Before the Poison

16

Extract from the journal of Grace Elizabeth Fox (ed. Louise King), December, 1941-January, 1942. Singapore

Monday, 8th December, 1941 It is hard to believe that our carefree year of golf, tennis, tea dances, afternoon siestas and Singapore Slings at the Raffles Hotel may soon be over, but today the war has come to our little island. The Japanese have bombed us. There were no warnings, and the casualties have been pouring in all day. Major Schofield said at lunchtime that we still should not worry. We have our guns pointed at the sea, and a land invasion is impossible. At worst, he allowed, we may undergo a minor siege, but even that, he felt, was unlikely. Happily, tonight’s dinner dance at the Cricket Club has not been cancelled, and my shift will soon be over!

Thursday, 11th December, 1941 The HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales have both been sunk off the Malay coast. We are told to expect more casualties in the coming hours, mostly burn victims, which are most difficult and heartbreaking to deal with. I fear poor Brenda will be worked off her feet after her experience with the burns hospital at Bangor, and she is already suffering so much with the heat and humidity here, not to mention the mosquitoes!

Thursday, 18th December, 1941 Life goes on much as normal, apart from the air-raid precautions. We did not get as many survivors of the naval disasters as we expected, and one of the V.A.D. s told me she had heard nearly 1,000 men were killed. The Japanese are advancing south and west from Kota Bahru. There is now fierce fighting across the Straits of Johor, and many people are fleeing south to safety in Singapore. According to one of our casualties from the Suffolk Regiment, the refugees are blocking the roads with their cars, rickshaws and bicycles, and the relief troops cannot get through. The Japanese planes are constantly strafing and dive-bombing them. He also told me that the jungle is proving no barrier to the Japanese. They are running rings around us. They can shoot straight, too, he says, contrary to the rumours that went around. The Alor Star Hospital, in the far north, has already been evacuated. They loaded all their patients on to an ambulance train and headed south. We can only try to carry on as if all will be well. After all, the north is still a long way away, and we have strong defences.

Thursday, 25th December, 1941 We had a fine Christmas dinner at Raffles Hotel with the civilians and the surgical staff. It was all rather depressing for a while because of the news of the Japanese advance, which shows no signs of halting or slowing down, but in the end we decided it was Christmas, so we ought to try to forget our troubles for a while and enjoy ourselves. Naturally, there was dancing afterwards, though I spent much of the time sitting it out. Whenever I see people dance, I think of Stephen Fawley, who disembarked from the Empress of Australia at Hong Kong with the rest of his regiment. It seems so long ago now. I am troubled by rumours I have heard about the behaviour of Japanese troops in Hong Kong. It is so hard to get any reliable information here. Even if people do know something, they are more than likely to keep it a secret as if information were some kind of currency. I am almost certain that Hong Kong has surrendered to the Japanese, but I have no idea of the fates of those sisters and military personnel there. We can find no news of Kathleen or Doris, or of Stephen and the others. For Christmas, Brenda very thoughtfully gave me a waterproof oilskin bag for my journal. I can hang it around my neck under my clothing, complete with pencil stubs! I gave her a lovely hand-painted Chinese fan I found at the Sungei Road market to help her keep cool.

Wednesday, 31st December, 1941 Today we evacuated over a hundred convalescent Australian patients to free more beds here. It was a sad day for me, as I had come to know some of them, and the sisters who accompanied them, quite well over the past year. I waved goodbye to Amelia, to Gillian, to Florence, Jimmy, Mick and Kenny. We have only one hospital ship now, a decrepit old riverboat called the Wu Sueh, and we are making arrangements to ship more patients to Sumatra when they are well enough to travel. The fighting up north is getting fiercer and closer, and we are receiving a steady stream of wounded coming in daily. The air raids continue, and we also have many civilian casualties to contend with. We are all so rushed off our feet I barely have time to scribble this before bed. The blackout is annoying. Last night, crossing the grounds after my shift, I tripped over a root and almost sprained my ankle.

Friday, 2nd January, 1942 Our bright new hospital is no longer what it was. It used to be a nice place to work. The wards are filled with casualties from the fighting, and there are drip stands and oxygen cylinders everywhere. We also have some cases of battle fatigue, which I have never witnessed before. They are most unnerving. They want to do nothing except lie around and sleep all the time, but as soon as the bombs start to fall, or the artillery fire begins, they jump out of bed and hide underneath it, or try to dig holes in the earth or hide themselves under the sheets. It is very upsetting because there is so very little you can do but try to comfort them and talk to them. Their fear is terrifying to watch. Everything seems to be happening at once, and we are still rushed off our feet, filling in the forms, giving transfusions, sending patients off to the theatres. When we get back to our quarters after a long shift, all we want to do is take our uniforms off, lie down and fall asleep in the blissfully cool blast of an electric fan. That is all there is now. Work. Sleep. Work. Sleep.

Monday, 12th January, 1942 I heard that Kuala Lumpur fell yesterday. It can only be a matter of time now. Guns facing the sea are not much use when the enemy invades by land, which everyone said could never be done. We can turn them around, of course, but everyone says they are no use in this kind of battle. We would only end up shelling ourselves. The talk among all the European women in Raffles Hotel and the Cricket Club is whether to stay or go. They are frightened, and they would like to leave Singapore before it falls into the hands of the Japanese, but they do not want to leave their husbands and be perceived as cowards or deserters. The news coming out of Hong Kong is deeply disturbing. We hear of medical staff and patients alike tortured and killed, sisters subjected to the most degrading ordeals. It seems the Japanese have no respect for the Red Cross, for medical staff, for the wounded, or for women. Major Schofield told me they did not sign the Geneva Convention, so they do not play by our rules. I worry constantly about what has become of Stephen, Kathleen and Doris, and I shudder to think what that will mean for us when the Japanese arrive here, for arrive soon they surely must.

December 2010

On the day following Louise’s visit, I got two phone calls that gladdened my heart. The first was from my daughter Jane in Baltimore. She was ringing to ask me whether she could visit me for Christmas and bring her fiance, Mohammed, with her. Fiance! It was the first I had heard of this. Of course, I told her she could.

A short while later my director and best friend Dave Packer phoned to remind me of the offer I had made last time we talked, and to ask whether he and Melissa could take me up on it and come over for Christmas. They were planning a short tour of Europe and would love to include Richmond. Melissa had a break in her filming schedule, and Dave was mulling over a few scripts for his – he hoped our – next project. Again, I said yes, delighted. Dave was Jane’s godfather, and Melissa would certainly raise a few eyebrows around Richmond, I was sure of that.

So there was going to be a Christmas, after all. Though it was only early December, I would have to get busy soon, order the turkey, get a case of decent champagne delivered. Crackers. Presents. A tree. Tinsel. Lights. Ornaments. I started making a list and was about halfway through when the phone rang again.

It was Heather. ‘Look, I’m still at the office. It’s been a really, really bad day, and I could do with a drink before I head home. Any chance of you joining me?’

Her voice took some of the wind out of my sails. She sounded sad, tired. I looked at my watch. It was seven o’clock. I had plenty I wanted to tell Heather – and I certainly owed her a lot after all she’d done to help me. The only thing that held me back from jumping at the chance was that I still fancied her, and something like this would only serve to fuel my desire. Even so, I paused for only a few seconds before answering, ‘Sure. Black Lion, half an hour?’

‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘See you there.’

The Black Lion was fairly quiet at that time on a weekday evening in December. There was no live music, no pub quiz. A few late-season tourists sat at the tables in the dining room, finishing their meals. I hadn’t eaten yet, so I thought I might order fish pie or something. The reason I had chosen this particular pub was the little snug beyond the dining room, which fortunately was empty. I bought a drink at the bar and went to sit in there and wait. Five minutes later, Heather arrived and popped her head around the door.

‘I thought you might be in here,’ she said. ‘Very cosy.’

‘If you think it’s likely to do your reputation any harm being alone with me like this, we can go back into the public bar.’

‘What, and listen to regulars talk about football and last night’s television? You must be joking. No, I’ll risk my reputation, such as it is, thank you very much.’

She asked for a vodka and tonic, and I went to get it for her, casting my eyes over the menu chalked on the blackboard.

‘Eaten?’ I asked Heather when I got back.

‘I’m not hungry.’

I ordered fish pie at the bar and went back to join Heather in the tiny wood-panelled snug. The room was so small that if two people were in there and someone checked it out, they most likely wouldn’t come in. You could hear voices from the dining room and the public bar, but you couldn’t really make out what people were saying.

Heather downed her vodka and tonic with the speed of someone determined to get drunk. She looked fraught, frazzled, and there were bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. I wondered whether it was just work, or whether there was something else. When I brought her the second vodka and tonic, still working on my first pint of Tetley’s Cask, before I could ask her what was wrong, she said, ‘You might as well know, Derek and I are separating.’

I just stared at her, speechless.

She stared back. I couldn’t read her expression. ‘Come on, Chris,’ she said. ‘Don’t act so surprised. You must have known it was on the cards?’

‘I might have had the impression that things weren’t going too well,’ I said, ‘after Bonfire Night. But… What are you going to do?’

‘One of the perks of being in the estate agent business. I’ve picked up a sublet on a nice little flat in the Convent development down on the Reeth Road. That’s why I’m so late tonight. Been wheeling and dealing. Very fitting, don’t you think? Me in a convent.’

I laughed. ‘Very.’

‘I suppose this puts an end to any interest you might have had in me?’ she said, one eyebrow raised.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, don’t be so thick. It doesn’t suit you. It’s one thing flirting or having a fling with a married woman, and the way things were going, we might well have done that. But a single woman? Doesn’t that reek too much of entrapment, commitment?’

‘You’re far too cynical for one so young,’ I said.

‘I’m not that young. I’m forty-five.’

‘That still makes you fifteen years younger than me.’

‘Just think. When you were a thirty-year-old whizz-kid taking Hollywood by storm, I was a gawky fifteen-year-old schoolgirl with freckles, glasses and ginger hair madly in love with Geoff Johnson, who didn’t even notice my existence. You wouldn’t have fancied me at all then.’

I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I should hope not. But look how far you’ve come since those days.’

She sat silently for a moment, then wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, smearing a little mascara. She stared down at the table when the girl delivered my fish pie, then excused herself and went to the Ladies. While she was away, I thought about the implications of what she had said. She was wrong in saying that her separating from her husband would cause her to lose her appeal to me. Just the opposite, really. I had been resisting an affair, not strictly on moral grounds, but because they are, in my experience, messy, disappointing and ultimately painful to some, or all, concerned. Though I had never been unfaithful to Laura, I had had a brief fling with a married woman before we met, and it had ended badly and messily. If Heather were free, it would be another matter. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. Not before she’d made the move, at any rate, no more than I was going to offer to help her move – and it wasn’t for lack of gallantry or willingness. I didn’t want to appear to influence or encourage her in any way. Not that I had up to now, but people don’t always see things in the same light. I had learned that long before I encountered Heather, Charlotte or the Grace Fox case.

When Heather came back, she was composed. She also had another drink in her hand. ‘I hope you’re not driving,’ I said.

‘Walking up the hill.’

‘Sure you don’t want anything to eat?’

She reached for my fork and helped herself to some fish pie. ‘No,’ she said, when she’d finished it. ‘That’s enough for me.’ She pushed her drink away. ‘I don’t even want this, either, truth be told. I thought it would be a good idea to get drunk, but…’

‘When did you and Derek make this decision?’

‘It’s been brewing for a long time. You may or may not know it, but we separated once before. Anyway, it all came to a head again on the night of your dinner party.’

‘That’s why you were so…?’

‘Pissed and at each other’s throats?’

‘Well, not quite that, but I did notice some tension.’

‘You’re so kind, Chris, but we were awful.’

‘And between now and then?’

‘Fights, excuses, evasions, recriminations. Last night he finally came out with it. He’s got another woman, and he wants to start a new life with her. Which is exactly what I suspected.’

I almost choked on my beer. ‘Derek?’

‘Why not? Don’t look so surprised. Still waters run deep and all that. Besides, he’s an attractive man in his way. Was when I married him, anyway. A lot more fun, too.’ She sighed. ‘All the joy’s gone out of it, Chris. All the passion. All the laughter. It’s someone from work. She’s only thirty-two. Bitch.’ Heather dabbed her eyes again, then patted my arm. ‘Sorry for unloading all this on you. I couldn’t think of anyone else I wanted to talk to.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. I noticed she had left her hand resting on my arm. ‘When do you move in?’

‘Whenever I want. The flat’s empty right now, owner’s abroad, key’s in the office. Maybe tonight or first thing tomorrow. I find these things don’t get any better for being dragged out. To be honest, I don’t think I can stand the bloody sight of him any more. I’m afraid if I stay any longer I’ll murder the bastard.’

‘I’m sorry, Heather.’

She moved her hand. ‘Don’t be. I’m not. It’s time for a fresh start. I’m looking forward to it. Want to help me shop for furniture, put together a few things from Ikea? Only joking.’

‘No, but you can come for Christmas dinner, if you want.’ I told her about my phone calls, and then I went on to tell her about Louise King’s visit. She seemed interested, but was distracted, naturally, and when we had exhausted that, she said she had to go. She wouldn’t accept a lift, said she needed the exercise, so I gave her a light peck and a hug and she was gone. I sat for a while over another half of Tetley’s Cask, then I headed back to Kilnsgate House and A Kind of Loving.