‘Do you know what I would like, Mr Mason?’ She didn’t even bother to look at him.
‘What’s that?’
‘An ice cream.’
He actually managed to smile at her as he said, ‘Then let me buy you one, Lydia.’
The rain had started up again, sharp and stinging, by the time she hurried home. In the attic she found her mother preparing to go out for the evening and she felt a kick of disappointment. Oh yes, the job. For a moment she had forgotten, the dance hostess job. It paid the rent and that’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? So she mustn’t complain, but she didn’t want to be on her own, not tonight. Valentina was artfully twisting her hair up on top of her head and her eyes were bright with anticipation.
Not just the job then.
‘Is Alfred joining you again tonight?’ She picked up one of her mother’s hairpins lying on the floor and detached two long dark hairs from it. She twined them around her finger.
Valentina was humming a snatch of Beethoven’s Fifth but silenced herself to apply the vivid carmine lipstick that Lydia loved.
‘Yes, he’s picking me up, darling.’ She turned her head sideways in the mirror to study the effect. ‘He comes to the hotel every night I work and buys all my dances. He’s a dream.’
‘What dull dreams you have, Mama.’
‘Poof, don’t be so ridiculous,’ Valentina snapped. ‘He’s helping us. Where do you think your supper came from?’ She gestured to a large slice of veal pie on a plate with melon and a French baguette. ‘You should be grateful.’
Lydia said nothing but sat down at the table and opened one of the poetry books she had brought home from the library. She flicked through the pages and said as if it had only just occurred to her, ‘Why don’t you invite him up here for a minute, so I can thank him myself?’
Valentina stopped powdering her throat. She was wearing the navy silk dress again, the one Alfred Parker said he admired, but Lydia was quite sure that to Alfred even sackcloth and ashes would look heavenly if Valentina was wearing it.
‘Why?’ her mother said warily. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You are never up to nothing, dochenka. Look at this afternoon with the commissioner. I meant it when I said you are too wild and deserve a whipping.’
‘I know, Mama.’
Valentina fastened a cloisonné necklace around her throat.
‘That’s pretty, Mama. Is it new?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I’ll behave better, you’ll see. So will you invite Mr Parker up here before you leave? Please.’
Valentina ran a hand along her jawline as if searching out any flaws. ‘I suppose so.’
Alfred Parker beamed at Lydia. ‘This is nice.’
He was wearing an elegant charcoal suit and had put something shiny on his brown hair so that it gleamed, and to Lydia he did look quite decent for once. Shame about the spectacles though. He was drinking the little shot of vodka she had poured him and didn’t even mention that it was in a cup. Lydia was back at the table with her book.
‘Busy with homework, eh?’
‘Yes.’
He stepped closer and peered at her book. His waistcoat smelled of tobacco. ‘Wordsworth, I see.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you like poetry?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah.’
‘Lydochka,’ Valentina said in a voice that was much too polite, ‘I believe you wanted to say something to Alfred.’
‘Yes.’
Alfred beamed at her again.
She took a deep breath. ‘I am sorry I behaved badly toward you and I want to thank you for your kindness to me.’ She glanced at her mother’s necklace. ‘To us. And so I would like to give you this.’
The words had come out faster than when she’d rehearsed them in her head. She held out the small felt package tied up in the red ribbon that had been on Sun Yat-sen’s hatbox. Alfred looked impressed.
‘Lydia, my dear, no need for gifts, I assure you.’
‘I want you to have it.’
Even her mother was looking pleased.
‘Thank you, how nice,’ he said as he accepted the present and placed an embarrassed kiss on Lydia’s cheek. His jaw was rough against her skin. Carefully he unwrapped the bow and the felt, clearly expecting a homemade trinket of some sort. When he saw the silver hunter watch gleaming in his palm, his face drained till it was paper white, and he sat down heavily on the sofa.
Valentina was the one to speak. ‘Good God, little one, where on earth did you find that? It’s beautiful.’
‘In a pawnshop.’
Alfred Parker was fingering the watch, opening its case, winding its spring, adjusting its hands, as if his own hands couldn’t get enough of it. Without for one second taking his eyes off it, he said in an amazed tone, ‘It’s mine.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you know which pawnshop to find it in?’
‘Because I put it there.’
Valentina glared at Lydia over Alfred’s head and made a savage twisting gesture with her two hands, as if she wanted to wring her daughter’s neck.
Slowly Alfred looked up and stared at Lydia, comprehension seeping in. ‘You stole it?’
‘Yes.’
He shook his head. ‘You mean you stole my father’s watch from me?’
‘Yes.’
He rubbed a hand across his mouth, holding in the words. ‘No wonder you asked if it was valuable.’
Lydia was feeling worse than she’d expected. He’d gotten the watch back, so why didn’t he go now? Go and dance.
But he stood up and walked over to her until he was standing right next to the table and she could see the hairs in his nose.
‘You are a very wicked girl,’ he said and his voice sounded all tight, as though he were in physical pain. ‘I will pray for your soul.’ One hand held the watch, the other was clenched on the table, and she knew there was a lot more he wanted to say but didn’t.
‘You have it back now,’ Lydia mumbled, her eyes refusing to back down from his. ‘Your father’s watch. I thought you’d be pleased.’
He said nothing, just turned and walked out of the room.
‘Dochenka, you little fool,’ Valentina hissed at her, ‘what have you done?’
It was after midnight when Lydia heard her mother return. Her footsteps in the black and silent room sounded loud, her high heels click-clacking on the floorboards, but Lydia lay in bed, face to the wall, pretending she was asleep. She refused to open her eyes, even when Valentina pulled aside her curtain and sat down on the end of Lydia’s bed. She sat there for a long time. Without speaking. Lydia could hear her uneven breathing and the rustle of her skirt, as if her fingers were as busy as her thoughts. The church clock struck twelve-thirty and, after what seemed an age, one o’clock, and only then did Valentina speak.
‘You are lucky you are still alive, Lydia Ivanova. Maybe he didn’t skin you alive, but I nearly did. You frighten me.’
Lydia wanted to cover her ears but didn’t dare move.
‘I calmed him down.’ Her mother gave a long sigh. ‘But I didn’t need this. Twice in one day. First the police station and now the watch. I think you have gone crazy, Lydia.’
For a while there were no more words and Lydia began to hope she had finished. But she was wrong.
‘It’s all been lies, hasn’t it?’
Valentina waited for an answer but when none came, she continued, ‘Lies about where money came from. When I think back, I see lots of them. All the times you said Mrs Yeoman paid you to run errands for her or that you found a purse in the street or had helped someone out with their homework for a fee. And there was no job with Mr Willoughby at the school, was there? That money came from Alfred’s watch. You are a wicked thief.’
Valentina took a deep breath. But Lydia was suffocating.
‘You must stop. Stop now. Or you will end up in prison. I won’t allow that. You must never steal. Not again. Not
ever. I forbid it.’
Her words were becoming jerky. Abruptly the weight lifted off the bed and Lydia heard the heels again and a candle flickered into life at her mother’s end of the room. The chink of a bottle against the rim of a cup made Lydia feel sick. She curled up in a tight ball under the sheet and pressed her knuckles against her mouth, so hard it hurt. Her mother hated her. Said she was wicked. But if she hadn’t been wicked, they would have starved in the gutter long ago. So what was right? Or wrong?
Helping Communists. Was that right or wrong?
Silently she started to recite the Wordsworth poem she had been learning for homework that evening. To drown out the words in her head. I wandered lonely as a cloud . . . But what did a cloud know about loneliness?
21
Chang barely heard her footstep behind him, she was so quiet. The stealth of a fox. Yet he knew it was her, as surely as he knew the beat of his own heart. He ceased watching the river and faced her. Her appearance trickled pleasure, sweet as honey, into his veins. She wore no hat and her hair was a tumble of rippling copper in the sunlight, but her eyes were full of shadows. She looked more fragile than he’d ever seen her.
‘I hoped I would find you here,’ she said shyly. She gestured toward the creek and the narrow strip of sand where she had sewn up his foot. ‘It’s so quiet, it’s beautiful. But if you came here to be private . . .’
‘No, please.’ He bowed to her and spread out a hand to entice her to stay. ‘This place was a drab desert before you walked into it.’
She bowed in return. ‘I am honoured.’
She was learning Chinese ways. The deep sense of contentment it gave him took him by surprise.
She sat down on the big flat rock, stroked its grey surface, warm in the sun, and watched a lizard that scurried out of a crack. It was dusty and grey with long spiky claws.
‘I need to warn you, Chang An Lo. That’s why I’ve come.’
‘Warn me?’
‘Yes. You’re in danger.’
The weight of the word pressed tight against his ribs. ‘What danger do you see?’
He crouched quietly down by the water’s edge but turned his head so that he could still look at her. She was wearing a light brown dress and it merged with the trees. Her eyes fixed on his.
‘Danger from the Black Snake brotherhood.’
He hissed, a hard and angry sound. ‘Thank you for the warning. They threaten me, I know. But how do you hear of the Black Snakes?’
She gave him a lopsided smile. ‘I had a chat with two men who had black snake tattoos on their necks. They dragged me into a car and demanded to know where you were.’
She made light of it, but his heartbeat trailed away to nothing. He dipped his hand into the water to hide the sudden tremble. He must rule the anger, not let it rule him. His dark eyes looked into hers.
‘Lydia Ivanova, listen to me. You must stay out of the Chinese town. Never go near it, and be watchful even in your own settlement. The Black Snakes carry poison in their bite and they are powerful. They kill slowly and savagely, and . . .’
‘It’s all right. They let me go. Don’t look so fierce.’
She was smiling at him, and his heartbeat returned. She dragged a hand through her hair as if plucking thoughts from her head, and he could feel in the tips of his fingers her desire to talk of other things.
‘Where do you live, Chang An Lo?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s better you do not know.’
‘Oh.’
‘It is safer for you. To know nothing of me.’
‘Not even what job you do?’
‘No.’
She released a little huff of annoyance, puffing out her cheeks as a lizard will sometimes do, then tilted her head and gave him an enticing grin.
‘Will you at least tell me your age? That can do no harm, can it?’
‘No, of course not. I am nineteen.’
Her questions were rude, far too personal, but he knew she did not mean them to be and he took no offence. It was her way. She was a fanqui and to expect subtlety in a Foreign Devil was like expecting toads to bring forth the song of a lark.
‘And your family? Do you have brothers and sisters?’
‘My family is dead. All dead.’
‘Oh, Chang, I’m sorry.’
He took his hands from the water and drew a bullfrog from the mud. ‘Are you hungry, Lydia Ivanova?’
He lit a fire. He baked the frog and also two small fish from the river, all wrapped in leaves, and she ate her share in front of him with relish. He whittled four sticks into rudimentary chopsticks and enjoyed teaching her to use them, touching her fingers, curling them around the sticks. Her laughter when she dropped the fish from them made the branches of the willow trees whisper above their heads and even Lo-shen, the river goddess, must have stopped to listen.
She relaxed, in a way he’d never seen before. Her limbs grew loose; her eyes emerged from their shadows and abandoned that wary look that was as much a part of her as her flaming hair. And he knew what it meant: she felt safe. Safe enough to tell him a tale of when she was eight years old and broke her arm trying to imitate one of the backflips of the street acrobats. A Chinese girl had tied two bamboo chopsticks tight on each side of the break to keep it safe until she reached home. Her mother scolded her but as soon as it was well again, she had arranged for a Russian ballet dancer to teach her daughter the correct way to do a backflip. To demonstrate, Lydia Ivanova jumped to her feet, leaped into the air, and performed a neat flip that sent her skirt flying over her head for a moment in a most undecorous manner. She sat down again and grinned at him. He loved her grin.
He laughed and applauded her. ‘You are Empress of Lizard Creek,’ he said and bowed his head low.
‘I didn’t think Communists approved of empresses,’ she said with a smile and stretched out on her back on the sand, her bare feet trailing in the cool water.
He thought she was teasing him but he was not sure, so he said nothing, just watched her where she lay in the shade, the tip of her tongue between her lips as if tasting the fresh breeze that flickered off the water. Her body was slight and her breasts small, but her feet were too big for Chinese taste. She was so unlike any other he’d ever known. So alien, so fiery, a creature that broke all the rules, yet she brought a strange warmth to his chest that made it hard for him to leave her.
‘I must go,’ he said softly.
She rolled her head to face him. ‘Must you?’
‘Yes. I am to go to a funeral.’
Her amber eyes grew wide. ‘Can I come too?’
‘That is not possible,’ he said curtly.
Her audacity would test the patience of the gods themselves.
They stood at the back of the procession. Trumpets blared out. He could feel the fox girl behind him, sense her excitement as she clung close. She was small and slight like a Chinese youth, and the clothes he’d borrowed for her - white tunic, loose trousers, felt sandals, and wide straw conical hat - made her invisible. But her presence here worried Chang.
Would Yuesheng object? Would the appearance of a fanqui at his funeral give power to the evil spirits that the drums and cymbals and trumpets were driving away? Oh, Yuesheng, my friend, I am indeed bedevilled.
Even the sky was white, the colour of mourning, displaying its grief for Yuesheng. The coffin carriage at the head of the solemn procession was draped in swathes of white silk and drawn by four men all in white, declaring their sorrow. Buddhist priests in saffron robes beat their drums and scattered white petals along the winding route to the temple. Chang felt the girl’s cheek brush his shoulder as the crowd crushed around them.
‘The man in the long white gown and ma-gua,’ he murmured, ‘the one prostrate on the ground behind the coffin, he is Yuesheng’s brother.’
‘Who is the big man in the . . . ?’
‘Hsst! Do not speak. Keep your head down.’ He looked over his shoulder but could see no one paying any attention to them. ‘The bi
g man is Yuesheng’s father.’
The chanting of the priests drowned out their words.
‘What are those people throwing in the air?’
‘It is artificial paper money. To appease the spirits.’
‘Shame it’s not real,’ she whispered as a fifty-dollar note floated past her nose.
‘Hsst!’
She did not speak again. It was good to know the fox could hold its tongue. During the slow progress to the temple, Chang filled his mind with his memories of Yuesheng and the bond they had shared. It had always weighed heavy on Chang’s heart that Yuesheng had not seen or spoken to his father for three years because of the anger he carried against him. Three long years. The ancestors would be displeased that he had hardened his face against his duty of filial respect, but Yuesheng’s father was not a man easy to honour.
In the temple, in front of the bronze statues of Buddha and Kuan Yin, the coffin was placed at the altar. Incense scented the air. Prayers were chanted by monks. White banners, white flowers, delicate food, fruit and sweetmeats, all laid out for Yuesheng. The mourners kowtowed to the ground like a blanket of snow on the temple floor. Then the burning began. In a large bronze urn the monks laced their prayers with the smoke of burned paper objects for Yuesheng to use in the next life: a house, tools and furniture, a sword and rifle, even a car and a set of mah-jongg tiles, and most important of all, foil ingots of gold and silver. Everything devoured by the flames.
Chang watched as the smoke rose to become the breath of the gods, and he felt the beginning of a sense of peace. The knife pain of loss grew less. Yuesheng had died bravely. Now his friend was safe and well cared for, his part in the work was over, but as Chang’s eyes sought out the heavy figure at the front of the mourners, he knew his own work had barely begun.
‘You are the one who brought me my son’s body, and for that I owe you a great debt. Ask what you will.’
The father wore a white headband. His white embroidered padded jacket and trousers made his shoulders and thighs look even broader than they were. The sash at his thick waist was decorated with pearls sewn into the shape of a dragon.
The Russian Concubine Page 23
