Once upon a time in Chinatown

by Robert Ronsson

  I imagine a bedside telephone sounding in the curtained darkness of the next morning and intruding into a dream that had snagged the delicate weave of Nancy’s sleep. Her voice was groggy. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Lai Ping—’ it was her father ‘—come and see me straight away.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Is it Mother?’

  ‘Your mother is fine. Come now!’

  15

  When I returned to Doutor Ardiles’s office the day after he had agreed to find out what had happened to my cousin, the door was opened as soon as I knocked and the assistant ushered me in silence to the visitor’s chair. Opposite, on the other side of the desk, Ardiles squatted like a Buddha. There were two mugs of coffee sitting on slate coasters. Two of the pastries I had seen the previous day perched on paper plates.

  ‘Please, take one. The coffee is black but we have milk.’ He pointed to a small refrigerator beneath the window. I looked the other way to check that I wasn’t eating his assistant’s breakfast. Hers was in front of her and she raised her mug.

  ‘Thank you. It’s very kind. No milk, thank you.’

  His face was solemn. ‘It’s the least we can do. We have bad news for you, Mr Cross. Very bad news.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We found out yesterday that Luis is dead.’

  My stomach lurched.

  Ardiles’s voice was muffled by the sound of my blood pumping. ‘There was an accident.’

  The walls of the room shrank as if my eyes were pulling a focus lever zooming me out.

  ‘Let me go back to the start. This is a shock for us all. We liked Luis. Very much. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to find out this news. I called the Portuguese Embassy in Malaysia and explained that my client had not returned as expected. They took details and called me back very quickly. He had died in the north of the country two weeks ago. He had been exploring a ruined building there and must have slipped and fallen. His body was found at the bottom of one of the walls. It’s being kept in a city called Ipoh. The police in Malaysia passed the information to the Embassy. His passport lists no next of kin. The Embassy contacted the police here in Lisbon but it seems they have sat on the information.’

  His voice echoed around me as the office faded in and out keeping time with my pulse. I reached for the coffee and nearly fumbled it over. I took a gulp. I was alone again.

  It was only later that it struck me that Luis’s death had happened exactly three months after my mother’s. I had gone to Doutor Ardiles’ office anticipating the news that my cousin was still in Malaysia, trying to find out about our connection to the castle. Although I had known him only briefly, he was my only family. Now, as I listlessly wandered the squares of Lisbon’s waterfront, I was in a daze, not merely engendered by disappointment, but also by grief. Back in my hotel, I rearranged my return to London.

  During the flight, I tried to work out what could have happened. He must have gone to the castle – perhaps for a last look – and been climbing on one of the walls. A slip, and he was dead. His carelessness had snatched my family away.

  At Heathrow Airport, banks of snow, which had been ploughed from the runways, punctuated the airfield’s perimeter. A thin drizzle drifted in the cold breeze. I made it through baggage and customs in quick time needing to get home and regroup. After a quick visit to the gents I would join the queue for a taxi.

  Giant Christmas baubles hung in the arrivals hall and the shop windows were decorated with fake snow. Plastic figures of Father Christmas stood in every doorway. A nativity scene with life-size mannequins of the adoring host had been set up alongside the Bureau de Change. Shepherds, kings, Joseph and the animals elbowed each other for a view of the empty manger. The Virgin Mary, with a serene look on her face and a strangely empty tummy, awaited the babe’s arrival.

  Inside the toilet, I put my holdall down alongside the row of urinals and took the one nearest the wall. I unzipped and started to pee, taking care to aim slightly off centre of the plastic contraption that stopped cigarette butts and chewing gum from blocking the drain hole. It released a lemon perfume from the deodorant cake inside its central cage. The manufacturer’s logo and a telephone number were stamped on the plastic. Absent-mindedly I read the manufacturer’s name: Kellie’s Janitorial Supplies.

  PART TWO - 1995

  1

  There’s no doubt about it, I went into a tailspin after Luis Escobar died. No sooner had I found the one surviving member of my family than he was snatched away. My work deteriorated, but luckily it came at a time when Scotia’s management was preoccupied with readying the company for privatisation. It took a while for them to notice me falling apart in the London outpost.

  Tracy was the first to spot my problem in the days after I returned from Lisbon. She was sitting opposite my desk taking dictation when Doutor Ardiles called.

  ‘Mr Cross, I thought you might like to know that we have brought Luis back from Malaysia.’ I pictured his bear-like head beneath his portrait, the telephone handset held to his ear in a giant paw.

  ‘You have his body?’

  Tracy’s eyes widened in alarm and she half stood up. I signalled her to resume her seat.

  ‘Yes. We didn’t think it was right for him to be incarcerated out there. I am thinking that he should have a ceremony before a disposal. Do you have an opinion on this?’

  I shook my head. ‘No! I only met him once.’

  ‘Was he a Catholic?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ I stifled a sob. Tracy studied the empty page in her notebook.

  ‘Perhaps a humanist ceremony and a cremation. This is what we had in mind. You will want to come of course,’ Ardiles said.

  I closed my eyes tight shut and teased through the frizz of my hair with the fingers of my free hand. ‘No! I don’t want to come. I’m sorry.’

  Ardiles was silent for one, two, three beats… ‘Of course, I understand. His ashes? Do you…’

  ‘Talk to the people who run the British Cemetery. Perhaps they’ll allow you to put his ashes with his mother’s grave. I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this.’ I pressed the handset down on its cradle to prevent it echoing with Ardiles’s silent recrimination.

  Tracy’s eyes were full of tears as well. ‘Are you all right, Mr Cross?’

  I nodded and tried to reassure her but from that day she could tell I was struggling. ‘Would you like me to check the adverse underwriting and claims decisions from Head Office, Mr Cross?’ and ‘Shall I draft the letters to the brokers, Mr Cross?’ I coasted along on two or three-pint lunches and in the afternoons, giving them only a perfunctory glance, I signed Tracy’s letters.

  After a month or so of this, one mid-afternoon, not long after I’d stumbled in from a pub-lunch, I was jerked out of my doze by a knock at the door. My head had been resting on a pile of files and I pushed them away, selected the one from the top and wiped a dribble of spittle from its cover. I tried to focus on the paperwork as I called for whoever it was to come in.

  Peter Dell approached the desk, his wide, brown eyes shining with concern. ‘Everybody can see what’s going on, old chap,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Since your mum died. You’re going to have to pull yourself together.’

  ‘Dear old Peter. Such helpful advice,’ I said, my tone as cold and flat as a nun’s rebuke.

  ‘I care about you. I understand. I’m no bloody good in circumstances like these but that’s why I’m suggesting you see someone.’

  I straightened up. ‘A shrink, you mean.’

  ‘Yes, and not just about how you’re reacting to your mother’s death. Your drinking is affecting your decision-making. It’s driving business away.’

  ‘So, your visit is, in fact, to bleat about your sales figures, Peter. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.’ I turned back to the open file.

  He gave out a long sigh. ‘You need help, old chap. But have it your own way.’

  As the door shut behind him, I had never
felt so alone.

  On my arrival at the office mid-morning a few days later, Tracy, snuffling into her handkerchief, gave me the message that the regional manager, wanted to see me. A weight lifted from my shoulders. The summons to the headmaster signalled that I would no longer wake each morning dreading discovery.

  I made sure Tracy was in the clear. My dereliction wasn’t her fault. ‘To be frank,’ I said. ‘I don’t think my heart’s in it. I’ve been here for nearly thirty years. What with Mum dying and everything; I’m tired.’

  They gave me a good send off. The management organised a dinner in the room over the Golden Fleece and we went there from the office on my last Friday. I was very drunk indeed when Tracy bundled me into the back of a cab and jumped in after me. She called out through the open door, ‘I’ll see he gets home safe.’

  Scotia was generous and worked out a redundancy-style package. I had invested wisely, mostly in Scotia bonds that qualified for privatisation windfall payments. I sold Mum’s house and sat on the cash. I had enough to not have to worry about earning money – not straight away. Given my state of mind, I only narrowly escaped sleeping on the streets.

  My grand plan to go out and meet people never happened. I lost the habit of going to football matches. I went into my shell. The things that had once seemed to be important like having the spice rack in alphabetical order didn’t matter a jot. I rented a flat in West London and it became a bit of tip, to be honest. I didn’t bother to get my hair cut and I don’t remember showering or bathing that often. I ate out: fast food and pub grub; or I brought takeaways back to the flat. My energy levels slumped and my paunch expanded.

  I became as dependent on my video-player as an addict is on their drug of choice. At opening time every Wednesday, I stood on the doorstep of my local library like a Methadone user at the midnight Boots, so I could choose first from the new batch of films that came in, watching at least one a day; sometimes bingeing on two, three or more. I bought the classics for my own library, chief among them was Chinatown.

  There were so many things to admire in that film but my reason for loving it was mine alone, as if I had a personal stake in it every time I clunked the cassette into the video player’s breach and sat back for the opening credits. The fizz of the chemistry between Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway energised one of the best scripts ever and gave their director, Roman Polanski, a gift of a film.

  My take, though, was that the secret of its success, topping even the contributions of its stars, is that the protagonists: Private Eye Jake Gittes and Faye Dunaway’s Nancy Mulray were not the driving force that propelled it to its catastrophic denouement. The nitro-glycerine that exploded metaphorically in all their faces was smuggled in by a snake-like character played by John Huston, called Noah Cross. Cross – my mark, my cipher.

  Chinatown’s opening is all about deception. In the first scene, Jake Gittes is duped by the ‘Mrs Mulray’ who employs him. This sets the tone for the whole film in which, by its end, Noah Cross’s manipulation of the Los Angeles water supply is of lesser concern than the fate of his grand-daughter.

  Every time I watched it, I thought about my cousin Luis who, like his namesake, had worked in Chinatown. In those moments, I’d try to view it through his eyes so I could work out the links to his life, hisChinatown. Even as I wallowed in my bereavement for lost family, I understood that I should snap out of it because the film only accelerated my spiral into depression. Easier said than done.

  My lack of get-up-and-go meant that I couldn’t be bothered to follow up the name on the plastic disc I saw in the toilet at Heathrow Airport. So what that there was a company called Kellie’s Janitorial Products? So what that Kellie, ending ‘ie’, was an uncommon name? So what if this could have led me to another branch of the family? My ennui was so all-encompassing that I drifted through the weeks and months frittering away my capital and not even thinking about what I might do next.

  It was in this low mood that I found myself one day ambling along a side street off the Fulham Road in Chelsea. I stopped at the window of a run-down antique shop, called Artiques, that could have been lifted from a Dickens novel. I stepped inside and was drawn to a heavy-framed, bleak monochrome print that exactly suited my mood. The engraving depicted a death in battle. Based on the clothes and situation I wondered whether it was the death of Horatio.

  I must have spoken out loud because a voice from behind the counter said, ‘It’s called The Assassination of LS Dentatus. He was a Roman consul.’ The owner moved stiff-limbed around the counter and shuffled up to me in his carpet slippers. ‘It’s not that old but it is a print of an early 19th-century wood engraving. Are you interested in it?’

  ‘There’s something about it.’

  ‘There certainly is.’ He pulled the two wings of his moss-coloured cardigan together. ‘It’s quite a famous picture because of its size. It doesn’t look much, does it? The work is no bigger than an A4 piece of paper but being a wood engraving makes it special. In its time, it was one of the largest and most labour-intensive woodblocks to have been cut. It was William Harvey’s masterpiece.’ He ran his fingerless-gloved palm over the glass and removed a film of dust.

  I examined it more closely. The lines were fine and at times very close together. There were areas of detailed cross-hatching to give shade and depth. ‘I can see it must have taken ages. God knows what it would have done to his eyesight.’

  ‘That’s a good point. He would have needed good light to achieve such detail. Imagine Harvey’s workroom, a dingy outhouse behind one of the streets in Seven Dials – at the time one of London’s worst slum areas – and you’ll appreciate he could have only worked in the hours each side of midday. I can do you a good price.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I tried to decipher the engraved description. ‘I can’t see the artist’s name.’

  ‘It’s definitely William Harvey. It’s a well-known piece in the art world. The scene is based on a painting by his mentor, a fellow called Benjamin Haydon.’

  ‘And these are famous names, are they?’

  He shook his head. ‘As I say, this picture is well-known in art circles but the artists aren’t household names.’ He adjusted his spectacles. ‘There is a coda to this that may interest you, however. The engraver, William Harvey, is buried not far from here in Richmond. There is an ancient alley between houses there called Vineyard Passage. If you can find it you’ll be walking alongside a burial ground and that’s where Harvey is interred.’

  I bought the print and hung it on my wall. It looked incongruous in my modern flat but I liked the way it dampened the cheeriness of the decoration around it. One Saturday I took the bus to Richmond to see Harvey’s grave.

  At the bus station, I was directed to a flagged path opposite a church and, sure enough, it ran alongside a burial ground. It was a quiet oasis in the bustle of the town; birds sang in the shrubbery while sparrows flitted in the dusty urban soil. The graves and mausoleums were laid out in no order that I could see and I soon tired of searching for William Harvey. I had come on a whim and wasn’t bothered when I hadn’t found what I was looking for.

  Nevertheless, I was now intrigued by Vineyard Passage itself. Where would it lead? There was only one way to find out. I stepped back over the low wall that separated the graveyard from the alley and followed it, with the back gardens of houses on both sides, for a hundred metres or so to the end.

  It emerged where an unremarkable residential street called The Vineyard joined another at an offset crossroads. There was a newsagent’s shop on the corner and I went in for a Kit-Kat. Outside once again, as I was running my thumbnail along the groove in the foil, I glanced up the road and there, sticking out like a rusty tramp steamer in a row of millionaires’ yachts, was the frontage of a light-industrial factory sitting dowdily in a row of Victorian dwellings. Above the factory gates the faded sign read, Kellie’s Janitorial Products. Judging by the heavy padlocks securing the gates, the business had gone bust.

  It was
a quiet road and I wandered across it to read a letter that had been laminated and tacked to the Judas gate. I had expected something about bailiffs and unpaid bills but instead it read: These premises are closed following the sale of the business. These buildings have not passed to the new owners and we are currently considering how to utilise them for the benefit of nearby residents and the community at large. If any local residents have suggestions as to how to make best use of the premises, please contact me. Mick Kellie.

  It gave an address in Richmond and a telephone number. I re-crossed the road and, with my back to a converted school building, contemplated the silent factory. I can’t recall how the revelation came to me but an electric buzz ran up my spine as I imagined the building with a new glass frontage and two queues of people, one to each side, waiting to be admitted so that they could watch the latest movies in arthouse surroundings. I’ve never taken drugs so I can only imagine that what I felt then was akin to how a heroin user feels after having a fix – like iced water flushing through my bloodstream. My fingertips itched with energy. My brain fizzed with new opportunities.

  I crossed back to the gate and made a note of Mick’s details. In that moment, I saw two possibilities: the first, a thriving cinema complex; the second, simmering beneath, my resumption of my search for family.

  2

  I imagine Mick Kellie would have been thinking about the past when he turned the key in the padlock that secured the family’s business premises for the last time.

  He had been a perfumed child. He and his parents had lived on top of the factory. There was no garden, front or rear, so Mick played in the factory yard. It was home to the delivery van, outbound cartons of perfumed blocks and incoming supplies of raw materials. Mick would hide behind the exotic, green-glass carboys containing perfume oils and pick off patrols of German soldiers with his wooden-stick rifle as they passed across the open sliding-doors that fronted the road. The scent of lavender blocks attached itself to everything. Had Mick not been an only child, perhaps he might have been better equipped to cope.