THE BED WAS littered with papers and clothes. Hugh gathered the papers together and packed them into his briefcase. Then he crammed the clothes into a holdall, unmindful of whether they were dirty or clean. With a grunt, he zipped up the bag. He was glad to be heading home to May. From outside, raised voices, excitable shouts of Tuan, Tuan, cut through the air. They came nearer and nearer, followed by footsteps. Looking out from where he stood, he saw a group of men marching towards the building. They were pushing someone along. Hugh rushed out of the rest house.
“Din! Din! We found Din!” The man they called Din fell to the ground. He lay there in a heap, chest heaving, his shirt torn and trousers ripped.
“Send for the doctor,” Hugh commanded. “Quick!” He knelt down and cradled Din’s head. Someone placed a bottle of water in Hugh’s hand. He lifted Din and placed the bottle to his lips. Din drank in great gulps, spilling some down his chin and onto his chest.
A motley crowd gathered around them. The babble of voices rose again. Malay interspersed with a smattering of Chinese and a sprinkling of Hindu and English. All venturing their account of how they had spotted Din. Hugh silenced them with a wave of his hand. “Let him speak!” he said in response to Din’s hoarse attempt to talk. Hugh placed his ear near Din’s lips. “Where is Tuan Mark?” he asked.
“Tuan Mark,” Din whispered through cracked lips. Fine lines of blood mingled with dry white scabs. “I don’t know where he is. We drove to Tanjong Malim. He asked me to drop him off and to drive back on my own to Kuala Lumpur. He didn’t say where he was going. I think he was going to take a train.”
“What happened? Where is the vehicle?”
“I met with an accident during my journey here,” Din replied, his face ashen with fatigue. His lips twitched nervously. “I drove into a ditch and lost a wheel. I tried to get a lift; no one would stop. People are too frightened to stop for strangers. I walked all the way here.” Din prayed that no one would ask him why he had not used the spare wheel or why he had abandoned the vehicle. He had failed to check the jeep before they left Kuala Lumpur. He had not remembered that the spare wheel had been taken out for repair. He would probably lose his job for this negligence.
Oblivious of Din’s worries, Hugh rose and stepped away. “What could Mark be up to? Has his memory returned? Why did he decide to travel by train? Where did he go?” Hugh asked himself. He grimaced. He returned to his room and picked up his holdall. The driver had given little away so far. This did not mean, he thought to himself, that he had no more to tell.
The telephone rang. He picked up the phone. He listened intently, nodding at intervals, his forehead creased by a web of lines. He placed the receiver down. Mark was back in Kuala Lumpur. He had turned up at his office as though nothing had happened. Well not entirely, Reid had explained. Apparently Mark had regained his memory.
Hugh rushed out to his car. He must hurry back to May.
***
Hugh was lost in deep thought as he drove. He normally loved driving through the Malayan countryside. He loved the neat plantations interspersed with clusters of Malay wooden houses on stilts with brightly coloured washing hung out to dry in the front-yards. Often, villagers would display fruits from their garden on wooden stalls. The smell of jackfruit, ripe papayas, rambutans and even durians, the thorny fruit that smelt of sewage to some and glorious richness to others, would permeate the air. Often he had to wind up his window to stop the car interior from being flooded with their hot heady scent. This time he saw nothing. The trees whizzed passed. Miles and miles of rubber trees, planted in straight lines like a never-ending grid. Plantations he had helped to develop. All he could think of was May and what they would have to do if Mark were to come to see them. Would Mark suspect that Craig was his? He could no longer push such worries aside. The return of Mark’s memory was a reality, not a possibility.
Darkness fell and still he drove at reckless speed. It was nearly midnight when he turned into the driveway of his house. The lights were still on. May must be waiting up for him. He stopped the car and switched off the ignition. He sat for a while staring at the lit-up windows. He saw May standing in one, her slender silhouette dark against the glow of light. She put up a hand to wave and then she was gone. He could imagine her footsteps running down the stairway and out to the front porch to greet him. He had called before he left for Kuala Lumpur; he had not been able to reach her. He had left a brief message. Hugh got out of the car and, sure enough, May was already by the front door, her long skirt billowing in the breeze. He went to her and gathered her in his arms. “May,” was all he could say. They stood locked in embrace, each feeling the tenseness of the other.
“When Mark comes to see us,” he said after a while, his arms still around her, “we will tell him the truth; we got together after he left Malaya. That is the only thing to do. He should understand. I had wanted to tell him about you. Ruth didn’t. She loved him and didn’t want to lose him to you. She was persuasive. I felt sorry for her. I had not planned to fall in love with you. I certainly did not connive with her to keep you from Mark for myself. You do believe me don’t you?”
May remained still in his arms. Her silence troubled Hugh. “Do you still lo.... still have feelings for Mark?” he asked.
She shook her head and nestled deeper into his chest. Hugh tilted her face towards him and looked deep into her eyes. He was perturbed by what he saw. “Do you wish to tell him about Craig?”
“No,” she whispered. “The past is finished. I love you.”
Hugh heaved a sigh of relief. He was so tense, he could feel the knots in his neck building up. Yet a niggling of worry remained; he kept it to himself.
***
A week passed. They did not hear from Mark. During that time, May stopped almost all her normal activities. She accompanied Craig to school every morning and would wait outside the gate. The driver would park the car by the school entrance while she remained inside the vehicle until it got too hot. She watched anxiously for visitors at the school gate. Then reluctantly, she would go home to have lunch before returning to the school to collect Craig. She kept close to Craig, unwilling to let him go and meet his friends without her by his side. Craig complained to Hugh. The driver, observing May’s odd behaviour, told his master that he had cleaned and polished the car so many times while standing outside the school that there was nothing else to clean. “Mem sakit?” he asked fearing that May might be ill.
The weight fell off May. She lost her appetite for food. She was restless at night. She spoke little. By the seventh day, Hugh took her aside after Craig went to bed. They were in the sitting room. It was a warm sultry evening. Above them, the ceiling fan whirred slowly stirring up the heavy air.
“May,” said Hugh gently, “what is troubling you? Sorry, let me rephrase. I know what is troubling you. You are worried that Mark would somehow guess and claim Craig. But is there anything else?”
May’s lips trembled. She was exhausted and fought for control of herself. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what was troubling her; she didn’t want to know for fear of discovering something she wished didn’t exist. Both Fu Yi and Hugh had asked her repeatedly if she had any lingering love for Mark. They had questioned her so many times that she had begun to feel that perhaps she harboured such feelings and had buried them deep within her heart. She began to doubt herself. She didn’t want to possess those feelings; she wished with all her heart that she could say unreservedly that she no longer loved Mark. She only knew that she loved Hugh; she did not know if she also loved Mark. She was frightened of meeting him; feared that it might rekindle feelings she didn’t know still existed. She despised herself. She thought of Ruth. For Ruth’s sake, for Hugh and Craig, she must be strong. “I am just exhausted,” she replied. “Yes, I worry that he might take Craig from me, from us.”
“I know.” Hugh knelt in front of her and took her in his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder inhaling deeply, finding comfort from his closeness. “He has not been in touch,” continued Hugh, “perhaps he never will. Perhaps like us, he wants to be free of the past and start anew. He left today for London. Guthries sent him there on business.”
Hugh could feel relief coursing through May’s body. He held her tighter to him. “You have to look after yourself. Think of our baby.” He pushed her away at arm distance and, gently, with one hand, traced her tummy. “It will be all right. There is nothing to connect him with Craig. Ruth doesn’t know; no one does other than you and me.”
May went still. There was one who knew. Fu Yi. But she wouldn’t tell.
***
After Mark left Din, he took the train back to Kuala Lumpur. He didn’t wish to involve Din, didn’t trust him to keep silent. He did not return home. After his visit to the office, he went to Chinatown.
It was nightfall. The street was busy. Although most of the grocery stores were shut, stalls offering a range of hot food had opened up for business. They lined the street, spilling out into side streets. Wooden tables and stools filled every nook and corner. Light from kerosene lamps lit the way and the aroma of cooking filled the air. Pans sizzled, pots bubbled. Tables were filling up. People were dropping in for a quick meal before heading for home. Others were eating out before going to the cinema. Chinatown never slept. There were always people doing business, talking, eating and wandering amongst stalls looking for bargains. They came out in shorts and vests, some even in pyjamas. Amidst this festivity, a group of old women sat on low wooden stools taking in the warm night air. Mark walked up to the group. “I am looking for Fu Yi,” he said. “Do you know her? She used to work for me.”
The women stared blankly back at him with rheumy eyes. Mark switched to Cantonese. The heavily accented words rolled off his tongue. They looked away, flicking their fans, their faces bored. “Don’t know,” one volunteered. Mark peered closely into the group. A movement caught his interest. There was one amongst them who seemed to physically shrink away. “Is that you Fu Yi?” he asked her. The rich smell of cooking drifted through the air. Without warning, a picture of Fu Yi flashed through his mind: Fu Yi, small, thin with black hair drawn back into a tight bun with a tortoise shell to hold it in place. This woman was even smaller, hunched and skeletal in frame. There was something familiar in the way she held herself. “Fu Yi?” he asked again.
The woman raised her head. “Yes, Master,” she replied.
“Can we speak?”
“What about? I have nothing to tell you. I am old and forgetful. It has been a long, long time.”
“Come. Come with me. I just want to talk, to refresh my memory. I lost it, you know, and have only just started to recall. Help me. Please. I need you to fill in the blanks.”
“No, Master, Leave me be. I am tired. I am old and forgetful. I can’t remember.”
“I just want to talk, please.”
Fu Yi relented. She did not like to see her former master so reduced as to plead with her in front of the other women. It just didn’t seem right. Perhaps a few words would not matter. She would have to be careful when speaking about May. She would guard her tongue. “Just for a little while. I don’t feel well and will need to go to bed soon.”
“Come this way. We’ll find a quiet corner.” Mark helped her up and guided her by the elbow to a table set up by the roadside. He sat her down gently on a chair and ordered tea. The other women looked on in wonder; they nodded and talked amongst themselves. What had Fu Yi done to deserve this treatment, they wondered. They had never seen a white man come to visit a servant.