Hell to Heaven (23 page)

‘Uh, Emma…’ Simone looked around. ‘I can’t get you out of here. I can’t touch you, and that’s a good fifty-metre swim under the rock there through the cave.’

‘We have a problem,’ I said.

She concentrated. ‘The Phoenix is sending a long-tail boat for us, but we have to work out a way to get you through the cave. She wanted to know if you had an open-water licence, and I said no, but she said it’s irrelevant anyway because it’s not open water. So she’ll send a diver here with extra equipment for you, and all you have to do is breathe with the gear and they’ll take you through.’

‘Before I met your father I thought about getting my licence, but the course was too expensive for me on my kindergarten salary,’ I said.

‘You should; you could come out with me,’ she said.

‘I think I’d just slow you down.’

‘It would be fun to share that with someone,’ she said. ‘And I wouldn’t ask Leo.’

‘Did he ever tell you what happened to make him so terrified of water?’ I said.

‘No. He never told you?’

‘Never. Nobody knows.’

‘I hope he comes back soon,’ she said wistfully.

The truck engine that propelled the long-tail boat was too loud for us to have any sort of decent conversation, so we sat in silence as it took us back to the resort beach. The boat looked like every other long-tail in the area, with a long spar rising from the bow, decorated with a few brightly coloured silk scarves, and the engine set on top of a long metal pole on the back with a propeller on the end. It was a noisy and uncomfortable way to travel, but also the most traditional way.

The Phoenix met us at the beach. The human diver who had guided me out through the cave lifted us off the boat so that we could wade in to meet her.

‘That was such a theme-park ride,’ I said as we walked up the beach to where her golf buggy was waiting.

‘Was it that exciting?’ the Phoenix said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘That fake. We were just talking about fake things, and there we go, riding on a fake long-tail boat.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the Phoenix said, confused.

‘It’s made of
fibreglass
,’ I said. ‘The real ones are made of beautiful teak, and the older and more loved they are, the more the wood shines. I’ve seen them. That one,’ I waved dismissively at the boat, ‘was a fake.’

She shook her head as we boarded the golf buggy. ‘You’re right. They are passed down from generation to generation, and some of the boats on Phuket have been passed down through many generations. But when the tsunami came, hundreds of the boats were destroyed. We worked out how much timber we would need to rebuild them and it was more forest than the country even owns. So I imported some experts from overseas to build replacement boats for the fishermen and water taxi operators out of fibreglass instead of timber. They’re cheaper to build, just as robust, and they have the bonus of not destroying any of our precious forests. The only disadvantage is they do not have the polished beauty of the originals.’

‘You’re helping replace them?’ Simone said.

The Phoenix nodded. ‘Nearly all of them are done. In some cases, they were able to salvage the timber off
the old boat and rebuild, but many lost their boats altogether. You are right, Emma, they do look like plastic. But they are giving the people of the island their livelihoods back.’

‘I don’t know how I can apologise enough,’ I said. ‘I guess I see too much artificiality in Hong Kong, and now see it everywhere.’

‘Reality is an illusion anyway,’ the Phoenix said. ‘All is artificial, all is perception. The truth is a lie. Each of us exists in our own universe.’

‘Whoa,’ Simone said. ‘Zen.’

‘Small Wheel, not Zen,’ the Phoenix said. ‘We follow a more traditional teaching, without the pretentious navel-gazing of the Eastern sects.’

‘I can just see the Dragon doing that,’ I said.

‘Oh, the Dragon is more Zen than anyone,’ the Phoenix said. ‘He can spend four or five hours performing an elaborate tea ceremony and in the end pass you an exquisitely hand-produced cup full of tea that is cold, extremely bitter and quite revolting—usually with a dead fly in the bottom that he never noticed.’

As we headed back to our villa, the staff were setting up tables and stringing lights along the roofline of the central area of the resort.

‘That’s for the night market,’ the Phoenix said. ‘We have one once a week. The locals come in and display their ridiculously overpriced wares for the tourists.’

‘Where should we go for wares that aren’t ridiculously overpriced?’ Simone said.

‘Patong—ask Kwan to take you,’ the Phoenix said. ‘But there are some items in our market that are only available here. There are some craftsmen on the island who are more like studio artists, and I encourage them
to display their work here and charge a premium for it. People will be coming from other resorts in the complex to see what’s up for sale; it will be fun.’

‘What time?’ I said.

‘Six till nine.’

‘Let’s have some dinner now—I’m starving—and then go have a look,’ Simone said, her face bright with pleasure.

‘Would you like to join me for dinner?’ the Phoenix said.

‘We’d be delighted,’ I said.

‘Good. Go shower and change, then ask Kwan to bring you to the main lobby. We’ll eat in my private room, then have a look at what’s happening at the market.’

The tropical sunset flared flaming red and orange in the sky above us, the dark silhouettes of the palm trees providing a colourful contrast. The warm, humid breeze picked up slightly just as the Phoenix dropped us at the front of our villa. It was filled with the fragrance of jasmine and frangipani from the scented candles that Kwan had lit for us. He had turned down each bed, and a colourful sarong wrapped with a ribbon and an orchid lay on each of our pillows.

Simone stopped for a moment to gaze at the spectacular sky, then grinned at me and disappeared into her bathroom.

S
imone and I chose to walk back through the gardens together to the central complex, admiring the bobbing purple orchids, birds-of-paradise and hibiscus flowers. Above, the sky faded from its brilliant hues to a pale lilac and then to a dark blue, and stars began to appear.

‘The Tiger asked Michael to come and help while Leo’s in Hell,’ Simone said. ‘He’ll meet us at the restaurant.’

‘We don’t really need him, we have you…’ I started, then shrugged. ‘Okay, if you’re busy in the water or something, he’ll come in handy if I’m attacked.’

The lights of the lobby lit up the gardens around it. Michael was waiting there for us, in a pair of expensive pre-ripped jeans and a white-and-yellow horizontal-striped polo shirt. He fell to one knee and saluted us, the movement incongruous in his modern clothing.

‘Pity I missed seeing the Dark Lord,’ he said. He nodded to us. ‘Hope you don’t mind me tagging along? My father sent word when he found out Leo got killed. Was he all right? It didn’t hurt him too much, did it?’

‘It almost took off one of his legs before it killed him,’ Simone said, obviously upset. ‘I should have moved sooner.’

Michael stepped back and gestured for us to go first. ‘That would not be doing him a favour, Princess. You’d wound his pride, and that would hurt more than having a leg taken off. Oh, Emma.’ He turned to me. ‘Your snake spacesuit is ready—Dad says any time you want to give it a try, hop on up. He’ll take you on a ride into the stratosphere so you can see how it goes.’

‘I need to be able to move in it, I can’t just be carried,’ I said.

‘His people don’t know whether you’ll be able to move in it or not. It depends what sort of serpent movement you use.’

‘I have no idea,’ I said.

‘You might have to try being a sidewinder.’

‘Now there’s a scary thought,’ I said. ‘What about your job? Are you okay to take some time off?’

‘This comes first,’ he said.

On the left of the lobby stood the resort’s signature Thai restaurant; a hostess dressed in a traditional Thai silk dress of the same rich red as the furnishings waited at the entrance. She clasped her hands, bowed low and touched her hands to her face when she saw us, and gestured for us to go in.

‘Suddenly I feel horribly underdressed,’ Simone said.

The private room was set up like a Chinese karaoke/dinner/mah-jongg room, with a large-screen TV on one wall and a twelve-seater table. Two of the walls were floor-to-ceiling glass and overlooked the massive pool that was lit with numerous underwater lights, making the water glow. Loi kratongs made of
bamboo and shaped like lotus flowers with a candle in the centre floated on the water, completing the entrancing scene.

‘And who is this?’ the Phoenix said with curiosity, smiling at Michael.

‘I am the three hundred and fifteenth son of the White Tiger,’ Michael said. ‘Not a Horseman, just a friend of the family.’

‘Michael!’ I said, shocked. ‘That is so wrong! Your mother would be horrified to hear you relegating yourself to a number.’

‘I know,’ he said, grinning at me. He turned back to the Phoenix and saluted her. ‘My real name is Michael MacLaren.’

‘Your mother was the woman who…’ The Phoenix’s voice trailed off.

‘Yes, she was the one who was crowned Empress of the West and died when she drank the Elixir of Immortality,’ Michael said, his levity disappearing.

The Phoenix’s smile warmed. ‘I heard she was an exceptional lady. You have certainly gained a lot from her.’

Michael nodded. ‘Thank you, ma’am. I’ve known the Dark Lord’s family since I was fifteen, and I was chosen to take Leo’s place if he died of AIDS. As that never happened, I spend my time on the Earthly, living as a normal human.’

‘I vaguely remember seeing you around the household.’ She leaned her chin on her hand and continued to smile at him. ‘You should not waste yourself on the Earthly, there is so much to see on the Celestial! How much time do you spend in the south? I’d love to show it to you.’

‘Uh…’ Michael began, and Simone rescued him.

‘Michael, after dinner could you walk with me through the markets? There are so many cool things we can look at,’ she said.

Michael turned with obvious relief. ‘We haven’t spent nearly enough time together lately, Simone.’

The Phoenix immediately understood and leaned back. ‘Check the menus, see what you’d like. How spicy do you like your food? I have a terrible craving for a papaya salad right now, a really
hot
one.’

‘I’m not really into terribly hot food,’ Simone said, unsure.

‘I am. How’s the tomyum?’ Michael said.

‘Might be a little fiery even for your taste, Michael,’ I warned. ‘This lady swims in lava and sleeps in volcanos, remember.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ Michael said.

‘I’ll have a pot of tomyum to share,’ the Phoenix said. ‘Pineapple rice for the Princess with the spoilt Chinese taste, and some char-grilled beef and chicken. Curry, anyone?’

‘Yellow for me, please,’ I said. ‘Vegetarian.’

‘If you can get me a really
hot
red curry with beef in it…’ Michael’s face was full of pleasure.

‘I like you more and more all the time,’ the Phoenix said. She turned to me. ‘Where
have
you been hiding him?’ She realised what she’d said, raised her hands and laughed. ‘That came out the wrong way! I’m sorry, I can’t help it sometimes. I just really enjoy being a woman.’

‘How long have you been female?’ Simone said, curious.

‘Only about three hundred years. I did it because I wanted to experience motherhood. It is so rewarding that I never really looked back. I wouldn’t try to do it
the Western way; I don’t know how they cope—trying to raise children and hold down sometimes even a full-time job at the same time, without a domestic helper.’ She nodded to me. ‘Can’t understand why your country doesn’t have maids. All of Asia does it; it improves the livelihood of the helper, and frees the employer from being a domestic slave. Maybe Australians like their women to be domestic slaves. Anyway.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe I will tire of it in a couple of hundred years or so, but as long as there are young men like Michael around, I don’t think I will.’

‘Did you like men before?’ I said.

‘It has a great deal to do with the hormones in the form I take,’ she said. ‘I really don’t understand this business about making a fuss over preference; a beautiful form is a beautiful form. But the female hormones seem to make me appreciate a beautiful male form more. Of course, sometimes there’s a girl I’ll meet…’ Her expression became wistful, then she snapped back. ‘But I haven’t yet met anybody that has made me want to change back into a rooster. The feathers are the same, the tail is the same, so there’s really no point.’

‘But aren’t you like…married to the Dragon or something?’ Simone said. ‘You two are the matching pair: phoenix and dragon.’

‘We are, but it’s more like…’ She hesitated, thinking. ‘It’s more like the marriage of the Emperor and Empress. Full of ritual and symbolism, with very little feeling in it, and both of us pursue our pleasure elsewhere.’

‘That’s one way you differ from traditional Empresses,’ Michael said.

‘Oh, not really that much,’ she said. ‘This Phoenix–Dragon pairing was only introduced in the
Qing anyway. Before that, the Taoists made the Dragon and the Tiger symbolic of yang and yin; quite ironic really.’

‘Since they’re the Lesser Yang and Yin,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘Exactly. The Tiger and Dragon wouldn’t have anything to do with that, much to the Jade Emperor’s annoyance. I can still hear the Tiger shouting, “No way am I taking female form. I am Emperor of the West, not one of that bastard’s
women
!” The Heavens are supposed to mirror the Earthly, but in that case there was severe dissonance. Caused some backlash on the Earthly, made things very chaotic.’

‘I love how the Greater Yang—the most masculine power of all—is a woman, and the Greater Yin, the most feminine, is a man,’ Simone said. ‘It’s like you two decided together that you were going to rub the Taoist shamans’ faces in it.’

‘That’s just the way it happened,’ she said. ‘And your father is yang and yin combined in his two-creature form. He is much stranger and more complex than any of us.’