SQ 04 - The English Concubine (5 page)

‘Amber!’ Charlotte looked severely at her niece. Lian put her hand to Amber’s.

‘Of course we do not wish such a wicked thing. I ask only that you speak to my father. Try to persuade him away from this marriage.’

Charlotte poured the tea and handed the cups. The two girls drank and looked at her over the rims. She never spoke to Zhen about his Chinese family. They discussed everything else but on this issue he was silent. How would he take her interference? Not well, she imagined. On the matter of Alexander he had agreed to her wishes, though he did not like it. On the matter of Lily they both agreed that she would be raised as both a Chinese and English girl. Of course they knew that, in this manner, Lily, with an English education, would be more English than Chinese but Zhen seemed to have accepted that as well. But this was different.

Something in Charlotte felt repulsed suddenly. Lian’s quiet beauty, why was this to be given away to an opium addict? She would be miserable until the end of her days.

‘I will speak to Zhen,’ she said and Amber squealed.

‘Thank you,’ Lian said, and tears welled in her eyes.

‘There, there. No promises,’ she said and now was not sure of what she had started.

There was a sudden flurry of activity as Lily’s Chinese maid brought her from her nap. Charlotte held her sleepy child, her face so much that of Alex as a baby. When she had woken fully, Amber and Lian kissed her and began to run around chasing her playfully. Lian caught her and held her over her head, making Lily giggle. Lily was a lovely child, so quiet and peaceful. She was so very pretty and almost never cried or fussed. After sons, Charlotte had not expected the pleasure of this daughter.

The rattan ball was produced and Lian and Amber began to throw it around, showing Lily how to catch.

Malik arrived with a tray and Charlotte picked up the note and consulted her watch.

‘Girls, you must think of going. Lian, your father will here within the hour.’

The two girls kissed Lily again and bobbed a curtsy to Charlotte then raced across the lawn and into the house. Charlotte took Lily on her knee and opened the picture book to the story of Cinderella.

5

She gazed into the mirror, running the tip of her finger over the fine lines at the corner of her eyes, and glanced at her hands which betrayed the laxity of time.

‘Charlotte Macleod, where did the years go?’

Her skin was good but the sun, no matter how hard one tried, was harsh. Her waist had coarsened a little after the birth of Lily, despite all the efforts of her Javanese maids with their balsams and bindings, but her bosom was firm. Her eyes were clear and she knew the violet depths still attracted Zhen.

He had suddenly decided to come to her in the middle of the afternoon. She knew what he wanted and now she thought of nothing else. She had felt distanced from him. The news of Alex had caused her anxiety. Adam had written that there were debts, that Aunt Jeanne’s health had been affected. Now too, this morning, she had received news of even greater trouble in Batavia with the business of Manouk & Son, from which she drew a good portion of her fortune. Something was very wrong in Semarang and she hardly understood what it was.

She pulled a grey strand from the thick black hair which framed her face. She was slightly depressed. And now the slide into middle age. When would it start to make a difference to him?

The door opened and she turned.

‘I’m glad you came,’ she said.

Zhen flung off his coat. His undershirt was wet with sweat and clung to his upper body. He was aroused. The room pulsated with his sexual excitement and she caught it and flew into his arms.

His lips met hers in urgency and she responded, crushing her mouth to his, encircling his head in her arms. He pulled her closer to him so hard she let out a small cry. He took her hand and put it to the bulge between his legs and let slip a small groan of pleasure. This intense need of her made her mad for him.

* * *

She rose from the bed and poured water into the bowl. She wet the sponge and came back to him, squeezing the water on his chest and around his neck. He put his hand to her breast and his lips to her neck.

‘Lovemaking in the afternoon is folly in this climate. You have half killed me. And we took no precautions and you were less, well, controlled than usual.’ She kissed his lips gently. ‘Which I love, but if I get pregnant …’

‘Not what you said only a short time ago,’ he said and grinned, ‘“Oh Zhen. Don’t stop. Don’t …”’

She pulled away and threw the wet sponge at him.

‘What has happened? I don’t attribute your intense arousal to just missing me, especially when I’ve been so distracted.’

Zhen contemplated her, wild-looking, with her black hair a riot around her face and streaming down her back. She was as lovely as when he had seen her for the first time, even more when she was flushed from loving him. It bruised his heart.

‘You are beautiful,’ he murmured but her words came over his.

‘I have ice. An ice shipment came in as ballast yesterday from America and I took half.’

She rang the bell and when the maid knocked went to the door.

‘Ice,’ she said through it, ‘and more water.’

She went into his arms and felt him, slippery under her fingers. She traced the line of his body. He didn’t seem to age; his body was as sleek as twenty years ago. She lay her cheek on his hard abdomen and played with him. She loved him like this. He felt vulnerable, not rampant.

‘Do you remember our first time?’ she said.

‘Everything.’

‘Is it the same for you?’

‘Not the same. Nothing can be like the first time. But if you mean do I still like to pleasure you with the same passion, then it is the same.’

‘You might have just said yes,’ she said, and he smiled.

They had met and fallen dangerously in love and they had been alive and then they had been apart and it had been like death. Pregnant with his child, she had fled to Batavia and married rich and safe Tigran. She had given birth to Alexander, his son, longing for him, lonely years spent longing for him. And it was the same for him. He had married and made children and gone through the days as one is forced to do for there is no other choice, and when she had come back, years later, again pregnant but this time with Tigran’s child, nothing had changed. They had come together as if the years between had not existed. And then she had been pulled away again, back to Batavia, to misery, and more time had passed and then he had come to her and she had made a choice, because he was married and it was all too impossible. She had stayed with Tigran and found contentment until he had died, thrown from his horse. And, for a long time, she had not wanted anything at all. It all seemed like a tale of another life. But perhaps that was what the past was. A fairytale.

He caressed her hair as she caressed him.

‘I love you,’ she said.

She felt him twitch and she laughed. But it was always a small disappointment. He never said the words. She understood it was not in his nature to express such things in this way. He sent her poetry, full of flowery expressions of adoration and longing, pearls and the sea, jade and phoenixes, smoke and misty mountains. It was lovely. But just once, Charlotte thought, I would just once like to hear the words.

The maid knocked. Charlotte rose, threw on a robe and took the ice and water.

‘In an hour bring Lily,’ she said and turned her head to Zhen. He nodded.

She opened the container packed around with watery saltpetre to keep it cold and slipped a chip between his lips. She took all the jagged blocks and poured the water and the ice into the bowl.

‘Quick, it melts so fast.’

She let slip the robe and he rose and they plunged their hands in the water, the blocks crashing against each other, splashing their faces and bodies, laughing with the invigorating pleasure of it. She took the sponge dripping with the icy water and squeezed it over his head. He pulled her against him, wet and cool, and kissed her, the melted ice from his mouth on her lips.

‘I will stay here tonight,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she murmured against his mouth. ‘Cook will make your favourite dishes.’

‘Malik will not approve.’

She smiled. ‘No.’

She took the sponge, saturated and heavy, and began to sponge his body, watching the water drip from his arms, over the muscles of his chest, then to his back, the water coursing into his lustrous queue, and spilling onto the skin of his buttocks, so hard, so silken, this silent passage of the sponge and its coursing water over every part of his perfect body so pleasurable she could never have put it into words.

It was always a thing of wonder, the way he abandoned himself so easily to his own sensuality. He made this natural, this unconscious enjoyment of sensation and the compulsions it inspired. He had neither shame nor guilt for any aspect of their sexual life. On the contrary, as a Taoist he had explained that the principle of sexual pleasure was built into its beliefs and essential for health. The guilt-laden European concepts about love and sex were so alien to him that he hardly understood when she tried to explain.

He wound his fingers into her hair, gripping her hard and moved close to her, dominating her. She knew his emotions had spilled over into darker desires. She felt them too, intense and disturbing. His body was tense, coiled. She shuddered and he pulled her head back and gazed into her eyes, a straight dark look.

‘Trust me,’ he said and her pulse went wild.

‘Zhen,’ she said, hot with embarrassment, sliding her eyes away.

He didn’t move, waiting, judging if she really wanted him to stop. Sometimes, not often, this mood came over them like a dark cloak but she always resisted.

‘I know you want it and I know how to do it, a little pain adds to pleasure, just enough. Sometimes I need this too.’

He gripped her hair harder, put his hand to her neck, squeezing lightly and took her mouth in his. She moaned, her breath became short. She began to tremble and her hands came against his chest pushing him.

‘Trust me,’ he murmured against her mouth but her struggles against him intensified. It was arousing but he recognised her fear and that was not what he wanted.

He dropped his hands and took her in his arms to calm her tremblings.

‘You have to trust me completely. It takes time.’

‘I trust you,’ she whispered, ‘but something … I can’t let go.’

‘I know. It’s all right.’

She lay against him, recovering her breath. The thoughts of this kind of sex with him came often, but she hadn’t, despite all the sexual play they enjoyed, yet found the courage to go down that road.

She put on her robe and took up a brush to make sense of the tangle of her hair. He settled back on the bed and closed his eyes.

Sometimes he wanted this, he said. She had never considered this before, that he had desires of which he did not speak, which she did not fulfil. Does he go elsewhere to quench these dark wants? To women who refuse him nothing. To the prostitutes in the town? I wouldn’t know, she thought. She gazed at him lying quietly, his brown skin against the white sheets.

‘What do you know of this new governor?’ he said.

She frowned.

‘Since we were on the subject.’ He smiled and sat up cross-legged. She dismissed these wormlike and corrosive thoughts gladly.

‘Well, he has one good leg and is a hero. Robert says he knows even less than most about the affairs of the Straits. Being an Indian civil servant he cannot speak Malay or Chinese nor knows anything about the peoples and cultures of the south seas. He is a soldier so has no idea about commerce and apparently is said to love Lord Canning, the Governor of India, more than his wife.’

Zhen smiled.

‘He knows nothing and doubtless is arrogant and proud of the fact and therefore perfect for his position. Robert is hoping that, being a darling of the said Canning, he will get some money out of him for his police force to fight the crime and disturbances in your part of the town.’

She turned and looked pointedly at him.

‘You Chinese are the problem.’

‘Ah, yes. Well, if the British lion wishes to rule Malaya, he must ride the Chinese dragon.’

She thought about this. ‘That is true and well put.’

‘Thank you. We are sixty thousand more than you. That is most of the problem. And just more money from India will not solve it. It’s more complicated than that.’

‘Is it? You should tell Robert.’

‘I cannot do that. Xia Lou, come here.’

She rose and went into his arms and rested her head against his shoulder.

‘Listen to me carefully. After tonight I cannot come to you again for three months.’

She attempted to rise but he held her tight against him.

‘There is something I must do for the kongsi. I must distance myself from you for this time.’

Charlotte digested this information. What little she understood about these brotherhood organisations was that they were like the freemasons. They swore oaths and had rituals. She knew they helped the poor Chinese coolies who swamped the town. She knew Zhen gave money to the boys’ schools at the temples and to the Chinese hospital, that he was important in his clan association. But what all this truly meant she had no idea.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I am a bondsman. I swore an oath of obedience. I have no choice.’

She ran her finger over the tattoo of Guan Yu, the god of these brotherhoods, whose stern red face adorned Zhen’s chest. He had been a sort of policeman for them in China and had needed them when he came to Singapore. Robert said they were dangerous, but the government did nothing to stop them or regulate them. Indeed the governor entertained them for they were the mechanism of control over the entire Chinese community. Were they vital social organisations for the Chinese, or gangs of thugs? Whampoa and other Chinese merchants she had come to know well were members so it was slightly beyond her but she understood the kongsi was the bewhiskered head of the Chinese dragon Zhen spoke of.

Zhen waited.

‘And this thing means you cannot be with me? Do you want this?’ she said.