Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolff

It was a dark green Ford and at weekends we’d all get in it and drive into the forest. Dad would turn off the engine and we’d sit very still, hardly daring to breathe as the wildlife came out – troops of grey monkeys with rust-coloured babies clinging to their chests and tiny deer called
kidang
, as well as peacocks and toucans. Just once, when I was eight, we saw a panther. I can still see its dark beauty as it slinked past us in the shadow of the trees.
    My favourite place at Tempat Sungai was the swimming pool. It was high up, and commanded a wonderful view of the mountains all around us and, below us, of the forest, the plantation buildings, the houses and
kampong.
On Sundays we’d spend the whole day at the pool, usually with the Jochens, who were the only otherEuropeans at Tempat Sungai. Wil Jochen was the boss. He did the general administration and the rubber exporting, while my father supervised the day-to-day agricultural work.
    Wil was short and fat, with thick calves, a barrel chest and a voice that could be heard all over the plantation. But his wife, Irene, who was English, was very gentle and softly spoken, as were their daughters, Susan and Flora. Susan was six years older than Flora and was slender and pale, like Irene, with waist-length blonde hair that she would let Flora and me brush. Susan was always sketching and painting and told us that she longed to be an artist when she grew up.
    Flora, who was my age, looked more like Wil, sturdy and short. She had dark brown eyes, and blunt-cut chestnut hair that had a wonderful shine, which I envied. Almost from the day we met, Flora and I were inseparable; always at each other’s side as we played around the plantation and at school.
    The nearest Dutch schools were in Bandung, three hours away. So Flora’s parents and mine rented a house there and our mothers took it in turns to look after us all, a month at a time. In the holidays we’d all return to Tempat Sungai.
    I could sense that my father didn’t much care for Wil – I think he disliked his overbearing manner. But my mother and Irene were great friends. I became very fond of Irene too, and because of the time I spent with her, I picked up a good deal of English. I used to like looking at her copies of the
Home Notes
magazine which her parents sent her each month from their home in Kent. In particular, I enjoyed reading the recipes. I’dcopy them out so that my mother could make cottage pie or brandy snaps or scones, although the imperial measurements mystified me. Why should the word ‘ounces’ be abbreviated as ‘ozs’ when there was no ‘z’ in it? And why was there no ‘l’ or ‘b’ in the word ‘pound’?
    I think I was an inquisitive child, nosy even, always fascinated by what the grown-ups were saying. I remember one summer, walking up the Jochens’ drive and hearing Irene and Susan talking in English on the verandah. Irene was trying to placate Susan, who was very upset, reassuring her that her father would ‘soon calm down’ and to ‘ignore him’. But when they saw me, they immediately started chatting to me in Dutch as though everything was fine.
    Later, when I asked Flora about it, she told me that her father had discovered that Susan was in love with one of the rubber tappers, Arif. Arif was sixteen to Susan’s fourteen, tall and very attractive, with a warm smile and an athletic grace. Even I, at eight, could sense his appeal. That morning Wil, idly looking through Susan’s sketchbook, had found a portrait of Arif.
    ‘Dad went
berserk
,’ Flora told me, her eyes wide.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you can tell, from Arif’s big moony eyes, that he’s in love with her too. But Dad shouted at Sue that he won’t have her “throwing herself away” on an
Inlander.
Mum said that it’s just a teenage crush and that he was being ridiculous. But Dad tore the portrait up then told Arif that he’d sack him if he even
looked
at Sue again.’
    I remember trying to imagine