‘I confuse me,’ Lucille huffed.
She lay on the table, her mind wandering. Ever since she could remember, her mother had made it abundantly clear that she would have much preferred a son. With all the travelling her parents did, Lucille had been packed off to boarding school at age four. But it was no ordinary school. From the very beginning, Lucille had shown great potential as a gymnast, so she decided to work hard and prove that she could make something of herself. Her mother had been embarrassed at first, but when Lucille had met and married Bernard, the mere fact that she was no longer her concern had seemed to improve their relationship, for a short while at least. But Lucille had always felt like an outsider with the Wongs. Her sister-in-law, Cherry, was far more talented than she and it hadn’t seemed to matter how hard she tried or what she did, it was nigh on impossible to impress her mother-in-law, Winnie. Over the years, Lucille had grown bitter. She would love to have lived her mother’s life these days, instead of having to train and perform endlessly. And what she wouldn’t give to have an inside bathroom.
‘At least you can still perform,’ Rou said, jolting Lucille back to reality. ‘You are not a cripple like me.’ A shiver of pain ran the length of the older woman’s spine.
‘Why do you always do that? I was almost asleep,’ Lucille barked. ‘I am just so bored, and look at my feet. Have you ever seen anything –’
Rou screwed up her face. ‘So ugly.’
‘I was going to say “tortured”,’ Lucille said tartly. ‘Anyway, you know my problems. You have been in this troupe longer than anyone, apart from Lionel and Winnie.’
‘I have been here longer than Winnie,’ Rou snapped. She eased up on Lucille’s right shoulder and began on the left.
‘Hmph. I’m just waiting for the day when my father-in-law kicks the bucket and we can move out of that hideous siheyuan and buy a real house with indoor plumbing. Or better still, we could move to Hong Kong.’
‘Maybe you will not have to wait that long,’ Rou said.
Lucille tensed. ‘What are you talking about now? Is my father-in-law unwell?’
‘No, but perhaps you should ask your husband,’ Rou said, and slapped her on the back. ‘There, you are done. How does it feel?’
Lucille slid off the massage table and stood up. She arched her neck and rolled her shoulders.
‘You couldn’t do that before, could you?’ The old woman chuckled and flexed her wrists. ‘That is because I have the hands of a magician.’
Lucille arched an eyebrow. ‘And the tongue of a troublemaker.’
‘How can you say that?’ Rou pouted, feigning offence. ‘You hurt my feelings.’
‘Because it is the truth,’ Lucille said. ‘Now, tell me what you know.’
Rou grinned slyly. ‘What is it worth?’
‘You tell me, old friend,’ Lucille said, her eyes narrowing.
Millie stared out of the hotel window at the city skyline. ‘This place is amazing. It sort of reminds me of Tokyo but with a harbour and mountains,’ she said. ‘Actually, it’s totally different. Tokyo was super flat and way bigger.’
‘It’s pretty, though, isn’t it?’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘And I love how it feels. There’s so much energy.’
Millie grinned at her friend. ‘I’m glad we got to be together for Hong Kong and Shanghai.’
‘Me too,’ Alice-Miranda said with a smile. ‘I suppose in Beijing they matched us with the host student according to our interests. I can’t imagine there are too many horseriders in the city, so I wonder why I ended up with Jacinta. I mean, I’m not a gymnast or anything.’
Just before they left on the trip, Miss Grimm had told the children the names of their host families and who they would be paired up with from school. Alice-Miranda, along with Jacinta, was spending her time in Beijing with the Wong family. Millie and Sloane were with the Chans, and Caprice and Susannah had ended up with a family called the Fangs.
Millie shrugged. ‘Maybe it was choir. What else did you write on your form?’
‘I said that I liked travelling and trying new things.’
‘Perhaps my billet plays tennis,’ Millie said. ‘Or Miss Grimm might have decided to mix it up a bit. We’re together for most things, after all. Anyway, at least I’m not with Caprice. That would have been the worst!’
Caprice and Millie had both breathed a sigh of relief knowing they weren’t spending the week together.
Alice-Miranda looked at her watch. They were waiting for one of the adults to collect them for dinner.
‘We should be going soon,’ the child said, just as there was a loud tap on the door.
‘Don’t forget your keys, girls,’ Miss Reedy trilled from outside.
Millie stowed her camera into her daypack and Alice-Miranda picked hers up from the bed. With a grin and an air of curiosity, the two friends set off on their first adventure in Hong Kong.
The children followed the headmistress and her husband along the main road and down an alleyway. Each parent was stationed intermittently along the line of pairs, which left Mr Plumpton and Miss Reedy to bring up the rear.
The city was a heady cocktail of smells and sounds. Pedestrians powered towards them unperturbed and several times the children had to leap out of the way to avoid being clobbered by a wayward briefcase or market vendor’s cart. Pretty lanterns and restaurant shopfronts lined the alley. On the sidewalk, touts competed for business, shouting their specials to entice the punters inside.
Caprice gagged. ‘Sheesh. Does it smell this bad everywhere in Hong Kong?’
‘I think you’ll find that’s a special scent.’ Millie pointed at the overflowing industrial waste bins at the end of the laneway. She sniffed the air dramatically. ‘Ah, yes, I think that’s called eau de garbage.’
Alice-Miranda giggled.
Caprice pinched her nose. ‘It’s rank!’
Miss Grimm made a hard right into one of the restaurants and left the rest of the group to wait outside while she checked that all was in order. The headmistress reappeared with a slim woman dressed in a traditional cheongsam and clutching a clipboard. She smiled and indicated for the group to follow her inside.
‘That smells better,’ Millie said, breathing in the food aromas. On top of the curved reception desk, a gold ceramic cat waved its paw at the patrons, and behind it an intricate screen of red and gold partially hid a large fish tank teeming with sea creatures.
The restaurant was jam-packed. The hostess spoke quickly into a small microphone headset before ushering the group up a wide flight of stairs. To the left, customers were enjoying their meals, while on the right a series of doors led to private dining rooms.
‘The food here must be really good,’ Millie whispered. ‘There’s not a tourist in sight.’
Alice-Miranda nodded. ‘It smells delicious.’
Venetia Baldini leaned in. ‘It’s one of my rules of thumb when I’m away overseas to eat where the locals do.’
‘Everyone looks so happy,’ Alice-Miranda said. She couldn’t resist waving at an elderly lady who smiled at her. ‘Ni hao,’ the girl chimed.
Ophelia Grimm noticed that lots of the patrons were now waving at the children, and quickly herded everyone into the room their hostess had entered and closed the door. She wondered how they were going to cope when Lawrence Ridley eventually joined them, which reminded her that he should have arrived by now. She looked around for Lucas and realised the boy was standing right next to her.
‘Have you heard from your father?’ Ophelia asked. Her brow furrowed when the boy shook his head. ‘I hope he’s not going to stand us up,’ she said, wishing immediately that she hadn’t when she saw the glum look on the boy’s face. ‘It’s all right. I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Probably just a delayed flight.’ Miss Grimm hurried away to get everyone seated, leaving Lucas on his own.
Jacinta watched the exchange from the other side of the room. She wanted to go and talk to him but her legs felt as if they were set in concrete.
Al
ice-Miranda appeared beside her. ‘Go on,’ she whispered. ‘He looks like he could use a friend.’
But Miss Grimm began ordering the children to be seated and the moment passed. Jacinta and Alice-Miranda sat down at the closest of the three round tables and were quickly joined by their friends. Alice-Miranda had tried to orchestrate for Jacinta to sit beside Lucas, but Sloane had rushed in.
‘Do we get to see a menu?’ Sloane asked tentatively.
Venetia shook her head. ‘Miss Grimm and I pre-ordered a range of dishes for everyone to share. Don’t worry, Sloane. There’s nothing unusual. They didn’t even have pickled sea cucumbers on the menu.’
‘That’s a pity,’ Sep said. ‘I’d have tried them.’
‘As if,’ Sloane quipped, hoping Venetia wasn’t just telling her what she wanted to hear.
Minutes later, several waitstaff descended upon the room, setting down plates of fried rice, steamed fish, Chinese broccoli, braised tofu and sweet-and-sour pork on the lazy Susans in the centre of each table. Sloane started off rather slowly, but it wasn’t long before she was tucking in with as much enthusiasm as the rest of the party.
‘I hope the food’s as delicious as this on the whole trip,’ Sep said. He was wrestling some tofu onto his chopsticks and having a far greater degree of success than his mother, who had just managed to flick a piece of pork over her shoulder and onto Miss Grimm’s plate.
‘Good heavens!’ Ophelia exclaimed as she was showered in soy sauce. ‘Where did that come from?’ She stood up and looked around. ‘If anyone here thinks it’s funny to throw food, you’ll be on the first plane home.’
Miss Reedy and Mr Plumpton were both trying to suppress giggles, having seen exactly who had launched the offending missile.
‘Mummy, I saw that,’ Sloane muttered.
September looked at her sheepishly. ‘I didn’t mean it.’
‘Would you like Mr Plumpton to assemble you a pair of training chopsticks?’ Miss Reedy offered from the next table. The man had brought a container of elastic bands and tiny sheets of paper so he could modify the chopsticks for children who wanted a little more practise before going it alone.
Josiah Plumpton handed the woman a pair. ‘Here you are, Mrs Sykes. They can be tricky little utensils to master.’
‘Thank you.’ September forced a smile, although her cheeks were a deep shade of red.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ambrosia Headlington-Bear said quietly. ‘It took me years to get the hang of chopsticks.’
‘I just slipped, that’s all,’ September sniffed.
Sloane rolled her eyes. ‘You’re hopeless, Mummy.’
‘Ease up on Mum, will you?’ Sep mouthed across the table at his sister.
Sloane wrinkled her lip. ‘I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.’
Sep slid out of his seat and walked around to speak with his sister. He didn’t want to have a slanging match with her across the table. ‘Mum’s really trying to fit in,’ the boy whispered. ‘You know this is her chance to show everyone how much she’s changed. You were given a second chance – why can’t you do the same for her?’
While September pretended that she hadn’t, she’d heard every word of her son’s speech. Sep was such a good boy – even if she didn’t understand him at all. And she was trying. She’d recently begun a whole raft of activities for personal improvement in addition to her weekly grooming rituals. Her favourite was ballroom dancing. She had tried to talk Smedley into going along with her but, as always, he was too busy. So she’d gone on her own and found the most divine partner. Six foot two inches tall with a muscular physique, Carlos flung her around that dance floor like a puppet on a string. In the past few months she’d learned to tango and rhumba, and apparently she was quite good at it. Carlos had even entered them in a couple of amateur competitions, which, naturally, they’d won.
She’d been surprised when Smedley suggested that she accompany the children on their trip to China. It wasn’t somewhere she especially wanted to go, but he’d thought it might be a way for her to bridge the ever-increasing chasm between her and the children – which was glaringly evident each time they came home from school. September decided that if Smedley was paying, it wouldn’t do her any harm, and anyway, Carlos was off on his annual engagement on a cruise ship, teaching senior citizens how to dance.
Carlos had mentioned that the shopping in Hong Kong was outstanding and she could probably buy lots of great fabrics for all the dance outfits she’d be needing over the coming months. The problem was, there didn’t seem to be any shopping time allocated. Surely the adults didn’t have to babysit the children the whole time, September thought to herself. What sort of holiday would that be? She was planning to sneak off for a few hours in the morning.
‘What’s that awful noise?’ Ophelia Grimm put her chopsticks on their rest and looked around the room. To her absolute horror, on the next table over, Rufus Pemberley was slurping short soup through his front teeth with great gusto. ‘Pemberley, stop that at once,’ the woman demanded.
‘But it’s a compliment, Miss Grimm.’ The boy grinned, glancing at his dining companions, some of whom had begun to do the same thing.
‘Not where I come from,’ the woman fumed.
‘It’s true,’ Mr Plumpton weighed in. ‘Slurping isn’t considered rude at all in China. It’s actually good manners.’
The headmistress glared at the Science teacher. ‘Thank you, Mr Plumpton. Next time you might like to keep your learned opinions to yourself.’
Rufus belched loudly, drawing howls of laughter from the other children and spontaneous applause from the waitstaff, who had come to clear the empty dishes.
‘Mr Plumpton,’ Miss Grimm said, lowering her voice. ‘I really don’t think that’s appropriate, do you?’
The man shrugged. ‘When in Rome … or Hong Kong, as it happens to be,’ he said as he felt a firm jab in the ribs from his wife. ‘Ah, no, I’ll have a quiet word with the children later.’
At the end of the main course, Miss Grimm stood up to address the group. Figgy clattered his chopsticks against the side of his teacup to get everyone’s attention.
‘Good evening, children, parents and staff. I hope you’ll agree that the meal this evening has been delicious, although perhaps we might like to consider that adopting every local custom might not be necessary.’ She paused to look meaningfully at Rufus and Mr Plumpton. ‘We’ve had a wonderful start to the trip – a smooth flight, with no luggage lost, and the hotel is lovely. I’d like to compliment the children on their behaviour, for the most part, and my heartiest appreciation to the parents and staff for volunteering to come along and help make these ten days a time that the students will never forget.’
Ophelia stopped as she caught sight of a man with a long bushy beard hovering around the door to the room. He seemed to be looking for someone.
Lucas spotted him too. ‘Dad!’ he yelled.
The man pushed open the door and hurried inside, embracing the lad in a bear hug. Alice-Miranda looked twice before realising who it was. She shot out of her seat and ran to greet him as well.
‘That can’t possibly be Lawrence Ridley,’ September blurted. ‘That fellow is a fat middle-aged man who looks like he’s just climbed out of a bin – well, apart from that divine linen jacket he’s wearing.’
Lawrence laughed. ‘Fantastic! It seems I’m ready to start shooting my next movie as I am playing an overweight middle-aged man who’s been in hiding in the woods for three months.’
September’s jaw dropped. ‘Good heavens, it is you!’
‘Sorry I’m late, everyone. The flight out of Los Angeles was delayed,’ Lawrence said. ‘I’m just glad that I finally found the right restaurant. I walked into the place next door and was quickly shown the exit – I think they mistook me for a hobo.’
He grinned and there it was. Even with the bushy beard and chubbier features, that smile which could light up any room appeared and rendered every woman and girl in the place speech
less.
Ophelia Grimm sighed. ‘It’s lovely to have you with us, Mr Ridley.’ She stood up and shook hands with the man, as did the other staff, before introducing him to the parents.
Of course, he already knew Ambrosia and greeted her warmly. Lawrence then thanked Venetia for his new figure, explaining that his wife was completely devoted to her show, Sweet Things, and was whipping up all manner of sugary treats for him. Venetia smiled sheepishly and said she was glad to help. September was almost completely overcome and looked as though she might faint, but fortunately Miss Grimm stepped in.
‘Would you like something to eat?’ Ophelia asked. ‘They’ve just cleared away the last of the main courses, but here comes dessert.’
Lawrence chuckled and rubbed his belly. ‘I can’t very well say no, can I? I’ve worked hard for this body.’
Aldous Grump quickly found a spare chair and squeezed it in between Sep and Lucas.
‘Thanks,’ said Lawrence. ‘So what’s happening after dinner?’
‘I was just about to get to that,’ Miss Grimm said, trying to remember where she’d been up to before the man had arrived. ‘We’re off to see a show called the Circus of Golden Destiny, which happens to be playing quite close by to our hotel.’
The children looked at each other and grinned. ‘Cool!’ they chorused.
‘I hope they don’t have any elephants or tigers or performing bears,’ Jacinta said. Ever since the discovery of the puppy farm in the woods near their school, some of the girls had been very active in campaigning against cruelty to animals.
Miss Grimm shook her head. ‘There are no animals in the performance,’ she assured the girl.
‘But how can it be a circus without animals?’ Figgy said.
Lawrence Ridley picked up a second cup of mango pudding from the lazy Susan and chimed in. ‘It’s fabulous. I’ve seen them a couple of times in different countries and you won’t be able to take your eyes off the acrobats.’
Alice-Miranda in China Page 5