The Rice Paper Diaries

by Francesca Rhydderch

  ‘But for God’s sake,’ one of them drawled. ‘Look around you. Everything’s just fine.’

  The woman next to her took her turn with the lighter, sucking in a deep first draw until the cigarette took, snapping the lighter shut when she was done.

  ‘I’m glad I’m just passing through. I think you should all get out pronto.’

  Liz didn’t seem surprised to see Elsa. She was woozy already.

  ‘Get us another drink, Ronald, there’s a dear.’ She held up her empty glass.

  Ronald brought Elsa a whisky and soda that numbed the back of her tongue. Liz sat up in her chair and tapped Ronald’s knee.

  ‘Ronnie and I have got some news, haven’t we?’

  ‘Sure have,’ Ronnie said. He sent a flickering look in the direction of the bar, where a group of young women were standing around, smoothing out their skirts and waiting for the races to begin.

  ‘What is it?’ Elsa asked, although the flip in her stomach made her think she might know what it was already.

  ‘Ronnie and I are going to have a baby,’ Liz said, loudly enough for the group on the next table to hear. People turned round and smiled politely, raising their champagne glasses.

  ‘That’s wonderful.’ Elsa tried to sound excited but her voice came out dull and flat. ‘I’m pleased for you Lizzie, I really am.’

  ‘It’ll all go right for you next time, you’ll see.’ Lizzie touched her on the shoulder.

  Perhaps some women were cut out for motherhood and not others. Liz was the kind of woman whose soft, giving flesh seemed made for it. Perhaps Elsa was too tense, always so uptight, as Tommy’d said that morning. She still wondered why the baby’s hands had been clenched, as if he’d known all along that something was wrong, that it wasn’t ever going to go right. Elsa had spent nine carefree months enjoying herself, out sightseeing like a tourist, walking past blue-and-gold macaws in the bird market, row upon row of them, feathers floating in the air around her; buying outrageous bouquets at the flower stall, wrapped up in scarlet twine, thinking that Hong Kong was bold and bright and just the way it should be. She’d been thinking all the time about this being the beginning of things, while Harry had known all along that it was the end. Perhaps he had been the only one to know. Apart from the doctor. He’d known straightaway.

  Nannon had made a list for a layette and posted it to her airmail, but it had got lost in the post and hadn’t reached her, not until she got back from the hospital. She’d sat in bed with the blinds drawn, examining it over and over, trying to crack it like some kind of secret code, Nannon’s absolute belief that babies arrive in this world, and when they do, they need booties and Turkish towels.

  ‘Where’s Tommy?’ she said to Liz.

  ‘The other end of the bar.’ Liz’s hand was still pressed down on Ronald’s knee, as if to make sure he didn’t get up and go over to the bar himself.

  Elsa craned her neck around the groups of hips and waists and hands in pockets, until she saw Tommy, his back against the wall and an arm stretched out along the bar, one foot resting on the gold rail that ran at his feet all the way round to the door. He was laughing. A woman with dark hair down her back and a plain woollen dress that looked out of place amongst all the organza and crepe stood between him and everyone else. Elsa watched Tommy’s face. He was listening as the woman talked. She was gesticulating affectedly, probably speaking quietly so he had to bend towards her and concentrate to catch what she was saying. He stopped smiling suddenly, and started nodding, as if she was telling him something he knew and he agreed with her. The woman put an arm on the lapel of his jacket and was starting to talk more quickly and urgently as Elsa came up behind her.

  ‘Elsa,’ Tommy interrupted the woman and reached out to draw Elsa into the middle of their twosome. He put both arms around her and pulled her to him. One of the buttons on his shirt had come undone and Elsa could feel his hot skin against hers.

  ‘Elsa, this is Miss Mimi Forsyth. She’s a journalist.’

  The woman was older than she looked from behind; there were streaks of grey in her hair and fine lines of black kohl had smudged a little around her eyes. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Elsa said, stretching out one arm to shake her hand.

  ‘Enjoying Hong Kong, Mrs Jones?’

  The journalist was looking at Tommy and not Elsa.

  ‘It’s quite a home from home.’ Elsa tried to sound polite. ‘What about you? What brings you here?’

  The woman answered reluctantly, as if she’d rather make eyes at Tommy all day.

  ‘There’s going to be a war and I’m here to report on it.’

  Elsa looked over at Tommy, expecting to see one of his social grimaces in place, accompanied by a comment about the Japs getting too big for their boots. But he just took his arm off the bar and raised it, as if to stop the rush of words that might follow, or to surrender to them, Elsa didn’t know which. Elsa wondered how well he knew this journalist.

  ‘Mimi, don’t you think you’re being a bit jumpy about all this?’ He’d stopped smiling.

  ‘Things are getting more serious, Tom.’ She said his name as if she owned it, tucking her hair back over her ears as she spoke. She looked directly at him as if Elsa wasn’t there, challenging him to disagree with her.

  ‘There are bombs in London,’ Elsa said. ‘Not here.’

  She had no notion of how bombs might sound, or the havoc they might make, apart from the odd story from back home that she’d picked up in the Hong Kong dailies. All that Nannon had to say about it in her letters was that that the price of eggs and sugar had gone up again.

  ‘How well do you know the Pacific?’ said Mimi.

  Nannon would have known how to deal with a woman like this. Drama queen.

  ‘So is that what you’re doing, Miss Forsyth?’ Elsa said. ‘Sitting in an office writing stories about the war in Europe?’

  ‘I can’t tell you half of what I’m doing. It’s classified. I can’t even tell Tommy.’ It was there again, her husband’s name spread out like a warm palm around this woman.

  She wondered if Harry had been dead when they’d lifted him out, or if his heart had stopped beating on the examination table. No one had said much afterwards, just how sorry they were, as if, now that it had happened, it wasn’t really important to know how, or why. But those were the details that Elsa wanted to keep, like pressed flowers that would fall out of the pages of a book later on, the colour and sap drained out of them, but still reminding her of the short, dark life he’d lived inside her. This journalist wouldn’t understand.

  Tommy cleared his throat.

  ‘First race in five minutes, ladies and gentlemen!’ someone shouted down the bar. People started to wander through to the box outside in threes and fours.

  They were among the last to leave, and Tommy turned to thank the waiter who was holding the door open for them.

  ‘Hello, Dai, my man!’ Tommy laughed, clapping him on the back, and the boy laughed back, not knowing that he looked comical in his stiffly starched shirt that was too big for him. No one was invisible to Tommy. He talked to everyone as if they were his friend, and not in that polite way that expects no answer. People’s faces opened up when he spoke to them, even if he was still laughing at some joke that he first made six months ago.

  ‘Yes.’ The boy had his hand on the door. ‘Dai is a good Welsh name!’ he said, smiling. ‘Good afternoon, Captain.’

  ‘Goodbye, Dai Lo,’ Elsa said as she passed him, in good spirits again now that Mimi Forsyth had gone on ahead. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Captain. Goodbye.’

  As Tommy closed the door behind them Elsa caught a glimpse of Dai Lo running a cloth over the ring marks and cigarette burns that had pushed their way through the tabletops like spores. He told her once that he loved the races.

  Tommy was in a good mood. He and Ronald were doing well, and there was one race to go. Elsa could see the starter pistol held up in the air, waiting for the signal. That moment, as
his fingers pulled the trigger, stretched out like elastic, so that later all Elsa would remember of this afternoon would be the straw roughly strewn underfoot, the crouched jockeys poised for the off, and the startled horses jumping one after the other. Two minutes later, after a flash of silky brown muscles, it was over.

  ‘Where have Ron and Liz got to?’

  Tommy was pushing a good handful of dollar bills into his wallet.

  Elsa caught sight of them coming out of the clubhouse. Liz looked untidy and happy. Tommy put his arm around Elsa, and they walked over to Ronald’s car.

  ‘I’m so pleased you came today,’ he said to her. The air was much cooler now, and she was glad of his arm on her shoulder.

  A man walked past them the other way, back into the clubhouse. He wore a smart suit, and had his hair combed back off his face.

  ‘Was that Oscar Campbell?’

  ‘I didn’t see. I don’t think so,’ said Tommy, pulling her back towards him and kissing her on the neck as he held the car door open for her.

  Ronnie drove along Sassoon Road, where rows of shoe shops rubbed up against each other, and Elsa waited for Tommy to make a joke about the pairs of shoes lined up at the bottom of her wardrobe. But he hadn’t even noticed them. He was talking in a quiet, quick voice to Ronnie, and Ronnie was nodding in silence, his eyes in the mirror sliding from left to right along the pavements.

  The car passed a chemist’s with a bottled embryo on display, so small and jellied Elsa found it hard to believe it would ever have grown into a real baby. Liz held a handkerchief against her mouth. A beggar pushed his hand through the open window at one of the intersections – ‘Please, please,’ – frightening both of them and making Ronald swear.

  ‘For God’s sake Liz, close the window,’ he said.

  And then they turned the corner past the hairdresser’s and Jimmy’s café, and the neon lights of the city began to fade into a glowing mass below them.

  Tommy winked at Elsa over his shoulder.

  ‘Won’t be long now,’ he said.

  4

  It was only once Elsa had put one foot on the stairs leading to the upper deck of the tram that she realised her mistake. Lam hung back, pointing to the Chinese sign next to the driver.

  ‘I can’t come up there. Chinese sit downstairs. You go up, and I’ll let you know when we need to get off.’

  The windows were open at each side, letting in a cross-draught that carried with it the smell of fish. On the street below, long, thin shops were fronted by metal trays piled high with paak tsoi, gnarled bulbs of ginger, sweet potatoes, and green grapefruit. A butcher stood over a chopping board, a cleaver in one hand and the other pinning a fish to the board. It flapped up and down helplessly, first head, then tail, from one end to the other. He struck it over the head with the handle of the knife and then started gutting it. It was still moving, the transparent white fin on its side thrashing up and down.

  ‘Des Voeux Road, Mrs Jones.’

  Lam said it quietly enough, but her voice carried up the stairs. Elsa held onto the metal pole and pulled herself to her feet. Lam was waiting for her on the pavement.

  ‘Where’s the shop?’

  They were making their way through the crowds of people: men pushing small trolleys loaded with pallets, old women stooped over bamboo baskets, and children careering around in-between them.

  ‘Bonham Road. Just round the corner.’

  Elsa felt uncomfortable. She could sense the Chinese looking at her, noting her presence. Although she was wearing flat shoes, she still felt too tall. She was glad when they turned off the main road and walked up a steep hill away from the crowds.

  ‘This is it,’ said Lam, turning into a shop with red-and-gold paper lanterns hanging outside.

  A man and woman were sitting on the floor of the dim interior, sewing. Their hands moved up and down in time with each other, as if they were conducting an unseen orchestra. They were working on a dress made of embroidered silk: he was attending to the hem, while she was sewing white piping into the high collar. As they moved along the garment, they looked up at each other, each making sure that the other wasn’t moving too quickly, or about to tug the material without warning.

  As Elsa got used to the light, the shapes of their lined faces became clearer. The old woman looked like Wang, although she seemed old to be his mother. Elsa sat down straightaway, to avoid the awkwardness of them putting their work aside and getting to their feet, but they looked at her in surprise, and moved away, as if she had sat too close to them.

  ‘Very pleased to meet you both,’ she said.

  They looked back at her.

  Lam sat next to Elsa, crossing her legs with an ease Elsa couldn’t find. She said something to the old couple in what must be Cantonese, or Mandarin maybe. Tommy would know. They smiled at Elsa then.

  ‘They don’t speak English,’ Lam said to her. ‘They’ve been ten years in Hong Kong but they still prefer our language.’

  Elsa didn’t know what she had expected – somewhere larger, with a counter that you could sit at, maybe. In Bristol House Nannon’s counter doubled up as a table. If she had time she made a cup of tea for her customers, saying, ‘Now then, let’s have a nice chat.’ Before ten minutes had gone by the customer would have forgotten the alterations they came in with and would be poring over patterns for a dressy wrap and thinking about how often they would wear it and how much it would cost. They would have an image of themselves in their mind’s eye that would please them for once, and Nannon would know exactly how to capture that image, breaking off from the usual chit-chat to point out the wrap’s sequin ties, tapping a fingernail on the folded-out page. ‘See, that’s the detail that makes it, in my opinion. That would stand out lovely under the lights, anywhere. Not too dressy, though, is it? Classy, I’d call it.’

  Lam talked again swiftly to the man and woman, a little sharply, it seemed to Elsa, and they got up on their feet, rubbing their stiff joints as they did so, and the old woman gestured for Elsa to follow her behind a curtain to a recessed area at the back of the shop. She measured Elsa with quick fingers, the tape measure hardly touching her, even through her clothes. She talked loudly to Lam through the curtain. Elsa looked at her as she spoke, but her face was blank, waiting for Lam’s reply.

  ‘She’s asking what kind of style you want,’ said Lam. ‘Would you like to call back with some pictures, a catalogue maybe?’

  ‘Tell her that I trust her to make me a nice frock. Any style, any colour.’

  Elsa came out from behind the curtain. People going past the shop looked twice when they saw her standing there. She was starting to feel as if she was taking up too much room, and she took a step out onto the street, almost bumping into a woman going past, a baby strapped tightly to her back, its black pigtail swaying up and down as she walked. Nothing could happen to them if you kept them close like that, she thought.

  ‘She says she will choose pink, a deep pink, to go with your dark hair. It will be ready by the end of the week.’

  ‘So soon? There’s no need.’

  ‘Yes, yes, by Friday,’ Lam said, coming out onto the pavement as well.

  The Wangs bowed, showing the shiny tops of their heads through fine strands of grey hair, and settled down to their work again, sitting side by side, fingers moving in and out of the material, fresh and soft as a newly slaughtered fish, its fragile white bones all on show.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can have lunch?’

  Elsa didn’t want to go back to the apartment just yet. She’d rather wait until Tommy was due home from work.

  Lam slowed down.

  ‘This way,’ she said.

  The restaurant was on the corner of a block, spread over three floors, with too much warm air circulating between the crowded tables. People were sitting in big family groups, and some of the men were reading newspapers.

  Elsa was glad of the cool breeze by the window. She took her hat off and looked out at the craned boats and sampans jostl
ing against each other for space on the quay.There must have been twenty people on the table next to them, dressed smartly. Children were playing hide-and-seek on all fours, in and out of the drapes of the tablecloth. From time to time one of them came out and said something to their parents and went back again, and as the tablecloth was lifted Elsa saw that they were playing with spinning tops, staring at the blur the colourful tops made as they whirled around.

  A waitress brought a tray filled with covered bamboo pans and set them out on the table. Lam took off the lids and pointed to the contents of each in turn with her chopsticks.

  ‘Bean curd, fried noodles, steamed fish with mushroom, vegetable dumplings.’

  Elsa helped herself to a little from each pan. She saw the children from the table next to them watching her as the dumplings fell off her chopsticks and she had to try again and again. She laughed.

  ‘How on earth do you do it?’

  Lam smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Here, let me help you.’

  They looked out over the harbour as they ate. A spinning top jumped out from under the table next to them. One of the boys crept over, head down, put an arm out to retrieve it, and scuttled away. His mother was eating dragon fruit with chopsticks. Bottles of brandy were being brought to the table. Men raised their glasses and shouted ‘Yam sing!’ before draining them and topping them up again and again.

  ‘It’s a wedding party,’ Lam said.

  The bride and groom looked as if their cheeks must hurt from all the smiling. Elsa tried to catch Lam’s eye, to share the joke, but she had seemed to have shifted into one of her closed-up moods, a distant look on her face. She was staring at a man and woman seated to the other side of them. The woman was giggling, leaning into the man. He had a broad smile that was wide enough for everyone. American, at a guess, thought Elsa, listening to his accent. The skin hung slackly off his jaw, perhaps because he was a little overweight, although he was young, not much older than Elsa. The Chinese girl sitting next to him had a strange smile pasted to her face, bright and plastic like one of the illuminated shop signs on Des Voeux Road. The man took his chopsticks and passed them to her; she broke them open for him and handed them back. Lam eyed the Chinese girl coldly, as if she were a goose strung up for sale in the butcher’s on the street outside. The man noticed nothing. He shuttled his beer across the tablecloth, passing the bottle from one hand to the other. Each time he moved, Elsa caught sight of a line of scarlet flesh above the collar of his shirt where he’d caught the sun.