sounds like so much labour,’ she says. ‘Wouldn’t it just be easier to have a picnic at Repulse Bay?’
Sophie looks at her reproachfully. ‘But it’s not the same,’ she says. ‘It’s the journey.’
Sophie’s husband claims to be in shipping, but Will thinks he’s in Intelligence. When he tells Trudy this, she cries, ‘That big lout? He couldn’t detect his way out of a paper bag!’ But Jamie Biggs is always listening, never talking, and he has a watchful air about him. If he’s that obvious, Will supposes he’s not very good. After Charles Pottinger left last year, someone had told Will that he was Intelligence. He hadn’t been able to believe it. Charles was a big, florid man who drank a lot and seemed the very soul of indiscretion.
Edwina Storch, a large Englishwoman who is the headmistress of the good school in town, has brought her constant companion, Mary Winkle, and they sit at the end of the table, eating quietly, talking to no one but each other. Will has seen them before. They are always around, but never say much.
Over dessert – trifle – Jamie says that all Japanese residents have been sent secret letters about what to do in case of an invasion, and that the Japanese barber chap in the Gloucester Hotel has been spying. The government is about to issue another edict that all wives and children are to be sent away without exception, but only the white British, those of pure European extraction, get passage on the ships. ‘Doesn’t affect me.’ Trudy shrugs, although she holds a British passport. Will knows that if she wanted, she could get on to a boat – her father always knows someone. ‘What would I do in Australia?’ she asks. ‘I don’t like anybody there. Besides, it’s only for pure English – have you ever heard of anything so offensive?’
She changes the subject. ‘What would happen,’ she asks, ‘if two guns were pointed at each other and then the triggers were pulled at the same time? Do you think the two people would get hurt or would the bullets destroy each other?’
There is a lively discussion about this that Trudy is soon bored with. ‘For heaven’s sake!’ she cries. ‘Isn’t there something else we can talk about?’ The group, chastised, turns to yet other subjects. Trudy is a social dictator and not at all benevolent. She tells someone recently arrived from the Congo that she can’t imagine why anyone would go to a Godforsaken place like that when there are perfectly pleasant destinations, like London and Rome. The traveller actually looks chagrined. She tells Sophie Biggs’s husband that he doesn’t appreciate his wife, and then she tells Manley she loathes trifle. Yet, no one takes offence; everyone agrees with her. She is the most amiable rude person ever. People bask in her attention.
At the end of dinner, after coffee and liqueurs, Manley’s houseboy brings in a big bowl of nuts and raisins. Manley pours brandy over it with a flourish and Trudy lights a match and tosses it in. The bowl is ablaze instantly, all blue and white flame. They try to pick out the treats without burning their fingers, a game they call Snapdragon.
Going to the bathroom later, Will glimpses Trudy and Victor talking heatedly in Cantonese in the drawing room. He hesitates, then continues on. When he returns, they are gone and Trudy is already back at the table, telling a bawdy joke.
After, they go to bed. Manley has given them a room next to his and they make love quietly. With Trudy, it is always as if she is drowning – she clutches at him and burrows her face into his shoulder with an intensity she would make fun of if she saw it. Sometimes the shape of her fingers is etched into his skin for hours afterwards. Later, Will wakes up to find Trudy whimpering, her face lumpy and alarming; he sees that her face is wet with tears.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
‘Nothing.’ A reflex.
‘Did Victor upset you?’ he asks.
‘No, no, he wants to … My father …’ She goes back to sleep. When he throws the blanket over her, her shoulders are as cold and limp as water. In the morning, she remembers nothing, and mocks him for his concern.
In the following weeks, the war encroaches – wives and children, the ones who had ignored the previous evacuation, leave on ships bound for Australia, Singapore. Trudy is obliged to make an appearance at the hospitals to prove she is a nurse. She undergoes training, declares herself hopeless, and switches to supplies instead. She finds the stockpiling of goods too amusing. ‘If I had to eat the food they’re storing, I’d shoot myself,’ she says. ‘It’s all bully beef and awful things like that.’
The colony is filled with suddenly lonely men without wives; they gather at the Gripps, the Parisian Grill, clamour to be invited to dinner parties at the homes of those few whose wives remain. They form a club, the Bachelors’ Club (‘Why do the British so love to form clubs and societies?’ Trudy asks. ‘No, wait, don’t say, it’s too grim.’) and petition the governor to bring back the women. Others, more intrepid, turn up suddenly with adopted Chinese ‘daughters’ or ‘wards’, dine with them and drink champagne, then disappear into the night. Will finds it amusing, Trudy less so. ‘Wait until I get my hands on them,’ she cries, while Will teases her about which Chinese hostess would soon get her claws into him.
‘You’re like a leper, darling,’ she counters. ‘You British men are going out of fashion. I might have to find myself a Japanese or German beau now.’
Later Will remembers this time so clearly, how it was all so funny and the war was so far away, yet talked about every day, how no one really thought about what might really happen.
Claire was waiting for the bus after Locket’s piano lesson when Will Truesdale drove up in the car. ‘Would you like a lift?’ he asked. ‘I’ve just finished for the day.’
‘Thank you, but I couldn’t put you out,’ she said.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘The Chens don’t mind if I take the car home for the night. Most employers want their cars left at home and the chauffeur to take public transport home, so it’s no bother.’
Claire hesitated, then got into the car. It smelled of cigarettes and polished leather. ‘It’s very kind of you.’
‘Did you have a good time at the Arbogasts’ the other day?’ he asked.
‘It was a very nice party,’ she said. She had learned not to be effusive, that it marked her as unsophisticated.
‘Reggie’s a good sort,’ he said. ‘It was nice to meet you there, too. There are too many of those women who add to the din but not to anything else. You shouldn’t lose that quality of seeing everything new for what it is. All the women here …’
He drove well, she thought, steady on the steering-wheel, his movements calm and unhurried.
‘You’re not wearing the perfume you had on the other day,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, wary. ‘That’s for special occasions.’
‘I was surprised that you had it on. Not many English wear it. It’s more the fashionable Chinese women. They like its heaviness. English women like something lighter, more flowery.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t aware.’ Claire’s hand went unconsciously to her neck, where she usually dabbed it on.
‘But it’s lovely that you wear it,’ he said.
‘You seem to know a lot about women’s scents.’
‘I don’t.’ He glanced over at her, his eyes dark. ‘I used to know someone who wore it.’
They rode in silence until they arrived at her building.
‘You teach the girl,’ he said, as she was reaching for the door, his voice suddenly urgent.
‘Yes, Locket.’ She said, taken aback.
‘Is