IT WAS now gloaming. In a minute or two darkness would fall. Stars had begun to shine. Creatures of the night were beginning to be heard. The lights would be on in the Old Town. There was a New Town, the Sultan’s pride, with tall, gleaming buildings and wide boulevards with masses of bougainvillea, hibiscus, frangipani, and other flowering shrubs. Government House was there and the offices of many famous firms eager to do business with so rich a country.
Sandilands preferred the Old Town with its narrow, noisy, spicy streets and alleys, its small dark shops that sold everything from stuffed snakes to French champagne, and its bars where Malays, Chinese, Tamils, Filipinos, and Dusuns drank Tiger beers laced with brandy and discussed the affairs of the day, which, so far as he could tell from eavesdropping, seldom included politics. It had always seemed to him that those simple souls ought not to be bothered by politicians. They did not want power, even the infinitesimal part represented by the casting of a vote every four or five years. They were content to make their modest livelihoods and enjoy the company of friends and neighbours whether or not these were the same colour as themselves. Theirs was a fortunate little country where it was never cold and never too hot either, because of the sea breezes; except of course deep in the interior, but only aboriginal tribes lived there.
He decided to go home through the Old Town. He would call in at Mr Cheng’s bookshop to see if books he had ordered had arrived. After playing golf with the Sultan he liked to sit in a bar among ordinary folk. He was not sure why. Perhaps it was a kind of penance. In spite of that visit to the Shamrock Hotel he was by birth a Calvinist. His grandfather had been a minister of the Free Kirk of Scotland.
He was pleased to see some of his students in the bookshop. He greeted them and they were, as always, courteous and respectful. They were also that little bit guarded in their attitude towards him. It wasn’t him as a person they distrusted, though perhaps distrust was too strong a word; it was him as a representative of the arrogant and greedy West.
He looked for Mr Cheng and found that white-haired and white-bearded old Chinese in a corner behind piles of books, talking to a tall black-haired Asian woman in Western dress – white blouse and blue skirt. His heart began to beat faster. There was no sensible reason why it should, for though the woman was Dr Abad’s daughter, ‘the beautiful Leila’, she was a stranger to him and besides, she was coloured.
In her letters to him his mother kept telling him that if he ever got married it must be to one of his own kind. She meant white. He had replied that she needn’t worry. He knew white men who had married coloured women and had seen, in spite of their efforts to keep it secret, how intolerable they found the burden of resentment, shame, and guilt with which they had saddled themselves. He had felt greatly relieved that he was free of that heartbreaking burden.
At the side of Leila’s neck was a tiny black mole: it made her skin look quite light. She was wearing a thin gold chain with a crucifix attached. He had heard that Dr Abad was a Christian; so, it seemed, was his daughter. His mother would not have counted that in her favour: being the wrong kind of Christian was worse than not being a Christian at all.
On her way out of the shop she passed him, so close he could smell her perfume. She gave him a smile that had his heart racing. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and had the most intelligent eyes. His own smile was too late and too timid.
He wanted to run after her. He wanted to be with her always. He wanted her to be his. Had he fallen in love?
For a wonder Mr Cheng did not seem to notice any transformation in Sandilands. He gave him his usual friendly chuckle. Sandilands was one of his best customers.
‘Good evening, Mr Sandilands,’ he said, in English. ‘I am pleased to tell you your books have arrived.’
Sandilands was not interested in the books. His mind was on Leila.
‘Who was that lady you were talking to, Mr Cheng?’ he asked. His voice was curiously hoarse.
‘Are you having a cold, Mr Sandilands? That was Dr Abad’s daughter, Madam Leila Azaharri. She is very beautiful, is she not?’
Sandilands felt an absurd jealousy. He wanted her beauty, tainted though it was, for himself alone.
‘And very clever,’ added Cheng. ‘One day she will be Prime Minister of this country. In ten years when it has become a democracy.’ He chuckled again but behind the steel-rimmed glasses his eyes were earnest.
Sandilands was not interested in her as a politician.
‘She’s a widow, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, sad to say. Her husband died in Malaya, a year or so ago. He was young. He was a lawyer like the lady herself. How is your own lady, Mr Sandilands? Miss Hislop, the angel of mercy with the yellow hair and the voice that makes lazy ones tremble.’
He had been a patient in the hospital where Jean Hislop, the Chief Nurse, had impressed him with her brisk, unsentimental efficiency. She had made sure the bedpans were not only promptly collected and properly emptied, but scoured too.
She wasn’t really Sandilands’ lady, though she often spoke and acted as if she was. Soon the post of Principal of the Teachers’ Training College would become vacant. As Vice-Principal Sandilands was favourite to fill it, but there was a snag: the Principal had to be married. It was not a snag in Jean’s eyes. All he had to do was marry her. She spoke enthusiastically of the children they would have: two boys and a girl. She would say it while they were making love. She pointed out that with his salary and pension as Principal and hers as Chief Nurse (though she expected to retire as Matron), they would be able to go home in a few years with money enough to buy a semi-detached villa in Morningside or Fairmilehead and send their children to superior schools. With her his future would be secure but dull. When he woke up in the morning and saw her pale face and fair hair on the pillow beside him he would feel pangs of disappointment. Suppose it was Leila’s darker face and coal-black hair – what would he feel? Shock and dismay perhaps; but also defiant joy.
‘Has she any children?’ he asked.
‘One little girl, now eight years of age.’
‘Oh.’ In spite of this complication Sandilands’ interest was not diminished.
‘I think she would like to meet you, Mr Sandilands.’
‘Oh. Why do you think that?’
‘She asked who was the tall man with the curly hair.’
‘Did she?’ Sandilands could not keep joy out of his voice.
‘When I said you were Mr Sandilands of the Training College she said she had heard of you from your students. She said they all spoke highly of you.’
Then Mr Cheng, still chuckling, went off to fetch the books.