Taking her handkerchief from her handbag, Evie wiped her eyes. ‘Don’t apologise. I only asked you in the hope that you might know something. I’ve been making extensive enquiries, but no one seems to have a clue what happened to him. I can’t find any official records in Singapore or KL. That’s why I’ve decided to go back to England. I’m hoping the Foreign Office might be able to give me some information about what happened to him.’

Mary stretched her lips into a tight line. ‘Look, Evie, it’s extremely unlikely he would have survived as a white man behind enemy lines. If he was lucky, he was killed in a skirmish. If he wasn’t, and was captured, he would almost certainly have been executed.’

Evie shuddered. But something inside was telling her that if Arthur was dead, she’d know it. She’d be able to sense it, and she didn’t.

Mary broke the silence. ‘What will you do when you’re back in England?’

‘Get the children into schools. Buy a home for us. I’ve been making enquiries and it appears I can sell Batu Lembah to one of the big companies. I never want to set foot in that place again. It’s cursed for me. I’m renting the house in George Town. Thank God, Aunty Mimi and Benny both came through the war. They want to stay on there to look after whoever rents the place. And I’ve given them each a little nest egg. It was the least I could do after the government abandoned them.’

‘And the other estate? The one the Hyde-Underwoods managed?’

‘I’ll keep Bellavista if Reggie wants to continue to manage it or sell to him if he wants to buy – Douglas wanted Hugh to take over from him eventually. I always intended to stay close to Doug’s wishes. But I can’t live my whole life based on what he wanted. And it’s not right for Hugh to be forced to follow in the steps of a father he never knew. He has to make his own choices.’

‘And you? What about you, Evie?’

‘I’ll keep looking for Arthur. That’s all I want to do.’

31

January 1946, London

At a coveted window table in the Lyons’ Corner House in Coventry Street, near Piccadilly Circus, Evie was sitting with Jasmine and Hugh, surrounded by carrier bags full of school uniforms. She was exhausted. Remembering Mary Helston’s assertion that England was always cold and gloomy, Evie had to admit her friend was right. Today had been draining, trailing from shop to shop, an increasingly tetchy Hugh dragging his feet, while Jasmine tried not to show her boredom with the whole business. London was grim, foggy, and still bearing the scars of the Blitz, gaps in rows of buildings like missing teeth, bomb sites everywhere. Getting the school uniforms had been a trial – to get each child kitted out had necessitated visits to several different stores as rationing meant stocks were desperately low.

During their time in Australia, Hugh and Stanford Hyde-Underwood had formed a solid friendship, so that it was unthinkable that they should be separated in England. Reggie had returned to Bellavista and Evie had agreed a plan for him to continue to manage the estate with an option to buy eventually. She herself had no wish to go back to live in Penang. Susan felt the same, refusing to return with her husband. The couple had talked of holidays and Reggie coming to England each year, but Evie sensed their marriage would never recover from the war. Reggie had survived internment in a camp in Borneo but, like Mary Helston, was unwilling to talk about his experiences, which had driven a wedge between the couple.