Ghostwritten (8 page)

Wil was short and fat, with thick calves, a barrel chest and a voice that could be heard all over the plantation. But his wife, Irene, who was English, was very gentle and softly spoken, as were their daughters, Susan and Flora. Susan was six years older than Flora and was slender and pale, like Irene, with waist-length blonde hair that she would let Flora and me brush. Susan was always sketching and painting and told us that she longed to be an artist when she grew up.

Flora, who was my age, looked more like Wil, sturdy and short. She had dark brown eyes, and blunt-cut chestnut hair that had a wonderful shine, which I envied. Almost from the day we met, Flora and I were inseparable; always at each other’s side as we played around the plantation and at school.

The nearest Dutch schools were in Bandung, three hours away. So Flora’s parents and mine rented a house there and our mothers took it in turns to look after us all, a month at a time. In the holidays we’d all return to Tempat Sungai.

I could sense that my father didn’t much care for Wil – I think he disliked his overbearing manner. But my mother and Irene were great friends. I became very fond of Irene too, and because of the time I spent with her, I picked up a good deal of English. I used to like looking at her copies of the
Home Notes
magazine which her parents sent her each month from their home in Kent. In particular, I enjoyed reading the recipes. I’d
copy them out so that my mother could make cottage pie or brandy snaps or scones, although the imperial measurements mystified me. Why should the word ‘ounces’ be abbreviated as ‘ozs’ when there was no ‘z’ in it? And why was there no ‘l’ or ‘b’ in the word ‘pound’?

I think I was an inquisitive child, nosy even, always fascinated by what the grown-ups were saying. I remember one summer, walking up the Jochens’ drive and hearing Irene and Susan talking in English on the verandah. Irene was trying to placate Susan, who was very upset, reassuring her that her father would ‘soon calm down’ and to ‘ignore him’. But when they saw me, they immediately started chatting to me in Dutch as though everything was fine.

Later, when I asked Flora about it, she told me that her father had discovered that Susan was in love with one of the rubber tappers, Arif. Arif was sixteen to Susan’s fourteen, tall and very attractive, with a warm smile and an athletic grace. Even I, at eight, could sense his appeal. That morning Wil, idly looking through Susan’s sketchbook, had found a portrait of Arif.

‘Dad went
berserk
,’ Flora told me, her eyes wide.

‘Why?’

‘Because you can tell, from Arif’s big moony eyes, that he’s in love with her too. But Dad shouted at Sue that he won’t have her “throwing herself away” on an
Inlander.
Mum said that it’s just a teenage crush and that he was being ridiculous. But Dad tore the portrait up then told Arif that he’d sack him if he even
looked
at Sue again.’

I remember trying to imagine what my own parents would say if I’d been Susan’s age and it had been me. I
decided that they wouldn’t mind. They’d never tried to stop Peter and me being friends with the local children. Peter’s best friend was a boy named Jaya who lived in the
kampong.
He and Peter fished together in the pond, digging up ant eggs for bait. Jaya would bring his wooden chess set up to our house and they’d set it out on the verandah and play. Because Peter was too young to start school, Mum taught him his letters and numbers. If Jaya was around, he’d join in, and my mother used to say how good he was at maths.

A few of the Dutch people we knew had criticised my parents for their ‘naive’ attitude towards the local people. Wil Jochen sometimes muttered about it. Ralph and Marleen Dekker, tea planters at Tasikmalaya, a few miles away, openly disapproved. Their son, Herman, was two years older than Peter, and our families occasionally visited each other, though my mother disliked Mrs Dekker’s air of superiority; her mother had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Wilhelmina, and Mrs Dekker made sure that everyone knew it. But my dad wanted to be on good terms with the other planters in the area; and so one April Sunday – it was Peter’s birthday – the Dekkers came over for lunch.

I remember Mrs Dekker’s expression as she watched Jaya splashing about in the pool with Peter and Herman. Then she turned to my mother. Was it ‘quite wise’ she asked her, to ‘cross the social boundaries’?

‘Jaya’s a dear little boy, Marleen,’ my mother responded quietly. ‘He and Peter are great friends.’

‘But Anneke – to let him
swim!
’

‘Herman and Peter don’t seem to mind, Marleen. Why should you?’

‘Because this sort of familiarity isn’t … right.’

‘It’s “right” in our home,’ my mother retorted calmly.

‘No good can come of it,’ Mrs Dekker insisted. ‘It’s my belief that you’ll regret it.’

My mother’s face flushed. ‘What is there to regret about a happy friendship? As for no good coming of it, I believe that you’re wrong. It surely
is
good for children of different cultures to have fun together, because that builds understanding which, heaven knows, the world needs more than ever at the moment.’

‘But the fact is—’

‘Don’t
tell
me,’ my mother interrupted, ‘that “east is east and west is west”. How often have I heard
that
in this country?’

‘That’s because it’s true,’ Mrs Dekker insisted. ‘We’re not the same as the
inlanders
, Anneke. You shouldn’t pretend that we are.’

My mother flinched. ‘I’m not pretending anything, Marleen. I’m simply surprised that you would object to a nice little boy having fun – especially as it’s
my
home that he’s having fun in, not yours. And to be frank, I find your high-and-mighty attitude rather ridiculous, given that we planters are really no more than glorified farmers!’

Mrs Dekker didn’t answer, but I remember being aware of a sudden chill in the air and, shortly afterwards, the Dekkers left.

This incident seemed, on the surface, a trivial matter, but afterwards my mother said she felt bad about it and wished that she’d restrained herself. My father assured her that it would soon be forgotten. It wasn’t, and it would come back to haunt my mother in a devastating way.

As for the views that she had expressed, they were consistent with what she and my father had always taught Peter and me – that we were no better or worse than anyone else on Java. We were simply lucky to be living in such a beautiful and bountiful country – over which a shadow was falling.

As children we were vaguely aware that war was coming to Europe – a place that, to us, seemed so remote, it might as well have been another planet. But the grown-ups talked of little else. At that time everyone listened to the Dutch East Indies radio station. From this we knew that Austria, Britain and France had declared war on Germany, and that Canada had then done so too. As Germany seized one country after another, the adults became more and more sombre. They kept talking about the ‘neutrality of the Netherlands’.

‘What’s that mean?’ Peter asked as we all ate supper one night.

‘That Holland has chosen to stay out of the war,’ my mother explained. ‘Which means that Hitler wouldn’t dare to invade it.’

‘He would,’ my father countered bleakly. ‘And he will.’

Then in May 1940, during half-term, my mother switched on the radio and we heard the newscaster announce that the Kingdom of the Netherlands had fallen. My mother closed her eyes. I looked at my father. His head had sunk into his hands.

I was surprised at how easily Klara confided in me that first day. The diffidence that she’d shown at first quickly evaporated, and she’d revisited her past with a passionate immediacy, as though describing very recent events. I felt myself warm to her, though she seemed almost oblivious to me as she spoke, in a low voice, her hands clasped, looking slightly away.

Many of Klara’s anecdotes were about her brother, Peter: Peter learning to swim; Peter catching a carp; Peter getting malaria and spending a month in hospital; Klara’s joy when he came home. Then, at the end of the afternoon, I’d reached forward and turned off the tape.

‘That’s probably enough for today, Klara.’

‘Is the hour up?’ She looked surprised. ‘It’s gone by so quickly.’

‘For me too. I’ve absolutely loved listening to you. I feel I’m there, on Java, with you and Flora, and Peter.’ I glanced at my pad. I’d scribbled
tested to destruction
, which must surely be a reference to what her mother
had faced during internment. I’d also written
Mrs D – come back to haunt.
‘Klara, you mentioned that you’ve lived a lot longer than your parents …’

‘I have. My father was only forty-eight when he died.’

‘That’s young.’ I tried to work out the dates. ‘Did he die during the war?’

‘No: miraculously, he survived it, but his health had been ruined. So many men didn’t make it into their fifties because of what they’d been through. A vast number were held in prison camps, where they were starved, or got beriberi, or were tortured by the Kempeitai – the Japanese military police, who were utterly brutal. As we know, huge numbers of POWs were transported to build the Thai–Burma Railway, where a third of them died. What isn’t widely known was that thousands more were taken to Japan to be slave labour in factories and coal mines. And that –’ Klara blinked, as though still struggling to comprehend it – ‘was what had happened to my father.’

‘Did your mother survive the war?’

‘She did. She lived to sixty-three which, though better than forty-eight, is still not what you could call a long life.’

‘And … Peter?’

Her eyes clouded. ‘Peter was ten.’

‘How terrible,’ I murmured. ‘Did he die in the camp?’

‘Yes. In early August, 1945.’

‘So close to the end.’

‘So close,’ she echoed bleakly. ‘Five days.’

‘I’m
so
sorry. You’ve talked about Peter a great deal.’

‘Have I?’ she said absently.

‘Yes. You obviously adored him.’

Klara’s face grew pale. For a moment I thought she was going to cry. ‘I did adore him,’ she said quietly, ‘and I still miss him and I think about him every day – every hour – he’s nearly always in my thoughts and I just
wish
, with all my heart, that I …’ She bit her lip. ‘Siblings share the same childhood memories,’ she went on. ‘They even share the same genes. So to lose a brother or sister is to lose a part of oneself. People say that it’s like losing a limb, but it’s much more than that. It’s as though a piece has been gouged out of your heart.’

‘I know …’ I’d said it impulsively. ‘I mean, I … understand.’

Klara’s face hardened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly, ‘but I don’t see how you
could
, unless the same thing had happened to you.’ I was silent. ‘Not long after Harold died, a friend from church told me that she knew how I felt. But she was only fifty, and her husband was very much alive. She was simply showing sympathy, but sympathy is very different to genuine fellow-feeling based on shared experience. I’m sorry, Jenni,’ Klara went on quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to sound judgemental; I’m just glad, for your sake, that you
don’t
know how I feel.’ I nodded my assent, then pretended to look for something in my bag while I composed myself. Klara stood up, stiffly. ‘I’m a little tired,’ she said softly.

‘It’s not surprising.’ I put the top on my pen. ‘The memoir process is exhausting, physically and emotionally.’ She nodded.

‘So I’ll leave you in peace for now. Thanks for all the coffee and cake you’ve plied me with; it was delicious.’

I gathered up the cups and plates and took them to
the kitchen; then I came back and picked up my bag. ‘So I’ll be here in the morning, Klara.’ I smiled my goodbye then walked to the door.

‘I see him,’ I heard her say.

I turned, my heart thudding. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Peter,’ Klara murmured. ‘I see Peter. Or rather, I feel his presence.’

‘His presence?’

‘Yes. There are times when I’m certain that he’s with me, right beside me. Sometimes I even imagine that I can hear him breathing, but then I realise it’s just the sound of the sea. He’d be seventy-seven now,’ she went on, ‘with white hair and wrinkled skin, like me. But he’d still be my little brother and we’d still be great friends, and we’d be able to talk to each other about our parents, and Jasmine, and Susan and Flora, and about all the happy times we had on Java before …’ Tears glittered in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry you’re upset, Klara. I wish there was something I could say to make it easier, but I know there isn’t.’ I opened my bag and passed her a tissue.

‘How can one look back on one’s whole life, and remember beloved family members and friends
without
being upset? I expected to be, which is why it’s taken me so long to agree to this memoir. Anyway …’ She gave me a watery smile. ‘Until tomorrow, Jenni.’

‘Until tomorrow …’

As I walked back I wondered what Klara had been about to say.
I just wish with all my heart that I …
What did she wish? It had been a cry of regret. And why, after so many years, was her grief so raw? It was clear that she was still profoundly affected by whatever had happened to Peter.

As I went into the cottage I switched on my phone and, to my surprise, saw a missed call from Rick. It jolted me out of Klara’s world, back into the dismal reality of my own failing relationship. I pressed the green button, but couldn’t get a signal. Then, remembering what Henry had advised, I went back outside and walked down the lane. As the number rang, I could hear the soft roar of the waves.

When Rick answered, the longing I felt for him overwhelmed me.

‘Jen – how are you?’

‘I’m all right. It’s
so
nice to hear your voice, Rick. How are things?’

‘Not bad, though I’m missing you.’ I allowed myself to hope. ‘And how’s your Dutch lady?’

I watched a thrush foraging in the hedgerow. ‘She’s fine. I’ve been with her most of the day.’

‘Is she a good talker?’

‘She was reserved at first, and nervous, but now she talks quite fluently, almost as if I’m not there. It’s as though she’s on her own, explaining her life to herself.’ I shivered in the wind and walked on. ‘How’s everything with you?’

‘Pretty good. I went to see the folks today.’ Rick’s parents, Tony and Joy, still lived in the house near Oxted that Rick had grown up in. ‘Ralph and Becky were there with the kids; everyone sends you their love.’

I imagined the noisy family lunch, the adults chatting over coffee while the four children squabbled over toys, or ran around in the garden. ‘I’m sorry not to have seen them.’ This was only half true. There were times when I found it a strain being with such a happy and close-knit family group.

‘Rick – I hope you didn’t talk to them about us.’ His parents had always welcomed me, but I’d sensed their disappointment that their son was with a woman who didn’t want to have children.

‘Of course I didn’t. I just told them that you were in Cornwall, for work, and that I was missing you, which is true.’

‘And I’ve missed
you
, Rick, so much. But I thought we’d agreed not to contact each other for the first week.’

‘I wouldn’t have done,’ he responded, ‘but your mother’s just phoned. As that happens so rarely I felt I should tell you.’

I’d come to a gap in the hedge; beyond it lay fields, then the lapis sea, filmed with gold in the sinking sun. ‘So … what did she say?’

‘Not much – only that she hadn’t spoken to you in a long time; she sounded regretful about it.’ We hadn’t been in touch since March, I realised guiltily, when she’d rung to wish me a happy birthday. ‘She asked where you were, so I explained that you were in Cornwall, working.’

‘You didn’t say where, did you?’

‘Well … yes.’ I imagined the blow that this would have given her. ‘I mean, why not?’ Rick went on, clearly irritated by the conversation. He always hated the way I refused to talk about my mother. ‘You didn’t say that I shouldn’t tell her.’

‘True – but then I didn’t think that she’d phone. So … how did she react?’

‘She’d been chatting to me – she was friendly, but when I told her where you were, she went very quiet. Before she could hang up I said that you’d phone her.’

‘I will. When I’m back in London.’

‘Why not call her from there?’ Rick heaved a frustrated sigh. ‘It’s really sad, Jenni, this thing you have about your mother. And it’s weird that I’ve never met her.’

‘I’ve told you why—’

‘No,’ he interrupted vehemently. ‘You haven’t, at least, not in any way that I’ve been able to understand.’

‘She and I just don’t … get on.’ I thought of Rick’s parents, still together after forty years, still in the same house in which they’d brought up their children. Rick had had only stability and continuity. All I’d known was tragedy and change.

‘It’s a shame, Jen. Especially as your mum’s so young: she’s going to be in your life for a long time, so why shut her out? I feel sorry for her.’ He wouldn’t if he knew the truth, I reflected. I turned and headed back up the lane. ‘What I really wanted to say, though, is that if things do, somehow, work out, then I’d like us to visit her.’ I stopped, my heart pounding. ‘Is that okay, Jen?’

No, it isn’t, I wanted to say; because if we went to her house, then you’d know the truth. Instead,

I closed my eyes and said, ‘Yes.’

The next morning I woke at dawn, as usual; I lay there thinking about my mother. I’d texted her to say that I’d phone her when I was back in London. She hadn’t responded. But then it must have been a shock for her to learn where I was. She must think me callous, I reflected, going back to Polvarth – and for work, as though it was just another job. She wouldn’t understand it. As the light filtered in, my thoughts turned to Peter.
How had he died? Klara clearly wasn’t ready to tell me, and every instinct told me not to ask.

I got up and worked, transcribing the last part of our first interview. When I’d finished, I walked up to the farm. As I strolled down the track the ginger cat came up to me and I bent to stroke it. I saw Henry lifting lobster pots off the pick-up truck.

‘Morning,’ I called out.

He smiled. ‘Morning, Jenni.’ A young man stepped down from behind the wheel. ‘This is my son Adam. Adam, this is Jenni; she’s helping Granny with her memoirs.’

Adam was in his late twenties, with his mother’s fair colouring and his father’s lean face. His blond hair was long, dreadlocked, and tied in a ponytail. As he lifted his right hand in greeting I saw that it was flecked with green and blue paint. I imagined him behind an easel, gazing at the sea.

‘Hi, Adam. Caught much?’ I gestured towards the pots.

‘Not bad,’ he answered. ‘Two monkfish, five sole, eight bass and six lobsters.’ He lifted two of the pots off the truck and I saw the speckled blue creatures, their antennae quivering through the rope-work. The cat jumped up and batted its paws at them. ‘Cut it out, Ruby.’ Adam lifted the pots out of the cat’s reach, then handed them to his father, who took them into the farmhouse, leaving a trail of water on the dusty ground. Adam turned back to me, squinting into the sunlight. ‘So how’s it going with my gran?’

‘We’ve made a good start. She’s a remarkable person.’

He nodded. ‘Gran’s the bees’ knees. We’re really glad she’s doing it. I’d given up believing that she ever would.’

‘Why do you think she’s changed her mind?’

‘Turning eighty?’ he suggested. ‘Becoming a great-grandmother probably had something to do with it too; my girlfriend Molly and I have a six-month-old. What do you think, Dad?’ he asked his father, who’d just emerged from the farmhouse.

‘What do I think about what?’

‘Jenni was wondering why Gran’s decided to write her memoirs. I said it was probably the big eight-oh.’

‘Partly,’ Henry answered. ‘But I suspect that it’s mainly because of Jane.’ He swung two more pots off the truck. ‘She’s my mother’s best friend,’ he explained to me.

‘She talked to me about her,’ I said.

‘I think seeing Jane losing her memories has shocked my mother into wanting to preserve her own – she hasn’t said as much, but that’s what I believe. Anyway, my boy, we’d better get moving.’

‘Sure, Dad.’ Adam gave me a broad smile. ‘See you then, Jenni.’

‘Yes. See you.’

I went into the shop. It was large and cool, the walls painted white, with a refrigerated counter containing dressed lobsters and crabs, gleaming plaice and Dover sole and fat white scallops still in their shells. There were sacks of potatoes and, on the tables, neat piles of vegetables and fruit. The shelves were stacked with jars of Polvarth marmalade, Polvarth quince jelly, assorted Polvarth jams and lemon curd. There were home-made loaves and cakes, and trays of eggs. By the door, in steel buckets, were bunches of red and yellow dahlias. Four of what I now recognised to be Adam’s paintings were on the
wall, next to a poster for the exhibition of his work at the Driftwood Gallery in Trennick.

Klara was serving someone. She put the woman’s purchases into a paper carrier, then tore off the receipt and handed it to her.

The customer left, then a moment later returned. ‘Sorry, I meant to ask if you’ll have any pumpkins. My grandchildren are coming down for half-term next week. They’ll want one for Halloween.’

‘I’m growing a dozen,’ Klara answered. ‘Shall I set one aside for you?’

‘Please,’ the woman said. ‘The biggest, if you don’t mind.’ She gave Klara her name and then left.

As Klara wrote the woman’s name down, I glanced round the shop. ‘You do all this on your own?’

She looked up. ‘I do, but it’s only open for four hours a day so it’s not too bad, and Adam helps me when he’s got time. I saw him unloading – did he catch much?’ I told her. ‘That’s good. All the lobsters will sell. So … let’s go.’ She untied her apron and hung it on a hook. Then she turned over the
Open
sign and closed the shop door.