The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo (2 page)

"Anyway, it isn't just the money," I said.
"Whatsisname deserves a thorough vivisection. I've read some of his
earlier works and those were quite good, but he's lost his grip in
this
Mimnaugh
. It's sentimental posturing—inelegant
language, ridiculous conclusions."

"That's candour," said Ravi approvingly. "Now
that's the Jade Yeo I know."

I did that silly thing I do where I cover my
mouth when I smile. I don't know where I learnt it from. It's a
horrible affectation, as if I were some innocent little
schoolgirl.

"I confess I don't know very much about the
literary elite of London," I said, so Ravi wouldn't notice it. "Is
Sebastian Hardie terrifically important?"

"He's well regarded," said Ravi. "Well off,
well connected, but also a genuinely serious thinker. I've attended
a couple of his lectures. He's an excellent speaker, and has
something of a following. And he knows absolutely everybody who
matters."

"Something of a sacred cow, then," I said
without thinking.

"I wouldn't quite put it in those terms,"
said Ravi carefully.

Of course he is Hindu! He was very nice about
it; the next thing he said was, "But yes, in effect."

But I felt dreadful about it. I haven't the
faintest idea, come to think of it, whether the term comes from the
golden calf in the Bible, or whether it is the British being rude
about Hinduism. The problem is that it might very well be the
latter, and either way it was an unfortunate thing to say.

The rest of the interview went smoothly
enough, but I went home feeling foolish. Ravi is the last person in
the world I should want to offend. He is one of the few kind people
I know who are also interesting.

Well—I will write him a letter tomorrow, or
the day after, and perhaps time will heal my wound. Really it is me
and not him I am worrying about, because I do not like to think of
him thinking ill of me.

I am sorry, Ravi!

I bought a cabbage at the market and had it
in the broth I made from the bones of the roast chicken I lived on
last week. Cabbage is a most unexciting vegetable, but I derive an
unfailing pleasure from it. What I really want now, though, is
winter melon soup, with pork bones. (Q: why is it called winter
melon? It can't only be grown in winter, since we had them back
home in the most tropical of climes. Is it a joke?)

It was a beautiful autumn day—the city glowed
in the sunlight and the skies were that truly cloudless blue you
never see back home. Sunshine is so precious here, though England
is sunnier than I thought it would be, having been told so often
about its greyness. I think it is because the greyness is so
depressing that it makes the sunshine all the more spectacular.

But it is certainly autumn. I folded my batik
and plaid sarongs and put them away for the next summer, when it
shall be warm enough for me to wear them again when I'm pottering
or writing or sleeping.

I wrote all the morning.—Oh, I almost forgot
the most exciting thing that happened today! Along with the usual
dreary bills (I hate bills, they should be outlawed), I received an
invitation to a party from none other than Sebastian Hardie
himself.

Sebastian Hardie! A party invitation would be
excitement enough—I haven't been to a party since my big cousin had
a wedding, and presumably she was made to invite me because I am a
relation. But to think of getting one from London's leading
literary luminary because one has been rude about his book. It is a
bit comic.

He has written on the card that he has read
my review of "what you were so kind as to call 'the terrible
Mimnaugh
'" in the
Oriental Literary Review
and
"should very much like to meet me". How ominous. I wonder if he
means to squash my presumption in person, or if it is a matter of
heaping coals on my head. (Q: why is it virtuous to heap coals on
your enemy's head? The disadvantages: singed hair; waste of coal;
difficulty of balancing more than three coals at the very most on a
person's head. I must find out.)

I do not know if I shall go. A party! And I
didn't even buy the dress I wanted after all. Ma turned up in my
dreams and told me to save the surplus. Would my mother approve of
my going to a party to meet a man I've been rude to?

I think I will go. It will be so interesting.
And after all even if he does laugh at me in front of everybody, it
does not matter: nobody knows me here.

There's too much to say about the party. I
hardly even know where to start.

I started to regret accepting the invitation
the minute a butler the approximate size of a mountain opened the
door. He looked at me as if he were wondering why I hadn't gone to
the traders' entrance. When I managed to persuade him that I had
been invited and was led to the drawing room, it was like being
plunged into a jungle full of hornbills and parrots. It was bright
and noisy and close and warm, and so horribly crowded with dashing
people all of whom knew each other, and none of whom I knew.

A nice Indian servant gave me a drink (I wish
I could have spoken to him). I skulked in a corner clutching it and
trying as hard as I could to look inscrutable and aloof, but
feeling scrutable and loof as anything.

It was one of those London townhouses that
have long narrow faces on the outside but turn out to have
unexpected dimensions on the inside—they go up and out forever. The
rooms were large, and the furnishings were beautiful, but almost
pointedly worn, just in case you thought they had been bought new.
I expect Hardie's great-grandfathers themselves obtained them in a
looting on some colonial excursion. There were some very bad
examples of Chinese porcelain on the mantelpiece.

The people were the sort of people whose
grandparents could have had chicken every day if they had wanted
it. The men were beautiful and the women looked intelligent. They
were a pleasure to gaze at, pretty as a picture and as real, but
the whole thing made me wish I read the papers more. At parties it
is as it is with gossip: it's not half as good if you don't know
who the players are.

One of the guests passed me her empty glass,
thinking I suppose that I was a servant, and I was just wondering
whether I should take it as an opportunity to make a break for the
kitchen and thence outside when someone tapped me on the
shoulder.

"Enjoying yourself?" said Ravi, nodding at
the two glasses I was holding.

"Oh, thank goodness," I said. It was such a
relief to see a familiar face. I could have hugged him. "Do you
know anyone here? I have no idea who anybody is. They really should
set up some sort of system. The butler could label people as they
came in. Just something discreet—a tag with their names and some
indication of their relative notoriety would do. A gold tag for the
Queen, silver for a Kipling. That sort of thing."

"I'm acquainted with some people here," said
Ravi. He looked around. "Of course, almost everyone you'd know by
sight or reputation."

"Are they important?" I said glumly. Ravi
smiled.

"It depends on what you mean by important,"
he said. "They're the sort of people who would benefit from being
seen at Hardie's party. And Hardie gains a certain cachet from
having them here."

He was too polite to ask what I was doing
there, so I explained:

"I was included because of that blasted
review. Hardie sent me an invitation, with a personal note and
everything. I thought it would be an experience."

"How are you finding it so far?" said
Ravi.

"I feel a bit of a tomato," I said. I looked
down at my bright red dress.

"Is that the one you bought with the proceeds
of 'The Well-Dressed Woman'?" Ravi remembers the things one has
said. It's a small thing, but it shows what sort of person he
is.

"No, it's an old dress," I said. "I decided
to save the money for my grandchildren."

"Well," said Ravi. He seemed about to swallow
his words before he said them, but then his mouth went firm and he
said, "Old or new, you look beautiful in it."

I expect I went as red as the dress. I was
trying to think of something graceful to say in reply when
thankfully Ravi stopped paying attention to me and started looking
at something over my shoulder. I turned around to see what it was,
and saw Sebastian Hardie.

"I'm very pleased to see you, Ravi," he said.
"I thought you might be too sensible to come."

"I'm afraid curiosity overcame sense for
once," said Ravi. "One knows there's always something worth turning
up for at your gatherings." He shook Hardie's hand. "May I
introduce you to my friend?"

"I'm not sure I need an introduction," said
Hardie. "'The terrible
Mimnaugh
', I presume?"

He wasn't what I expected at all. I'd seen
his picture in
Vogue
and so had known he was good-looking,
in the style of a Romantic poet living in the Lake District. He had
a long face with dark hair curling over a white forehead, and
wrinkles around his eyes that made him look melancholy when solemn
and sweet when he smiled. But he wasn't at all grand.

The most surprising thing about him in person
was that he struck one as being sincere. He had a very grave,
intense look that, when directed at one, made one feel one ought to
say something interesting to deserve it.

"Hardly anyone calls me that," I said
absurdly. Hardie smiled as if I'd made a joke. He had a nice smile
as well—one that quirked the ends of his mouth just slightly, so
that it had a quality of distance. He looked like he was smiling in
a daydream, or at the sound of children's laughter.

"It was kind of you to reply to my
invitation," he said. "You must forgive me for my importunacy. I
was grateful for the attention you gave
Mimnaugh
, even if
you didn't find the poor fellow to your liking."

"Oh," I said.

He was so good-looking! It is dreadful when
people are good-looking and pay attention to you. It rarely happens
to me, so I didn't know what to do with myself.

"I did like some of your other books," I
offered.

"Please don't apologise," said Hardie. "I
read your review with great interest, if not precisely pleasure—I'm
not quite advanced enough for that, I'm afraid. But it would have
been churlish to be offended. A really serious reader is a treasure
for any author."

I thought of the novelette on my bedside
table. It's sitting on top of
Dream of Red Chamber
, which I
have been meaning to read for ages, only I've misplaced my Chinese
dictionary somewhere, so I have been reading other things while
waiting for the dictionary to turn up.

Right now my substitute book is
The Duke's
Folly
. The Duke is searching for the naive yet spirited young
governess who has helped him throw off his malaise (dukes are
always in terrible danger of lapsing into a malaise; it must be all
that fox-hunting and quail). But the heroine has gone to the
country and is living with her amusing but embarrassingly
middle-class sister. I can't imagine the sort of face Hardie would
make if he came upon
The Duke's Folly
on his bedside table,
but I love reading it. It's like sinking into a warm bath, or
eating a bowl of congee with thousand-year eggs.

"I take all my reading seriously," I
said.

"I could tell. That is why I wanted to meet
you," said Hardie.

"Yes. I thought the review was written with
remarkable insight," said Ravi. Hardie's grave interested
expression wobbled a bit, but Ravi didn't seem to notice. He said
to me,

"Shall I get you another drink?"

"Yes—no—" But by the time I'd made up my mind
he was gone, leaving me alone with Hardie.

"There's an interesting mind," said Hardie,
looking after Ravi.

"Ravi is a brick," I said.

Hardie smiled that absent-minded smile. "One
does love him. But it remains to be seen whether there is true
originality there, or whether it is simply cleverness," he said.
"Now, you are a different matter."

It was difficult not to be flattered by that,
but—

"How do you know?" I said. "You've only just
met me. And you only read that one article. It was five hundred
words and mostly complaining."

"We've met before in a previous life, of
course," said Hardie. His face gleamed with humour. "Probably you
were a porcupine then. How did Ravi find you?"

"I found him," I said. "I went to the
doctor's one day and saw the
Oriental Literary Review
in the
waiting room, and I wrote down the editor's address and went to see
him the next day. I was quite surprised to find he was so young. I
thought he would be old and bearded, and wear moon-shaped
spectacles."

"Why did you go?" said Hardie.

"Oh, I fell and scraped my knee," I said. "It
sounds ridiculous but it hurt terribly. Has it ever happened to
you? It's as if your heart has picked itself up out of your chest
and moved down to your knee. It sits there and pulses. You feel
horribly exposed. And then the knee went filmy and yellow, and
started to drip—"

"Thank you, I have a clear enough idea," said
Hardie, grimacing. "I meant to ask why you went to find Ravi."

I knew that, of course. I suppose the
question isn't that personal in itself, but the answer is something
I'd rather not tell strangers. But Hardie's face was intent and
listening. He wasn't only pretending to be interested. I said,

"I'd already sold a few pieces to—" perhaps I
shouldn't mention my series on five ways to spruce up an old party
dress—"to some other magazines, and I thought he might pay me to
write things. But the other reason was because I was lonely."

"Were you?" Hardie looked at me. I thought he
was going to say something serious and philosophical about
loneliness, but instead he lifted his hand and traced the air just
above my cheekbones, almost touching me but not quite.