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For him, there have been others, of course – the missionary’s daughter in New Delhi, always ill and wan, though beautiful; the clever, hopeful spinster on the boat over from Penang – the women who say they’re looking for adventure but who are really looking for husbands. He’s managed to avoid the inconvenience of love for quite some time, but it seems to have found him in this unlikely place.
Women don’t like Trudy. ‘Isn’t that always the case, darling?’ she says, when, indiscreetly, he asks her about it. ‘And aren’t you a strange one for bringing it up?’ She chucks him under the chin and continues making a jug of gin and lemonade. ‘No one likes me,’ she says. ‘Chinese don’t because I don’t act Chinese enough, Europeans don’t because I don’t look at all European, and my father doesn’t like me because I’m not very filial. Do you like me?’
He assures her he does.
‘I wonder,’ she says. ‘I can tell why people like you. Besides the fact that you’re a handsome bachelor with mysterious prospects, of course. They read into you everything they want you to be. They read into me all that they don’t like.’ She dips her finger into the mix and brings it out to taste. Her face puckers. ‘Perfect,’ she says. She likes it sour.
Little secrets begin to spill out of Trudy. A temple fortune-teller told her the mole on her forehead signifies death to a future husband. She’s been engaged before, but it ended mysteriously. She tells him these secrets, then refuses to elaborate, saying he’ll leave her. She seems serious.
Trudy has two amahs. They have ‘tied their hair up together’, she explains. Two women decide not to marry and put a notice in the newspaper, like vows, declaring they will live together for ever. Ah Lok and Mei Sing are old now, almost sixty, but they live together in a small room with twin beds (‘So get that out of your mind right now,’ Trudy says lazily, ‘although we Chinese are very blasé about that sort of thing and who cares, really?’), a happy couple, except that they are both women. ‘It’s the best thing,’ Trudy says. ‘Lots of women know they’ll never get married so this is just as good. So civilized, don’t you think? All you need is a companion. That sex thing gets in the way after a while. A sisterhood thing. I’m thinking about doing it myself.’ She pays them each twenty-five cents a week and they will do anything for her. Once, he came into the living room to find Mei Sing massaging lotion on to Trudy’s hands while she was asleep on the sofa.
He never grows used to them. They completely ignore him, always talking to Trudy about him when he’s there. They tell her he has a big nose, that he smells funny, that his hands and feet are grotesque. He is beginning to understand a little of what they say, but their disapproving intonation needs no translation. Ah Lok cooks – salty, oily dishes he finds unhealthy and unappealing. Trudy eats them with relish – it’s the food she grew up with. She claims Mei Sing cleans, but he finds dust everywhere. The old woman also collects rubbish – used beer bottles, empty cold-cream jars, discarded toothbrushes – and stores it underneath her bed in anticipation of some apocalyptic event. All three women are messy. Trudy has the utter disregard for her surroundings that belongs to those who have been waited on since birth. She never cleans up, never lifts a finger, but neither do the amahs. They have picked up her habits – a peculiar symbiosis. Trudy defends them with the ferocity of a child defending her parents. ‘They’re old,’ she says. ‘Leave them alone. I can’t bear people who poke at their servants.’
She pokes at them, though. She argues with them when the flower man comes and Ah Lok wants to give him fifty cents and Trudy says to give him what he asks. The flower man is called Fa Wong, king of flowers, and he comes round the neighbourhood once a week, giant woven baskets slung from his brown, wiry shoulders, filled with masses of flowers. He calls, ‘Fa yuen, fa yuen,’ in a low monotonous pitch, and people wave him up to their flats. He and the amahs love to spar and they go at it for ages, until Trudy comes to break it up and give the man his money. Then Ah Lok gets angry and scolds her for giving in too easily. The old lady and the lovely young woman, their arms filled with flowers, go into the kitchen, where the blooms will be distributed into vases and scattered around the house. He watches them from his chair, his book spread over his lap, his eyes hooded as if in sleep – he watches her.
He is almost never alone, these days, always with her. It is something different for him. He used to like solitude, but now he craves her presence all the time. He’s gone without this drug for so long, he’s forgotten how compelling it is. When he is at the office, pecking away at the typewriter, he thinks of her laughing, drinking tea, smoking, the rings puffing up in front of her face. ‘Why do you work?’ she asks. ‘It’s so dreary.’
Discipline, he thinks. Don’t fall down that rabbit hole. But it’s useless. She’s always there, ringing him on the phone, ready with plans for the evening. When he looks at her, he feels weak and happy. Is that so bad?
They are eating brunch at the Repulse Bay, and reading the Sunday paper when Trudy looks up.
‘Why do they let these awful companies have advertisements?’ she asks. ‘Listen to this one – “Why suffer from agonizing piles?” Is there a need for that? Can’t they be a little bit more oblique?’ She shakes the newspaper at him. ‘There’s an illustration of a man suffering from piles! Is that really necessary?’
‘My heart,’ he says, ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ A displaced Russian in a dinner jacket plays the piano behind him.
‘Oh,’ she says, as if an afterthought. ‘My father wants to meet you. He wants to meet the man I’ve been spending so much time with.’ She is nonchalant, too much so. ‘Are you free tonight?’
‘Of course,’ he says.
They go for dinner at the Gloucester, where Trudy tells him the story of her parents’ meeting while they’re waiting at the bar. She is drinking brandy, unusual for her, which makes him think she might be more nervous than she is letting on. She swirls it, takes a delicate whiff, sips.
‘My mother was a great Portuguese beauty – her family had been in Macau for ages. They met there. My father was not as successful then, although he came from a well-to-do family. He had just started up a business selling widgets or something. He’s very clever, my father. Don’t know why I turned out to be such a dim bulb.’ Her face lights up. ‘Here he is!’ She leaps off the stool and rushes over to give her father a kiss. Will had expected a big, confident man with the aura of power. Instead, Mr Liang is small and diffident, with an ill-cut suit and an air of sweetness. He seems to be overwhelmed by the vitality of his daughter. He lets Trudy wash over him, like a force of nature, much as everyone else in Hong Kong does, Will thinks. The head waiter seats them with much hovering and solicitous hand-waving, which neither Trudy nor her father seems to notice. They speak to each other in Cantonese, which makes her seem like a different person entirely.
Their food is brought to them, as if preordained. ‘Should we order?’ he ventures, and their faces are astonished.
‘You only eat certain dishes here,’ they say.
Trudy calls for champagne. ‘This is a momentous occasion,’ she declares. ‘My father’s not met many of my beaux. You’re over the first hurdle.’
Wan Kee Liang does not ask Will about his life or his work. Instead, they exchange pleasantries, talk about the horse races and the war. When Trudy excuses herself to go to the powder room, her father motions for Will to come closer.
‘You are not a rich man,’ he says.
‘Not like you, but I do all right.’ How odd to assume.
‘Trudy is very spoiled girl, and want many things.’ The man’s face betrays nothing.
‘Yes,’ Will says.
‘Not good for woman to pay for anything.’
Trudy’s father hands him an envelope. ‘Here is money for you to take Trudy out. Will cover expenses for a long time. Not good for Trudy to be paying all time.’
Will is taken aback. ‘I can’t take that,’ he says. ‘I’ve never let Trudy pay for a meal.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ the man waves his hand. ‘Good for your relationship.’
Will refuses and puts the envelope on the table, where it sits until they see Trudy approaching. Trudy’s father puts it back in his suit jacket. ‘Not meant to be insult,’ he says. ‘I want best for Trudy. So best for her means best for you. This means little to me, but might make difference for you two.’
‘I appreciate the thought,’ Will says. ‘But I can’t.’ He lets it go at that.
The next week, Will receives letters in the post from restaurants and clubs around town informing him that his accounts have been opened and are ready for use. One has scribbled a note in the margin, ‘Just come in. You won’t even need to sign. We look forward to seeing you.’ The tone: apologetic to a good customer, but deferring to the wishes of their best.
He is a little irritated, but not so much, more bemused than anything. He puts the letters in a drawer. He supposes, to Wan Kee Liang, that everyone looks like a pauper, hoping for handouts. The Chinese are wise, he thinks. Or maybe it’s just Trudy’s family.
Trudy loves the Parisian Grill, is great friends with the owner, a Greek married to a local Portuguese who sees no irony in the fact that he serves the froggiest of foods. She refuses absolutely to go to a Chinese restaurant with Will, will only go when with Chinese people who, she says, are the only ones who appreciate the food the way it should be.
The Greek who runs the Parisian Grill, his name is now Henri, changed from God knows what, loves Trudy, views her as a daughter, and his wife, Elsbieta, treats her like a sister. She goes there for first drinks almost every night, often ends evenings there as well. Henri and Elsbieta are polite to him, but with a certain reserve. He thinks they have seen too many of Trudy’s beaux. He wants to protest that he is the one in danger, protest over the red vinyl banquettes, the smoky white candles burned down to smudgy lumps, but he never does.
They meet everyone at the Parisian Grill. It is the sort of place one goes to when one is new in town or old, or bored. Hong Kong is small, and eventually, everyone ends up there. One night, they have drinks at the bar with a group of visiting Americans and are invited to dinner with them.
Trudy tells their new friends that she loves Americans, their open-handed extravagance, their loud talk and braying confidence. When someone brings up the war, she pretends not to hear, instead going on about the qualities she feels all Americans have. They have a sense of the world being incomparably large, she says and that they are able to … not colonize, but spread through all countries, spending their money like water, without guilt or too much self-consciousness. She loves that. The men are tall and rangy, with long faces and quick decisions, and the women leave them be, isn’t that wonderful?, because they’re so busy with their own committees and plans. They invite all and sundry to their events, and they serve marvellous items like potato salads and ham and cheese sandwiches. And, unless there is a very special type of Englishman present (she tips her head towards Will), they tend to diminish the other men in the room. It’s very odd, but she’s seen it. Haven’t you noticed that? If she had it all to do over again, she says to the dinner-table, she would come back as an American. Lacking that possibility, she’ll marry one. Or maybe just move there, if someone objects to her marrying an American – said with eyes cast down demurely as a joke.
Will thinks back to when she complained that Americans were tiresomely earnest, and just smiles. She has free will, he says simply. He would never do anything to stop her from doing what she wants. The Americans applaud. An enlightened man, says a woman with red lips and an orange dress.
Life is easy. At the office, he is expected in at nine thirty, then a two-hour lunch is not uncommon, and they knock off at five for drinks. He can go out every night, play all weekend, do whatever he wants. Trudy’s friends move to London and want someone responsible to take care of their flat, so Will moves to May Road and pays the ludicrous rent of two hundred Hong Kong dollars, and this only after much wrangling to persuade Sudie and Frank Chen to take anything at all. They all go out for dinner, and it’s very civilized.
‘You’re doing us a favour!’ they cry, as they pour more champagne.
‘You really are, Will,’ Trudy says. ‘No one in all Hong Kong would agree to do anything so nice for the Chens, you know. They’ve awful reputations around here – that’s why they’re leaving.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Will says. ‘I have to pay something.’
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ the Chens say, but they never do. Instead they drink four splits of champagne and end up going to the beach at midnight to hunt for crabs by candlelight.
May Road is different from Happy Valley, his old neighbourhood. Filled with expatriates and their servants, it is a bourgeois suburb of England, or how he’d always imagined one to be. Children walk obediently next to their amahs, matrons climb into the backs of their chauffeured cars; it’s much quieter than the chattering bustle of his old haunt. He misses Happy Valley, the vitality of it, the loud, rude locals, the lively shops.
But then there is Trudy. Trudy has a large place not five minutes from him. He walks the winding road to her flat every day, having picked up fresh clothes after work.
‘Isn’t this nice?’ she says, lavishing him with kisses at the door. ‘Isn’t it delicious that you’re so close and not in that dreadful Happy Valley? I do think the only time I’d go there before I met you was when I needed plimsolls for the beach. There’s this wonderful shop …’
And then she’s on to something else, crying out to Ah Lok that the flowers are browning, or that there’s a puddle in the foyer. At Trudy’s, there’s no talk of war, no fighting except squabbling with the servants, no real troubles. There’s only ease and her sweet, lilting laugh. He slips gratefully into her world.
June 1952 (#ulink_c7679461-738f-5b19-a30b-6652a0628f39)
Claire had been waking at the same time every night. Twenty-two minutes after three. By now, she knew it without even looking at the clock. And every night, after she started awake, she would look over at the hulking shape of her husband as he slept, and she would be calmed from the shock of consciousness. His chest rose and fell evenly as his nose reverberated with a gentle snore. He always slept heavily, aided by the several beers he drank every evening.
She sat up, clapped loudly twice, her hands stiff, the sound like two bullets in the night. Martin shifted at the noise, then breathed freely. That trick was one of the few that her mother had imparted about married life. The clock now showed three twenty-three.
She tried to go back to sleep. She had done it once or twice before, fallen back asleep before her body got too awake. Breathing softly, she lay flat on her back and felt the damp linen sheet beneath and the light weight of the cotton quilt on top. It was so humid she could only wear a thin nightdress to bed, and even that grew sticky after a day or two. She must buy a new fan. The old one had sputtered to a standstill last week, caked with mossy mould. A fan, and also some more electric cord. And lightbulbs. She mustn’t forget lightbulbs. She breathed lightly, over the slight rumble of Martin starting up again. Should she write the things down? She would remember, she tried to tell herself. But she knew she would get up and write them down, so as not to forget, so as not to obsess about forgetting, and then she would be up and unable to go back to sleep. It was settled. She got up softly and felt her way out of the mosquito netting, disturbing a resting mosquito that buzzed angrily in her ear before flying away. The pad was lying on a table next to the bed, and she pencilled her list.
Then, the real reason. She reached into the depths of the bureau and felt around carefully for the bag. It was a cloth bag, one she had got for free at a bazaar, and it was large and full. She pulled it out quietly.
Going into the bathroom, she switched on the light. The bath was full of water. There hadn’t been rain for several months now, and the government was starting to ration. Yu Ling filled the bath every evening, between five and seven o’clock when the water was on, for their use during the day.
Claire set the bag down, dipped a bucket into the water and wet a cloth to wipe her face. Then she sat on the cool tiled floor and pulled up her nightdress so that she could place the bag between her legs.
She tumbled out the contents.
There were more than thirty items glittering up at her. More than thirty costly necklaces, scarves, ornaments, perfume bottles. They looked almost tawdry, jumbled together in the harsh bathroom light, against the white tiles, so Claire laid down a towel and separated them, so that each had a few inches of space, a cushion against the floor. There. Now they looked like the expensive items they were. Here was a ring, thick, beautifully worked gold, with what was probably turquoise. She slipped it on to her finger. And here was a handkerchief, so sheer she could see the pale pink of her palm underneath it. She sprayed it with perfume, a small round bottle of it, called Jazz. On the bottle, there was a drawing of two women dancing in flapper dresses. She waved the scented handkerchief around. Jasmine. Too heavy. She did her hair with the tortoiseshell comb, rubbed French hand lotion into her fingers, then carefully applied lipstick. Then she clipped on heavy gold earrings and tied a scarf round her head.
She stood in front of the mirror. The woman who looked back was sophisticated and groomed, a woman who travelled the world and knew about art and books and yachts.
She wanted to be someone else. The old Claire seemed provincial, ignorant. She had been to a party at Government House, sipped champagne at the Gripps while women she knew twirled around in silky dresses. She had her nose pressed up against the glass and was watching a different world. She could not name it but she felt as if she was about to be revealed, as if there was another Claire inside, waiting to come out. In these few hours in the morning, dressed in someone else’s finery, she could pretend she was part of it, that she had lived in Colombo, eaten frog’s legs in France or ridden an elephant in Delhi with a maharajah by her side.
At seven, after she had brewed herself a cup of tea and eaten some buttered toast, she made her way to the bedroom. She stood over her sleeping husband.
‘Wake up,’ she said quietly.
He stirred, then rolled over to face her.
‘Cuckoo,’ she said, a little louder.
‘Happy birthday, darling,’ he said sleepily. He propped himself up on one elbow to offer a kiss. His breath was sour but not unpleasant.
Claire was twenty-eight today.
It was Saturday, and the beginning of summer. Not too hot yet, the mornings had a breeze and a little bit of cool before the sun warmed the afternoons and the hats and fans had to come out. Martin worked a half-day on Saturday but then there was a party at the Arbogasts’, on the Peak. Reginald Arbogast was a very successful businessman and made a point of inviting every English person in the colony to his gatherings, which were famous for his unstinting hand and lavish foods.
‘I’ll meet you at the funicular at one,’ Martin told her.
At one o’clock, Claire was at the tram station waiting. She had on a new dress the tailor had delivered just the day before, a white poplin based on a Paris original. She had found a Mr Hao, an inexpensive man in Causeway Bay, who would come and measure her at home and charge eight Hong Kong dollars a dress. It had turned out quite well. She had sprayed on a bit of Jazz, although she found it strong; she dabbed it on, then rubbed water on it to dilute the smell.
At ten past one, Martin came through the station doors, and gave her a kiss. ‘You look nice,’ he said. ‘New dress?’
‘Mm-hmm,’ she said.
They took the tram up the mountain, a steep ride that seemed almost vertical at times. They held on to the rail, leaned forward and looked outside, where they could see into people’s homes in the Mid-Levels, with curtains pushed to one side, and newspapers and dirty glasses strewn on tables.
‘I would think,’ Claire said, ‘that if I knew people would be looking in my house all day from the tram, I’d make a point of leaving it tidy, wouldn’t you?’
At the top, they found that the Arbogasts had hired rickshaws to take their guests to the house from the station. Claire climbed into one. ‘I always feel for the men,’ she said quietly to Martin. ‘Isn’t this why we have mules or horses? It’s one of these queer Hong Kong customs, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a fact that human labour here often costs less,’ Martin said.
Claire stifled her irritation. Martin was always so literal.
The man lifted up the harness with a grunt. They started to roll along and Claire settled into the uncomfortable seat. Around them, the green was overwhelming, tropical trees bursting with leaves that dripped when scratched, bougainvillaea and other flowering bushes springing from the hillsides. Sometimes, she got the feeling that Hong Kong was too alive. It seemed unable to restrain itself. There were insects crawling everywhere, wild dogs on the hills, mosquitoes breeding furiously. They had made roads in the hillsides and buildings sprouted out of the ground, but nature strained at her boundaries – there were always sweaty, shirtless men chopping away at the greenery that seemed to grow overnight. It wasn’t India, she supposed, but it certainly wasn’t England. The man in front of her strained and sweated. His shirt was thin and grey.
‘The Arbogasts apparently had this place undergo a massive cleaning after the war,’ Martin said. ‘Smythson was telling me about it, how it had been gutted by the Japanese and all that was left was walls, and not many of those. It used to belong to the Bayer representative out here, Thorpe, and he never came back after he was repatriated after the war. He sold it for a song. He’d had enough.’
‘The way people lived out here before the war,’ Claire said. ‘It was very gracious.’
‘Arbogast lost his hand during the war as well. He has a hook now. They say he’s quite sensitive about it so try not to look at it.’
‘Of course,’ Claire said.
When they walked in, the party was in full swing. Doors opened on to a large receiving room, which led into a drawing room with french doors that looked over a lawn with a wide, stunning view of the harbour. A violinist sawed away at his instrument while a pianist accompanied him. The house was decorated in the way the English did their houses in the Orient, with Persian carpets and the occasional wooden Chinese table topped with Burmese silver bowls and other exotic curiosities. Women in light cotton dresses swayed towards each other while men in safari suits or blazers stood with hands in pockets. Swiftly moving servants balanced trays of Pimm’s and champagne.
‘Why does he do this?’ Claire asked Martin. ‘Invite the world, I mean.’
‘He’s done well for himself here, and he didn’t have much before, and wants to do something good for the community. What I’ve heard, anyway.’
‘Hello, hello,’ said Mrs Arbogast from the hall where she was greeting guests – a thin, elegant woman with a sharp face. Sparkly earrings jangled from her ears.
‘Lovely of you to have us,’ said Martin. ‘A real honour.’
‘Don’t know you, but perhaps we shall have the pleasure later.’ She turned aside, looking for the next guest. They had been dismissed.
‘Drink?’ Martin said.
‘Please,’ said Claire.
She saw an acquaintance, Amelia, and walked over. Too late, she saw that Mrs Pinter was in the circle, partially hidden by a potted plant. They all tried to avoid Mrs Pinter. Claire had been cornered by her before, and had spent an excruciating thirty minutes listening to the old woman talk about ant colonies. She wanted to be kind to older people but she had her limits. Mrs Pinter was now obsessed with starting up an Esperanto society, and would reel unwitting newcomers into her ever more complicated and idiotic plans. She was convinced that a universal language would have saved them all from the war.
‘I’ve been thinking about getting a butler,’ Mrs Pinter was saying. ‘One of those Chinese fellows would do all right with a bit of training.’
‘Are you going to teach him Esperanto?’ Amelia asked, teasing.
‘We have to teach everyone but the Communists,’ Mrs Pinter said placidly.
‘Isn’t the refugee problem alarming?’ Marjorie Winter said, ignoring all of them. She was fanning herself with a napkin. She was a fat, kindly woman, with very small sausage-like curls around her face.
‘They’re coming in by the thousands, I hear,’ Claire said.
‘I’m starting a new league,’ said Marjorie. ‘To help them. Those poor Chinese streaming across the border like herded animals, running away from that dreadful government. They live in the most frightful conditions. You must volunteer! I’ve rented space for an office and everything.’
‘You remember in 1950,’ Amelia said, ‘when some of the locals were practically running hotels, taking care of all their family and friends who had fled? And these were the well-off ones, who were able to book passage. It was quite something.’
‘Why are they leaving China?’ Claire said. ‘Where do they expect to go from here?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, dear,’ Marjorie said. ‘They don’t have anywhere to go. Imagine that. That’s why my league is so important.’
Amelia sat down. ‘The Chinese come down during war, they go back up, then come down again. It’s dizzying. They are these giant waves of displacement. And their different dialects. I do think Mandarin is the ugliest, with its wer and its er and those strange noises.’ She fanned herself. ‘It’s far too hot to talk about a league,’ she said. ‘Your energy always astounds me, Marjorie.’
‘Amelia,’ Marjorie said unsympathetically, ‘you’re always hot.’
Indeed Amelia was always hot, or cold, or vaguely out of sorts. She was not physically suited to life outside of England, which was ironic since she had not lived there for some three decades. She needed her creature comforts and suffered mightily, and not silently, without them. They had been in Hong Kong since before the war. Her husband, Angus, had brought her from India, which she had loathed, to Hong Kong in 1938 when he had become under-secretary at the Department of Finance. She was opinionated, railing against what she saw as the unbearable English ladies who wanted to become Chinese, who wore their hair in chignons with ivory chopsticks, too-tight cheongsams to every event and employed local tutors so they could speak to the servants in their atrocious Cantonese. She did not understand such women and constantly warned Claire against becoming one of such a breed.
