He said he would collect her at ten o’clock. When he drove off, she stood on the porch watching him with her steady brown eyes. And when he reached the end of the road, he glanced in the mirror and saw that she was still standing there, watching him, as he turned the corner into the next road.
He counted the days feverishly until Saturday. When at last he drove up to the house to collect her, he found her waiting for him on the porch. It was almost as if the intervening days had not occurred. She looked just the same, standing there, except she had on a different pale cotton dress with a pleated skirt, and round her neck she wore a tiny silver cross. She carried a white cardigan and a small leather bag on her arm.
They drove up the winding road out of town, and on through bright green paddy fields. Tom had been thinking about this outing constantly for the past three days, but now that it had come, he found his courage failing him. He felt tongue-tied. Joy was quiet, too, and her face was turned away from him, staring out of the window. It was a glorious day, the bright sun high in a clear blue sky, and as they climbed higher they could see the sea, perfectly blue, sparkling in the sunlight.
They reached the funicular railway station, parked the car and joined a small queue of day trippers waiting for the train. On the trip up the hill, as the tiny red and white train chugged and panted its way through the overhanging jungle, she avoided his gaze. She seemed paralysed with shyness. He began to wonder if asking her on this outing had been a mistake.
Once they arrived at the top of the hill, they found a viewing point and stood together to look out. There was a slight breeze stirring the trees, and it was a perfect scene. On one side the town stretched out beneath them, a patchwork of low white buildings interspersed with lush greenery spreading down to the harbour. On the other side, across the farms and plantations and jungle, they could see palm-fringed beaches bordering a shimmering blue sea, which melted into a perfectly blue sky at the horizon.
‘It is like heaven,’ she said spontaneously, turning to smile up at him, her eyes dancing with pleasure.
‘It is heaven,’ he said, relieved that she had finally spoken to him.
‘Excuse me, sir? Madam?’
A tall thin Indian man in a grubby white suit approached them, carrying a huge camera and a folded tripod. His hair was heavily oiled. He smiled a toothy smile.
‘You want photograph? Beautiful spot. Beautiful lady.’
‘Yes,’ he said, smiling at Joy. ‘Why not?’
So they stood together, a little apart, afraid of touching for the first time in front of a stranger. They watched the man erect the tripod and adjust the lens. Tom glanced sideways at Joy. Should he put his arm around her after all?
At last the equipment was ready.
‘Watch the birdie!’ came the muffled voice from under the black cloth. They both jumped slightly as the little mechanical bird popped out and the camera clicked.
‘Thank you very much, sir. I will send messenger with photograph to your home after developing process. If I could just have your name and address.’
After that their shyness seemed to evaporate. They walked around the gardens laid out on the top of the hill, admiring the tropical plants and the views from every angle. He asked her how long she had lived in Penang.
‘All my life,’ she answered. ‘I was born here.’
They found a small café serving drinks to day-trippers, and they went in for a coffee. As they sipped their drinks, she told him about her family. Her father was half Indian, she said, born in Goa, the son of a local woman and a Portuguese officer. He had come to Penang as a young man to look for work and met her mother, the daughter of a British civil servant and a Malay seamstress. Joy was their eldest daughter, and when she was tiny, they had determined to give her a good education. Her father got a job in the offices of an import and export company, and her mother found work in a Chinese laundry.
As she told him about her life, he watched her face. Her eyes were alight with enthusiasm and intelligence. She spoke simply and with complete sincerity. He found himself admiring her self-possession and her straightforward manner, her freedom from artifice or pretence. It was so refreshing after the games that Millicent always played.
‘Do you know, years later, my parents are still working at the same jobs, so my brothers and sisters can go to school? The poor things,’ she said with a heartfelt sigh.
‘They must be very proud of your success,’ said Tom.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I was lucky. I had good teachers. When I finished school in Penang I went to teacher-training college in Singapore.’
‘And you came back?’
‘Yes. I always wanted to be with my family in Penang. I got a job in a mission infants’ school.’
‘And do you like it?’ he asked.
She nodded, and her eyes shone.
‘Yes, I love it! And I love the children. They are so rewarding, so full of surprises.’
‘I agree with you there,’ he smiled.
She laughed, putting her hand over her mouth shyly.
‘Oh, you mean that naughty boy with the ink pen? Yes, he was punished. Made to stay inside at lunchtime and write lines.’
He drove her home and stopped outside the house. He walked her to the door, and once again the children hung on the balcony, watching them with their curious eyes. He ached to kiss her cool cheek, but felt constrained. In the end he just shook her hand stiffly.
‘Perhaps next time we could go to the Penang Club,’ he said.
‘Well, I don’t think so,’ she said, an anxious look clouding her eyes.
It was the following week that Tom
