It was true that Winnie would love nothing more than for Rou to go on an extended vacation. Deng Rou had been part of the troupe since the beginning, despite Winnie often wishing otherwise. The woman had once been an extraordinary gymnast and had attended the same school as Lionel. They had grown up as close as any brother and sister. When Lionel hit upon the idea of his show, they had started it together. But during one of their rehearsals, Rou had plummeted from the trapeze and, without a safety net to catch her, had almost died. She never performed again.
But she had been determined that her friend Lionel would succeed and, from her hospital bed, managed to get word to her uncle who ran an acrobatic school in the city. He sent a beautiful and talented young woman named Winifred to take Rou’s place. Winnie and Lionel formed an instant bond, first in their routines and soon after as husband and wife. The show became a huge success and Lionel visited Rou in hospital every day for months while she recovered. He felt so guilty about what had happened to her that he vowed Rou would have a job for life within the troupe.
As China underwent a massive cultural and economic transformation, Lionel was able to take the show to new heights, from a fledgling troupe performing mostly for government officials and their guests, to one of Beijing’s premier tourist attractions. Despite not being able to perform, Rou had made herself useful in other ways. She was a brilliant masseuse and trainer, and she made props and sewed exquisite costumes.
But Winnie felt the sting of resentment from the woman. Rou believed Lionel had become soft, always letting his wife have her way. Although Winnie had never been able to catch Rou out, she suspected the woman was a master manipulator as well as a gossip – so much so that if there was anything Lucille wanted the rest of the troupe to find out, it was Rou she told first. Lionel insisted that Rou was just lonely, but Winnie simply didn’t trust the woman. Rou and Lucille were as thick as thieves too, which was another thing that didn’t sit well.
‘Thank you for the tea, Rou,’ Winnie said. ‘You need to go and check the sewing basket. I heard Lucille complaining that there were some sequins missing from her red leotard, and I think the hem on Coco’s pink frock needs fixing.’
Rou bowed and darted out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Winnie picked up her teacup and slurped loudly. ‘She knows something,’ she said after a moment.
‘I cannot imagine how,’ Lionel replied. ‘I have sworn Bernard and Charles to secrecy.’
‘She probably had her ear to the keyhole. That woman is a meddler and a troublemaker, I tell you,’ Winnie fretted. ‘The sooner you get rid of her, the better.’
Lionel sighed. ‘Must we keep doing this? I promised that I would look after her. Do you want to make me a liar and bring shame upon our family?’
‘Of course not. I just want her to move far, far away. Perhaps we could suggest that we put her up in a retirement home,’ Winnie said. ‘In Harbin.’
Lionel suppressed a smile. ‘You know the law as well as I do. If Rou were to retire, she must return to her birthplace to collect her pension benefits. She would hardly move to Harbin, where it is forty below in winter. We are better off making sure that she stays here, in Beijing.’
Winnie closed her eyes. ‘Fine. She and Lucille can take care of one another. Heaven knows they deserve it.’
Rou’s face scrunched into a ball. ‘I’d like to see her try to get rid of me,’ she muttered, and pulled away from the keyhole. The laxatives she’d forgotten to add to Winnie’s tea went straight back into her pocket. ‘Next time,’ she sniffed, and stalked off down the hall.
Grey skies greeted the group when they met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant at nine o’clock. After their late night, almost everyone was glad for a slower start to the day. September, however, was itching to get to the shops. She’d purchased a cheongsam at the arcade in the Pearl Tower and was keen to find a pair of shoes in just the right shade of red to go with it.
Despite Sloane’s horror at the idea of her mother trying to squeeze herself into one of the tiny dresses, the wily sales assistant had swiftly located the only extra-large garment in the shop. Even though it was still snug, September thought it very fetching and somehow convinced Ambrosia and Miss Reedy to try some on too. They both looked stunning, and in the end Venetia and Miss Grimm also bought themselves cheongsams; the five women making a pact to wear their dresses on the last night in honour of the trip.
Alice-Miranda greeted Sloane and Jacinta with a bright smile as they joined her and Millie at their table. ‘Good morning.’
‘Hi,’ Sloane mumbled.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Millie asked.
The girl waved a hand in her mother’s direction. ‘She’s been banging about since half past six and before that she was snoring like a train. So much for getting a sleep-in.’ Though she wasn’t about to say so, Sloane was relieved that the snorer had turned out to be her mother and not herself.
‘The congee is delicious,’ Alice-Miranda said, pointing her spoon at the bowl of rice porridge in front of her. ‘Especially if you dunk in the Chinese doughnut.’
‘I still don’t know how you eat that stuff,’ Millie said, pulling a face, and went back to her bacon and eggs.
Jacinta dug into her cereal and Sloane nibbled a piece of watermelon.
Lucas and Sep walked towards the girls with their breakfast trays. ‘Can we sit with you?’ Sep asked.
‘Sure,’ Millie said.
Alice-Miranda didn’t miss the anxious look on Jacinta’s face and flashed her a comforting smile.
‘Figgy doesn’t seem too happy this morning,’ Sep said, nodding at the boy sitting on his own at a table for two.
‘I saw Miss Grimm and Mr Plumpton speaking to him before we went up to bed last night,’ Millie said. ‘About the goldfish.’
‘At least he’s still here,’ Lucas weighed in. ‘I thought Miss Grimm was going to put him on the first plane home.’
‘You have to admit it was a sweet idea to buy a goldfish for his host family, although not well thought through,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘They are considered to be very lucky.’
‘Not for Figgy,’ Sloane quipped, and the others laughed.
‘It looks like he and Rufus are back to their silly old selves,’ Millie said as the other boy reappeared from the breakfast buffet and frisbeed a croissant at the lad before sitting down opposite him. ‘Unlike you two.’ Millie eyeballed Lucas first, then Jacinta.
The girl gulped. She raised her eyebrows at Alice-Miranda, who shook her head.
Caprice was sitting on the next table munching on some toast and eavesdropping on their conversation. She couldn’t understand why Lucas was so interested in Jacinta. Caprice thought she’d be a much better friend to the boy. She couldn’t help herself and leaned over. ‘I heard you two lovebirds weren’t talking because Lucas has a girlfriend,’ she said airily.
‘What?’ The lad turned to her. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘It was all around school,’ Caprice cooed. ‘Someone saw you with a girl in the village.’
‘Caprice, please stop making mischief,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘That’s not true at all.’
The girl flicked her copper-coloured tresses and smirked. ‘Maybe Jacinta’s got a secret boyfriend too.’
‘I do not!’ Jacinta leapt out of her chair, her hands on her hips. ‘That’s a lie. You’re lying, Caprice.’
Ambrosia Headlington-Bear and the other adults were enjoying their breakfast in the far corner of the room when they became aware of the ruckus. Ambrosia looked across the restaurant and lowered her spoon. ‘Oh no,’ she whispered, recognising the old telltale signs.
Caprice smiled to herself. ‘You know, I’ve heard so many stories about the school’s second best tantrum thrower. Perhaps now I’m going to see her in action.’
Jacinta’s face was getting redder by the second and she looked set to pounce. ‘Why are you telling such horrible lies about us?’ she demanded.
Before she unleashed the full force of her rage, Lucas stood up and grabbed her hand, charging out the door into the hallway beyond. Alice-Miranda and Millie went after them like a shot.
‘Well, that was disappointing,’ Caprice remarked, and went back to munching on her toast.
Jacinta stood in the hallway as stiff as a board. The intense crimson was seeping from her cheeks and her heart rate was beginning to slow. Lucas let go of her hand and stood facing her, wondering what to say.
‘Right,’ Millie said as she and Alice-Miranda arrived on the scene. ‘This is stupid. What’s the matter with you two?’
Jacinta stared at the ground and Lucas shrugged.
‘Fine. If you’re not going to work this out, then I will,’ Millie said. She turned her attention to Jacinta. ‘Why aren’t you talking to Lucas? Has he done something to upset you?’
Jacinta shook her head.
‘So why aren’t you talking to him?’ Millie was dumbfounded. ‘What’s changed?’
Jacinta took a deep breath and turned to the boy. She hesitated for a moment.
‘I’d really like to know if I’ve done something,’ Lucas said.
Jacinta twisted her fingers together. Her stomach was churning. ‘You’re probably going to think I’m a fool, but I’ve been worrying myself sick that you don’t like me anymore and that you’re just being kind because that’s the sort of person you are,’ she blurted.
‘What?’ Lucas’s forehead creased. ‘You and Sep are my best friends.’
Jacinta’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Do you really mean that? Even after I’ve been such an idiot?’
Lucas nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
Millie dusted her hands and winked at Alice-Miranda. ‘Good, that’s sorted then. So are you two going to act normal from now on?’
They both nodded.
‘But no holding hands, okay? You’re still too young for all that boyfriend and girlfriend stuff,’ Millie chided. ‘We’re going to have to put up with that for years sooner or later.’
Lucas grinned at the girl. ‘Has anyone told you that you’re really bossy?’
‘But you’ve got to admit she’s effective,’ Alice-Miranda said.
Jacinta leaned in and gave the flame-haired girl a hug, and embraced Alice-Miranda too. ‘Thanks, both of you.’
Lucas looked at the girls. ‘What about me?’ he asked.
Millie grimaced. ‘Okay, just this once but don’t make a habit of it.’
Jacinta hugged Lucas, and as Alice-Miranda and Millie turned to go back inside, the boy planted a kiss on Jacinta’s rosy cheek.
The children gathered in the foyer after breakfast, armed with their daypacks and drink bottles. Iris was there to meet them and quickly distributed maps, each having been meticulously highlighted to show where the hotel was and the name and number of the attractions they would be going to. She gave them a couple of minutes to look over their arrangements and, in the meantime, did some stretches. It seemed she was very dedicated to her physical wellbeing.
Alice-Miranda studied the page, keen to find out which of the attractions that she and Millie had circled in Millie’s guidebook they were actually going to see. She realised their first destination was only a few hundred metres from their hotel. ‘Are we walking to the museum?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I hope not. My feet are already killing me,’ September griped.
‘Why don’t you go and put on some sensible shoes like Caprice’s mum?’ Sloane suggested, pointing at Venetia.
Her mother looked over and shuddered. ‘You know I can’t wear flat shoes, Sloane. They’re not good for my posture.’
‘I bet Venetia doesn’t have bunions like you do,’ Sloane grumbled under her breath. ‘Don’t complain to me when you can’t walk this afternoon.’
September huffed loudly. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, putting up her hand. ‘I just need to duck upstairs for a minute.’
Iris frowned. ‘We are leaving in five minutes,’ she said as September scurried away. ‘To answer your question, miss, we are taking the bus to the museum.’
Their guide then went on to give them a brief history of each of the places they would be visiting that day. Iris finished her monologue as the lift bell sounded and September charged out. All heads turned to look at her.
‘Good heavens, what has she got on her feet?’ Mr Plumpton’s eyes had been immediately drawn to her enormous shiny silver shoes.
‘Sorry, I thought I’d better change my footwear to something more appropriate,’ she explained.
Sloane groaned and a few of the children chuckled behind their hands. Mr Grump had to turn away and pretend to cough to avoid being caught out.
‘Do you like them?’ September asked. ‘They’re all the rage in Barcelona at the moment.’
Sloane closed her eyes tightly, hoping that when she opened them again her mother’s giant metallic platform trainers would have morphed into an elegant pair of ballet flats.
‘Your mother’s right,’ Ambrosia said. ‘I just wrote a feature on the teenage trend for Gloss and Goss.’
‘Well, that might be true, but I think my mother has forgotten that she’s not a teenager and we’re not in Spain,’ Sloane fumed.
Millie considered the offending footwear. ‘You know, I think they look pretty cool, Mrs Sykes.’
‘Oh, Millie. For the hundredth time, call me September,’ the woman simpered. ‘Mrs Sykes makes me sound positively ancient.’
They drove past the opera house and turned left into a pretty boulevard lined with flowerpots, arriving at the Shanghai Museum minutes later. An impressive oval concrete structure incorporating a curved facade with squared-off walls protecting the front, the whole place looked as if it glistened with gold.
‘There are different exhibitions on each floor – from jade to paintings and ceramics, to clothes and furniture. It’s not a race and you don’t have to see everything,’ Iris said. ‘We will meet back here in the foyer in an hour and a half.’
Miss Grimm nodded her approval. ‘Very sensible.’
‘Oh, and please don’t run,’ Iris added. ‘Just last week the guards tied a young boy to a chair for that very reason.’ Jaws dropped all over the place. She burst out laughing. ‘I’m only joking, but you wouldn’t really want to try their patience.’
‘Thank you, Iris,’ Miss Grimm said. ‘Now, I want you all to enjoy looking around. Many of the antiquities in this building are thousands of years old.’ The woman caught Figgy’s sly look. ‘Yes, even older than me, George. Astonishing.’
Figgy sheepishly turned the other way and pretended he hadn’t been about to say a thing.
‘See you all back here at exactly fifteen minutes past eleven,’ the woman said, and the adults and children proceeded to their allotted starting points.
‘Where do you want to go first?’ Alice-Miranda asked Millie.
‘We should probably start either on the top floor or here, at the bottom, and work our way through the exhibits,’ the girl replied.
Alice-Miranda nodded. ‘I can’t wait to see the ceramics. I love all the pretty colours and shapes they used in the different dynasties.’
‘We are not stopping to look at every single thing,’ Millie said, pretending to look sternly over her glasses. ‘I don’t think my boredom threshold is that high.’
Millie, Jacinta, Sloane, Sep, Lucas and Alice-Miranda decided they would explore the museum together and begin their journey in the ceramics exhibit on the first floor. The pieces were exquisite and Alice-Miranda found several that she absolutely adored. There was one large cylindrical container she thought especially striking.
Sloane tilted her head to one side. ‘What would anyone use that for?’
‘It looks like an umbrella stand to me,’ Millie said, and leaned in to study the plaque beside it. ‘Although I don’t know if umbrellas were invented way back in the third century.’
‘Probably not,’ Lucas said. He and Jacinta wandered along the glass-fronted display cabinet to the next
exhibit. There were beautiful bowls and jugs and some very unusual porcelain statues.
‘It’s fascinating to see how people liked to decorate their homes even thousands of years ago,’ Alice-Miranda said, eyeing an especially pretty cup. It was only about three inches in diameter with a delicate painting of a cockerel and hens around it. ‘That’s over five hundred years old,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘It’s so sweet. Mrs Oliver would love it.’
‘If you’re into that sort of thing,’ Millie said, wrinkling her nose.
‘Yeah, boring,’ Caprice muttered, from the safe distance at which she’d been following the group.
The children moved from ceramics to bronze artefacts, where giant urns thousands of years old and enormous bells took centre stage, then on to calligraphy. Many of the pieces consisted of long scrolls inscribed with poetry and were often accompanied by exquisite water colour paintings.
Alice-Miranda stared at one of the scrolls that was several metres wide. ‘This is gorgeous,’ she sighed. ‘I just wish I knew what it said.’
A bespectacled man in a humble suit turned to her and smiled. ‘It is a very special story,’ he said softly. ‘It is a poem called The Song of Unending Sorrow about the last Emperor of the Tang Dynasty and his young love. This scroll once hung in the Forbidden City and there was another to match, but the white devils stole it when they sacked the palace during the Opium Wars.’
‘Oh, wow. Thank you,’ Alice-Miranda said.
‘White devils?’ Sep asked.
‘I mean you no disrespect, young man,’ the fellow said.
‘Oh, you’re referring to westerners. I imagine it did feel like you were being invaded by white devils,’ Sep said. ‘I’ve read that they stole lots of the antiquities and treasures. It’s such a pity. All Chinese artefacts should be in Chinese museums.’
The man bowed his head slightly. ‘If only everyone in the world thought like you, perhaps treasures could be returned to their rightful owners.’
Alice-Miranda in China Page 11