Читать книгу The Scarlet Macaw - S.P. Hozy - Страница 11

Singapore

December 3, 1923

My Dearest Annabelle,

To say “I miss you” is to put into cheap, inadequate words a longing that surpasses anything I have ever felt. I am here with Sutty and we have settled into the Raffles Hotel and are quite comfortable, except that half of me is missing because you are not here. Sutty says that if I don’t stop moping around like a lovesick old elephant he’s going to turn me into a character in one of his books and have me die a horrible death. So come to Singapore, I implore you, and let’s be married and fulfill our destiny. Don’t abandon me to Sutty’s pen.

When I think of you in dreary old London in December my heart breaks anew. The sun shines so brightly here every day that we’re forced to shield our eyes. We are like moles who are obliged to live above ground when we have been bred by Mother Nature (as Mr. Darwin said) to exist in a gloomy netherworld called England. We are squinty-eyed and pathetic creatures, our skin turning red wherever it is exposed and our stomachs protesting at the unfamiliar food.

Ah, but I mislead you, my dear. I make this place sound like some kind of hell, when it is only that because you are not here. In fact, it’s a glorious place, full of trees and flowers most exotic, and the sun, the sun, is magnificent and warm. And when it rains, it’s usually a lovely, warm, soft rain, not like those sharp pellets of filthy water that fall from England’s skies.

As for the writing, I have been eking out a word here and there. Nothing like Sutty’s proliferation of prose, of course. But then, who else but Sutty can turn the most prosaic encounter into a story of brilliant proportions? He is a true genius while I am but a poor scribbler, aspiring to greatness but always sliding ever backwards because my feet are planted, not so firmly, in the mud. I cannot seem to land on solid ground again like Sutty, because … because … if you were here, you could tell me why.

My Annabelle, my Sweet Annabelle, I long to see you and to hold you in my arms. Come to me, my darling. Sutty wants you to come, too, if only so he can enjoy his beer without hearing me weep.

I love you. I love you.

Your adoring

Francis

Annabelle finished reading Francis’s letter and gazed around the dreary sitting room of her father’s house. She had grown up in these small, stuffy rooms and it was the only home she had known. Since her mother’s death last year, she had been housekeeper and companion to her father, a man once hale and hearty, now suddenly old and broken. “I’ll be myself soon enough,” he kept telling her. “Don’t you worry about me.” But how could she leave him and go halfway around the world? And how would Francis support her, with his wanting to be a writer and all? It was all right for Sutty; he had a small income from his grandfather. And people knew him and were buying his books. But Francis hadn’t yet made a name for himself. Who would pay good money for a book written by Francis Adolphus Stone when they could buy Edward Sutcliffe Moresby?

Annabelle had begun to worry about such things since her mother’s death. She was not yet twenty-four years old but already she felt the burden of life falling on her shoulders like the heavy old woolen cloak her mother had worn when she worked as a nursing sister during the war. Sometimes Annabelle thought she would suffocate just thinking about all the bad things that could happen to a person. She hadn’t wanted Francis to go to Singapore with Sutty. The ship would surely sink on the way; he would get a fever and would be buried at sea; or, if he did get to Singapore, there was malaria to worry about and no end to the diseases people were struck down with. She had heard the stories about cemeteries filled with the graves of babies and young women and men who had succumbed to the heat and the brackish water and the contaminated food.

Francis had laughed at her fears. Although Sutty, she noticed, had not. He was a more experienced traveller. He had seen things he didn’t like to talk about, but they were in his stories. She was sure he hadn’t made them up. She believed that they were basically true, they were so believable. Francis said it was because Sutty was such a good writer. Of course she thought they were true, he told her. You were supposed to believe them. Look at Shakespeare. He wrote about tragedy because people wanted a good cry, and he wrote comedy because people also wanted to laugh. It’s all about bums in seats and cash in the till. People wouldn’t pay for it if they didn’t believe it.

But Francis was an optimist, always seeing the best, and she was a pessimist, although she preferred to think of herself as a realist. The world was not a happy place and life wasn’t all happy endings. Even if you worked hard and did all the right things, you could still get run over by one of those beastly automobiles or lorries that seemed to be multiplying like rabbits. Or you could fall off of a bicycle and break your neck. Just last week she’d read about a woman who’d stepped into a lift where she worked and she’d fallen twelve floors to her death because the door had accidentally opened when there was no lift, just empty space. There were lots of words for these events — accidents, bad luck, providence, destiny — but to Annabelle there was only one word: life. Life was dangerous and if you ignored that fact, or chose to believe otherwise, you did so at your peril.

Oh, but she missed Francis and his foolish optimism and his dreams of being a writer. She loved him more than anything because he almost made her believe that life could be good. That she would be safe with him. That because they loved each other, everything would work out, somehow. She wanted to be with him so badly, but in Singapore? It wasn’t the last place on earth she wanted to be, but it was nearly the last. China was probably worse, or India, or maybe Russia. Thank God Francis hadn’t gone to any of those countries. Or Africa. Singapore didn’t seem so bad when you compared it to some of those places. At least there were English people there, but there were English people in India and nothing could induce her to go to India. Oh, what to do? she thought.

She knew Francis had no intention of coming back to England, at least not for a long time, and not unless something miraculous happened, like a rich uncle (if only he had one) dying and leaving him a fortune. He had counted up all his money to the last penny and told her, “It’s either five months in England or five years in Singapore, including the passage. And what can I write in five months? Think, Annabelle, think how much I could do in five years. Five whole years, if I’m careful.” If I’m careful, he’d said. Not if we’re careful. So did the five years include a wife or not?

And what about her father? How could she leave him alone to fend for himself? She’d be worried the whole time that he wasn’t eating or that he was drinking too much or smoking too many cigarettes. It was an impossible choice.

Maybe what she should do was go down to the P&O office and find out what it would cost for a one-way passage and when the next available ship would be sailing. That way she’d be able to tell Francis that it wasn’t possible for her to come. That it was too expensive or there wasn’t another ship leaving for four months. Then maybe he’d decide to come back and get a job and they could get married, and maybe even have a family. They could live with her father and they wouldn’t have to pay rent.

London

December 20, 1923

Dearest Francis,

I miss you so terribly and wish we could be together. I went to the P&O this week and they told me a one-way fare to Singapore would be fifty pounds, which we simply cannot afford. And the next ship will not be until the beginning of February.

Father is not doing as well as I would like. Of course, he always says he’s fine, but I know it’s because he doesn’t want to be a bother. But since Mother died, he’s aged ten years. I want to weep whenever I look at him. He shuffles about like an old man and falls asleep in his chair in the evening listening to the wireless. It breaks my heart, Francis. He’s not even fifty-five years old.

The weather here is nasty, as usual. A miserable chill that pierces to the bone. I envy you your sunshine and heat. The price of beef has gone up again, and soon we’ll be reduced to boiling the bones for dinner. As for butter and cream, we’ve had to cut in half what we usually take.

Francis, I hope you are eating properly and well, and not drinking anything but the boiled water. Always make sure they boil it well, because I’ve heard that they just take water from the tap and fill the bottles with it. Go into the kitchen, if you must, to be sure. Better to be safe than sorry. And always wear a hat in the sun. It is very common to have sun stroke in the tropics and you don’t want that.

Please take care of yourself and write again soon. Tell me everything you’re doing. Give my regards to Sutty and tell him I expect him to look out for you. Listen to what he says because he has experience in these things, meaning life in foreign countries, as he’s travelled so much.

Please have a happy, happy Christmas, although I shall be missing you every minute. I miss you and think about you all the time and dream about you every night.

All my love, your

Annabelle

The next letter, addressed to “Miss Annabelle Sweet,” arrived in early January and was from Sutty. In it was a cheque for sixty pounds.

You must come, it said, because Francis is at his wits’ end, and so am I, if truth be told. He’s impossible to be with because all he talks about is you, Annabelle, and all he wants is you, his “Sweet Annabelle,” as he calls you. I implore you, Annabelle, for my sake if not for Francis’s, to come to Singapore. If I could put him on a ship and send him back, I would. But he is, quite honestly, better off here. You could live very well here and Francis could write something important. It’s not forever, Annabelle, but for now. Try to see it that way and maybe it won’t seem so bad to you. If you don’t come, he will waste his time and his money yearning for you, and I will go mad listening to him!

Use the money to buy passage on the next ship, and consider it my wedding gift to you. No one will be happier to see you than I (except, of course, Francis Stone!) and we will both see to it that you are happy, comfortable, and above all, safe.

I promise. In anticipation of seeing you soon, I remain,

Yours,

Edward Sutcliffe Moresby

Annabelle embarked on the P&O steamship Narkunda on February 5, 1924. She had used Sutty’s cheque to pay for her fare, but had debated with herself long and hard before booking passage. Her father’s sister Ethel, herself recently widowed, had come for Christmas and had been persuaded to stay on. Her only child, a son, had taken the Public Services Examination and had been accepted in the British Indian Civil Service. He had left for Bombay in November and Ethel had found the loneliness more than she could bear. Although Annabelle’s father was reluctant to see her go, her aunt had assured her that he would be fine and that she was looking forward to keeping house for him. He was her favourite brother, she said, and it would also help her to have something to do.

So Annabelle had no more excuses for not going to Singapore, other than the fact that she did not want to go, but she didn’t dare say that to anyone for fear it would get back to Francis. If she hadn’t loved him with all her heart, she might have found a way out of going. Or she might have tried to persuade him to come back to England. But she knew it was his dream to write and, because she had no dream of her own other than to marry Francis and have a family, she could not take away his chance to see it through. They would find a way, as he had said to her so many times. They would be happy.

The ship was to travel by way of Gibraltar to Port Said and Aden, then on to Bombay, Colombo in Ceylon, Penang Island, and then down the Straits of Malacca to Singapore. It would take about a month to get there and Annabelle fretted that she would be bored and alone the whole time.

Much to her surprise, the trip turned out to be relatively pleasant. After a few days of nausea that came in waves — a description she came to understand firsthand as she experienced the ship’s rolling beneath her in perfect harmony with the undulating sea — she found her “sea legs” and was able to take walks on the passenger deck and even enjoyed gazing at the stars in the seemingly endless black night sky. Standing on the ship’s deck she could believe that the world was flat, for there was nothing beyond the water and the sky. They came together in the distance like two sheets of paper whose edges were sealed by the unseen hand of God.

She was seated in the dining room with a couple from Brighton who were doing God’s work in Borneo. They told her about the history of the Anglican Church mission in Brunei and how the “White Rajah” of Brunei, James Brooke, had invited the first Anglican missionaries in 1848.

“White Rajah?” Annabelle queried. “I must profess my ignorance,” she said. “I know nothing about the history of this part of the world.”

The Hendersons, a pious young couple who had been married only a few years and who shared a zeal for bringing heathens and cannibals to God, were only too glad to enlighten her.

“James Brooke,” Harold Henderson explained, “was originally in the Bengal Army attached to the British East India Company in Calcutta. This would have been around 1818 or 1820. After he resigned from the army, he tried his hand at some Far East trading, but by all accounts he didn’t do so well at that. In the 1830s he came into some money — an inheritance from his father — and he bought a ship and sailed for Borneo. Well, when he got there, to a place called Kuching in Sarawak, there was some kind of fighting going on, an uprising against the Sultan by the native Dayaks, who were headhunters and pretty fierce fighters. James Brooke threw in his hand with the Sultan and helped settle things down, and for that, the Sultan made Brooke an official Rajah of Sarawak. Rajah means prince or chief. And he actually ruled the place, too. It wasn’t just an empty title.”

“My goodness,” said Annabelle, a little breathlessly, “that’s quite a story.” Beryl Henderson, a small woman with thin arms and large hands that reminded Annabelle of a washerwoman’s, was nodding in agreement.

“Yes,” she said. “Isn’t it? It sounds like something out of Kipling, made up, you know. But it’s all true.”

Harold, a reedy man with narrow shoulders, a thin neck, and hair the colour of an orange tabby cat said, “Yes, absolutely. Every word of it is true. He ruled as Rajah until he died in the late 1860s, and then his nephews inherited his position. One of them, his great-nephew, actually, Vyner Brooke, is the Rajah as we speak. He has been since his father, the second rajah’s death.”

“And are there still headhunters and cannibals?” asked Annabelle, wondering how far Borneo was from Singapore.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact there still are, you know, back in the jungle,” said Harold. “But we’ve been making steady progress over the years, and many of our converts among the Dayaks have themselves taken up the cause and have brought many of their heathen brethren to Jesus.”

By “we” Annabelle took it to mean that Harold was referring to the Anglican Church, not himself and Beryl. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said, although not as glad as she would have been had he told her cannibals no longer existed in that part of the world.

Beryl picked up the thread of the conversation. “Doing God’s work is not easy,” she said, “but it is rewarding beyond measure. For every soul we are able to bring to Christ, we feel God’s presence become ever stronger. He loves us and protects us from harm. You cannot imagine how grateful we are that He has brought us to this place so we can do His work and spread His word. It is its own blessing.”

“Indeed it is,” said Harold. “Indeed it is.”

When she wasn’t talking with the Hendersons, Annabelle found herself observing the social mores aboard ship. There seemed to be a lot of single young women like herself on the way to take up married life with a young man who had served his time either in the civil service or in the commercial service with some trading company or other. Most companies forbade their new employees from marrying during the first — and sometimes even the second — five-year term of employment. It often took eight or ten years for a young man to begin earning a salary large enough to accommodate a wife and family.

“Bloody unfair, I say,” said Maisie Turner, who was about to celebrate her twenty-ninth birthday. “Why should some rubber company tell me when I can get married?” She and Annabelle had been getting their hair washed in the ship’s beauty parlour and had struck up a conversation. Annabelle thought that Maisie was very attractive for her age, but noticed that there were already little pouches forming under her eyes. She could see a varicose vein snaking down Maisie’s left calf. It does seem unfair, she thought, to make people wait until they’re almost thirty to marry. But she guessed they had their reasons.

She noticed that there were a lot of handsome unmarried men on the ship, returning from home leave, and Maisie and some of the other girls went dancing every night. There was no shortage of male attention on board the ship. If she had wanted to, Annabelle knew she could probably dance all the way to Singapore, and with a different man every night. But she had no interest in other men, nor did she particularly want to drink cocktails and smoke cigarettes the way Maisie and her chums did. Many nights when she gazed up at the stars, she wished with all her heart that Francis could be there with her. How romantic it all was. In the middle of the ocean you could imagine that time had stopped forever and that the ship would never dock. There might be nothing in the world beyond this ship, and the ship was a tiny speck in a grand universe. What earthly difference does it make, she wondered, if you brought a hundred or a thousand or even ten thousand heathen headhunters to Jesus? What did anything matter in a universe so infinite?