They sipped their lemonades. Evie liked the sour tang of it, the sharpness cutting through the initial sweetness. ‘Did you make this yourself?’
‘Heavens no.’ Susan grimaced. ‘I’m completely useless in the kitchen. We’re lucky with Sulung. He’s a terrific cook. How’s your “cookie”?’
Evie rolled her eyes. ‘He’s very good. But the housekeeper, who I think is his wife, is a bit scary. She’s a Chinese lady – Aunty Mimi. I’ve no idea whose aunty she is.’
‘All the Chinese ladies seem to be called aunty.’
‘But I’ve no complaints regarding her work.’
Susan arched her back and slipped her hands behind her. ‘Don’t mind me. It’s getting harder to get comfortable, lugging all this bulk about.’ She paused a moment. ‘I must say, Evie, I think you’re awfully brave.’
‘What do you mean?’ For a moment Evie thought she was talking about coping with Aunty Mimi.
‘Coming out here to such a different life. And taking on someone else’s child into the bargain.’
‘Oh that.’ Evie felt deflated. Was this yet another person who was secretly thinking she must have been desperate to have agreed to marry Douglas? ‘Jasmine is a lovely girl. I’m already very fond of her.’
‘But you can’t have known Mr Barrington well. He hasn’t left the Straits in years.’
Evie looked at the woman, expecting to see the contempt she had seen in the eyes of Veronica and the ladies gathered in the powder room at the Penang Club, but instead she saw only kind concern and interest.
‘We had met a long time ago and more recently we… we corresponded.’ She knew it was something of an exaggeration to describe two curt letters as corresponding, but she didn’t want to admit the truth.
‘How romantic!’ Susan clasped her hands together. ‘Mr Barrington is frightfully handsome, if you don’t mind my saying. I do hope everything works out well for you both. He must have been dreadfully lonely. Of course he’d never admit that. Men never do.’ She flapped a hand at a flying insect. ‘I’m so fortunate with Reggie. We’ve been sweethearts since childhood. I knew we’d eventually marry. I suppose I also knew we’d end up out here – or somewhere in the colonies. All his school and university friends are planters or in the colonial service.’
The conversation was cut short when Hyde-Underwood and Douglas stepped onto the veranda.
‘Time we were going,’ said Douglas. Evie noticed he had a restless look about him, as if something was preying on his mind.
After saying their goodbyes, Evie sat in the front seat of the old Ford beside her husband. He let out the clutch and guided the car down the steep hill.
‘Thank you for taking me up here. I enjoyed meeting the Hyde-Underwoods, and seeing how the estate worked was so interesting.’ She was pleased she’d remembered to call it an estate and not a plantation.
Douglas said nothing. His face looked tense. She wanted to ask him what was the matter but something made her hesitate. They drove in silence for several minutes, passing ranks of rubber trees on either side of the road and stretching up the hillside beyond. There was a palpable tension in the car. Doug suddenly jerked the steering wheel, and the car left the road and bounced along in between the trees on a rough track. She glanced at him, puzzled, but he remained silent, his jaw set hard and his expression inscrutable. Where were they going? Evie wanted to ask but her mouth wouldn’t form the words.
After a few minutes, when the main road behind was no longer visible, they pulled into a small clearing. A single-storey wooden hut stood there, a collection of metal buckets and implements stacked neatly outside, under the overhanging roof.
Douglas halted the truck and jerked on the handbrake. Evie looked to him for an explanation but he was already out of the car and moving round to her side. Pulling the door open he reached in and grabbed her hand, drawing her out of the vehicle.
They went towards the hut, Douglas moving so quickly Evie had to scurry to keep up with him as he still had hold of her hand. He pushed the door open and they went inside. There was an unglazed window in the rear of the small room, but it was close to the rows of rubber trees which blocked most of the daylight so the room was dim and gloomy. Evie had no time to look around what seemed to be an empty space, before he was upon her, pushing her roughly against the wooden wall, pressing his body against hers, as one hand pinned her there and he fumbled at the front of his shorts with the other. She felt his mouth on hers. It was the first time he had kissed her, and she wasn’t prepared for it, or for the hunger with which he did it. She found herself responding to him, excited, feeling her legs weaken under her as her mouth returned his kiss. He was gasping, pulling at her dress - pushing his hands up underneath the skirt.
‘Wait,’ she said, her own voice barely audible. She lifted her frock over her head and immediately felt his mouth on her neck as his hands moved behind her to release her brassiere. His mouth closed around her left nipple and she gave a little cry of pain then he pulled down her pants and entered her quickly. Evie cried out again. He wanted her. He desired her. There was nothing of husbandly duty about this. It was raw desire. She gave herself up to the moment, oblivious to the hard wood of the
