SQ 04 - The English Concubine (15 page)

‘I want you to agree to this marriage which Amber most decidedly wishes. I think the girl is madly in love with you.’

‘Is she?’

Alexander smiled. He had always known Amber was in love with him. It allowed him to disdain and ignore her as it suited him. There was that in him, the disregard for women who chose to adore him.

‘If you agree, then you will take her to Brieswijk. You will assume control of the estate. Things are not as they should be in the company. We must see to it.’

‘Well, Mother. My head is reeling. May I have a moment to consider.’ Alexander sat and took up his tea cup.

Charlotte gazed at her son. She realised she had absolutely no idea what, if anything, was going on inside his head.

‘In a fortnight the
Queen
will be here and I shall set sail for Batavia, with, I hope, you affianced to Amber. The wedding will take place in Brieswijk and you shall learn how to take care of a great estate.’

‘Well, I see you have thought this through. I am somewhat stunned.’

‘No you’re not. You have known half your life that Brieswijk is your destiny. And yes I have had ample time to think this through. In return for all this I will settle all your debts and you shall prove you can be a master.’

Alex smiled wryly. ‘And if I do not?’

‘Then I suggest you find work with Bousteads as a clerk and look for lodgings in the town.’

Alexander laughed. Charlotte had expected a variety of reactions but amusement was not amongst them.

‘Well that is a horrid alternative. May I take a day or so to think about it. Unless Mr. Boustead is in urgent need of a useless clerk.’

‘You may take a day or two, of course. But no more. I need your answer.’

The mother that confronted Alex was not the one he had left. They had not met for more than three years and he had left as a young boy. Perhaps she had always been more resolute than he remembered her. It was something of a shock and he realised that she was serious.

‘You understand that I am not in love with Amber.’

This caused Charlotte to pause. Alexander saw it. ‘Do you wish me to marry a woman I do not love?’

Charlotte frowned. ‘We marry for many reasons, Alexander. I did not love Tigran when first I married him, but I grew to do so. Marriage and children will settle you, give you something to strive for.’

Alex gazed steadily at his mother. ‘Why
did
you marry him, Mother?’

Charlotte shot a look at her son. ‘That is not the question at hand and don’t change the subject.’

Charlotte turned away.

‘There is something else,’ she said and went to the window.

She watched the Malay gardeners moving slowly across the grass clearing the great quantity of branches and leaves which lay, tossed and broken from the storm.

‘I have a child, a daughter.’

Alexander stared at his mother’s back. It was tense. She drew her shoulders together and turned her neck, almost imperceptibly, to one side as if her head was heavy.

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean I have a daughter.’

‘You mean you have remarried? To whom?’

She whipped round, her dress sweeping her ankles. ‘I am not married and I have a child. The father is Zhen.’

Alexander burst out laughing. What on earth was she saying?

Charlotte had had enough. It had to come out and she had to do it all, headlong, like water rushing and tumbling over rocks.

‘I hardly think to shock you, with the tales I have heard of your doings in Scotland. I have for some years had a relationship with Zhen. It is …’ She hesitated, the words sticking in her throat and swallowed hard, turning her face to the window.

‘It is over now, but we have a daughter.’

Alex stopped laughing.

She waited until she felt her emotions under control, then turned to face him. ‘You would have found out within the hour. I’m very notorious.’

She went forward quickly and stood in front of him.

‘This does not mean your behaviour can be excused. You are a boy and I am a full-grown woman. I make my own life. I have said all I wish to say to you on this matter.’

Alex rose. She raised her chin defiantly.

‘Doubtless you are tired. This is a lot to take in. I will see you at dinner. We dine with Robert. And Amber.’ She gathered her skirts and swept from the room.

16

Alex bathed and rested half an hour in his old bedroom. Everything his mother had told him settled in his brain. What hypocrites they were. He had never thought to think this of his mother, but what other conclusion could he draw.

All this posturing about his wild ways, all these demands to marry and lead a righteous life. All this was complete hypocrisy. His mother was, or had been, the lover of a Chinese man, lived with him out of wedlock and kept it all a secret from her children, her aunt and all her acquaintance in Scotland. What did the town think of her? What did his uncle Robert think of her?

He wanted to empty his head of these thoughts and left the house. He turned his steps to the house of his old friend, Ah Soon, on High Street but to his astonishment, the huge old Chinese compound which occupied the entire corner from High Street to the river, was no longer his home.

He crossed the river into Chinatown. Nothing very much had changed here. It was bigger of course, but still filled with the endless busy world of hawkers and hustlers and shopkeepers, tradesmen of every hue, the bullocks plopping hot steaming turds on the street. He addressed a few shopkeepers in Hokkien and their mouths dropped open with astonishment. He had hardly forgotten it at all, the sounds popping in his mouth. He loved to speak Chinese. No-one knew of the old Chinese compound, almost everyone he spoke to had arrived in the last three years. Finally he found an old man, an apothecary, who knew of the old Sang property and the owner Qian. The son was always in the den, he said, every afternoon after four o’clock. Alex frowned. The den? The opium den. The man told him the address.

Alex consulted his pocket watch. It was only three and he wandered slowly, savouring all the noise and bustle around him, occasionally alarmed at the rubbish and filth in the streets and the sight of an emaciated coolie propped up in a ditch. Things had gotten worse over here since he’d left. More men, the crowding and poverty appalling. A procession with noisy drums and a lion dance was progressing round the streets. He knew they were chasing away evil of some sort. He turned his feet to Hong Kong Street and the ah ku houses of his uncle Qian. He stood outside number 23, Heaven’s Gate, the house of Min, the brothel keeper and friend of his uncle Zhen.

Uncle Zhen, he thought and grimaced. Turned out Uncle Zhen had been the lover of his mother. He had had no time to take this in but now he found it annoyed him. When had this happened? How had it happened? What could have drawn a European woman to a Chinese man? Of course they knew each other, the way he knew Ah Soon and his father. And Zhen was a close friend of them all and spoke good English.

He put it away. Alex was not one to dwell for long on the mysteries of others. He looked at the upper windows and the faces of the girls who stared down at him. He grinned and they waved. He felt the itch. He’d not had a Chinese woman in three years.

He went inside. It was hot and sticky, airless.

‘Min,’ he asked, ‘the kwai po, is she here?’

She ignored him though he spoke in Hokkien. ‘You want girl?’ she said in Cantonese.

He didn’t understand a word.

The toothless crone rose and bowed. She ushered him into the next room. Here sat five or six young females, none older than fifteen.

They were all dressed in a shift of cotton and looked at him silently, their eyes blank, their lips red, their skin white with powder. He felt repulsed, not attracted. This was not how he remembered the brothel. He had been brought here by uncle Zhen, and taken in hand by a girl, older than him, sweet and tender, and taught the ways by Min, her hand guiding him, her words in his ear as she told him what women liked.

The old crone stared at him, sucking her teeth. ‘You want girl?’ she said in Hokkien.

He left the building and walked with more purpose and found himself, at last, at the door of the opium den. A man staggered past him. He stood and gazed at the entrance and felt a sudden thrill. The girls in the brothel, the vice and the dirt and the heat were overwhelming. The feelings of shock which had assailed him at the brothel evaporated. This was the East.

The awful cold morality of the Scottish kirk, the dull order of each passing day, had no play here. The east was vivid, the people a cacophonous mix of every race, the vibrations of the day filled with a riot of sin and violence and colour. He sniffed the air and the sweet odour of opium assailed him. It drew men in, into the dark, hot rooms and the oblivion and dreams which lay inside.

He had taken opium once, when he and a friend had spent the term interval in London, whoring drunkenly from morning to night until their money ran out and they were forced to return to Aberdeen. It had made him sleep and he had forgotten all about it.

A girl appeared at the door, her face deformed and carbuncular, the nose half eaten away. Alex stepped back. He recognised the face of the poxed child as they were known, those born with the French disease. Alex had contracted the pox but ointments and a series of doses of calomel had been effective in ridding him of the chancre and he no longer gave it a thought, except when he saw these faces. The child was no older than fifteen he guessed. She beckoned him in and lifted the curtain.

‘I seek a man, a friend,’ he said in Hokkien. She looked alarmed and dropped the curtain. A few moments later an older man appeared. He was thin, the ribs lying like shadows on his sallow skin.

‘Sir,’ he said deferentially.

‘I seek Ah Soon, of the old Sang House, the son of Qian.’

The old man’s face showed no expression. Perhaps he wanted money, thought Alexander, but currently he did not possess Straits dollars. He hardened his tone. A touch of colonial arrogance might induce the fellow to speak.

‘Speak up, man. Ah Soon, is he here?’

‘Who seeks me?’

Alex turned and looked into the eyes of his old friend. He was shocked. At seventeen, Ah Soon looked like an old man. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was grey.

‘Ah Soon, it’s me, Alex.’

Ah Soon stared at the man in front of him. Alex went forward and clasped his arm.

‘Ah Rex?’Ah Soon said. ‘You’re here? My God.’

Alex clasped Ah Soon in his arms and felt his bones, as fragile as a bird. When they released each other Ah Soon took Alex’s hand.

‘Come, we shall have a pipe or two and you will tell me about your life.’

Alex glanced at the doorway of the den. He realised that Ah Soon would not be deflected. This was his habit, his need, his desire. It had taken over his life.

‘We shall talk. You will smoke, but I will not. It does not agree with me.’

Ah Soon smiled. His teeth were yellow and his breath exhaled a fetid odour. ‘Come then, old friend. We have much to discuss.’

Ah Soon put his arm through his friend’s, the old man drew the curtain aside and the darkness of the den swallowed them.

* * *

The house in North Bridge Road rested somnolent in the silence of the hot afternoon when nothing stirred, when animals and humans alike rested from the oppressive humidity of the day. The only sound was the shrill trill trill of the cicadas in the shrubberies.

Charlotte sat in the chair under the trees. Lily was in her hammock, the little Chinese maid seated by her side, pushing it, her fan moving to and fro over the child. She reread the letter on her lap. It was from Edmund, arrived on the steamer from Hong Kong this morning. She was in his thoughts, he said, and when this war was done he longed to see her again. More, he had written, he loved her, had always loved her and wished to marry her. She had not absolutely told him she was not free when he had left Singapore. And so he permitted himself to hope. When she felt able to do so he begged her to write to him. She touched her neck where a small rill of sweat ran into her collar. The sudden memory of Zhen, of that last afternoon they had spent here flooded her and she dropped her head into her hands.

She felt drained of energy. She slept badly, dreams into nightmares, and now the heat sucked the life out of her. She needed sleep. She rose and pointed to the house.

‘Amah, I go.’

The young Chinese maid had been engaged from Miss Cooke’s school. She had been a prostitute of fourteen who had got sick and been abandoned and found her way to the comfort and protection of the girl’s school. After a year she had recovered and now had been engaged by Charlotte for she spoke Hokkien and Charlotte knew Zhen wanted his daughter to speak his language. They had both agreed on her hire.

The maid continued to rock Lily as Charlotte walked away. When she was alone with the child, she rose and took the basket, which had been placed by the fence. She came back and dropped the contents into the hammock with Lily.

* * *

Alex wiped his brow. The heat was intense; it boiled your blood. He went to the bathroom and eased his burning skin with water then to his room where the curtains were drawn against the assault of the sun.

His head was filled with the fumes of the opium pipes and pounded incessantly. He lay down in the dark.

Ah Soon, his childhood friend, had smoked. The first pipe had revealed Ah Soon’s loneliness after Alex had left. Their friendship had been severed and he had wished, also, to go abroad, to go to Scotland or England to school but his father would have none of it. Alex felt a great sorrow for his friend. He had departed, his eyes fixed on adventure, and never given Ah Soon a thought.

Ah Soon’s relations with his father had become terribly strained. Qian had taken a young man and Ah Soon had discovered the truth of his father’s homosexuality. It had been a shock to discover the strange facts about the household. His mother had a lover, the carpenter who lived within the compound. He found out that his two younger sisters were by this man, a servant. Ah Soon could not even be sure of his own paternity or of his younger brother who had died of whooping cough at four.