SQ 04 - The English Concubine (2 page)

‘Guilt, guilt. He is right, perhaps. We are all driven by guilt,’ Charlotte said to herself.

She turned, raising her parasol against the sun and the inevitable stares of passers-by and gazed over the river to Boat Quay and the godown of Baba Tan, now the commerce and property of Zhen, the man she had shared her life with for the past three years and by whom she had a daughter.

A year ago some visiting wag had laughingly dubbed her the English concubine over a dinner full of drunken revellers and it had found its way into the column of ‘Delta’, the town’s self-appointed wit and purveyor of gossip. It had stuck. The fact that she was Scottish was hardly the point. She tried to laugh it off but increasingly she felt the power of the endless tittle-tattle. It wore away at you. Drip, drip, drip. A rebuff here, a whispering there, a row of open stares, even public denunciation. She was never free of it, on either side of the river, and it took its toll.

This was the veiled life she had kept from both Alexander and her younger son, Adam. But deeper than this was the dark secret of Alexander’s real paternity. The terrifying fact that he was not, as he believed, the son of Tigran Manouk, one of the great Dutch Armenian merchants of the East Indies. This father was his pride and in such a lineage lay Alexander’s deepest feelings of belonging. To deny it would, she feared, shatter him utterly and destroy his affection for her as Tigran’s widow. Children cared so little for the truth in such matters and she knew he would blame her, judge her, condemn her and wish she had never told him. So she did not.

She felt the ache creep into her neck. It would crawl up into her head and grip her like a vice. She turned her steps to home and some quiet rest. Soon he would be here and, for the first time, she admitted to herself the unpalatable truth that she was not looking forward to seeing her elder son.

2

‘We come together to honour the yishi of the Ming, patriotic guardsmen of our Chinese legacy and renew our pledge to overthrow the foreign Qing dynasty and restore the Ming.’

Three hundred men shouted
fanqing fuming
, with more or less enthusiasm, to the funerary tablets lining the walls of the Five Tiger Shrine which stood in the courtyard of the great lodge of the Ghee Hin Kongsi in Rochor.

The Deputy Mountain Lord, Fu Shan Chu Teo, rose and the formal part of the evening ended. The Mountain Lord, Shan Chu Wei Sun Wei, was in China.

Zhen and Qian rose too with the others, all important and, above all, wealthy members of the Hongmen, the triad society which, since the violent eruptions between the Teochew and Hokkien sects four years ago, had united all the different dialect groups in Singapore in relative peace. They made their way to the banqueting room.

‘Restore the Ming,’ Zhen said and shook his head. ‘Restore their youth more like. We’re the only ones under fifty.’

Naturally he attended, like all the towkay, the annual tribute to the spiritual ancestors of the kongsi. The kongsi was in effect the government of the Chinese in Singapore and no-one who wished to have any influence here could ignore it. It provided welfare and employment for the thousands of coolies pouring into the Straits at every tide. It controlled the labour force, regulated affairs in its own courts of law, its leaders had muscle and capital and much business was conducted in its shadow. But these old-fashioned oaths meant nothing, at least to him.

Hong Boon Tek sidled, slug-like, over to Zhen, mopping his forehead.

‘There is a rumour the Mountain Lord is dead,’ he whispered. ‘What do you hear?’

This rumour had circulated for the last week or so and some sort of announcement had been expected. This had not come. Hong was so fat his eyes got lost inside the pockets of his cheeks. His breath smelled and he was always slick with sweat. All this would not have mattered had he been an agreeable man but he was mean, vindictive and venal. It was said he kept slave women on his plantation.

‘Why ask me? Why don’t you ask the Deputy Lord and see if he likes the question?’

Hong threw a glance around him, simpered and oozed away. Hong disliked him, but Hong disliked everyone and Zhen did not care.

‘The leases come up in three months,’ Qian said. ‘He is not content with the spirit farm, he wants the opium lease too. If the leader is dead then the old syndicate will fall apart. It’s Wei’s money that bankrolls it.’

Zhen watched the men milling and whispering. Qian was merely stating the obvious.

‘Who inherits? The son died.’

‘I’m not sure. He had several daughters, didn’t he? One married the Kapitan in Perak or someone like that? I can’t remember.’

‘No, nor me.’

‘Have you thought of what I asked?’

The two men joined the crowd in the banqueting hall. Rice wine began to circulate. The noise level rose.

‘Qian, I told you. They won’t have you.’

Qian pulled a face, poured a cup of wine and tossed it back.

‘They would if you asked. I could sell two of the ah ku houses to you.’

Zhen glanced at Qian. This man was his closest friend. They had been through poverty and hunger together, endured the long and dangerous journey here to Singapore, faced tigers and misery in the jungle and the new adventures of marriage to strange men’s daughters. In a moment of drunken brotherhood they had betrothed their children to each other.

But within the last two years Qian’s fortunes had declined greatly. His wife, to whom, despite his own sexual proclivities, he had been surprisingly devoted, had died. Qian’s father-in-law, Sang Che Sang, had been leader of the kongsi and had extensive plantations of gambier and pepper with which he financed the leases of the opium farm and the spirit farm, easily the two most lucrative pursuits in the region. Out of respect for the living relative of the former Lord of the Kongsi, Zhen suspected, creditors had bided their time.

The business had declined slowly. Qian did not have Sang’s stature or control over the labour force which only a kongsi official could exert, nor his ruthless commercial acumen. When he lost the lease on the opium farm, he had no idea how to recover. Eventually, the gambier and pepper plantation was lost to him too, for without the opium farm and its sales to the tens of thousand of coolies on the island, there was little profit in it. The land in Singapore had been stripped, ruined and abandoned, bled dry by the heavy demands of the cultivation. When the roads had been made out into the once impenetrable countryside, the colonial government had sent their surveyor to assess and tax the plantations.

Wei Sun Wei had instantly ceased all agriculture and ordered 4,000 labourers to leave Singapore and go to Johor where he was Kang Chu, the head of the river, with ten concessions along the entire east bank of the Johor River, as well as numerous others, employing thirty thousand coolies. He was Kapitan Cina and the most trusted ally of the new Temmengong Abu Bakar who had hegemony over the lands of Johor. The syndicate which Wei headed had had control of the Johor/Singapore joint opium farm for the last five years. Wei’s rise from humble cloth pedlar to such wealth and power was legendary and on the lips and in the minds of every penniless coolie who set foot on the island.

When Qian’s wife died, the creditors had swarmed out of the woodwork. The great Sang compound on High Street was sold. All that was left to Qian were his four brothels on Hong Kong Street and the small shophouse he lived in. Prostitution was a high-profit business, but even this could not keep up with his too-lavish lifestyle with the Malay boy who ruled him with bonds of lust.

‘No. I forbid you to sell the ah ku houses. They are your only means of income. The problem is that greedy boy. Get rid of him and some sense would return to your life.’

Qian shrugged. He could no more do without Hafiz than stop breathing. The boy was as beautiful and sleek as a young god and knew how to make a man’s body do things which made your blood ignite. He had found him in the brothel in Malacca and brought him here.

‘Since my wife died, I have been alone. You don’t understand.’

Zhen shrugged. Qian was besotted, head over heels for this spoilt boy upon whom he lavished money and gifts, diamond earpins, golden bracelets, silken clothes. He pranced through Chinatown dressed like a sultan with his pet monkey on his shoulder, turning heads wherever he passed. No speech would change anything.

‘Anyway, the syndicate is for the big money boys.’

‘You have money,’ Qian said and threw him an acid look, ‘and plenty of it.’

‘I don’t get involved in prostitution or the opium syndicate. And the consortium for the Klang tin mines will not have you.’

Zhen was part of a group of Chinese and European merchants bidding to lease the rich vein of tin in the Klang river basin from the current Sultan. But there was a dispute. There was always a dispute between the sultans. When the old fellow died the succession was always a mess, and each claimant sought British and Chinese aid to settle the disputes.

‘In any case it is held up by the fighting between the brothers. Until that’s fixed, well.’

‘But by that time, we will be related, eh Zhen? Can we not advance the marriage of Lian and Ah Soon? Why wait? She is of marriageable age. Then the English merchants will see I am allied to you and will give me credit. Enough to get into your consortium or into the opium syndicate.’

Zhen felt immense exasperation. Qian just didn’t listen to sense. He wanted his boy and his opium and the rest was ignored. He found Qian more and more tiresome. He had caused the problem with his son, Ah Soon, by taking him out of school where he was a clever scholar, fluent in English and Chinese, skilled at mathematics. Now Ah Soon was supposed to help manage the ah ku houses and Zhen knew he resented it. The English school with its Christian teachers installed lofty aims in its pupils. It was dangerous to put sons in them and then expect them to be you or fling them thoughtlessly back to earth. The friend Zhen had loved had somehow disappeared and this greedy, selfish, lustful man had taken his place.

‘Qian, you must regulate your finances. As for Ah Soon, you were foolish to take him out of school. I told you. I’ll pay the tuition if you allow him to go back.’

Qian shrugged.

‘Ah Soon had better learn his business. He has no more need of Shakespeare or Jesus Christ. I came from nothing and he should know what that’s like. Get his soft hands a little dirty.’

Zhen had no answer. This little speech was utter hypocrisy. Qian had inherited great wealth and squandered it. He was entirely to blame for the ruin of his family. He wanted the marriage to Lian so that Ah Soon would, in effect, become Zhen’s issue as well. Ah Soon’s increasingly problematic opium habit was another worrying issue. Zhen knew that sooner or later he would have to step in and sort the boy out. Qian was incapable of it.

The noise in the banqueting room rose another level as food was brought in. Three hundred men enjoying the convivial atmosphere meant a buzz heavier than a meeting of bees. The rice wine circulated and some men had moved away to the opium room for some pipes.

‘Why won’t you help me?’ Qian whined and Zhen shook his head.

A large shape loomed over Zhen’s shoulder.

Zhen turned and recognised Wang Chu Wei, head of the Red Rods. Zhen had been an enforcer himself in China years ago and he and Wang often drank together in the town where Wang controlled the gangs of samseng, the men who guarded the ah ku and coolie houses, the illegal gambling dens and the arrack taverns, and carried out any other activity which required them. He rose and clapped a hand on the shoulder of Wang.

‘Ironfist Wang, how are you?’

Wang smiled. Two of his front teeth were missing. It just made him look even more frightening than his muscular build and the long scar down his cheek managed to.

‘A little trouble with my teeth but otherwise well.’

‘I told you to go to my shop. My apothecary will see to you.’

Wang bowed. He was terrified of all apothecaries.

‘The Deputy Lord wishes to speak with you.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Zhen followed Wang into a smaller room, dominated by the altar to Guan Yu, the spiritual head of all the brotherhoods. Four men were present. Wang closed the door. Before the altar, at a low table, sat the Deputy Mountain Lord, the Incense Master, head of ritual and ceremony, and the Vanguard, in charge of administration and recruitment. These officials were all merchants who occupied the highest positions in the kongsi. The fourth man, seated to one side, Zhen did not know. He bowed low and waited. Something was up.

‘This is Master Zhen of the Tan Clan,’ the Deputy Mountain Lord said, addressing the man seated to one side. ‘He has a trading company and the biggest Chinese-owned fleet in Singapore. He has kinship links in Manila, Siam and Batavia. He is a filial son. His father-in-law’s funeral is still talked about today. He also does much charitable work with the Tan Clan temple school, is benefactor of the Chinese hospital and the Thian Hock Keng temple. He is also advisor to the English governor.’

Zhen bowed in acknowledgement of this flattering account.

‘From time to time only,’ he said.

‘This is Cheng Sam Teo, he is the Shan Chu’s son-in-law, Kapitan Cina of Riau.’

Zhen bowed to the man. He was thin-lipped and sharp-eyed.

‘Please sit.’

Zhen complied.

‘What we have to say to you is private, you understand. We should like to ask you to keep this in confidence and to grant a favour.’

Zhen nodded. Whatever was going on, the kongsi leaders controlled the coolie labour force which loaded and unloaded his ships. They could be called out to strike at any moment. No merchant in his right mind would refuse them a favour.

‘It is already granted, sir,’ he said.

‘The Shan Chu, Wei Sun Wei, has died in China.’

Zhen’s face showed nothing. He had expected this, especially in the presence of the son-in-law.

‘I am sorry. It is very regrettable,’ he said.

He turned to Cheng. ‘My deepest condolences to your family, sir.’

Cheng gave a nod of acknowledgement.

‘The death of the Shan Chu is unfortunate,’ the Deputy went on. ‘But worse is that it coincides with the bid for the opium farm, which is currently being run by Wei Sun Wei’s’s deputy, Tay Ong Siang. He will certainly bid for the farm when it comes up. The bad blood between Tay and Hong Boon Tek has been on hold for five peaceful years but now we fear it will re-emerge. Both Tay and Hong want to be leader of the kongsi.’