The Russian Concubine (8 page)

Parker laughed, a good strong chuckle. He was a large deepchested man who possessed a cordial manner, but he seemed ill at ease today. He rummaged in his pocket for his pipe, took his time lighting it, and then shook his head in reproach. ‘You do it to provoke.’

Theo stared at him, surprised.The journalist meant it. Alfred might be a greenhorn when it came to getting to grips with the Oriental way of doing things, but he had an instinct for seeing through the bluff and blah of people’s deceptions. That’s what made him a good newspaperman and that’s why Theo had taken to him. Yes, he could be a pompous ass at times, especially in the company of the fair sex, but otherwise he was a decent chap with the sense to wear a crisp linen jacket and soft collar, instead of the full evening regalia. But his comment left Theo slightly rattled. Because he feared it might be true.

‘Alfred, listen to me. I just want to open up the minds of these children.’

‘Banning them from the things they enjoy, like rifle practice, isn’t going to get you further down that path, you know. Quite the opposite, I’d have thought.’

‘Look, we’ve not long ago been through a terrible time of war in Europe. And nearly two decades of civil war out here in China, as well as the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. And look at what’s going on in India now. When will we learn that sabre rattling is not the answer?’

‘Steady on, Theo. We’ve brought civilisation and moral decency to these heathens. And salvation to their souls. Our navy and army were necessary to open the doors.’

‘No, Alfred. Violence is not the answer. Our only hope for the future is to teach our children that a foreign skin or a foreign tongue does not make an enemy of another human being.’ He placed a hand on his friend’s arm. ‘This country needs our help desperately. But not our armies.’

‘Not a bloody conchie, as well as a Chink lover, are you, Willoughby?’ It was Mason.

Theo did not turn. He felt the anger rise through his chest. In the long mirror that ran behind the bar, he could make out Christopher Mason standing behind him, his chin pushed out as if asking for it to be knocked off.

‘Mr Mason,’ Alfred Parker cut in smoothly, ‘I’m glad to have this opportunity to speak to you. I’ve been wanting to have a word. Our readers of the
Daily Herald
would be interested to learn your views as chief of education in Junchow. I’m doing a piece on opportunities for young people out here. May I set up an interview with you?’

Mason looked surprised, knocked off balance for a moment, and then permitted himself a smile. ‘Certainly, Parker. Give my office a call on Monday morning.’

‘My pleasure.’

Mason rocked back and forth on his heels. Then said abruptly, ‘Now, Willoughby, time for our chat, I do believe.’

‘Latin.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Why are you teaching my daughter Latin?’

‘To broaden her understanding of language.’

‘And you’ve got her mixing dangerous chemicals too.’

‘Mr Mason, every pupil in my school learns Latin and science, male or female. You knew that when you enrolled her with me three years ago.’

‘Latin poetry,’ Mason said, ignoring Theo’s comment. ‘Dissecting frogs and pulling legs off beetles. Chinese history with all that stuff about concubines and beheadings. Gymnastics that make girls leap over horses and do cartwheels wearing next to nothing and boys goggle-eyed while they do it. This is not right for young women. None of it.’

‘The horses aren’t real. They’re gymnasium equipment.’

‘Don’t make fun of me, young man.’

‘I’m not. Just pointing out that they are inside a gymnasium.

The boys and the girls have these classes separately, so the boys cannot stare at the girls, who, by the way, are perfectly respectably dressed in chitons while they exercise. Nobody sees them except Miss Pettifer.’

‘I tell you it’s not good for them. Mrs Mason and I don’t like it.’

Theo refrained from bringing up the subject of Mrs Mason arriving on the tandem each day to pick up Polly. Clearly a fan of brisk exercise for the female sex. He stared into the amber depths of his whisky glass and tried to work out what it was Mason was after. They were sitting in private at the far end of the long veranda. At the opposite end in small gatherings among the potted palms were the women, their soft voices drifting in a light murmur that didn’t disturb the two men.

‘You could always send Polly to a different school, Mr Mason,’ Theo offered quietly. ‘You may find St Francis High School more accommodating.’

Mason’s large round eyes fixed on him with dislike. But there was something else in their slate-grey depths that sent a tremor of alarm skittering up Theo’s spine.

‘That’s not my point, Willoughby.’

‘So what
is
your point?’ Theo started to raise his glass to his lips.

‘I’m thinking of closing you down.’

It stopped him cold. He felt the blood drain from his face. With an effort he replaced his scotch on the table. He blinked, looking out across the croquet lawn, which was the colour of lavender in the evening light, and the silver surface of the lake had turned as grey and solid as a dragon’s tail. He needed a drink, badly, but didn’t dare pick up his glass. Mason was leaning forward with a hard, penetrating stare. Theo made himself concentrate. Slowly he sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and returned the stare.

‘Am I to understand you intend to withdraw the Willoughby Academy’s licence?’ he asked coldly.

‘It’s a possibility.’

‘I think you’ll find your desk swamped with parental objections to such an absurd move. It’s the best school in Junchow and you know it. A broader education for girls is no reason to . . .’

‘It’s not just that.’

Theo frowned. ‘What else?’

‘It’s the money.’

That was when Theo knew he had lost.

‘Just look at that woman over there. Isn’t she a peach! Enough to set any chap’s head spinning.’ The words came from a noisy group of uniformed army officers as they emerged from the billiard room.

Theo was striding across the marble floor in the direction of the smoking room. He needed time alone. Away from this insane circus. Time to think. To work out what the hell his next move should be. His temples were pounding and a noise like a thousand locusts was buzzing in his ears, but the officer’s words made him cast a glance over his shoulder.

It was Valentina Ivanova.

Suddenly Theo recalled the recital this evening. Damn Sir Edward’s invitation to attend. Mason would be there of course, with his smug smile and his greedy eyes, his fingers tapping his big white teeth in that predatory way of his. But the sight of Valentina Ivanova abruptly cleared Theo’s brain. It reminded him of what he had to fight for, because at her side as she swept through the entrance hall was one of his pupils. Young Lydia. The one so keen to know about Chinese martial arts.

Together they were very striking. Heads turned as they passed. Other women’s mouths tightened. The mother looked wonderful. She was quite small but made up for it in the way she walked, the sway of her slender hips and the proud manner in which she held her head. Her skin was pale and flawless, and the waves of shining dark hair were swept up on top of her head, making her taller, more imposing. But it was her eyes, dark and luminous, whose sensuous vulnerability could make a man go weak at the knees.

Theo had seen her several times before, but never quite like this. Tonight she was dressed in an evening gown of shimmering blue Shantung silk. It was cut low to show off the rise of her breasts and her elegant throat. She wore long white gloves to above the elbow but no jewellery. She didn’t need any. In his mind he compared her to Li Mei. Admittedly Mei’s figure was less voluptuous, more understated in her appeal, but for him there was a purity about Li Mei, a kind of untouched sexuality that no Western woman could match. Like Chinese porcelain next to Wedgwood. Only one broke your heart with its beauty.

‘Good God, man, who the hell is that gorgeous creature?’ It was one of the army officers.

‘I believe she’s the concert pianist,’ said a young major. ‘The club committee is putting on some entertainment and she is it.’

A crude laugh greeted this remark. ‘She can come and entertain me any time she wants.’

‘No, I’ll take the young one, the lion cub. She looks like she’s ready for it.’

‘Well, I’d want to know what’s under that dress before I . . .’

Theo stepped away. Too much to drink. It fouled their mouths. But in a community where the men outnumbered the white women by at least ten to one, it was not uncommon. Brothels thrived, stocked mainly with Russian girls or with Eurasians, the half-castes; both were the rejects in a rigid class-ridden society. Theo felt a fierce urge to walk out of there and leave them all in the inferno they had created for themselves, but he didn’t. The evening was not finished yet. And there was still Mason.

At that moment Lydia’s eyes caught his and she smiled, shyly, self-conscious in her finery. A lion cub, yes, the man was right. Tawny eyes and gleaming red mane. Something untamed about her. Tonight she looked a lovely young woman, but even gilded in a dress that was the colour of apricots and the height of fashion with its dropped waist and knee-length hem, she gave off a vibration of excitement. Of danger, even. Yet when he smiled back at her, she blushed like a schoolgirl.

6

Outside the Ulysses Club, the streetlamps of Wellington Road cast yellow pools of light out into the darkness. But the darkness of this country was vast and dense. It claimed for itself the fragile world the foreigners thought was theirs.

The darkness gave sanctuary. To the narrow-eyed thief who stood at the bedside of the young major’s sleeping child while his
amah
played mah-jongg downstairs. To the stinking honey wagon, the cart piled high with human manure destined for the fields. To the knife at the throat of a white man who thought a debt to a Chinese bookie was not binding.

And to Chang An Lo. As evening closed in, he was invisible in the darkness, his shadowy young figure merged with the mottled trunk of one of the plane trees that lined the road. He didn’t move. Even when a silver streak of lightning carved through the sky and rain sheeted down, making the leaves clatter above his head and the cars turn into glistening black monsters as their headlights swung through the wrought-iron gates of the club. A military guard with peaked cap and rifle checked every entrant.

Chang An Lo leaned his head back against the rough bark and shut his eyes to recapture the sight of the girl as she jumped down from the rickshaw that had carried her here. He pictured again the fire in her hair as it danced around her shoulders, the excitement in her step. He’d watched her face lift to study the giant marble pillars and his sharp eyes noticed the moment’s hesitation of her feet. Were her eyes still as full of astonishment, he wondered, as when he saw her yesterday? In the filthy
hutong
, the back alley.

Why had she come to that alley?

He’d asked himself that question many times. Had she strayed by accident? But how could you wander into the old Chinese town without noticing? Yet the ways of the
fanqui
were strange, the paths of their mind smudged and indecipherable. He rubbed a hand over the dense black stubble of his hair, felt the wet sheen of rain on it and pressed his fingers harder into his skull as if he could drag an answer from within it by force alone.

Was it the gods who had brought her to him?

He shook his head, angry with himself. The Europeans were no friend to the Chinese, and the gods of the Middle Kingdom would have nothing to do with them. Chang An Lo himself would have nothing to do with them except to drive their voracious souls back into the sea from which they came, but the strange thing was that when he saw her in the
hutong
yesterday, he didn’t see a Foreign Devil. Instead he saw a snarling, snapping fox. Like the one he once freed from a snare in the woods. It had sunk its teeth into him and torn a strip of flesh out of his arm, but it had fled to safety. At that time Chang had caught a glimpse of himself in the animal, trapped and fierce and fighting for its freedom.

And now there was this girl. With that same wildness. A fire raging inside her, as well as in her copper hair and in her wide
fanqui
eyes. She would burn him. He was as certain of it as he’d been that the snared fox would savage him when he touched it. But now he was bound to her, his soul to her soul, and he had no choice. Because he’d saved her life.

In his mind rose the image of the alleyway, a foul degrading sewer that no one would choose to enter. He would have passed it without a glance. But the gods stopped his stride and turned his head. She lit up the whole stinking black hole with her fire. His eyes had never before seen anyone like her.

Abruptly his thoughts were dragged back to the rain and the rumbling night sky, his attention distracted by the sound of footfalls and the brisk tap of a cane, a man passing only a few feet away. He wore a top hat and heavy raincoat, huddled under an umbrella, and hurried past Chang without even knowing he was there. But before he reached the club two shapes threw themselves at his feet on the sodden pavement.

Beggars, a man and a woman. Natives of the old town, their voices raised in high-pitched pleas.

Chang spat on the ground at the sight of them.

The man threw a handful of coins at the ragged creatures with a guttural curse, then brought his cane whistling down on their backs as they grovelled for them. Chang watched him walk away. Up the wide white steps and in through the entrance, so grand it looked like a mandarin’s palace. He didn’t hear the man’s words, but he knew the actions. He’d seen them all his life in China.

For the next hour his gaze was drawn again and again to the tall, brightly lit windows, as a bird is drawn to yellow corn. She was in there, the fox-haired girl. He’d watched her mount the steps with the other woman beside her, but between them the gap of unused air bristled with an anger that made their shoulders stiff and their heads turn away from each other.

He smiled to himself as the rain ran down his face. The fox girl, she had sharp teeth.