For Bobby, Rebecca and Romy
‘I saw his heart in his face.’
William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act 1, Scene 2
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Bibliography
A Note on the Author
Part One
Chapter One
Hong Kong – June 1940
There was a distant rumble and the close-cut grass trembled under her feet. Then the horses were in front of her. The shock of the noise and speed was astonishing every time. There was a thrill to it – what if one of those sweating, immoderately muscled creatures strayed by just a few feet? It would be upon her right there, where she stood next to the flimsy wooden railings. Stevie caught sight of her own wrist. So fragile, those little bones. So easy to break.
And then the last hooves threw up the final pieces of mud and were gone. A few blades of trampled grass fell through the air. She had lost and she didn’t like it. The ironically named Happy Valley racetrack was a despicable place, really. There was no excuse. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough vices already, though on the scale of her current degeneracy a spot of small-time gambling hardly counted.
She ripped her ticket into pieces and threw it on the ground to join the other torn dreams. The confetti of disappointment.
‘I thought you were giving it up.’ Declan McKenna, the unruly Irish journalist whom Stevie had first met at some cocktail thing at the Astor House Hotel in Shanghai, pushed through the crowd, smiling in delight at finding her. He was built for survival in the turf-gathering swamps of Western Ireland, his stocky torso and huge hands not well suited to sitting behind a desk and typing. She hadn’t known he was in Hong Kong, but Declan’s travels never surprised her.
‘Oh I have. I’m here for strictly professional reasons.’
‘You’re buying a horse?’
‘I’m fearlessly reporting back to my loyal readers at home from the most dangerous place in Hong Kong.’
He laughed, his generous mouth widening even further. The swagger of a slickly made-up Chinese girl caught his eye as she wove through the press of mostly Chinese men, and Stevie smiled to herself at the ease with which he had been distracted. She knew that as the only non-Oriental woman down here away from the stands she was conspicuous. Her short dark hair did not particularly distinguish her but the breeziness of her cotton dress, and her lack of lipstick, gloves and a hat did. The Europeans and Americans as a rule stuck to the safety of the stands, where their wallets were less vulnerable to the pickpockets, if not to the bookies. There was little love lost between the disparate communities here on this strange anomaly of an island, but winning and losing was, as ever, a truly efficient leveller. Declan returned his attention to her, the laugh still in his eyes, which seemed permanently on the verge of an insolent wink. Stevie was reminded that he had come a long way from home, too.
She leaned towards him, frowning. ‘I want to understand one thing, though. What makes them run, these horses?’
Declan shrugged, amused by her, but wary also.
Her voice was light, her American accent tempered by the years abroad. ‘Want to know my bet? It’s for the hell of it. That’s why they run.’
‘You got that from the horse’s mouth, did you?’
Shaking her head in acknowledgement of how feeble the joke was, she said, ‘I know that’s why I would. Run, I mean.’ And smiling she turned away.
He stopped her. ‘Need a lift back into Central? I wangled a car on expenses.’
‘No. I’m all right.’
‘More than all right, I’d say.’
She accepted the compliment with no comment but broadened her smile.
Emboldened he tried again. ‘Can’t even tempt you to a whisky soda at the Peninsula?’
‘No, sir, not tonight.’
‘That boyfriend of yours keeping you in lockdown?’
She laughed. ‘He knows better than to try.’
There was a slight movement in the crush of people around them and Declan caught sight of a slender, high-cheekboned Chinese man in a very fine linen suit heading towards them. He sighed and gestured in his direction. ‘Talk of the devil.’
Stevie turned and to her great surprise she saw Declan was right. Jishang never normally came to the racetrack. He hated the ubiquitous hawkers and the spitting, shouting, pungent hordes. His gambling habit was confined to private rooms in discreet casinos.
She smiled as he drew near. ‘Have you decided to see how the other ninety-nine per cent live?’
‘I’ve brought a jacket and a hat. They’re in the car.’
‘That’s very thoughtful of you but why on earth such concern for my outfit?’
‘There’s no time to waste. You’ll just have to do as you are.’
Jishang put a long-fingered hand on her arm and began to propel her away from the track. She pulled back.
‘Can you just wait a moment?’ She indicated Declan, who had watched this encounter with raised eyebrows. ‘You remember my colleague Declan McKenna? From the Irish Times.’
Jishang put out his hand and they shook in greeting. ‘Yes, of course. Please excuse me, Mr McKenna, but Miss Steiber and I have urgent business.’
‘Pleasure to see you again, Mr Wu.’ Declan tipped his hat and winked at Stevie as she turned away.
Stevie allowed herself to be pulled across the springy grass towards the Happy Valley gates but she could not resist walking with a slightly exaggerated swing to her hips, knowing that Declan was watching her, svelte and splendid.
‘What is going on, Jishang? This is crazy.’
Jishang did not break pace as he said, ‘We have a meeting with Madame Kung.’
She stopped dead, her ears ringing. ‘What did you say?’ Her arm nearly came out of its socket as Jishang kept on walking.
‘You heard me.’
‘My God, you are so annoying.’ She was being dragged along again and had to skip to try and keep up. ‘A meeting? When? Are you sure? Who told you?’
‘Yes, a meeting. Now. I’m quite sure and what was the last question?’
‘Now?’
‘Ah yes, I remember. Mr Leung telephoned me an hour ago, which is how long it’s taken me to find you.’
‘Mr Leung?’
‘You sound like a child, all these questions. Yes, Mr Leung, Madame Kung’s private secretary, the man you have been pestering for months.’
They were at the gates and Stevie could see their rented car glinting black in the sun, the driver leaning casually against it engrossed in a newspaper.
‘Oh my. Right now, huh? Thanks for bringing my hat and jacket. The navy blue?’
The driver caught Jishang’s eye and folded his pa
per hurriedly, throwing it through the open window on to the front passenger seat with one hand and opening the back door for them with the other.
‘Yes, the navy blue. Of course.’
Stevie held back. ‘I’m not ready. I can’t go.’
‘You can and you must. This is your chance. There will not be another opportunity.’ Knowing he was right, she accepted his outstretched hand and stepped into the car. This was it after all. The encounter she had been waiting for.
The day could not have been more beautiful. It was hot of course, but not yet in that fierce summer state where it sticks, heavy and bitter, in the back of your throat. As the car climbed further up the steep Peak road the air was becoming noticeably lighter.
Stevie leaned her head out of the open window. The breath was taken out of her by the speed and she laughed at the pleasure of it. Way below the expensively maintained terraces a sapphire sea pounded – nature controlled by money, but only to a degree.
The car slowed as it approached a pair of fabulously ornate iron gates, curlicues casting a harsh shadow on the pale gravel beyond. Stevie sat back into the leather and leaned momentarily into Jishang, dissolute but graceful, next to her. He glanced at her.
‘Your hair,’ he said.
Stevie brushed her hand over her wind-tangled bob.
‘Really? Who cares?’
‘I do. And so will she.’
Stevie reluctantly made a serious attempt to smooth her curls. She felt nervous, disturbed by the rushed nature of the meeting; it did not seem propitious. Nothing about it felt right. She turned a defiant stare to the magnificent gardens passing slowly outside the window.
She could almost have reached out and touched the lush purple hydrangeas, over-heavy and compliant, that bordered the drive. Even she – determinedly world-weary – could not suppress a low whistle at the sight of the white-pillared palace that emerged at the end of the cool green corridor of shrubbery.
Jishang allowed himself a half-smile. ‘What did you expect?’
‘A hovel, obviously,’ she said, nudging him in the ribs with a sharp elbow.
As the car came to a halt, the door was opened by a man in unlikely white and gold livery. The dusty scent of the flowers mixed with the faint dark human smell of the manservant invaded the sticky leather interior of the car. Jishang’s thin fingers caught her wrist as she began to step out.
‘Be good.’
The pressure on her skin was fierce. Even after she was out of the car and the gravel was crunching under her unglamorous round-toed pumps, she could feel the shadow of his grip. He let her take a few steps towards the house before getting out himself, unfolding his limbs like a sea anemone.
As she sank deep into the rose chintz sofa, Stevie wondered at the dryness clutching at her throat. She glanced towards Jishang, hoping for reassurance, but he had picked up a rare and shiny new copy of Time magazine from the glass coffee table. His fingers rested lightly on the slippery paper. On the cover, a black and white Franklin Delano Roosevelt stood behind CBS microphones. He was glancing to one side; away from or towards a challenge? Jishang flicked through the pristine pages. Stevie glimpsed the headline that he lingered over – ‘War In China, Chungking Bombings’. She looked away, not wanting to think about the dying and the dead and tried to find saliva in her mouth. Doubt and fear were her unwelcome but ever-present chaperones. Her battles with them had inspired all the defining gestures of her youth. They had led her far from places of safety. Doubt that she could do anything at all, chased by the fear that she would certainly fail, had dogged her steps as she danced through the hotel lobbies of Shanghai along with the other flotsam of the world. They would be exactly what her father had cursed her with as she left for the last time. They would be ‘the death of her’.
Struggling against the gravitational pull of the over-stuffed cushions, Stevie attempted to sit up straight, as a sleek, apparently ageless woman approached in a bird-like skip across the marble hallway.
‘Who is this Stephanie Steiber?’
Madame Kung, her hair piled high and stiff, was fifty and formidable. She made no attempt to lower her voice despite the fact that Stevie and Jishang were clearly within earshot. Her tone was slightly contemptuous and certainly dismissive. Her private secretary, Mr Leung, buttoned to his neck and almost grovelling, answered as he scurried to keep up with but not overtake her.
‘A journalist, Madame. Your cousin Wu Jishang has brought her. She’s already spoken to your sisters – about the book?’ He dropped his voice. ‘She has telephoned about a hundred times and this morning you agreed to a meeting.’
Stevie’s grasp of Mandarin was rudimentary but she got the gist. It was true, she had approached Madame Kung many times since she had arrived in Hong Kong only to be rebuffed.
Madame Kung was the eldest of the three famous Soong sisters and oddly the one who had been hardest to pin down. Madame Chiang Kai-shek had brokered the deal a year earlier. Stevie had interviewed her for a little piece about political wives she was hoping to sell as part of a series. Light-hearted of course, a woman’s piece. How do you cope with your husband’s absences and what does he like to eat when he gets home from saving the world? That sort of thing. Through Jishang Stevie had been introduced to her at a function in Shanghai and had managed to persuade her that such a piece would be harmless and maybe even helpful. After all, the great American public had a deeply prejudiced attitude to China, which sprang from ignorance. If they could find something to relate to in the article, their understanding would be enhanced, and maybe even their sympathy engaged.
As the wife of the leader of the Chinese Nationalist government, Madame Chiang, or May-Ling as she allowed Stevie to address her, was one of the world’s most consummate diplomats. Her charm, beauty and perfect American accent had enchanted everybody on the world stage and she had formed a particular friendship with the Roosevelts. Stevie had immensely enjoyed their meeting and had been thrilled when Madame Chiang reacted encouragingly to her bold proposal to write a book about all three sisters. Who could not be fascinated by the amazing story of the three little girls who had gone on to marry three of the most important figures in China? Stevie had chosen not to underline the fact that they had not exactly been born in a barn. Theirs was still an amazing story. And she had scooped it. She, Stevie Steiber, the peripatetic reporter of humorous social observation, had been allowed the opportunity to write a serious and important document tracing the power struggles of modern China from the inside.
So she had spent time with the Chiang Kai-sheks as the government struggled to find an adequate response to the overwhelming aggression of the expansionist Japanese and their merciless assault on China. And then she had been granted a series of interviews with Ching-Ling, the middle sister, who as the widow of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the first Chinese republic, had become an adamant supporter of the Communist cause. As such she was the sworn enemy of Chiang Kai-shek, her brother-in-law, and had in fact only recently come back to China from her years of self-imposed exile in Soviet Moscow in order to help broker an awkward alliance between the two factions so that a unified China could concentrate finally on defending itself from Japan. The fractures in most families, including her own, were considerably less extreme. Stevie had only to think about her tear-stained and fraught relationship with her mother to see a clear example. Consequently she had been extremely moved by the depth of the affection that still existed between the sisters.
Now here she was, newly arrived in Hong Kong, with the express purpose of meeting the third Soong sister.
Madame Kung, or Ai-Ling as she was known to her family, had not married directly into politics but into commerce. Her husband was generally considerd to be the richest man in China and known to be the shadowy banker to the besieged Nationalists. The fact that both her sisters had vouched for Stevie seemed not to be enough for Madame Kung. Neither was the fact that Jishang, a distant cousin much removed but still acknowledged in the Chinese fashion, had brough
t Stevie to Hong Kong to see her in person. She was far from persuaded that the book was a good idea. She of all the sisters had no public agenda and certainly there was no obvious advantage to be gained in being more exposed to the outside world. In fact, quite the contrary.
Madame Kung glanced around the room. If she had been really looking she would have taken in the great luxury of the decor, the houseboy hovering in the opposite doorway, and through the windows two husky men who could only be bodyguards lounging in the shade of a tree. But she was not looking. She was surveying. She found all to her satisfaction and now she acknowledged Stevie and Jishang with a tiny inclination of her perfectly poised head.
Nothing about her fragile, doll-like appearance translated into her personality or her presence. For all the trepidation she inspired in Stevie, Madame Kung may as well have been King Kong himself.
Jishang had unravelled his long legs gracefully and was standing to attention. Stevie was on her feet just in time. Madame Kung extended her immaculate little hand. Jishang pressed it to his lips.
‘Madame, thank you so much for giving us your time.’
Hearing him speak Mandarin always thrilled Stevie. She had a flash of the first time she had heard his low voice and how she had turned towards him. It seemed a lifetime ago but it was only a year. One hell of a year.
Madame Kung’s voice was girlish and affectionate and her American accent, slightly Southern in lilt, was absolutely perfect.
‘You’re a bad man, Wu Jishang, don’t think I haven’t heard.’
And then her attention was on Stevie, the flirtation over. Under her scrutiny, Stevie fervently wished she had been able to change her dress. It was inappropriately simple and one of the pockets was slightly torn. She was glad of the jacket Jishang had brought because a button was missing where the puffed short sleeve of the dress closed on her upper arm. Also the fabric was sticking in all the wrong places and she was visibly damp right down her back. Madame Kung’s appraisal said, ‘That skirt length was all the rage last year but, really, who is your dressmaker, she should be shot.’ What she actually said was quite a lot worse.
The Harbour Page 1
