A Painter in Penang

Chapter 2

2

It had been three days since Jasmine had been hauled before the school principal and she’d still not summoned up the courage to tell her mother about her absenteeism, let alone that Reverend Mother had warned her that further infractions would lead to her expulsion. Every morning, she left the house and took the school bus to the convent, but didn’t attend classes, hiding out in the grounds until it was time to go home again.

Jasmine knew it was only a matter of time before the school contacted her parents. Her guilt was compounded by the exorbitant cost of the school fees. All that money going to waste while she frittered away her time lying on her back on the empty hockey pitch staring up at the sky or hiding out in the disused potting shed at the rear of the school grounds if a game was being played.

Jasmine was not a natural rebel but she couldn’t face being in class any longer. What had begun as the occasional skipped lesson had now become wholesale truanting. Right now, she should be listening to the droning voice of Sister Angelica as she bored her pupils to death with an uninspiring explanation of the Long Parliament and something called The Grand Remonstrance. What possible relevance did the politics of Stuart England have to a sixteen-year-old’s life? To anyone’s life, three hundred years later? It was all so pointless. So meaningless. So tedious.

The sun was getting hotter, so she rolled onto her side, and shuffled into the shade of a sausage tree. Fallen red blossoms carpeted the ground underneath the tree and Jasmine watched a procession of ants moving over them like a well-drilled regiment advancing into battle. Above her, dangling down were the as yet unripe ‘sausages’, the eponymous fruits which were much loved by baboons.

Jasmine gave in to an expansive yawn. She’d forgotten her sketch book. Not that she’d be drawing ugly old sausage trees. Besides, she was too anxious to concentrate right now.

School had been bearable at the beginning – when Katy Grenville had been there. Jasmine and Katy had both been new girls and formed an instant bond – possibly because they both felt like exiles who didn’t belong here. Katy had grown up in Bombay and missed India with the same nostalgic longing that Jasmine felt for Penang. Perhaps it was Katy who had incited Jasmine’s dissatisfaction and growing unhappiness, but over time they had each fed off the other’s misery, adopting a sense of superiority towards Kenya, their daily life at school and their fellow pupils.

And then, without warning, two months ago Katy was gone. Jasmine had never got to the bottom of exactly what happened. Never had a chance to ask Katy. The rumour circulating at school was that Katy’s parents, Nigel and Gwendoline, had been mixed up in a scandal. The sort of thing spoken of in hushed tones and causing uncontrollable smutty giggles. One of Jasmine’s classmates claimed Mrs Grenville had been having an adulterous liaison with several other men while her husband had been carrying on with the wives. Funny how the wife’s crime was widely acknowledged to be more heinous. This arrangement had apparently ballooned into a regular free-for-all among a group of married couples, who spent weekend house parties hopping in and out of each other’s beds. Knowledge of exactly what this bed-hopping entailed was, to say the least, patchy among the members of the Lower Sixth and the subject of much fevered debate.

According to one of Jasmine’s classmates, who had overheard her parents talking about it, the whole sordid business had blown up in the Grenvilles’ faces when Katy had walked in on them one afternoon. Katy, like the majority of girls at the convent, was a boarder and wouldn’t normally have been at home during the week, but she’d been running a temperature and the school, suspecting chickenpox, had sent her home.

That was the last time Jasmine had ever seen her friend. They hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye. Jasmine couldn’t begin to imagine how mortified Katy must have been if the stories were true.

Jasmine had written daily to Katy, begging to know what was happening and when she would be returning to school. After a fortnight, her letters were returned to her in a bundle, marked ‘Gone Away’. Desperate, she had asked Arthur whether he knew what had happened to the Grenvilles. Her stepfather, being something important in the colonial government, knew everyone. He had lowered his eyes, coughed and muttered something about Mr Grenville being recalled to his firm’s London office. There was no point asking Mummy as she never paid the slightest attention to gossip and, while never overtly criticising Jasmine’s friendship with Katy, always gave the impression that the Grenvilles were not the sort of people she chose to socialise with.

After Katy disappeared, everything went sour at school for Jasmine. The other girls made catty remarks about Katy and when Jasmine rushed to her absent friend’s defence they started to pick on her too. Jasmine became the target of a relentless campaign of bullying and ostracism. Her friendship with Katy had been an exclusive one – they’d so enjoyed each other’s company that they never sought the company of others. But now, without the mutual protection they had afforded each other, hitherto invisible resentments surfaced in plain sight.

Jasmine’s misery and isolation mounted until it transferred into her feelings about Kenya in general. It had become a place where she knew only misery, where she felt an outsider, a misfit, a broken-winged bird.

Jasmine sat upright, brushing the dust off her uniform cotton dress. It was time to face the music. Time to go home and find the courage to tell Mummy and Arthur what was going on. What choice did she have? She couldn’t run away. There was nowhere to run to. No one else to turn to. Jasmine glanced at her wristwatch. Double Maths would be finishing in ten minutes. If she left now, she’d be able to slip through the convent gates unnoticed while everyone was piling into the dining room for lunch. It would mean walking the five miles home in the hottest part of the day, but that had to be better than waiting around all afternoon and braving the school bus.

Evie sipped her coffee, savouring the rich flavour. Only since being in Nairobi had she begun to drink coffee, finding the locally-grown beans so much more to her taste than the ersatz bottled Camp coffee everyone still had to drink back in England.

The hot liquid sent a rush to her head – she only allowed herself one cup a day in the late morning. It made her heart race, but she felt better for it, stronger, more able to face whatever problems confronted her.

Remembering she hadn’t finished going through the post, she pushed her anxiety about Jasmine to the back of her mind and picked up the stack of envelopes, sorting them into piles: bills to be paid, invitations to be answered, items for Arthur. She pushed the letter from the Reverend Mother into a position on its own, as though she were quarantining it. Leaning back in her chair, she noticed another envelope had fallen onto the ground so she bent down to pick it up. With a joyful cry, she saw the Malayan postage stamp and the familiar handwriting. A letter from her friend Mary.

My dear Evie,

It’s been a while since I wrote, and I mislaid your last letter, so please forgive me if I fail to answer any questions you had. I’m bursting to know how you are all settling into your new lives in Kenya. How long is it now? It must be almost nine months? Are you finding plenty to do? I imagine Nairobi is quite the social whirl. I picture you at parties, looking as beautiful and elegant as always! Reggie and I live like hermits here, so I’d never be able to cope were I in your place – but you’ve always been frightfully skilled at entertaining people and looking after them so well. I was often grateful for your particular skill in seating people at dinner next to others they’d find congenial company.

Frances is teething at the moment, so I am enduring many a sleepless night. No complaints though as she is generally such a placid and happy-natured baby and I can’t begin to tell you how much joy she has brought to me. It’s hard to credit how much my life has been transformed by Reggie and our unexpected family.

Reggie sends his love. He works so hard but couldn’t bear to be anywhere else or doing anything else. And as long as he’s happy, I’m happy. When I remember how I pushed him away, it makes my blood run cold. I can never thank you enough, dear friend, for helping me realise that he and I were right for each other. What kind of miserable existence would I be living now were it not for him?

Please pass on my thanks to Jasmine for the beautiful watercolour drawing she sent me of the Waterfall Park in George Town. Tell her that, yes, the monkeys are still there. No doubt much smaller than your African baboons! I will drop her a line of proper thanks as soon as I get a moment, but I am scribbling this long overdue missive in a rare interlude while Frances is asleep, and I expect her to wake any minute! I do hope Jasmine is enjoying her new school and has made lots of friends. I’m so glad – as I’m sure you are – that you decided against sending her away to boarding school in England.

I’m still teaching the estate workers’ children in the little school I set up in the kampong. One of the mothers takes care of Frances while I’m teaching the class. I’d like to have the time to teach the women as well – they are all very keen to learn to read – but single-handed, it is too much for me. I’d hoped to lure one of the teachers from my old school in George Town to help out – but what young woman would be willing to be stuck up here so far out of town and having to lodge with us – at least during the week? I can do only what I can. Such a pity and a missed opportunity.

I’ve just heard the dulcet tones of my darling daughter – quite a pair of lungs she has too! So, I will end here and get this in the post as it could be weeks before I get another chance to write. I miss you so much, Evie, and think of you all the time. I am enclosing a snap of Frances for you, as you have not yet had the chance to meet her.

With fondest love – and to Arthur, Jasmine and Hugh

Your loving friend, Mary

Evie looked at the photo of the baby and smiled. If only Mary were here and she could seek her advice about Jasmine.

By the time Jasmine arrived home her uniform frock was soaking wet with perspiration and her knee-socks were grubby and sagging around her ankles. Five miles was a long walk in the middle of the day and with few trees to offer shade. Her feet dragged when she stepped into the house her shoes covered in dust from the road. Her plan to creep to her bedroom, wash and change out of her dirty clothes was foiled when she heard her mother calling her from the long stone terrace that wrapped around three sides of the house. Jasmine crossed the entrance hall, her dirty shoes in her hands and stepped out onto the terrace where Evie was sitting at a table.

‘I thought you’d be having a nap,’ Jasmine said, lamely. ‘Don’t you usually after lunch?’

‘Well I’m not today.’ Evie sucked her breath in and studied her daughter’s dishevelled appearance. ‘How did you get home?’

‘I walked.’

‘In this heat! No wonder you look such a state.’ Evie stretched out a hand and gently pushed a stray strand of hair away from Jasmine’s eyes. She gave her a sad smile. ‘I got a letter from the Reverend Mother this morning.’

‘Oh.’ Jasmine lowered her eyes. At least she wouldn’t have to break the news to her stepmother herself.

‘Come here. Sit with me.’ Evie took the girl by the hand and drew her into a seat beside her. ‘You’ve been very unhappy, haven’t you? I’m sorry I hadn’t realised things had got so bad. I’ve been so wrapped up with so many other things when I should have encouraged you to talk to me about it.’

Jasmine had been preparing herself for anger, for disappointment, for reprimands, but had not allowed for the possibility that Evie might instead offer only sympathy. Overwhelmed, she burst into tears.

Evie leaned forward and wrapped Jasmine in her arms, stroking her hair. ‘Oh, my poor darling. I wish you’d felt able to tell me about it. I must have seemed very preoccupied. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t more sympathetic.’

Jasmine tried to sniff back her tears, as she breathed in the familiar scent of her mother’s lily of the valley perfume.

‘It’s not your fault, Mummy. It’s me. I know I should have told you I’d been skipping school, but you and Arthur and Hugh are all so happy here and I didn’t want to complain, but… but… I’m utterly miserable. I hate school. I’m glad they’ve expelled me. The girls are mean, and they talk about me all the time behind my back. And I miss Katy so much. Now she’s gone I can’t bear it anymore. Not only school, but everything. I don’t think I can bear living here anymore.’