Old Filth Read Online Free PDF Page B

amongst them, splashing back. All the heads bobbed away into the rocks like black floats. Edward splashed forward and took Ada round the waist and buried his face against her thighs. “You are my leopard,” cried Edward Feathers in the Malay of the compound. “My beautiful leopard and I want to eat you alive.”
    This, thought Auntie May, will not do.
    That night at dinner she said so.
    â€œHe goes Home, Alistair. If you won’t take him, I will. I’m due some leave, too. There will be other English children on board. There always are. I’m told there may be two of his cousins joining a ship Home from Ceylon. We may pick them up. We shall be able to go the short way through Suez next year. Your sisters must organise warm clothes for Liverpool.”
    â€œThey wouldn’t know how,” said Alistair. “They’re independent spinsters. Play a lot of golf.”
    â€œVery well. I’ll contact the Baptists. In Lancashire and in Wales. And I shall also—” she looked hard at him “—inform the Foreign Office. How well do you know your son, I wonder?”
    â€œI see him.”
    â€œI’ve sent for him to come here now. Tonight.” She clapped her hands and shouted for the servant in the Raj voice of thunder.
    The servant looked at his master, but the master continued to open and shut a little silver box that had been his wife’s pinbox and now held his tooth-picks. Then he took up his glass and looked into its golden depths.
    â€œYes. Very well.”
    Edward was brought in from just outside the door where he had been watching and holding Ada’s hand. He blinked in the glare of light, stared at the tall man’s queer clothes—the starched shirt, the gold watch chain—and the gleam of the table-silver and glass he had never seen before.
    â€œNow then, Edward,” said Auntie May. “Greet your father, please.”
    The child looked mystified.
    â€œYour father. Go on.”
    She gave him a push. “Bow, child. Hold out your hand.”
    The child bowed but scarcely took his eyes from Alistair’s pinched yellow face and sandy square moustache.
    Alistair suddenly threw himself back in his chair, dropped the silver box on the table and looked straight at Edward for the first time. His wife’s genial blue eyes looked back at him.
    â€œHullo,” he said, “Hullo—Edward. And so you are going away?” Like Auntie May, he spoke in Edward’s own Malay.
    Edward wriggled and turned his attention to the silver box. “Did you know that you will be going away?”
    â€œThey say so,” said Edward.
    â€œYou are going first with Auntie May to the Port. For half a year. To learn to speak English, like all British boys have to do.”
    Edward fiddled with the box.
    â€œYou hear English spoken sometimes, don’t you? You understand what it is?”
    â€œSometimes. Why do I have to? I can talk here.”
    â€œBecause you will one day have to go to England. It is called Home. They don’t speak Malay there.”
    â€œWhy can’t I stay here?”
    â€œBecause white children often die here.”
    â€œI shall like to die here.”
    â€œWe want you not to die but to grow up big and strong.”
    â€œWill Ada come?”
    â€œWe’ll see.”
    â€œCan I go back to Ada now?”
    â€œHere,” the father called as the child made off to the verandah where Ada stood in the shadows. “Here. Come back. Take this. It was your mother’s,” and he held out the silver box.
    â€œDoes Ada say I can?”
    â€œI say you can. I am your father.”
    â€œYou can’t be,” said Edward.
    Silence fell and Auntie May’s hands began to shake.
    The servants were listening.
    â€œAnd why not?”
    â€œBecause you’ve been here all the time without me.”
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    Auntie May left with Edward next morning. She felt sick and low.
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