A Pack of Lies

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘We don’t have any like that.’

  ‘It’s all a question of values,’ he said, appraising his new bookshelves, full of dilapidated paperbacks, and his eyes when he said it were as deep as Chancery, full of glints of gold from the lamplight. ‘Money isn’t everything.’

  The sky outside was almost black with rain and every car that went by had its lamps switched on. With a loud crack, a thundercloud broke overhead. Two lovers, joined at the hands like Siamese twins, came bursting into the shop, laughing, and shaking off the rain. It was plain they had dashed into the first handy shelter and had no intention of buying.

  ‘Oh, this is pretty … Oo, look at that dear little vase … what a pity this has lost its lid,’ said the girl from time to time. But her boyfriend was only watching for the rain to go off. She picked up a little book of Chinese folk tales lying open on the chaise longue. When she lifted her eyes from browsing through it, she found herself being watched, from the dark recesses of the shop, by a young man.

  MCC pressed the palms of his hands together and bowed from the waist. He moved silently round the chaise longue and took the book out of her hands as if to read its title. ‘Ah! You are interested in ancient China, then!’ She recoiled in alarm. ‘In that case, permit me to draw your attention to this charming plate.’

  ‘Oh look, Brian! What a pretty plate!’ cried the girl, dubiously. MCC slyly slipped the book into his pocket.

  Brian came and looked at the blue and white plate balanced between two urns. ‘Oh yeah. Willow Pattern. Your Gran’s got a whole service like it. Is that the only one?’

  It was the only one - and even so, Ailsa could not remember seeing it before, though she knew the kind of thing. Well, the Willow Pattern is a common enough design.

  ‘Is it old?’ asked the girl, looking for a price.

  ‘The story is,’ said MCC Berkshire.

  ***

  Long ago, in China, during the Ch’ing dynasty and the days of the Manchu Emperor Ch’ien Lung, there lived a potter called Ho Pa. He was a mean, greedy and spiteful man. But he had an apprentice working for him whose work was so perfect that people called from far and near to buy porcelain at Ho Pa’s pottery. Ho Pa grew very rich indeed. But he did not pay any of the money to the apprentice, Wa Fan, who did all the work. Instead, he cursed and cuffed the young man and made his life miserable and called his pottery worthless and ugly.

  If only Wa Fan had known! His beautiful vases and plates and teapots and dishes were bought even by the Emperor’s Court! And travellers from far distant lands paid huge sums to sail away with just one piece of Wa Fan’s craftsmanship. One pattern they asked for more often than any other. ‘Give us Willow-Pattern plates, Ho Pa! We will pay you extra if you make us Willow-Pattern china in blue and white!’

  Then Ho Pa would stick his head round the door of the hot, wet pottery and shout, ‘Willow Pattern, Wa Fan! Give me more Willow Pattern, you idle son of a sleeping dog!’

  Wa Fan did not mind. The Willow Pattern is a very beautiful pattern and tells the love story of a boy and a girl and a garden, and Wa Fan delighted in painting (in blue glaze with a very fine brush) the pretty garden with its bridge and pagodas. He painted petals on to the chrysanthemums with such care that the flowers seemed to be alive. He painted the figures so beautifully that their clothes seemed to billow in the breeze.

  Sometimes - on the best days of all - his master’s daughter, Liu, would come into the pottery and talk to him about his work and admire the china drying on the racks. She never tired of hearing Wa Fan tell her the story of the Willow Pattern, as she pointed out each detail in turn.

  ‘And who is this?’ she would ask (although she already knew).

  ‘That is the cruel father,’ said Wa Fan. ‘A rich merchant who will not let his lovely daughter marry the gardener.’

  ‘And this is the lovely daughter?’ Liu would say, (although, of course, she already knew). ‘And this is the poor gardener? What became of the unhappy lovers?’

  ‘The daughter and the gardener loved each other so much that they decided to run away together into the world outside the garden. They hid in the gardens — all night, the delicate lady hid in a spidery, dark shed. But the cruel father discovered their secret and searched the garden at dawn. The only way out was over the lake, across a narrow bridge. When the lovers came out of hiding and made to leave the garden, there on the bridge stood the cruel father, whip in hand, ready to kill the poor young gardener. When the lovers saw that it was impossible to escape, they jumped off the bridge, thinking to drown together in the lake.’

  Then Liu would come bursting into his story and exclaim, ‘But the gods smiled on them and turned them into bluebirds, and they flew away to lasting happiness!’

  Then Wa Fan said, ‘You know my story already,’ and Liu blushed and covered her mouth with her fingers and trotted to the door on her wooden heels and clattered back to her father’s house.

  You see Liu loved Wa Fan the potter, and Wa Fan loved her. But they could no more hope to be married than a fish can hope to fly.

  One day cruel Ho Pa said to his daughter, ‘You may thank me, Liu. Prepare yourself. Whiten your face and redden your lips and dress your hair with flowers. For I have found you a husband.’

  Liu bowed low to her father. ‘I will indeed thank you, father, if the husband you have chosen is Wa Fan, your apprentice. He is a fine man.’

  ‘Who?’ cried Ho Pa. ‘Ha! Do you suppose I would marry a daughter of mine to a worthless apprentice? No! You shall marry Chu Fat, the merchant, whose wealth is as huge as his belly and whose business sense is as quick as his temper and whose reputation is almost as old as he. He shall sell my pottery, and together we shall grow richer than the Emperor himself. You shall marry tomorrow. Speak no more of Wa Fan.’

  Liu said nothing. In old China, during the Ch’ing dynasty and in the days of the Manchu Emperor Ch’ien Lung, a daughter’s words were worth less than dead leaves blowing down a street. But the birds of sadness pecked at her heart.

  In those days, Ho Pa rarely went to his pottery, for he had Wa Fan to do all his work and Wa Fan’s china was finer than anything Ho Pa could ever make with his own hands. Now he went straight there, and walked up and down the racks, pretending to examine the plates and vases and bowls.

  ‘Tell me, Wa Fan, what do you think of my daughter?’ he asked casually. He saw the apprentice’s hand tremble as he painted the leaves on to a blue willow tree.

  ‘She is the pattern of all beauty, master; a creation more perfect than any vase shaped by hand, any words written by poets, any music sung by minstrels.’

  ‘And what would you say if I told you you could marry her?’

  Wa Fan dropped his paintbrush altogether and leapt up from his stool. ‘I would say that you are the best of men and that I am the happiest!’

  Then Ho Pa held his sides and laughed till the tears ran down his fat cheeks. ‘Hear this, you shineless pebble on a dusty road: my daughter will be married tomorrow to Chu Fat, the merchant, and I shall stop your wages for daring to rest your eyes upon my daughter! Ha! ha! ha! What do you say to that?’

  Wa Fan said nothing. For in old China, during the Ch’ing dynasty and in the days of the Manchu Emperor Ch’ien Lung, the words of an apprentice were worth less than the ants in a spadeful of earth. But inwardly the dogs of sadness chewed on his heart.

  ‘Some token of respect — some present for the happy pair — would be acceptable,’ said Ho Pa, sweeping out of the door.

  Wa Fan went to the window and looked out at the splendid gardens which surrounded Ho Pa’s still more splendid house. The orange blossom was tearful with rain. The willow tree by the lake slumped with rounded shoulders. The lake glimmered through the reeds like teardrops on the lashes of a great sad eye. Wa Fan looked for a long time at the little bridge hunched over the lake. Then he fetched a plain, undecorated plate of finest pottery and glazed it white as milk, and then began to paint, in a glaze as blue as purple, one last Willow-Pattern
story.

  It was work more perfect than any Wa Fan had ever done before.

  He baked the plate in the kiln and the figures and flowers stood out so brightly that they seemed to move across the little bridge beside the ornamental lake and the painted pagodas. In them the fate of Wa Fan was fastened. He could not turn back now.

  On the morning of the wedding, Wa Fan went to the market and bought strawberries, and heaped them on the plate and dredged them with sugar, and took them to the door of the great house where his master lived. Bowing very low to the doorkeeper, he said, ‘Please set this miserable and worthless present before the bride and groom, and say that it is a token of respect from the insignificant Wa Fan, apprentice.’

  The contracts had been signed. Liu sat at table beside the gross and wheezing Chu Fat — like a golden carp beside a whale. The tasselled rods and flowered combs fastening her hair trembled, and her eyes were fixed on her lap. Her father sat at the head of the table, drinking toasts to himself and his ancestors in cups of rice wine, and laughing immoderately.

  The doorkeeper brought in a plate of strawberries and set it down between the bride and groom. ‘A token of respect from the insignificant Wa Fan, apprentice.’ Liu started a little, and her father let out a roar of laughter big enough to fill a ship’s sail. The bridegroom plunged a fat hand in among the strawberries and crammed twenty into his food-clogged mouth.

  Liu rested her gaze on the blue rim of the plate. She had no eyes for the strawberries. She loved Wa Fan, and so she loved to look at his beautiful craftsmanship. She smiled sadly to see the picture emerge from beneath the strawberries as her betrothed crammed the fruit into his face.

  No-one saw her shoulders stiffen, her eyes grow wide, or her fingers crumple the edge of the tablecloth. For during the Ch’ing dynasty, in the days of the Manchu Emperor Ch’ien Lung, a woman learned to be silent and unnoticeable in the eyes of men. She took one strawberry from the plate. And then another.

  She was not mistaken. Her own face looked up at her from the blue and white garden of the Willow Pattern. She it was, who stood on the bridge hand in hand with the poor gardener.

  Another strawberry.

  And there was her father — there was Ho Pa in every shape and feature, standing on the bridge. There was his angry scowl, his vain heap of hair, his big fist grasping the whip, his twisted mouth swearing vengeance.

  Another strawberry and oh!

  Who was it who stood hand in hand with her on the legendary bridge but Wa Fan, the apprentice, dressed in gardener’s clothes but quite unmistakable to the eyes of one who loved him. A perfect self-portrait.

  The plate was a message. The plate was a letter, a plea, a proposal. The plate said, ‘Run away with me, Liu, for I love you as the gardener loved the rich merchant’s daughter in the Willow-Pattern story.’

  Liu’s lips parted and she said, so silently that only her ancestors heard her, ‘Yes, yes, Wa Fan. I will come.’

  ‘Pass those strawberries to me, daughter, or have you no respect for your father?’

  Liu’s heart fluttered between her ribs like a bird caught in a trap. The faces on the plate were showing clearly now. Wa Fan’s plan was laid bare. It was there for everyone to see. Would Wa Fan not pay for his daring with life itself?

  ‘Daughter! Bring me the plate!’

  She could not disobey. She carried the plate to her father and he ate the remaining strawberries. Only a snow of sugar still rested on the blue and white shining garden of the Willow Pattern.

  Ho Pa picked it up and examined it. ‘I see Wa Fan has done his finest work for my daughter’s wedding gift.’

  But though he looked at the cruel and raging face of the man on the bridge, he did not recognize himself. For Ho Pa was vain and he thought himself handsome. He did not recognize the face of the girl on the bridge, for he had never cared enough to look closely into her face. And he did not recognize the face of his apprentice, for he had never looked upon Wa Fan as a man, only as a pair of hands which earned him money: a tool, an object, a thing. He turned to his daughter and said, ‘Fetch more strawberries. The plate is empty.’

  He handed it into her hands - Wa Fan’s priceless wedding gift into her hands. He sent her from the room when all she had lacked was an excuse to leave the room. Along the corridor she hurried, holding the plate to her breast - out into the garden where the sun shone smilingly, past the chrysanthemums, the painted pagoda, and along the lake shore to the little bridge. There, hidden among the tresses of the willow tree, she found Wa Fan, his long pigtail held anxiously between his nervous fingers.

  ‘You came,’ he said.

  ‘I came,’ she said.

  ‘You have left behind everything for me,’ he said.

  ‘I have left behind nothing,’ she said, ‘for look, I have the present you sent me and that is all in the world that I prize. I will never part with it.’

  Then they crossed over the hunched little bridge, hand in hand, and into the world beyond.

  They went to the harbour, and there they found a Portuguese merchant ship making ready to sail.

  ‘Carry us to your faraway land in the West,’ said Wa Fan to the Portuguese captain.

  The captain - a swarthy man, fearful to Chinese eyes with his coarse-bearded jaw and big moist eyes - looked at the ragged Wa Fan and at Liu in her wedding dress. He plucked at his lip. He looked in vain for their luggage. ‘And how will you pay me, Chinaman?’

  ‘With hard work and thanks,’ said Wa Fan.

  ‘Oh many, many thanks,’ said Liu.

  But the sea captain’s heart was as cold and sharp-pointed as the anchor of his ship. It lay like a moneybag within his chest and its purse-strings were pulled tight. ‘I vouch some father will pay me well for the return of his daughter,’ he said, twirling his dark moustache. ‘Some bridegroom will pay me well for the return of his bride.’

  ‘No, no!’ cried Liu, covering her face.

  ‘No, no!’ cried Wa Fan, shielding her with his arm. And the sea gaped, and the waves gasped, the topsail shook in the wind.

  Then the captain saw the plate which Liu held to her breast. His eyes gleamed and his hands could not help but reach for it. ‘Did you say you had no fare? This is Willow-Pattern china from the pottery of Ho Pa and the finest piece I ever saw. This will pay your fare!’

  He snatched at the plate, he fumbled, and the delicate porcelain fell between ship and dockside. It floated on the water like a lily.

  Into the water leapt Wa Fan and seized the plate and held it high over his head, and the sea captain snatched it - more precious to him than a child - from its watery destruction.

  ‘Wait!’ said Wa Fan struggling ashore. ‘The plate does not belong to me!’

  The captain turned, scowling. ‘What’s that? Is it stolen?’

  ‘No, indeed! But it is the property of this lady, and only she may give it away!’

  Liu looked long at the beautiful plate dripping between the sea captain’s hands. At last she said, ‘What is china compared with the fate of two hearts? What is a plate compared with the face of my Wa Fan? What is a thing made with hands, compared with the hands which made it?’

  So Wa Fan and Liu set sail across a tangle of foam, towards the shores of distant Europe. Their souls were so filled with invisible joy as to fly like two birds above the ship, whiter than the flapping sail.

  Meanwhile, the sea captain kept below decks and gloated over a thing moulded from clay and painted with the colours of crushed flowers. He thought the plate a rich addition to his cargo. But there are those who believe he had aboard his ship a far greater treasure.

  ***

  ‘Oh Brian!’ said the girl.

  ‘Oh Traycie!’ said the boy.

  ‘Oh buy it for me, Brian!’

  ‘Don’t be daft. It must be worth hundreds.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said MCC, and his eyes were as deep and dark as the South China seas but quite empty of sharks. ‘Value doesn’t always show itself in the price.’r />
  Brian groped a handful of coins out of his jeans, and Ailsa wrapped the plate in tissue paper. She meant to scratch off any disappointing, tell-tale English pottery mark on the back, but there wasn’t one. There was only a long, dangling, Chinese cipher shaped like a chain of paper lanterns.

  ‘Where’s the sweet little book?’ wondered Traycie, searching about in the region of the chaise longue.

  ‘What book’s that?’ said MCC, resting his hand in the pocket of his green corduroy jacket.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE TABLE:

  A STORY OF GLUTTONY

  On the first Saturday in every month, there were Sales at the Auction Rooms in Bridge Street. Ailsa and her mother had not been there for some time, because the shop never sold enough to need restocking. But after MCC had been with them for a month, spaces opened up between the crowded furniture, like the gaps in a grandstand towards the end of a day’s cricket. There was little to show for it in the till, for as soon as he made a sale, MCC was off shopping for books and yet more books. Still, MCC insisted they went today to the Auction Rooms.

  ‘But I don’t have any money to spend at an auction!’ protested Mrs Povey, as Berkshire held out her coat to her.

  ‘Speculate to accumulate. You’ve got to invest to survive. You’ve got to spend if you want to earn!’

  ‘You’ve been reading the economics books again, MCC,’ said Ailsa, and wondered why her mother had given in. They had no money to spend on new stock: they couldn’t even afford to pay the telephone bill.

  ‘Who’ll start me off at five pounds for this genuine reproduction samovar?’ asked the auctioneer.

  The central heating was not on in the Auction Rooms, and a huddle of shivering, grumbling dealers sat hunched over typed lists of the things for sale. MCC said, ‘Why doesn’t anyone bid? It’s a nice samovar. It reminds me of my Great-Uncle Alexei who once got his troika stuck in a snowdrift and lived on tea for three days.’ Coinstantaneously, Mrs Povey and Ailsa (who were sitting on either side of him) took hold of MCC’s hands to stop him bidding. He looked down in astonishment, squeezed their hands, and said, ‘How nice. Thank you.’