The Red Pavilion by Jean Chapman

thrown up from the floating dredgers below.
    ‘Who is it?’ the startled figure demanded.
    ‘Only me, Mother.’ She went to her. ‘Can’t you sleep either?’
    ‘They should have built this bungalow on the other side of the hill,’ she said, ‘away from this bloody continuous noise.’
    ‘1 suppose it’s like living next to a railway, you hardly notice it after a time.’
    ‘Huh!’ Blanche grunted disbelievingly.
    ‘Nevertheless it’s true.’
    They both started as George Harfield came into his lounge. ‘If you pull the shutters to, I can put the light on. No point in making ourselves targets.’
    The three seemed irresolute as they were discovered in dishabille. Harfield was wearing only a pair of light cotton shorts, while Liz and her mother had on cotton pyjamas and mules.
    ‘You know what’s the matter with us all,’ Blanche decided, ‘we’re hungry. Come on, I’ll scramble us all some eggs.’
    ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’ George bowed, eclipsing his powerful torso with an even more powerful pair of shoulders. ‘I take my hat off to you, ma’am.’
    Liz looked at her mother, who widened her eyes dangerously and said, ‘Unless too many cooks spoil the broth, let’s adjourn to the kitchen.’
    George laughed, and Liz wondered if he trotted out the trite phrases just to annoy ‘because he knows it teases’. She also wondered at people’s capacity for going on with the normal tasks, like having meals, even in the most awful circumstances. It was just as she remembered the war in England, girls at school losing brothers and fathers, everyone rallying round.
    She watched her mother as she beat eggs in a bowl and turned chapattis on a flat griddle, competent, controlled. The truth was that they were both so used to not having a man in the house, it could be easy to forget as events continually overtook them that they should be at Rinsey with her father. He had rarely been around for the last eight years.
    ‘I wondered if you thought you were being specially targeted,’ Blanche asked as they began to eat.
    ‘It’s possible.’ Harfield, bending over to his plate, ate ravenously once begun, talking rapidly between mouthfuls. ‘During the war I made no secret of the fact that I knew certain red-star merchants in our own units were burying the guns and ammunition air-dropped to us, ready for their own purposes after the Japs had gone. I told them I’d bury the first one I caught at it.’
    ‘So ... ’ Liz’s ghastly sketch loomed in her mind. ‘So aren’t you afraid?’
    He paused, piled fork suspended. ‘No,’ he said, ‘bloody angry. I was fond of Rasa, he had real pluck. He defied the Japs during the war and now the bloody Red Chinks have got him.’ He threw the fork down on his plate. ‘It sickens me to the pit of my stomach!’
    Blanche pushed his drink towards him, then indicated his half-eaten eggs. ‘We need you on top form.’
    He sipped the brandy and soda, then, without further comment, finished the meal, wrapping the last scraps of egg in a chapatti. ‘I feel like a traitor, being hungry.’
    ‘Soldiering back up the hill of routine,’ Blanche said as if to herself, then looked directly at George. ‘The trouble is people see routine as ordinary — instead of often the most difficult thing we do in our lives.’
    ‘Keeping the boat steady,’ he said, looking at her and nodding his approval of the sentiment. ‘The most admirable thing most of us do in our lives.’
    ‘The role of the good wife,’ Liz contributed.
    ‘Never sure, dear, whether you’re being sarcastic or supportive to the argument.’
    ‘She’s young,’ George said.
    She didn’t answer her mother because she really wasn’t sure either. The conversation went on, disregarding her.
    ‘I wondered whether any of the military were ever actually billeted at plantations, or went for a few days’ rest?’ Blanche asked.
    ‘Sort of busman’s holiday,’ George commented. ‘Not a lot in it for