The Running Years

by Claire Rayner

  The took instruments to her, invading her body with the coldness of metal and pinning her to the bed when she tried to wriggle away from them, ignoring her cries of pain, and she sank into despair and wanted to die. There was noting else that could bring any comfort, nothing at all.

  And then, miraculously, it was complete. There had been a crescendo of sensation, and then they were washing her legs and belly and groin with warm water and drying her with big soft towels and congratulating each other across her insert shape. And Miss Bishop was beside her, pulling on her arm, making her circle it to receive the blanketed parcel she was holding.

  She looked down, almost amazed, to peer at the face that was framed in the folds. A reddish ulgy face, streaked with yellow grease and blood spatters. A head covered in matted scraps of hair, and oddly misshapen. There were bruises too, on the temples, and the eyes were tightly closed and the mouth was twisting and turning, making ridiculous shapes under a dab of a nose. The mouth opened then mewed like a sick kitten She stared at it and then at Miss Bishop.

  ‘A girl,’ Miss Bishop said shortly, and snapped her rat-trap mouth closed, but the expression was kind. Hannah frowned a little and looked back at the infant.

  It opened its eyes and stared, it seemed, straight at her, and she looked into the depths of blank darkness between the sparse lashes and felt a lurch of need and something she could not identify, a sort of hunger, perhaps. Automatically, she lifted the infant closer to her sweat-damp face and held its sticky cheek to hers and made an odd crooning noise in the back of her throat.

  ‘I told you it would be worth it,’ the doctor said triumphantly from the foot of the bed. ‘Now, m’dear, we must put this one to the breast, for that will bring the afterbirth faster than anything. And then some stitches, I'm afraid, but I'll not hurt you any more than is necessary.

  Miss Bishop pulled her nightdress open, and for a moment she wanted to shout to her, 'No! This is me! You can’t do that to me!’ but then the baby’s cheek was against her bare skin, and the small misshapen head turned towards her, the mouth grimacing sideways. As the questing lips found the nipple, there was another surge of feeling, this time of enormous pleasure, almost as powerful that she had felt when she and Daniel made love, and the doctor was saying triumphantly. ‘There now! It never fails, here’s the placenta! All right, Miss Bishop, put the babe in its cot and come and help me.’

  To Hannah’s amazement, when Miss Bishop took the bundle of blanket from her she felt bereft and reached her arms out after her an said, ‘My baby, give her back. I want my baby.’

  She had fallen in love, head over ears, desperately and unexpectedly in love. All the loneliness and fear and anger and despair of the months of her pregnancy coalesced in her, boiled up and emerged in a totally new form as adoration for the ugly object that Miss Bishop was putting down in the wicker cradle that Florrie had prepared.

  ‘Give her back,’ she said again, but Miss Bishop just shook her head.

  ‘You can have her soon enough. First things first. We’ve got to get you right now. Can’t leave you in that state. What shall you all her, then? Have you decided?’ The words came out without realizing she had said them. They hung in the air above her head and she contemplated them, surprised and pleased.

  ‘Mary Bloomah,’ she said. ‘Mary Bloomah Lammeck. My daughter.’

  38

  It was some time before Daniel was able to admit to himself that he was a disappointed man and when he did, the pit of misery into which he fell seemed that much darker and deeper.

  From the moment he left London on the boat train for Liverpool, and settled into the comfort of his first class seat, he had lived on a peak of excitement that made him as breathless as if he had in fact been breathing thinner air. He looked out a the world though such a glitter of exhilaration that everything seemed tinged with a glamour he had never known before. Even when he had first launched himself upon London life, after leaving university, and had joined the best clubs and gone to the best restaurants and parties in the company of the richest and most attractive young people in town, it had not been like that journey to Shanghai. Now, he had a purpose in life; he was going to Run the Shanghai Office of the Lammeck Empire and that gave him a status in his own eyes that was hugely satisfying. He occupied the best stateroom on the Priam, a small but elegantly fitted passenger steamer, and became the object of awed attentions from the other passengers because of the fame of his name in commercial circles, and because of his obvious wealth; when Lammeck Alley sent its envoys travelling, it sent them in style. The result was that he became a minor celebrity on board. The pretty daughters of a tea planter on their way back to Ceylon after a holiday at home fluttered about him like adoring butterflies; the handsome widow on her way to housekeep for her brother in Hong Kong watched him with languorous inviting eyes; the captain took it for granted that Daniel would join him for pre-dinner drinks in his cabin every evening, and whatever he had to say the male passengers listened with flattering respect and the females with wide eyed admiration. Long before they called at Colombo he was dizzy with self approval, and by the time he reached Hong Kong he felt himself to be one of the most successful of men. When Shanghai’s teeming docks at last appeared over the rail of the ship he was impatient to get down to the business of setting the town on its ears.

  His popularity helped a great deal in coping with his feelings about Hannah. There had been times when he had awakened in his cabin as it rolled its majestic way across the South China Sea or pushed uneasily through the Malacca Strait and found his body crying out for her. During the day it was easy to forget how long it had been since he had held her close to him, he felt her skin hot under his touch, but at night, especially those sticky airless tropical nights, it was painful to remember the satisfaction he had found with her, the way her need for him could turn his already clamouring hunger into a roar of sensual satisfaction that left them both gasping. He learned to deal with his needs as best he could, turning over afterwards into an uneasy sleep during which he dreamed of himself as the King of the Shanghai office, burning out his physical demands in sheer hard work.

  The excitement lasted for a few days after he landed. There was the big car with its liveried chauffeur waiting outside the customs shed to drive him to his hotel on the Bund, the great waterfront thoroughfare lined with offices and banks and stores, and the exotic strangeness of it all, Chinese in western dress, of course, but also many in the traditional robes of the mandarin, and coolies with rickshaws as well as modern cars and trams. There was excitement in living in the exceedingly luxurious hotel too, since his house was not quite ready, and also in the flattering attentions of the International Settlement hostesses who were very quick with invitations to parties and soirees and dinners.

  But that was not enough, for there was the office, too. He presented himself on the first morning at his usual London time of ten o'clock, or he would have done so had he not been delayed by the press of traffic. It was almost a quarter past ten when he walked into the outer office of Lammeck and Sons and told the young man in the perfect black morning suit and sponge bag rousers of a City of London stockbroker that he wanted Ling Ho. He felt rather than saw the young man’s eyes flicker over his alpaca jacket and trousers, both already a shade creased in the heat of the summer morning, but dismissed that; clearly junior members of the staff were expected to dress in a particular manner, no matter what the weather. The same could not, would not, be expected of the manager.

  He found Ling Ho in his office, a rotund, imperious looking man with glossily brushed thick hair looking startlingly white over his sallow skin, and a smooth smile which did not a all change the alert eyes behind the thick glasses which shielded them. He too was wearing immaculate City black and perfect linen, and showed no signs of being at all uncomfortable in the heat. Daniel felt even more crumpled and casual that he actually was, and became a little haughty in consequence, giving Ling Ho only a perfunctory bow in response to his elaborate speec
h of welcome and cutting him short when he took breath to continue the orotund phrases so dear to the Chinese heart, but walking over to the window to look out into the teeming street beneath.

  ‘Quite a busy part of town you're in here,’ he said.

  Ling Ho’s mouth tightened very slightly but he showed no other sign of disapproval at the way his welcome had been truncated. ‘It was busier at nine o'clock this morning when the office day starts here,’ he said smoothly. ‘People in Shanghai are very punctilious about their time keeping, and therefore the streets are particularly thronged at that time.’

  He spoke fluent English with no trace of an accent, and Daniel felt his irritation increase, not only by the implied criticism of his own lateness but at the sense of inadequacy that swept over him. Would he ever be able to speak Chinese as fluently as this smooth faced man spoke his language?

  Ling Ho took him around the office, introducing him to one round-faced smiling oriental after another, each of them rising from their desks to bow neatly, immediately to return to their industrious writing in ledgers, wasting not a second longer than was demanded by politeness. Had he thought about it he would surely have realized that there would be no other Englishman but himself in the office, but he had not thought about it, and loneliness for Hannah in particular, but also for the sight of the old familiar office of Lammeck Alley with is pale faced, slightly shabby clerks. Here there was no hint of shabbiness. The lowliest clerk was as neatly dressed in the prevailing uniform of black and grey as Ling Ho himself, and each showed a particular pride in his situation. As they moved from desk to desk, Ling Ho’s courteously modulated voice murmuring unmemorable Chinese names in his ear, he became more and more uneasy. And more and more stiff as a result.

  By the time they reached the last office, that of Ling Ho’s nephew, Daniel was no longer able to be sensible at all. Kim Ching Wong, very like his uncle except that his hair was black and is glasses not quite so pebble thick, stood up at once and bowed, and began a speech of welcome similar to the one his uncle had stared, but Daniel brushed that aside.

  ‘Yes, very nice of you, absolutely,’ he said. ‘I'm delighted to be here too. Now, about my office - I rather think this one would suit me. Two windows, you see - like plenty of light.’

  Kim Chin Wong did not look at his uncle but immediately bowed again, and stepped out from behind the desk.

  ‘Of course, Mr Lammeck. We will arrange the movement of the furniture at once. The room we had prepared for you is at the other end of the corridor, and you will find me there at any time you choose.’ Again he bowed to Daniel, and then he and is uncle went quietly away. Almost immediately two of the black coated clerks arrived and with neat economical movements began to take the ledgers and papers from the desk and carry them away. Two blue coated workers followed them. In a matter of minutes new furniture, rather more elegant than that which had been there, stood in place and Daniel had the office of his choice.

  By now he had realizes that he had caused offence to both Ling Ho and Kim Ching Wong, making them lose face in front of their juniors, and he much regretted it. But even as the regrets came into is mind he pushed them away. Begin as you mean to go on, he told himself. You're the manager here; they might as well learn it now as later.

  Their courtesy remained unfailing, all through the day and the next and the next, as the two senior men took him through the work of the Shanghai branch of the Lammeck and Sons. They brought him ledgers and murmured facts to him; they told him of the godowns in Hong Kew, north east of the city, which were crammed roof high with Lammeck goods, cotton and silk, sugar, tea and rice, and spices galore. They gave him sheets of figures to do with the establishment of cotton-spinning mills and weaving sheds; they talked of gold exchanges and the rates of pay for the coolies they employed. But though they seemed to be giving him the information he needed somehow the core of it eluded him. They spoke carefully in their impeccable English, answering his questions courteously, their eyes blank behind their glasses, as he struggled to organize it all in his head. And the harder he tried, the more he floundered.

  It was particularly infuriating because he knew it was not his fault. He had never been a particularly eager businessman, often sitting half asleep at Lammeck Alley when the senior partners talked of deals and contracts, finding no excitement in making a buying and selling arrangements that netted the firm some three per cent, and then getting worked up because of a shrewd move that lifted the profit to three and a half. Still, he was no fool and he was experienced. He had been at Lammeck Alley long enough to speak the language of commerce, to understand how the system worked, yet he could not grasp the way the Shanghai branch operated. He would sit there in the office he had commandeered from Kim Ching Wong, with the two unfailing polite Chinese on each side of him, and want to shout with frustration, because somehow they were not telling him all he needed to know. They were withholding vital information and he knew it, but because he did not know what the information was there was no way he could begin to extract it from them. At the end of each sweaty maddening day he would fling out of the office with his head in a whirl and his bad temper showing in every line of his body. What made it worse was the fact that he knew those over-controlled and perfectly mannered Chinese despised him for it, and he could do noting about it.

  The evenings were his only source of relief. The Imperial Hotel was awash with Western faces and he would hurl himseff into the bar and order large gins and then sit on the wide terrace overlooking the Bund and watch the rickshaws bouncing between the big cars and the trams on their way to the haunts of the foreigners - the English Club, the Race Club, the Opera House - and would unwind to the silly chatter of the expatriates around him. He would dress for dinner in his best evening coat and wander down to eat a large meal, ostentatiously refusing even to try the local foods. At first he went to the houses of the eager hostesses, but he soon discovered they were even more boring than London hostesses. They were provincial as well as drearily middle-aged and all seemed to have daughters to dangle before his eyes. He didn’t want any daughter-dangling any more than he did at home, and he was tired of explaining that he was married, that his wife had not accompanied him because of her health. So he turned away from the big low houses with their cool enclosed verandahs in the International Settlement, seeking more agreeable diversions.

  Some nights he went to the Majestic Hotel, to sit in the gilt and marble bedecked Empire Banqueting Suite beside the sunken dance floor, with its coloured lanterns and jasmine bedecked tables, but that grew boring too. So, he began to go to Bubbling Wells Road, taking a rickshaw there, to visit the gambling houses.

  It was absurd that he found any entertainment there, for he had never been a gambler. When his father and his uncles talked with relish of roulette and vingt-et-un, or had crowed over their racing coups, he had been remote and uninterested, but now the excitement of it began to waken in him. To sit and watch men betting vast sums in gold was enough fun to start with, but then he began to bet himself, at first wagering only modest string of Chinese cash. The excitement bit as he had some modest wins, and he began to do as the other rich expatriates did and gambled in English gold, piling sovereigns on the tables with a casual flick of the wrist that was somehow as exciting as collecting a win. There was little else to do with his money, after all; he could only eat and drink so much, and anyway, the firm was paying his hotel bills until his house was ready.

  It was his recklessness that attracted them, the sleek girls in their skin tight cheongsams with the high necks and hip high slits at the sides, who stood about the gambling houses looking cool and elegant and unapproachable until a particular lucky player caught a girls' eye, and she would come to stand beside him, her jasmine scent heavy and her rouged lips black-outlined eyes an invitation that was hard to refuse.

  At first he ignored them, until one of the other gamblers, a young man who worked for the Cathay Land Company which had offices next door to Lammeck’s on the Bund and who al
so lived at the Imperial hotel, asked him to dine one night, and brought along two girls as dinner companions. Daniel’s eyebrows creased at the sight of them one wearing vivid emerald and the other in deep crimson, but uncannily alike in every other respect. Jimmy Trent had laughed at him.

  ‘Dear old chap, they're just for fun, don’t you know! Don’t speak a word of decent lingo, apart from yes and no, and no trouble to anyone. But a mans needs a companion now and again, or he'll go out of his mind in this place. And anyway, everyone does.’

  Looking around, Daniel had to agree that everyone did. At table after table in the big gambling house restaurant there were Western men Germans and French, a lot of Dutch and Belgians, and not a few Englishmen eating and drinking and laughing accompanied by these sallow skinned dark eyes creatures in their onion skin dresses which displayed every detail of their bodies. The lift of nipples on tiny breasts, the small indentations in the middle of the small domed bellied, the curve of the buttocks and groin were as clear as if they had been varnished It was difficult for a man not to find comfort in looking at them, particularly, a lonely man bewildered young man who was badly in need of his wife.

  The girl in crimson clung to him more and more as after dinner he began to play again. He was on a winning streak. As sovereign after sovereign was pushed over the table to him, other girls clustered around, but the one with whom Jimmy had provided him as a dinner companion was too sharp for them. She remained by his side as though she had been sewn there, and somehow managed to reach out and take some of his winnings with such easy charm and such a wicked little glance from those hooded dark eyes that he had only laughed, a little drunkenly, for he’d taken in more than usual tonight and let her slip the money into the top of her stockings.