Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘My very first performance was to a crowd of at least 800 people and I was understandably nervous, but, to my absolute delight, at its conclusion the men rose from their tables and cheered. Mr Coward’s “Poor Little Rich Girl”, which I did as my final number, brought the house down and was to become an important part of my future repertoire – remind me, Jack, to tell you about meeting and playing it in front of Noël Coward.’

  ‘You performed for Noël Coward?’

  ‘Yes – but more on that later.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please, go on.’

  ‘Well, flushed with first-night success I was now looking forward immensely to the party, having vindicated myself to Sir Victor, Poppy, but mostly Big Boss Yu, who attended the show although he declined Sir Victor’s invitation to the after-party. Mr Yu had arrived alone, which was unusual – he was a popular and gregarious Chinese taipan usually accompanied by half-a-dozen people of every race. That night he sat alone at a small table with a bottle of Napoleon cognac for company. When I got resounding applause and the men rose from their tables, he did so as well and clapped, beaming at me. So I felt I hadn’t disappointed him even though he refused an invitation to come backstage, and left immediately after the show.

  ‘So you can imagine my despair when a serious Poppy approached me in my dressing room. Earlier backstage, he’d hugged me and lifted me off my feet, swinging me around in a circle. “You were wonderful, darling!” he’d gushed. But on this second visit he said, “A word, darling?”

  ‘“What is it, Poppy? What have I done?” I asked, bewildered.

  ‘“Bad news, sweetheart. I’m afraid you’re not invited to the party. Your chauffeur will take you home immediately.”

  ‘“But Poppy, why?”

  ‘He sighed. “Mrs Worthington. She says you’re not quite ready.”

  ‘“Ready for what?” I protested.

  ‘“Why, haven’t you been told? To be exposed to the public – the nobs, my dear.”

  ‘“But, but, what has that got to do with my act?” I asked, distressed.

  ‘“Nothing. Orders, darling. You have to be impeccable.”

  ‘“Impeccable? What has to be impeccable? My hair, my gown – what?”

  ‘“Your accent. You have to be taken for a young English gal of good breeding. Clipped and rounded, my dear.”

  ‘“Who decided this?”

  ‘Poppy smiled. “It came from Sir Victor, but I’m sure he was merely the messenger. He doesn’t give a hoot about that sort of thing.”

  ‘“Big Boss Yu?”

  ‘He shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest, darling. Someone out there is grooming you for something and, whatever it may be, being a Russian countess simply won’t do the trick!”

  ‘“But you said it was Mrs Worthington. Was she here?”

  ‘“Don’t shoot the messenger, darling – only doing as I’m told.”

  ‘Well, of course, all my new-found sophistication went completely out the window and I’m afraid I began to weep like a petulant schoolgirl. Poppy didn’t stay to comfort me.

  ‘“That’s show biz, sweetheart,” he said. “Time to grow up, darling.” Then he turned on his heel and left, leaving me to wail into the bunch of flowers I’d received on my debut with a note that said “Sincere good wishes, the Management & Staff”. Though, in fairness, I have to add I had also received an exquisite orchid from Sir Victor that I’d hoped to wear with my red chum sarm to his party.

  ‘That frightful woman kept me at my English lessons for an entire year before she agreed I was sufficiently clipped and rounded to be allowed among the upper crust of Shanghai society. I was lonely and frustrated but, curiously enough, this did nothing to disrupt my career as a cabaret singer and entertainer. The fact that I never appeared in “public” and no one knew where I lived meant all sorts of rumours began circulating, and Shanghai Lil became a mysterious, romantic woman. I was seen arriving and being whisked away in a big American limousine and then simply disappearing. Newspaper reporters tried to track me down without success, as it never occurred to any of them that I might live in the Chinese City.

  Isolation from other Europeans also served to bring me close to the Chinese people again, as I had once been in Ah Lai’s village in Manchuria. My Cantonese became fluent and I think I was popular with the locals, who always treated me with great kindness. Even though I was now earning a very reasonable salary, Big Boss Yu continued to support me while making no demands on me whatsoever. He was like a benevolent uncle, always there when I needed something. And while I saw very little of him, I feel sure my every movement was reported back to him.

  ‘Finally, two days before my seventeenth birthday, Mrs Worthington pronounced me clipped and rounded enough to be exposed to Shanghai’s elite. In the period I’d been with her she’d fashioned an entirely new background for me, a past life that was appropriate for my impeccable accent. Good school, county manor, minor aristocracy and, most importantly, I had cultivated a mannerism unique to the English upper classes that allowed me to disengage from a conversation that appeared to be getting too personal with just the right amount of polite detachment – the raised eyebrow and almost imperceptible expression of disapproval that Poppy had dreamed of achieving all his life.

  ‘I was ready, although I had no idea for what. Then, coming in to rehearsals the following day, I received a note from Sir Victor, apologising for the late invitation and, saying that he was giving a small party in the tower on the coming Saturday and would I like to come along.

  ‘Well, the party, as it turned out, was being thrown for me – my “coming out”, so to speak. It was a splendid affair, and Sir Victor saw to it that I was almost always at his side so that I was never made to answer any difficult questions. That was the first time I tasted champagne. Sir Victor later told me that he’d let it be known that my parents were friends of his family in England, suggesting that they were household names there, and that they greatly disapproved of my being in show business, which made it indiscreet to question me too closely. My clipped-and-roundeds must have been successful, because one of the guests remarked to me in the ladies’ powder room, “My dear, being discreet is all very well, but some of us can spot a Rodean accent a mile away.” In fact, I can’t say I enjoyed the occasion very much. Shopping the next day with Ah May in the Chinese City was a great deal more pleasant.’

  She paused, glancing at the table. ‘Oh, dear, you’ve left two scones.

  It would be a shame to let them go to waste, Jack – you know how quickly they dry out.’

  ‘You’ve only eaten one,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t been in a POW camp. You still haven’t quite regained your previous weight, Jack.’

  ‘Don’t know why. I’m pigging out . . . er, eating like a horse.’

  ‘Time to jump forward a bit, Jack. I don’t want to be a bore, but a cabaret act in a grand hotel doesn’t change a great deal and I was to spend the next year at it until I turned eighteen. I imagine I had become a household name among the Europeans and the westernised Chinese – that is, of course, only in Shanghai and as Shanghai Lil. Lily No Gin, my original stage name, had long since been forgotten and was now only used by Big Boss Yu and the people in the Chinese City. As for Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, she seemed somehow to belong to a forgotten past. I’d had several offers to work overseas and Noël Coward had been kind enough to suggest I “come back to England” where he was certain I would be a hit, but I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to have a career on the stage.

  ‘Forgive me for jumping ahead momentarily, Jack, by about five years, while I’m on the subject of Mrs Worthington. By 1929 Sir Victor had transformed the Palace Hotel into the magnificent Cathay Hotel and taken up residence in its tower. While I’d given up my singing career by that time I would often play and sing at his parties and naturally I’d sing one or another of Noël Coward’s songs, which were becoming increasingly popular. Coward came out to Shanghai on the Orient Express t
o do a few nights at the Cathay Hotel. As was his wont, Sir Victor threw a lavish party for him in the magnificent tower apartment he’d built for himself. Big Boss Yu and I were among the several hundred guests, and so was the awful Mrs Worthington. At one stage during the party I saw that she’d cornered Noël Coward and that the poor man seemed trapped. Ten minutes later she was still at it and he was looking decidedly embarrassed, so I walked up and said, “Mr Coward, Sir Victor has asked me to sing one of your songs and I wondered if you’d accompany me?” Of course, under normal circumstances, I would never have dared to suggest such an impertinence.

  ‘“Of course, my dear!” he said with palpable relief, excusing himself from the awful woman. When we were out of earshot he said to me, “Who is that simply dreadful woman, darling? She wants me to put her niece on the stage!” I fetched him a glass of champagne and told him the story of my clipped-and-roundeds, leaving him in no doubt about my feelings towards the reprehensible Mrs Worthington. “How perfectly ghastly, I shall write a song about her – it will be your revenge.”’

  Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan laughed. ‘Some years later, after I’d arrived on the island, the song came out and was called “Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington”.’

  ‘Mum loved that song – we played it a lot when I was a kid!’ I exclaimed. Then, on a sudden impulse, I added, ‘You couldn’t sing it now, could you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m much too rusty, Jack,’ she protested.

  ‘I haven’t played it since I was a kid, either, so we’d be even,’ I encouraged.

  ‘Oh, so you’ll accompany me? That might be fun.’

  Sitting in her cliff-face garden with the whitecaps rolling in as the shadows started to fall on a lovely afternoon, I began to play the opening few bars and then Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan came in, singing in a nice contralto voice.

  ‘Regarding yours, dear Mrs Worthington, of Wednesday the 23rd,

  Although your baby may be keen on a stage career,

  How can I make it clear that this is not a good idea?

  For her to hope, dear Mrs Worthington, is on the face of it absurd.

  Her personality is not in reality inviting enough, exciting enough,

  For this particular sphere.

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  The profession is overcrowded and the struggle’s pretty tough,

  And admitting the fact she’s burning to act, that isn’t quite enough.

  She has nice hands, to give the wretched girl her due,

  But don’t you think her bust is too developed for her age?

  I repeat, Mrs Worthington, sweet Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  She’s a bit of an ugly duckling, you must honestly confess,

  And the width of her seat would surely defeat her chances of success.

  It’s a loud voice, and though it’s not exactly flat,

  She’ll need a little more than that to earn a living wage.

  On my knees, Mrs Worthington, please, Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  Though they said at the school of acting she was lovely as Peer Gynt,

  I’m afraid on the whole an ingénue role would emphasise her squint.

  She’s a big girl, and though her teeth are fairly good,

  She’s not the type I ever would be eager to engage.

  No more buts, Mrs Worthington, NUTS, Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

  One look at her bandy legs should prove she hasn’t got a chance,

  In addition to which, the son of a bitch can neither sing nor dance.

  She’s a vile girl and uglier than mortal sin,

  One look at her has put me in a tearing bloody rage.

  That sufficed, Mrs Worthington, Christ! Mrs Worthington,

  Don’t put your daughter on the stage.’

  ‘Oh dear – what fun, Jack,’ she said, laughing and clapping her hands together. She reached over and touched the side of the teapot. ‘I’ll just pop into the house and make a fresh pot.’ When she returned she resumed her story right off, speaking while she was pouring the tea.

  ‘Now, back to the Palace Hotel, 1924. Big Boss Yu had decided against my continuing my singing career beyond my eighteenth birthday – a rather splendid affair with Sir Victor, who was visiting at the time, throwing a marvellous party for me in his Palace Hotel apartment. It was here that I gave my final performance, afterwards thanking the guests, who represented most of the cognoscenti and upper crust of the city, and then announcing my retirement – I must say, to a rather startled gathering. Shanghai Lil, as I previously mentioned, had become a fixture in Shanghai and I think it was taken for granted that I would always be the hotel’s professional in-house entertainer. Sir Victor, at this point, was already talking with growing enthusiasm about building the extension to the Palace, to be known as the Cathay Hotel. “It will be one of the great hotels in the world and you shall sing and play on the opening night,” he’d promised. So my retirement came as a big surprise even to him – and as a disappointment to me.

  ‘You may well ask why I didn’t kick over the traces and go my own way. I could have left Shanghai and started somewhere else – England, perhaps. But it must be remembered I was a stateless person without a passport or travel documents and if I left Shanghai I would be a refugee. I was also a very young eighteen-year-old who lived in alternate worlds where I was a big name in local show biz, yet played no part in the European society of the city. I still lived under the aegis of Big Boss Yu in the Chinese City, where I had become totally accepted as if one of the locals – a gwai mui, yet one of them.’

  I couldn’t stop myself interrupting. ‘But surely, Countess, you could have changed that – moved into a flat of your own. You must have been earning a reasonable salary by now?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, of course, Jack. But it may be a little difficult to understand. On the one hand there was the life of the Shanghailander (such a peculiar expression), which I embraced every evening. Although, when you completed your day at midnight this basically meant late-night parties, drinking and imbibing other substances if you were in the wealthy young set.’

  ‘What other substances?’ I asked ingenuously.

  ‘Well, there was a lot of morphine and cocaine about at the time. All the young “swinging twenties” people were using it, though it wasn’t hard to see that both substances, like alcohol, didn’t do much good. Remember, since the age of fifteen, and with the exception of a single year at the General’s Retreat, I had been living a Chinese life. Big Boss Yu was, in a very real sense, my guardian – or, put more correctly, he acted in the role of strict but protective uncle. In the tradition of the Chinese he was always to be obeyed, and Ah Chow was always waiting for me after the show. If I wanted to go to a party, usually one thrown by Sir Victor when he visited, I had to let him know and he would undoubtedly refer it to Big Boss Yu. The opportunity to enter any of Shanghai’s dens of iniquity simply wasn’t available.’

  ‘Did he ever refuse you permission – you know, to go to a party?’

  ‘Yes, but not often. Once, as I recall, when Sir Victor gave a party for a high-ranking visiting Japanese diplomat. Big Boss Yu didn’t trust the Japanese even though, judging from the perpetually ticking clocks, he did business with Japan and no doubt with the 30 000 resident Japanese in Shanghai. He never mixed with them and didn’t approve of my doing so. In addition he would expect me to refuse an invitation if he himself was attending the same party.
’

  ‘It must have been difficult?’

  ‘No, not really. Late nights didn’t suit me.’

  Having answered my questions, she continued. ‘A month before my eighteenth birthday, Big Boss Yu summoned me to his office. “No Gin, it is time to stop playing the goat-herder’s flute,” he said. I knew by this that he felt I should not continue as an entertainer.

  ‘“What shall I do, loh yeh?” I asked.

  ‘Unlike the European taipans of Shanghai, who flaunted their power and opinions and came straight out with whatever was on their minds, Big Boss Yu was old-fashioned Chinese who came from peasant stock and did things the Chinese way. This was to be oblique in all matters – opinions were buried in riddles, directions sounded like polite suggestions and opinions always appeared ambiguous. So it startled me when he said, “Raisins.”

  ‘“Raisins?” I asked, thinking it must be some Chinese verbal riddle I was meant to know.

  ‘He was silent, the clocks kicking up their usual racket in the background. Finally he said, “The Sun Maid Raisin Growers of California have a surplus of raisins and I have accepted the agency for China.” He looked steadily at me, his purple-ringed eyes deadly serious. “I would be honoured if you would take charge of this project, No Gin.”

  ‘I knew immediately this was a test, the beginning of the reason why he had taken me under his wing – perhaps also why he had changed me from Russian to English, the Russians having no business clout in China at the time. “Are raisins a commodity used much by the Europeans here?” I asked.