The White Pearl Read Free

lines of plantation trees slid past the window. It was Field 16, a fine stand of hundreds of young
     rubber saplings planted in rows thirty feet apart, as far as the eye could see, the trees ten feet from each other. The Rubber
     Research Institute of Malaya recommended an initial planting of 240 trees to the acre, reducing to 100 trees an acre once
     they were grown and ready for tapping for their white flow of latex. But Nigel insisted he kept the land so well fed with
     fertilizer and rock phosphate that he could get away with 120 trees per acre and still produce a top-class yield.
    The sun hung directly overhead, so that shadows formed in dark balls at the base of the trunks making the young trees look
     squat and vulnerable. School started for Teddy at eight o’clock in the morning and finished at one o’clock, to avoid the worst
     of the exhausting heat of the afternoon. In the car the air was as oppressive as Connie’s thoughts.
    Listen, white lady.
The words hissed through her brain, skidding into the sounds of the car’s engine.
    ‘Nothing lasts here.’
    She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She felt Teddy’s gaze turn to her, and he tucked his hand between the seat and her damp
     back, something he did only when he was worried. She could feel his knuckles curled up as warm and needy as a kitten.
    ‘Won’t we last?’ he asked.
    ‘Of course we will, sweetheart. So will your friendship with Jack. I only meant …’
Oh Christ, what did she mean?
‘I only meant that the tyres wear out quickly on these rough roads. Cars break down easily.’
    ‘Is that why you had the crash today? Did the car break?’
    ‘No, darling. It was an accident caused by another nasty car, but don’t worry about it. We’ll get the dents mended and we’ll
     be fine. Now tell me what happened with Jack.’
    ‘His Brewster Buffalo shot down my Fairey Battle.’
    Connie’s heart sank. Her young son had spent all of last weekend building the aeroplane out of balsa wood with painstaking
     care, the tip of his tongue clamped between his small white teeth. Now Jack had destroyed it in a rough game. That was typical.
     Jack’s father built his model aeroplanes for him, which made Jack careless about how he treated them because he could always
     ask for another. Whereas Teddyinsisted on cutting out each wing or tail fin himself, cementing them together with a dogged patience that amazed her. The
     results were sometimes a little rough and ragged at the edges, but they were all his own work and Connie was immensely proud
     of his sticky little fingers.
    Since the war in Europe started two years ago in 1939, her son had become obsessed with aeroplanes, his bedroom walls covered
     in recognition charts. He could name every aircraft in the sky the way other people named birds.
    ‘Don’t worry, Teddy, I’ll help you build a new one.’
    His cheeky smile made her tap his bare knee with mock annoyance. ‘Just a minute, young man, I may not be as nimble as you
     with balsa,’ she admitted, ‘but I can squeeze out balsa-wood cement with the best of them.’
    He giggled, and she was pleased to hear the carefree sound inside the car. She pulled over to the side of the road and dropped
     ten cents into her son’s hand. This was one of their rituals. Each day on the journey home from school Teddy bought a slice
     of fruit from the roadside stall. It stood next to a small shrine that was constructed out of brightly painted stones and
     adorned with frangipani flowers, a small blue statue of a Hindu goddess and a bowl of coloured rice.
    A rat, fat and bold, sat on its haunches beside the shrine, munching on stolen rice grains. Teddy skipped over the ruts to
     the fruit stall and pointed at two large slices of watermelon. She watched him chatter away to the man serving on the stall
     – Teddy’s command of the Malay language was far superior to her own. He seemed to absorb the strange words as readily as her
     pillow absorbed her strange