The Last Tiger Read online

  Bee climbed out and looked around. The van was parked on a packed earth forecourt, but unlike the track, it was well maintained. The resort was small and to Bee did not look like any resort she had ever seen before. Her heart sank a little with worry. She had imagined something quite different.

  The table was backed by stacks of full water bottles and packets of toilet rolls sprawling across the large covered porch of what was obviously a private house. The open doorway extended across the entire width of the room, revealing a very young child sitting open-legged on the floor watching cartoons on a wide screen television. On the steps were several large tagged bags of freshly laundered towels and sheets awaiting distribution. Radiating from the forecourt, neat paths cut through flowering shrubs to the huts beyond, all beneath towering palms laden with orangey-yellow fruit.

  Felix saw her looking,

  ‘You wouldn’t want one of those landing on your head would you?’

  Bee looked at him, mystified.

  ‘Coconuts.’

  ‘No problem. We climb up…’ came a voice from behind. A woman wearing dark jeans, a long sleeved tee shirt and turquoise headscarf, appeared from the house, smiling broadly. With a cutting motion she indicated the small inverted wedge shaped footholds hacked from the trunk of each tree. With her thumb she pointed up to the coconuts, ‘Then we cut.’ She touched Bee’s cheek, ‘So pretty. Beautiful eyes. What name?’

  ‘Belle. We call her Bee.’

  ‘So pretty. Your daughter?’

  ‘My son’s daughter. It means beautiful, her name.’

  The woman nodded approvingly, before indicating that Felix must sign the register.

  ‘You stay before?’

  ‘Yes.’ He gave her their passports.

  ‘I thought so. Eat here tonight?’

  ‘Maybe, but maybe we walk to the village.’

  ‘Okay, no problem. This way.’ She strode off ahead of them along one of the paths and passed several huts before stopping in front of one and unlocking the door. ‘This one. Has shower and toilet. Also fan. Okay? I give passport back, must copy first. Sorry.’

  Felix smiled, took the key and thanked her and once inside switched on the ceiling fan. In the simple space, two beds were contained within separate box-like wooden frames supporting mosquito nets that had been folded in such a way as to fall and cover the bed without trapping any unwanted pests inside. Bee’s net fell when she touched it and it was impossible to guess how to put it right.

  ‘Bee, how about instead of wrecking the joint we stroll to the beach?’

  ‘Is it near here?’

  ‘Near? It’s just out there.’ Felix threw a thumb in the direction of the door.

  Without another word, Bee rushed outside, bright blues eyes eagerly following the path to its end. Sandals kicked off she sprinted, scattering basking lizards. Ahead of her, crystal clear water gently lapped an irresistible swathe of gold, dotted with coconut palms. She jumped into the yellow sand.

  ‘Didn’t I mention to you that we were by the sea?’ Felix called with an innocent chuckle, as he strolled after her. ‘Let’s grab a drink and a bite to eat before you get stuck in, young lady.’

  But Bee wasn’t listening. Only minutes before she had been feeling worried and disappointed. Now, quite suddenly, she was happy.

  *

  It was this first afternoon of real holiday, once Bee finally stopped playing, and sandy footed, tucked into a plate of nasi goreng in the small beach bar, that Felix decided to fully explain their trip. Bee had an idea, of course, that what lay ahead was not an average holiday. Her parents would not have been so sensitive about things had Pappy simply planned on taking her somewhere regular – whether Bournemouth or Bali – or a pleasant beach break. Plus he had hinted more than once that exciting times lay ahead.

  His mission, their mission, lay across the water on a very individual island, he said. She could be his assistant. She could take the story home to her classmates and use it as she saw fit.

  ‘They’ll love it,’ he added. ‘Real adventure from the adventurer herself.’

  ‘Why are we going there? To the island.’ Bee asked.

  ‘The long story or the short?’

  ‘Short.’

  So Felix told her the long story anyway, about a legendary battle thousands of years ago that left this particular rise of land beyond ownership. ‘Pulau Tua. It’s a sacred place, believed to be absolutely untouched by time since that single battle.’ He swigged from a bottle of Tiger beer. ‘It’s been preserved as a sanctuary, a haunt for the wandering souls of the lingering dead. Whooo…’

  Bee laughed at the spooky voice.

  ‘Anyhow. These spirits are meant to be the restless sort, although I can’t think what other sort anyone is likely to encounter. Not that I believe any of it. They say these ghosts have carved some kind of path from death to the heart of the island, but whatever Pulau Tua really is, it’s definitely an unusual place. It was defined long before the countries around it, such as here, or Indonesia or anywhere else. It’s always been revered. It’s absolutely laden with tales of mythological creatures. The name translates to Old Island and that name goes way back. Long before records began.’

  Once this part of his tale was told, Felix continued as if he were confessing, turning away from Bee and pointing to a great wedge of green on the horizon, his tone quieter.

  ‘That is Pulau Tua.’

  ‘But you haven’t said why we are going there…’

  ‘To do my job, Bee. I thought you’d be interested. You always seem so keen on these things. And I don’t know how many more opportunities will be coming my way. And another like this? Well… never again is the honest truth.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘You know. Nature, environment, ecology. All that sort of thing. Same as me. Chip off the old block, you are.’

  Bee looked at him, waiting.

  ‘It’s been said… noticed by…’ he paused, rephrasing, ‘well… let’s just say it has come to someone’s notice that vast tracts of land have been cleared of precious wood and rare animals. It’s sickening to think of it happening anywhere… but over there,’ he pointed again, ‘unbelievable is what it is.’

  She looked on, a slightly unsettled expression growing on her pretty face.

  ‘Bee! Don’t look like that. What sort of grandpa would I be? It’s perfectly safe.’ Smiling, his grey eyes twinkled with charm. ‘It’s a simple reconnaissance of the island that’s going to double as a great field trip. I have no one I need to engage with, no one to sort out. I am assessing… we are assessing… that’s all. Bee, this is an unbelievable opportunity, which is why I wanted you to come with me. It’s a chance to see first hand one of the last unexplored places on earth. There really aren’t many of them left. This is my job. I’m lucky. Which means you’re lucky.’

  ‘Good job!’ she said, face relaxing a little. ‘Like in a film. Or a computer game.’ Bee sipped an icy cold coke, rivulets of condensation running down the sides of the glass and over her fingers. ‘So Pappy…’ she cocked an eyebrow, ‘that was the short version?’

  He raised his hands in surrender. ‘There isn’t a short version. Not with something like this.’

  Bee began thinking about what he had said and what might lie ahead, discovering it was unimaginable. Then thoughts turned to her family at home, her father. So this is what had upset him so badly. Her father, so reserved and cautious it was as if he was denying his own blood; Pappy’s words. He was afraid for her. Though not so afraid as to deny the opportunity of a lifetime, it seemed.

  EYE OF THE DAY

  Grandfather and granddaughter stood on a small jetty watching the morning sun throw new heat across the South China Sea. Gentle waves lapped the quiet beach promising a tranquil morning, although after a sweltering night the day threatened to be unbearably hot. Saturated air clung to sweat, skin cooled only by the occasional salty waft meandering in from the still ocean. Lazily, the meagre puff
would drift away leaving behind it a renewed sense of heat and a wish that the relief, however pleasant, had never been felt.

  Felix had acquired a guide plus a bumboat, and a man willing to sail it. According to the man, he had already agreed to transport three orang putih to Pulau Tua for what seemed an astonishing number of ringgits, and demanded as much again to take Felix and his granddaughter as additional passengers. And there were conditions. He said he would only go at all if they travelled in the early morning with the best chance of good weather and he would wait for them, but not on land. If the skies darkened and he could not make contact, he would leave them there to collect the next day. It seemed an extreme condition to Bee, perfectly acceptable to her grandfather. Less acceptable to him were the other passengers.

  With the morning of departure upon them, the old man arrived promptly, looking at Bee with distinct apprehension.

  ‘Orang-orang tau percaya bahawa roh golongan ‘Orang Harimau’ berkeliaran di sana.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Pappy?’

  ‘He thinks you’ll be afraid like his own grandchildren, Bee, and he knows I want you to come.’

  Bee scooped straggles of fair hair into a ponytail, missing fine strands stuck to her sweaty neck. ‘We’ve come such a long way, Pappy. Of course I want to come. I’ll be fine.’ But inside she felt the murmur of unease. Frightened of anxiety answering the old man’s fears, she buried it.

  ‘You know that, and I know that,’ said Felix, ‘but he doesn’t. He thinks I am wrong to take you there.’ He looked at Bee earnestly, and sighed, ‘Perhaps I am.’

  She shook her head and smiled, ‘Too late now anyway.’

  Felix laughed and pulled his granddaughter to him, ‘I said it before and I’ll say it again. Chip off the old block.’

  She pulled away gently, ‘Too hot. I won’t be frightened Pappy, you know me.’

  ‘I do know that, otherwise I wouldn’t have told you what he said, would I?’

  ‘So? What else did he say? Are there any cannibals on the island?’ she smiled, pushing more skinny strands of hair from her face.

  ‘He said: ‘Old people believe that ghosts walk there, spirits of the ‘Tiger People’.’

  ‘And do you believe him?’ came a loud voice from behind.

  Bee and Felix turned to see two men and one woman dragging a number of heavy black bags across the sand. The three were dressed so similarly it was almost a uniform; white long sleeved shirts, long khaki coloured trousers. The old boatman watched for a moment, allowing the trio to struggle closer before stepping forwards to help. Despite his diminutive stature, he threw a bag into the boat as if it were no more than a sack of dry leaves.

  ‘Steady on old boy,’ snapped the voice already heard, the elder of the two men, a middle-aged man, at first appearing as old as Felix thanks to lack of hair and flabby covering. ‘We have expensive equipment in there! For goodness sake.’

  The boatman’s crumpled face was unmoved, but he made an obvious show of not touching any more bags and helping only Bee to board the craft. His thin mouth wore an anxious smile as he looked at her.

  Radzi, a guide hired by Felix, had been waiting patiently beneath a crooked palm. With the arrival of more passengers he moved swiftly aboard, taking himself upfront and settling beside the captain. Seemingly from nowhere a second man helped push off before springing into the boat and joining his fellow Malaysians.

  Soon the boat was up to speed and far away from the Eastern shore of Peninsular Malaysia, passengers wrapped in faded orange buoyancy aids speckled with starbursts of black mould, roasting on plastic covered seats in the stuffy shelter of the vessel’s interior. With an arm outstretched through an open window, Bee looked back and watched the huts and beach fade from sight. Ahead of them lay Pulau Tua with its a single great green wedge of a hill rising at one end.

  ‘So what brings you here? I was surprised to find anyone else heading out this way,’ Felix said to the older man, raising his voice above the sound of the motor. He squeezed Bee’s hand reassuringly as he spoke, ‘I’m Felix. Felix Malone. This is my granddaughter, Belle. We call her Bee.’

  ‘Very nice to meet you, Felix,’ blustered the man loudly, shooting out a hand, hairless head shining with sweat and sunscreen. ‘Giles Patterson. And this is Lydia, and this young man is Mark.’

  Felix took Giles’ hand before moving on to greet the others. After Mark, Bee noticed her grandfather wipe his hand on his trouser leg, noticing also the guilty look at having been caught in the act. Tentatively offering her own to Mark, but only fingers met in an awkward half-shake; even they were a little damp. Bee looked in wonder at him and his pale skin, translucent against jet-black hair.

  ‘We’re on a research project,’ said Lydia, dark eyes roaming between grandfather and granddaughter.

  Bee stared, fascinated by the woman’s auburn ringlets. Black hair, red hair and no hair. She looked at Pappy. Grey hair. Her own was fair. Was this not all the colours? Except brown.

  ‘Should be quite an experience,’ Lydia added, smiling.

  Giles butted in, ‘An understatement, if I may say! It’s not often one has the opportunity to observe and record such a spectacularly unique environment, such pristine conditions are rarely found nowadays.’ He wiped his brow with a handkerchief, ‘We’re the first here, you understand, the first authorised scientists anyway. Once in a lifetime opportunity, not even that. Once in every few lifetimes, I should think.’

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ said Felix, ‘authorised?’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘By?’

  ‘Well now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ Giles’ face puffed up defensively.

  ‘A secret mission? This must make Pulau Tua the next Tracy Island. We won’t ask any more questions, eh Bee, otherwise he may have to kill us.’

  Bee nodded gently and although feeling sticky and hot still leaned against her grandfather’s arm, finding comfort in its size. She then glanced up at his head again, finding equal comfort in his thick grey hair, grateful that Pappy was nothing like this strange man.

  Giles ignored the joke, ‘And you?’ he asked, with the unpleasant taint of insistence.

  ‘Sadly not a secret agent but an observer, in a way. I work for a charity that helps communities find alternatives to logging. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Ah, a do-gooder in our midst,’ Giles barked.

  Bee looked up again and watched Felix give his usual response of a polite smile.

  ‘But there are no communities here, this is an uninhabited island, is it not?’ Giles went on.

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘Not many people to help then, m’boy. An easy ticket for you, eh? And a waste of somebody else’s money.’ Giles snorted with self-satisfaction and looked to his colleagues for approval.

  ‘An academic with a financial conscience. Remarkable.’ Felix muttered to Bee, squeezing her hand again before looking out to sea.

  For a moment the conversation fell away, only the roar of the outboard motor filling the space between them. Upfront, captain and crew also sat quietly contemplating their own thoughts.

  ‘And you Bess, are you helping your dad?’ asked Lydia, eventually.

  Prompted into response by her grandfather’s elbow, Bee replied, ‘It’s Bee, and yes, I am helping my grandfather.’

  Bee knew she had sounded rude; Felix’s sharp eyes flashed a warning.

  Lydia laughed kindly, ‘Oh I’m so sorry… Bee…. I misheard.’

  Bee felt guilty for she had not meant to be abrupt. Lydia was nice even though her eyes were shamelessly trailing over Pappy. Bee avoided the sight of her ogling and looked down, fingers fiddling with the thick veins on the back of Pappy’s hand. She remembered a school friend‘s advice: in these situations look for dilated pupils. If a boy looks at you with dilated pupils, she’d said, his eyes are trying to fit more of you in. So run. Bee could not easily see the condition of Lydia’s pupils and nor did she want to, but it didn’t m
atter because she had seen that look laid upon Pappy before. Nana once told her that Pappy was good-looking and admiring glances were to be expected, but truthfully Bee couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Pappy was nothing more than a nice old man.

  ‘So you’re in it together then? Just the two of you?’ added Lydia.

  ‘Yes, the trip is a birthday present for Bee, a gift from my wife – Bee’s Nana – and from me.’

  So Pappy had spotted it, too, thought Bee.

  ‘She was ten recently, weren’t you.’

  ‘Not that recently,’ remarked Bee, hastily, for her birthday had been many weeks ago.

  ‘Quite a present, Bee, you’re very lucky.’ Lydia smiled.

  ‘I know,’

  ‘So,’ said Felix, ‘what will you be researching while you’re on the island?’

  With her eye on Bee as if the explanation were mostly for her, Lydia said, ‘Well, Giles studies human culture, Mark’s a plant man and I take care of the animal side of things. There was a wonderful marine biologist coming too, but in the end he couldn’t make it. Maybe another time.’

  ‘Human culture?’ questioned Felix, but no answer came. ‘Seems an odd thing to be going to Pulau Tua for.’

  ‘Maybe. I strongly suspect there won’t be another opportunity,’ Giles interjected, ‘we’re lucky to have access at all.’

  For a while Bee listened as the adults talked about things she did not fully understand, a contented audience for grownup banter regarding missing warden patrols, superstition and lost respect, of endemics and other words she could not raise the energy to ask about. Despite Lydia’s efforts to include her, Bee resisted, idly enjoying her position outside of conversation. After some time, the combination of chatter and roaring engine made for an enticing lullaby, and wrapped in the warm blanket of tropical heat and rocked by the easy swell, Bee fell asleep.

  Slumbering, she did not see Pulau Tua grow slowly larger, or feel nervous anticipation transform into relief, as the once distant island became something tangible. Land. Solid, green and forgiving. Belted tightly by yellow sand, grey rock and surrounded by beautiful clear blue sea, dense forest pushed back from the upper shore before rising steeply, hillsides thick and lush. Pulau Tua was a vast oasis.