The Buddha of Brewer Street (19 page)

Chinatown was also a convenient location for a man who needed to get to Westminster in a hurry on a collapsible bike. He had become a well-known figure around its narrow streets and local traders valued having an influential and highly placed neighbour. Except, of course, he wasn’t highly placed. A former Minister who has resigned ‘for family reasons’ is usually regarded by his colleagues in the same light as a paper cup at a party – something to be used only as a last resort, then quickly discarded – but there was little point in trying to disabuse ambitious Chinese traders. They wouldn’t believe him, things didn’t work that way in their system; if a former Minister wasn’t in prison then he still had his hand in the cookie jar. Anyway, Goodfellowe didn’t have the heart to protest his impotence: it still hurt too much.

Neither did the local Chinese believe he had no money. His frugal shopping and eating habits merely confirmed their opinion that he was a man of discretion and a tough negotiator, a useful man to have on their side. So they gave him good deals, greeted him when he came to eat in their restaurants and always gave him double helpings and ‘doggy bags’. But he never accepted a free meal – that would establish a debt on his part which he knew they would later call in. There never was such a thing as a free meal in Chinatown.

But at least the invitation from Mr Jiang to attend the opening celebration for his new restaurant would cost him nothing other than a little time, since The Peking Palace was less than fifty yards from Goodfellowe’s own front door. He was being asked as a local dignitary in order that Jiang could show off his pulling power, which appeared to be considerable. The place was packed with luminaries. These included the Chief Superintendent from the local constabulary in Agar Street and the Deputy Lord Mayor of Westminster. The local Member of Parliament (City of London and Westminster South) was missing, detained by a minor surgical procedure, but he had sent his wife to offer his apologies in person. It was going to be quite a bun fight. The tables groaned beneath an avalanche of the usual colourful and chaotic Chinese
dim sum
.

After a year on these streets he was beginning to see through the clutter of Chinese faces, too. He had long ago discovered that the wispy old lady in the ill-fitting silk jacket, Madame Tang, was one of the area’s most honoured inhabitants. She owned dozens of buildings in the area, including the building in which Goodfellowe lived, and carried her empire about on a huge bunch of keys that never left her side. She rattled as she walked, which was the only warning that troublesome tenants received before they found themselves in the street and on their way. There were many other pieces in this mosaic of Chinatown that Goodfellowe was only just beginning to put into their appropriate place. Like the group huddled in conversation in the corner. It included not only businessmen with strong mainland connections who were scheming with a trade official from the Embassy, but also two Taiwanese. The enemy. The implacable opponents, or so he had thought. But he had met one of the Taiwanese a few weeks earlier. ‘Politics is passion, Mr Goodfellowe. But money is life. You show me politician without money and I will show you politician without prospects.’ Didn’t he know it. ‘You must not misunderstand China,’ the Taiwanese had gone on to explain. ‘I am Taiwanese. Hate Communists. Fight to death. About politics. But prefer alive. And alive, we must all eat.’

These streets always held an air of inscrutability, an agenda which those unpractised in the art found difficult to read. Like the hand-written posters in the windows offering services and goods that only a Chinese could read. Or the sign above the club door that in carefully painted English letters announced ‘Strictly Members Only’, while the scribbled characters underneath had suggested ‘Everyone Welcome!’ Everyone who could read Chinese, that is. These were streets in which asking for a VAT invoice was like announcing you were visiting from Mars. These streets had their own rules and codes of conduct, and laws Goodfellowe had had no part in writing.

Chou was at his elbow. Chou was the owner of a rival restaurant just off Gerrard Street and had always reserved a warm welcome for Goodfellowe, although like many Chinese he remained completely incapable of pronouncing his name. He simply called him ‘Minister’. Chou had been conducting a meticulous inspection of Jiang’s new establishment and was now ready to pass judgement to anyone who would listen. ‘Old equipment in kitchen, Mr Minister. Not good. Cheap.’ Chou paused, as though considering his next line, although Goodfellowe knew it had probably been carefully prepared. ‘Everything cheap. Perhaps Jiang runs out of money. Jiang a big gambler, you know. Perhaps lose at tables. He also has expensive girlfriend, Mr Minister.’ Chou shook his head. ‘I don’t think Jiang last long.’

Such gossip was, Goodfellowe knew, usually palpable nonsense, but he was growing accustomed to the rumours that ran like a flood tide through the streets of this small community. Against the outside world the Chinese community fought as one family, but once the door was closed their rivalries were never far from the surface. They fought not with weapons – at least very rarely, for these were streets of considerable safety – but with words. They threw everything at each other. Calumny. Denigration. Speculation and outright slander. There were more ways to cut down a rival than with a kitchen knife. A whisper that started in the morning from the back door of a kitchen or across the counter of a betting shop would have grown to a shout by lunchtime, and before evening would be echoing around every corner of the community. And sometimes these rumours were believed. So by the following morning new rumours started by yesterday’s victims would be making the rounds. As Sun Tzu would suggest, ‘destroy your enemy with his own anger’. And by God how they tried.

Chou was about to launch into another round of vilification when they were distracted by a commotion from the door. At first Goodfellowe couldn’t see through the throng, but suddenly people began to step back and make a way. The guest of honour had arrived. To Goodfellowe’s delight he saw it was Madame Lin. Jiang preceded her, hopping from foot to foot like some court jester with his Rolex sparkling at his wrist, while she made an almost regal advance through the room, acknowledging greetings on all sides. Then she saw Goodfellowe. Her face lit up.

‘Mr Goodfellowe, what a surprise. And a pleasure.’

He held out his hand. ‘It has been a few years, Madame Lin.’

‘Five. Almost exactly. I remember our last conversation well. And with considerable sadness. But …’ – she clapped her hands – ‘tonight is a time of celebration. You must do me the honour of celebrating with me.’ She turned to the owner. ‘Mr Jiang, please ensure that my friend is sitting next to me. We have much to catch up with!’

And so they did. Outside the restaurant lion dancers performed traditional rites accompanied by a noisy fusillade of firecrackers, while inside Madame Lin and Goodfellowe sat and talked family, sharing sorrows at the death of her daughter, recovering their spirits with the mischief and mirth brought into her life by her small grandson. The Wheel of Life, crushing, uplifting. Then she had grown softer.

‘Mr Goodfellowe, tell me of your wife.’

Somehow it was easy to talk with this wise old woman. It was as though they weren’t in the middle of a crowded room but alone, locked away in that deep and private place where

Goodfellowe hid his emotions. ‘She hears voices,’ he said. He shook his head as though he might be hearing them too. ‘They tell her that the world is wicked. She trusts no one, least of all me. So she withdraws. Says nothing. Seems to hear and see nothing either.’

‘My father was a doctor. I have a little understanding of these things.’

‘They call it involutional melancholia. A catch-all term that means the doctors don’t really know what they’re dealing with. Neither do they truly know how to treat it. So they throw drugs at her. Prozac. And when that doesn’t work, they throw different drugs at her. Nothing has worked.’

‘Sometimes doctors find it easier to concentrate on their games with drugs than on the patients they are treating.’

‘And when they find the new drugs don’t work either, they bring in a new team of doctors. And the whole thing starts over again.’ He couldn’t hide the edge of distress in his voice.

‘Our Oriental medicine looks at these problems from a different point of view,’ she replied. ‘Just as you cannot cure a bad back or a bad liver unless the patient changes his habits, so you cannot treat such terrible depression unless you get the patient to help. Yet she fights you, shuts off all her senses to protect herself. She sits silent, because it is safe for her that way. But as a result she cannot be cured. Drugs on their own often don’t help.’

‘So how would the Chinese treat her?’

‘By trying to open up her senses once more. By stimulation rather than medication. So we might put her in a cold shower, then rub her down with hot towels. We might sing to her, or perhaps shout at her. To encourage her senses to shout back.’

‘Better shouting than always sitting in silence.’

‘Or we might use something as simple as a herbal pillow, so that some of her senses might be stimulated by the different fragrances, which in turn might stimulate other parts of her body. Slowly. They creep past the patient’s resistance without their knowing.’

‘My wife spends most of her time in bed or sitting in a chair.’

‘Of course. It’s easier for everyone that way. No trouble. But also no stimulation. No appreciation of beauty. No happiness. Yet happiness is a risk, Thomas. If we are happy, we risk losing it and suffering hurt. So some choose, like your wife, to do without happiness at all.’

Perhaps he’d been doing that himself, Goodfellowe thought. At least until he’d met Elizabeth.

‘I’ve tried Chinese medicine,’ Goodfellowe responded. ‘It certainly stimulates the senses, particularly some of the herbal brews. Couldn’t fail. The smell is unspeakably foul. Upsets my neighbours for weeks. I simply never thought that something as simple as herbs might work with Elinor’s type of problem.’

‘Try it.’

‘What have I got to lose?’

‘And, if it works, you might get your wife back.’

Get his wife back … Her words exploded inside his brain. Illuminating places he had been trying to avoid. Forcing him to recognize what previously he had been unable or unwilling to see.

‘But I don’t want her back.’

He gasped out the words as though kicked by a horse. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he stammered, trying to recover. ‘Please forgive me. I don’t know what made me say that.’

But it was true. He didn’t want Elinor back. It was past. Even before the accident they had drifted apart, contact maintained only by habit and the children. Not a corrupt relationship, but not much of any sort of relationship. One that had existed only by turning a blind eye. Yet now his eyes were open and it was a relationship he could never willingly pick up again. It left him in a state of shock. He was trembling.

She laid her hand upon his. ‘You have no need of apology to me, Thomas. We are all – all of us – torn by divided loyalties. Conflicts inside us. Your conflict is simply more cruel than most.’ There was no pity in her eyes – he couldn’t have taken pity – merely recognition of the facts. He could deal with facts. And the fact was that he had come to a great turning point.

‘Madame Lin, you once told me we were very much alike. I think we are. I shall remember this conversation, and your kindness, for the rest of my life.’

‘And so shall I.’

As they talked and grew closer, around them the celebrations proceeded with enthusiasm but without, for a considerable period, the presence of the owner Mr Jiang. For Mr Jiang was a man of many roles. A restaurateur. A trader. A man with important contacts. A gambler and womanizer, as Chou had recognized. But he also had a role about which Goodfellowe knew nothing and Chou guessed only little. He was the key figure in one of the local Triad gangs.

While the title of Triad inspired awe, in truth the local London Triads were not like the mighty Hong Kong or Shanghai empires but little more than a loose family of villains. Jiang’s ran one of the local gambling dens and a little rent collection alongside. There were also the counterfeit videos and stolen credit card scams, nothing mucky. He’d never bothered with the prostitution and protection rackets because the profit margins on his white-collar villainies were far higher and the penalties, if anyone got caught, much more manageable than those imposed on old-fashioned vice. The courts almost expected the Chinese to be running bootleg videos; the magistrate’s son probably had several in his own home. So in the event of a problem a junior member of the Triad would plead guilty, receive a rap across the knuckles and be back on the street, usually within weeks, along with a substantial bonus. Everyone was happy. The police would have their conviction while the Triad member would hold onto his steady job. And no one would get within a million miles of Jiang. He hadn’t had a finger laid on him in years. Wiped himself as clean as one of his counterfeit videos. Hell, he was such a pillar of the community that even the Chief Super came to help him open his restaurant.

So when he disappeared from the celebrations, those who noticed assumed he was busy in the kitchens. Instead, he was locked in his tiny back room. With Mo. For nearly forty minutes they huddled together, unnoticed and undisturbed. Up to no good. When eventually they emerged their business had been completed and it was all but time for the Ambassador to depart. Jiang presented her with an extravagant gift and she offered her farewells accompanied by the applause of the crowd – even from the Taiwanese, Goodfellowe noticed. Then she was gone.

Her car was well on the way to her Residence in Hampstead before she spoke to Mo.

‘How went your evening, little Mo?’

‘It can be done, Ambassador. But there will be a heavy cost.’

‘Only blood flows for free. How heavy?’

‘Who knows? A lot.’

She sighed, gazed into the darkness. ‘Then, little Mo, you had better tell your cousin not to disappear on vacation. There is little time. He’s going to be kept busy.’