Does it really do any good, Nabby?” (That was better.) “I’ve tried every damn thing.”
“Perfect, sir. It always puts me right.”
Hood looked at his wrist-watch. “We haven’t got much time, you know. I want to go to your place before Sawan Lenja.”
“That’s all right, sir. I think he’s got the kettle boiling.” Nabby Adams moved to the stairs, the dog following him.
“I can see your cook out there,” said Hood. “What are you going upstairs for?”
“Oh. I thought he’d gone up to make the beds, sir.” Nabby Adams went to the kitchen and said, “Make some teh for the tuan besar.”
Hood said, “Sit down, Nabby. Why are you running through the petrol so bloody fast? You’re fifty-four gallons over and the month isn’t ended yet.”
“I’ve got the file upstairs, sir. I’ll bring it down.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll see it later.”
“I’d rather you saw it now, sir.” Nabby Adams moved again to the stairs.
“You’re bloody restless, aren’t you? Have you got a woman upstairs or something?” At that moment a groan of penitence came from an upper room. It was Flaherty, ill. God’s most deep decree bitter would have him taste.
“That’s Flaherty, sir. He’s got fever. I’ll just go up and see if he wants anything.” Nabby Adams made decisively for the stairs. The dog was waiting for him, her paws on the second tread, rere regardant with a happy lolling tongue. Nabby Adams nearly tripped over her. “God blast you,” he said.
“That’s no way to speak to an animal,” said Hood. “I’ve got a dog myself. Come on, old boy.” The dog ignored him, following her master with a hasty clank clank clank.
Up in his room Nabby jerked off the bottle-top with trembling hands. The life-giving beer gurgled down his throat. Too soon the stream dried up. He threw the empty bottle with disgust on the bed. Then he went down again, feeling a little better, but, into the vacuum made by the removal of his immediate need, there nudged a more extensive, blunter anxiety: the long day, no money, Robin Hood tut-tutting like a bloody parson, the lies, the subterfuges, the towkays wanting their money up in Sawan Lenja.
“So you didn’t bring that file down, Nabby?” said Hood.
“No, sir. I thought it was upstairs. It must be in the office, sir.”
The tea came, not very strong but very milky, with a flotsam of leaves on its pale surface. “Aren’t you having any?” said Hood.
“No, thank you, sir,” said Nabby Adams. “I’ve had my breakfast.”
Hood was downing the tea too rapidly. Nabby Adams calculated that he would have to give Corporal Alladad Khan at least another fifteen minutes. “Will you have another cup, sir?” he asked.
“I’ve not finished this one yet. No, I don’t think I will have another. Your boy makes bloody awful tea. How much do you pay him?”
“Hundred a month, between the four of us, that is.”
“Too much. Now, when I was in Perak, I got everything done for eighty, including garden and car cleaning.”
“Did you really, sir? That’s very cheap, sir.”
“Well, we can’t spend all day talking about the cost of labour.” Hood put down his cup and rose slowly. “Christ,” he said. “The bloody guts-ache. That tea wasn’t much of an idea, Adams.”
“Give it time, sir. It’ll do you the world of good. Just rest for a few minutes.”
“Well.” Hood sat down again. “I suppose we’re not worried over a few minutes, are we, Nabby?”
Nabby Adams breathed thanks to an unknown god. “No, sir. Plenty of time. It’s only an hour’s run.”
“Hour and a half. Christ.” Hood was off again to the toilet. Nabby Adams wiped sweat off his face with a grey handkerchief. He stole noiselessly to the telephone, whispered the number, whispered:
“Is he there yet? Well, get hold of him quick. Get the lot of them. For God’s sake get a move on.”
Hood came out amid the sound of rushing water. “On our way,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said Nabby Adams. “I’ll just get my cap.” Slowly he mounted the stairs, passed Flaherty’s door and heard him moaning softly. He was gall, he was heartburn. Nabby Adams looked in the mirror, arranging his cap. He saw a bilious-yellow face, enlivened with a razorcut. The body of this death.
There was some difficulty in getting the dog out of the car. At last they were off, she gamely running after down the kampong street. They soon lost her.
“You ought to train that dog properly,” said Hood. “Mine wouldn’t do that. You’ve got to have obedience in animals.”
His heart beating faster, his throat drying, Nabby whispered to the driver, “Not so bloody fast.”
“Tuan?”
“All right, all right.” One of these days he must really get down to the language. There never seemed to be time, somehow.
They passed the Tamil Vernacular School, the town padang, the Anglo-Chinese School, the Government Girls’ English School, the Iblis Club, the toddy-shop, the Town Board Offices, the Mosque, a row of Asian clerks’ bungalows, and then came the Police Station, and next to it Police Transport, and now Nabby Adams swallowed lump after lump of anxiety, because the place seemed deserted, unopened, desolate, abandoned. … They rounded the corner and entered the vehicle park, and there were, thank God, the whole bloody lot of them lined up, calm, been waiting for hours and, as they left the car Corporal Alladad Khan barked, “Ten Shun!” and they came to attention and Nabby Adams, police-lieutenant in charge of transport for the Police Circle, was proud and happy.
Relief brought an aching desire to be sitting in a kedai with a large bottle of Tiger or Anchor or Carlsberg in front of him. That, of course, was impossible. While Robin Hood was using the jamban at the back of the yard, Nabby Adams urgently begged a loan of ten dollars from Corporal Alladad Khan. He spoke clean grammatical Urdu.
“Your wife is away. When she returns you may tell her that you required a new pair of trousers to be made. And then when I pay you back you can buy the pair of trousers.”
“But I do not need a pair of trousers.” Alladad Khan’s melting brown eyes were serious over the proud nose, the ample, neat moustache.
“I shall have repaid you by the time she returns, however. So perhaps there will be no need for any story.”
“Wait,” said Alladad Khan. He had a long colloquy in Punjabi with a Sikh constable. He returned with ten dollars. “I have borrowed this from Hari Singh. I shall have to open my wife’s saving-box to repay him, because he needs the money to-day. I shall give you this and then you can pay me at the end of the month.”
“Thank you, Alladad Khan.” Hood was returning, saying, “I’ll have to get some hard-boiled eggs on the way.”
It was a wearisome, dry morning. They sped along the Timah road, through terrorist country, past regular neat woods of rubber trees. They saw tin-dredgers at work; they saw lorries loaded with latex; they went through villages and one largish town called Sungai Kajar—a wide main street, several drinking-shops, a Cinemascope advertisement—and by the time they got to Sawan Lenja Nabby Adams was near death. But he had to stoop over vehicles, examine engines, castigate inefficient corporal-fitters. At length Robin Hood said it was time for tiffin and they sought the rest house.
Hood ordered a portion of fried fish, a steak with onions and chipped potatoes, a dish of chopped pineapple and tinned cream. Nabby Adams said he would have a small round of cheese sandwiches.
“You ought to eat a good tiffin,” said Hood, “because you need it in this climate. Thank God, I think my dysentery’s a bit better. Have a beer if you want it,” he added generously. “I’ll have a small Tiger with you.”
“No,” said Nabby Adams. “It’s no good starting again. I’ve finished with it, once and for all. It’s better to give it up completely.”
“I’m glad to hear that from your lips, Nabby. You know, all your confidential reports have said the same thing: ‘A good man, first-class, but hits the bottle.’”
“Never again,” said Nabby Adams. “It’s a mug’s game.”
They ate, Hood sipping his small Tiger genteelly, Nabby Adams gloomily toying with a sandwich of tinned white cheese. They were alone in the single room that served as restaurant and lounge. There was little sound: only the sucking noises that made Hood’s every course seem like soup, the slow champing of Nabby’s dry mouth, the whirr of the fan, the hoicking of the Chinese boy in the kitchen.
Soon Hood belched repletion, picked his teeth and eyed the rattan couch. “It’s only ten-past one,” he said. “I’ll just have a few minutes. It’s been a hard morning.”
“It has, sir.”
“You haven’t had this dysentery like I have. It takes it out of you.”
“You’ve put it back in again, sir.”
“I’ll just have a few minutes, Nabby.” He stretched his small tubby form on the couch, crossed hands on his full belly. Nabby Adams watched him with great intensity. The eyes were closed, the breathing seemed relaxed and regular. Nabby Adams tiptoed over to the serving-hatch, watching still, narrowly. Hood sighed, turned, said, “Don’t let me oversleep, Nabby.”
“Not likely, sir.” Nabby Adams beckoned the boy sibilantly, went through the motions of pouring, drinking, indicated a large one with huge hands a cubit apart. The boy said, loudly, cheerfully, “Anchor beer.”
“Not so bloody loud, man.” Nabby Adams made a hair-tearing gesture with a pair of gorilla arms, his face a devil’s mask. He took the proffered glass and bottle, poured, downed, poured, downed, poured. A sleepy sigh came from the couch. Nabby Adams downed the last of it and tiptoed back, sitting at the table, good as gold.
Hood opened his eyes and said, “How’s the time going?”
“Quite all right, sir. Plenty of time. You have a sleep, sir.”
Hood turned over with his fat bottom towards Nabby Adams. Thank God. Nabby Adams tiptoed over again to the serving-hatch, ordered another, downed it. He began to feel a great deal better. After yet another he felt better still. Poor old Robin Hood wasn’t a bad type. Stupid, didn’t know a gear-box from a spare tyre, but he meant well. The world generally looked better. The sun shone, the palms shook in the faint breeze, a really lovely Malay girl passed by the window. Proud of carriage, in tight baju and rich sarong, she balanced voluptuous haunches. Her blue-black hair had some sort of a flower in it; how delicate the warm brown of her flat flower-like face.
“What time is it, Nabby?”
Nabby Adams gulped down his beer nervously. “This clock says quarter to, sir, but I think it’s a bit fast.”
“We’re not worrying about five minutes, are we, Nabby?”
“No, sir.” Thank God he didn’t turn over. Another bottle would make six dollars eighty. That meant he could finish the day with a bottle of samsu. He didn’t like the burnt taste of the rice-spirit, but he didn’t worry about the awful tales of the high lead-content. Or he could send the kuki to the toddy-shop, after dark, of course, because it was illegal to consume toddy off the premises. Toddy was cheap enough. The smell of decay was ghastly, but you could always hold your nose. The taste wasn’t so good either: burnt brown paper. Still, it was a drink. Good for you, too. If it wasn’t for the smell and the taste it would be a damn good drink.
Nabby Adams drank another bottle. At the end of it he heard Hood stirring with deep sighs, yawns, a creaking of rattan. This was it then. Two o’clock. He moved from the serving-hatch to the dining-room-lounge. Hood was sitting on the edge of the couch, rubbing sleepy eyes, then scratching through scant greying hair.
“On the job again, Nabby.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Chinese boy came in jauntily with a bill for Nabby Adams. Nabby Adams gave him a look of such malevolence that the boy’s mouth, open to announce the amount of the bill, clapped, like a rat-trap, shut.
“Here, boy, give me that bill,” said Hood. “I’ll pay, Nabby. Your cheese sandwiches won’t break me.”
“No, sir.” Nabby Adams grabbed the bill in panic. “On me, sir. I mean, let’s pay for our own.”
“I’ll pay, Nabby. You deserve something for reforming your bad habits. How much, boy?”
“On me, sir, please,” begged Nabby Adams.
“Well.” Hood yawned widely and long, showing back fillings and a softly rising uvula. “You must be rolling in it now, Nabby, giving it up like you said. You must be saving pots of money. All right, I’ll pay next time.”
Ten dollars was far from enough. Nabby Adams told the boy, while Hood was stretching on the veranda, that he’d give him the rest next time. The boy protested. Nabby Adams asserted six feet eight inches of Caucasian manhood and said he could whistle for the five dollars forty. The boy went for the towkay. Nabby Adams hastened Hood to the waiting car.
The mean bastard. Nabby Adams felt ill-used. The afternoon stretched, an arid scrubland of carburettors and oil-gaskets. The night? Nabby Adams groaned in his very stomach. Was ever grief like mine?