The Russian Concubine (7 page)

‘Sorry, no.’

‘The flowers?’

She shook her head.

Antoine slumped into the driving seat and made a low rumbling sound in the back of his throat. Lydia felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and smooth his ruffled black hair, to feel how soft it was, to do something, anything to ease the misery her mother had inflicted. But she kept her hands to herself.

‘Can I have a ride, Antoine?’

He summoned up a smile, ‘Of course,
chérie
. A ride to school?’

‘Yes, please.’

He lifted the flowers off the passenger seat and she jumped in, clutching her hat on her lap. ‘It’s my birthday today,’ she said.

‘Ah,
bonne anniversaire.
’ He leaned across and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘
You
shall have the flowers instead. For your birthday, from me.’

He presented the bouquet to her with a flourish that made her blush and started the car. Lydia knew she was not the one he wanted seated beside him, but nevertheless she enjoyed the ride. What she didn’t tell her mother’s lover was that this was her first time in a car. She’d never even sat in one before. The constant movement of the gear stick and the fiddling with the controls fascinated her, as well as the distortion of the pavement flying past at full speed and the wind rushing into her face over the tiny windshield, tearing at her hair, making her blink and gasp for breath. When the Morgan hooted at a rickshaw, making it dive out of their way, she beamed with delight.

‘Lydia.’

‘Mmm?’

The roads were becoming wider now as they left the meaner beggar-ridden streets that made up the Russian Quarter and headed through the better part of town where the shops and cafés were already opening. Sikh policemen in turbans stood on little platforms at each major junction, flapping their white-gloved hands to direct the flow of traffic. Lydia leaned over the low door of the car and waved to one just for the fun of it.

‘Lydia,’ Antoine repeated more urgently.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think she will forgive me?’

‘Oh Antoine, I don’t know. You know what she’s like.’

He uttered a faint groan, and she became frightened he might crash the car in a wild Gallic gesture of despair, so she hurried on, ‘But I expect she’ll get over it quickly. Just give her a few days.’

The grand Town Hall with its pillars and Union Jack shot past in a blur, then Victoria Park with a smattering of prams and nannies. Lydia felt her cheeks gripped by the wind as Antoine put his foot down.

‘I love her, you know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. I should never have mentioned the baby.’

‘Yes, maybe that was a mistake.’

‘Does she love me?’

‘Yes, of course she does.’

‘Really,
chérie
?’

‘Really.’

The glorious smile he gave her was worth the lie. It sent a tingle all down her spine, right to her fingertips, and it was then that an idea occurred to her.

‘Antoine, do you know what I think might help?’

‘What?’ He stuck out an arm and swung left up Wordsworth Avenue, the car’s motorbike engine growling as it launched itself at the incline.

‘If you gave Mama a present she really wanted, I think it might win her over.’

His dark eyes darted a look of alarm at her. ‘I’m not rich, you know. I cannot bestow her with jewels and perfumes like she deserves. And when I did once offer her a little money, you know, just to help, she refused it.’

Lydia looked at him in surprise. ‘But why?’

‘She shouted at me, threw a book at my head. Said she was not a whore to be bought.’

Lydia sighed.
Oh Mama
. Such pride came at a price.

At the top of the hill in the British Quarter the houses were large and elegant, built of pale stone and surrounded by well-tended lawns and neat hedges. The school was coming into sight. She must hurry.

‘No, I don’t mean anything expensive. I was thinking of something . . . to comfort her when you’re not there.’ She glanced at him warily. ‘When you’re with your wife.’

He frowned. ‘Like what do you mean?’

She swallowed and said it quickly. ‘A rabbit.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, a white rabbit with lovely long ears and sweet pink eyes.’

‘Un lapin?’

‘That’s right. She owned one when she was a little girl in St Petersburg and has always longed for another.’

He looked at her closely. ‘You surprise me.’

‘It’s true.’

‘I’ll ask her.’

‘No, no, don’t do that. You’ll spoil the surprise.’ She smiled at his profile encouragingly and thought what a beautiful Roman nose he had. ‘She’ll be reminded of you every time she runs her fingers through its soft white fur.’

She could see he was thinking about it. The corners of his mouth curled up and he shrugged in his eloquent French way that said so much more than English shrugs.

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘
c’est possible.
’

‘A red ribbon would be nice too. On the rabbit, I mean.’

But she wasn’t sure he heard straight. He was manoeuvring around a large black Humber out of which three girls in Willoughby Academy uniforms were tumbling and staring at Lydia with envy. Clutching the bouquet of roses in her arms, she kissed her handsome companion’s cheek in full view of them and sauntered into school. The day was starting well.

It was only later, when dreaming out of the window in class, that she allowed herself to think about the lithe young figure she’d noticed half hidden in the shadow of the rickshaws across the road, of the pair of black Chinese eyes watching her as she entered the school gates.

5

The Ulysses Club was as pretentious as its name. Theo hated it. It stood for everything he despised about colonial arrogance. Self-important and disdainful. The building was at the heart of the British Quarter, set back from the road, as if disassociating itself from the noise and bustle of the town behind a dense barrier of rhododendron bushes and a sweep of manicured lawn. It boasted a grand white façade with towering columns, pediment, and portico, all carved to the glory of the conqueror.

As he took the great wide steps that led up to the entrance, they made him think of a shrine, and to some extent that’s exactly what the place was. A shrine. To the god of conservatism. To preserving the status quo. And it went without saying that any yellow-skinned person, of that unholy tribe who lied to your face and sold their children, was not invited through its hallowed portals, except via the back door and clad in a servant’s uniform.

Theo loathed it. But Li Mei was right. Between kisses that set his loins on fire and soft words that reshuffled his brain, she taught him to see it as a game. A game he had to play. Had to win.

‘Willoughby, old boy, glad you could make it.’

Christopher Mason was striding toward him across the marble floor of the reception hall with his hand outstretched, his smile as affable as a snake’s. He was in his midforties, kept his figure trim by horse riding, and carried himself like an army officer, though Theo knew for a fact he’d never seen a parade ground in his life. Mason had at an early age opted for a desk career in government and sought a post in China only when he heard of the fortunes to be made out there if you knew what you were doing. His eyes were round and shrewd, his dark brown hair combed straight back from a widow’s peak, and though he was several inches shorter than Theo, he made up for it by talking loudly as they headed across the hall.

‘Heard the news? Heart-stopping stuff. Damned premature, if you ask me.’

‘What news is that?’ Theo was wary.

He knew that in the busy, claustrophobic hive in which they all lived,
news
could mean that Binky Fenton had stormed out of a croquet match over accusations of cheating, or that General Chiang Kai-shek was drawing up radical legislation to sweep the foreigners off his land and into the sea. Both would be
news.
Both would be
heart-stopping.
But accusations of cheating would be seriously bad form, whereas nobody expected the Chinese to stick to their promises in the first place. Theo waited to hear what it was that was turning Mason’s cheeks the colour of chopped liver.

‘It’s our troops. The Second Battalion of Scots Guards. Going home from China on the
City of Marseilles
in the New Year. Bloody cheek of it. Leaving us undefended in this benighted country. Don’t they know the Nationalist Kuomintang Army is running riot in an orgy of murder and plunder over in Peking? Good God, man, we need more troops, not less. After all, we’re the ones earning the trade profits that keep Baldwin and his blasted government in funds back home. Have you seen what state the financial market is in?’

‘We’ll have to learn to stand on our own two feet then, won’t we?’ Theo said with a shrug calculated to annoy. ‘Why keep an army in place if we claim we want to remain at peace with the Chinese?’

Mason stopped in his tracks.

‘What we need,’ Theo continued, ‘is a treaty we can all stick to for once, one that is reasonable, not punitive. We
have
to give concessions or we’ll have another Taiping Rebellion on our hands.’

Mason stared hard at him, then muttered, ‘Bloody Chink lover,’ and strode off toward the bar, indifferent to the gentlemanly elegance of the hall’s fluted pillars and Venetian chandeliers. Native servants drifted past silently, neat and docile in their white tunics buttoned high at the neck, silver trays in hand, polite expressions frozen on their faces. Yet Theo knew that each one of them was worth no more than yesterday’s newspaper to the members of the Ulysses Club, probably less. From the long veranda at the rear of the building a sharp high laugh barked out. Lady Caroline was at the pink gin.

Theo almost turned on his heel. To walk out and leave Mason stranded would give him keen pleasure, but Li Mei’s words in his head kept him rooted there.

‘You have to play the game, Tiyo. You have to win.’

She was so clever, his Li Mei. He loved the way she used his weaknesses and took hold of his ridiculous English public-school desire to regard life as some sort of stupid game you had to win.

He followed Mason through the carved double doors into the bar and looked around. It was packed, as usual, at seven-thirty in the evening. Here they all were, Britain’s empire builders. The great and the good. And the not so good. Some stiff and upright in military uniform on the deep leather chesterfields, others sprawled with a cigar in hand in the light new Lloyd Loom chairs that were introduced to make the place more inviting to the female members.

As Theo made his way past the crush of drinkers at the bar, he nodded to the faces he recognised but didn’t stop to talk. The sooner this interview was over, the better, as far as he was concerned. But his heart sank when he saw Mason veer off toward a group of four men seated around a low mahogany table. A pall of cigarette smoke hung over them in a grubby halo despite the large brass fans that whirred incessantly on the ceiling, shuffling the heat and the flies around. Theo felt his stiff shirt collar like a garrotte at his throat, but if you wanted to join in the game, you had to wear the party clothes. He paused, lit himself a Turkish cigarette, and threw his first dice.

‘Good evening, Sir Edward,’ he said in a voice full of bonhomie. ‘I hear you’re chucking the U.S. Marines out of Tientsin at last.’

Sir Edward Carlisle looked up from his whisky tumbler, his hawkish face surprisingly benign in repose, and smiled at Theo. A chuckle flickered around the group, though Police Commissioner Lacock didn’t join in. Binky Fenton, a bustling customs officer who was always banging on about interference from the Americans, raised his glass with a hearty, ‘About time too.’

Theo found himself a seat next to Alfred Parker, the one man he regarded as a friend among this little cabal. Alfred gave him a welcoming nod and stuck out a hand. He was a few years older than Theo and new to China, a journalist on the local rag, the Junchow
Daily Herald.
Not bad at it either, Theo reckoned. His last was a scorching piece on foot binding of women. A hideous habit. No longer mandatory since the collapse of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, but still widely practised. Thank God Li Mei’s parents had spared her that particular barbarity. And Alfred Parker was right. He argued that what was the point of crippling half your workforce while your country was starving and dying in the streets? It didn’t make sense.

‘Evening, Willoughby,’ Sir Edward said, and sounded genuinely pleased to see him. But then he was a masterly diplomat, so Theo could never be sure. ‘Yes, you’re right, though where you get your information, damned if I know. The secretary of the U.S. Navy has ordered an immediate withdrawal from Tientsin.’

‘How many men?’ Parker asked with interest.

‘Three thousand five hundred marines.’

Binky Fenton whistled loudly and cheered. ‘Bye-bye, Yankees, good riddance.’

‘And our own Scots Guards going in January,’ Mason grumbled, and flicked a finger in the air. A Chinese waiter instantly materialised at his elbow. ‘Scotch and soda, boy. No ice. Willoughby?’

‘Straight scotch.’

Sir Edward nodded approval. He hated to see people ruin good whisky with water. ‘The Kuomintang Nationalists are in control now,’ Sir Edward said firmly, but gave no sign as to whether that pleased him. ‘In Peking as well as Nanking, which means they have control of both the northern and southern capitals. So we have to recognise that the civil war is finally over, among the warlords, if not against the Communists. Marshal Chang Tso-lin and his Northern Army are done for. And that is why, gentlemen, the British Government has decided that the need for so many troops to protect our interests in China is reduced.’

‘Is it true that Marshal Chang Tso-lin and his men are being given safe passage to Manchuria?’ Alfred Parker asked, making the most of the opening.

‘Yes.’

‘But why? The Chinese usually make a habit of slaughtering their defeated enemies.’

‘You’d better ask General Chiang Kai-shek that one.’ Sir Edward drew on his cigar, his sharp eyes alert.

He was an impressive figure, early sixties, tall and elegant in a close-fitting formal dress suit, white tie, and high wing collar. His shock of white hair was in contrast to his military moustache, which was stained the colour of toffee by a daily concoction of nicotine, tannin, and fine Highland whisky. As governor of Junchow he had the impossible task of keeping the peace between the various foreign factions: the French, Italians, Japanese, Americans, and British - and even worse, the Russians and Germans who, since the end of the Great War in 1918, had lost their official status in China and were there on sufferance.

But the main thorn in his flesh was the blasted Americans, who tended to go off at things half-cocked on their own, and turn up to discuss the situation only when the damage was done. No bad thing to see the back of a parcel of them, even if it did leave Tientsin more exposed. With luck the contingent in Junchow would follow suit. But then there were still the Japs to look out for. That lot made his blood run cold.

His gaze shifted and found Theo Willoughby observing him. Sir Edward again gave an almost imperceptible nod of approval. He liked the schoolteacher. That young man could go far. If only he’d drop this damned obsession with all things Chinese. The business of his affair with the native woman didn’t matter a jot. Any number of men of his acquaintance dipped into the yellow pool occasionally. Not that he’d been so inclined himself. Good God, no. Dear old Eleanor would turn in her grave if he did. He still missed the old girl. Like a toothache, it was. But no quack’s nostrum could dull that kind of pain. She’d liked Willoughby too. A darling boy, she’d called him. A darling pain in the arse, if Mason’s face was anything to go by. Something up, there. Too much tension between the two men, and it was obvious Mason thought he had the upper hand. But he should watch out. That boy was not to be underestimated. Had a tendency to be unpredictable. In the blood, you see. Just look at what his father did back in England. A disgrace, that was. No wonder his boy was hiding away over here on the other side of the world.

He took a long shot of his whisky and rolled it around his tongue with relish. ‘Willoughby,’ he said with a glare from under his spidery eyebrows, ‘you’ll stay for tonight’s recital by the Russian beauty.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I’d be delighted, sir.’ Bugger the old devil. Now he’d not see Li Mei all evening.

‘Surprised to find you here, Theo,’ Alfred Parker remarked. His voice was as courteous as ever, but he could not hide his curiosity.

They were standing at the bar together, just the two of them. Replenishing glasses and seizing a respite from a heated discussion on the perils of extraterritoriality and whether the Nationalists would have gained control of Shanghai the previous year without the help of Big-Eared Du and his Green Gang triad.

Theo was always uneasy when the subject of Chinese triads was raised. It made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He’d heard whispers about their activities in Junchow. Throats cut, businesses suddenly engulfed in flames, a headless torso found floating in the river. But it was the beauty of China he adored. It was breathtaking. It had stolen his heart. Not just the exquisite delicacy of Li Mei, but the sumptuous curve of a Ming vase, the upward sweep of a calligraphy brush, the hidden meanings in a watercolour of a man fishing, a vivid sun sinking behind a raft of sampans, bathing their stinking filth in a golden unearthly glow. These things filled his senses. Sometimes he couldn’t breathe, his passion for them was so strong. Even the foul sweat and broken teeth of a rickshaw puller or a field coolie spoke of the beauty of a country that existed by means of the sheer backbreaking toil of its millions and millions of peasants.

But the triads. Well, they were like rats in a grain barn. Devouring, spoiling, poisoning. Theo wiped a large red handkerchief across his brow and stuck a finger down his collar to loosen its grip on his throat.

‘I’m not here by choice,’ he said. ‘Mason wants a word.’

‘That man is too hungry. Fingers in too many pies.’

Theo gave a laugh that held no humour. ‘He’s a mean bastard, out for everything he can get. He’ll shoot down anyone who gets in his way.’

‘Then don’t get in his way.’

‘Too late for that, I’m afraid.’

‘Why, what did you do to annoy the fellow?’

‘Take your pick. He doesn’t like his daughter learning Chinese history or the fact that I’ve made physical education compulsory for the girls as well as the boys. And I banned Saturday morning rifle target practice down at the butts. For that one, I was almost strung up by a mob of irate fathers.’