The Orchid Tree

by Siobhan Daiko

‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t go to the right school.’

  ‘I’ve never understood why the British call that top drawer.’

  James swilled the alcohol in his glass then sipped it. ‘Oh, these things matter. Cost me the job of my dreams, at least.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I went for an interview to be a Navy Pilot, along with a friend of mine. Nick. He’d been to a grammar school . . .’ Another sip went down with a swallow. ‘ . . . I’d been an apprenticed plumber. He got in, I didn’t.’

  Sofia shook her head slowly. Should she touch his hand? No. Too forward.

  ‘Mind you, I took it on the chin. I got my commission eventually, and became a First Lieutenant. Then the end of the war came, of course. I’ve done well . . .’

  ‘Joss.’

  ‘Joss?’

  ‘Luck, or fate. We’re the same, you and I. We have to fight harder than anyone else. I’m a Eurasian woman and I’m not from what is considered to be a good family. I’m a survivor and so are you. That’s what’s important.’

  ‘Tell me about the family matters you need to resolve.’

  ‘You know the Consortium imports gold freely, because Portugal didn’t sign up to the gold regulation agreement?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My father was too ill in recent years to realise Leo was getting his employees to melt down the international gold bars. Those bars weighed around twenty-seven pounds each. His men converted them into portable nine ounce ingots or thin gold sheets. The smugglers preferred the lower weights as they were easier to transport.’

  ‘What smugglers? We didn’t catch anyone smuggling gold when I was in the Customs.’

  ‘They weren’t smuggling the gold into China, but to Hong Kong.’

  ‘And your uncle was involved?’

  ‘Uncle’s junks used to run some of that gold. Do you remember the first time we met?’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘It was part of a bluff. Uncle told Leo that Customs had seized the gold at the same time they confiscated the cans of kerosene. Leo was suspicious, but he accepted the story.’

  ‘I gather he’s found out the truth.’

  ‘Yes. From Derek Higgins. And now Leo wants compensation.’

  ‘Can’t say I’m surprised about Higgins.’

  ‘He no longer works for Uncle but has become Leo’s henchman.’

  ‘Any reason for that?’

  ‘Derek can’t resist money. He’ll sell out to the highest bidder every time. Apparently, he helps his parents in England, but he’s also addicted to gambling, I’ve heard.’

  ‘So Higgins has a human side to him after all. Who’d have thought it?’ A pause. ‘Why did your uncle take the gold?’

  ‘To give to the guerrillas in China.’

  ‘And what sort of compensation is your brother asking for?’

  ‘He’s not my brother. Leo is my half-brother and he wants to get his hands on our factory. The amount owed is twenty-eight thousand US dollars and Uncle doesn’t have the ready cash.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Leo doesn’t need the factory. He’s doing this out of spite. He’s got his shares in the Consortium and his finger in practically every pie in Macau. Uncle has transferred almost all his interests to Hong Kong, and Leo can’t abide that. I think it’s also because a number of Shanghai industrialists are setting up factories near ours. They’re nationalists, just like Leo’s mother’s family.’

  ‘Can Leo legitimately force your uncle to give him the factory?’

  ‘Not legitimately, of course, as he can’t admit to the smuggling. But he also has contacts through his mother with the Triads. They’re gangsters.’

  ‘I know about the Triads.’ James took another sip of brandy. ‘And I know someone who would be interested in more information about Leo’s associates. I can’t promise anything, but they might be able to help. Leave it with me for a week or so!’

  ‘Thank you, James.’ She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it gently. She couldn’t help herself. He lifted her fingers and kissed the inside of her wrist. A tingle crept up her arm and heat rose up from between her legs to her neck. She glanced away from him.

  ‘Sofia. Look at me!’

  She turned back to him, and placed his hand over her heart.

  James’ eyes were so bright they appeared to burn. He lifted her chin and kissed her on the lips. She resisted for a second but he pulled her to him, his hand on the small of her back, and she melded against him. The hardness of his chest pressed against her breasts. The sounds of the harbour receded; all she could hear was the blood rushing through her veins. It felt so, so wonderful.

  James’ hands entwined in her hair and she kissed him back. He reached under her dress, his touch sending currents of pleasure rushing through her. Their kisses grew deeper. This was her first time kissing a man, but she knew what to do instinctively, abandoning herself to the deliciousness of it. She broke off and looked at him, hands on his face. His eyes were heavy with longing.

  ‘Let’s go down to the cabin,’ she said, not caring about the consequences.

  The darkness was soft and enveloping; the aroma of polished wood mixed with the scent of the sea. Wrapped around each other, they stumbled onto the bunk. She couldn’t see him but felt him stretched out next to her, his mouth on hers, his hands in her hair.

  ‘Tell me to stop,’ he whispered.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Oh, God . . .’

  They were desperate. His breath came in deep gasps. The split in the side of her dress allowed her to lift one leg and drape it over his. Their kisses became more urgent.

  A sharp knock on the cabin door. ‘We arrive Kowloon pier,’ the boatswain said.

  Sofia sat up and put a hand to her mouth. It felt bruised but ripe, like a soft peach ready to be devoured. She reached for the light switch.

  James blinked in the fluorescence. ‘I’d say we got the timing absolutely spot-on there.’

  ‘We were a bit hasty, don’t you think?’ She giggled. ‘There’s plenty of time for us to get to know each other. Especially if you’re going to help me save the factory.’

  The launch dropped James off and Sofia returned to the cabin. She lay on the bunk, stretching like a lazy cat. She’d been about to give her virginity to a man she barely knew. Only she felt as if she didn’t need to get to know him; she knew him already. A shiver of worry stroked her spine, but she ignored it. No need to fret about James feeling the same way; she would trust in Joss.

  25

  You are entering The New Territories. Please drive carefully! I smiled at the notice. Weren’t you always supposed to drive carefully? But we’d left the city behind and the people who lived here weren’t used to traffic. It was good to get away on my own for once; the constant attention of James, circling around me like a moth, had started to get on my nerves.

  The taxi driver slammed on his brakes. A water buffalo had got out of its field and was wandering on the narrow road. We set off again past paddy fields, walled villages, deep valleys, vegetable-plots and fruit orchards. Old women sat winnowing rice in rattan baskets, their wide-brimmed straw hats bobbing up and down. Graves and jars of human bones dotted the steep hillsides, sited with care so yin and yang were in perfect harmony. Bare-bottomed toddlers at the side of the road waved and called out, ‘Hallo, bye-bye.’

  I thought about the children in Stanley. Once, I’d lined them up for their Carol Service; it was our last one in the camp even though we didn’t know it then. I’d gazed fondly at the Japanese man conducting. The Reverend Kiyoshi Watanabe had been our latest interpreter and a more sympathetic man than any we’d had previously.

  A Lutheran minister, he’d studied at the Gettysburg Seminary in the United States, where he’d been given the name John. The children in the camp called him Uncle John. The infants had sung, away in a manger, no crib for a bed, and I’d joined in. Uncle John then launched into a rendition of Holy Night in Japane
se, his tone strong and true. Yet, in the audience, a number of people had talked loudly and spoilt his performance. Papa told me only the other day he’d heard that Uncle John’s wife and daughter had been vaporized by the Hiroshima atomic bomb. So much suffering . . .

  The gates of the Children’s Home, as it was called, rose up. A formidable-looking European woman was striding down the drive, mud-coloured hair a mass of frizz, and steel-grey eyes framed by tortoiseshell glasses.

  I held out my hand to the woman I’d heard so much about: Miss Denning. A missionary sent to Hong Kong in the early 1930s, I recalled, Miss Denning had been struck by the plight of hundreds of babies abandoned as a result of poverty and superstition. With support from local missionaries, she’d started the orphanage and had managed to keep going through charitable donations. During the war, she and her helpers had suffered violence, starvation, dysentery and recurrent malaria, but they’d refused to abandon their charges. I felt a rush of admiration.

  ‘You’ll find we’re like a family,’ Miss Denning said. ‘The children call me Mum and our main aim is to love them as if they’re truly ours. You’re a teacher, I believe?’ Without waiting for a reply, Miss Denning continued. ‘Excellent. You can help the children with their reading. We all speak English with them and we teach them in English. If you can promise to come every Sunday, that will be perfect. We have a team of volunteers during the week, but no one on Sundays.’

  The building had been converted from an old police station. Miss Denning showed me around the ground floor dining room, children’s dormitories, and staff sitting room. Upstairs was another sitting room, a kitchen, bathroom, dispensary, sick room and a superintendent’s bedroom.

  Miss Denning pointed through the window to a smaller building at the back. ‘That’s for me and Mary Williams, my right-hand-lady. Oh, and the amahs.’

  Downstairs, we traipsed into the schoolroom built by the side of the block. Rows of faces looked up at us, straight black hair and cheeky grins. The vast majority of them were girls. Girl babies were of less value in Chinese culture and therefore more likely to be abandoned. My heart swelled with sympathy for them. If only I could adopt them all . . .

  Another European woman, with mousey brown hair cut in a severe bob, came forward. I shook hands with Miss Williams. Miss Denning’s “right-hand-lady” promptly put me to work. I sat on a stool, surrounded by the infants, and flipped open The Three Little Pigs. I felt a tug at my sleeve. A girl nestled by my side: wide eyes, small mouth and pointed chin. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Mei Ling,’ the child whispered, shyly. She clambered onto my lap and told me she was five years old. I stroked her soft round cheek and hugged her. Then I stared over Mei Ling’s shoulder at the far wall and thought about Papa. He visited Mama’s grave every Sunday, but I hadn’t been able to face going with him. I’d managed to keep my memories of Stanley sealed away; working at the orphanage would be the perfect pretext not to return.

  ***

  At home that evening, the telephone rang and I picked up the receiver. It would be James. He usually called me at this time on a Sunday, to suggest meeting up for dinner mid-week.

  ‘It’s Chun Ming here,’ a familiar voice said.

  ‘Jimmy!’ He’d given his Chinese name. ‘What a surprise! Where are you?’

  ‘I’ve just arrived and I have a job teaching English at the Chinese school in Waterloo Road.’ It was one of the many communist schools the Government allowed to operate, just like they turned a blind eye to the news agency, communist newspapers, and other such organisations that were springing up all over the colony.

  ‘It’s wonderful you’re back. What a coincidence we’ve both become teachers!’

  ‘May I please speak with my mother?’ Jimmy’s voice was stiff and unfriendly, not like my Chinese brother at all.

  I rang the hand bell on the table in front of me and sent the houseman to fetch Ah Ho. She talked at length with her son. Pretending not to listen, I picked up a magazine and flicked through the pages, my heart crumpling with every word.

  ‘Aiyah!’ Ah Ho put down the receiver. ‘Ah Chun got married. He want me go live in his flat in Mong Kok. He say no good his mama work as amah. Say very bad face for him.’

  I embraced Ah Ho. ‘How are we going to manage without you?’ I stepped back. ‘I’m sorry. Of course you must go and be with Jimmy. I’m just being selfish.’

  ***

  Jimmy came to collect his mother a week later. He arrived with his wife, Li, and they sat on the sofa, their backs straight. I poured them tea. Ah Ho, even though invited, had refused to take her place next to them.

  I held out a plate of cucumber sandwiches. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing since I last saw you,’ I said to Jimmy.

  ‘I struggled with myself for many months when I went back to China after the British surrendered.’ He paused, bit into his sandwich, chewed, then swallowed. ‘I joined the guerrillas and we had to fight in secret. I’d seen the corruption of the Kuomintang. They made me sick.’ He sipped his tea. ‘Now the revolution has triumphed and, because of my knowledge of Hong Kong, I’ve been sent here to live among the running dogs of imperialism. It is a great sacrifice, but I’m willing to make it for my country.’

  How zealous he sounds!

  ‘Please allow your mother to visit often.’

  Jimmy smiled his crooked-teeth smile and, for a couple of seconds, I caught a glimpse of my childhood friend. ‘That will be acceptable,’ he said.

  ‘We want to give her a monthly pension. It’s the least we can do.’

  ‘I think she will appreciate your consideration.’

  Later, her paltry luggage loaded into the car Papa had organised to take her to Jimmy’s flat, Ah Ho stood sobbing in front of the house. Earlier, she’d told me she didn’t want to leave but had to do her duty to her son.

  I kissed my amah’s wrinkled cheek. ‘I’m going to miss you and I want you to know that, if ever you need anything, you only have to call me.’

  Ah Ho waved from the back seat as the car drove out the gates. I wiped my tears. Li had hardly spoken a word to me; she seemed such a quiet person. If only I could have broken through the barrier that seemed to have risen between me and Jimmy, but he’d seemed not to have even noticed I still wore the jade bangle he and Ah Ho had given me. I doubted he’d kept my book.

  I remembered the games of hopscotch on the path to the tennis courts, the walks around the Peak, my parties when he’d always been included at my insistence. At the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Mama and Papa used to let me stay up late with Ah Ho and Jimmy to watch the moon and eat moon cakes. Ah Ho’s English was even more limited then and she called the festival “the Moon’s Birthday”. We had lanterns and mine was always shaped like a horse and Jimmy’s like a goldfish and I would play hide and seek with him in the dark. Those days would live on in my memory, but Jimmy almost certainly never thought back to his time on the Peak. He was so wrapped up in revolutionary zeal he’d probably blocked it from his mind.

  I went up to my bedroom and sat at my dressing table. I’d finally lost that gaunt look I’d had since Stanley. My cheeks had rounded out and my breasts were more distinct. Charles would hardly recognise me if he saw me again. Only Charles would never see me again. Charles was dead.

  I thought about Jimmy, fired with enthusiasm for his cause. I needed a cause myself. Something I could believe in. Something to lift me out of this dreadful despondency and give me a reason to get on with my life.

  26

  Charles was pacing the forward deck of the SS Canton in the warmth of a late summer dawn. He’d been up here for the past hour and the ship had just passed the lights of a sampan or, possibly, a junk. He was back. At last.

  Feeling in his pocket, he crumpled the well-worn draft of the letter he’d sent to Kate nearly four years ago.

  27, Groombridge Road

  Hackney, London E9

  1st December 1945

  Dearest Kate

/>   I miss you so much, and the past eighteen months have been such hell, looking up and seeing you on that balcony, your beautiful face, and not being able to hold you in my arms and tell you how much I love you, then not being able to see you. Oh, how I’ve wanted to feel your sweet lips on mine and stroke your soft, warm cheek. There hasn’t been a minute of every day when I haven’t thought about you, my darling.

  You must be wondering what happened to me. As you know, I was due to be drafted to Japan. After an overnight stay at a camp near the airport, the guards loaded us onto lorries that took us to Holden’s Wharf, but there was an air-raid and pandemonium broke out. Bombs were flying everywhere and the Japs ran for cover. Everyone else was frozen with fear, but I took the opportunity to make a dash for it. And thank God I did as so many died on that ship. Such a terrible tragedy!

  Did you know the communist guerrillas rescued Allied soldiers who escaped from camps? They also picked up almost all of the shot-down American pilots. One of the guerrillas was shadowing our lorry, and took me straight to a safe house in Sai Kung. I was scared out of my mind. They kept me there for a fortnight until I’d recovered my strength enough to carry on. I’ll never forget those fisher people: they shared their meagre food with me and I can’t tell you what a difference it made. When I got there, I could hardly walk, I was so weak, and all I could think of was holding you again.

  One night, I was told to get ready to leave. Someone found me a Chinese peasant outfit, you know the sort of thing - baggy black cotton trousers and a black padded tunic. I expect I looked more local than ever and my Cantonese was good enough to fake it if we met any Japs. We set off by sampan under cover of darkness as if we were going fishing.

  I had been entrusted to a sixteen-year-old. Can you imagine? Except he was the fiercest sixteen-year-old I’ve ever met. His name was Fei, and he’d left school at thirteen because there were Japs to fight. He’d been with the guerrillas for nearly a year and boasted six kills. He said they took few prisoners on either side. “When the Japanese catch one of our men, do you know what they do?” he asked me. “They press lighted cigarettes all over his face and kill him slowly. When we take one of them we cut off his head immediately.” I just hope the same thing happens to those sadists who murdered Bob and the others. Ruth told me all about what you both saw. It must have been terrifying for you, my love. Makes me feel ill to think that you witnessed such horror.