Free The White Amah by Ann Massey Page B

suite, still protected in the clear plastic wrap it had been covered with to keep it clean in transit, was pushed against the side walls. The room was dimly lit by common candles stuck in empty cola bottles. Through the gloom she saw the conjuror’s acolyte sitting cross-legged on the pink, imported marble floor playing the traditional three-stringed rebab. The medium was sitting on a carved sandalwood chair under a yellow umbrella, gazing vacantly at his daughter. Dressed in an exquisite dress of antique-gold cloth, she was dancing around him, waving a palm frond and chanting an incantation.
    The air was heavy with the smell of incense, and the rhythmic chanting was working a spell on the susceptible jungle girl’s senses. Rubiah felt weightless, as though she was floating and looking down on the scene below, released from her body. This is what it must be like to be Mother, she thought sadly. For a moment she felt regret. Since she’d first learned of the ancient power possessed by the women of her family, to travel at will between the physical and metaphysical planes, she had longedfor the gift to be bestowed on her too. Now it would never happen. In escaping the world of her ancestors she had severed links with her spiritual heritage.
    A candle spluttered and Rubiah’s gem-encrusted bangle flashed in the flickering flame. Grounded again, she gazed at it with satisfaction. She watched intently as the bomah’s body began to twitch and jerk, so violently that he fell from the chair and lay on the floor shuddering.
    His wife sidled up to Rubiah and whispered in her ear, ‘He is fighting a deadly battle with the witch for the return of your soul.’
    Suddenly the bomah ’s body convulsed, his eyes rolled back in his head and an evil- smelling black liquid flowed from his mouth.
    Fearfully, Rubiah clung to Jelian’s wife, her eyes shut tight, too scared to look.
    ‘It’s okay, it’s over,’ the other woman said, frowning. Some of the vegetable dye had splashed on her new Persian rug. ‘My husband is a very powerful bomah,’ she whispered. ‘If you want to marry your boss, he can drive away your lover’s wife and you can step into her place.’
    ‘How much will it cost?’
    ‘Only three thousand ringgit for you. You give me the money and I’ll ask him.’
    Rubiah was determined to find the money, even if she had to go to a loan shark. But it wouldn’t come to that. She could always sell some more jewellery.
    Roger was too cunning to take his amah into the hotel restaurant for breakfast and ordered room service. It was unlikely that anyof his wife’s friends would be holidaying in Labuan. It wasn’t a popular resort with the ex-pat community; they favoured Kota Kinabulu or Kuching for local getaways. All the same, you couldn’t be too careful. He congratulated himself on the clever way he’d covered his tracks.
    Roger wished Ruby had put something over her nightie. He glared as he caught the waiter sneaking a look at her. Well, the man could forget any ideas about getting a tip. But his good humour returned as he tucked into a plate of halal bacon and eggs. He’d got used to eating turkey bacon, prepared to resemble the real thing, on the rig. He smiled across at Rubiah, who was finishing off a plate of rice porridge.
    She had ordered bubur sumsum. ‘Is good. You try. You like, I make for you,’ she offered shyly.
    Roger liked porridge, but he hadn’t had any since he was a boy in St John’s and his ma had made him and his three brothers eat it to counteract the storms sweeping across Newfoundland off the North Atlantic Ocean. He looked at the dish of rice porridge mixed with unrecognisable vegetables, salted fish and sambal in disbelief and shook his head. Rubiah hid her disappointment and Roger had no idea that he’d hurt her feelings.
    It was an early, hurried meal because he had arranged to take her fishing with a couple of guys he knew who worked on the same rig. He wasn’t worried they’d