Ruddy Gore (25 page)

‘Indeed one cannot direct one’s heart,’ said Lin Chung, emptying his teacup and allowing the waiter to fill it again.

‘And sometimes it wanders into strange places,’

she agreed. The waiter heaped steamed rice into a small bowl for her, and produced an array of dishes. ‘Salt-and-pepper squid, chicken with lemon and Cantonese mushrooms and vegetables,’ said Lin Chung, waiting for her to make a choice.

Phryne took some mushrooms.

She could not identify any of the vegetables in the leafy mixture, and she considered it carefully as she ate. Nuts, perhaps? Was that a spinachy taste along with a bland watery crunch? Fascinating.

A rhythmic sound like the scrape of a wire brush on a drum attracted her interest. The young men in the corner were playing some sort of game. It involved laying a certain number of beans on the table, then shaking and tossing a handful of sticks.

‘What are they playing?’

‘Fan Tan. It is an odds-and-evens game. One 249

bets on the number which turns up.’

‘Yes, somehow I didn’t think they were playing spillikins. Isn’t that illegal? Betting, I mean?’

‘Who can say that they are betting? There are only beans on the table, not money.’ Lin Chung deliberately adopted an inscrutable expression and held out both hands. ‘So solly, Mist’ P’leeceman.

No understan’.’

‘So solly indeed. You disconcert me when you do that,’ complained Phryne.

‘Disguise, Silver Lady. Concealment. Protective colouration. If a Chinese wants to live in a foreign country he has to be twice as clever as the inhab-itants and make perfectly sure that they never suspect it.’

‘Not a new idea,’ said Phryne, helping herself to squid. ‘Women have been doing that for a thousand years.’

Lin Chung laughed.

For the second time in the evening the cafe´ fell silent. Even the brush of the Fan Tan sticks ceased.

In walked the girl Phryne knew as Annie, Hu San-niang. She was radiant with joy. Her hair was loose and brushed until it shone and she was dressed in a red satin tunic over black trousers.

Behind her came an old woman and a tall young man.

They sat down at a table next to Lin Chung and Phryne. No one spoke. The air slowly thickened.

Lin was looking across the room at the family party, where an old man was slowly getting to his feet, assisted by two men.

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Phryne wondered if she would have to produce her little gun. The air of menace increased until the atmosphere was close to inflammable. Every step the old man made was audible. Women grabbed children and drew back against the walls.

‘What’s happening?’ whispered Phryne, and Lin Chung put a finger to his lips.

‘Later,’ he said, so quietly that she had to lean close to hear him.

Thump, thump, came the ancient’s feet. San-niang’s face was blank but she bit her lip. The young man reached out and took her hand.

Then the old man spoke. His voice seemed flat but Phryne could not read the nuances in the toned speech. She watched Annie.

The girl flinched, then spoke up, retaining her hold on the young man’s hand. The old man spoke again, beckoning her to come. She shook her head so that the black hair sprayed across her face and stayed where she was.

The old woman walked forward and said something to the old man, who replied quickly. The old woman was not cowed. She stood back on her heels and scolded, her voice high and angry, gesturing at the young man. Then she looked at Lin Chung, who said something and made a pushing gesture with both hands.

Phryne was fascinated. The cafe´ held its breath.

In a moment, it seemed, consensus was reached and everyone returned to their chairs and began to eat again. The Fan Tan players resumed their game. The old woman, accompanied by Annie and 251

her lover, walked across the room to the family, where more chairs were arranged to accomodate them. Lin Chung was still tense. His eyes were fixed on the group. But when the old woman and the old man raised cups and said something in unison, he relaxed and groped for his cup of tea.

Phryne refilled his cup and said, ‘What happened?’

‘Mr Li told me that it was all solved. This must be what he meant. Annie has left my grandmother’s care and gone to join the Li family. It is their eldest son who is holding her by the hand in shameless defiance of all custom, may he live forever, bless him. That is the Hu family, and now Annie will go back to them to prepare for her marriage and I have repudiated all claim on her. I am free.’

He smiled across the room at Annie who smiled in return and left her seat to join them.

‘It’s all fixed!’ she announced in English, sounding like a schoolgirl announcing that she had passed algebra at last. ‘Hello, Miss Fisher. I’m sorry I snapped at you that night, but they were going to exchange Grandmother for me and I really do love Tommy. Oh, Lin, I’m so happy.

Now you don’t have to marry me and I don’t have to marry you and I’ve got Tommy Li and Grandfather has forgiven me and you’ve got Miss Fisher.’

Lin Chung coughed. ‘Oh, sorry, Miss Fisher, I didn’t mean that,’ Annie rattled on. ‘I mean, I . . .

er . . . anyway, it’s all worked out for the best.’

‘So it has and I hope you’ll be very happy,’ said 252

Phryne warmly, reflecting that she had said that a lot lately. Was everyone in the world convinced that they had found their perfect mate?

And then again, she might have found hers. Not forever – Phryne resisted forevers. But for a while, certainly for a while, until his family decided that he must marry a girl of the right class and background – until then, she had found a very delightful man.

The delightful man bestowed a few phrases in Cantonese on Annie which sent her back to her own family with the speed of the fairly rebuked.

‘Phryne, that thoughtless girl . . . ’ His brow creased in a frown. ‘I regret the implication . . . ’

‘I think it’s a perfectly good implication,’ said Phryne, pinching up some delectable lemon chicken. ‘You said yourself that I am a courtesan, my dear. I think we can live and make love with mutual respect and joy – don’t you? I have no desire to marry and I can please myself. What do you think?’

‘I think . . . I think that you are right,’ he said carefully. ‘I will accept your bargain, Silver Lady, and spend with you all the nights of spring.’

‘Wrong season,’ she commented, resisting an urge to melt.

‘All nights with you are nights of spring,’ he responded.

Against custom, he put out his hand and she grasped it.

‘Now, tell me all about calling up spirits,’ she said, reining in her baser emotions. She was 253

positive that if hand-holding was seen as shameless, then the kind of thing she had in mind would be a complete social outrage.

‘On stage?’ he asked ‘Oh. Well, yes. All you need is a competent painter, a sheet of glass, and a light.’

He talked steadily through the remains of the food and the almond soup which concluded the meal and Phryne listened carefully.

They left the restaurant and knocked at the door of a small shop. There a Mr Koh, dressed in pyjamas and slippers, listened to Lin’s request and showed them into the shop, flicking on the light.

‘These are glass sleeves which fit over a light bulb,’ said Lin Chung. ‘You put the scent in them and when the globe warms, the perfume is dif-fused. It might be a good idea to buy one, since we have got Mr Koh out of bed.’ Phryne purchased three of the delicate sleeves and let Mr Koh return to the virtuously early couch of those who get up at five o’clock in the morning to go down to the docks.

They then had a short consultation with the herbalist Mr Li, to whom Phryne offered her con-gratulations on the engagement of his grandson.

She purchased from him a small phial of dark oil, and left the shop carrying it gingerly, as though it might explode.

‘Lin, I have to go back to the theatre. Can you put on some working clothes and come with me?’

she asked, pausing outside the Chinese mission. ‘I 254

think I know how the ghost is being produced, but I have to check.’

‘Certainly,’ he agreed. ‘Come in, Silver Lady,’ he invited, opening the warehouse door. ‘I must in any case tell Grandmother what has happened about San-niang. If she has not already heard, which I expect she has.’

He brought her through the warehouse, replete with fascinating scents, and into a reception room.

It was walled with polished wood on which hung scroll pictures. Phryne was left alone while Lin went to find his grandmother, and she inspected the pictures and a delicate statue of the Goddess of Mercy, Kuang Yin. The hands and face and feet were made of the palest porcelain, barely tinted, but the robe was a highly coloured and textured gilt slip, draped around the figure.

She was contemplating a painting of a branch just breaking into blossom with bright red flowers against a black stem on a white background when she heard a stir at the door as the old lady of the Lin family appeared.

‘Miss Fisher,’ she said in a voice as dry as autumn leaves, ‘I believe that you have some involvement with my grandson.’ She spoke excellent English, with a strong, lilting accent. It was disconcerting, as though the emphases were all on the wrong syllables.

‘I have,’ said Phryne steadily. The gaze of the dark eyes was as hypnotic as a snake’s, though not inimical.

‘He has spoken about you. I have listened. I 255

believe that you will do him no harm,’ pronounced Grandmother Lin. ‘I am pleased with you.’

Phryne did not know what to say. She waited.

‘Do you like that painting? It is an allegory. New flowers spring out of dead wood; blossoms are opposed to snow. A tree, however, cannot do other than produce flowers and leaf in season. A plum tree cannot produce quinces; neither can a melon vine grow cherries. Each tree is required to reproduce its own kind when the time is right.’

‘I understand,’ said Phryne. She was being warned against trying to take Lin Chung away from his heritage and his destiny as the eldest son of the Lin family. Since she had no intention of doing that, she could reply with a good conscience.

‘I wouldn’t try to convince any peach tree to produce oranges.’

‘In that case, you will have no more watchers,’

said Mrs Lin, and drifted away.

Lin Chung, dressed in workman’s trousers and a khaki shirt, escorted a slightly shocked Phryne back into the street some ten minutes later.

Phryne unlocked the stage door and took her accomplice inside. The lights were off. It was as dark as the inside of a coal mine.

‘Your grandmother . . . ’ said Phryne.

‘What did she say to you?’ demanded Lin Chung quickly.

‘I think those men were sent by her, to make sure I didn’t seduce you away from your destiny,’

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she whispered. He was reassured by the undercur-rent of laughter in her voice.

‘It’s possible. She is a woman of strong purpose.

Did she agree to . . . ’

‘Our liaison? Yes. I am approved. Now, I need the fuse box.’ He heard her collide with something hard. ‘Damn! That’s the stage doorkeeper’s little coop. The switches should be here.’ A light clicked on. ‘Yes, and here are the working spots.

Good.’

‘Won’t someone wonder why the lights are on in a theatre at this time of night?’ asked Lin, following her determined back up the steps.

‘No, it’s common to work all night. Now,’ she said, stopping under the lighting gantry, ‘climb, and see if you can find what we’re searching for while I have a look at these globes.’

Phryne walked under the electric lights which lined the corridor leading to the stage.

‘This is where everyone has seen her,’ she mused.

‘They were about here when . . . aha.’

She fetched a chair, climbed up, sniffed at the cheap tin shade and turned toward the stage as she heard a rustle. Then she froze in pure superstitious horror. Ice-water gushed into her veins.

There in the entrance was a woman in Rose Maybud’s costume, her sunbonnet thrown back, her black hair flowing down over her shoulders.

Phryne could see through her, yet she was undeniably real. Phryne could not move.

Then she gathered her courage, leapt down, and ran toward the ghost.

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Someone caught her arm and swung her around.

‘Care, take care, Phryne! She’s glass and glass is fragile,’ came Lin Chung’s voice. ‘Convincing, isn’t it?’

‘You could have warned me!’ gasped Phryne.

‘How is it done?’

‘It’s a glass slide, just a big piece of glass in a frame the same size as the door. The image is painted on the glass with the dye they use for gels.

You can’t see her unless there is a light at the right angle. I found this one lashed and knew it must be the one – it doesn’t point at the stage. In ordinary light the phantom is invisible. When not in use the slide is hauled up to lie flat against the wall. No one would notice it among all the other things hanging up there.’

‘Is there another one?’ asked Phryne, still amazed at the effectiveness of the illusion.

‘No, why?’

‘Still doesn’t dispose of the ghost,’ she said, a little breathless. ‘Leila saw her in another costume.’

‘That cannot be explained. This is the only glass slide here,’ said Lin Chung definitely. ‘Such good craftsmanship! It’s nearly soundless.’ He hauled on the line and the ghost rose and vanished. Lin Chung secured the rope to a bracket on the wall.

‘Well, Missee,’ he bowed, ‘there is your ghost.’

‘Yes. Now we have to search again. You take that side, I’ll take this.’

In ten minutes, Phryne had found a glass sleeve, 258

identical to those which she had just purchased, in a box containing bits of wire and canvas and repairing equipment. She shook it and a heavy scent of hyacinths was apparent.

‘That light is on a separate switch,’ observed Lin Chung. ‘Your magician could turn on that one by itself when he wanted to produce the scent. He could probably have afforded to leave the perfume sleeve in place. No one ever looks up, and who has time to investigate a globe under those tin reflectors? Have we finished?’

‘Yes,’ said Phryne, ‘I’ve discovered how, and I think I know who, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why.’