SIX
THE GREAT BLACK SHARK came boiling up from the surface, hung motionless for a moment, its massive jaws gnashing at the air, then fell writhing back into the choppy waters.
Undine shrieked. “Again!” she shouted. “Again! Again! Again!”
“Very well, but this one must be the last,” Dogger said, manipulating his bare hands in front of the shaded desk lamp, and the black shadow shark rose up once more on the wall, snapped fiendishly at the air, and splashed back into the billows of waving fingers.
Dogger rolled down his sleeves, rebuttoned the cuffs, and switched off the lamp.
He removed the blankets he had hung over the kitchen windows, and we blinked in the sudden light.
When Dogger had gone, Undine said, “Does he always make sharks?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve seen him form elephants and crocodiles. His crocodile is quite terrifying, actually.”
“Huh!” Undine said. “I’m not scared of crocodiles.”
I couldn’t resist. “I’ll bet you’ve never seen one,” I said. “Not in real life, anyway.”
“I have, too!”
Little did she know that when it came to the bluffing game, she was up against a master. I’ll teach her a trick or two, I thought.
“Where, precisely?” I asked. She probably didn’t even know the meaning of the word “precisely.”
“In a mangrove swamp at Sembawang. It was a saltwater crocodile—they’re the world’s largest living reptile.”
“Sembawang?” I must have sounded like the village idiot.
“Singapore,” she said. She pronounced it Sing-a-PORE, with the accent on the last syllable. “Have you never been to Singapore?”
Since I had not, I wondered how I could best quickly change the subject.
“Why do you call your mother Ibu?” I asked.
“It’s Malay,” she answered. “It means ‘mother’ in Malay.”
“Is Singapore in Malay?”
“No! Malay is a language, you silly goose. Singapore is a geographical location.”
This discussion was not going at all as I had hoped. Time for another diversion.
“Undine,” I said. “What a peculiar name.”
Perhaps “peculiar” was a little harsh, but she had, after all, struck the first blow by calling me a silly goose.
“Not so peculiar as it might have been,” she replied. “My father wanted to call me Sepia, but my mother prevailed.”
That was the way she spoke: “prevailed.”
What a curious little creature she was!
At one moment, she was a baby bawling for more amusement, and the next, she was talking like some boring old stick from the Explorers Club.
Ageless, I thought. Yes, that was the word that best described Undine: ageless.
Still, I wasn’t quite sure whether to believe her about the Singapore saltwater crocodile. I’d check her up later.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said suddenly, out of the silence. “Ibu has spoken of her often.”
“In Malay?” I asked, meaning to cut.
“In Malay and in English,” she said. “In Singapore, we spoke both languages interchangeably.”
Interchangeably? Don’t make me hurl my gastric acids!
“Have I caused you great distress?” she asked.
“Distress?”
“Ibu said I was not to mention your mother’s name at Buckshaw. She said it would cause great distress.”
“Ibu speaks often of my mother, you say?”
I was still being more than a trifle snotty, but Undine didn’t seem to notice.
“Yes, quite often,” she said. “She cared for her a great deal.”
I have to admit I was touched.
“She wept,” Undine said, “when they took your mother’s body from the train.”
Quite suddenly my mind was reeling.
“From the train?” I asked, disbelieving her. “You weren’t at the station.”
“Yes, we were,” Undine said. “Ibu said it was the least we could do. We were late. We parked off to one side, but we were still able to observe everything.”
“I’m suddenly tired, Undine,” I told her. “Find your own way upstairs. I’m going for a bit of a lie-down.”