After a dinner of noodles with chicken in a ginger sauce, Dorothy was ready for bed. Never in her life had she felt so exhausted, but sleep evaded her. She tossed and turned beneath her mosquito net, her tangled sheets growing damp with sweat.
Night had fallen so quickly. Being so close to the equator, there was no long sunset, just a sudden splash of colour before the sky was plunged into darkness. She lay in the dark, listening to the unfamiliar sounds outside her window. The junglechorus was in full flow, an orchestra of clacking crickets, croaking frogs and cawing birds. It all felt so alive and it fascinated her.
It felt like she had only been asleep for a few moments when an almighty crash woke her again. Her heart pounded in her chest and adrenaline pumped through her veins. Crash, it came again. It took her a moment to realise that it was thunder. Then, within seconds, rain began lashing hard against the window panes and lightning cracked, illuminating the pitch-black sky. A storm! She got out of bed and went over to open the window. The air outside felt so different; it was cooler now and had a sweet, earthy scent. She stuck her arms out of the window, enjoying the sensation of the rain against her warm skin.
It had been quite a day. Everything here was so foreign; so different from her life back in Fulham. But instead of the apprehension she had initially felt on coming here, she was surprised to feel invigorated by the newness and excitement of it all. She had a beautiful new home, a friend to show her around and the possibility of continuing her secretarial training. Maybe Singapore wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Feeling cooler now, Dorothy got back into bed and fell into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER 8
Cornwall
Tuesday 26th March, 2019
William arrived the next morning, by which time Annabel had gone over the letters from the secret drawer so many times that she almost knew the words by heart.
‘Woah, sis, slow down!’ he said with a grin as she bombarded him with snippets of information while he got out of the car. He gave her one of the big bear hugs that she loved and said, ‘Let me get my things in, then you can start from the beginning.’
A short while later, they sat on the patio enjoying the morning sun. A plate of scones lay on the table between them, together with a jar of home-made strawberry jam and a pot of clotted cream, all courtesy of Pam. Monty sat obediently next to the table, eyes focusing on their every move, hoping a bit of scone might come his way. Annabel poured tea from Dotty’s spotty red teapot and, after adding a splash of milk, raised her teacup in a toast.
‘To Dotty,’ Annabel said, mustering a sad smile.
William clinked his cup against hers and smiled back. ‘Dear old Dotty. I still can’t believe she’s gone.’
Annabel’s eyes shone with tears and William reached across the table to cover her hand with his. ‘So come on then, what’s all this stuff you’ve found out about Singapore?’
Annabel told her brother about the letter from Julia Chan, telling Dotty that her grandmother, Ah Ling, had passed away. She told him about the photographs of Dotty with Ah Ling and the friendship the young women had shared.
‘But I don’t get it.’ William’s brow furrowed. ‘Dotty spent time in Singapore? How did we know nothing about this?’
‘Well, brace yourself because there’s more.’ Annabel raised an eyebrow mysteriously. ‘In one of the other envelopes, there was a whole batch of letters from Ah Ling to Dotty; they’d been writing to each other on and off for years! The first letter was from 1946, can you believe it? The letters stopped coming in 2010, which makes sense because that was the year Julia wrote to say that Ah Ling had died.’
Annabel paused in her narration and sliced open two scones, then put one on each of their plates. She pulled a face as her brother reached straight for the cream and barked with mock severity, ‘William Penrose, don’t you dare! I don’t care how your wife does it, she’s from Devon. You know full well that here in Cornwall it’s jam first! Honestly, Dotty would give you what for if she saw you doing that!’
Her laugh turned into a sob and tears sprang unbidden as it dawned on her that Dotty wasn’t here to give William her oft-threatened ‘what for’. And never again would they hear her famous ‘jam first’ rant.
William smiled fondly and put up his hands in a placatory manner. ‘Alright, alright, I promise I’ll do it properly.’ He reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘You OK, Annie?’
She tried to smile through damp eyes and looked down when she felt a warm weight on her thigh. Monty was resting his muzzle there, gazing up at her with such concern and devotion. She rubbed the old dog’s head affectionately with her free hand.
‘I’m better now you’re here, thanks for coming, Will.’ She squeezed his hand back. ‘It just doesn’t seem real. It’s so weird being here without her, I miss her so much. I keep thinking of things to tell her that would make her smile. And I keep expecting her to walk in and ask who fancies a cup of tea?’
‘I know.’ William nodded as he spread jam on his scone, followed by a generous dollop of clotted cream. ‘It’s going to take some time to get used to. She was such a constant in our lives. I knew she wouldn’t last forever, but I suppose I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever would have been.’
There was a pause as Annabel sipped her tea and William started on his scone. The sombre mood was suddenly broken as, eyes closed, he moaned with dramatic pleasure then mumbled through a mouthful of jam and cream, ‘God, this is good! That Pam sure can bake!’
Annabel burst out laughing and reached into her pocket for a tissue to dab her streaming eyes and running nose. Her brother always knew how to cheer her up and his larking about and general sense of impropriety never failed to make her giggle.
Once he’d finished eating, William got back to the business at hand. ‘So, back to the Chinese woman: who was she and how did Dotty meet her? Ineverheard her mention travelling anywhere, never mind to the Far East! She was such a stay-at-home old thing, the idea just seems so ludicrous!’
Annabel nodded as she topped up her teacup. ‘Well, incredible as it seems, it turns out that Dotty and her parents lived in Singapore for a while, in the late thirties. The letters don’t go into much detail about how or why, but Ah Ling did refer to Dotty’s father working for a company out there.’
William frowned, shaking his head. ‘I knew her father worked for a rubber company, but Dotty only ever mentioned him working in London. How strange.’
‘Maybe he was posted overseas?’ Annabel shrugged, having had more time than William to process the information. ‘Think about it, it was just before the Second World War and rubber was becoming a valuable commodity. Ah Ling was a housemaid in Singapore, she worked for Dotty’s family and they became close. I think they were of a similar age. Here, have a look at these, they’re amazing.’
Annabel opened the envelope and started laying out the photographs on the table.
