Sunrise in Hong Kong

by Denise Emery

  'What's the matter?'

  'Well — you spoke to the driver in what sounded like Chinese, and—'

  'And why not? Apart from the years I spent at school' in England, and occasional visits to my grandmother, this is my home town. I began learning Cantonese almost before I could speak English properly. It was something my parents were determined I should learn, particularly my father. He had nothing but contempt for the high-handedness of the worst of British colonial attitudes.'

  Margaret listened thoughtfully to that, her respect for him growing. It was one of her own regrets, that in all the years she'd wanted to visit Hong Kong, she'd barely managed to master a handful of polite phrases in the Cantonese dialect spoken there by most of the Chinese population. She said so to Peter.

  'Don't be so hard on yourself,' he answered. 'No Chinese dialect is easy to learn, and it certainly wouldn't be worth the effort for the occasional brief visit. I think you've done well to get as far as polite phrases.'

  She remembered then what Linda had said about Peter's plans to work in London. She very nearly .mentioned it, but she checked herself just in time. After all, she barely knew him! He was attractive, and he'd asked her out, but it wasn't the first time that had ever happened to her, and it undoubtedly wouldn't be the last. It wouldn't do at all to seem super-keen just because he'd shown an interest.

  The restaurant where they'd begun the evening was famed for its superb French food, the superior quality of its wine cellar, and the very high standard of service it offered to its well-heeled patrons. The destination of their short taxi ride away from it was a sharp contrast to all that. The driver pulled up beside a decaying wooden quay which jutted into the typhoon shelter at Causeway Bay. The sun was just setting, and one after another, lanterns winked and glowed from the swaying little boats which were moored there, chock-a-block in the water.

  'I think,' Peter said as he helped Margaret out of the cab, 'you'll be a lot better off if you take your shoes off. If you don't mind, that is.'

  'I don't mind in the least. But why?'

  'You'll soon see,' he answered cryptically, and then he turned his full attention to a rapid-fire negotiation with the Chinese on the quay who appeared to be in charge of several empty boats.

  Dancing slippers are a distinct handicap when one is boarding a sampan. Margaret saw that, even before they scrambled into the one Peter hired for the evening. When he'd sorted out the bamboo oar he acquired with it, he sat down beside her on the crude, wooden bench in the aft of the tiny boat.

  'I very nearly suggested eating at the Medici,' he said, grinning at her. 'But then it occurred to me that we could have a lot more fun if we came out here instead. Apart from anything else, the food is marvellous.'

  'I've always wanted a go in a sampan,' Margaret answered happily. 'The only thing is—'

  'You don't mind, do you?' he asked anxiously. 'I mean, you do like Chinese food, don't you? You did mention something last night, about stopping at street stalls—'

  'Oh yes, I love it!' Margaret answered quickly. 'It's only — well, where is the food?'

  Peter laughed aloud at that, clapping one hand to his forehead in a theatrical gesture of astonishment. 'You don't mean to tell me I've hit upon an adventure you haven't heard about!' He looked extremely pleased with himself.

  'I have heard about floating restaurants—'

  'This is even more fun,' he announced with authority, gesturing round the inlet with a wide sweep of one arm. 'Quite a few of the boats you see around us are equipped as floating kitchens. We'll pick our first course from one of them, our second from another, and so on. We can sit back between courses and talk about what we'd like to eat next. And just over there,' he added, pointing off to the right, 'I spy a wine vendor. It won't do to share our first-ever dinner date without wine…'

  The cellar of the Cote d'Medici would have yielded a first-rate claret, or perhaps a burgundy, to accompany whatever they ordered there for dinner. The food and wine would have been expensive, but it would have been superb. They would have dined in comfort, too, by candle-light, at a table which was covered by a snowy linen cloth, set with fine plate and old, polished silver. Instead, perched on the rough bench of a hired sampan, Margaret and Peter ate by the light of the moon, aided by the glowing lanterns which bobbed on the other boats.

  Peter rowed them from one vendor to the next, and they chose dishes for which even he didn't know the proper names, though that didn't mean the food was not utterly delicious. They washed it down with the good, strong Chinese rice wine Peter bought to go with the meal, and before an hour had passed, Margaret decided she was having a wonderful time. She had been expecting a formal evening; dinner in an elegant restaurant, with perhaps dancing to follow, an evening planned with the intention of impressing her with Peter's wealth and sophistication. But there he was in his shirt sleeves (he'd folded his dinner jacket on the bench of the sampan as a sort of cushion, as though it was an anorak), plying the simple bamboo oar like an expert.

  'I'm not, really,' he insisted modestly. 'But I get by. You know, it's been a long time since I've had so much fun over dinner with a lovely woman…'

  'Oh, come on,' Margaret chided gaily, 'it shouldn't be all that difficult for you. I'm sure you could find dozens of girls who'd love to come out with you!'

  'You'd be amazed how many girls would be insulted if I brought them to a typhoon shelter and plunked them down in a leaky little boat to eat what they would regard as cheap, nasty foreign food,' he answered, suddenly quite serious.

  'Insulted? But why? I'm here, and I'm certainly enjoying myself!'

  Peter was silent for a moment, studying her face in the semi-darkness. 'So you are,' he mused softly, reaching out to trace the curve of her cheek with one slim finger, 'and I'm very glad of that. I'm sorry if I sounded bitter, but…'

  'But what?' she prompted.

  Peter shook his head dismissively, as though whatever he had been about to say wasn't important. But Margaret reached out to take his hand, and asked again.

  'Only that… there have been too many times when I wasn't at all sure whether it was me or the Pan Orient fortune which most fascinated some of the women I've been out with—'

  'I simply don't believe that!' Margaret interrupted, truly shocked.

  He shrugged. 'It's true. I'm worth a lot of money since my father died.' He sounded very bleak about it. 'And money can be very appealing to any number of women with an eye to the main chance. Meanwhile, most women of that type are out for what they can get in the way of bright lights and good times. My first lesson was the hardest, though,' he added abruptly. 'I learned it the year I finished at university. I—' He stopped himself there, with an apologetic smile that seemed to Margaret so infinitely sad that she reached out again for his hand. 'Look, Margaret… I don't want to bore you with my hard-luck story…'

  'I'm not bored,' she answered quietly. 'Please, go on.'

  'Well, that summer I fell in love with an English girl who'd come out here to work for a year as a secretary. I was young then, very trusting. Diane loved me in return, I knew that because she said so, over and over again. She — she made it abundantly clear… Within a few months of meeting her I asked her to marry me, and a few months after that, we actually set a date. Oh, even in my innocence I knew that "happily-ever-after" was a lot to hope for, but I was convinced that if it had ever been possible for any couple, it certainly would be for us. I loved her very much…' He faltered.

  'What happened?' Margaret asked, very gently.

  'Five weeks before the date we'd set for our wedding, Diane came to me and told me the truth. She wasn't in love with me, and she never had been. The entire time I'd known her, she'd been struggling with her conscience, she said. I had competition, it seemed. A penniless clerk in Southampton who couldn't offer her much except his love, and a council flat. But Diane loved him, and so she went back to him. I never saw her again.'

  'That was terrible for you,' Margaret said simply.


  'Yes, it was, rather. And for a long time afterwards, I thought I'd learned exactly how to deal with gold-digging women. If a woman was out for what she could get from me, then fair enough. I'd be out for what I could get from her. But I wasn't going to be fooled again. Not ever again like that…'

  'Is that why you brought me here tonight?' Margaret asked sadly. To see if I could pass your fortune-hunter-detection test?'

  'Oh, good heavens, no!' he exclaimed. 'Please do credit me with some sense,' he added more quietly. 'Anyone can see you're nothing at all like that. It was just that when we were sitting in that stuffy bar at the Medici, it occurred to me you'd enjoy this kind of evening as much as I do. I've been wanting to ask you out,' he continued almost shyly, 'ever since the evening we first met, when—'

  He caught himself in time, but Margaret laughed and recited the rest of it for him: 'When-I-ruined-your-jacket.'

  'You said it!' he teased. 'You see, Margaret, these days I no longer bother to prove anything to myself or anybody else by seeing women I don't like. Until… until very recently, that's left me fairly lonely. Apart from one or two good friends, I see very few women at all. You've met one of my friends, in fact. Susanna Baker-Leigh…'

  Margaret caught her breath at the mention of the woman's name, very interested to hear what he would say about her. 'Y-yes?'

  'I first met her a couple of years ago,' he went on, apparently unaware of Margaret's sudden intense interest, 'at a house-party my grandmother gave to celebrate one of my rare visits home to England. Poor Susanna had just recently lost her parents at the time, and though the tragedy left her very far from penniless, I suspect it made her very restless. She's been flitting around the world ever since. When she decided to come out here for several months, I offered her the use of my family home on Macau. You've probably seen Macau described in a guidebook as a gambler's paradise. But the really interesting thing about it is that it's a mixture of Chinese culture with the influence of the Portuguese who first settled the peninsula. If there's time, I'd love to take you there,' he mused. 'I think you'd like it. Anyway, Susanna doesn't. So I offered her a suite in one of our most "British" hotels, right in the heart of Hong Kong. She prefers it there, presumably because she can always get what she calk a decent cup of tea.'

  And because you're on Hong Kong most of the time, Margaret added silently.

  'But there's nothing remotely romantic about my friendship with Susanna. Not on either side. Most of the time I'm afraid I bore her to tears with my endless shop-talk. She's a bit like a sister to me, really,' he finished easily.

  That's what you think! Margaret thought grimly, reflecting upon the innocence of even the most sophisticated men. But if her thoughts were betrayed by the expression on her face, Peter didn't appear to notice.

  He was busy just then, taking her into his arms with great care—so as not to capsize the boat. And as he kissed her for the first time, with gentle, tender thoroughness, the spectre of Susanna Baker-Leigh was very successfully banished from Margaret's thoughts…

  The days that followed were busy ones for Margaret, filled as they were with guided tours and long walks along the beach and dinners by candle-light for two: for as much time as he could possibly spare from the convention his company had organized, Peter Benhurst accompanied her almost everywhere she went.

  For the first several days, Margaret was able to tell herself that she and Peter were building nothing more than a friendship - though it was a job for her to ignore the trip-hammer action of her heart when he kissed her at the end of each evening, outside the lobby of the Star of the Orient. She was able to convince herself that the utter delight she felt every time she remembered what Linda had told her — that Peter was coming to work in London — was precisely the same in degree and in kind as the pleasure she felt because Linda was coming too. Two new friends, that was all. '

  Margaret saw Ralph only once in that time, for a cup of tea late one afternoon; she quite forgot herself that day, in her relief when he told her he'd found good dinner companions among some of the other 'loners' who'd come to attend the convention. If Ralph suspected, as he might well have done, that she was involved in something more exciting than a new friendship, he permitted himself nothing more by way of comment than a cheerful, 'You're blooming, girl! And I'm glad to see it.'

  It took Susanna Baker-Leigh to bring Margaret very briskly back to earth. Margaret nearly collided with her as she came out of the tailor's shop one morning after a fitting.

  'Hello, Susanna.'

  The full skirt of Susanna's powder-blue shirtwaist made her seem even more slender than she really was, and the colour of the dress emphasized the smoky grey of her eyes. For. a moment she simply stood there, looking beautiful.

  Then her lovely mouth curled into what was unmistakably a sneer, and her eyes narrowed. 'Well, well…' she said slowly, appraising Margaret as though she were on offer in a jumble sale. 'If it isn't our little tripper. I'm so pleased to hear you're making the most of your cheap package holiday. They don't last for ever, you know.'

  With that, Susanna strode off, leaving Margaret to stare after her retreating form, blinking, and wishing with all her heart that she could have thought of some devastating reply. Her only consolation was the fact that Susanna hadn't caught her out yet again in her oldest, shabbiest clothes. Margaret had dressed with care that morning, in brushed denim jeans and a hand-embroidered cheesecloth top. There was no other consolation whatsoever. If Susanna's remarks had been intended to imply that Margaret was making a fool of herself over Peter Benhurst, then they had hit their target unerringly.

  She had known from the first, even if Peter did not, that Susanna Baker-Leigh was out to get him for herself. Doubtless he'd been conspicuous by his recent absence from the woman's life, and it probably hadn't been very difficult for Susanna to find out why: to find out that Peter had taken to spending every possible moment of his waking hours in the company of Margaret Hamilton. Given that information, Susanna was shrewd enough to realize that what was growing between Margaret and Peter was unlikely to be simple friendship, or anything remotely like it.

  Margaret was left face to face with the unvarnished truth about her own feelings for Peter Benhurst. She could remember well enough that from the evening they'd shared their first kiss, she had responded to him with increasing eagerness, with a passion that was rapidly threatening to overwhelm her; that when his arm had brushed innocently against her breast as he'd thrown his coat over her shoulders in the chill of evening, fire had raced through her body like liquid honey, and left her weak…

  And she was forced to spend most of the rest of that day telling herself that her 'friendship' with Peter was developing too fast, that her feelings were growing so strong that they might well hurl her out of control, like a runaway train. She had allowed herself to become much too deeply attached to him, much too quickly. It could only end in emotional disaster.

  Her mind issued that solemn, sensible information, and her heart gaily rejected it.

  By the time she had dressed for dinner that evening, Margaret had relaxed again into the simple joy of knowing she would see Peter again within the hour.

  Over dinner that night, Peter said lightly, 'I'll be in London in six months' time. Possibly even sooner—'

  'I'd heard that,' Margaret said hesitantly.

  'You had?' Suddenly his voice was wary, guarded. 'From whom?'

  'Why — from Linda Peterson,' she answered slowly, a bit taken aback that he should sound upset about it. 'I met her on my first evening here, at the reception banquet. She was at our table as the Pan Orient representative. A few days later we went out to Lantau Island together, and she mentioned she'd been offered a London job with your company. And then she happened to ring me on the evening I went out with you the first time. When I told her I was going to dinner with Peter Benhurst, she told me you were going to London as well. Naturally, she didn't go into the business side of things with me at all. Just some of her personal reaso
ns for being glad to be going home…'

  'Ah yes!' Peter supplied with a quick smile, relaxing again. 'Richard Naylor, I believe his name is. But what I was about to say, Margaret — I've no intention of letting you go, now I've found you. I know it's far too early for us to make any grand promises, or any real plans, but — you will go on seeing me, won't you? Once I come to England? I don't even know how long I'll be in London, but… it'll be long enough, if… if you're beginning to feel as I do…'

  Margaret looked across at him, and in the light of the candle that flickered on the table between them her eyes caressed his in the only answer he needed. But suddenly Margaret remembered Susanna's spiteful little speech, outside Li Hsu's ship, and she straightened her shoulders.

  'I'll be very honest with you, Peter. I don't think I'd have allowed myself to see you quite so often unless I'd known we might meet again in London, if… if things worked out between us. Holiday romance for its own sake — well, I've nothing against it for other people, but—'

  'That means you will go on seeing me?' he asked, his eyes dancing with amused tenderness at her little speech.

  Margaret lowered her gaze as she busied herself with her wine glass, twirling its delicate stem between two fingers. Oh yes,' she whispered softly. 'Yes… it does…'

  The moon that evening was a fat, buttery crescent in the deep blue of the night sky. the very stars seemed ranged around it with special care, as though some unseen hand had set out to provide a proper canopy for two people in the world beneath it who were rapidly falling in love.

  Peter and Margaret walked along the beach for hours, reluctant to part, and each kiss they shared seemed to set a firmer seal on the feelings which had flowered between them. And it was only after they agreed to meet at sunrise the following morning that they could bear to part at all.

  6

  'Oh, damn the bloody thing!' Susanna Baker-Leigh swore softly, under her breath, as one elegantly-manicured fingernail broke on the drawer handle of a metal filing cabinet.