‘I’m so sorry,’ Mick said, even though he was sure that it was the woman whose late swerve had caused the crash.
She was already squatting, gathering leaflets together. ‘No. I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I was too much in a hurry.’
Two things occurred to Mick in this moment. Firstly, that the woman was Chinese but, uncharacteristically in his limited experience, her face was thin with impossibly high cheek bones beneath wide brown eyes that had a limpid, depthless quality. Secondly, her ease with the English language. The few words she had spoken were said without hesitation and were easily understood. He knelt beside her and scrabbled around for her leaflets.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Leave this to me. It was my fault. I’m always in such a rush.’ She was now looking at Mick full in the face and something about him appeared to fluster her. She put her fingers over her lips as if to stop herself saying more. A red colour spread up her neck from the collar of her cheongsam.
They both returned to rootling on the floor for leaflets. Other guests joined in and when the job was complete she stood alongside Mick with the carton at her feet. She was tall. Her slender height brought to Mick’s mind a drift of bamboo swaying under the influence of a warm breeze. Perhaps she was a dancer – her body had a relaxed ease of movement that made him think of Ginger Rogers gliding across a dance floor and sighing like a fainting damsel into Fred Astaire’s arms. The woman was waiting for him to say something and held out her hand for the leaflet he was still holding.
He looked at it. The Top Ten Attractions of Perak and there on the front page at number three was a picture of Kellie’s Castle. ‘Sorry, the last one,’ he said, passing it across. Her fingers were long and tipped by crimson nails.
‘Thank you.’ She looked down as if to check the shine on his shoes.
Her dark hair was tied at the back in a bun and held in place by a flower. ‘That’s very pretty,’ he said. ‘What flower is it?’
She touched it and the action straightened her back, emphasising her figure. ‘It isn’t a real lotus. It’s just for show.’
‘Your English is very good.’
‘Thank you. I need it to be. You’ve worked out from the leaflets, I suppose. I’m a tour guide.’
‘In Ipoh? It’s not exactly a tourist resort.’
‘You think so? Actually, Perak has many touristic sites. You should enrol on one of my tours.’
She’s flirting with me, Mick thought. ‘Would you be my guide if I enrolled?’ He hoped that she would not be offended by his being so obvious.
‘Sad to say, I can’t guarantee it. But…’ She looked down at the carton and then across the lobby as if she was late for an appointment.
‘Sorry. Of course, you’re in a hurry. Another time.’ As he said it he recalled his conversation with Amy on the plane. Was this what it had prepared him for? He tried to think of what to say to keep her there. Would it be too forward to invite her to lunch? What would be acceptable in her culture?
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m only here to restock the hotel’s shelves with leaflets. I have no tours booked today…’ she raised her eyebrows. Her full lips parted slightly and the tip of her tongue was there briefly. If ever there was a signal…
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘we could have coffee…’ he looked at his watch ‘… or is it too early for lunch?’
She consulted a gold wristwatch. ‘Coffee?’
He nodded. ‘Coffee. Let me give you a hand with that box.’ He bent to pick it up. ‘Shall we stay here?’
‘No, my car is around the corner. There’s an excellent coffee shop in the mall there. Shall we go?’
‘Yes… excellent.’ He felt as if a Texas tornado had twisted him round and spat him out. He tucked the box under his arm. ‘My name is Mick… Mick Kellie.’
She nodded. ‘It is so nice to meet you, Mr Mick.’ She held out her right hand. ‘My name is Nancy Lee.’
9
After Luis Escobar’s death in November 1990, Nancy Lee was disturbed more by the way her father had used her than she was by her acquaintance’s demise. I imagine that when she arrived in the penthouse the morning Luis’s body was found, her father was in the dining room eating eggs and beef bacon. Through the open screen doors behind him, low sunshine was bouncing off the swimming pool. He didn’t greet her or give her time to sit down. ‘The police called the hotel. First thing this morning your Mister Escobar was found dead by one of our gardeners out at the Kellas House.’
She was unable to process anything beyond the word ‘dead’. It was if her brain was running in too high a gear and an obstacle had made its engine stall. She was aware that she was lowering herself onto a seat but it wasn’t anything she willed.
‘Lai Ping? Are you all right?’
Her hands trembled. Why should this be? It wasn’t as if Luis had meant anything to her. ‘How? What happened?’
‘The police say he must have had an accident. It seems he was on the roof, possibly in the dark, and fell.’
A sob rose in her constricted throat and she covered her mouth, not to stifle a moan of despair but rather, she realised, there was a danger she might fall into a fit of giggles. Anything now could tip her into a state of collapse, sniggering like a schoolgirl. If any man ever was destined to die early it was the chain-smoking Mr Escobar. But not like this.
‘Look, Lai Ping. You’re going to have to pull yourself together. The police are coming to see me. They’ll want to talk about his meeting with me yesterday afternoon.’
‘What happened?’ Different thoughts rolled round her head like clothes in a tumble drier but one kept appearing at the front making itself distinct, set apart from the tangle: was her father responsible?
‘It’s like I told you. He fell from the roof of Kellas House. That’s what it looks like.’
‘No. I mean what happened when you met him?’
S Y stood up, sidled round the table and sat alongside Nancy taking both her hands in his. ‘You’re shaking, Lai Ping. This must be a shock. You have spent a long time in his company and now…’ He placed a knuckle under her chin and lifted it so that they were looking directly into each other’s eyes. ‘Daughter, when the police come I’m going to say that my discussion with him was about the house but it was merely a conversation between a man who had a family connection to it and the owner. A discussion of general interest. There is no need to complicate matters by mentioning that nonsense about Harrison and Crosfield, is there?’
She didn’t answer. She was thinking about why he should be saying this.
‘Is there!’
She pushed his hand away from her chin. ‘No! There’s no reason to tell them the truth.’
‘Lai Ping, you know how things are. The police… the situation with the Bumis. We don’t want to tread on a sleeping dog.’
She snatched a napkin from the table and wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘You want me to say that I just took him round and that we didn’t talk about anything other than the usual tourist things.’
‘You’re a very smart girl. A real chip off the old block.’ He used the expression in English.
‘And when he wasn’t with me, when he went off on his researches, I—’
‘—you didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘Are you going to tell me what really happened?’
‘It’s like I said. We discussed the house, I pointed out that he had no hard evidence to back up any claim he might be considering and I agreed that we would put up some sort of memorial to his grandfather.’
‘But why would he go back to the house—’
S Y’s patience was stretching thin. ‘He said he was going for one last look. I have no idea why. Perhaps he was thinking of where to put his father’s memorial.’
‘But I’m to lie to the police and tell them that, as far as I know, Luis Escobar had no reason to talk to you about the house in anything but general terms.’
He put her hands
to his lips. ‘Not lie exactly. You are merely not telling the whole story.’
‘And I’m doing this for you, Father?’ She dreaded his response. If he said ‘yes’ it would be a tacit admission of some level of involvement in Escobar’s death.
He smiled as if he understood what she was thinking. ‘No, my child. You should do it because it’s the most certain way of keeping our dream for the new hotel alive. We can’t allow anything to put it in danger.’
A Perak police investigation into a case that might negatively affect the Lee family was never going to be rigorous. By the end of the weekend, it was agreed that, triggered by the knowledge that S Y Lee had agreed to put up a memorial to Luis’s grandfather and perhaps to select a suitable site for it, Luis had returned to the castle. The police hadn’t been able to locate the taxi driver who had driven him there but it would only be a matter of time.
Escobar had probably gone up to the roof to watch the sunset over the plantations. What westerner would be able to resist the opportunity if it presented itself? Perhaps overcome by the intensity of the experience, he had not noticed that he had strayed close to the unguarded edge. He lost his footing and fell approximately ten metres onto the gravelled, cement path below. The autopsy revealed that death had come instantaneously; Luis had broken his neck.
It appeared from his passport that the victim had no relatives and the police contacted the Portuguese Embassy in KL for guidance. The body was to be kept in the mortuary until its repatriation.
Nancy didn’t go to see his body. Why would she? She had spent part of four days in his company. She had overcome her initial revulsion for the stink of spent cigarettes that polluted the air around him and she had learned to make allowances for his unkempt appearance but she held no trace of affection for him.
By the following Tuesday she had returned to KL, to her work in the bank. I imagine that by the end of the week she was well into the process of forgetting that he had ever come into her life.
When she went home the following Christmas, Nancy was shocked to see how much her mother had deteriorated. She was bedbound, mostly asleep or semi-conscious because of the pain-killing drugs. S Y Lee had arranged for her to have nursing care night and day. Her mother’s presence at the end of the corridor on the eighth floor of the Leeyate Plaza Hotel laid a blanket of sadness over what would normally have been a celebration and Nancy couldn’t get away quickly enough. She left before the western New Year’s Day.
Chinese New Year had come and gone before Nancy’s father called with the dreaded news. Her mother’s time was near. Lang-ren had been told to pick Nancy up from the bank and drive to Ipoh with all speed. As it was happening, Nancy recognised she was living a cliché, but it was as if her mother was holding out for her arrival.
A Buddhist priest was in attendance and Nancy interrupted him mid-prayer when she was ushered into the room. Her mother’s head was barely heavy enough to make an impression on the pillow. Her cheeks were hollow, her thin lips blue. Her breathing was so shallow that there was no discernible movement of the bed covers that lay flat upon the wisp of her body.
Nancy’s father hovered beside the bed as if he had an important appointment elsewhere. The blinds were shut and light was provided by candles set around the bed. A censer swung from a tripod stand with smoke trailing from its belly. Nancy looked at her father and raised an eyebrow.
He shuffled towards her but stopped before he was close enough to make physical contact a possibility. ‘It’s what she would have wanted,’ he whispered. He nodded towards the priest who resumed his low chanting.
Next day, S Y arranged for his wife’s coffin to be moved to one of the hotel’s conference rooms where the priests from the Temple Kek Lok Tong set up an altar and a scale replica of the Tian Tan Buddha. It was there that the Lee family from all the Malaysian branches and the workers in its various businesses filed past to pay their respects.
The day after the funeral, on the morning that Nancy intended to return to KL, she was summoned by her father. He sat behind the desk, his back to the window with its panoramic view over the cloud-clothed, distant highlands.
Come in, Lai Ping,’ he said. ‘Tea?’
She refused.
‘Coffee, then. Something before you travel south.’
‘No. Nothing, Father. Thank you.’
‘It’s been a sad time.’
Nancy nodded, half smiling. ‘But she is out of pain. If all that mumbo-jumbo has done its job, her spirit will have found a better home.’
He shook his head. ‘Awah, daughter, you should show respect for our traditions.’
‘I know you don’t believe that stuff any more than I do, Father. Don’t pretend.’ She indicated one of the easy chairs. ‘May I?’
S Y stepped from behind his desk. ‘Of course,’ he said and sat opposite her.
‘What did you want to see me about?’
‘It’s a delicate subject and I couldn’t raise it while your mother was suffering so—’
‘But—?’
‘But now I think the time is right to talk about your future. It is time for you to come back into the family.’
Nancy’s instinct was to leap to her feet and protest; instead she settled her backside deeper into the seat.
S Y patted the air with his palms. ‘I can see you don’t like what I’m saying, daughter,’ he whispered. ‘Please don’t overreact.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Please don’t interrupt.’
She gritted her teeth and the muscles in her cheeks pulsed in protest. She had kept herself in check and yet he was accusing her of insolence.
‘How old are you now – 32? It’s time for you to settle down. I’ve been very lax and allowed you to have your own life in KL. But now it’s time for you to come back to Ipoh. It’s time for you to take your responsibilities to me and to our company.’
She stood up. She was a helpless teenager again. In her frustration, there was only one course open to her. She stamped her foot. ‘Sorry, father…’ she completed the sentence in English as she made for the lift entrance. ‘… there’s fat chance of that happening.’ She stabbed the call button and had to wait, fuming, with her back to the desk, while the lift doors moved agonisingly slowly apart.
By the middle of the year Nancy was living in an Ipoh city-centre townhouse in one of the Lee family’s compounds and was lined up to be married. She had stood her ground for two months after storming out of her father’s office. The threat of losing him counted more than his threats to cut off her allowance and make her, as he put it, ‘dead to the family’. When S Y introduced the idea of arranging her marriage, it had given her a reason for returning to Ipoh even if it was only to remonstrate with him.
The man the family had lined up for her was her second cousin Lee Zhi Bo. He’d originally been given the western name Simon and it told her everything she needed to know about him that he had chosen Tommy as his a nom de guerre after he had watched Goodfellas and seen Joe Pesci’s turn as the psychopath, Tommy DeVito. Although he was four years Nancy’s junior, he had already established a reputation in KL as a womaniser. This was facilitated by his position as manager of the city’s chain of Leeyate Karaoke Bars. He could be seen cruising in his top-of-the-range convertible BMW with the roof down, transporting a bevy of giggling Filipina bar girls – ‘lounge hostesses’ – from one of his clubs to another.
Nancy, bowed to pressure and agreed to consider the possibility of the engagement but stayed in Ipoh to keep a distance from her prospective husband. She took up the position of running the European export arm of Leeyate Holdings, the previous post-holder having been summarily dismissed to make way for her, and enrolled for English elocution lessons so she could be a more effective communicator with the Leeyate world-wide subsidiaries.
S Y still held on to his vision of an expanded hospitality business with the Leeyate Castle Spa Hotel as the jewel in the crown but, during those years, the company’s cash position never grew to the
critical mass needed to turn the dream into reality. Nevertheless, he would summon Nancy to his office, show her the plans again and entrust her with the sacred duty of turning her father’s dream into reality should anything happen to him.
With her in Ipoh and Tommy in KL, Nancy could bemoan their lack of opportunities to meet and further their relationship. Luckily for her, Tommy was as reluctant to settle down as she was. As engagements go, hers didn’t and this was fine by her.
Nancy acknowledged that her body clock was ticking and at some time she would have to accept her fate as decreed by her father. She was old-fashioned enough to know that she would do her duty by her husband and this would result in children. Their presence would force her to settle down. She knew Tommy would be unfaithful. Here again her complex relationship with her culture confused her. She knew that she could live in the comfort of the Leeyate business family, making compromises, accepting her lot, but she also knew she could never be entirely happy.
Over the next two years, she and her fiancé spent some weekends together. When they weren’t anticipating sex, having sex or resting after sex she would read or watch television while he went to the gym or played Pokémon on his Nintendo Game Boy.
As far as Nancy was concerned, the sex was not fulfilling. Foreplay consisted entirely of preparing her man to perform. The concept of Nancy deriving pleasure from what was happening was as alien to him as the idea that he could make his Game Boy orgasm if he pressed the buttons in the right order. Being older, Nancy felt some responsibility for tutoring him in the finer arts but even broaching the subject caused a frown to appear on his forehead and his eyes to cloud.
She didn’t tell him that she was taking the contraceptive pill and he never asked. To suggest that he might wear a condom was akin to asking him to operate his Game Boy wearing boxing gloves.
To Nancy’s surprise, the unsatisfactory nature of her impending marriage troubled her less as time went by. She foresaw a day when she would stop taking the pill and, if it happened, her pregnancy would mean that her relationship with Tommy would be forced to move to the next stage. She was not yet 35. There was plenty of time.
Once upon a time in Chinatown Page 17