Liner

by James Barlow

  ‘The sun will dry me,’ was all Dempsey said.

  She admired him all the more for not complaining.

  On shore she flinched as twenty-foot strings of crackers turned the air blue.

  Many of the youths from the decorated junks had now dressed themselves in ‘lion skins’ – gaudy creations of silk and paper, consisting of a fierce head (dragonlike, rather than leonine) and many ‘back legs,’ pantomime style. They went through the sinuous motions of the ritual dance, surrounded by youths, themselves in white caps and bright red trousers, women with wide straw hats, and children raucous in excitement.

  The youths and women with offerings of hundreds of eggs and the pigs on biers then climbed the cliffs, followed by hundreds.

  ‘If they can’t drown us they’ll break our blasted necks,’ growled Dempsey, but with Debbie he made the difficult ascent.

  The dances were repeated before a temple shrine on a space levelled out of the hillside, fronted by a square court with a high retaining wall facing the sea. Many steps led up to the shrine and the breathless, sweating women, burdened with offerings, now entered and presented the food. Individual women carried in bundles of paper clothing and emerged with flaming packets which they consigned to a brazier already pouring black smoke. The firecrackers were still being discharged and added sulphurous fumes.

  Lion dance teams of two men performed in relays before the temple, and other entertainments began.

  Two hours passed and the sky began to pinken in the west. On a ridge nearby, when the dances were over the last junk had presented its roast pig, the young men of each tong, the name of which was inscribed prominently on a banner which fluttered from the junk’s top mast, performed the last ceremonies.

  They formed a ring around a table which was loaded with self-launching projectiles, each with a tag bearing a number.

  Debbie jumped when these things fizzed thirty feet into the evening air and exploded, shedding burning debris over the spectators.

  The crowd scrambled for the tags. They were fired in order of importance. The second one fell at Debbie’s feet and she picked it up, although without wishing to claim it. She surrendered it willingly to a young man of the tong, merely asking, ‘What’s it mean?’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Second class,’ explained Dempsey. ‘You have the second luck. In theory you could claim a trophy.’

  ‘The luck will be enough,’ she said.

  Night had its own strangeness. Above the beach a bell began to toll with a deep boom and scores of voices to chant devotions and ceremonials. On the shore carnival had begun; all was noise, shouting and rushing about. Dust coated Debbie and there was the strong smell of salt from pans somewhere on this island. It was still enormously hot. Fresh discharges of rockets had determined many degrees of luck.

  She was satisfied and would have been willing to end the day. But he took her to a floating restaurant for dinner. The atmosphere was that of steam, and the smells foreign: sauces and the heat of soups, jasmine, ginger, and fish cooked in wine. There were spittoons by every table, for the men, and jars of toothpicks for everyone.

  They sipped at the jasmine-scented tea from bowls; ate the dem-sum with relish: small cockles dipped in sauce, prawns and pieces of ginger and other things not identifiable but delicious. Chicken with lotus seed followed. She left it to Dempsey, who seemed to know what he was ordering. Meat balls came next, featherweight in dough, followed by suckling pig and bird’s nest soup.

  She had accepted several cups of what she thought was some harmless variety of tea, but this stuff, called shau-shing, was a wine distilled from rice; because it was sweet and even cloying she had assumed it to be innocent. But now she was a fraction anaesthetized, and even though aware of it she became, by her standards, noisy.

  ‘Daniel, you’ve got me tight!’

  He stood and up and toasted her. ‘Yam seng!’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Bottoms up! Where’s that man with his blasted face flannel? Have a liqueur?’

  ‘Not on your life. I might be seasick. What will you do tomorrow?’ she asked, half revealing what was in her heart.

  But he was evasive.

  ‘A surgery, I expect. How about you.’

  ‘That pen friend is to meet me.’

  ‘I hope he’s not a disappointment.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s he or she,’ Debbie admitted. ‘I’m going cold on it anyway.’

  It was a hint, but he missed it – as usual, she thought charitably.

  ‘Ah, look!’ she cried with pleasure. ‘There’s Mr. Tomazos!’

  The first officer was with Mollen, another man and two very attractive Chinese girls dressed in their colourful cheongsams.

  They talked to him on their way out. It was obvious that the two girls were with Mollon and the civilian, but Tomazos was cheerful enough, it seemed.

  He greeted them with undisguised pleasure, so that Debbie, inhibitions burned away by the wine, reciprocated the warmth. It seemed incredible that the cheerful solid man should have been betrayed.

  ‘Look who’s here!’ he called.

  Mollon examined Debbie with frank physical admiration, and the third man stood up for the brief introductions.

  ‘What are you celebrating?’ Tomazos asked.

  ‘Well, nothing particular. Have you anything in mind?’

  ‘You seem very happy.’

  ‘And you? What are you celebrating?’

  ‘Ah, we are celebrating the typhoon which surely awaits us.’

  Debbie said prettily, ‘I am sure that you are doing no such thing. But if it was so, I would be content to have you above all men to be in charge of the Areopagus.’

  Tomazos looked at her and knew that something kind and human was intended, that she had learned of what had happened to him and was disturbed, hurt on his behalf.

  ‘That is a compliment I shall treasure and try to be worthy of.’

  ‘Have a nice party,’ she suggested.

  ‘And you, too.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The Chinese girls smiled cautiously and Mollon said, ‘Too right.’

  The restaurant was on an upper deck. One deck beneath it was the world, where the vulgarity of the West permeated the strangeness. Debbie could not be expected on this night to notice the intrusion – the counter stacked with American soft drinks, the postcards, films, colour slides of what had been thought a singular experience, but was evidently just a tourist attraction. Beyond was the misery of the world, the sampans crowding around in the hope of a tossed coin.

  It was after midnight when they returned to the Areopagus, but the Parade Deck was crowded with traders, passengers and ship’s crew.

  Debbie was reluctant to end the day, and Dempsey, too, found it hard to unwind, switch if off.

  They strolled around examining the linen and cheap objets d’art.

  ‘I will buy you a pair of shoes,’ Debbie said, for the pair Dempsey wore were still squishing uncomfortably.

  ‘Not your fault I fell –’

  ‘Ah, but I laughed and so want to pay penance –’

  ‘If everyone who laughed –’

  A cat miaowed.

  Debbie turned and said, ‘You don’t catch me a second time.’

  The steward grinned and asked, ‘What you buy, eh? You have a good time?’

  ‘Marvellous,’ she told him promptly.

  Dempsey commented, ‘This fellow says he’s got some jade.’

  ‘Ah, how beautiful’ cried Debbie, looking at it, ignoring the inadequate light.

  The trader was quick to seize on the situation.

  ‘Yu Din,’ he explained. ‘Three-legged vessel. Made in the time of Emperor Chien Lung. And this i
s a miniature Yu Shiang Lu – that is, an incense burner. This Hwa Shuen – flower vase. Many rings.’

  ‘Soapstone,’ challenged Dempsey.

  ‘No. Mutton fat, good white. This Celadon, what you call olive green. This ship Spinach Green, you try to scratch you will find it is not soapstone.’

  ‘Would you like a trinket?’ Dempsey asked clumsily.

  Debbie whispered, ‘I’d love the three-legged ship, but it’d cost the earth –’

  ‘What, here?’ he asked. ‘How much is the ship?’

  ‘Hundred Australian dollars.’

  ‘I’m a doctor, not a gangster.’

  The steward whispered to Debbie, while Dempsey haggled badly, ‘I’ll fix this fellow good, eh?’

  He blew a whistle and shouted, ‘All traders ashore.’

  Dempsey knew that this gave him the whip hand.

  ‘Not a cent more than ten.’

  ‘This is genuine Yu Din of Emperor Chien Lung. Carved and polished two hundred years ago. It is worth a thousand dollars – I give it to you for fifty. Years of toil to make it, wheels pedalled by craftsmen . . . ’

  The traders were being herded to the gangway, and the steward put a hand behind this one’s back. ‘All ashore. Plenty of time for that tomorrow.’

  ‘Forty,’ suggested the trader.

  The steward inserted himself into the discussion. ‘Which palace you take this from?’ he asked.

  ‘Beautiful chemical impurities and oxides cause this perfection –’

  ‘Ten’ said Dempsey with finality.

  ‘May it bring you long life, many children and protection against pain,’ proposed the trader, surrendering with grace.

  He gathered together his several trays and boxes, dropped them into a sack and went ashore.

  In the greater illumination of the Aegean Lounge they examined the tiny vessel. It seemed supremely beautiful.

  ‘I shall always treasure it,’ said Debbie frankly.

  ‘And may it have the charms he suggested.’

  They were conscious that they must separate and that there were things unsaid, emotions not clarified.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Dempsey asked.

  ‘No. That would spoil it. But thank you.’

  They strolled along A Deck. Her cabin was amidships, one hundred and fifty feet astern of the surgery.

  She wishes to convey something of her emotions as well as gratitude for an unusual day. It was impossible to talk in terms of affection; he was just too distant even now. She knew that she would have to convey what the day, meant to her by writing a letter to him. Or making a phone call. A letter would be better, for it would allow care of expression, the consideration of words. But right now the day was still very much with her and, as he was not likely to do anything rash, it was up to her. He was helpless, she could see, hesitant, not aware of how to separate with grace, without inflicting pain.

  Audaciously – so that her face was hot with embarrassment considering it for an hour afterwards – she, who was as tall as he, took his head between both hands very quickly, kissed him somewhere around the left eye, and said breathlessly, ‘Bless you, Daniel, for the day,’ and fled, only to have to stand two yards fumbling for a key. He said, ‘Good night, my dear,’ and was gone. The feeling was distinctly one of anti-climax and she found that she was trembling. But the beautiful piece of jade was hard in her hand in proof of something.

  Lin Yuen, pen friend for eighteen months, proved to be a young man. He was a great disappointment. Perhaps this was inevitable by virtue of comparison with the day before.

  It was not that Lin Yuen was of uninteresting appearance. He was quite a handsome youth of nineteen, a college student; he was in no way vulgar. But the neuterness of his correspondence was explained now by his interests, which tended to be prejudiced to the point of bigotry. His dedication was not to things social or sexual. At first intimidated by his strong views expressed with vigour, Debbie gradually appreciated that his perspective of the world, particularly of Hong Kong, was bitter, not to be interrupted by argument or minor truths. He had written to her and asked questions about America and Australia, and now he inquired in the same outright manner, but the words, aloud, lost the quaintness and all the charm which had been presumed in the letters. He regarded Debbie as someone who was part of a great guilt, answerable to him. He did not really want to learn, but to adopt facts to his prejudicial condition. His pursuit of knowledge, at the age of nineteen, was formed, frozen, and everything extraneous was additional evidence, not qualification, to help condemnation, not to assist, estimate or temper with mercy.

  She soon began to wonder if he had continued the correspondence because he had found out that she was a diplomat’s daughter. In this she was a great disappointment to him. He was well versed in political semantics. To her, politics meant nothing, block hatreds were meaningless’ human beings were what mattered. He became incredulous at first, then a little derisive, finally scornful.

  They were in the vast amusement park called Lai Chi Kok, on the Kowloon side. There were many entertainments here which were unusual and would have interested her – story tellers, fortune tellers, blind minstrels, hawkers, a replica of an old Chinese palace where they could have eaten, roller coasters, Chinese opera . . . He just strolled about in the blazing sun despising everything, even her.

  It was impossible even to pay compliments.

  ‘It’s so beautiful and exciting,’ she said, early in the conversation.

  Lin Yuen waved a hand in scorn. ‘To an American, yes. Money paves the way. The best is available. And the English pay their expatriate civil servants well. They have crazy leave provision – whole weeks and months. The Chinese factory worker takes five days off in a year. Oh, yes, it is beautiful for the two percent who are answerable to nobody.’

  ‘It is better than life across the river,’ she suggested.

  ‘Is it?’ he demanded. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because they fled in millions here.’

  ‘Old fools with a sense of gratitude,’ he claimed. ‘We who are young are not obliged to grovel before the wealthy British. We see the poverty and the cynical exploitation. It is a community in which vulgar wealth and poverty stand side by side. But you choose to see only the wealth and the glamour.’

  ‘I have only been here a day and a half. But even I know that a million of the four million here are in newly built government flats . . . ’

  ‘You think a flat with a toilet and shower is justice?’

  ‘It is better than a sleep cubicle rented on a time basis, with shared facilities.’

  ‘It is exploitation of the poor either way,’ he suggested angrily.

  Stung, she said, ‘Do you do anything about it except complain?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, not offended, but smiling. ‘The end of the road is not independence here. The British may keep their hundreds of millions of pounds reserves in London. They and certain Chinese exploiters import their Japanese and Oriental wares or make baubles here in factories, but their days are numbered . . . ’

  There seemed nothing else to say to one so conditioned. She stared around as they strolled aimlessly. At first she had felt humiliated, ignorant, as guilty as he meant her to feel, a political fool. But after two hours of it she was merely annoyed. And finally she was resentful, waiting to escape, and thrashing her brains to find some excuse to leave which would convince him who was not open to conviction. She would never write to him again.

  Meanwhile, he persisted, whipped her with his curious prejudiced logic and expected her to respond, to be overwhelmed by it. He was, presumably, an activist of some sort. She limited herself to the minimum, to ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or to silence which should have told him he was a bore, not mindful of his guest.

  With great shock she saw two Eu
ropeans a few hundred yards off get into a taxi, and her pulse thumped so that even her head throbbed. For she identified them as Dempsey and the woman Pauline. But the sensation of shock and even faintness passed, for she was conscious that it was her imagination and that her mind, being full of him, saw Dempsey everywhere. She returned her attention to the harsh opinions pouring out of the thin mouth, so fast that it was as if he was pumping in material in a specific time period and, aware of it, must hurry, the words could be digested later; she would then be convinced . . .

  Several times Debbie nerved herself to utter the dishonest genteel excuses and leave him. He would know they were courtesy only, and would despise her, but it seemed he did that already.

  She was so ingrained in politeness that she could not do it without anger to assist her. But suddenly he said something of which she caught the last words, ‘ . . . half Asia starves while the American barbarians strut round smiling and killing and working out the possible profit.’

  She said angrily, ‘If you believe such rubbish you are a fool.’

  He was anxious to discuss it. ‘No. You are foolish because –’

  ‘- and you will not wish to have my company. Good morning.’

  She crossed the street recklessly to be decisive and get away. He shouted abuse behind her: ‘You are a mental and moral coward who cannot face your guilt . . . ’

  But she had a long stride and was around three corners before the density of traffic could have allowed him to cross the street in pursuit, if indeed he wished to. She hailed a taxi in a panic and went back to the Canton Road.

  In the Ocean Terminal she saw Miss Wearne, alone, perhaps lonely, staring in a shop window. In three hours was this as far as she’d got – a few hundred yards from the Areopagus? By a car showroom Mr. Pybus sprawled in a seat, dead drunk, snoring, vulgarly attired.