Author: Catherine Menon

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doll in a blue satin sari, the kind of toy you find in any sundry store. At the bottom are some pencils and a few scrunched-up bits of paper. They’re soaked through with damp and mould, but the pencil-strokes are still visible. The pages are covered with swirling, fragile calligraphy that nearly makes sense. Like letters, if they were drawn by someone who never wrote a word.

No. It’s a breath of wind. It’s a flicker of movement right at the darkened end of the corridor. Nobody’s gone past me, though, I could swear to that. I don’t even know whether I really heard it, or whether my mind’s beating up fancies like eggs in a cake mix.

Dr Panikkar would know. She always does. She’d stride out down the corridor, hands on hips and face set into a glare. She’d drag out everybody by their ears: ghosts and left-behinds and prison escapees. She’d send the ghosts packing, she’d scrub the left-behinds and set them back down in their places. Dr Panikkar would know the difference between alive and dead and just what’s to be done about it. And she’d do it, too.

She wouldn’t crouch down, picking up one of those pencils and pulling the autograph book out of her skirt. She wouldn’t lick the pencil lead – ugh, imagine the germs – or set it down on one of these pastel-angel pages. And if she did, there’d be a reason. She’d write a note. A letter. Instructions. She’d demand the left-behinds obtain birth certificates and the ghosts furnish themselves with autopsy findings. She’d write something dry, something cramped, a story that never got away.

She wouldn’t draw a river in full flood. She wouldn’t draw a tangle-haired Chinese girl looking over her shoulder, or a handsome boy with a stethoscope watching her from behind. There’d be no durians in her picture, no grandmothers or leprosy, and certainly no handcuffs. She probably wouldn’t even draw a tiger-prince, which goes to show how much she knows.

No. The almost-sound comes once more, and then there’s silence. I close the book and slide it into the middle of the pile of rubbish. I’m leaving my own mark: leaving a garrulous and girlish ghost who’ll answer to Cecelia or Anil or any name that takes her fancy. To Peony. To Mary. To Francesca. To Durga.

I stand up straight and listen, but there’s nothing. No more sounds from the end of the corridor, no more flickers in the sunlight. Just a few echoes – no – spreading through my head and over Pahang. Past Mrs Selva, grimly reading Christmas cards in her lonely bed. Past Karthika, pinning movie-star cuttings to her bedroom wall. Down Gua Musang those echoes go, past the girls in pink hijabs studying behind durian stalls and the cars blasting Pahang FM. Past the university, where Sangeeta’s calls go unanswered and Anwar marks answers incorrect – no, no, no. Overhead and out to KL, where they’re drowned once and for all by the roar of traffic and the thrum of a thousand other lives.

Acknowledgements

I am most deeply grateful for the support and encouragement of my parents, Dr Alexandra Menon and Dr Nanda Menon. Although the characters and events in this book are fictional, the war and subsequent Malayan Emergency was a turbulent and violent time. I’m immensely grateful both for the memories my parents have shared and for their wisdom. I would also like to thank my brother, Anand Menon, for all his interest and encouragement.

My wonderful agent, Zoë Waldie, has been the best guide I could possibly have had throughout the publication process; I have benefited immensely from her warmth, skill and never-ending patience. I’d also like to thank all the staff at RCW, who have made me feel so welcome.

I couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic, skilful and tireless editor than Mary Mount. I’m indebted to her for her sensitivity and for her wonderful editorial eye. My thanks must also go to my copy-editor, Trevor Horwood, for his meticulous attention to detail.

My particular and very heartfelt thanks go to all my writing group friends; their feedback, support and generosity have been immensely helpful during the whole process. Particular thanks to Katy Darby for her admirable teaching skills: without her short-story course I would never have begun to write at all.

I am also deeply indebted to all the staff on the City University Creative Writing MA course, particularly Jonathan Myerson and Clare Allan. Jonathan and Clare have read, critiqued and supported this story throughout all its drafts, and I cannot express how much I’ve learnt from them. And, of course, I’m very grateful to all my classmates on the course for their endless generosity, feedback and support.

My deepest thanks also to Professor Michael Johnson, my PhD supervisor. Michael is an immensely talented teacher, researcher and mathematician, who ‘knows all that there is to be knowed’ about category theory. Any mathematical mistakes in this book are unquestionably mine alone.

Finally, to my wonderful husband Dr Paul Emberson, who is my bedrock and my Pole Star. Paul, this book – like everything else – would be so many blank pages without you.

THIS IS JUST

THE BEGINNING

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