The Devil's Garden (16 page)

‘Well,' said Catchpole, self-righteously wig-straightening. ‘Now, that's what I call a rum do. I sometimes wonder whether the old man's really quite all there.'

* * * 

Pilchard had been aware of the heliotropic cat for several months. It kept mostly to the roofs and other elevated areas as it moved slowly round to bask and purr in the shifting sun but sometimes whorls of pigeon-feathers on the ground marked points where it had come down to strike. The solar timetable made the general sweep of its movements relatively predictable though it seemed to realise the importance of varying its routines and scheduled stops. During the occupation, cats had become as jumpy as nuns in a night club, rightly interpreting all friendly overtures as marks of evil designs. Occasionally its emerald eyes and Pilchard's own would meet and it would briefly pause and stare down at him, jet black and glossy, with a terrible clarity of vision that stripped away all human dissimulation, before sneering and moving on.

Ong was becoming more insistent. Pilchard's duties in the Orchid House offered few opportunities for gleaning edible supplies and Ong had unilaterally cut his rations. Often, when the food reached him there would now be nothing left but fermented manioc that smelt of babies' sick and when fruit was distributed at the end of a meal, there would be none for him. Their previous master–servant relationship counted for nothing and had, if anything, been reversed. He was the child sent home from the party without an orange. All his life, Pilchard had been a pudding-lover in a savoury world and now sugar was rarer than TNT. It had taken a long time to teach Ong the principles of English cooking—that fish only existed as an excuse for eating chips and that a main course was only valid as a precursor of puddings. And now those bitter lessons had been forgotten. Appeals went unheard. The Professor simply stared away into the distance, defining such practical unpleasantness out of existence, and lit a cigarette. The heliotropic cat would have to pay the price of his admission back into the charmed circle of survivors. It would have to be hunted and killed for the table, flung contemptuously at Ong's feet. But how? The Japanese had announced the confiscation of all means of death at a distance—on threat of death close up—and the ancient shotgun that had enforced the rule of law on the monkeys and squirrels in the gardens had been solemnly surrendered by the Professor. The roofs, over which the cat ranged, quickeared, with such poise and confidence, were fragile and inaccessible so high-level ambush was not an option. He had a fantasy of stealing Catchpole's wig and using it as a lure, a sort of fake rat, to trap the cat. Sometimes, he had seen it climb trees, presumably to catch the rodents that ate the coconuts, and so there must come a stage when it came down again in a series of ill-coordinated, backward-facing, jerky drops. That would be the moment to strike. He set a watch.

It was three hungry days before he caught sight of it through the pink mass of
Cymbidium insignine
. It was working the coconut trees over by the forest reserve and he watched with admiration as it emerged from the shadows, flexed its claws and leapt up at the trunk and then progressed just like a native nut-picker in a series of barbed leaps up into the canopy where it disappeared into silence. In the early afternoon, a brief but violent rustling announced a kill, probably a squirrel, and Pilchard crouched in the cover of a crimson bougainvillea, clutching a pruning knife, to wait until thirst drove it down again. A sleepy hour passed. Another. And then the scraping of claws on bark came from far up in the green shade as the cat slid, braked, slid again, edging ever closer until it stopped some ten feet above the ground and looked around with sharp eyes and pricked ears. Pilchard froze and held his breath. His thumb slid appraisingly over the edge of the pruning knife. The cat slid a little further down the trunk, now on the side away from him. Closer. Ever closer. Softly, softly catchee pussy. He could see its claws flexing and sliding and coiled his body to spring and … a hand fell on his shoulder.

‘Jesus Christ!' In a single moment he felt the knife drop from his dead fingers, his heart sought to burst out of his chest and the cat shot, a spitting, scratching horrent furball, between his astonished legs and skittered off into the undergrowth. He turned, shaking, and found a small Chinese, somewhat older than himself, wearing what seemed to be navy blue knickers and a torn vest, laughing up at him. Over his shoulder was a woven bag like those in the Malay twigware section of the museum.

‘Good afternoon, Tuan. I apologise for startling you.' It seemed to Pilchard that he spoke English far too well for someone who thought of navy knickers as an outer garment. ‘Cat got your tongue?'

‘What?' He leaned on a tree for support, wiped the sweat from his eyes.

‘I said “Good afternoon, Tuan”. Tuan works here in the garden?'

Pilchard nodded. He badly needed a drink—palm wine, tea, pond water—anything.

‘My name is Chen Guang. I have come from the mangrove research station specially to see Tuan.'

Mangroves had been largely cleared from around the shores of Singapore except in the northern backwaters where the gardens had been granted generous rights over several hundred acres of acrid and valueless mud, swamp and sea. As a mere research outstation, in the present situation, it had been left to its own devices, Britain abandoned by the Roman legions.

‘The mangroves? I don't understand.'

The old man smiled patiently. On closer examination, he was maybe not as old as he had seemed, maybe only in his forties. It was not the face. The body had stooped, now it straightened, seemed spry, almost youthful.

‘I have been protecting the mangroves for Tuan.' He spoke gently as if to a slow-witted child. ‘From tomfoolery.' He smiled at the trail of the absent cat. ‘There are bad men who come there to steal the mangrove poles. They take them and sell them in the market. Because they do not rot, the Malays use the poles to build their houses over the water.' Pilchard had seen the sellers hauling the great orange aerial roots about in the market, Tamils, big, hairy men, very dark, machete-wielding and muscular but with skinny calves—scary. He wondered how this little man could ever hope to stop them. ‘In return for my guardianship I ask only for a place to live with my small family and the right to fish for shrimps and prawns. They are very prolific this year.'

Since when did a simple fisherman ever use a word like ‘prolific' or ‘guardianship', very schoolbought words?

‘You know why they are so “prolific”?' The man smiled. ‘Death,' he said simply. ‘It is life from death. We do not care to eat them ourselves so we sell them to the Japanese who gobble them down and always want more. There is a sort of justice in it, eating humble pie. One day the prawns will consume Japanese bodies and
then
we will perhaps eat them but I do not think so. That is why I have brought Tuan this.' He stretched out his hand, closed. palm downward, like an invitation to play Stone, Paper, Scissors. Pilchard stared at it curiously and then held out his own upward-cupped hand and the two mated. Something soft was pressed into his palm and, looking down, he saw a roll of banknotes fit to choke a horse. ‘It is half the money of the prawns. Since the mangroves are Tuan's, perhaps the prawns are Tuan's too. Is it good?'

Pilchard was astonished. ‘Yes,' he said, taken aback. ‘Yes. It's good, all right. Very good. Thank you.' He slipped the money rapidly in his pocket. Enough to make a cat laugh.

‘One thing more I need from Tuan only, a simple paper for the Japanese, showing I am the official guardian of the mangroves. It is an administrative matter. The Japanese want so many pieces of paper. Otherwise they will trouble me and I am a man who treasures tranquillity.'

Pilchard thought rapidly. The money bounced comfortingly against his thigh, evoking memories of days of more rampant sexuality. There was no chance he would give it back.

‘Er … Let me think … Wait here. Please sit. I will return with a paper.' It was a matter of some ten minutes to get to the office and bang out a pompous letter on leftover, fancy, headed notepaper, backdated to the previous year, appointing Chen Guang to his non-existent office. He paused, then signed it ‘Fernando Dagama' with a great flourish and added a couple of the Professor's talismanic Japanese notices from the perimeter, slipped them all in an envelope. ‘If you put these on the gate, they will discourage visitors.'

The man smiled and tucked the envelope carefully away in a cheap wallet and stowed it in the bottom of his bag.

‘In three months, if we are spared, I will send another payment but I am getting old, it is far, I may send someone else. Don't worry. You will know them.' He walked slowly away without further ceremony or even a backward glance. Pilchard had the odd feeling that he had just sold his soul to the Devil. A silly fantasy! Reality lay in the roll in his pocket that he fingered lingeringly and translated, in his mind's eye, into a wealth of bully beef and eggs frying in luxurious fat-splatter. This was a real life-saver, incredible good luck. And why not? After all a black cat had just crossed his path.

* * * 

‘
This is Orphan Annie broadcasting to all my little orphan friends—I mean enemies
—
in the Pacific. Do you feel hated tonight? Are you worried about your wives and sweethearts back home? Don't be. You can be sure they are being taken real good care of by the non-combatants and those lonely young foreign workers with their big blue eyes. For
‘
any boneheads from the American South, well the news is, it's true what they say about Dixie and the big black boys down there are being
real
friendly to all your gals while you're away so they'll hardly be missing you at all …'
They were in the sitting room of the Cluny Road house, a room too small for social comfort, tuned to ‘Tokyo Rose', or rather any one of the dozen women who broadcast in English for the Japanese radio. The sound swelled and throbbed but could barely be heard over the pinging calls of frogs outside, excited by recent rain and eager to share their own southern comfort. Of late, reception had been poor but no one listened anyway until the evening, when radio waves zithered off the ionosphere to give a better signal. Whatever the reception, the Professor would allow no other station to be listened to. Having the wireless ostentatiously tuned to NHK was as necessary as the Emperor's photograph hung on the wall, an obligatory pinch of incense flung on the altar of conformity. To have a radio at all was anomalous, due to this being registered as a Japanese household, and listening to All India Radio was punishable by death. As a precaution, the tuning knob had been removed so that only permitted listening was possible.

‘Couldn't we at least have a local station. It's not the childish propaganda I object to so much as that dreadful American music,' whined Catchpole. ‘It's all right for you, Pilchard. You are not musical and therefore feel no pain. Do you suppose anyone here could afford to buy some new records? I'm sick to death of ‘Begin the Beguine' with the scratch at the end and side four of ‘Madam Butterfly'. Even having side three would be a change or waiting for the scratch in a different place. They have plenty in the market. Looted of course.'

The question was directed at Pilchard. It was understood that the Professor was Nelsonically deaf to any remarks made in English in this room. Pilchard's sudden rush of wealth had not passed unnoticed though he was careful to drip-feed it into the general economy of the Director's household. In the world outside the Gardens, after the first year of the occupation, food was only distributed by the official monopolies for the first twenty days of every month and thereafter people had to survive on fresh air and their wits. Only employees of Japanese companies, the
butais,
had access to extra supplies, much of which ended up on the black market, but Pilchard's white face stuck out far too much for him to dare go near it. Inflation raged through the city like a fever and he had to rely on Ping and Pong to buy for him, expensively and at largely theoretical risk of their own lives, so that the money went nowhere near as far as he had hoped. Their regular contact was a member of the police auxiliary, a ‘three-star-man', kept honest by the fact that he was also a cousin, who delivered straight to the Gardens. Pilchard had finally become carriage-trade. Catchpole, as ever sharp-eyed for advantage, had picked up on the new state of affairs at once, while the Professor was moved to surprised tears at the sudden appearance of two priceless pickled plums, one evening, on his dinner plate but knew better than to ask any questions.

‘I cannot stand records,' interrupted the Professor, looking up from his
Syonan Times,
‘any records. There is too much sadness about sitting in the tropics at night listening to gramophone records of far away. The wireless, for some reason, is quite different. The wireless is in the present tense—as you would say—the gramophone a quotation.'

Catchpole was watching Pilchard. Previously, by mutual consent, their paths had barely crossed. Now, suddenly, moon-faced Catchpole swam into his orbit, by accident, a dozen times a day in the Gardens. A few days ago, Pilchard had even been invited—absurdly—to Catchpole's bachelor room as if they were undergraduates together, about to have an earnest conversation about god or play chess far into the night. He half-wondered whether Catchpole would abandon the wig in his room, as women did the veil, but no. In the centre, stood an ancient iron bedstead whose resentful springs clinked like chain mail. The space around the bed was stuffed with useless loot, grabbed, with greed and no forethought, from the other houses in Cluny Road in the early days when their owners had been marched off and before they were taken over by Japanese. A radiogram with no plug was heaped with assorted dressing gowns on tangled coathangers. A worthless trombone, snapped in the middle as though by an infuriated practiquant of the instrument, leant drunkenly in one corner, while, in another, stood a pile of—surely almost priceless—dry batteries for the electric earhorn. There, Catchpole had perched awkwardly—as though incubating an egg—on a Regency-style striped banquette with lions' paw feet and plied him with Japanese plum brandy that tasted like alcoholic seawater and left a ring round the inside of his mouth rather like a greasy bathtub.