Free Separation, The by Dinah Jefferies

of his body, then scrubbed and rinsed the rest of him from top to bottom. From a second bowl, she washed the lingering trace of vomit from her own face and sponged her skirt.
    The finest slice of a crescent moon stood out in the orange sky. As it grew darker, lanterns flickered right across the village. She guessed they’d be eating soon. Outside, by the fire, if she’d understood correctly. The boy confirmed it, grinning widely.
    ‘Rice balls,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘Sticky ones.’
    She smiled and lifted his chin. Children were the same the world over. She felt a surge of longing for her girls. It took her by the shoulders and shook her to her boots. She imagined the sound of their laughter as they sang to each other in the bath. How much longer was it going to be?
    In the dark, clusters of fireflies took off and flashed in synchrony, lighting tree after tree all along the riverbank, but she felt lost; more than missing a limb, as people said, she was missing her heart.
    That night she lay on her makeshift bunk, blue moonlight slanting through the glassless window. As the little boy snuggled up, she put one arm round him to hold him safe, then travelled to her daughters in her mind. She made herself cry with images of them asleep in bed, protected by mosquito nets, but not by her.
    She felt Maznan wipe her tears away with his fingers, then she sang him to sleep and sent a prayer to her girls, across miles and miles of inhospitable jungle.
    The shadowy image of a woman in a pale blue dress with darker flowers at the hem drifted into her mind. She stood on a beach, the skirt rustling against her calves, and Lydia longed for the image to become clearer. It did not. It never did. But she clung to the memory, buried inside the long years she spent at St Joseph’s. When she’d asked who the woman was, the nuns had changed the subject and she’d had to make do with her imagination. She allowed the picture to fade, and despite the suffocatingMalayan heat, was surprised to sleep soundly, the peace of the village wiping the terror of the day away.
    She woke as dawn lit the walls of the hut and the scent of ripe pineapples and mangos drifted in. She went outside, sniffed the air, and found leggy Maznan counting the number of times he leapt over the remains of the night’s fire. She smiled at his squeals of make-believe fear, knowing the fire was cold. Even though it was early, the men, bent double, toiled on the vegetable plots, and women swept the bare earth round their huts.
    ‘Maznan,’ she called.
    He turned his face, grinned, and ran across to lead her to see the goats. Together they saw a clearing where the small herd of beige goats was grazing.
    ‘Eight,’ he said. ‘You can touch them.’
    She tentatively held out her hand to one of the smaller ones.
    He laughed. ‘The babies do not bite.’
    Lela came out with a stool for Maznan and one for herself. Lydia was astonished at the little boy’s proficiency as he began to milk. Again she wondered if it was the right place to leave him. It was hard to know. The girl hadn’t been clear.
    ‘Mem.’ He smiled encouragingly at her. ‘You try?’
    She shook her head and saw the disappointment in his eyes. ‘Would you like to stay here?’ she said.
    ‘For how long, Mem?’
    ‘You can call me by my name, Maznan. I’m Lydia.’
    ‘Yes, Mem. And you can call me Maz.’
    She sighed. ‘I mean would you like to live here, Maz, until your aunt can fetch you?’
    The boy looked up at her with watchful eyes. ‘Not my aunt, Mem. I will go with you.’
    Lydia stared at the child and shook her head. He’d triggered her pity back in Malacca and now a dozen thoughts fought for space.
    Part Malay, part Chinese, the girl had asked her to take himto a Malay kampong or Chinese resettlement village. He had relatives in both, but she hadn’t said which ones and there were so many. She couldn’t drag him all the way to Ipoh, and despite the Emergency this was a happy