Jade Woman l-12

by Jonathan Gash

“Don’t worry about her. It’s only old Phyllis. She’s always here, trying courage on for size.” And that was what Phyllis dealt with—for the moment.

  “One thing,” I asked hesitantly. “Am I me, or still ‘Hey, you, there’?”

  He smiled, lit a cigarette in a mile-long ivory holder. “We’re now business partners, Lovejoy.”

  “Right.” I relaxed and asked the waiter for coffee, looking about. “What business?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  All around was affluence, yes, but feminine. The decor was soft, gentle. Nothing garish or sudden. In fact it was so pretty and quiet, you had a hard time seeing as far as the other customers. Mostly women in pairs, I noticed. And no elegantly cocooned Chinese hostesses. A disappointment, really. The staff seemed all men.

  “Here, Steerforth.” I pointed this out. “Every nationality under the sun.” Very few Cantonese evident.

  “So it is,” he said evenly. I shrugged. I reached for a note to pay the waiter but the bloke, a Filipino in glitzy uniform, was astonished and stared from me to Steerforth before withdrawing. I put my gelt away, thinking. I’d learned the hard way that Hong Kong has the poorest poor and the richest rich. But I’d never seen a waiter thunderstruck at money before. I’d have opened my mouth and asked why, only Mame and Lorna hit town about then and superwhelmed me.

  As it happened, that was the moment I was transformed. Into what, I didn’t yet know. I only learned the answer to that a little later.

  Shame’s my long suit, so compassionate souls out there might like to skip this bit.

  Mame and Lorna were Americans, fortyish, dressed in a costliness that did them proud.

  Mame seemingly was an old friend of Steerforth’s, Lorna her pal who’d come along just for the—er, company. I nearly said ride. They came with that semibreathlessness women use to such good effect, Mame plumping down at our table with Lorna second, a little less effusive.

  “James, darling!” said Mame. “Now don’t start! There was no way we could have been on time! Menfolk!” She was slightly the older, showy and determinedly blue-rinsed. Her clothes were worth twice me, I guessed. Lorna was quieter-looking, mousy, elegantly slim. A lady with character in depth, Lorna.

  Clumsily I’d risen. I’m always awkward but made my hellos.

  “This, Lorna dear, is the dreadful James I’ve told you about, and this is…” Mame’s eyes sparkled, drank me in. “Isn’t he sweet!” She made an imperious gesture for a cigarette.

  Steerforth made slick fire.

  “Lovejoy,” I said. “How do you do?” I’m never at my best with people who immediately know they’re boss. It happens to me a lot.

  “Very well, thank you,” Mame said gravely, then fell about laughing. Lorna too was amused. Weakly I smiled along, wondering what the joke was.

  “His first name’s terribly secret,” Steerforth said. I looked at him. His mannerisms had suddenly gone affected. Others would have said campish. Another private giggle, maybe? “But he’s been such marvelous help with those wretched old chairs your husbands adore.”

  Eh? Did he mean the antiques, the nerk?

  “Oh, good!” Mame ordered drinks. “They’ll be so pleased!”

  “It’ll be a fraction…” Steerforth said with a merry expression.

  “Of course, darling.” Mame glittered, in full if hilarious control. “Nothing’s cheap. I’ve heard.”

  We drank and chatted. It being noon, they had Bloody Marys and that. They were from the tourist liner and prattled of shipboard socialites, captain’s-table politics, and who danced with whom. There were considerable limitations, Mame said, gushing at Steerforth and squeezing his hand. A bit risky, I thought, because there’s no telling who spots you in a restaurant, is there? George was Mame’s husband. (“I mean, I’d no idea I was marrying into the Brookers, know what I mean?”) Lorna’s spouse Irwin was his partner. “Lorna’s a slowpoke!” Mame giggled, then started a series of nudge-whispers with Steerforth.

  “Have you lived in Hong Kong very long, Lovejoy?” Lorna asked me as the Mame-Steerforth axis strengthened.

  “No. Only a couple of—”

  “—years,” Steerforth cut in smoothly. “He loves it. Lovejoy’s great strength is his hobby.

  Developed it here, didn’t you?”

  “Eh? Oh. More or less,” I answered guardedly, nodding to show old Steerforth was really on the ball, and then listened anxiously to learn more facts about myself.

  “Hobby?” Mame and Lorna breathed together, intrigued.

  “Mmmh. Right up George’s and Irwin’s street. Detecting and restoring antiques, isn’t it, Lovejoy?”

  “Er, well…” I beamed apprehensively.

  “How marvelous!” Mame was thrilled. “We should get Mr. Gelman to come!” This caused her to laugh explosively. “What have I said!”

  “Lovejoy has quite a reputation,” Steerforth added. I could tell he was delighted at the impression he was creating. “You want to see his workshop! Superb.”

  “Is it really?” Lorna too was fascinated.

  “Unbelievable,” I said dryly, looking narked at Steerforth. Half my brain was going: Brookers and Gelman. These were the wives of the pundits.

  The swine was oblivious. “Yes. Cost him a fortune to set up. It’s been more difficult since the contessa.”

  “The contessa?” The women were agog. Me too.

  “Ooops. Sorry, Lovejoy,” Steerforth said, wincing as if at a gaffe. “But he’s got over it.”

  “I have?”

  “Well,” Steerforth gave back sharply, “it was you gave her the push, dear.” He shook his head at Mame. “You’ve never seen such a fuss! Can you imagine? Venetian nobility are very volatile. The noise! You could hear her on the Peak!”

  “You threw her over, Lovejoy?” Mame was on her third drink.

  “Well…” I said desperately, lost, promising myself a really good strangle of Steerforth’s throttle first chance.

  “It was the scandal, wasn’t it, Lovejoy,” Steerforth prompted, nerk of the Orient. His glance told of disappointment at my lying talents.

  “Oh, yes. There was that.” Pause. I swallowed hard. The world wanted more. “Er, I don’t really want to speak about it.”

  “Oh, come on!” Mame was enthralled, leaning forward to squeeze my arm. Three pricey rings, one first-class and Cartier. Her huge diamond pendant swung gently above her cleavage. Valuable, but not a single antique. Modern equals crud. “Tell!”

  “Go on, Lovejoy. About the count,” my pal Steerforth prompted with ill-concealed irritation. “And the earl’s obsession with his family’s lineage. How she behaved.”

  A headache welded my skull. I began to stutter. “Sorry, everybody. It’s just that there are some things…”

  “Spoilsport!” pleaded Mame.

  It was Lorna who came to the rescue. “No, Mame,” she put in, all serious. She patted my hand. “I understand. It goes against the grain, isn’t that it, Lovejoy?”

  “Yes.” I recovered and went all noble, speaking quietly. “I never betray a lady’s confidence. And one has memories…” Straight out of Charlotte Brontë.

  “Oh, how perfectly sweet!” Mame sniffed.

  “Don’t make too much of a thing of it.” I was and had pleased. And a gentleman to boot. I’d have waxed eloquent on my true-blue propriety if Steerforth hadn’t given the bent eye.

  “I think, Lovejoy, it’s rather time we made a move.”

  “Move?” My empty stomach growled at this appalling news. “But it’s dinnertime.” We were in a restaurant, for God’s sake.

  “What?” Steerforth snapped. “You’ve just had five almond slices.”

  “He’s hungry,” Lorna observed.

  You can like somebody straight off, can’t you? I felt drawn to Lorna. Mame clapped her hands and laughed. We ordered nosh, some more enthusiastically than others. I practically infarcted over the menu—one column was dense with dollar signs—and started an uneasy sparring over costs with t
he baffled money-shunning waiter, but Mame only fell about some more and told me to order what I liked.

  “It’s my treat,” she said, on her fifth swig. “All right with you, James dworling?”

  More merriment. I decided they were an odd lot.

  The grub was mild as mild could be but flavorsome. Even the colors were moderate and pastel. A lot of it was fish, I remember. The dishes were small yet kept coming. After a while I got the hang of it: Get going on the ones they fetched, and they brought another wave.

  “Isn’t he just sweet?” Mame said every now and again at a slight angle. Once she said in tipsy confidence to Lorna, “You’re going to have yourself a time, honey!” but Lorna only shushed her, smiling. By the time we’d finished, me a late last, Steerforth was fuming. I could tell. The women were merry. They’d tasted the dishes, the way they do, but not really eaten as I understand the word.

  By then I’d had a glass or two of wine (tip: Don’t drink Chinese rice wine; it climbs up the glass at you and fells you first glug). Under its influence I agreed to dance. Then this oddity: Waiters kept slipping Steerforth tickets in the gloom. I only noticed by accident. Next time it happened I drew breath to ask but felt my ankle hacked so suddenly I yelped. Mame laughed aloud. I couldn’t help spotting that the tickets coincided with every second melody played by the glitter band. Two tunes, one ticket.

  Even when we were jogging asynchronously to a strobe-lit fox-trot I saw a waiter slide a chit under Steerforth’s wine glass. Betting slips? Stock deals? I forgot it.

  One last innuendo. Steerforth was saying as we rose, “Look, Mame. I’d better go through the details of these antiques we’ve spotted for George.” He glanced towards Lorna, who gave a faint nod to Mame.

  “There’s a rest lounge.” Mame immediately led the way with sudden decisiveness. We followed. No money I could see changed hands, yet they let us go. A free restaurant?

  Odderer and odderer. Still, we separated and a uniformed serf signaled lifts for us, the smallest lifts you ever saw, barely room for two in each.

  “See you aloft,” Mame gushed, still rolling in the aisles. The doors hissed shut, and me and Lorna ascended in an angular womb of red velvet.

  “Lovejoy?” Lorna said. Her eyes were downcast.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve… I’ve never done this before.” Shyness. Never done what? I glanced about. Did she mean dine with a stranger? Cull antiques info in Hong Kong? Possibilities were infinite.

  “Never mind,” I said kindly. “You’re great.” Whatever the hang-up, her conscience would soon come out of its scrupulous overdrive, because consciences always do.

  They’re not up to much.

  We emerged just as Steerforth and Mame were weaving giddily towards the farther of two alcoved doors. He turned and lobbed a key. By the time I’d retrieved it from a potted palm their door had slammed. I heard Maine’s high-pitched laugh cut off.

  “Separate rest lounges!” I said, pleased. I couldn’t have borne much more of that giggling.

  My gasp was overworked. Everything I’d seen so far brought on more and louder exhalations. This lounge was luxury squared. Even the goldfish looked rich. Lorna too was quite affected. The view was panoramic through a tinted full-wall window and we stood side by side before the spectacle saying how we felt we could reach out and actually touch the ferries in the harbor, really original.

  “How crowded it seems!” Lorna said. “The apartment blocks like kiddies’ toys!”

  “The junks! Sampans!”

  “Very quiet, isn’t it?” Conscious of silence for the first time, we stood closer, listening and watching. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “It is, Lovejoy.” Lorna didn’t glance at me. Outside it was full day. The glassy harbor was busy with hydrofoils and small craft shuttling between godowns and the big cargo ships offshore. A gray-green warship flying the Red Ensign was gliding out. “Do you know, Lovejoy, I was really scared when Mame said to come along?”

  “Scared? What of?” I already knew the answer to that. Hong Kong had damned near done for me practically without trying.

  She gave a shy laugh. “Of you, I suppose. Being here. Mame’s been calling me fuddy-duddy for ages.”

  Ah. I got it. There’s that neurosis, isn’t there, scared of going outside and meeting people? I put my arm round her. “Look, Lorna,” I said, all paternal. “I understand. But try not to worry. All life is encounter.” I brightened. “Tell me about your home. Irwin.

  Your people. And maybe there’s something on telly.”

  “You’re sweet,” she said.

  So we sat on acres of floor cushions and I made her a complicated American drink—it seemed to be mostly gin—under her directions, got it so wrong we finished up laughing. She reminisced about America, how hubby Irwin and his pal had set up their vast antiques syndicate, a hellish merger with some Los Angeles sharks. She told of her one escapade, some bloke in the US Army Irwin never suspected. I became intrigued, wanting to know chapter and verse. She was astonishingly frank.

  It’s inevitable, I suppose, when two people discover an affinity, as if they were favorite friends without having known. In fact Lorna said this, softly rubbing her index finger on my face. “Like we were together in a former life.” I wouldn’t have this. Such talk makes me uneasy. I don’t want it to be true.

  Whatever, we were beyond recall within an hour. I’m not very proud of myself most times, and this was one. But I mean it wasn’t really my fault because after all I’d been not long restored to the land of the living and so was feeling happy and had already tasted ecstasy in the antiques display. What more natural than that I wanted more?

  Paradise doesn’t come so often it deserves spurning.

  And I mean I was even less to blame still, because once we succumbed, Lorna was like a wild woman. She went on and on, in variation quick time. She even started being bossy, seizing control in a sort of headlong frenzy of experimentation. We had a button device for dowsing lights with and controlling the known world. Of course it got lost among the cushions from passion, stupid thing, so I couldn’t draw the curtains or switch the telly off. Nothing luxurious is handraulic anymore. Anyhow there wasn’t really time, and no letup. It was as if all that shyness Lorna’d confessed to had been discarded in a terrific catharsis.

  From the things Lorna exhorted that torrid afternoon, I told myself I understood Lorna’s predicament pretty well. She was trying to make me feel more confident in myself, guessing that I’d had a rough time. Maybe there was an element of reward in it somewhere, too? I mean, she’d probably sussed out that I was the one divvy, that Brookers Gelman, Inc., was going to make a killing in the forthcoming auction. Which was kind of her. For me, there was also that inveterate hunger, any port in the storm of life. And Lorna was such a lovely, loving port. Love is a rare commodity, so should be allowed to flourish where it will, right?

  The rest lounge was still when I awoke. The lights had gentled down so the long window showed all Hong Kong like a huge gleaming crystal set against the dark-blue night. Shimmering, it seemed alive. For a while I watched, naked but entranced, at the glass before calling Lorna over to see.

  She’d gone. Just like that. Vamoosh.

  Except for this note on my jacket.

  Darling Lovejoy,

  I don’t know how to quite do this, if I can look you in the face again. I suppose I shall cope better another time. Mame told me how much you are, Lovejoy, only is it HK or US dollars? I guess ours. In your pocket. I really appreciate your understanding nature.

  Love, Lorna

  P.S. Our ship leaves the day after tomorrow. X

  I thought, what? And dressed, a little achy after my nonstop passion. The crinkle-crinkle sounds I heard were made by a wadge of US dollars in my trouser pocket.

  Then I reread Lorna’s note, where it said “how much you are, Lovejoy.” I was a gigolo.

  One thing, I didn’t come cheap.

  12

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br />   YOU bastard, Steerforth. You planned it all along!”

  “Look, Lovejoy. Everybody’s for sale.”

  Hong Kong isn’t for pavement racers. We moved erratically through the shoppers’

  hullabaloo, dodging amongst the curb hawkers. Conversation gets in half a word every yard; probably why the lingo’s monosyllabic and deafening. As we moved, Steerforth’s puce face flicked in and out of vision like in some grainy silent film. If I could have clobbered him without hitting any six Chinese, I’d have given it a try. I was blazing.

  “No! You look! It was a setup. Admit it!” I decided against clocking him one, seeing that each police pagoda was inhabited by a vigilant bobby, and a pair of scrapping tourists would stand out somewhat.

  “For Chrissakes!” he gave back. He was actually indignant, can you believe. “It’s the best favor I’ve ever done!”

  “Another thing, Steerforth.” A horrible suspicion arose. “What were those bloody tickets all about?”

  He saw my murderous look and shrugged surrender. “It’s the local rent system. One ticket every ten minutes. Or every second tune.” He misinterpreted my shocked silence and added helpfully, “It’s called chung.”

  “Rent? Chung? Who rents what?”

  “Prostitutes rent restaurant space. Clients rent a bar girl. Or we rent a table when we’re…”

  I clouted him. Because of the crowds I didn’t get a proper swing so it only knocked him sideways. Passing Cantonese laughed, exclaimed, paused. I pushed on and stood glaring unseeing at a pillar covered in Chinese fly-posters, the only static thing in the shambling din. It advertised a surgeon’s skill and price, complete with graphic photographs of a hemorrhoidectomy. Jesus. Rent. Me? How to make fame without really trying.

  “Bloody nerve!” I found I’d been pushed by a crowd swirl into a side street. Steerforth grabbed me just as I was about to be swept upwards from the main thoroughfare. And I do mean up, practically vertical. It was the steepest street I had ever seen, steps all the way to God.

  “Not that way, Lovejoy.” He yanked me back into the maelstrom, abruptly disturbed.