“Don’t sit with your legs like that,” Mother hissed at her. “Only whores behave like that.” She looked to see if I was listening. “Only whores behave like that,” she said again.
We returned to the table and sat in silence for a while. A weak breeze rustled the tamarind tree outside. The bishop went to the window and stood before the open shutters with his hands on the ledge. His cheeks were red and clammy, and he must have been glad that the night was cooler than usual. When he turned around he looked very grave. He asked us about the Japanese.
“What about them?” Johnny said, looking into his glass. I thought he said it somewhat too sharply. I looked at father and saw the little muscle in his jaw twitch.
“What do you think they will do next?” the bishop said, staring out the window. “They’re marching straight through Indochina as if it weren’t there.”
Johnny took a gulp at his whisky. “We don’t give a damn about them. There are things we can do to them, you know.”
Honey went through to the next room and lifted the cover of the gramophone. He visits Father so often nowadays that he has come to regard this house as his own. (Even Johnny remarked the other day that Honey seems more welcome here than he does.) We heard him humming away in his How to Be Cheerful manner.
Father cleared his throat. “I hope you understand, Bishop, that Johnny merely speaks with the empty fury of youth. In fact, we are not at all worried about the Japanese. The monsoons will soon be upon us, and the Japanese will make little progress through Siam in such weather. I personally do not believe the Japanese are quite as bad as people make them out to be. Did you know that there has long been a small but very well assimilated Japanese community in Malaya? The local barber, for example, is Japanese. My view of them is that they are a very civilised race. I have met many fine Japanese — why, just a few days ago I made the acquaintance of an exceptionally cultured Japanese gentleman.”
“Yes,” Mother enthused, “he is a marquis — we must introduce you to him.”
“Besides,” continued Father, “with the British to protect us, what is there to worry about?”
“If you were the only girl in the world. .” Honey sang, out of tune.
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“No, Snow, I’m merely having a jolly old time,” he replied. “There would be such wonderful things to do, there would be such wonderful dreams come true.”
The bishop returned to the table and poured himself some cognac. He seemed jolly again, and launched into another story. “Have I told you about my first visit to St. John’s? I thought I’d call in at what would soon be my cathedral. I was on holiday, so I dressed in lay clothing. Do you know what? The parish priest failed to include a prayer for me — because of my attire! He told me later that he wasn’t sure of the status of a bishop-elect in collar and tie, so he decided to play it by the book. How ridiculous!” His laughter filled the room, competing with the music and the gentle, never-ending pounding of the mortar and pestle from the kitchen.
“You should have known,” said Johnny quite unexpectedly, “that you were coming to a diocese with a High Church tradition. Conformity with clerical dress is always taken for granted there.” He got up and took his glass into the kitchen, where I could see him exchanging pleasantries with Mei Li.
The table fell silent with astonishment. The bishop looked blankly at Honey. Their expressions said it all: where did a person such as Johnny gain such information? Where did he learn to speak like that? From Father? No — for all his learning, Father knows little about Christians and would not converse with Johnny anyway.
I found myself smiling to hide my annoyance. Only I knew: it was another piece of trivia Johnny had picked up from Peter.
THE WORST TIMES are when we are together, alone, and I see in his face how thrilled he still is to be married to me. He wears the expression of a young boy who has found something precious in the fields and keeps it hidden in his room. He loves me as he would a lost diamond or an opalescent gemstone; he admires me and is fascinated by me. Yet he never touches me. He is afraid to.
No one else will understand this, and I have resolved to tell no one. It was my decision to marry him, I know. I remember Mother’s reaction when I attempted to speak to her about my situation a few weeks ago. “You are his wife,” she laughed simply, as if there was no more to say. Later, as an afterthought, she came to my room and said, “We could try and find you another man, but no one in the Valley — in the whole country — will have you now. You must accept your fate.”
