China Seas

by John Harris

  One after the other, officials bowed before the old lady until it was Willie’s turn. As he moved forward, MacDonald whispered to him.

  ‘Bend your head,’ he said. ‘She’s not very tall.’

  ‘Order of the Double Dragon,’ Willie announced to Abigail on his return. ‘For initiating the first peace talks.’

  The Empress wasn’t slow to realise the success of her reception for the foreign devils and eventually women were also invited to the Imperial Palace. As the old lady set out to captivate them, the not very sophisticated women from the Legations succumbed completely to her charm. She was a good actress and it wasn’t difficult. First of all there was the thrill of entering forbidden precincts, where, expecting hostility or deviousness, they were agreeably surprised to be greeted by a beautifully dressed old lady with shrewd eyes, a gracious manner and winning smile.

  Shown through the palace pavilions with blaring trumpets and clashing cymbals, they moved between ranks of eunuchs in embroidered robes, gazed on lotus-covered lakes and heard the sound of muffled temple bells. Drinking it in ecstatically, they forgot their hatred, and swelled with pride at the honour that had been bestowed on them. But never at any time was there ever any getting away from the fact that Abigail had been the first, that she had gone alone, and that unlike the others, she, too, had returned wearing the yellow sash of the Order of the Double Dragon and the gift of a magnificent jade bowl.

  ‘She said I was as brave and intelligent as all women should be,’ she told Willie. ‘She hoped I was her friend and held out her hand for me to touch.’

  Once more they were news and the subject of gossip. A few high-nosed women still regarded Abigail with contempt, but now it was tinged with envy, and there were plenty more who were friendly, and curious enough to want to know what had been said to her by the Empress.

  Invitations arrived, occasionally from the Legations, and they felt confident enough to accept those they wished to and resist those they didn’t. Privileged as they were, items of great value found their way into their hands – lacquered netsuke ware, inros, kinchakus, kagis, miniature temples, animals and warriors in ivory, boxwood toys, porcelain, urns, early dynasty horses, flowered vases, carpets from the north showing the cloud bands of eternity and flying butterflies signifying happiness. Some of it, they knew, had come from the privileged homes of important Chinese officials and was in great demand. Because they were believed quite wrongly to have the ear of the old Empress and were believed to be experts, they had to be quick to learn. Occasionally they made mistakes, but they preferred to let things go rather than commit themselves to something that could be totally wrong and destroy the reputation they were building up, and by the end of the year they felt they had collected enough to take it to Europe and the States.

  Many of their friends, nervous after the siege, had left Peking, but the Japanese, Yuhitsu Shaiba, still limping a little from his wound, was still there, still friendly, still drinking with the Russians, always invited to their parties because he had the capacity they liked to hold his drink. He seemed to be at all the receptions they attended, always with the Russians, always smiling and doing little talking, just nodding his head, his face impassive behind his smile, taking everything in.

  As the memory of the siege receded, Shaiba told them he had been ordered to Shanghai. ‘Business,’ he said. ‘Shanghai is the coming place. Before long it will be as important to the East as London is to Europe and New York to the Americas.’

  They travelled with him to the river mouth, where they took a coastal vessel to Shanghai. There they separated Abigail for San Francisco, Willie for London. They put up for the night at a hotel, uncertain what the future held. It was Abigail’s intention to see her aunt and uncle because she felt it her duty, but, like Willie, her main aim was to discover what interest there might be in what they had to offer.

  ‘Go to the newspapers,’ Willie advised. ‘Tell them what happened. Tell them about the siege and the Empress. Show them your medal. When you put the things on display they’ll fall over themselves to get at ’em.’

  ‘What will you do, Willie?’

  Willie paused. Somewhere in London there was a girl called Edie Wise, whom he’d once promised to marry. But three years had passed since then and he couldn’t imagine her still waiting for him.

  As they prepared for bed, Abigail clutched him. ‘I’m scared, Willie,’ she said.

  ‘What of? That uncle of yours?’

  ‘He’ll try to keep me to home.’

  ‘Tell him you’re married.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Willie gestured. ‘He’s not to know and you don’t have to produce a certificate.’

  ‘You don’t know him. He’ll want proof.’

  ‘Ab,’ Willie urged, trying to instil his own confidence into her. ‘You walked out on him once. You can walk out on him again. You’ve got money in your purse and money in the bank. You’re not beholden to him any more. You don’t have to take orders from anyone.’

  ‘Not even you?’

  ‘Not even me. Well–’ Willie grinned at her as she slipped out of her dress ‘–a bit from me.’

  He put his arms round her, his hand moving on the bare flesh above her slip.

  ‘It takes off,’ she said quietly. Her eyes were on his, her face pale as marble.

  He slipped the straps from her shoulders and allowed the slip to fall at her feet. Her fingers were undoing the buttons of his shirt.

  ‘Willie, is it wrong that we aren’t married? I feel married. Suppose somebody produces proof that we’re not? Even the Sumters think we’re married. I told them we got married up in Shantu before we left. I feel awful lying to them.’

  ‘We’ll get married when you come back. I’ll be waiting for you. At the moment we’re short of time. We both leave tomorrow and the night’s growing old.’

  Sitting on the side of the bed the following morning, wrapped in a sheet, Abigail was aware of fear. She had still not quite thrown off her background, and the indoctrination she had received at the Mission had sunk deep within her, so that she still felt guilt. She was about to be separated from Willie for the first time since they’d met and she was afraid of what might happen without him. Though she was older, her life as an adult had been very sheltered, while Willie, living and working close to London Docks, seemed to know his way about how everybody would react, the value of everything.

  She didn’t entirely believe in his innocence because she’d heard rumours about Emmeline and her clerks, but he’d shown no interest in anyone else in the time she’d been with him so she’d accepted that his eyes weren’t wandering elsewhere. But, because of her period with the Baptist Mission, she didn’t really trust men either. Her uncle had often tried to get her in dark corners and she knew that at least one of the missionaries at Shantu had had a child by a Chinese girl. Though he had been elaborately forgiven after a ceremony of public remorse and penitence, it hadn’t excused the fact and she had a suspicion that all men were the same.

  Willie’s eyes opened and he looked up at her. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

  She smiled, pretending there was no worry. ‘About the States,’ she said. ‘I wonder what it looks like, what they’re up to?’

  ‘Never mind the States,’ he advised. ‘Keep your eyes open for American men and what they’re up to. You’re pretty enough to make a few eyes click in their sockets.’

  He reached out for her and, in the heat of the early sunshine, they made love, more passionately because they were about to be separated. During the morning, Willie called a rickshaw and drove with her to the launch which was to take her to the ship lying in the Whangpoo waiting to leave, her luggage and all they had to sell in the States already in her hold.

  ‘You’ll probably be back first,’ he said. ‘You’ve only to go across the Pacific. I’ve got to go all the way round China, India, up the Red Sea and through the Mediterranean. But I’m doing it the way the nobs do it – port out, starboard ho
me. P.O.S.H. Posh.’

  ‘I’ll be scared you’ll not come back.’

  Willie looked at her disbelievingly. ‘Get away!’ he said. ‘You’d never think that.’

  All the same, he decided, as he saw her into the cutter that was to take her out to the ship, the fact that they might not see each other again was something that was nagging in a small fear at the back of his own mind, and he returned to the hotel, ordered himself a large stengah and sat back to drink it until it was time to leave.

  London seemed full of fog, smoke and driving rain and, although it was supposed to be spring, Willie was wearing a muffler and overcoat and a heavy tweed cap.

  His first call, since it was handy, was at the office of Wainwright and Halliday’s. A new young clerk showed him to a chair and it was Halliday, pale plump and spectacled who received him.

  ‘Willie Sarth,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Fancy you turning up. Looking for your old job back?’

  ‘Not likely,’ Willie said. ‘I’m in business on my own now.’

  ‘And doing well at it by the look of you. There was a story about you in the Illustrated London News. Said you’d been given a decoration by the Empress of China.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Willie looked about him. ‘Where’s Mr Wainwright?’

  ‘Dead.’ Halliday said cheerfully. ‘I’m running the place now. On my own. Heart it was. Six months ago.’

  ‘Good Lord. What about old Bohenna?’

  ‘He’s dead, too. Shot himself. Went bust. Over-extended. Typical of that sort. Spent too much. Show-off and all that. Suddenly he found he’d spent more than he was earning and couldn’t pay his debts. Wife and three kids, too.’

  It was a chastened Willie who left the office. Show-off, he thought. Over-extended. Went bust. Typical of that sort. He had just bought an expensive overcoat, cap and shoes. He decided that for the time being, it would be enough.

  Before going to his brother’s, he took a cab down to Brixton and made a few enquiries about Edie Wise at the pub at the end of the street. Neither of them had ever been letter writers and, after the first two or three sweated missives, their correspondence had dried up. He needn’t have worried, however.

  ‘She’s married,’ he was told. ‘Must have been a year ago. Had to. In the family way.’

  She hadn’t waited very long, Willie thought bitterly.

  Taking another cab, he arrived at his brother’s house just as he arrived home from work. Willie was still staring at the street, wondering why it looked so much more crowded and narrower than it had, though he was used to narrower, far more crowded Chinese streets, when a hand dropped on his shoulder.

  His brother didn’t look much different but he was still a clerk and seemed overworked and tired. But he and his wife made Willie welcome and gave him a meal, and Willie produced a bottle of whisky, something they never normally tasted, so they all became a little tipsy. Before he left, he slipped a handful of fivers into his brother’s pocket and refused to let him see how much until he’d gone.

  ‘For old time’s sake,’ he said. ‘It might be a while before I see you again.’

  His brother’s eyebrows rose. ‘You mean you’re going back? To China?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But this is where you live! This is home.’

  ‘Not now,’ Willie said firmly. ‘Not any more.’

  He had often heard old China hands say how much they itched to see England again and, having seen it, how much they itched to get back to the East. Suddenly he knew what they meant.

  The following day he went to Bond Street with a suitcase and dived into a fine arts shop with the gilt sign, Brassard, over the door. A blond man in a velvet jacket with a bright orange cravat in a soft collar met him.

  ‘Nothing today, thank you,’ he said at once.

  ‘Don’t talk so bloody silly,’ Willie snapped.

  The man’s eyes travelled over Willie’s new suit and it occurred to Willie that it might be a good idea next time, instead of buying his suit off the peg in a store as he had done, to go to a decent tailor. ‘You haven’t seen what I’ve got,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I can guess,’ the man said.

  Willie snorted. ‘You’d guess wrong,’ he said, opening the suitcase.

  Immediately, the man’s tone changed. ‘Where did you get these?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘I didn’t pinch ’em.’

  The man eyed him dubiously and disappeared to the back of the shop. Shortly afterwards he returned with a young woman, who began to make her way to the shop door.

  ‘If you’re sending her for a policeman,’ Willie said sharply, ‘you’d better think again. I’m not a bloody burglar and if a bobby turns up here I’ll sue you for everything you possess.’

  He had no idea how to go about suing anyone and even suspected that, if he tried it, he would lose, but the man hesitated and signalled to the girl to wait. As she did so, Willie produced the copy of the Illustrated London News which had featured himself and Abigail. ‘That’s who I am,’ he said. ‘I have the ear of the Empress Dowager, and my business is Chinese crafts. You can either buy ’em or not. Just say. If you don’t want ’em, I’ll take ’em elsewhere.’

  The man swallowed. ‘I think you’d better come into the office.’

  He gestured at the girl. ‘That’s all right, Doris. You can forget it.’

  ‘I’m Julian Brassard,’ he said as he ushered Willie into his private department. ‘I run the business for my father.’

  ‘You were sending for a bobby, weren’t you?’ Willie said as he sat down to a cup of tea in fine bone china cups.

  A frown crossed Brassard’s pale, fleshy face and he went pink. ‘Yes, I was,’ he admitted. ‘I’m sorry. But so much of it goes on.’

  ‘Not with me. I’m straight.’ Willie reopened the suitcase and saw Brassard’s eyes widen again. ‘What about that lot then?’

  Brassard’s expression went back to a professional blank. ‘They’re not bad,’ he said. ‘But you look a bit young to be an expert.’

  ‘I’m not an expert. Just growing into one. My partner found these things. She’s the one who knows about them.’

  Brassard began to pick up the articles one by one, eyeing them, studying them cautiously before putting them down on a nearby table with great care.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said again.

  ‘They’re better than not bad,’ Willie observed. ‘Or you wouldn’t handle ’em like eggshells. How much are you willing to offer?’

  Brassard shrugged. ‘Hundred pounds the lot.’

  Willie grinned. ‘Don’t talk daft,’ he said. ‘You’ll sell ’em for a lot more than that. I’ve been having a look round. Give me a good price for them and I’ll see you get more.’

  ‘You’ve got more?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘Here? In England?’

  ‘Some stored away. And more where they came from.’

  Brassard hesitated. ‘Well, I can only guess at the real value–’

  ‘Don’t kid me,’ Willie said.

  Brassard swallowed. ‘Very well then,’ he agreed. ‘Five hundred.’ It came so easily, Willie decided to try harder and eventually he pushed the price up to seven hundred and fifty. Even at that Brassard seemed pleased.

  ‘When can I see the other things?’ he asked. ‘I thought we might put on a bit of an exhibition. That way we’ll get better prices.’

  ‘I can fix it,’ Willie said.

  ‘When will you be in England again?’

  Willie wasn’t so sure he wanted to be in England again. Apart from the money, it hadn’t come up to expectations. ‘It might not be for some time,’ he said. ‘So I’ll want an agent. Somebody who’ll sell the stuff. Top prices.’

  ‘Perhaps I could be of help. Find one for you.’

  ‘He’d have to be honest.’

  ‘I’m honest.’

  Willie eyed him. ‘You tried to do me down just now!’

  ‘That’s business.’

 
‘So’s this. It would be on commission. A good one, though. Even if you decided to buy ’em yourself. And I’d want it all doing proper. I’d want everything itemising. Profit, costs and commission, all down on paper. And clear, too. I’d know how to study it. I used to be an accounts clerk here in London.’

  By the time Willie left, he had a British agent for what he had to offer and a certainty that he could get rid of the other things he’d brought with him. It made him itch to get back to China and collect more.

  The Whangpoo, where the ship dropped anchor, was a greylooking river twelve miles up the Yangtze, teeming with life and with sampans moving like clouds of brown beetles round the tugs and vessels anchored in midstream. Steamers, black and red funnelled, drifted past, sirens roaring at the sampans that manoeuvred dangerously across the fairway, and at the junks with poops and prows like Elizabethan caravels, huge painted eyes on the bows, as they swung awkwardly on the whirling tide.

  As the bridge telegraph rang to stop engines, the sun began to turn the river into liquid gold. The seething number of boats indicated the crowded life ashore, a shadowy junk sliding past against the sun, its patched brown sail webbed like a bat’s wing. Over the water came the steady chanting of the crew heaving at the huge stern oar, and with it a smell, of rotten fish that was both pungent and nauseating.

  Willie breathed deeply. It was exciting and turbulent and he had known he was approaching the Yangtze miles before he had spotted land because the water had become yellow and oozy with the silt that flowed down from upcountry and emptied itself into the thirty-mile-wide river mouth. Because he had money in his pocket, he had enjoyed the voyage, seeing for the first time places like Colombo, Penang and Singapore, where the sun sank in a glory of crimson, purple and gold, to begin the deep Malay night.

  He was proud of himself and flush with money, and he was well aware that people were asking who he was. Feeling it was important to be noticed, he had travelled first class and his dark looks, new suits and the silver-topped cane and boater he had acquired had attracted attention at once. There had even been a quick shipboard romance with the daughter of a wealthy Singapore businessman who had chased him round the ship until she got her claws on him. She had even got him into her cabin, but he had not let it come to anything and had left her spitting obscenities at his back, startled at the words a well-bred young lady knew.