She let the silence settle around her again, eyes only half closed.
‘Mr Parker.’
‘Yes?’
‘May I say a prayer too?’
‘Of course. That’s what we’re here for.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Please, Lord, forgive me. Forgive my wicked sin, and make my Mama better from her illness, and while I’m in prison, please don’t let her die, like Papa did.’ She remembered something she had heard Mrs Yeoman say. ‘And bless all Your children in China.’
‘Amen to that.’
After a moment they sat up straight. Parker was looking at her with concern blunting the anger in his brown eyes and placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Where is it that you live?’
‘What is your name?’
‘Lydia Ivanova.’
‘You say your mother is ill?’
‘Yes, she’s sick in bed. That’s why I had to come into town on my own and why I had to take your wallet, you see. To pay for medicine.’
‘Tell me truly, Lydia, have you ever stolen before?’
Lydia turned a shocked face to his as they rode into the Russian Quarter in a rickshaw. ‘No, Mr Parker, never. Cut my tongue out if I lie.’
He nodded at her with a slight smile, his head making her think of an owl. Round glasses, round face, and a small beak of a nose. But clearly nowhere near as wise as an owl. She was confident that once he’d seen her mother comatose on the bed and their dismal room looking like a bear pit, his heart would melt and he’d let her go. He’d forget about the blasted police and maybe even give her a few dollars for a meal. She sneaked a sideways glance at him. He did have a heart. Didn’t he?
‘Was the watch that was stolen from you very valuable?’ she asked as the rickshaw rattled into her street. It looked desperately shabby even to her eyes.
‘Yes, it was. But that’s not the point. It belonged to my father. He gave it to me before he left for India, where he was killed, and I’ve carried it with me ever since. The thought of it all those years in his waistcoat pocket and then in mine meant something special to me. Now it’s gone.’
Lydia looked away. To hell with him.
She flew up the two flights of stairs. She could hear Parker’s footsteps right behind her. That surprised her. He must be fitter than he looked. She pushed open the door to the attic, darted into the room . . .
And stopped.
She did not feel Parker bump into her but caught his gasp of surprise.
‘Mama,’ she said, ‘you’re . . . better.’
‘Darling, what on earth do you mean? There was never anything wrong with me. Nothing at all.’
Nothing at all. Valentina was standing in the middle of the room and despite the darkness of her hair and of her dress, she managed to make the place brighter. Her hair gleamed, soft and perfumed, around her shoulders and she was wearing a navy silk dress with a wide white collar, cut low to emphasize the curve of her breasts. It fitted snugly at her hips but was designed to hang loose elsewhere, cleverly hiding the lack of flesh on her bones. Lydia had never seen it before. She thought her mother looked wonderful. Shining and glossy.
But why now? Why did she have to choose this moment to transform into a bird of paradise? Why, why?
Parker coughed awkwardly.
‘And who is our visitor, Lydia? Aren’t you going to introduce us?’
‘This is Mr Parker, Mama. He wants to meet you.’
Valentina’s smile enveloped him and drew him into her world. She held out her hand, the movement elegant and inviting. He took it in his. ‘Charmed to make your acquaintance, Mr Parker.’ She laughed and it was just for him. ‘Please excuse our sad little abode.’
For the first time Lydia noticed the room. It had changed. It sparkled. Windows thrown open, every surface polished, each cushion in place. A room full of gold and bronze and amber lights, with no trace of a dead body on the floor or a discarded shoe under the table. The air smelled of lavender, and not an ashtray in sight.
This was not what Lydia had planned for him.
‘Mrs Ivanova, it’s a pleasure to meet you. But I’m afraid to say I am not here with good news.’
Valentina’s hands fluttered. ‘Mr Parker, you alarm me.’
‘I apologise for bringing you cause for concern, but your daughter is in trouble.’ Despite his words, his glance at Lydia was remarkably benign, and she began to feel on surer ground. Maybe he would pass over the wallet episode.
‘Lydia?’ Valentina shook her head indulgently, making her dark mane dance. ‘What has she been up to now? Not swimming in the river again.’
‘No. She stole my wallet.’
There was a long silence. Lydia waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come.
‘I apologise for my daughter’s behaviour. I will have words with her, I promise you.’ Valentina spoke in a low, tight voice.
‘She told me that you were ill. That she needed money for medicine.’
‘Do I look ill?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Then she lied.’
‘I’m considering going to the police.’
‘Please, don’t. Please allow her this one mistake. It won’t happen again.’ She swung around to face her daughter. ‘Will it, dochenka?’
‘No, Mama.’
‘Apologise to Mr Parker, Lydia.’
‘Don’t worry, she has already done so. And more importantly, she has asked God for forgiveness too.’
Valentina raised one eyebrow. ‘Has she indeed? I’m so glad to hear it. I know just how much she cares about the state of her young soul.’
Lydia’s cheeks were burning and she scowled at her mother. ‘Mr Parker,’ she said quietly, ‘I do apologise for lying to you, as well as stealing. It was wrong of me, but when I left here, my mother was . . .’
‘Lydia, darling, why not make Mr Parker a nice cup of tea?’
‘ . . . my mother was out and I was very hungry. I didn’t think straight. I lied because I was frightened. I’m sorry.’
‘Nicely said. I accept your apology, Miss Ivanova. We will forget the matter.’
‘Mr Parker, you are the kindest man in all the world. Isn’t he, Lydia?’
Lydia tried not to laugh and went over to the corner to make tea. She had seen this before, the way a man left his brains on the doorstep the moment he set foot in a room that contained her mother. One flutter of her dark lustrous eyes was all it took. Men were such idiots. Couldn’t they see when they were being plucked and trussed? Or didn’t they care?
‘Come and sit down, Mr Parker,’ Valentina invited with a smooth shift of subject, ‘and tell me what brings you to this extraordinary country.’
He took a seat on the sofa and she placed herself beside him. Not too close, but close enough.
‘I’m a journalist,’ he said, ‘and journalists are always attracted to anything extraordinary.’ He gazed at Valentina and laughed selfconsciously.
Lydia watched him from her corner, the way his whole body was drawn toward her mother; even his spectacles seemed to lean forward. He might be a fool for a petticoat but he had a nice laugh. She listened idly to their chatter, but her thoughts were a jumble.
What exactly had happened here?
Why was her mother all done up in new finery? Where had it come from?
Antoine? It was possible. But it didn’t explain the shine on the room or the lavender in the air.
She placed the tea in their single remaining cup in front of Mr Parker and slipped him a smile. ‘I’m sorry we have no milk.’
He looked mildly taken aback.
‘You must drink it black,’ Valentina laughed, ‘like we Russians do. Much more exotic. You will like it.’
‘Or I could go out and buy some milk for you,’ Lydia offered. ‘But I would need some money.’
‘Lydia!’
But Parker studied Lydia. His gaze travelled over her washed-out dress and her patched sandals and her thin wrists. It was as if he’d only just realised that wh
en she’d said poor, it meant having nothing. Not even milk. From his wallet he pulled two twenty-dollar notes and handed them to her.
‘Yes, go and buy some milk, please. And something to eat. For yourself.’
‘Thank you.’ She left before he changed his mind.
It took no more than ten minutes to get hold of milk and half a pound of Marie biscuits, but when she returned, Valentina and Parker were on their feet ready to leave. Valentina was pulling on a pair of new gloves.
‘Lydochka, if I don’t go now, I will be late for my new job.’
‘Job?’
‘Yes, I start today.’
‘What job?’
‘As a dance hostess.’
‘A dance hostess?’
‘That’s right. Don’t look so surprised.’
‘Where?’
‘At the Mayfair Hotel.’
‘But you’ve always said that dance hostesses were no better than...’
‘Hush, Lydia, don’t be a silly. I love dancing.’
‘You can’t bear men with two left feet. You say it’s like being trampled by a moose.’
‘I shall be protected from that fate this evening because Mr Parker has kindly offered to accompany me and make sure I do not sit like a wallflower on my first night.’
‘No chance of that,’ Parker put in gallantly.
‘Do you dance well, Mr Parker?’ Lydia asked.
‘Passably.’
‘Well, then you are in luck, Mama.’
Her mother gave her a look that was hard to read, then left on Parker’s arm. When they reached the lower landing, Lydia heard Valentina exclaim, ‘Oh dear, I have forgotten something. Would you be an angel and just wait downstairs for me? I won’t be a moment.’ The sound of her footsteps running back up the stairs. The door opened, then slammed shut.
‘You stupid, stupid little fool.’ Valentina’s hand swung out. The slap made Lydia’s head whip back. ‘You could be lying in a police cell right this minute. Among rats and rapists. Don’t you leave this house,’ she hissed, ‘not till I come back.’
And she was gone.
In all her life her mother had never raised a hand to her. Never. The shock of it was still ricocheting through Lydia’s body, making it jump and tremble. She put a hand to her stinging cheek and let out a low guttural moan. She roamed around the room, seeking relief in movement, as if she could outpace her thoughts, and then she spotted the package in the Churston Department Store tissue paper that Parker had left behind in his eagerness to escort her mother. She picked it up, opened it, and found a silver cigarette case inlaid with lapis lazuli and jade.
She started to laugh. The laugh wouldn’t stop; it just kept ripping its way up from her lungs over and over until she was suffocating on her own sense of the absurd. First the necklace and now the cigarette case, both in her grasp but both beyond her reach. Just as Chang An Lo was now. Chang, where are you, what are you doing? Everything she wanted had slipped from her grasp.
When the laughter finally ceased, she felt so empty, she started stuffing biscuits into her mouth, one, then another and another until all the biscuits were gone. Except one. She crushed up the last one, mixed it with the grass and leaves in her paper bag, and went down to Sun Yat-sen.
14
The wall was high and lime-washed, the gate built of black oak and carved with the spirit of Men-shen. To guard against evil. A lion prowled on each gatepost. Theo Willoughby stared into their eyes of stone and felt nothing but hatred for them. When an oil-black crow settled on the head of one, he wanted its talons to tear out the lion’s stone heart. The way his own hands wanted to tear out the heart of Feng Tu Hong.
He summoned the gatekeeper.
‘Mr Willoughby to see Feng Tu Hong.’ He chose not to speak in Mandarin.
The gatekeeper, in grey tunic and straw shoes, bowed low. ‘Feng Tu Hong expect you,’ he said.
The keeper’s wife led Theo through the courtyards. Her pace was pitiful, her feet no longer than a man’s thumb, bound and rebound until they stank of putrefaction under their bandages. Like this hellish country, rotten and secretive. Theo’s eyes were blind to China’s beauty today despite the fact that he was surrounded by it. Each courtyard he passed through brought new delights to caress the senses, cool fountains that soothed the heat from the blood, wind chimes that sang to the soul, statues and strutting peacocks to charm the eye, and everywhere in the dusky evening light stood ghost-white lilies to remind the visitor of his own mortality. In case he should be rash enough to forget it.
‘You devil-sucking gutter-whore!’ The words sliced through the darkness.
Theo halted abruptly. Off to his right in an ornate pavilion, lanterns in the shape of butterflies cast a soft glow over the dark heads of two young women. They were playing mah-jongg. Each one was gilded and groomed and dressed in fine silks, but one was cheating and the other was swearing like a deckhand. In China it is easy to be fooled.
‘You come,’ his guide murmured.
Theo followed. The courtyards were intended to show wealth. The more courtyards, the more silver taels the owner could boast, and as Theo knew only too well, Feng Tu Hong was the kind of man who loved to boast. As he passed under an ornately carved archway strung with dragon lanterns and into the final and grandest courtyard, a figure stepped out of the shadows. He was a man of about thirty with too much of the fire of youth still in his eyes. His hand was on the knife at his belt.
‘I search you,’ he said bluntly.
He was broad and stocky with soft skin, and Theo recognised him immediately.
‘You will have to use that blade on me first, Po Chu.’ Theo spoke in Mandarin. ‘I have not come to be treated like a dog’s whelp. I am here to speak with your father.’
He stepped around the man in his path and marched toward the elegant low building that lay ahead of him, but before he came anywhere near its steps, a blade fashioned like a tiger’s claw was pressing between his shoulder blades.
‘I search,’ the voice said again, harsher this time.
Theo did not care for it. He had no intention of losing face, not here. He swung around so that the knife was now directly over his heart.
‘Kill me,’ he growled.
‘Gladly.’
‘Po Chu, put down that knife at once and beg forgiveness of our guest.’ It was Feng Tu Hong. His deep voice roared around the courtyard and stamped out the faint murmur of voices from the other courtyards.
The blade dropped. Po Chu fell to his knees and bowed his head to the ground.
‘A thousand pardons, my father. I meant only to keep you safe.’
‘It is my honour you must keep safe, you mindless mound of mule dung. Ask forgiveness of our guest.’
‘Honourable father, do not order this. I would tear out my bowels and watch the rats devour them, rather than ask it of this son of a devil.’
Feng took a step closer. Under his loose scarlet robe he had squat powerful legs that could kick a man to death and the shoulders of an ox. He towered over his son, whose forehead was still pressed tight to the tiled floor.
‘Ask,’ he commanded.
A long intake of breath. ‘A thousand pardons, Tiyo Willbee.’
Theo tipped his head in scornful acknowledgment. ‘Don’t make that mistake again, Po Chu, not if you want to live.’ He drew a short horn-handled knife from inside his sleeve and tossed it to the ground.
A hiss escaped from the hunched figure.
His father folded his arms across his broad chest with a grunt of satisfaction. In the swirling shadows of the cat-grey twilight Feng Tu Hong looked like Lei Kung, the great god of thunder, but instead of a bloody hammer in his massive hand, he carried a snake. It was small and black and had eyes as pale as death. It coiled around his wrist and tasted the air for prey.
‘I expected never to see you in this house again, Tiyo Willbee. Not while I live and have strength to slice open your throat.’
‘Neither did I expect to stand once more
on this carpet.’ It was an exquisite cream silk floor covering from the finest hand weavers in Tientsin, a gift four years ago from Theo to Feng Tu Hong. ‘But the world changes, Feng. We never know what lies in store for us.’
‘My hatred of you does not change.’
Theo gave him a thin smile. ‘Nor mine of you. But let us put that aside. I am here to speak of business.’
‘What business can a schoolteacher know?’
‘A business that will fill your pockets and open up your heart.’
Feng uttered a snort of disdain. Both knew that when it came to business, he had no heart. ‘Just because you dress like a Chinese’ - he stabbed a thick finger toward Theo’s long maroon gown, felt waistcoat, and silk slippers - ‘and speak our language and study the words of Confucius, don’t imagine that it means you can think like a Chinese or do business like a Chinese. You cannot.’
‘I choose to dress in Chinese clothes for the simple reason that they are cooler in summer and warmer in winter, and they do not choke off the blood to my mind like a tie and collar. So my mind is as free to take the winding path as any Chinese. And I think like a Chinese enough to know that this business I bring to you today is sufficiently important to both of us to bridge the black seas that divide us.’
Feng laughed, a big sound that held no joy. ‘Well spoken, Englishman. But what makes you think I need your business?’ His black eyes flicked around the room and fixed back on Theo’s.
Theo took his meaning. The room could not have been more opulent if it had belonged to Emperor T’ai Tsu himself, but its crass gaudiness grated on Theo’s love of Chinese perfection of line. Everything here was gold and carved and inlaid with precious jewels; even the songbirds in their gilded cage wore pearl collars and drank out of Ming bowls encrusted with emeralds. The chair Theo was sitting in was gold-leafed, with dragons of jade for armrests and diamonds as big as his thumbnail for each eye.
The Russian Concubine Page 16
