The Pearl of Penang by Clare Flynn (best books to read for students txt) 📗

Mary stretched her lips into a tight line. ‘Look, Evie, it’s extremely unlikely he would have survived as a white man behind enemy lines. If he was lucky, he was killed in a skirmish. If he wasn’t, and was captured, he would almost certainly have been executed.’

Evie shuddered. But something inside was telling her that if Arthur was dead, she’d know it. She’d be able to sense it, and she didn’t.

Mary broke the silence. ‘What will you do when you’re back in England?’

‘Get the children into schools. Buy a home for us. I’ve been making enquiries and it appears I can sell Batu Lembah to one of the big companies. I never want to set foot in that place again. It’s cursed for me. I’m renting the house in George Town. Thank God, Aunty Mimi and Benny both came through the war. They want to stay on there to look after whoever rents the place. And I’ve given them each a little nest egg. It was the least I could do after the government abandoned them.’

‘And the other estate? The one the Hyde-Underwoods managed?’

‘I’ll keep Bellavista if Reggie wants to continue to manage it or sell to him if he wants to buy – Douglas wanted Hugh to take over from him eventually. I always intended to stay close to Doug’s wishes. But I can’t live my whole life based on what he wanted. And it’s not right for Hugh to be forced to follow in the steps of a father he never knew. He has to make his own choices.’

‘And you? What about you, Evie?’

‘I’ll keep looking for Arthur. That’s all I want to do.’

31

January 1946, London

At a coveted window table in the Lyons’ Corner House in Coventry Street, near Piccadilly Circus, Evie was sitting with Jasmine and Hugh, surrounded by carrier bags full of school uniform. She was exhausted. Remembering Mary Helston’s assertion that England was always cold and gloomy, Evie had to admit her friend was right. Today had been draining, trailing from shop to shop, an increasingly tetchy Hugh dragging his feet, while Jasmine tried not to show her boredom with the whole business. London was grim, foggy, and still bearing the scars of the Blitz, gaps in rows of buildings like missing teeth, bomb sites everywhere. Getting the school uniforms had been a trial – to get each child kitted out had necessitated visits to several different stores as rationing meant stocks were desperately low.

During their time in Australia, Hugh and Stanford Hyde-Underwood had formed a solid friendship, so that it was unthinkable that they should be separated in England. Reggie had returned to Bellavista and Evie had agreed a plan for him to continue to manage the estate with an option to buy eventually. She herself had no wish to go back to live in Penang. Susan felt the same, refusing to return with her husband. The couple had talked of holidays and Reggie coming to England each year, but Evie sensed their marriage would never recover from the war. Reggie had survived internment in a camp in Borneo but, like Mary Helston, was unwilling to talk about his experiences, which had driven a wedge between the couple.

Susan was living with her elderly parents in the north of England and Stanford was to attend Reggie’s old boarding school. Hugh had kept up a constant barrage of requests to be allowed to join Stanford but, at only five years old, Evie told him it was out of the question. How could she send her little boy to a distant place where the discipline was probably tough and where he would grow up too quickly and too far from her? The thought of Hugh becoming as emotionally stunted as his father had been was intolerable.

Usually Hugh could prevail on his mother to get his own way, but in this one decision Evie was determined not to budge. In a war of attrition, Hugh had won the concession that, if he still wished to board once he turned eight, he could join his friend. She hoped and prayed that, by then, time and distance would have caused Hugh and Stanford to grow apart and each of them to form new attachments. Meanwhile she would make the most of keeping her son at home with her and Jasmine, who was to attend the local girl’s grammar school.

The café windows were steamed over, and the place was crowded with shoppers and theatre-goers, all divesting themselves of coats and hats and drinking cups of tea served to them by the Lyons’ nippies in their neat black uniforms and starched white caps and aprons. Evie took a sip of her tea and, under the table, gratefully slipped off her shoes, seizing the chance to take the weight off her feet before they had to set off for Waterloo and the journey home to Surrey.

‘In the war, Lyons used to make bombs,’ announced Hugh. He was always a gatherer of facts and information and was developing an encyclopaedic brain.

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Jasmine. ‘It’s a restaurant. Maybe they made food in the war but not bombs.’

‘They did too. They had a great big factory.’

A passing nippy looked over her shoulder and said, ‘Your little brother’s right. Lyons was in charge of running a bomb factory. I know ‘cause I worked in it. My sister too.’ She winked at Hugh and went off to whisk another table clear of crockery.

Jasmine rolled her eyes then pulled one of her woollen gloves from her coat pocket and rubbed the steamy window so she could look out. Crowds of people were trudging by, collars turned up against the chill air. None of them appeared to be enjoying the experience. Red double-decker buses and motor cars splashed puddles of water up from the road. It all felt depressing to Evie and she found herself feeling nostalgic for the sunlight of Penang, for the colours and noise and the bustle of