Once upon a time in Chinatown

by Robert Ronsson

  ‘Did you enjoy your time in England?’

  Was there a slight fluster in her response – a blush and a hesitancy. ‘Oh, yes! I loved being a student in Kingston. Even though I was under the eye of an uncle and aunt, I had more freedom in England than I have ever felt here.’

  ‘How long did you live there?’

  ‘While I was doing my degree. Three years.’

  ‘And you had fun?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Did you make the most of the experience? Did you have fun?’

  She twitched her nose. Her expression was hidden by her Ray-Bans. ‘I don’t think you could say that I was a typical student. I went to Kingston because that is where my uncle owns a hotel. I stayed with the family rent-free but in return I had to work. I did shifts on reception in the evening and served breakfasts before I went to classes. There wasn’t much time for socialising.’

  ‘Didn’t you have boyfriends?’ He was closing in.

  She took a step back. ‘Shall we go to the temple now? You need a picture of your ancestor’s little statue.’

  His heart sank. It was a clear rebuff. ‘Of course.’

  When they were on the path, Nancy asked Mick what business his company had been in. ‘Nothing exciting. Sanitation products. That’s all behind us. It’s just the Film Factory – the cinema – now.’

  ‘Do you have a wife in England? A family?’

  He shook his head. The heat was making its way through the crown of his hat and his back was damp with sweat. ‘No. I was married but we divorced fifteen years ago. Since then I have never had time to make those sorts of commitments.’ He stopped and turned towards her. He needed to see her reaction. ‘Not like now. I’m free but I’ve been thinking about settling down again.’ He cursed that he couldn’t see her eyes.

  ‘So you have a girlfriend?’

  Hadn’t she understood? Or was she being deliberately obtuse? ‘No. No girlfriends.’ He sensed that it was now or never. ‘Look, Miss Lee – Nancy. You must know that I think you’re a very attractive woman—’ He stuttered to a halt and there was a sudden rush of sweat down his sides. Oh God! It sounded as if he was going to propose!

  She looked down and brought a hand up to cover the lower half of her face. It was now completely hidden.

  He slowed the pace of his words, parcelling out each one precisely so there could be no misunderstanding. ‘I would really like to get to know you better. I would like us to have a date—’ he thought he heard her whimper almost imperceptibly ‘—I’d like to take you to dinner… tonight, if you’re free. Would you like that?’

  When she took her hand away from her mouth, she was biting her lower lip. ‘Yes, Mr Mick—’

  ‘Please call me Mick, just Mick.’

  ‘Yes, Mick, just Mick, I would like that very much.’ She smiled and Mick had to pin his feet to the ground to stop himself taking her in his arms.

  13

  The hotel room was too cold. It was difficult to adjust the air-conditioning to its Goldilocks setting. The problem was exacerbated because Mick was wearing only boxers while he surveyed the meagre contents of his wardrobe. He hadn’t envisaged dressing to impress while he was away and nothing on the hangers inspired him.

  His one linen jacket was crumpled and, while there was an iron in the room, he knew that, if they spent any time outside, the jacket would have to come off and he wanted to be wearing something better than a t-shirt underneath. Nancy had already seen the two pairs of chinos he had brought with him and both the sweaters that he had worn indoors. He looked at his watch. There was just enough time. He sniffed the armpits of the t-shirts, selected one and threw it on, followed by a sweater and his cut-off jeans. He grabbed his wallet and the room key and hurried towards the lift. The parade of shops attached to the hotel lobby was horrendously expensive but this was the last of his concerns.

  Forty-five minutes and £800 later, Mick sat in one of the lobby’s club chairs reading the Straits Times. Most of the money had been spent on the Paul Smith ash-grey blazer that he wore over a navy polo shirt. His linen trousers were also new as were the Sperry Topsiders that he wore without socks. He purposely kept his eyes on the newspaper, despite the urge to focus on the revolving door where Nancy would enter. He was looking at the print but not reading it. He couldn’t concentrate. There was too much depending on this evening.

  He heard her cough. He lowered the paper as if to check it was her, stood up and straightened his jacket. She was wearing a high collared, ivy-green cheongsam with gold detail. Her brown eyes shone with as much lustre as the cream orchid in her hair. ‘You look lovely,’ he said. He held out his arms and leant towards her to kiss her cheeks in the European way but she jumped back like a startled fawn. A young man stood behind her wearing a dark blue, cotton suit over a v-neck t-shirt. He wore trainers. Some sort of chaperone, Mick thought, his heart sinking.

  ‘This is my boyfriend Lang-ren,’ Nancy said.

  I imagine Mick greeting this news with a stunned nod of his head. He stood motionless, trying to catch up with what had happened. Hadn’t they cleared the decks? There were no attachments on either side and yet here was a ‘boyfriend’.

  Was she seriously asking him to accept that she was in a relationship with this scruffy, Chinese whippersnapper? He felt the ground slip beneath his expensive deck-shoes but stepped forward and held out his hand. ‘Glad to meet you, Langdon.’ He turned back to Nancy and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Lang-ren. His name Lang-ren.’

  Mick held up a hand. ‘Lang-ren. Sorry!’ He repeated the quizzical glance at Nancy.

  ‘Shall we have drink here?’ she said and sat down on the couch opposite. Lang-ren sat alongside her but a few inches apart. Nancy crossed her legs and Mick was insulted by a tantalising glimpse of her thigh showing through the split in her dress’s side-seam.

  ‘Yes. What would you like?’ Mick said, his voice flat. After ordering, he asked how Nancy had spent the rest of her day.

  ‘I met with my father,’ she said. ‘We talked about his plans for business when he retires.’

  She was looking at him intently as if she was trying to communicate a coded message. Mick glanced at Lang-ren to see how much interest he was taking in what she was saying. He slouched back alongside her sipping a Tsingtao beer. Mick turned back to Nancy and his diaphragm tightened. He realised that they were playing some sort of game and its intricate rules would always be inexplicable to him. ‘Yes, the import-export business.’

  ‘My family – my father and my uncles – we own businesses in lots of interests. We own hotels as well as the import-export business – plantations too.’ Her eyes were willing him to understand.

  ‘I see,’ Mick said. But he didn’t see at all. Her strained speech suggested that there was something more for him to know. If she was trying to send him a message, the ploy was failing.

  Mick took a gulp of his gin and tonic and said, ‘And you, Lang-ren, are you in business?’

  Nancy leant forward putting herself between Mick and the young man. ‘Lang-ren understands English well but is not a good talker. He works for my father also.’

  ‘How did you meet – you and Lang-ren?’

  ‘We are old school friends. His family, my family we go way back.’ She studied her flat-heeled shoes.

  Mick drained the rest of his glass and stood up. ‘Shall we go for dinner? Where would you like to go?’

  After a discussion between Nancy and Lang-ren in Mandarin, she suggested an open-air food market nearby. ‘It is very good,’ she said.

  They sauntered in silence in the evening heat, three abreast, none touching and when the path narrowed it was Lang-ren who fell back and ambled a pace or so behind Mick and Nancy. The five-minute stroll took them to a square where tables were scattered around a central hub of stalls, all offering different styles of food: Chinese, Malay, Indian and ‘fusion’. It dawned on Mick that this was a ‘Durians welcome’ zone because the air had a fetid undertone and it was diffic
ult for him to breathe without betraying that there was something nasty about the atmosphere. Both Lang-ren and Nancy appeared to be immune.

  Mick and Nancy queued for food. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked quietly watching Lang-ren waiting at the drinks stall with the money Nancy had given him.

  She studied the ground at her feet. ‘I’m sorry for not being straight for you,’ she said. She lifted her eyes and brushed away a tear. ‘My father… my family…’ She shook her head and pointed at the cartons of food that had appeared on the counter top. ‘I will pay.’

  They returned to the table with three plastic plates and an array of dishes: fish-head curry; pork and noodles that could have come from an English Chinese take-away; rice, pak choi and mixed vegetables; and another meat and sauce dish chosen by Nancy. Lang-ren handed out plastic spoons and Mick slumped into his plastic seat pondering the contrast between his expectations for the evening and the reality.

  He had anticipated asking Nancy whether, if he stayed on in Ipoh, they could spend more time together. He had even dared think that after a few days they might go to Langkawi as a couple. There was something offensive about the way they had brought him to this food market when he was dressed for the best that Ipoh could offer. She and this… boy… had crushed his hopes with all the detachment of a steamroller flattening a hedgehog.

  Lang-ren threw himself into the feast as if it was to be his last meal. He took something from every plate. Nancy ate miniscule portions of the rice and the vegetables with only one spoonful from the meat and sauce dish that she had chosen. She passed the foil container to Mick. ‘You must try this. It is a Malaysian speciality.’

  Dutifully, Mick took a spoonful and immediately recoiled. His disgust was so visceral that he couldn’t hide it. He swallowed quickly and immediately took a swig of beer. He felt as if he had consumed a mouthful of the smell fouling their every breath.

  Lang-ren laughed openly. Mick wanted to hit him.

  Nancy chuckled. ‘Sorry. I should have warned you. Westerners never like this dish.’

  ‘What’s in it for goodness sake?’

  ‘The meat is beef. But the sauce is made from dried shrimps. They dry very slowly in the sun and this what gives them the special flavour.’

  ‘Rotten shellfish basically!’

  ‘If you put it like that. But I remember the first time I ate cheese I was almost sick. Chinese feel the same about cheese as you feel about what you have just eaten.’

  He wondered if she had bought the dish solely with the intention of setting him up. Neither she nor Lang-ren were keen to finish it. It seemed unnecessarily cruel. Whatever the reason, the exchange had further dampened his mood. ‘Am I safer with this?’ he said, pointing to the fish-head curry.

  ‘Yes. Let me serve you.’ She spooned some curry sauce onto his plate and then set about peeling pieces of flesh from the fish’s head. It was firm and white; after a tentative spoonful, Mick pronounced it good. He took more.

  Mick ate sullenly. Nancy gave all her attention to the meagre rations on her plate, while Lang-ren chomped and slurped enthusiastically.

  Mick was desperate to inject some energy into the stultifying atmosphere and decided to share with Nancy a half-baked plan that had occurred to him while he was getting dressed. ‘Do you know who owns Kellie’s Castle?’

  She coloured and fanned her face as if she had bitten a chilli. ‘I told you. One of the plantation companies.’

  ‘Do you think they may consider selling?’

  She placed the end of the spoon to her pursed lips and ejected a small bone with the tip of her tongue. ‘Why do you ask?’

  He shifted his bottom and his shirt peeled away allowing the sweat on his back to cool. ‘Maybe it’s a silly idea but the story is so romantic. The castle has huge potential as a tourist site. Surely, Ipoh, Perak State or whoever, could make more of it. As it stands, anybody can go there for free. If the authorities took it over, they could charge admission and earn revenue for the people.’

  ‘I think politicians too corrupt to make it work. The state and the city have no money.’

  He sat back. ‘I have money. What if I bought it and gifted it to Perak? What if I stayed here to make sure it was done properly?’ Inadvertently, he realised, he was asking her to reconsider this charade.

  She shook her head. ‘You are a westerner. Non-Malays are not allowed to own property. Every company must have Malays on the board. You could never make it work.’

  ‘Even if I stayed to oversee it?’ He wanted her to have no doubt about what he was implying.

  She shifted plates around as if she was looking for a dish she hadn’t yet tried. ‘There nothing for you here, Mr Mick. You no understand our ways. Malays and Chinese. So complicated. You best to just go home.’

  What had happened to her command of English? Why was she suddenly talking like a cartoon? Mick sighed and covered his face with his hands as if the sweat from his forehead was stinging his eyes. He nodded. Any words he could conjure up would stick in his constricted throat.

  Lang-ren said something to Nancy in Mandarin and signalled to Mick’s plate. ‘Lang-ren says you should have the cheek. It is most tasteful part.’ She delved into the side of the fish’s face beneath its eye. Her spoon emerged with the shining prize on its tip and she fed it directly into Mick’s mouth. It only served to emphasise the lost intimacy of the evening.

  There was another conversation between Lang-ren and Nancy and this time she shook her head. He leaned across in front of her and plunged his spoon into the fish’s eye socket, dug out the eyeball and sucked it into his mouth greedily. He turned the head over and repeated the operation, laughing at the look on Mick’s face.

  Nancy retrieved the cheek on this side and Mick signalled that she should have it. Her eyes sparkled in the electric lights as she placed it, like a pill, on the tip of her tongue and took it into her mouth. The sensuousness of it was a kick in the pit of Mick’s stomach. He’d had enough. He stood up and tossed back the rest of his beer. ‘Well, thank you for a lovely evening. I think I’ll stroll back to the hotel now. I have an early start.’

  Malaysia was over for him. He couldn’t bear to spend any more time there. The thought of being alone at the Langkawi beach resort, a notion that had been appealing when he had planned it, now promised only solitary confinement. Next morning, he would return to KL and bring forward his flight home. ‘Well, it’s been lovely,’ he said.

  Nancy stood and offered her hand. ‘Enjoy rest of your stay.’ They shook hands and Lang-ren stood, lowering his head like a bullock preparing for a time when it had horns. He proffered his hand and grunted.

  Mick turned back to Nancy and searched her eyes for any sign that he was making a mistake but they were blank. The idea that she was drugged flashed into his head but he dismissed it. No, he was sure he hadn’t been mistaken, behind the cold exterior, there was sympathy, perhaps even attraction. For a second, he was out of the shit-smell of the food court and alone in a scented cocoon with Nancy, if only he had the nerve to pull her to him and…

  Lang-ren hawked in his throat and brought Mick back to the present. He turned on his heel and walked away, tears of frustration welling in his eyes.

  14

  The Malaysia Airlines plane was late and I’d been waiting for nearly two hours by the time Mick emerged. I’d heard very little from him while he was away and was desperate to learn more about the land and the castle.

  ‘Good of you to come,’ he said. We shook hands. ‘How’s it all been?’

  ‘It’s only been a week. We’ve managed – somehow.’ I checked my watch. ‘Come on, we’ll save some money if I pay for the parking in the next five minutes.’

  We hurried through the concourse, dodging suited men and women as they trundled across our path towing executive suitcases. Once we were in the car and on the A4, he turned to face me. ‘I found the exact spot where that picture was taken.’

  ‘Picture?’ I was focused on whether to use the inside la
ne to overtake a taxi that was rattling along, belching black smoke, at a few miles an hour below the speed limit.

  ‘You know, “the land’’.’ I sensed he was making speech marks with his fingers. ‘The castle is there behind it like in the article you showed me. But it’s abandoned.’

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘It’s a plantation company. It’s sad that they’re not making more of it. It would make a great tourist attraction—’

  ‘But you can just go there and look around?’

  ‘It’s not fenced off and there’s a car park. There’s even a notice board with the story about your grandfather. But they’re not making anything of it.’

  ‘But it’s clear that it was built by my… our family?’

  ‘As far as anything is. Why?’

  His disinterest irked me, but he’d only known of the castle’s existence for weeks. I’d had five years of living with the knowledge that my family had built it – far, far away. In all those years, I was the one who could – should – have gone there were it not for my timidity. I changed the subject. ‘You cut short your visit. Why didn’t you go on to Langkawi? It looks fabulous in the pictures.’ I glanced across.

  He was looking out of the window at the residential properties that lined the road approaching Kingston. ‘I lost interest.’

  ‘That’s very enigmatic. What happened?’

  He sighed. ‘To be honest, Steve, I’m knackered. Can we discuss it another time? Over a pint perhaps.’

  A couple of days later in The Duke’s Head, I broached the subject of his early departure. The bar staff were fussing round us hanging skeletons, blood-smeared zombies and witches on broomsticks from the ceiling in preparation for a Hallowe’en party night.

  ‘I didn’t want to stay there on my own.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I met this woman.’ He leant forward as if we were conspirators. ‘I made a bit of a fool of myself over her.’ His lip trembled and for a moment his face crumpled like paper. He was looking out across the bar as if he could see all the way to Malaysia.