Gai-Jin

by James Clavell

  He forced himself to work for a while, then, needing some documents from Malcolm’s desk, got up and went out along the corridor to the tai-pan’s office, automatically raising his hand to knock. Grimly, he didn’t, and opened the door only to stop in midstride. Angelique was sitting in Malcolm’s chair, behind Malcolm’s desk. Seated in front of her Heavenly Skye was saying, “As far as I know and …” He looked around.

  “Hello, Jamie,” Angelique said quietly. Her dark dress set off the alabaster texture of her skin, hair up off the nape of her long neck, eyes clear, the faintest natural color to her lips. “How are you?”

  “Oh, er, fine,” Jamie said, nonplussed by her poise and new beauty–different from before, now somehow distant, unattainable but even more attractive. “Sorry, I didn’t expect … Dr. Hoag told me not to disturb you until you called me. How are you?”

  “I asked him to do that. I’m … I’m fine, thank you. There were some things I wanted to arrange this morning. I was sorry to hear about your—your ill luck with Norbert Greyforth. Poor Jamie, you’re very bruised, are you all right?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jamie said, even more off balance. Her voice was calm, too calm, and there was a dignity about her that he could not for the moment isolate. “Edward Gornt saved my life, did you hear that?”

  “Yes, he told me about it a few minutes ago—actually that’s not right, he came here a few moments ago to add his condolences and I saw him. Mr. Skye told me about his bravery. And about the duel.”

  “Oh.” Jamie wanted to curse Skye for his interference.

  “Poor Malcolm,” she said. “I’m awfully glad I didn’t know about that foolishness. If I had I would somehow have stopped it. But Edward, how lucky he was there, but how awful, how awful some people are.”

  “Yes, but more important, how are you really?”

  “Not good and not bad. I’m nothing, and, well, empty.”

  “That’s the right word, empty. Me too.” Jamie looked at Heavenly who smiled noncommittally. The silence gathered. Discomfited, he knew they both wanted him to leave. “Anything I can do for you?”

  “Not at the moment, thank you, Jamie.”

  Jamie nodded thoughtfully. “I need a few papers.”

  “Please help yourself.” She sat back in the chair that dwarfed her, composed and in control.

  Uncomfortably, he began to sift through the ladened In and Out trays, decided to take them as they were and put one on top of the other. “If there’s anything…just call.”

  “After Mr. Skye and I are through, perhaps a few minutes if you’re free.”

  “Whenever, of course. Just ring that bell.”

  Skye said, “Jamie, did you get the death certificates yet, by chance?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Could I see a copy, please?”

  Jamie stared at him. “For what purpose?”

  “To check it.”

  Angelique said, “Mal … my husband had retained the services of Mr. Skye—I believe you knew that, Jamie?”

  “Yes, I did.” Jamie had noticed the way she had changed Malcolm to my husband and saw Heavenly nod approvingly and a danger signal went through him. “So?”

  Skye said smoothly, “When I heard the disastrous news I felt beholden to offer my services to his widow …” the word was imperceptibly accented “… which she has kindly accepted. The tai-pan had asked me to undertake certain research for him which I thought Mrs. Struan might wish to continue.”

  “Good.” Jamie nodded politely and began to leave.

  “The death certificate, Jamie?”

  “What’s your pleasure, Angelique—Mrs. Struan?”

  “Mr. Skye is my solicitor now, Jamie. He understands these things, which I don’t, and he has agreed to act for me,” she said clearly in the same unemotional way. “I would like you, please, to give him whatever help he needs.”

  “Of course. If you’ll follow me, Heavenly.” Jamie walked out and went into his office and stood behind his desk, pretending to look for the papers that he had put into his drawer for safety. “Would you shut the door, there’s a terrible draft.” The small man obeyed. “Listen,” he said, keeping his voice down but there was no mistaking the undercurrent, “if you bamboozle her, or play silly buggers or overcharge her I’ll kick the shit out of you.”

  The little man came closer, his pebble glasses cracked and fogged. “I’ve never done that to a client in my life,” he said, puffing up like a cobra. “A few big bills, yes, but never more than the market could stand. That woman needs help, for God’s sake. I can give it to her, you can’t.”

  “I can and will, by God.”

  “I don’t agree! Malcolm told me the other Mrs. Struan, the woman in Hong Kong, fired you, true or false? And true or false that you as well as Malcolm have been getting angry, even threatening letters from her for weeks, paranoiac against my client and her engagement with all sorts of unfounded accusations? True or false, for God’s sake, that that girl needs friends?”

  “I agree she needs friends. I don’t object to her having a solicitor, I just want to be sure you’ll act correctly.”

  “God dammit, I’ve never buggered a client in my life. Jamie, I may be a hungry lawyer but I’m a good one, and we’re on the same side. She needs friends, Malcolm loved her, you were Malcolm’s friend, for God’s sake—he told me about the letters you would have risked hanging for.”

  “Never mind that wh—”

  “I’m not arguing with you, Jamie, she’s my client and I swear I’ll do my best for her. The death certificate, please.”

  Seething, Jamie opened the drawer and gave him a copy.

  “Thanks … ah three, eh? One for your files, one to go with the body and one for her, quite correct, though I’m surprised they bothered to think of her, original by special to Hong Kong.” Heavenly scanned the paper. “Christ Almighty!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Hoag and Babcott,” he said. “They may be good doctors but as defense witnesses they’re a disaster! Shit, I should have been told before they issued this—any fool could have given them better wording!”

  “What the devil are you talking about?”

  “Murder, or at least a charge of murder.”

  “You’re mad!”

  “It wouldn’t be the first for Tess Struan,” the little man hissed. “Remember the Bosun? Everyone in Hong Kong knew it was an accident but he was charged with murder, found guilty of manslaughter and given ten years!”

  “The jury found him guilty, not Tess, by God an—”

  “But she was the one who pressed for the charge!” Skye slammed back at him, keeping his voice down. “And she’ll press charges here. If this was read out in court in a criminal or civil case, our opposing barrister would claim he died fucking—please excuse my vulgarity—‘and the other half of the act sits in the dock there, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, whose father is a felon on the run, whose uncle is in a French jail, who herself is a penniless adventuress, a Jezebel who knowingly seduced this poor young man, a minor, into marrying her and then—and then, ladies and gentlemen of the jury—with malice aforethought seduced him into an early death—with malice aforethought—knowing only too well his wounds would do the job for her!’ True or bloody false?”

  Jamie sat down, paler than before. Hoag’s words had jumped into his mind. “What’re you going to do?”

  “First I’ll try to get this wording changed, don’t think they will but I have to try. Do you have his will? Malcolm’s?”

  Jamie shook his head. “He never mentioned one to me.”

  “I told him it was important he should have one drawn up when he first came to see me—that’s routine. You’re sure?”

  “I know I don’t have one, not in our safe.” Jamie frowned. Would Malcolm have made one? If I was getting married, I would. Wait a minute—I was engaged to Maureen for years and never had one. My God, I wonder how she is, what she thought when she got my letter. “He never mentioned
a will to me. Did he to Angelique?”

  “No, that was my first question. Perhaps he made one without your knowledge. Did he have a safety box or a special place for his private papers?”

  “No, not really, I suppose that would be in Hong Kong, except there’s a small safe in his rooms.”

  “Let’s go and look.” Skye started out of the room.

  “Wait a minute, I don’t think we can do that.”

  The words came back sharp, and formal: “Mrs. Angelique Struan was his legal wife and is his widow therefore his immediate heir and inheritor of all his worldly goods unless his will states otherwise. If there’s no will then she inherits, after probate and all legal fees and taxes are paid. Let’s look in his safe.”

  “I don’t think that we can presum—”

  “Now, quietly, between the three of us as friends, or I’ll get a formal court order through Sir William today to sequester all, I repeat, all his papers, and all Struan papers in Yokohama and Hong Kong, for a will search to which my client is entitled.” His look was inflexible. “Sorry, old boy. Well?”

  “Let’s go and ask Angelique.” Unsure of himself and knowing he could never allow an outsider to go through Noble House papers and records, Jamie followed Skye back to the tai-pan’s office. Dammit, why do I think of it as that, he thought irritably. I suppose because it is the tai-pan’s office. Who’s the new tai-pan? Christ, what a mess!

  Angelique was sitting where they had left her. Impassively, she listened to Skye. “There’s no need for you to accompany us, Mrs. Struan, rest assured I act for you.”

  “Thank you, but I would like to be there.”

  They followed her up the grand staircase, the first time for Skye who tried not to be visibly awed by the wonderful chandelier and valuable oils. Jamie opened the door of the tai-pan’s suite. A coal fire burned pleasantly. The four-poster was made up and waiting. Desk tidy, no papers on it. In a near corner of the room Ah Tok squatted mumbling, in despair, somehow tiny now, ugly and ancient. She paid no attention to them. Angelique shuddered then followed the two men and sat in Malcolm’s high chair facing them. Watching them intently.

  The little iron wall-safe was concealed behind an oil painting, another Aristotle Quance. Skye smiled thinly. The painting depicted a pretty young Chinese girl carrying a fair-haired, fair-skinned child with a pigtail, a boy, against a Hong Kong landscape. He had heard about the painting but had never seen it. Quance was the dean of the artist-chroniclers of Macao and early Hong Kong, an Irishman who had lived there for many years, and died a few years ago in Macao and was buried there. He was also a voracious drunk, gambler, libertine but old friend and devotee of Dirk Struan’s. Rumor had it the girl was the fabled May-may, Dirk’s Chinese mistress, the one who was killed with him in the typhoon of ’42, in his arms, and the child their firstborn.

  He glanced at Angelique, who watched Jamie impassively searching through a bunch of keys, and wondered if she knew about Malcolm’s Eurasian cousins and his uncle, Compradore Gordon Chen—Dirk’s son by another mistress—who, according to Hong Kong gossip, “knew more secrets and had more taels of gold than an ox had hairs.” The mantelpiece clock chimed three.

  “Who else has keys, Jamie?” Skye asked.

  “Just me … me and the … the tai-pan.”

  “Where are his?”

  “I don’t know. I presume still with … still aboard.”

  The safe door swung open. A few letters, all in Tess Struan’s writing, except one in Malcolm’s apparently unfinished, a small chamois leather bag and a wallet. The wallet contained a faded daguerreotype of his father and mother peering self-consciously at the camera, Malcolm’s personal chop, a few chits—IOU’s and a list of debts and debtors. Heavenly leafed through them. “Would these others be gambling debts he’s owed, Jamie?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Two thousand four hundred and twenty guineas. A tidy sum for a young man to lend or be owed. Do you recognize any of the names, by chance?”

  “Just this one.” Jamie looked at him.

  “Madame Emma Richaud? Five hundred guineas.”

  Angelique said, “She’s my aunt, she and Uncle Michel, they brought me up, Mr. Skye. Mama, I called my aunt that for she was mother to me, my own died when I was young. They needed help and Mal … Malcolm kindly sent them that. I asked him to.”

  “Jamie, I’d like a copy of these, a list please.” The solicitor was talking again. “You are required to hold them in safekeeping.” He reached for the half-dozen letters but Jamie was there before him: “I’d say these were private.”

  “Private to whom, Jamie?”

  “To him.”

  “I will get a court order to see them and have them copied if I consider them to be valid.”

  “You certainly may do that,” Jamie said through his teeth, cursing himself for blurting out about the safe until he could get Sir William’s advice.

  Angelique said, “May I see them, Jamie, please? I suppose they are part of my husband’s effects. At the moment they seem so few.”

  Her voice was so gentle, so sad, no shred of begging, that he sighed and said to himself, Laddie, you’re in so deep now it doesn’t matter. Sir William will have to decide legalities. Then, suddenly, he was back at yesterday eventide, on the jetty, the three of them so lighthearted, laughing, confident, with any future Hong Kong stormclouds seemingly so far away, seeing the two of them off in the cutter for their wedding night, Malcolm saying, “Thanks, my bonny friend, guard our tail, it’s going to need guarding. Promise?”

  He had promised, sworn he would do that, and guard her equally, wishing them long and happy lives, and waved, last on the shore. How right Malcolm was. Poor Malcolm, did he have a premonition? “Here,” he said kindly. Without looking at the letters she put them in her lap and again folded her hands, again motionless. A draft waved a vagrant strand of hair near her temple. Otherwise she was quite like a statue.

  The chink of coins attracted Jamie’s attention. Skye had opened the little bag. It contained Bank of England golden guineas, and notes. He counted them aloud. Angelique’s eyes did not move from the maw of the safe.

  “Two hundred and sixty-three guineas.” Skye put them back in the leather sack. “These should go to Mrs. Struan at once—she will of course give you a receipt.”

  Jamie said, “Perhaps it’s best that we, you and I, Heavenly, we go and see Sir William. I’ve never been involved in this kind of matter before and I’m out of my depth—Angelique, you do understand, don’t you?”

  “I’m out of my depth too, Jamie, adrift too. I know Malcolm was your friend and you were his, as you are mine too. He told me many times. Please do whatever you think best.”

  Skye said, “We’ll see him now, Jamie, sooner the better, he can decide on the ownership of these. Meanwhile …” He walked over to give her the little bag but she said, “Take it with you, take everything, and these too.” She handed him the letters. “Just leave me the photograph. Thank you, Mr. Skye. And thanks, dear Jamie, and I’ll see you when you return.”

  They waited for her to get up but she made no move. “You’re not going to stay here, are you? Surely not?” Jamie said, perturbed—it seemed so macabre.

  “I think I will. I spent so much time here, in this room that it’s—it’s sympathetic to me. The door to my suite is open if I … if I need to rest. But please, would you take Ah Tok away, poor thing, and tell her not to come back. Poor woman, she needs help. Ask Dr. Hoag to see her.”

  “Do you want the door closed?”

  “Door? Oh, it doesn’t matter, yes, if you wish.”

  They did as she asked and made sure Ah Tok was handed over to Chen who himself was still distraught and in tears and went out into High Street, both of them relieved to be in the open again but lost in their own thoughts. Skye was planning and sifting the quicksands that lay ahead, Jamie unable to plan yet, his planning brain devoured by the tragedy and, he did not know why, concern for the Noble House.


  What is it about her? he was asking himself, unaware of the promenade, or gusting wind, surf grinding up the pebbled beach, or the smell of rotting seaweed. Sadness suits her. Can it be that …

  She’s a woman now! That is what’s different, she has a depth and poise that wasn’t there before. She’s a woman, no longer a girl. Is it because of the catastrophe, or because she’s no longer a virgin—the mystic change they say happens, or is supposed to happen at the transmutation? Or both, with perhaps the finger of God helping her to adjust?

  “Christ,” he said, despite himself, thinking aloud, “what happens if she has a child?”

  “For her sake, I pray she does,” the little man said.

  * * *

  When they left, Angelique closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Soon she was soothed and got up and bolted the door, then opened hers. Her bed was made up, fresh flowers in a vase on her dressing table. She went back into Malcolm’s suite, bolting her door, and sat back in his chair.

  Only then did she look at the photograph—the first of his parents she had seen. On the back was October 17th, ’61. Last year. Culum Struan appeared much older than his years, forty-two, Tess neither old nor young, pale eyes gazing directly at Angelique, the thin line of her lips dominant.

  Tess turned thirty-seven this year. What will I look like when I’m her age—in nineteen years, more than twice my age today? Will I have the same hard cast to my features that shout an unloving marriage and crushing family burdens—hating her father and brothers, them hating her, both sides trying to ruin the other—that began in her case so romantically, eloping and married at sea, like we did but, oh my God, with what a difference.

  Her eyes looked out of the window and to the bay and the ships there, a merchant steamer leaving port—captain and officers on the bridge, the mail ship surrounded by tenders, the Struan cutter there, and Prancing Cloud. Elegant, straining to up anchor and up canvas to sail the wild winds. That’s what Malcolm always said about their clippers, she thought, that clippers sail the wild winds.