Island of Demons by Nigel Barley Page A

thermometer, held up to the light, seemed to bore him. “Avoid fat, no booze of course and don’t forget your John Hancock if you pass your time the other way.”
    John Hancock? Ah, of course, Hancock and Goodyear.
    â€œCould you possibly do me a great favour and tell my slave … driver, Bagus, what’s going on?
    He grunted and seized the empty plate, heading, no doubt, for a refill. “And I’ll leave my bill at the desk.” It would,. I foresaw, be covered with crumbs and buttery fingermarks.
    The next day we drove – no, in those days one still motored – up to Ubud through villages that all seemed asleep and turned blank walls and gateways to the road. The manager of the Bali Hotel, as I paid my bill, favoured me with his views on my – Fatimah’s – motor car. He disapproved of it as being a two-seater, not a four, so that driver and passenger were obliged to share the same bench seat, suggesting imperfect racial segregation. For myself this was barely tolerable, for a female passenger it would be outrageous. As Bagus and I drove in this scandalous propinquity, occasional resting figures like public statuary might be glimpsed dozing under trees or beside baskets of cockerels set out to watch passers-by. We swooped along the smooth roads and warmth seeped from the wind that buffeted my arms and face.
    Ubud was little more than a small village, a thing of a single street, a shabby palace and a market. The pasangrahan lay some small distance beyond, by the river. According to standard terms it might be used by any bona fide white visitor unless a Dutch colonial official required it on his tournée, in which case, it was to be instantly ceded.
    â€œThere,” said Bagus pointing, “there the house of Walter Piss. We go visit him?”
    â€œCertainly not.” I was unforgiving. “I have not come here to spend my time with Dutchmen.”
    Bagus shrugged and drove on, turning almost immediately to pull up outside an old wood and bamboo house that quavered in the heat and stridulations of crickets. We got out and walked around, calling. Was there anyone? Hello? It was deserted. The guardian must be otherwise engaged. Never mind. I settled on the verandah and waited. Bagus arranged himself on the ground against a pillar and fell immediately and profoundly asleep, like a machine that had been switched off. After an hour or so, came a crunching of gravel from the back, at first tentative and then more insistent. I rose. The guardian should have a bit of my mind for abandoning his post. Already I was full of the white man’s rage of the Indies. In my head, I rehearsed the list of instructions I should issue for my immediate comfort. Bath. Dinner. Gin. The path led me round the side of the house through a neglected garden of red lilies that swarmed with insects and between two raddled pavilions used for storage. There was a crouched figure in there performing some task of village idiocy, rootling in the shadows amongst the firewood and the old lamps.
    â€œYou!” I called. “Where have you been? Don’t you know I’ve been waiting here for over an hour?”
    The figure stood up, tall and slim. A ruefully grinning face appeared covered in cobwebs and dust. A white face, about the same age as my own, but in his case, very handsome with classical, even features beneath a shock of unkempt honey-blond hair and icy blue eyes that washed over you like a cold wave. He was dressed like a schoolboy on holiday, wearing a simple khaki shirt, open at the neck, and shorts with sandals scuffed onto very brown feet without socks.
    â€œTerribly sorry,” he blushed, “I’m afraid you have caught me. I’m trespassing.” The voice was light, humorous, oddly accented. “You haven’t perhaps seen a white cockatoo? She answers to the name of Ketut when not being naughty, which she clearly is today. Normally I wouldn’t be offended