The Other Side of Paradise Read Online Free Page B

she went down the stairs.
    ‘The
tuan
send message,
missee
. He stay at Tanglin for dinner. Not home till late.’
    ‘Is Ghani here?’
    ‘Yes,
missee
. He stay after the
tuan
telephone. Later he go to the club to fetch the
tuan
.’
    ‘Tell him I’d like him to drive me over to Colonel and Mrs Benson’s house.’
    ‘Yes,
missee
. You want at once?’
    ‘At once.’
    ‘I tell him. Looks like rain is coming. Sky very black.’
    As she waited on the front steps for Ghani to bring the car round, the first drops were splashing heavily on to the ground.
    The Bensons lived on Winchester Road, Alexandra Park, in one of the black and white, red-roofed houses built for senior army officers. Susan liked Colonel Benson – he wasn’t pompous like some of the other older servicemen – and Mrs Benson was nice too. The two sons had been packed off to school in England, but Milly Benson had gone to St Nicholas’s convent and was one of her best friends.
    Ghani stopped the car under the portico outside the front door.
    ‘What time you leave,
missee
?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’ll probably get a lift back with somebody.’
    ‘The
tuan
does not like this. Please telephone when you are ready,
missee
.’
    What a silly old fusspot he was! ‘I’ll see.’
    The Bensons’ Chinese houseboy opened the door and they had a little chat in Cantonese.
    ‘How are you today, Meng?’
    ‘Very good, thank you,
missee
. I hope you are well too.’
    ‘I’m fine. Is it going to be a good party?’
    He grinned. ‘Always a good party in this house,
missee
. Everybody has a good time.’
    ‘Anybody new?’
    ‘Some Australian officers,
missee
.’
    She pulled a face. ‘Oh, God.’
    Aussie soldiers were an uncouth lot. They rolled up their shorts, turned up the brim of their awful bush hats and saluted as though they were flapping away flies. And they spoke with a sort of horrible cockney twang.
    She said hallo to Colonel and Mrs Benson and several army chaps immediately clustered round, offering cigarette cases, flicking lighters under her nose. She could see with one glance that she was easily the prettiest girl in the room. Milly came up. Poor Milly, she’d put on even more weight but she never seemed to care a row of beans what she looked like.
    ‘Come and meet some Australians, Susie.’
    ‘Must I?’
    ‘They’re very nice. They’re army doctors at the Alexandra. I met them when I was working on one of the wards and they were doing the rounds.’
    ‘Doing what?’
    ‘The rounds. You know, looking at the patients. I was trailing along behind.’
    Milly was always vague about her voluntary duties at the Alexandra Hospital. She helped with this and that, she said. Carried things, held things, fetched things, tidied things, made herself useful to the real nurses.
    ‘Then I ran across them again in the canteen. We got talking and I asked them along this evening. Come and say hallo.’
    She was dragged over to three men standing together on the other side of the room. They were in khaki uniform and she would have known from the steak-fed, sun-bronzed, outback look of them that they were Aussies – even before they opened their mouths. One was called Geoff, the next Vincent, the last, Ray. The first two seemed all right but she wasn’t so sure about the third one. He didn’t smile admiringly at her like the other two.
    She made gracious conversation, as one did to colonials. How long had they been in Singapore? The answer was one week. Where did they come from in Australia? Geoff and Vincent both came from Brisbane, Ray came from Sydney.
    ‘How nice,’ she said, thinking how absolutely ghastly … the ends of the earth. ‘And I gather you’re doctors at the Alexandra. How long will you be staying?’
    Ray answered. ‘As long as we’re needed.’
    She looked at him, noticing the captain’s pips on his shoulder for the first time. Australian ranks probably weren’t quite the equivalent of English ones. ‘Well, I hope you enjoy