The Russian Concubine

by Kate Furnivall

  She could feel the warm silk of her mother’s kimono under her fingers. ‘Why?’ she asked again.

  Valentina shrugged, as if it were nothing. ‘A fling.’

  ‘Mama, I’ve seen you with him. You hate him.’

  ‘Of course I hate that devil, God rot his stinking soul.’

  ‘Was it because of the photographs?’

  Valentina stopped breathing.

  ‘I’ve got them.’ Lydia stroked her mother’s back. ‘And the negatives.’

  Valentina gave a brief sob. ‘How?’

  ‘I stole them.’

  ‘It’s what you are good at.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It was a whisper.

  ‘So it is my business.’

  ‘Very well. You asked.’ Her mother took a deep breath. ‘There was no real scholarship to the Willoughby Academy. You’d spent four wasted years in the local charity school here and I knew you would just be smothered and die in that hellhole. So I sought out the best private school, the Willoughby Academy, and the chief officer for education in Junchow. Mr Mason. And I made him an offer. Create a scholarship. Award it to you. In exchange for . . .’

  ‘ . . . you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lydia slid her arms around her mother and rocked her gently. ‘Oh, Mama.’

  ‘I couldn’t get rid of him even after I married. Because of the photographs.’

  ‘I’ll burn them.’

  ‘I’d burn him, if I could.’

  ‘Mama,’ Lydia moaned and tightened her embrace.

  ‘So now you will do as I ask?’ Valentina twisted around, her face close to her daughter’s, two dark eyeless shadows. ‘You’ll give up your Chinese Bolshevik?’

  Lydia pulled her coat more firmly around her and stamped her cold feet on the rock-hard patch of lawn under the eucalyptus tree. She had been waiting an hour. The garage hid the house from her, just as it hid her from the house, and she’d had plenty of time to study the wall she was sheltering behind. It was made of red bricks and she’d counted how many lay in each row. Sixty-two. She had plucked three snails off the mortar and tossed them into the shrubbery, and watched a brown-legged spider cocoon a beetle that blundered into its web. There wasn’t much else to watch.

  A crow took off above her from the eucalyptus tree, making the silver leaves quiver, and with two slow beats of its heavy wings it drifted over the tiles of the garage roof and up high into the chilly air. She squinted up at it. The sky was a milky blue, full of soft swirls of white that reminded Lydia of a marble she’d once owned. She’d found it in a gutter, a bright patch of blue sky buried among the filth. She’d kept it safe in her pocket for four days, but in the end was tempted into a game of marbles by a gang of boys in the playground. She’d played and lost. When she saw her marble bundled with a handful of others into a grubby pocket, she felt she’d betrayed it.

  A car door slammed. It was somewhere farther down Walnut Road and an engine growled into life. That was good. People were waking up, going off to work at last. It wouldn’t be long now. It had been still dark when she’d put on her school uniform and slipped out of the house, a thin gleam of gold painted along the eastern horizon. She’d had the sense to leave a note. Gone to library. To finish homework. They wouldn’t know it didn’t open until eight-thirty, and actually it was a relief to skip breakfast with Alfred. He was awkward first thing in the morning and had a habit of looking up from his porridge with a frown, blinking hard behind his spectacles, as if wondering who on earth these two strangers were at his breakfast table.

  Lydia thumped her gloved hands together and let out a long breath. Watched it curl away from her as solid as cigarette smoke. She drew in another deep breath, but it was an effort. Her lungs hurt. They just wouldn’t work properly. It was her mother’s words. They lay like a lead burden on her, crushing her chest.

  It wasn’t right.

  ‘Mr Mason.’

  ‘Good God, girl, you startled me.’

  He looked so smart, so upright. A fedora and alpaca coat. A black lizard-skin briefcase snug under his arm, car keys in hand. The picture of respectability. Pillar of society. Lydia wanted to tear his eyes out and feed them to the crow.

  ‘What are you doing loitering around my garage?’

  ‘I’m not loitering. I’m waiting to speak to you.’

  ‘Oh, not now. I’m in a hurry to get to the office.’

  ‘Yes, now.’

  Something in her voice made him pause and look at her. His grey eyes grew wary. ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very well.’ He unlocked the garage and swung open the doors. The Buick’s big chrome headlights stared out at her.

  ‘I have the photographs.’

  His hand dropped the car keys. He bent, picked them up, tried to bluff it out. ‘What photographs?’

  ‘Don’t.’

  He pulled himself up tall, pushed out his chest, came and stood too close. ‘Look, young lady, I’m a busy man and I have no idea what you’re talking . . .’

  She slapped him. A long swing with her arm and then her palm full on his cheek. The crack of it sounded loud in the still air. She was shocked, but not as shocked as he was. His eyes glazed for a moment. The red imprint of her hand with fingers splayed was stamped on his cheek. His fists came up but she stepped back out of reach.

  ‘That’s what it feels like. To be knocked about, you wife-beating pervert. Taking nude pictures of your own daughter . . .’

  He lunged for her. She dodged.

  ‘What would Sir Edward Carlisle have to say about that?’

  ‘Now you get this straight, girl, it’s not . . .’

  ‘Don’t. I don’t want to hear your lies, you piece of slime. Sir Edward will sack you on the spot.’

  His face grew ashen. He was having trouble swallowing, but his eyes remained shrewd. He held up one neatly manicured hand in a gesture of peace.

  ‘All right, Lydia. Let’s get down to business. You’re no fool. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars for the photographs and negatives. ’

  Ten thousand dollars.

  A fortune. Her head swayed.

  ‘You can have it in cash. This afternoon.’ He was watching her closely and suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He yanked out a thick wedge of notes and fanned them out like cards unsder her nose. ‘Here. Take this. As a starter.’

  Ten thousand dollars.

  Ten thousand dollars would buy anything. Everything. Passports. Visas. Pianos. First-class boat tickets. She could take her mother to England and flee. Oxford University, just as her mother wanted. It was all there, in Mason’s hand. All she had to do was say yes. And she could take Chang An Lo to safety with her.

  But would he come? Leave China?

  Mason’s lips pulled into a thin line. It was meant as a smile. ‘Agreed?’

  She opened her mouth to say yes.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody stupid fool. This is your chance.’

  ‘But you’d have the photographs.’

  ‘I’d destroy them, I promise.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  She opened her hands to the sky, letting the money go. ‘Because you are scum. I don’t trust you. As long as I hang on to those negatives, I can be certain you will never lay a finger on Polly again. Or your wife. Or my mother. Do you understand me?’

  He scowled, turned away. She watched the money return to the wallet. Her throat hurt.

  ‘Don’t come near my mother anymore.’

  ‘Go to hell, bitch.’

  He walked to the car, his head sunk on his chest, and lashed out at one of the tyres with a brutal kick.

  ‘Mr Mason.’

  He didn’t look at her.

  ‘Mr Mason, leave Theo Willoughby alone too.’

  Mason made a harsh sound that sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Don’t you worry about him,’ he retorted. ‘Feng and his son between them will look afte
r Willoughby.’ His eyes crept back to hers, and the expression in them made her skin crawl. ‘Just like they’ll look after you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Now they know who took care of the Communist.’

  ‘What Communist?’

  ‘Don’t play innocent. The one they’re after. The one you nursed.’

  Lydia felt ice spike her veins. ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘No. Polly told me.’

  ‘Polly?’

  ‘Oh yes. Your loyal little friend. Still want to protect her, do you? Yes, she told me and I told them. Right now they’re probably at your house.’ He laughed outright. ‘You didn’t really think I’d give a bitch like you ten thousand dollars, did you? You and your whoring mother can . . .’

  But Lydia was already running.

  She burst into her house.

  ‘Mama,’ she shouted. ‘Mama.’

  No reply.

  The houseboy - what was his name? Deng? - she called out for him. He came running.

  ‘Yes, Missy Leeja?’

  ‘My mother, where is she?’

  ‘I not know.’

  She pounced on him and shook his bony shoulders. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘No, she out.’

  ‘So early?’

  ‘She go with Master. In car.’

  ‘Just the two of them?’

  His bright eyes were nervous of her as he held up two fingers. ‘Master and Missy.’

  She released him and he scuttled away, hunched like a beetle. Her tongue licked her dry lips. She’d panicked for nothing. But that didn’t mean the danger wasn’t there. It was. She walked into the drawing room and stared out the French windows. How the hell do you fight back when you can’t see your enemy? She leaned her forehead against the icy pane of glass and thought about that. Something broke loose inside her. Everything felt too heavy. Too big.

  Her gaze was drawn to the shed, and because it was the nearest she could get to Chang An Lo right now, she opened the glass door and walked down toward it. The air was cold and crisp in her lungs and her head began to clear. She became aware of a crunching noise. A rat was gnawing at one of the wooden planks at the bottom of the shed. Her pulse picked up. What was it after?

  ‘Scoot,’ she shouted and the creature fled.

  The padlock was still locked but the bolt attached to it hung uselessly on the door, the screws prised out. She gave a faint moan. Her hand reached out and touched the door. The wood was warm in the sun. Adrenaline hit her system. She pushed. The door swung open. She screamed.

  Blood. So much of it. Red. Sticky. Everywhere. Walls. Ceiling. Floor. On the wire of the hutch and on the sacks. As if someone had painted with blood. The raw stench of it mixed with the stink of faeces but Lydia didn’t notice the smell.

  ‘Sun Yat-sen,’ she screamed.

  The rabbit was lying in the middle of a pool of blood on the floor, his white fur caked with bright crimson. Even his big yellow teeth were red. Lydia knelt beside him, careless of her school uniform, and tears poured down her cheeks.

  ‘Sun Yat-sen,’ she whispered and lifted him into her arms.

  He was still warm. Still alive. But barely. One leg twitched and a strange strangled screech whistled from his small pulsing body. His ears had been hacked off and rammed into his mouth, and his throat was cut. She pulled out the long, soft ears. Held him close. Rocked him and crooned to him. Until the final spasm stiffened his spine. His bloodshot eyes started to glaze.

  Her head lowered over him, sobs raked her body. The blow, when it came, wiped out her misery. Darkness took over.

  51

  Chang An Lo opened his eyes. Something was wrong. He could feel it. Tight in his bowels like wire.

  He lay very still, listening.

  But the squawking children’s voices as they played in the courtyard masked all other noises, and a soldier’s boot on the stair would pass unnoticed. Silently he rolled out of bed. From under the pillow he took the curl of copper hair and from beneath the mattress he drew the knife.

  He stood behind the door. The smell of blood in his nostrils.

  Li Mei showed no surprise. Her almond-shaped eyes looked at the blade in his hand but her face remained calm.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked as she placed the tray she was carrying on a delicate chiffonier of honey-coloured wood.

  ‘A cold wind in my mind.’

  ‘All is safe. Tiyo Willbee is an honourable man. You can trust him.’

  Chang said nothing. He watched her pour hot water from a teapot with a bamboo handle into a bowl of dried herbs. He noticed she always did it in front of him, and he knew she was showing him that she added nothing extra. He need not fear poisons. He respected her for that. She cared for him well, coolly and calmly, with an observant eye, but he longed for the passion of Lydia’s nursing, her determination to snatch him from the jaws of the gods and to breathe fire into his blood once more. He missed that.

  ‘Any news?’ he asked softly.

  ‘The grey bellies are in the harbour, I’m told, hundreds of caps bearing the Kuomintang sun. They are searching ships.’

  ‘For Foreign Mud?’

  ‘Who knows why?’ She handed him the bowl and he bowed his thanks. Her hair was scented with cinnamon. ‘People say - but what do people know? - that Communists are being smuggled south by ship to Canton and to Mao Tse-tung’s camps. The sound of guns is in the air today.’

  ‘Thank you, Li Mei.’

  She bowed. ‘I am honoured, Chang An Lo.’ With a rustle of Shantung silk she left the room.

  The smell of blood. It was strong in his nostrils.

  ‘She hasn’t come.’

  ‘No, Chang, I’m afraid she’s not at school today.’

  ‘Is that not strange?’

  ‘No, not really at this time of year. This is always the worst term for sickness and influenza at my school. Well, any school actually.’

  ‘Yesterday she was well.’

  ‘Don’t fret, I’m sure she’s fine. To be honest I suspect that blighter Alfred has shut her up at home to keep her away from you. You can’t blame him really, old chap. She’s still young.’

  ‘I don’t blame him. He is her father now.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘She needs guarding.’

  ‘Quite so.’

  ‘But not by him.’

  Lydia’s leg hurt. Her head throbbed.

  But when she forced her eyelids up, the blackness beyond them was as dense as inside her mind. She tried them open and tried them shut. Nothing changed. She moved an arm and felt her elbow crunch against something hard. She touched her hip and thigh. She was naked. Shivering.

  That’s what decided it.

  It was a nightmare. She was in one of those terrifying caught-in-a-trap nightmares. No clothes. Everyone staring. A splinter of hell. Stuck in her mind.

  She closed her eyes and spiralled back down into nothingness, knowing she would soon wake in her own bed.

  Strange about the blackness though.

  52

  ‘My father killed himself because of opium.’

  Theo was shocked. To hear those words come out of his own mouth. It was not something he’d told anyone before, not even Li Mei. It was as though he’d vomited up a stone that had been stuck hard in his gullet for a long time.

  The young Chinese was propped up in bed. He didn’t look good. His gaunt face was grey, lifeless as ash, and bruised shadows circled his eye sockets. His limbs lay loose like a puppet’s at his side, but his black irises were full of some dark emotion. Theo wasn’t sure whether it was hatred or fear. He had a feeling it was hatred. But all Communists hated the foreigners in their land. Who could blame them? Yet it irritated Theo that they conveniently ignored the benefits Westerners brought with them. The industries. Electricity. Trains. Banking expertise. China needed the West more than the West needed China. But it came at a cost.

  When the Chinese spoke, there was an edge to his voice. ‘I know this happens her
e in China. Death and opium, they share the same path. But I did not think it was so in England.’

  Theo shrugged. ‘People are the same wherever they live.’

  ‘Many fanqui think otherwise.’

  ‘Yes, that’s so, and my father was one. He believed with all his soul in the supremacy of the British, and of his own family in particular.’

  ‘Grief hides in your words. An ancestral shrine for him in your house would honour his spirit.’

  ‘There’s my elder brother too.’ The words kept flowing now that the stone was dislodged.

  A shrine? Why not? Every Chinese home had one to keep the ancestral spirits well fed and happy. Why shouldn’t he? Except of course he might not have a home much longer, and he had a nasty feeling prisons didn’t go in for that kind of thing.

  ‘He was handsome, my brother Ronald. Had everything. A Cambridge blue and the pride of my father’s heart.’

  ‘Your father was fortunate.’

  ‘Not really. Papa gave over the family investment business to him, but it all went belly-up. My brother started on opium to help him sleep at night and . . . Well, it’s the old story. He bankrupted the company and defrauded clients to cover it. So . . .’

  Theo silenced his tongue. He could not understand why these memories had surfaced now. He thought they were dead and buried. Why now? Why to this Chinese Communist? Was it because, just like his father before him, both he and Chang An Lo faced the ruin of all their hopes and plans for the future?

  ‘So?’ Chang prompted quietly.

  Theo reached for a cigarette but he didn’t light it, just twisted it between his long fingers. ‘So . . . my father took his shotgun. Killed my brother. In his office, sitting at his desk. Then blew out his own brains. It was . . . frightful. Awful scandal, of course, and Mother took an overdose of something nasty. After the funerals, I came out here. That’s it. Ten years and I’m still here.’