‘I think it’s time. Come on, darling. It will do you good.’
I changed into a pair of navy slacks and a white linen blouse, then went to tell Papa where I was going. He looked up at me as I stepped into his study. ‘Charles is driving me to Stanley,’ I said. ‘I’ll take some flowers for Mama’s grave.’
‘Would you, my dear? The ones I put there last week will need replacing, and it will save me having to do it tomorrow. Your young man is turning out to be a pleasant surprise, I must say. A very pleasant surprise.’
‘So he’s a proper chap after all, is he?’
Papa had the grace to look flustered. ‘His handling of Jimmy’s debacle and the way he brought you home after the typhoon certainly impressed me. And I apologised to him about the letters, didn’t I?’
Papa had invited Charles for dinner last week, just the two of them. I wished I could have been a fly on the wall. Neither of them had told me much about what they’d said, other than the fact that Papa had agreed that I could see Charles openly.
‘Thank you for that, and for making Sofia so welcome in the end. I don’t know what she would have done otherwise.’
Papa cleared his throat. ‘Nonsense! I like Sofia. She’ll go far, mark my words!’
***
The nearer we drove to Stanley, the more my nerves jangled. Charles was right, though, I had to do this; I’d bottled it up too long.
‘I know what you’re thinking, my love,’ Charles said. ‘You’re strong enough. Believe me.’
He parked in front of a small temple on the other side of the village.
‘What are we doing here?’ I asked, surprised.
Charles led me up a small flight of steps to the portal. Inside, it was cool and dark. Incense perfumed the air and, in the dull light of myriad joss sticks, a glass pane shimmered on the far wall. ‘Come closer!’
‘How bizarre!’ Behind the glass was a tiger skin. I read the notice fixed to the left, ‘This tiger weighed two hundred and forty pounds and was seventy-three inches long and three feet high. It was shot by an Indian policeman in front of Stanley police station in the year of nineteen forty-two.
‘I wonder why it’s here . . .’
Charles held me close. ‘Well, I think this is a fitting resting place, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ I glanced at the blackened face of the statue of Tin Hau, in an alcove behind offerings of fruit. There were fresh flowers on an altar in the centre of the temple. It had been good to come here. The tiger had brought me closer to Charles in Stanley. And the beast was working its enchantment on me even now. ‘I’m ready. Let’s go to the cemetery!’
Charles drove through the village, past the police station and the school, and parked below the path leading up to the graveyard.
I reached for the bouquet of purple orchids and my rucksack on the back seat. We went up a flight of newly-built steps with grassy slopes on either side. Mama’s grave was at the top. The roughly-hewn headstone had been replaced by a proper marble plinth.
Kneeling, I removed the dried-out chrysanthemums from the vase at the base, then filled it with water from the bottle I’d stashed in my bag. I put my hand on the cool stone and whispered, ‘I’m here. I haven’t forgotten you. I’m so sorry I haven’t come before now.’ I looked up and caught Charles watching me, love in his eyes. Getting to my feet, I dusted down my slacks. ‘Let’s pay our respects to Bob.’
A line of headstones with the names of those whose final resting place was unknown had been placed here after the war. Beyond, we found Bob’s grave and bowed our heads. I remembered the last time I’d seen him. There was a question I’d been meaning to ask Charles.
‘Did the Japanese torture you when you were in the prison?’
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘But I heard screams. Those poor policemen . . .’
I took his hand. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, my darling. It hasn’t been as bad as I thought.’
‘They say we should always confront our fears, don’t they? Look! There’s our orchid tree. It’s still here. Shall we sit for a bit?’
We sat side by side. Charles put his arms around me, and I lifted my face to receive his kiss. The rich, heady fragrance of the Bauhinia flowers filled my nostrils. I plucked a heart-shaped leaf and crushed it between my fingers.
‘I love you so much, Kate,’ he said, looking into my eyes. ‘What happened to James has made me realise we have to take every chance of happiness we’re given. Who knows how much time we have left?’
I studied the headstones and nodded. Then I gazed at his face. His hair was in his eyes. I reached up and brushed it back. ‘When we’re married. And only if you agree, of course, I’d like us to adopt Mei ing. Oh, and I want Ah Ho to come and work for us.’
‘Is that a proposal, Kate?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then, I accept.’ He stroked my cheek, his fingers warm against my skin.
He kissed me again, more possessively this time, and I met his passion with my own. It had always been Charles. Ever him. Since the first moment I saw him. I thought about James and Sofia. Charles was right, we had to take every chance of happiness we were given, but also pay it back tenfold. ‘And Mei Ling?’
‘She can be the first of our children.’
‘How many shall we have?’
‘That’s entirely up to you. As many as you like, and of course Ah Ho can be their amah.’
The leaves of the orchid tree sighed in the breeze. I rested my head on his shoulder, twirled my jade bangle, and contemplated the sampans at anchor in the bay below.
###
1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Siobhan Daiko was born in Hong Kong, educated in Perth, Western Australia, and moved to the UK in 1981. She has worked in the City of London, once ran a post office/B &B in Herefordshire, and, more recently, taught Modern Foreign Languages in a Welsh high school. Siobhan now lives with her husband in the Veneto region of Northern Italy, where she spends her time writing, researching historical characters, and enjoying the dolce vita. The Orchid Tree is her second novel to be published.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people:
Members and professional reviewers of YouWriteOn, the peer review site, for their feedback on the early chapters.
Ann Bennett, Tony Fyler, Safia Moore and Judith Ozkan, my talented fellow writers, for their helpful comments on early drafts.
John Hudspith, my inspiring editor, for his highly professional, prompt, and precise editing.
Jane Dixon-Smith for her wonderful work on the cover design.
My family: my late parents and grandparents, Veronica, Douglas, Doris and Vernon, whose lives inspired this novel; my brother, Diarmuid, and my sister, Clodagh, for their encouragement.
Victor, my husband, for his love and support. Our son, Paul, and his girlfriend, Lili, for their help with technology.
Last, but not least, I thank you, my reader, for buying this book and reading it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I was privileged to have grown up in Hong Kong during the post-war era, and I hope that my personal experience of a time and place which no longer exist has lent an authenticity to my writing. The Orchid Tree is, however, a work of fiction. All of the characters are products of my imagination. My mother had an amah, Ah Ho, who looked after me when I was a child; I loved her dearly, but the Ah Ho of my novel is simply inspired by her.
My grandparents, Doris and Vernon Walker, were interned in Stanley. I remember my grandmother telling me Ah Ho’s first words to her on liberation, which I have used in The Orchid Tree. Gran and Grandpa didn’t like to talk about their harrowing time in the camp. Like Flora with Henry, Doris was caught nursing Vernon during a bout of TB when the Japanese attacked. My mother, Veronica, had been evacuated to Australia. From the age of 14 to 18 she learnt to cope without her parents, an experience which affected her for the rest of her life.
When my grandparents were finally liberated
, they were so thin they resembled walking skeletons, and both died relatively young due to post-starvation-related illnesses. Their lives were similar to Henry and Flora’s, in that they lived on the Peak in a house with nine servants and shared some of the colonial attitudes of my expatriate characters, however that’s as far as the similarities go.
Family stories did inspire parts of The Orchid Tree. My father, Douglas Bland, was an officer in The Chinese Maritime Customs from 1946 to 1948, making charts and chasing smugglers up and down the South China Coast. He told me of an incident when a young man had been tied to a junk, and also about a bribery attempt. James and Sofia’s story is not that of my parents, however. Dad was a businessman and a prominent Hong Kong artist; I have used one of his paintings on this book cover.
Mum was a teacher like Kate, and shared some of her physical characteristics, but that’s all. I wanted to take a girl from my mother’s background, and have her fall in love with a man whom my grandparents would have considered unsuitable. Hong Kong today is a different place to the old colony, and mixed-marriages have become commonplace. I like to think Kate and Charles would have been at the forefront of that change.
As I said, this is not a family history; it’s a romance. All the locations in my story are real, however, as are the events which took place in Stanley. I have used George Wright Nooth’s involvement with smuggling chocolate fortified with vitamins into the prison as a reason for Charles to fall under the suspicion of the Japanese.
A ship, Lisbon Maru, taking POWs to Japan was sunk by the Americans, but that happened in 1942 not 1945. I have also taken the liberty of bringing forward in time the violence in Tsuen Wan, caused by escalating tensions between pro-Nationalist and pro-Communist factions. There wasn’t a Typhoon Wendy in Hong Kong in 1949; I have based my typhoon on the notorious Typhoon Wanda.
The Children’s Home is inspired by Miss Dibden’s Shatin Babies’ Home. James’ hapless dragon boat race is taken from the first competition between expatriates and locals, recounted by Denis Bray. James and Sofia’s dinner on the floating restaurant was inspired by the one in A Many Splendoured Thing. And K C Leung’s attempt to steal Leo’s gold was based on the world’s first air piracy, an attempted skyjack that went disastrously wrong in Hong Kong on 16th July 1948.
With respect to the spelling of Chinese names, I’ve used the orthography that was current in the 1940s. My title, The Orchid Tree, not only is a feature of the novel, but also another name for the Bauhinia blakeana, which originated in Hong Kong. Since the handover of the ex-colony to China in 1997, the flower has appeared on the territory’s flag and coins. The place of my birth, Hong Kong will forever be my home.
The following books have provided me with inspiration and information:
Alan Birch &Martin Cole, Captive Christmas
Martin Booth, Golden Boy
Denis Bray, Hong Kong Metamorphosis
Christopher Briggs, The Sea Gate
Jean Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire
Vicky Lee, Being Eurasian
Tim Luard, Escape from Hong Kong
F.D. Ommanney, Fragrant Harbour
Gwen Priestwood, Through Japanese Barbed Wire
Han Suyin, A Many Splendoured Thing
George WrightNooth, Prisoner of the Turnip Heads
I hope you have enjoyed reading The Orchid Tree as much as I enjoyed writing it. Your feedback is important to me and I would love to know what you thought of Kate, Charles, Sofia and James. I’ll keep an eye out for reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, or you can drop me a line by email. Please follow http://fragrantpublishing.com/ for updates. I’m currently working on the story of a 16th Century Venetian courtesan and my first novel to be published, Lady of Asolo, is available on Amazon. I have written a short story, Fragrant Haven, about how James joins the Customs Service.
I blog about writing and my life of romance and adventure in Hong Kong and Italy at http://siobhandaiko.wordpress.com/ I’d love you to visit The Orchid Tree’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/theOrchidTree1 and website http://theorchidtree.com/ You can connect with me on Twitter @siobhandaiko or by email [email protected].
LADY OF ASOLO
We can’t change the past, but the past can change us
http://ladyofasolo.com/
‘I lived and breathed this book. Highly recommended,’ RENITA D’SILVA, author of Monsoon Memories.
After losing her fiancé in a horrific disaster, Fern visits Italy to find solace and indulge her love of painting, but her dreadful dreams of fiery death transform into reality when she hears ghostly whispers and catches sight of a piece of burnt wood, which mysteriously appears then disappears.
Luca, a local architect, comes to her aid at Asolo Castle, when her mind is seemingly taken over by Cecilia, a young woman at the court of Queen Caterina Cornaro five hundred years ago.
As episode follows episode and Fern sees the world increasingly through Cecilia’s eyes, Cecilia begins a passionate affair with the artist, Zorzo, and echoes of the past manifest themselves in the present through a series of startling coincidences until past and present collide, throwing both Fern and Cecilia into mortal peril.
Can Luca keep Fern out of danger and help her come to terms with her own past?
From the Sovereign Lady of Asolo’s villa of delights to the palaces of 16th Century Venice, Siobhan Daiko’s novel will take you on a sensuous and fragrant journey of intrigue, romance and redemption.
*
FRAGRANT HAVEN
James Battles typhoon and treachery to find his fragrant haven.
You can download your copy here.
Table of Contents
SIOBHAN DAIKO
Published by FRAGRANT BOOKS
HONG KONG, DECEMBER 1948
PART ONE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
PART TWO
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
LADY OF ASOLO
FRAGRANT HAVEN
1
The Orchid Tree Page 25
