Return to Mandalay by Rosanna Ley Page B

village on the Irrawaddy near Myitkyina.’ She looked down at her feet in the red silk slippers. ‘She lives alone and sometimes needs me to help her.’
    ‘Indeed.’ That was even more interesting. Because Lawrence was working in the jungle up near Myitkyina and her aunt’s village was only a few miles away.
    She looked back up at him from under her eyelids. Was she flirting with him? It wasn’t the kind of flirting he was used to, but there was something, some dark knowledge in her eyes that drew him forward. He saw Scottie grind his cigarette under the heel of his boot, noticed that he was getting restless.
    ‘See you back at the club, old man?’ he asked with a wink.
    ‘Yes. Perhaps …’ What was the etiquette? Would she be welcomed in the bar there? Should he invite her? Lawrence wasn’t sure of the form. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. ‘You could tell me more?’ he asked her, instead of what he had been going to say.
    ‘More?’ Her eyes were innocent and yet knowing.
    ‘About Mandalay. About your life here.’ Not the club, he decided. She didn’t belong there, he wouldn’t insult her.
    She gave a little shrug as if Europeans waylaid her regularly to ask her such questions.
    ‘You must know the city well?’
    ‘My family has always lived here,’ she said. ‘My grandmother was a servant girl to the Queen.’ Her slim back was already straight, but as she spoke these words she seemed to stand straighter still.
    ‘Really? I say …’ Lawrence was brave enough to take her arm. Scottie had already strolled off. He only had one chance with this girl and he wasn’t going to chuck it away.
    ‘Yes,’ said Moe Mya. ‘It is true.’
    ‘About the blanket, sir?’ The stallholder complained. ‘You like the blanket, yes?’
    ‘Shall we walk for a while?’ Lawrence asked her.
    She looked doubtfully around. And it was true that there wasn’t really anywhere to walk to.
    ‘To the Palace moat? It isn’t far.’ He could hear the recklessness in his own voice. But there was something. Perhaps she felt it too.
    ‘The blanket …?’
    ‘I’ll take it.’ Lawrence reached for his wallet.
    She drew back, shocked. ‘You have not even agreed a price,’ she said.
    Lawrence grinned. ‘How much?’ he asked the stallholder. ‘Name your figure and don’t be greedy or I might change my mind.’
    He could see the cogs spinning.
How much would lose the sale? How unpredictable might a man like Lawrence be?
By this stage Lawrence didn’t even know the answers himself.
    The stallholder named his price.
    Moe Mya replied in Burmese. Lawrence had no idea what she said – he really must make more of an effort – but something must have been agreed because the stallholder argued briefly, then shrugged, nodded and began to fold the blanket into a neat square.
    Lawrence passed over some money, tried not to feel that the initiative had somehow smoothly been taken out of his hands.
    She passed him the blanket. ‘They will not respect you if you let them cheat you,’ she said softly.
    He could feel her warm breath on his neck as she leaned closer. She smelt of coconut oil. This was the first time she had somehow separated herself from her people. Had she aligned herself with him?
Us and them
. Lawrence didn’t understand it, but for him he felt it was no bad thing.
    ‘You must barter. It is part of the game.’
    The game … ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And now?’
    ‘We will walk towards the moat of the Royal Palace,’ she said, as if it had been her idea all along. ‘And I will tell you about Mandalay.’

CHAPTER 7
    ‘Do you mind if I join you?’
    Eva looked up from her guidebook to see a tall blond stranger smiling down on her. For a moment she was almost blinded by the reflection of the sun on his hair. ‘Oh. Well …’
    ‘Only there are no empty tables.’ He indicated the café terrace around them and it was true, it was lunchtime and the place was heaving.
    ‘Of course I don’t mind,