“Now is your time to reclaim your inheritance, Wong First Born. The Government must buy Kellett Island back from you. The fisher villages were paid a going price for their lands round Plover Cove, so must Government pay you. The laws of precedent say so!”
“Or what?”
“Or,” Ah Min said, his beam radiant, “they must close the Cross-Harbour Tunnel from Tsim Sha Tsui.”
“Close?” Now Old Man paid attention.
“Close, First Born. Instantly.”
“Or pay me?”
“Correct, master. The money they owe is almost incalculable.” He was shuddering, almost in orgasm. His Triad master watched with distaste.
“Can they refuse?”
“Only if they bequeath the debt to the People’s Republic of China. An impossibility! Imagine how China would feel! To march in and be faced with the international disgrace of a massive debt left over from Imperial times, that Great Britain had failed to honour.”
“The same argument over the costs of building the new airport on Lantau Island!”
“Indeed, Wong Sin-Sang! Neither could face it! Hong Kong Government will give you almost anything you demand! Can you imagine the Kowloon traffic blocked up all the way from Tsim Sha Tsui to the Shum Chun River? And all China’s exports from Kwantung Province and the whole of South China halted?”
The old man thought a while.
“Fresh tea,” he said quietly. An amah hurried in on Ah Min’s gesture.
She was different, Old Man observed. He watched her figure move, and approved. It was time he went to a bath-house he did not own, in North Point perhaps, or even that terrible place in Quarry Bay. He might take his own bath girls. One of them did quite well when he was faced with a particularly difficult decision.
“I go to bath-house, six o’clock. Quarry Bay, or Shau Kei Wan. Choose six bath girls. I pick three. No Shanghainese or Fukien girls, though. Too harsh.”
“Six o’clock, Wong Sin-Sang.”
The old man leant forward to accept the tea bowl. Ah Min froze in fright, for the momentous statement to come.
“You have done well, Ah Min,” Tiger Wong said gravely. “You remember those three cents?”
“Yes, Wong Sin-Sang?”
“They are forgotten.”
Ah Min beamed, tears streaming down his face at the Triad master’s magnanimity, and took a bowl of tea from the amah. The two men drank together, eyes on each other.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Leave your brushes, combs, everything.”
The hairdressers exchanging glances. “Leave them, dearie?” the so-elegant American exclaimed. “But my friend Elmore gave them to me. They’re my presentation set.”
“Leave them,” KwayFay said again.
It was her way of testing the system. In any case, ordinary tortoiseshell could be replaced. If she was being honoured, or tricked, then he could charge a new set of implements up to the hotel.
“Elmore will be so upset!”
“Miss Brody.”
“Yes, Little Sister?” The concierge signalled to Vane, the tall slender American hairdresser she’d finally selected for this young and august guest. She fixed Vane with an eye as she told KwayFay, “It shall be exactly as you say.”
Vane was bustled out with his assistants, his lip trembling and his backward appealing stare ignored.
“Shall I have them cleaned, Little Sister?”
“No. I shall do it myself.”
The mirror showed a different KwayFay now. Her hair was gorgeous. No lack of lustre in Hong Kong, not among the Cantonese anyhow, but this was exquisite.
She examined her features. How different she looked from the bedraggled creature who’d stared back with such belligerence from the bathroom’s mirror! If she were not dressed in a bathrobe, she might appear even…
“Clothes, now, please. Give prices.”
Miss Brody murmured, worried, “You will not be billed for anything. I have orders.”
“Price items!”
The parade began ten minutes after she had tea. English biscuits, crumpets, toasted tea cakes, jam and a small pot of marmalade. She had said marmalade because she’d once heard of it. The word had stuck with her as a mantra, mar-ma-lade, since she was eleven. Two English ladies had been having tea in the Gloucester Tea-Rooms on the Island, where KwayFay begged at the door. One lady, wafting suavely out, had given her two fifty-cent pieces saying, “Sorry about the marmalade, chuckie.”
KwayFay remembered scrutinising the coins, staring at the Queen’s head with grave suspicion. She bit the edges, rubbed them to test if they shone (always the best test, because of cunning Shanghainese unworthies practically taking over Quarry Bay to counterfeit coinages, having nothing worthwhile of their own).
One coin had been sticky. During the biting test, she’d been astonished to discover an amazing new taste. It was bitter, then spread sweetly over her tongue. Ever after she’d passed the Gloucester Tea-Rooms with a kind of reverence, seeing it as a place of special affluence, a great tall palatial building at least as grand as the nearby General Post Office but able to create selective tastes surely only royalty were used to.
When the Gloucester Tea-Rooms closed, the sight of the rebuilding work broke her heart. She’d known then she would never again taste that fabulous mar-ma-lade. From the euphony, she wondered if the sweet tang was actually made from horses: Big Horse Road in Cantonese was Dai-mar-lo, where once the English governors rode their great horses along the harbour waterfront.
Now, a whole pot! It looked strange, a sticky spoon all its own. Once she licked the spoon the memory came flooding back. Her vision blurred. She had made it to marmalade! And her own jar! Not much in it, but perhaps the Peninsula Hotel with its gold taps and priceless arrays of jewellery had secret special-price deals with some hawkers? She drew breath. It must be the costliest food on earth.
Models paraded through the suite.
“Leave this one.”
KwayFay was reclining on a chaise longue, remembering that USA actress, famous from the scene where a real live lion sprawled over her as she (the actress, not the lion) snarled and roared. Except the actress lay like the sphinx, forearms out parallel before her, and that would have been inelegant. Different for a movie star, everything permitted. Read the newspapers blowing along the waterfront, and anybody’d know it was true.
The girls paraded at intervals of one minute, ladies from the boutiques on the ground floor and the other shopping malls listing things KwayFay wanted to see again. She had done the lingerie – such shameless shapes! Why, one slip even left a breast showing! She blushed and felt exposed, though it was these thin girls strolling, and even dancing, through the suite to music, displaying colours and styles. She picked three pairs of knickers, two petticoats, a camisole.
“Is that all, Miss KwayFay?” one lady, desperately trying to seem French though she was from the Philippines, begged in alarm. “Our superior styles are—”
KwayFay said firmly, “I do not exploit!”
Three times Miss Brody, now quite harrowed, explained there would be no charge. The Peninsula’s only wish was to prove what excellent choices they showed their august visitor. KwayFay was getting used to authority and quickly learned to speak sharply. They even approved of a stern corrective, the models particularly appearing smiley when she made a definite choice.
“Only one full set of lingerie, though…”
“Now dresses.”
She stood firm, insisting they leave her old clothes with her cracked old shoes. Miss Brody wanted to send them for cleaning.
“No,” KwayFay ruled. “Leave here, please.”
“But why?” Miss Brody’s helpless gesture said it all: KwayFay’s attire was rubbish. The hotel was eager to replace every stitch by the best, most expensive garments that fashion could offer. It was all free.
“If you take them,” KwayFay told her, “I might never see them again. What will I wear then?”
“These new
clothes!” Miss Brody wailed.
Miss Brody understood that Miss KwayFay wanted to burn every single strand of her hair trapped in the combs, brushes, on the carpet, but there were fokis to do just that. The Peninsula’s famous Domestic Division was renowned.
KwayFay had them bring matches, ash-trays, towels, and a small incinerator device, and burned the implements and her entangled strands of hair. Miss Brody swayed with distress. KwayFay sympathised. She too had felt hunger, but the lady’s worry was only caused by thoughts of the hairdresser. In any case, the American hairdresser’s friend Elmore would leave him for another friend before the week was out – they were already ensconced in a Kyoto hotel making private arrangements. Where was the problem? The amahs and assistants twittered.
The dresses proved difficult. So many! Eastern, western, Indian, Indonesian, saris and sarongs, evening wear and cocktail dresses. Materials were problematic. Some textiles were so heavy! Others were gossamer. The couturiers leant towards impact rather than shape, fashion as opposed to detail. KwayFay had a hard time. Finally she selected an elegant silk day suit, the skirt exquisitely cut, the jacket with its false lapels showing a two-tone effect perfectly. Two day dresses were quickly chosen because she was getting tired. She still had to go to HC’s as ordered, but why?
“Now shoes.”
Exotic creatures of indeterminate gender rushed in with tiers of boxes of shoes. Extra mirrors were brought. Brogues, stubby toes she knew were coming back into fashion, and the anklet-hangs were definitely out. She finally selected two pairs of Italian and a slight pair of London design.
She stood while they dressed her.
“Box up all clothes, please, and shoes,” she told them. “In case.”
“In case of what, Miss KwayFay?” cried Miss Brody, now woefully distressed.
“In case I want them.”
Had she still enough money to buy a dinner? She asked to see the itemised bill. She stared when it came, didn’t believe the amount. So many noughts?
She told them to leave her alone as she counted the money in her handbag. To her relief it just covered the cost of one outfit. If she left most, she would still have some money over, six hundred Hong Kong dollars. Would it buy a meal in the Peninsula? She doubted it. If she dressed back in her old clothes and left by the rear entrance, she might escape without arrest and buy a two-dollar bowl with a wisp of green vegetables behind Connaught Road. The Star Ferry was the cheapest way back to the Island, leave this madhouse and Kowloon behind. The Tiger Wong had said spend. She had spent.
Quickly she ate the rest of the biscuits and a piece of cake, which she saw on the bill, but her stomach rebelled at such richness. She poured a cup of cold tea, glancing surreptitiously towards the double doors, and drank it before summoning them.
“Who will pay?” she asked.
“It is already paid, Miss KwayFay.”
“Let me see.”
They showed her the bill. It was cancelled. KwayFay knew this trick, one bill seeming the same as another, then the miscreant was arrested on the way out of the hotel and it was prison on Lamma Island among hoods and robbers. Unlike other thieves, she would have no contacts in the Triads or Hongs or police to get her off a trial. She had helped to work the trick several times, before she’d become respectable employee in HC’s Company.
“I pay.”
“Miss, please …”
Miss Brody was taken away in tears. A second concierge, grand and old, quite forty or maybe even more, appeared and listened in silence while KwayFay counted out the impossible sum of money onto the rosewood table. The new woman simply agreed with whatever KwayFay said, concurred with her selections, then smiled.
“You only wish to pay for the clothes you are wearing?”
“Yes. I shall not have the others.”
That would leave her enough for a good meal every day for a month. She was no fool. And she’d destroyed all her strands of hair, as Ghost Grandmother said.
“Little Sister, it is a pleasure to do business with you. May I extend the hospitality of the hotel before you leave? We have excellent international cuisine and —”
“No. I go to work now.”
“And your purchases? The other ones?”
“Leave them,” KwayFay said cunningly. “Maybe I collect them later from your front door, bringing more money.”
“A hotel limousine to your destination, perhaps?”
“No. I go on Star Ferry. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Miss KwayFay. May I accompany you down to the entrance?”
The elderly concierge chatted all the way, pointing out the beautiful jewellery in the hotel shops as she went. KwayFay found difficulty in walking on such costly shoes, and she hated the thought of her expensive skirt being crumpled. It was the unaccustomed susurrus of her silk underclothes, and the impossible shoes causing her to tread as if her feet were old, like those of tourists.
KwayFay could not resist pausing to gaze at the galaxy of brooches, pendants, rings, earrings. Some she had not even seen before, though she had spent year after year night-staring into the windows of the late shops in Nathan Road of an evening. One stone in particular caught her eye, a most deep violet blue.
The elderly concierge recognised her guest’s craving and said, “Tanzanite, Miss KwayFay. It is a stone only known for fifty years, from Tanzania. They call it African Sapphire, but it is different.”
“It is exquisite.”
“Isn’t it?” She could tell KwayFay loved the pendant. “They say a famous film star, the one who always buys the most expensive jewels, has the only perfect necklet. Five flawless large tanzanites!”
They went to the main door. Uniformed porters leapt to allow her through.
“Miss KwayFay, your suite will be kept here, by order.”
“What suite?”
“Simply call the hotel and you will be conveyed here from anywhere in Hong Kong, at any time.”
She dismissed the concierge’s words as yet more trickery. Also, how much would a suite cost? KwayFay said painstaking thanks and left, carrying her old handbag, laptop over her shoulder, and the plastic shopping bag holding her old clothes and shoes. The concierge watched her go. Tourists and pedestrians paused to see.
The concierge smiled. She went to telephone the head of the Triad, earning her retainer.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The journey to work seemed arduous, quite as if she was now becoming a tourist. Except, she thought as she caught the Star Ferry, she had no home. Did Ah Hau’s Café of the Singing Birds off Ladder Street in the Mologai count? She sat in the unaccustomed luxury of the upper deck of the Star Ferry, avoiding the window seats because of her hair. She kept catching glimpses of herself – an amazing creature! So elegant! – in the windows of the place called MacDonalds and the waterfront camera shops. Schoolchildren were already out in their bright uniforms, this homework, that task set by too-strict mistresses.
Tourist, though. KwayFay shouldn’t feel like a tourist. They had homes. She had none, not even here.
Yet the concierge said she now had a suite in the Peninsula. Had she meant it? And for what exactly? Everything was trade. Transactions, more than stars in the sky or thoughts in mankind, waited to be enacted. Pay your money at the turnstile and the Star Ferry carried you to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. Pay your HK$ 16.00 at the Government Pier in Central District, and the Hoverferry takes you to Cheung Chau, 9.00am start, there in 35 minutes. All was the rule of money. It happened as night followed day. And why? Because you’d paid, ne?
Three men in suits boarded and sat close.
She saw their reflections. One talked into a cell phone. The others were the sort who ought to look bored because they were parted from their investment tracker charts. Usually, young suits couldn’t leave off analysing numbers all the way home, and were still checking when they arrived next morning.
These three were already in their job. She felt them looking round the upper deck as the Evening Star,
just like the Star Ferry vessels in green and cream, churned slowly out of the jetty.
They didn’t look at her. They examined everybody else. The young man snapped his cell phone shut. She heard him mutter something but couldn’t make it out. Among themselves, threat-men used slang full of puns, even rhymes and homophones. This was traditional. In ancient China, ladies of the Imperial Court wrote to each other using a secret set of ideographs, inventing characters for a written language only they understood.
What were these threat-men telling somebody about her for?
She thought of that wheezing man who’d interrogated her, to no purpose, in Kowloon that time, and suddenly believed she’d guessed it was he. He must be a Triad Head, who was cruel to his prisoner the poor old man from the Sports Field, who did the Tai Gik in the ancient way.
Suddenly it all came flooding in, and she realised.
They were keeping the old man as a business hostage! He was being held for ransom, which was why he refused always to try to escape. Not a prisoner, but someone held to force his family’s complicity.
This explained his weariness, his need of her help. He was stolen from his family! How terrible! She felt almost sick. At least she had her freedom, whereas that poor old man was imprisoned against his will. What for, some merger? The only exercise he was ever permitted was when the Sports Field at Causeway Bay was vacant. She’d seen him taken out for exercise. How cruel people were! She almost wept at the image of the poor old gentleman. Would he never be freed?
Now she fully understood that meeting near the Western Market. The threat-men were obviously making sure he didn’t pass on some coded message, the sort of thing a desperate hostage would do. She simply hadn’t understood. And his words about money clearly had some double meaning she hadn’t taken in. What a fool she was! How broken-hearted he must be. His poor family, possibly children, grandchildren, all weeping for their poor old grandfather. She hadn’t helped him at all.
These young hoods might be the same ones from the Sports Field. They suspected a rescue attempt, which explained their vigilance, their aggression.
The Year of the Woman Page 20
