Oriental Hotel

by Janet Tanner

  There was a brief knock on the door and it opened without waiting for Charles’s summons – further proof, if any were needed, of Helen’s closeness to the tai-pan.

  ‘You wanted me, tai-pan …’ She broke off as she saw Stuart, her perfectly painted lips curving into a surprised smile. ‘Stuart, I didn’t know you were back!’

  ‘Your office door was firmly closed when I came by.’ Stuart swirled the remains of his whisky over the ice, looking at her and wishing she inspired more in him than admiration and a sense of near-guilt that his feelings were no stronger. She was so attractive – beautiful, almost, with her dark hair cut sharply geometric, her eyes wide and dark behind a fringe of lashes and her mouth, full and red, perfectly shaped and perfectly made-up. A vivid flame blouse set off net dark hair, her cream pleated skin was fresh and elegant; her shoes, though cool and open-weave, had heels which were sufficiently high and slender to enhance her long legs and give her that little extra height and poise.

  Helen was perfect – perfect voice, perfect appearance, perfect manner, bright, charming, as good at making love as she was at everything else, and yet …

  Dammit, if her door was closed when I came by I ought to have wanted to kick it in after spending half a week away, but I didn’t! Stuart thought bad-temperedly.

  ‘Drink, Helen?’ Charles’s hand hovered near the lacquered cabinet.

  She shook her head. Her hair moved with it and then fell back into place, evidence of the most expensive cutting.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’

  One corner of his mouth quirked. ‘All right, all right, there’s no need to sound so disapproving! This girl likes to think she can run me, you know,’ he added to Stuart.

  ‘No such thing. It’s simply that I shall fall asleep if I drink in the middle of the day.’ Helen rejoined.

  ‘I find that impossible to imagine,’ Charles said, and silently Stuart agreed with him. When Helen slept, it would be on an unruffled pillow, wearing no doubt a Janet Reger nightdress. A drunken stupor in her office, even in private, was certainly not her style.

  ‘I’ve asked you to come in so that you can put Stuart in the picture about what you have done for him in his absence.’ Charles extracted a cigar and unwrapped it lazily, somehow managing to leave little doubt that personal conversation had now been exchanged for business.

  Helen’s eyes flicked up. ‘If Stuart would like to come along to my office there would be no need for us to disturb you any longer, tai-pan.’

  ‘No, please carry on here.’ It was a command and Stuart understood it. His grandfather’s great strength lay in the total grip he retained on the company. There was not an aspect he did not understand – and control. Every item of information, every detail he assimilated, stored and often used.

  Now, as Helen talked, describing the correspondence she had received and the crises she had dealt with during his absence, the older man sat silently smoking his cigar, but not missing a thing.

  ‘I think that covers it,’ she said at last, uncrossing her legs and standing up. ‘The relevant files are in my office. Perhaps you would like to call in and look through them, Stuart – or if the tai-pan wants to see them, I can ask my secretary to bring them along.’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Charles informed her. ‘I’ve heard all I need to know. Knowing you, Helen, I am sure the files reflect very precisely what you have already told us. However, you go along with her if you wish, Stuart, and I will see you for lunch.’

  Stuart stretched, setting down his now empty whisky tumbler.

  ‘I’ll be along in a moment, Helen. There’s something else I want to talk to the tai-pan about first.’

  Her eyebrows arched in a slight display of surprise, but she did not question or argue.

  ‘I shall be there when you want me. And you won’t forget you have an appointment with the head of the Police Department this afternoon, will you, tai-pan?’

  ‘I won’t forget. Thank you, Helen.’ When the door had closed after her, he turned to Stuart. ‘What else did you want to see me about, then? Something unexpected has come up, has it? The Farquhar deal …’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the business actually.’ Stuart swung his long frame away from the desk corner where he had been perching. ‘It’s a personal matter. I have brought back two visitors with me and I am hoping we can entertain them a little while they’re here.’

  ‘Visitors? What visitors?’

  ‘Do you remember how when I was a boy, I found a box of things which had belonged to your brother Gerald?’

  Watching him carefully, Stuart saw grandfather’s eyes narrow behind the cigar smoke.

  ‘Yes.’ The tone was non-committal.

  ‘There was a locket amongst the things … gold, antique, clearly of great sentimental value to someone. And inside the locket was a photograph of a woman – presumably the original owner who had given it to Great-uncle Gerald. When I asked you who she was, you always told me you didn ‘t know. Well – now I have found her.’

  In all his life, Stuart could not remember ever having seen his grandfather lost for words. He saw it now: Charles froze, the cigar clamped between his teeth, his expression somewhere between bewilderment, astonishment and dismay.

  ‘What the hell do you mean, you’ve found her?’

  ‘Just that. I traced her through a photograph of her granddaughter in a London paper. She was so much like her that I knew they had to be related. While I was in Bristol, I looked her up.’

  ‘And you say you have brought her here?’

  ‘Yes. She used to live in Hong Kong. I’m surprised you never recognised her from the photograph in the locket.’

  Charles reached for the bottle of Glenfiddich and replenished his glass without offering it to Stuart.

  ‘Why should I? I could hardly know everyone who lived in Hong Kong. I was too busy learning the business while Gerald was off playing the fool. Who is she, anyway?’ There was an expression on his face which Stuart could not quite fathom. He had seen it before, when his grandfather was pulling a deal – and keeping something back. But now …?

  ‘Her name is Elise Sanderson,’ he said. ‘She is the widow of the founder of Sandersons International. May I have another drink, tai-pan?’

  Charles Brittain pushed the bottle towards him. ‘You drink too much. A bad habit. Helen will take you in hand.’

  Stuart poured Glenfiddich. ‘ I never drink when I am either working or flying. Just now, I feel I have earned one. And I don’t know that I want Helen to take me in hand.’

  Charles raised an eyebrow. ‘Just so long as you don’t take after your Great-uncle Gerald.’

  The scorn was evident, in direct contrast to the picture of – his long-time hero which he had formed from his conversation with Elise Sanderson.

  ‘Why are you so opposed to him, even now?’ Stuart asked. ‘ I’ve heard of brothers not getting on, but he’s been dead for mote than forty years, for God’s sake!’ ‘He lacked any sense of responsibility towards the company.’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t interested in the company?’

  ‘He certainly was not. He had no interest in anything but flying aeroplanes and womanising.’

  ‘For a womaniser, he certainly formed a pretty lasting attachment with this lady,’ Stuart said calmly. ‘Anyway, I asked her if she would like to come back to Hong Kong with me and she accepted.’

  ‘And where is she now?’

  ‘At the Peninsula. Her grand-daughter came with her – the girl who looks so much like she used to. They’ve booked the Moon Pearl Suite. But I should warn you that I have invited them to dine one night at Shek-o.’

  ‘You’ve done what?’ Charles slammed down his glass, his face like thunder.

  ‘Invited her to dine at Shek-o. I thought it was the least I could do.’

  ‘The hell it was! Well, I don’t want her at Shek-o.’ Stuart stared in genuine-amazement. The strength of his grandfather’s reaction had taken him totally by surprise. ‘She’s
an extremely charming woman. When you meet her …’

  ‘I have no wish to meet her.’

  Stuart rose. ‘Tai-pan, you’re being unreasonable. We often entertain visitors for dinner. After coming half-way across the world …’

  ‘Yes, and at this precise moment I am wondering why she has come half-way across the world.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Cormorant is a world-famous organisation. It would hardly be the first time people have tried to cash in on their connections.’

  ‘How ridiculous!’ Stuart said angrily. ‘She’s had forty years to ‘‘cash in,’’ as you put it, if she wanted to do so. Besides, Sandersons is a very viable company in its own right. Elise Sanderson is not short of a penny or two, I promise you. You‘re getting this entirely out of proportion, tai-pan.’

  ‘Really? Perhaps you are not as far-seeing as I thought, Stuart. Perhaps my choice of you to succeed me as tai-pan of Cormorant was a little premature.’

  ‘Oh no, tai-pan.’ Stuart drained the glass and set it down. ‘Don’t think you can blackmail me with that one. In any case, I have already extended the invitation.’

  ‘Then withdraw it!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Shek-o …’

  ‘Shek-o is my home, too,’ Stuart said. ‘Sometimes I think you forget that.’

  He swung away towards the door. ‘ If I am to check my files with Helen before we have lunch, I ought to get on with it. And I also propose to telephone the Peninsula and confirm the dinner invitation to Mrs Sanderson for tomorrow evening. You aren‘t expecting other guests, are you?’

  ‘No, I am not. And if you’re so set on entertaining them, I cannot forbid it.

  ‘Good!’

  ‘As you so rightly say, Shek-o is your home and I wouldn’t like you to think of it as less,’ Charles swept on as if Stuart had not spoken. ‘I have no desire to be the tyrant my father was.’

  ‘I’m glad you see it that way,’ Stuart said with a wry smile. And left the office before his grandfather could change his mind.

  Crossing the stretch of water from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island was, Elise discovered, an emotional experience.

  The Cormorant motor launch, sent by Stuart Brittain, had picked up herself and Katy; now it skimmed the blue water towards the south side of the island and Shek-o, reminding her too sharply for comfort of the hell-ride across the harbour on that last fateful day and the voyage on the Cormorant yacht, knowing that Brit was dead.

  Still across the years she could feel the yawning chasm of utter despair and indescribably piercing grief which she had felt then, the hopelessness and the sense of futility which had swamped her.

  If I hadn’t had Alex to care for, I could never have gone on, she thought. It was as if all the life had been snuffed out of me; I would never have believed until then that it was possible to feel such pain. But she had had Alex and so she had gone on, and when Geraldine had been born – an excruciatingly difficult birth in a foreign base, with bombers thundering overhead and shells splitting the air – a sense of purpose had begun to return.

  She not only had Alex, she also had Brit’s child, and when she had named the baby girl for him she had felt a moment’s warmth and pride before the grim despair washed in again like the tide. Brit’s baby, whom he would never see; Brit’s baby, whom she must bring up alone. It had been a long, long time before the periods of normality had begun to appear through the black fog of grief But eventually it had happened: time had healed, though as Geraldine had grown up there had been too many occasions when the fierce grief had reappeared. These had come less and less frequently, until her feeling of loss was no more than a constant sad ache punctuated by occasional moments of intense emotion sometimes months, sometimes years apart. Unexpected things could spark them off, but now one such moment came to her as they crossed the smooth blue water, making her catch her breath with its intensity.

  ‘Granny?’ Katy’s hand touched her arm. ‘Are you all right?’

  She nodded, but inwardly her heart was crying: Look Brit, look! This is your grand-daughter, this beautiful young woman – your grand-daughter, yours and mine. This is the child of the child we conceived in love, child of the child you touched that last night through the taut skin of my belly.

  Oh, that a love could be this strong through all the years!

  The coastline of Hong Kong Island slipped past, ever-changing. What a mass of contradictions was this fascinating land! – plush luxury hotels and millionaires’ mansions, shanty houses clinging to the cliffs and the floating homes of the junk people. The behaviour of the Chinese could puzzle a stranger: their subservience proving that no task was too demeaning if there was the possibility of a tip – yet always pushing, always shoving, in a perpetual wearying every-man-for-himself. The environment too was diverse, with bustling shops and factories on the one hand, picturesque cliffs and bays on the other, and at its very heart the Chinatown of an Aladdin pantomine, with vertical banners bearing Chinese legends, rows of scrawny chickens hanging outside countless butchers’ shop and clothes suspended from angled poles high above the narrow streets.

  There was the Hong Kong of big business, throbbing and pulsating; there was the Hong Kong of Suzie Wong – sleazy night clubs and strip joints. And this morning she had paid a visit to the house which had once been her home and seen yet another side of Hong Kong, constructed when the English had been determined to create a little of England and the British Empire wherever they went.

  It had changed very little since the days when she had lived there, but she had been surprised how little emotion it had stirred in her. It was hard to see her former home as the backdrop for so much upheaval, standing there now solid and almost untouched. It was, she had thought, just a house – and it had disappointed her a little that she could feel so calm about it.

  Now, however, as they approached Shek-o, the flood of emotion more than made up for her earlier lack of response, and she knew this was due in part to her awareness of the importance of the meeting ahead.

  Charles Brittain was a totally unknown quantity. She remembered Brit’s assessement of him – the son his father had wanted – and in the light of Gordon’s opinion of the Brittains of Cormorant this was not a comforting thought. Gordon had despised them as ruthless despots, and Brit’s own view had borne out that opinion. If Charles Brittain had been his father’s son then, forty years ago, how much more would he be so now, after ruling the Cormorant empire for half his life?

  But this made no difference to Elise’s determination to bring her plans to fruition. Remembering so vividly the love she had found too late, when she was already committed to someone else, only made her more certain that her decision to prevent Katy repeating her own mistake was the right one. If Katy traded herself to Gunther Dietrich for the good of Sandersons it would be more than just a waste – it would be a tragedy.

  I will not let it happen! Elise thought again. I will find a way to stop her, even if it means crawling to Charles Brittain on my hands and knees!

  The launch moored and the Chinese boatman, grinning with customary Oriental good humour, helped Elise ashore. To the west, beyond Stanley and Aberdeen, the sun was going down as a ball of scarlet that set the sea on fire behind the misty wall of humidity, but she hardly noticed. Her attention was all for the Porsche car parked nearby and the young man – so like Brit! – who was coming to meet them.

  ‘Mrs Sanderson.’

  Elise smiled, betraying nothing of what she was feeling.

  ‘I wish you would call me Elise. ‘‘Mrs Sanderson’’ is far too formal and it makes me feel at least a hundred.’

  ‘All right.’ His mouth lifted at one corner and he turned to Katy. ‘We can certainly reassure her that she looks nothing like a hundred, whatever she’s called, can’t we?’

  ‘We certainly can. I only hope I look as good at her age.’ Tonight Katy was wearing a simple dress of black and white silk, the bodice cut away at the back to a deep ‘V’
to expose her smooth, suntanned skin, and her fresh appeal was stunning.

  ‘I’m quite sure you will,’ Stuart responded with feeling.

  The Porsche was unlocked; Stuart opened the passenger door and Katy squeezed into the rear seat, leaving Elise to sit in comfort in the front.

  ‘I would have met you off the launch myself, but I had to take a business call just when it was time to leave,’ Stuart said, starting the engine. ‘ I thought I had left work behind for today at the Cormorant building, but unfortunately it has a way of catching up with me.’

  Elise settled herself, enjoying the powerful sweetness of the Porsche engine.

  ‘I know what you mean. My husband never left business behind and in the end I learned to live with it.’

  ‘This call was actually for my grandfather. He should have been home by now, but he’s obviously been detained somewhere.’

  There was a note of false carelessness in his voice which set alarm bells jangling for Elise.

  ‘Oh dear! I was looking forward to meeting him.’

  Stuart swung the car around a hairpin bend; they had been climbing steadily and the cliff face fell away sheer beneath them to the sea.

  ‘He had been looking forward to meeting you, too.’

  It was a lie and instinctively she knew it. Her heart sank. Charles Brittain did not want her here at Shek-o – perhaps she was intruding into a past he preferred to forget. With so much hanging on this visit, she could have hoped for a warmer welcome. But business was business – Charles did not have to like her in order to make a deal with her.

  On a cliff-top curve ornamental gates opened on to a wide drive fringed with jacaranda trees and flame of the forest, whose drooping leaves of bright orange had now disappeared to make way for lush summer foliage. Fifty yards down the drive a wall of these rose ahead, but as Stuart swung the car to the left the house came into sight: a low, hacienda-style building, fronted by two double garages with doors standing open to reveal not one but two Rolls Royces. Passing the garages, he drove up to the front door and the back-drop of sea and sky, partially misted over by humidity, came into view.