She took a rickshaw to the small hotel agreed with Alan over the telephone, booked in and asked if there was a message for her. There was not. Just being in a hotel and waiting for news again gave her a strange and apprehensive feeling, but this time she knew she would not stir from the hotel until she heard from Alan.

Watching from her window she saw young men strolling in twos and threes, obviously English soldiers though walking out from their camp in cheap cotton trousers and shirts they had bought locally. One of these groups paused outside and soon afterwards a letter was brought up to her room.

She tore it open, paused and laughed as she saw he had drawn matchstick men along the top all cheering. She went to sit by the window to read his message.

My darling Liz,

I am writing just in case you manage to come this early. I’m on duty until late afternoon — but great news. We have our own place!

I’ve rented a holiday bungalow. It is on Batu Feringgi beach — practically on the edge of the sea and just about four hundred yards around the headland from our camp. It is really a weekend bungalow used by a George Town barber, but we have full use of it for a month — and the regime in this camp is free and easy, the duties light.

I’ll go to the bungalow tomorrow lunchtime and every afternoon until you come. There is everything there, except can you food shop on the way?

Come soon, my love.

Yours ever,

Alan

The taxi driver was amused as she stacked his vehicle with goods. She was less enchanted when as they drove he insisted on slowing down to point out places he obviously thought she should be interested in — or as she came to realise he thought he might earn more by taking her on detours. This went on until she told him that there would be two dollars extra if he could get her to Feringgi quickly. The difference was electrifying, even frightening, as they now careered along, disregarding not only the attractions but all other forms of life and traffic.

They were quickly across the island to the west coast, blazed a way through a sleepy fishing village and along the shore track, glimpsing blue ocean between palms as they sped along. The tropical growth on the land side was becoming denser and more encroaching, so Liz assumed few people used this road.

‘Are you sure this is the right way?’ she asked.

He turned and beamed. ‘I bring Mr Khanti all time.’

She felt relieved when he turned back to look where he was going and only seconds later braked sharply before a small wooden building.

‘If you would just put all my things near the door,’ she said, beginning to fumble in her handbag for his fee. Less he should try to find more reasons to earn himself a little more. Once the dollars had changed hands, he left with as much speed as she could have wished.

The bungalow was open and, though she called tentatively, she knew it was empty. She walked to the beach edge; palms behind, ocean in front, sky, it seemed, the deepest of blues, yet the sea deeper still. Everywhere appeared deserted. The beach bungalow was built on a wooden platform, level at the trackside but some feet above the beach where the sand sloped quickly into the lapping water. Although unprepossessing from the outside, no more than steep slant of attap roof running down beyond its walls to shade the platform it was built on, inside the house had been neatly divided into four parts. There were two bedrooms — Mr Khanti obviously had children, and she hoped they wouldn’t miss their weekends at the beach too much. The lady of the house had kept most of the drapes in shades of white and cream with patterned brown cushions and rugs. On the tables were brown and white bowls and shells. It was altogether very pleasing.

The only things she was sure neither Mr nor Mrs Khanti owned were a thin blue cotton shirt and a pair of cotton trousers thrown on the double bed. These had to be Alan’s, they were like those she had seen on the soldiers in George Town.

She sat on the bed, laying a gentle hand on them as if to divine where he was, when he would come. Then she was up and about the business of housekeeping, stowing away their groceries, leaning from the kitchen window and plucking brilliant red hibiscus, spoiling Mrs Kanti’s colour scheme with bowls full in the kitchen and the lounge.

Everything done she could think of, even the wok oiled ready to cook in, she wandered out on to the beach. In both directions it was entirely deserted. To the right, no more than a quarter of a mile away, a heavily jungled headland tumbled small cast-off green islets into the sea. This was the way the camp lay.

She walked slowly, watching the sun sink down through a sky in deepening splendours of silver, bronze and, as it touched the horizon, pure liquid gold, seeming to resist being put out by the sea with a brazen display of pyrotechnics far across the sky. The last rim clung on and on, and when at last the whole circle had disappeared the sky still celebrated the passing.

She found to her astonishment tears running down her cheeks. This beautiful land, this land where she had thought all her dreams for the future lay ...

‘My Shangri-la!’ she whispered to the fading glory. ‘Still the same — but I’ve changed. You are the distant, brilliant land of my childhood.’

She turned to look from sea to land, dark now, menacing to the ignorant or the unwary. But westward, the sea seemed to hold its own light, as if having drowned in it the sun gave up light from below its waters. ‘Ever more wonders!’ Looking towards the headland, she was surprised to see how close its blackness loomed, how far she had walked. With a start, she saw a dark figure at the sea’s edge outlined by the pale-green phosphorescence — a figure lifting an arm high in eager greeting. ‘Ever more wonders,’ she repeated.

They met running. He caught and swung her round so she felt on a carousel of pale sky and shining water.

They hugged and kissed and threw little remarks at each other, mere asides, banter to ride the excitement of reunion, the thrill of touching.

‘You’ve shaved your beard.’

‘I was on duty until five.’

‘I had a mad taxi driver ... ’

‘Today’s duty sergeant thinks he’s still at Caterham Barracks.’

‘I think my mother will marry George.’

There was a pause, a kind of calming in this news. ‘Good,’ he said with gentle emphasis. ‘Good, best thing that can happen.’

They were silent then, content to link arms and stand lifting their faces to the slight breeze coming from the sea. Its passage feigning coolness.

‘It was getting late,’ she said after a time. ‘I thought you might not come.’

‘I’ll be here every night and most days,’ he told her. ‘The camp has steps down to this beach. There’s a fence and a gate but ... but I’m billeted with two good guys.’

She gave his arm a squeeze and immediately he folded her in his arms. ‘Don’t get into trouble.’ she whispered.

‘Do I care?’ he asked, wrapping the words around her like a message of undying love.

‘Don’t want them sending you somewhere else. I would like the whole month here.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘You know honeymoons are going to mean nothing to us.’

‘We’ll just make it one long celebration,’ he told her and they began walking slowly back towards the bungalow.

‘I love you,’ she said, ‘for ever.’

‘You’ll be able to stay until my furlough is up?’

She nodded. ‘And I’ll travel with you when you go.’

‘I hope,’ he said, treading into the wet sand at the sea’s edge, ‘we’re not talking metaphors, or some of George’s proverbs here.’

She laughed. ‘No, I’m talking planes and ships, or whatever will take us back to England.’

‘You’d be happy to leave your mother behind? That is, if she stays.’ It was easier to ask these questions as they walked.