by Jean Moran
She felt an overwhelming need to apologise. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make our date. You did get my message?’
‘Yes, I did. I came to take you for dim sum.’
She was about to say that she wasn’t hungry, then decided that perhaps she was. Without a word, he opened the car door and, although reluctant to forgo her bath and catch up on her sleep, she did so.
In her head Alice was warning her about Kim Pheloung, and Connor had told her he was dangerous. She told herself she deserved to be indulged. She had enjoyed being with Connor, but he wasn’t there. Kim Pheloung was. A bad boy he might be, but she had to award him top marks for consideration. ‘I’m starving. You must have read my mind. I still have your lighter.’ She fiddled in her pocket.
‘I said you can keep it. As a gift.’
The open-top car was the perfect antidote to a night spent on a hospital ward bringing a baby into the world. A cool breeze tugged at her bound hair, a style she always adopted when on duty. Wisps blew across her face until she could no longer peer through it to see the road ahead.
‘Let your hair down. Let it blow free.’
She hadn’t realised he’d been watching her. Feeling strangely daring, she undid the clips and the snood until her hair fell onto her shoulders.
‘I like that better,’ he said, glancing at her sideways, then returning his attention to the road, relatively empty, given the hour, though the street traders were setting up shop and sunshades were bobbing around a multitude of shop fronts.
She’d anticipated him taking her deeper into Chinatown to a place unknown to her and most Europeans and thus something of an adventure. ‘Where is the dim sum house?’
‘I will surprise you.’
‘No kidding,’ she murmured, as the car pulled up outside a building she’d only seen from a distance. ‘This is Victoria House.’
He nodded. ‘Built on the land that once surrounded an ancient temple. Only the garden and a dovecote remain.’
‘I’m impressed.’ She gazed at the handsome portico of an exclusive apartment block. Like the Jockey Club, nobody lived there unless they had enough money to keep their own racehorses, a limousine and a handsome motorboat in the harbour.
‘Forgive me, but I don’t believe this place has a restaurant, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be serving dim sum at this time in the morning.’
With a flourish of bravado, he swung open the car door. ‘No. I will be serving you breakfast. Everything is prepared.’
There were three steps leading up to double doors. A large man of inscrutable expression and shoulders as wide as a barn door bowed stiffly. He was matched by another man on the other side who, like him, wore traditional garb, had a wispy beard and a long pigtail.
Swirls of ironwork in the guise of leaves, vines and snarling dragons formed protective panels over the doors, which the two men swung open simultaneously.
To hesitate was normal and she couldn’t help but question her common sense when she entered the building. Alice had been right – she hardly knew this man – and if Connor was right, too, she could be walking into danger.
‘Come,’ Kim said to her, extending his arm around her back and gently but firmly easing her forward.
‘I’ve never seen a block of apartments with guards at the entrance.’
‘Security is very important to me. I run various businesses from here and also entertain when necessary.’
‘Am I necessary?’
‘Come.’
The doors had closed behind them with a sharp click. Ahead, another man dressed in similar fashion to the guards dragged open the iron grille of the lift. His hair was grey, but his expression was as inscrutable as theirs had been. He moved quietly and smoothly. Even the metal grille closed with a satisfying thud rather than a clang.
They began to ascend, Rowena clasping her hands in front of her, her fatigue overridden by her sense of adventure and the beguiling man who wanted to serve her breakfast.
A glance at Kim reaffirmed her view of him as beautiful, with fine features and refined taste. He intrigued her.
‘I suppose you live in the penthouse.’
‘It is like living in the tallest tower of a great castle. It has the best view in all Hong Kong. I see the ships coming and going in Victoria Harbour, and on a good day I can see all the way to Macau. I’m sure you’ll be thrilled by it.’
‘I’m not sure I can give it my all. I’ve been on duty all night.’
She’d already apologised in the car and told him about Dr Mercer.
‘The man should take more care of himself,’ he had responded. ‘It was unfair of him. I was looking forward to seeing you, as I am sure you also were looking forward to us having dinner together.’
‘Duty called. I cannot apologise enough.’
‘It seems duty rules your life.’
‘It does.’
‘A great shame.’ He looked tellingly at her. ‘I wonder what kind of man it would take to make you forget duty and put him at the centre of your world.’
She couldn’t help laughing. ‘A very exceptional one.’
The lift whined to a halt, the grille dragged open by a small Chinese woman with downcast eyes, grey hair and tiny feet.
Rowena winced. They were lotus feet, broken and bound when she was a child and now only a little more than three inches in length.
The now outlawed practice of binding feet made her want to harangue and educate the ancient emperor who had demanded it be done. On the whim of one man countless women had been deformed. Worse, it hadn’t died out with his death but continued through the centuries, from the most powerful to the peasant following the despicable custom.
Kim cupped her elbow in his hand and guided her into an opulent penthouse where a wall of windows looked out over the most imposing vista in Hong Kong. Below them a flock of white doves flew in and out of a pagoda dovecote. Around it were carp ponds, fountains and the bright yellow of many flowers.
‘My garden,’ he said. ‘In the midst of all these buildings. Do you see the flowers? Chrysanthemums.’
The woman, who had followed them, remained silent and still until Kim turned to give her his hat and his jacket. When she bowed, he did not return the courtesy.
‘Come. See the view.’ He swept his arm towards it, like a ringmaster inviting the audience to look and be amazed.
‘You weren’t exaggerating,’ murmured Rowena.
Spread out in a far-reaching vista, the Perfumed Harbour resembled a multi-coloured mural of colour, brightness and light. Liners and warships, sampans and junks all cheek by jowl against the backdrop of jumbled buildings. Far beyond the city the lilac hills of mainland China were collared with halos of floating mist.
‘A lovely view. And your garden is beautiful.’
‘Is that all you can say? A lovely view? Your eyes must be extremely tired.’
She looked at him and smiled. ‘Not as much as my feet.’
He clapped his hands and the woman with the lotus feet appeared as if out of thin air. He pointed at Rowena’s feet and said something.
‘I asked her to get you slippers,’ he explained, as the woman shuffled away. ‘I also asked her to massage your feet before you put them on.’
‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘No trouble. I am not offering to do it myself.’
Rowena frowned. ‘I meant the old lady. I understood that much.’
His eyebrows rose and his face glowed with pleasure. ‘You understood? I am pleased to hear that. The foreigners here expect us to speak their language. For you I will speak in English.’
He did not ask her why she frowned but she felt compelled to tell him anyway. Of course he wouldn’t regard the woman’s feet as anything but normal.
‘That woman. I cringe at the thought of her pain.’
‘Please sit down,’ he said, indicating the sweeping dimensions of a scarlet sofa positioned to take in the most panoramic of panoramic views.
E
mbroidered silk cushions were ranged along its full length and gave off the smell of herbs and dried flowers when Rowena leaned back.
He had ignored her comment about the bound feet, but she couldn’t get the woman out of her mind, imagining the pain she had endured.
‘Whatever would possess somebody to do that to their daughter?’
His jaw tightened. ‘She would not have found a husband if her feet had been big.’
‘But they’re broken.’
‘She suffered pain for her husband and he valued her for it. He also sensed her vulnerability – her dependence on him.’
As Rowena attempted to control her disgust the woman came shuffling back with her sleeves rolled up and a pair of black velvet slippers dangling from her hand.
Kim explained to her that Rowena did not require a massage, just the slippers. The woman nodded and knelt down.
Her hands were gentle as she took Rowena’s foot into her lap, took off her shoe and replaced it with one of the slippers. She repeated the same process with the other foot and gave no sign of surprise when the slippers only just fitted.
Rowena studied the top of her head. She reminded herself that the outrage had been carried out when the woman had been a child, little more than a toddler, when the bones had been malleable, but all the same it would have been a painful process.
The slippers were comfortable, as were the cushions at her back.
‘I cooked breakfast before I went to collect you. Are you refreshed enough to eat?’
She stared at him. ‘Before you collected me? How could you have been so sure I would come?’
‘I knew you would wish to apologise and take breakfast in lieu of dinner. It’s in the kitchen. I will ring for it when you are ready. In the meantime...’
Coffee was set on an ebony side table inlaid with mother-of-pearl flowers in pastel shades of light green, pink, yellow and white, glowing like the inside of conch shells. The rich smell made her stomach rumble. ‘Delicious,’ she said, after taking a sip.
‘And now breakfast.’ He clapped his hands.
‘No... I have to go. I have to get some sleep.’
‘Breakfast first.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t really fancy dim sum at this hour. It’s a little too early.’
‘Exactly what I thought. I have cooked eggs, bacon, toast and marmalade. I also have good-quality butter. It’s imported from New Zealand. Come. Eat.’
He lifted a cover in the centre of the table.
‘That is so unfair,’ she said, though she was delighted.
He pulled out a chair for her. ‘Eat.’
She was halfway through the meal when something occurred to her. ‘I would have thought a man like you would have his servants wait on him.’
‘No servants. I wanted an intimate moment with you, as we would have had at the Jockey Club.’
She had never been the kind of girl to be embarrassed by a male comment, but on this occasion she felt her face was on fire.
‘It is true.’
‘But you don’t know me.’
A controlled smile curved the corners of his mouth. ‘But that is the whole point. I wish to get to know you. I decided this when I saw you at Connor’s and he refused to serve you – though, as I told you, I had seen you before at the hospital.’
Rowena frowned over the last piece of toast she had every intention of eating before she reached for another cup of coffee. ‘What do you think of Connor?’
‘He is honourable enough.’
She sat back against the comfortable cushions and eyed him quizzically. ‘Are you honourable?’
‘What do you think?’
His deep-set eyes looked at her in such a way that she wanted to close her own in case he was capable of influencing her thoughts. ‘I’m thinking I should be going to bed.’
‘I, too, am thinking this.’
Rowena pushed the coffee cup away and got to her feet. ‘I meant I should be away to my own bed. I’m on duty again tomorrow.’
‘But at least you will have Sunday to recover.’
The moment he got to his feet, she realised she’d misconstrued. ‘That’s very considerate of you.’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘I just... well... You’ve gone out of your way to get me here.’
‘But not to seduce you.’
She hardly noticed him gliding closer until she smelt the hint of spice and sandalwood, with the unmistakable pungency of eau de Cologne.
She kept her head bowed as she took off the slippers and slid her feet back into the black loafers that she reserved for the wards.
The old woman followed them to the lift, dragging the outer grille across after them. As it descended, the woman’s feet, almost triangular in shape, were there before her eyes, prettily encased in a pair of embroidered slippers the size a four-year-old child might wear.
Before the lift thudded gently to the ground floor, she thanked him for breakfast.
‘I gave you breakfast so you must give me something in return.’
‘I can see you again, if that’s what you want.’
‘Ah, yes. Dinner. I will think upon this.’
The bulky men in black silk tunics pulled back the grille of the lift, running to tug open the heavy double doors, bowing as Kim escorted Rowena to the car outside.
She tied a scarf around her head and put on a pair of sunglasses that half hid her face. ‘I’m beginning to flag a bit. It was a long night.’
‘Not so much as you would have flagged if you had not sampled my very good coffee, though I would have liked you to eat more breakfast. However, you can go home to your bed and sleep. You have been fed. There is nothing else you need to do. Rest. I will be in touch when convenient.’
‘I can’t promise not to be on duty.’
‘I cannot promise to be tolerant of your erratic lifestyle.’
‘Erratic? I don’t think it’s erratic.’
‘You will rest.’
It sounded like an order, but as her eyes were beginning to flutter shut, she didn’t bother to argue.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when the car pulled up in front of the nurses’ home, which was some way from the hospital.
‘I have to go now.’
His mood seemed to have changed, his eyes flickering over the crowds already thronging the streets, early on a Sunday morning.
‘Thank you for picking me up.’
He nodded, his dark pink lips set in an unbroken line, like iron. His eyes made her feel as though she was an exotic plant being carefully nurtured until it was time to be picked.
She watched him drive away, feeling a strange mixture of fear and excitement. He made her head swim and her blood race. She wished he had offered her half of his bed. She would probably have taken it.
*
Unlike Kim’s home, there were no guards to open the doors of the nurses’ home where, as the only female doctor, she was forced to live.
On a whim, a forlorn hope that he might have returned, she looked down the road and was surprised to see that more people than usual on a Sunday morning were crowding through the streets. Perhaps some kind of celebration was going on, though she couldn’t hear fireworks. Hong Kong loved them, the displays and explosions sometimes going on all night, cascades of fiery brightness lighting the sky.
‘You need to go to bed,’ she murmured, her eyelids drooping.
A group of nurses, including Alice, were clustered at the bottom of the stairs, talking nineteen to the dozen, as her mother used to say, and looking decidedly anxious. It wasn’t normal to see too many people around at this hour, perhaps one or two nurses off to the hospital or some staggering back, keen to get to their beds.
‘Rowena! There you are. Have you heard what’s happened?’
Rowena’s thoughts were elsewhere. It had suddenly struck her that Kim had not asked where she lived but had brought her straight here. How could he have known that?
‘What is it, Alice? Ha
ve you won a sweepstake? Broken a nail? Or have you finally met your Prince Charming?’
Alice’s face darkened. ‘It’s worse than that. A lot worse. The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. The Americans have entered the war.’
‘And about time too,’ said Rowena, and yawned again.
Alice’s expression was unchanged. ‘Rumour has it the Japanese are heading this way. It’s our turn next. What are we going to do, Rowena? What the bloody hell are we going to do?’
4
Across the water in Kowloon, Connor’s Bar shook to its foundations. Glasses and bottles tottered and tumbled from shelves. Pieces of the old ceiling smashed onto the canopies, snapping them in half, carved uprights standing at warped angles, the seating ruptured, the tables splintered.
Amid the crashing plaster, splintering wood and broken window panes, Connor and Harry hunkered down as another explosion rocked the roof from its supports and sent the front wall tumbling to the ground.
Yang, his face creased with misery, came out from his place of safety beneath the stairs. He was covered with dust. ‘What now, boss?’
Harry threw him the oversized key to the front door. ‘That’s why we’re here so bloody early this morning. Keep our key with yours. We might need it sometime or other. In the meantime it’s all yours. We’re called to arms. Bloody nuisance, but there you are.’
Yang stared at the vast iron key.
‘We’ll be back for our share of the profit after the battle’s won,’ added Connor, as he grabbed his violin case and scarpered.
‘If we get back,’ muttered Harry, as he rushed out after him.
Heads bowed, the pair scrambled out of the gap where the door had been, clambering over the mangled wreckage of what had been the front of the building.
Orders were being shouted by men in khaki, police and screaming merchants, attempting to save what they could from the devastation.
A crowd of Chinese were thronging towards the walled city in the hope that its ancient walls would remain when everything else was in ruins.