The Red Pavilion Read Online Free Page A

exotica with very little help.
    Although the train’s speed through the green jungle corridor created a breeze, it was hot and soporific, and she found the effort of trying to see the landscape through the shading wooden slats trying to the eyes. She was drifting into sleep when there was a tap on the door of their compartment.
    They were both surprised to see George Harfield standing there with two green coconuts cupped in one huge hand. Blanche lowered her novel and frowned. ‘I hope you’re not going to offer us those!’ she said.
    George Harfield laughed, quite unperturbed by her assumption or her manner. ‘This, my lady, is so tasty that not only will you want to drink the contents but you’ll be scraping out the inside with your manicured fingernails.’
    She made a large dismissive gesture, but laughed at his crudeness, stating, ‘You’re the man who met Major Sturgess.’
    He sat down uninvited and Liz waited for her mother’s reaction.
    ‘How does fresh limes, splash of gin and ice sound?’ he asked, again offering the smooth green shell of a young coconut, sliced off at the top. Usually the content offered for sale was the coconut milk itself — nice enough but tepid. Liz saw her mother swallow in anticipation and she licked her own lips at the thought of a really cold drink.
    ‘Ice?’ Blanche queried. ‘Well, then you’re irresistible. Do sit down.’
    ‘Thanks!’ Harfield grinned quite unabashed as he handed over the drinks.
    It was all as he said, complete with straws into the thick-fleshed nut. Quite delicious, and after the first few deep swallows both women savoured and eked out the rest.
    ‘Are you some sort of a magician?’ Blanche asked.
    He tapped the side of his nose and laughed as she sniffed deprecatingly. ‘Local products plus British enterprise,’ he answered, adding, ‘and I have a proposition to put to you.’ The teasing look was gone, his blue eyes suddenly stony. He sat back in the seat and openly studied both women.
    ‘A proposition?’ Blanche queried. ‘To discourage us from doing what?’
    ‘Of course Major Sturgess has sent you,’ Liz surmised.
    ‘Robbo, no,’ he denied. ‘We’ve talked, I know who you are, but he’s asleep now. Been through a traumatic time and travelled from the far side of Australia before flying back to Singapore.’
    She wondered first how anyone could call the inflexible Major Sturgess ‘Robbo’ and secondly what the ‘traumatic time’ had involved — but George Harfield was obviously not going to enlighten them.
    ‘He really only knows second hand what’s going on here.’ He paused as if to make certain of his ground. ‘You are from Rinsey?’
    Blanche acknowledged the last remark with a nod before asking, ‘Haven’t you just returned from England?’
    He shook his head. ‘I’ve only been in England for twelve weeks in the last three years. I came back immediately after the war to manage a mine for Pacific Tin. I was a young engineer here prewar, and I understand you lived here too.’ He paused. ‘I have to tell you this has suddenly become a very different country to the one you left. Can you both handle a gun?’
    ‘Of course,’ Blanche said brusquely. ‘Do we need to?’
    Liz felt a weary anger rekindle; these men really did not know her Malaya at all. Twelve had seemed to be the age when planters’ children all learned to handle guns. Josef Guisan and she had devised competitions, shooting first at tins on tree stumps, then at pieces of liana posing as deadly snakes thrown unexpectedly from bushes. Finally they practised shooting at bundles of ferns on the ends of bamboos poked out as attacking tigers, the green target accompanied by savage roars — until Liz, startled by a bellow from an unexpected direction, had shot off the toe of one of Josef’s sandals.
    ‘It might be the most valuable thing you can do if you insist on going to Rinsey.’
    ‘It is our home,’ Liz said firmly. ‘We have friends there I