Dragon Land

by Maureen Reynolds

  We got a taxi to the hotel, as rain had begun to fall quite heavily, but when we arrived I was surprised at the grandness of the building. The reception area was quite spectacular and the dining room was busy with people sitting eating at tables covered with white tablecloths and shiny silver cutlery. It was a far cry from the street carts and small restaurants Sandy and I had frequented, and I suddenly felt a bit overwhelmed.

  Thankfully Sue Lin and Alex appeared, and we were seated at a table by the far wall, which gave us some privacy. Alex looked handsome in his black suit, white shirt and grey striped tie, and his hair was slicked back like it had been the first time I saw him. Sue Lin looked lovely in an exquisite dress of deep-blue satin with silver flowers embroidered on it, and she also had a silver clasp holding her dark hair back from her face. I couldn’t reconcile her Chinese looks with her Scottish accent when she said, ‘Congratulations, Lizzie and Jonas, on your marriage. Alex and I hope you’ll both be very happy.’

  Alex smiled. ‘Hopefully it’ll be our turn next, Sue Lin,’ but she just squeezed his hand and picked up the menu.

  I noticed Jonas giving Alex a look, but Alex just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘Well, I tried.’

  I felt so sorry for him, as he was certainly besotted with her, but maybe Sue Lin wasn’t ready for marriage.

  The food was delicious and we drank some champagne to celebrate our marriage, and the evening was turning out to be a good time with friends. I don’t know what made me look over my shoulder, but I noticed the couple who were sitting at a table in the centre of the room were looking in our direction.

  Jonas saw me and said, ‘That’s the aristocracy of Shanghai. He’s Conrad Hamilton and that’s his wife, Lorna-May. They’re American, and he’s the head of the American Bank here in Shanghai.’

  Before I could answer, they stood up and came over to our table.

  ‘Good evening, Jonas, Alex and Sue Lin,’ said Conrad. ‘And this lovely lady is your wife, I believe?’

  Jonas said I was. ‘This is Lizzie. We arrived back today.’

  Conrad shook my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lizzie. This is my wife, Lorna-May.’

  She was wearing a beautiful gown of pale silver and she had a sparkling necklace around her neck that looked like it was made of diamonds, but surely, I thought, they were fake.

  She gave me a cool, appraising look. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lizzie.’ She turned to Jonas. ‘You’ve been a dark horse, Jonas. We all thought you would never get married.’

  Jonas gave her a crooked smile. ‘Well, I never met the right woman, but I have now.’

  Conrad laughed. ‘Just like the old Jonas. Full of Irish charm.’

  Before turning away with her husband, Lorna-May said in her seductive drawl, ‘Perhaps we’ll see you again, Lizzie.’

  I almost said ‘I hope not’, but I smiled and said I would look forward to that.

  We then resumed our conversation. The two men had been speaking about the Japanese takeover of the northern part of China.

  ‘They’re calling it Manchuria,’ said Alex, ‘and they’re also causing diplomatic rows that give them the excuse to take over more land. They’re a nation that needs watching.’

  Jonas agreed, and Sue Lin said she was doing an article on the refugee problem.

  ‘There are hundreds of refugees fleeing from the north and they’re ending up in Peking and Shanghai.’

  When there was a lull in the conversation, I asked Jonas, ‘Do you know a woman called Elsie Lomax, Jonas?’

  The three faces looked at me, and Sue Lin said, ‘Is she Ronnie Lomax’s wife?’

  ‘Yes, she is. I met her on the ship coming from London to Hong Kong and she said her husband was in charge of his father’s cotton mills on the banks of the Huangpu River. Her mother was with her, but I expect she has gone back home by now.’

  Jonas laughed. ‘Yes, she has. She caused an incident with her son-in-law at the mill and told him she was taking her daughter back with her and not leaving her in the fleshpots of Shanghai.’

  I said that sounded very much like Mrs Burton.

  ‘Has Elsie gone back with her?’

  Jonas said she was still here and lived on Bubbling Well Road. ‘Her house is much larger than ours, but it’s between us and the palatial place of the Conrad Hamiltons.’

  ‘I do hope she’s happy, as she was very nervous about coming out here,’ I said, but no one said a word.

  Then Jonas said, ‘We don’t really know her that well, Lizzie, but why don’t you pay her a visit? I’m sure she’ll be glad to see a friendly face.’

  When I said I would, the three of them glanced at one another, and although I was slightly puzzled by this, Sue Lin gave my hand a squeeze and she smiled. ‘Elsie Lomax will be so pleased to see you again, Lizzie.’

  37

  ZHENG YAN AND PING LI

  Jonas and I spent the next few weeks settling into our house. Although I had said I didn’t want to change anything, I moved some of the furniture around and bought new curtains for the windows, as I thought the old ones were too dark and a bit threadbare.

  Jonas was working with Alex on another book, and they spent hours together discussing it and sifting through the photographs Alex had taken.

  I put my mother’s carriage clock on the sideboard, along with Mr Wang’s box. Neither Jonas nor I had been able to unlock the mystery of opening it, but I knew we would manage it sometime. I often looked at the photograph album and sometimes got a little bit nostalgic about my previous life in Dundee, but I was so happy here with my husband that this soon passed.

  I wrote letters to Margaret and Laura and Pat and looked forward to all their news. I was amused when Laura replied to my letter telling her I was married. She wrote back saying she always thought she would be the first of the three of us to get married, and I thought she sounded slightly miffed that I had beaten her to the matrimonial gatepost. She was still teaching but was now at Rosebank School, the primary school I had attended as a child along with Emily. But thinking back to those days reminded me of the sadness of my father’s death.

  I still had a letter I’d found in Mum’s box after her death. It was dated November 1918 and it verified that Dad had died that July day in 1917. But even with this evidence in front of her she still didn’t believe it. She had written ‘not true’ on the letter and continued to live a life of denial, which was so sad but so typical of her. I had shown this letter to Margaret and she said Mum had let her see it.

  Margaret had said, ‘Your mum knew your dad was probably dead, but because there was no body or burial, a part of her hoped he was alive. She told me that if she saw someone who looked like your dad she had renewed hope that he could still be alive, and that small spark of hope never left her. That’s the tragedy of this war, Lizzie, that not all the dead had a Christian burial.’

  I put the letter back in the box.

  Pat had sent her congratulations and also her parents’ good wishes. She was now a teacher in Kirriemuir, which meant she was living on the farm instead of in lodgings. I also had a letter from Irene and Wullie, and I recalled the happy times I spent in their house in the Hawkhill and all the singsongs we’d had. Maisie also wrote with her congratulations.

  Ping Li was a great friend, and I spent a lot of my time in her house, where she sat at her sewing machine making her dresses. I got a bit homesick when I saw her machine was a Singer made in their factory in Glasgow, but that soon passed as well. Some days we made our way to the Star store with her deliveries and spent time browsing in the different departments.

  Most evenings after our meal, Jonas would go into his study with his typewriter and I would hear him typing away, and on other nights Ping Li and I would sit on the veranda while Zheng Yan and Jonas played mah-jong, the gentle click of tiles blending with the sound of birdsong from our garden.

  After our meal at the Palace Hotel the night we arrived, I made a point of contacting Elsie. I was upset when I first met her, as she look
ed really depressed. Her hair wasn’t brushed and her dress looked like she had worn it for days. She had been surprised to see me and had jumped up.

  ‘Lizzie, I can’t believe you’re here in Shanghai. When did you leave Hong Kong?’

  ‘I got married there, but my husband lives here,’ I told her. ‘His name is Jonas O’Neill.’

  She looked surprised. ‘Not the Jonas O’Neill who wrote Dragon Land?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the same man,’ I said. ‘I met him at a book signing in Hong Kong.’

  I always like to think she cheered up from that first meeting, as she confessed she hadn’t made any friends.

  ‘What about your husband, Elsie? He must know lots of people. Does he take you out to meet anyone?’

  Her face fell. ‘No, he doesn’t, Lizzie. The kind of people he meets aren’t suited to me, he tells me. Anyway, I hardly see him for days on end. He goes out drinking in the American Café every night, and although he comes home in the early hours of the morning, he’s gone out by the time I get up.’

  One afternoon Ping Li and I were sitting on the veranda when a car drew up. Lorna-May Hamilton stepped out.

  ‘I was passing and I thought I would hand this invitation to you instead of posting it.’

  She was dressed in a cream linen dress with cream sandals and cream cotton gloves. She looked as if she had stepped out of the front cover of a magazine.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Hamilton,’ I said. ‘May I introduce my neighbour, Madame Zheng.’

  She cast a cool gaze at Ping Li, but made no welcoming gesture to her.

  Ping Li stood up. ‘I must get back, Lizzie. I’ll see you later.’

  Lorna-May waited until Ping Li had disappeared through the garden before sitting down. ‘I’m having a birthday party next Saturday at the racecourse and I would like you and Jonas to come.’

  ‘A birthday party?’ I was surprised she had come here to ask us, as I was sure we weren’t in her social circle.

  ‘Yes, it’s my twenty-eighth birthday and Conrad wants to celebrate it with our friends, so please tell me you’ll both come.’

  I wasn’t sure what Jonas’s plans were for that day, so I said I would ask him and let her know.

  ‘Just drop me a letter if you can come, and please call me Lorna-May.’ She leaned forward in her seat. ‘Can I give you a bit of advice, Lizzie?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I couldn’t help but see you’ve become friendly with the native servants.’

  I was confused. ‘The native servants?’

  ‘Yes, that Chinese woman who was sitting here. I personally never get friendly with my servants and I don’t even know their names. I have girl one and girl two, plus the cook, who is just called the cook.’

  ‘Madame Zheng isn’t my servant; she’s my good friend and neighbour.’

  ‘Well, we must keep ourselves to ourselves here in the International Settlement and not consort with the Chinese population.’

  I was furious at this attitude. ‘Lorna-May, has it never occurred to you that it’s us who are living in their country and not the other way round?’

  Her eyes narrowed and she clamped her scarlet lips together. ‘I hope you’re not a Communist, Lizzie.’

  I was speechless.

  ‘It’s just that here in China there is the National Army under Chiang Kai-shek and the rebel army led by the Communist Mao Zedong. Conrad and I have met Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Meiling. She is part of the powerful Soong family.’ After that statement she stood up. ‘Well, I must get away as I have an appointment with my hairdresser, but let me know if you can come to the party.’

  That night I mentioned the visit to Jonas.

  ‘I’ve never gone to any of her parties,’ he said, ‘but maybe we should go to this one, as you’ll meet lots of people. And another thing: as far as I know Lorna-May has been twenty-eight for the last five years, so it should be a laugh.’

  ‘She called me a Communist, Jonas, because I’m friendly with Ping Li.’

  Jonas laughed. ‘Well, you’d better watch out she doesn’t set Chiang Kai-shek onto you, as she keeps peppering her talk with his name. It’s almost as if they are old friends.’ He became serious. ‘I want you to meet as many people as possible because when I have to go away I want you to have friends you can call on if you need any help.’

  So it was arranged that we would go to the birthday bash at the racecourse. Jonas said it was the place where the rich and powerful members of Shanghai society gathered. ‘They go there to the races, or to play cricket or join the swimming club. It’s the social hub of Shanghai.’

  Personally I didn’t want to be part of the social set, but if it meant meeting as many people as possible, I thought, then perhaps I should make the effort. The only thing was I didn’t own a suitable wardrobe of fashionable clothes. Ping Li came to my aid, however, and made me a lovely evening dress of purple shantung silk.

  ‘I bought the material at the department store and you will look wonderful at the party,’ she said. When I went to pay for it, she shook her head and held her hands together as if in prayer. ‘No, no, it is a gift from me to you because you are my neighbour and my friend.’

  I mentioned to Jonas the dilemma over payment, but he said I should accept the gift. ‘You can always repay her some other time with a favour or something of the kind.’

  With that in mind, I gladly accepted the dress. It fitted me perfectly. Ping Li had to make a slight adjustment to the waistband, but everything else was fine. I bought a pair of purple suede ankle-strap sandals from the store and I looked forward to Lorna-May’s party.

  On the Friday, I asked Elsie what she was going to wear on the night, but she shook her head. ‘We’ve not been invited, Lizzie.’

  I was puzzled. ‘But Lorna-May said it was her friends and neighbours who were going, and surely you and Ronnie are neighbours.’

  ‘I really don’t mind not being asked. We went to one party when I first arrived, but Ronnie became so drunk that I was embarrassed and we’ve never been asked to another one.’

  ‘Maybe Ronnie will take you out for the evening instead, Elsie.’

  She looked evasive and said, ‘Maybe he will.’

  On the Saturday night, Alex picked us up in his car. He looked despondent. ‘Sue Lin can’t make it, as she is away following up a story for the paper.’

  Jonas was in a joking mood when he said not to worry, we would sit together with me in the middle, but Alex didn’t laugh or even smile.

  I thought it would be an informal party with guests mixing with each other, but when we arrived at the club we found a huge dining table set out. There were place names on the table, and after we were handed a drink by the white-coated waiters we sat down at our allotted places.

  To my surprise, I found out I wouldn’t be sitting between Jonas and Alex but was placed next to Conrad Hamilton. I looked at Jonas when I sat down, and he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say he had nothing to do with it.

  Lorna-May made her entrance like a film star. She was wearing a figure-hugging silver dress and high-heeled sandals. Her face was perfectly made up, with red lips and thin pencilled eyebrows. I don’t know about the rest of the women at the table, but she made me feel like a country bumpkin, with my hair curling around my ears and wearing no make-up.

  Jonas was sitting next to Lorna-May and Alex was placed beside a plump woman in a puce-coloured dress. I had only met Conrad once that night at the hotel and I had no idea what to say to him. However, by the time the first course was served I found he was a modest, charming man and very easy to talk to.

  ‘Lorna-May tells me you’ve come here from Scotland?’

  ‘Well, I left Dundee to work in Hong Kong, but after I married Jonas we came here.’

  Conrad looked at me with surprise. ‘I don’t believe it. My great-grandfather came from Dundee originally. He was called Robert Conrad Hamilton and he worked in a bank there before emigrating to America as a young man. He was the one who made the family b
anking dynasty as it is now. Well, would you believe it, what a surprise.’

  I had to tell him all about my life there and my family history, and before I knew it the meal was over and the company moved into the large room where a small band was playing for dancing.

  As Jonas swept me across the floor, he said, ‘You were having a great conversation with Conrad. I think Lorna-May was jealous, not only because of Conrad’s attention but you were easily the most beautiful woman in the room.’

  I said he was biased, but added, ‘You won’t believe this, Jonas, but his great-grandfather was a Dundee man who emigrated to America and founded the family fortune.’

  ‘I always said if one stood on the street in Shanghai you would meet people from every corner of the world, and that goes to show how true it is.’

  I noticed Alex sitting alone and we went to join him. When he mentioned he was going home, we also thanked our hosts and made our way back to the house. Alex dropped us off, but said he was tired and just wanted to get home. I knew he had a small apartment above his photography workshop and that Sue Lin often spent the night there, but she wouldn’t tonight, obviously, and Alex must have felt depressed by her absence. I wished they could get together as a married couple, but Sue Lin seemingly put her career first, or maybe she had an aversion to marriage.

  The next morning while Jonas shut himself away with his typewriter, I sat on the veranda with Ping Li and Elsie and told them everything about the previous night.

  ‘Your dress was admired, Ping Li, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you get loads of orders for dresses’.

  ‘I wouldn’t make them, Lizzie. I just make things for my good friends and the customers at the department store.’

  38

  THE MISSION

  A fortnight later, at the beginning of July, Jonas and Alex set off to cover a story about Japanese activity in Manchuria, now called Manchukuo, but before he left he said he would be back in time to celebrate our first wedding anniversary in August.