SQ 04 - The English Concubine (20 page)

Now her second daughter, Lilin, was insane and she wanted her here with her. Lian she wanted gone, married away as quickly as possible. The girl was hideous, disobedient, and a freak with her English education.

She waited but Zhen said nothing, staring out of the window.

He ignored her views on Lily. She was a beloved child and this superstitious and ignorant old woman’s ideas meant nothing to him. The news of Alex and Lian was shocking but not in the way his mother-in-law imagined. He knew now that Alex wanted Lian. In his youth he had intimated it and now he was seen hanging around her as if the years between had not happened. He knew everything about obsessive love. He had felt it for Xia Lou for twenty years. And it had not gone away, not for him. He knew there was bad feeling between them, but surely, when this obligation of his was over, surely they would find a way back to each other.

The widow Tan waited as the silence lengthened, chewing. A gob of red spittle landed with a plop in the porcelain spittoon.

He turned towards her. ‘Lilin will come here. She is beyond our reach and you must take care of her.’

She nodded, glad he had finally spoken.

‘Lian will come here also. Arrange the Cheo Thau ceremony. Lian and Ah Soon shall be wed as soon as possible.’

The widow Tan bowed to her son-in-law. He had made the correct decision. As he left the room she rose and called the second concubine. When her husband had died, this girl had been twenty and obligated to a life of servitude to her, the principal wife. She had done her best to make this girl’s life misery and she did not intend to stop now.

Zhen knew he had to speak to Xia Lou before something terrible happened. In the carriage ride back to town he thought hard and long how he could meet her. Now he knew he had to, he wanted to with all his heart. He had left her in anger and anguish and they had lost their child.

But he had never been more supervised. Wang had his men everywhere and since the public break with Xia Lou he did not want more interest in his private life. He called at Hong Kong Street and greeted Min. She smiled, happy to see him.

‘You feeling better?’ she said.

No-one was more familiar to him than Min. They were friends. He shared more with her than anyone, not Qian, not even Xia Lou. He and she had come together as lowly creatures in a hard world and had helped each other along the way. He went into her room and lay down on her bed.

‘Eyes everywhere. I’m not enjoying my job,’ he said and she grinned.

‘Hard to be adored,’ she said. ‘Ironfist Wang thinks the sun shines out of your arse.’

He laughed. ‘I need to meet her. Privately. How?’

Min nodded. She knew who he meant. ‘After that fight, won’t be easy. Not here. Over there somewhere. Kampong Glam?’

‘Plenty of Chinese living there.’

He remembered the house in Katong. Her brother’s cottage by the beach. The whole of the area had been opened up since they had been there last. It was no longer necessary to sail there. A road led to Katong. He would write and request a meeting there. He rose and kissed Min on her forehead.

He walked from Hong Kong Street down towards the harbour. He needed a clear head, and looking at his ships always reassured and buoyed him. He made his way to Johnstone’s Pier and gazed out.

There were his ships, two sail, two steam. Three bound for China, one for Semarang. Then he saw it. The black ship with white sails, the white flag with a black panther. It was the most distinctive ship he had ever seen. It was her ship,
The Queen of the South
. This ship rarely called at Singapore for it plied the local Indies trade. It came here only when its mistress called.

He went quickly back to Market Street and called Wang to him. ‘Her ship is the black brig.
Queen of the South
. Find out what is happening with it.’

Wang disguised his annoyance. Still the master thought of this woman. The stupid maid was supposed to release the snakes, both of them, near her. Instead she’d got scared and dumped the damn things on the child. Since that death, he’d had her sorely beaten and now she was back in the brothel. Served her right. Within an hour he returned.

‘It loads a cargo of iron goods, English cloth, guns, gunpowder and opium and sails for Batavia in three days. I cannot be sure but the gossip is that she will be on board with her son and her niece.’

Wang was disconcerted by this news. On the one hand she would disappear, on the other, she had not received the justice he believed she deserved.

Zhen thought furiously. In a few days she was leaving, sailing away with Alex. What was happening?

* * *

The tiffin rooms were new. A trader named Ellington had given up his business and started these rooms where one could eat Indian food, drink India pale ale or porter and read the newspaper. They were already crowded at eleven o’clock with the English, Armenian, Chinese and Eurasian merchants from the quay, the streets and the Square or Raffles Place as it was now known.

He ordered rice and curry and looked around. The noise was tremendous. He greeted several of the merchants who recognised him, and waved as he saw Ah Soon.

‘We are being watched,’ Ah Soon said as he took a chair. ‘Beer,’ he said to the boy who came up. ‘I got your letter.’

Alexander waited. Ah Soon was ditheringly slow. He waited until the food and beers had arrived. Then he took two pill boxes from his pocket and took two pills from each which he drank down.

‘What’s that?’

‘This one is Du Fu Ling. Zhen makes me take them. He says they prevent the pox and help with the sores and sweats I get. The other I forget, herbs all mixed up which he says will stop me craving the opium and improve my qi.’

‘Have you had it, the pox?’

‘Course, everyone’s had the pox.’

‘Me too, got it in a whorehouse in London.’

Ah Soon nodded. ‘Nasty, isn’t it. I’m not bothered about sex, not really. Got rid of all that in my father’s whorehouses when I was sixteen and then found a new love.’

Alex raised his eyebrows. ‘I love sex. Randy as a goat all the time. Hand over the pox pills. You can get some more.’

Ah Soon laughed and handed the pill box to him. Alex swallowed two pills and set about his beer. ‘Randy, but no whoring for me. I don’t want to get it again and give it to Lian. I need to be clean for her.’

The two men sat and watched the crowd for a while.

‘So, what do you think of my plan?’

Ah Soon grinned. ‘I think it is a diabolical and brilliant plan.’

Alex laughed, a great guffaw of pleasure that made eyes turn onto him.

‘But Lian must know too. She must agree,’ Ah Soon whispered, his head close to Alex’s.

‘I will tell her. She has been moved out to the old grandma’s estate at River Valley Road. I will go there and tell her. I know she wants to be with me.’

Ah Soon looked surprised. ‘How do you know?’

‘Never mind.’

Ah Soon looked doubtful, his lower lip falling between his yellow teeth. Alex grimaced.

‘You can’t touch her. You marry her and pretend like the marriage has been consummated. Take some blood into the bedroom somehow. I know what these old bibiks look out for. As soon as you are wed, you will show your father the letter I will send offering you a position at Brieswijk as a manager. I will pay the passage for you both.’

Ah Soon nodded. The plan seemed foolproof. ‘What shall I do at Brieswijk?’

‘Whatever you want. Grow rice, live in a kampong. Smoke opium all day if you wish. Have young maidens hanging all over you. Make lots of brown babies, or Chinese babies. I will endow them all with money galore and your children and mine will grow up together as we did.’

Both men grinned but a sudden doubt wormed into Ah Soon’s brain. ‘But you will be married to Amber. What will she say?’

Alex waved a hand in disdainful dismissal. ‘She will do has her husband tells her.’

‘But Lian is her school friend. I don’t know.’

Alex attacked his curry and rice, his face set hard. ‘Shut up. I want Lian. That’s all. You agree or not. If you don’t, I’ll come and get her anyway and if you’ve slept with her, I’ll kill you.’

Alex shot Ah Soon a look of pure venom. Ah Soon drank the rest of his beer. He knew Alexander meant every word.

24

The house at River Valley Road was one he remembered well. He had come here with Ah Soon, Qian and other children to play, for his Uncle Zhen always invited him and taught him Chinese expressions and how to do tai chi.

He left his horse tethered beyond the lake. When darkness fell he made his way to the house and watched as the evening meal preparations took place. Lian was in the kitchen with her grandmother. Lian never said a word as the old woman’s mouth moved constantly and she raised her finger time and again. Lian kept her head bowed and cut vegetables. The food was made and the odours of it wafted to him. Of the mad aunt he saw nothing.

He trailed Lian and finally saw where she slept. It was a small bedroom off the verandah. These houses were all built the same way. The shutters were locked with a small lever and, if it wasn’t more closely bolted inside, it was a matter of slipping a knife through and flicking it up.

The old woman seemed insomniac and he watched as she chewed her sireh and played cards with another old woman. A pretty young nonya seemed to be at their beck and call, preparing sireh, bringing drinks and snacks, hanging there, obediently waiting at the old woman’s elbow for the next order.

‘God,’ he thought, ‘will they never be done.’

It was two hours more before the lights were extinguished and the house settled down for the night. He took a close look at her room. On the verandah, directly under her window was an Indian guard on his cot. These guards were everywhere in the houses in the country for everyone feared Chinese burglars. But as a Chinese family, and the family of someone like Zhen, this house would never be attacked. English houses, Indian houses, Malay houses, those were the targets of the Chinese gangs.

Which meant the ancient Indian guard was the most relaxed man in the world and lay snoring, sleeping the sleep of the dead, on his cot on the edge of the verandah.

Alex stepped over the man and within a second he had opened the shutter and slipped into the room.

‘Lian,’ he whispered. ‘It’s me, Alex.’

The darkness was so total that he only heard her feet patter lightly on the floorboards and then she was in his arms, the soft material of her nightgown, her body against him.

‘Alex, my goodness. I’ve been so frightened,’ she whispered and he held her tight. ‘They will hold the vowing ceremony in three days. I shall be married.’

She began to cry quietly and he held her more tightly. His body craved her but his mind gave it pause. He wanted their first time to be wonderful, not fast, here in the dark like furtive creatures.

‘Come on. We need to talk.’ He climbed outside and lifted her into his arms, over the guard and onto the grass. ‘Go, quickly, to the pavilion.’

He closed the shutters and raced after her. They ran and ran, down to the Chinese pavilion by the lake, where the half moon lay resting in the water. Panting, they stood next to each other, her hand in his, looking at the beauty of the scene.

‘Listen to me. We have no time.’ Quickly he told her the plan. When he finished, she turned her gaze on him, pulling her hand from his.

‘Are you mad? I shall be your whore. That is your plan? Amber, my friend, will be your wife, and I will be your whore.’

‘No, you will be my wife in all but name, honoured and loved.’ Alex began to pace. ‘Lian, don’t think this way. What else can I do? Do you want to have Ah Soon’s brats, live a life of misery with him, under the constant eye of your grandmother or your aunts. Don’t you want to be with me?’

An owl hooted loudly and the wind rose and sighed in the trees. It made them jump but somehow the tension drained away.

‘How can we know the future? You must come and get away from here. We can decide when you are there.’

‘I can’t think. Oh God. Everything is going so fast. I don’t know what to do.’

‘I do. You will marry Ah Soon like a good obedient girl. You will not consummate the marriage. You will come to Batavia and we shall begin our life together, far from here, far from parents and grandmothers on my estate, where I will be the king. You understand.’

She said nothing and he felt all her fears and doubts.

‘My father …’

‘He has no power once you are married to Ah Soon. As his wife you must follow where he goes.’

‘But Amber …’

‘Don’t think about Amber. You go twenty steps ahead. I can divorce Amber. Right now I have to get you away from Singapore somehow.’ He took her hand, willing her to stay these objections. ‘I love you. Do you love me? That’s all that matters right now. Not a week from now. Right now. Don’t you see?’

She suddenly felt the iron enter her soul. She had endured chaos and misery living with her aunt. She did not even know her sisters or her brother. She had been given a certain kind of life, and now it was to be snatched away. The voice of her grandmother rang in her head. Other than the day all her wedding clothes had been chosen, when the old
sangkek um
was present in the house, she had not ceased to berate and bully her. Everything had been organised so fast she hardly had time to breathe, like some kind of military operation.

She and her aunt had been taken from their home and installed in River Valley Road. The date for the marriage ceremonies had been chosen. It was all done with unseemly haste. Within a fortnight she would be married.

This is what it would be like. Ah Soon was too weak to stand up to anyone. He would probably be dead of his addiction in a few years. And she would be here, with children, under the eye of her grandmother or aunts. Never free again. Alex was strong and resolute. He knew what he wanted and nothing would stand in his way.

‘Yes.’ She came into his arms and he breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I will write to you. The letters will be at the Post Office and Ah Soon will collect them.’

He took her hand and led her back to the house, walking silently, the feeling of absolute union fizzing through their hands. They loved each other and they were in this together. It was thrilling and wonderful. In the shadows he put her palm to his lips, then released her. She climbed into the window and pulled the shutters closed. He smiled, a feeling of triumph rilling through his blood.