Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  Both women, perhaps initially too overcome or shy to fall into each other’s arms, now rose and embraced, and a torrent of further tears followed. For once in my life I’d got it right. I tried to imagine what it must be like to know absolutely nothing about your mother. Lily later explained that she had never been told a single thing about Nicole. As a small child she’d asked Ah Yuk, the amah given the responsibility of raising her, where she’d come from. She was told the highly improbable story that shortly after the Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1932 she’d been found newborn and naked in a horse stall at the Kiangwan racecourse.

  It was at Kiangwan racecourse that the main Chinese defences had been dug in, and it had borne the brunt of the Japanese artillery attack in 1932. Most of the young soldiers defending it had been killed, and in the process the Japanese guns had demolished the racecourse and the stables behind it, killing all the horses but for one pure-white mare in the only stall miraculously left standing. Trapped in the stable and surrounded by artillery fire, the mare had been driven crazy with fright and the interior surfaces of the stable had run red, the mare’s whiteness turned crimson from her own blood. Lily was told that people who came to bury the dead said that the horse’s great heart could be seen exposed where its flesh had been ripped from its chest in its desperate attempts to break out. Yet the newborn child found naked at the crazed animal’s feet was unharmed. The mewling infant and the terrified horse had been the only survivors among the tens of thousands of Chinese killed when every house in the village surrounding the racecourse was razed to the ground. Big Boss Yu was the owner of the mare and so, according to the story, he’d taken the matter of the ‘horse child’ to a famous soothsayer, who concluded the infant had sprung from the mare’s exposed heart. The soothsayer told him that the horse’s child was not a gwai mui, but was white-skinned with the round eyes of a horse because the mare had been pure white in colour. He’d also told Big Boss Yu that the horse’s child was a gift from the Gods and would bring him great good fortune. And so Big Boss Yu had taken the white-skinned, round-eyed infant into his esteemed household.

  When things had settled down a bit in the hotel foyer, Jimmy proposed lunch on the balcony. It was here that Lily suddenly said, ‘Oh dear, I was so excited I quite forgot to show you my proof.’

  Jimmy laughed. ‘Ain’t no better proof dan your lovely face, Lily. Der ain’t no mistakin’ your mama is sittin’ der beside you.’

  Lily No Gin No. 2 dipped into her handbag. ‘I was given this by Yu Ya-ching when I won my scholarship to university. “It belonged to your mother,” was all he said.’ From her handbag she produced a single pearl earring.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ Nicole exclaimed and seemed quite overcome, her hands clutched to her breast. When she recovered sufficiently she said, ‘You shall have the other one with my love, my darling child.’

  Over lunch Lily told us the story of the white mare and how she’d acquired her Chinese name, then laughingly added, ‘I wonder if you’d mind very much calling me Whisky?’ We all paused and waited for an explanation – it was, after all, a very peculiar nickname. ‘At school, with a surname like “No Gin” and the Chinese name Baht Mar, which means “white horse”, the name of a famous brand of scotch, it was almost inevitable that I became Whisky No Gin.’ Apart from the Countess, we all laughed at this simple explanation.

  ‘Oh, you poor darling,’ she exclaimed. ‘Children do so hate that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, yes, of course I was teased a great deal at school. But as I grew older I became accustomed to it, and now, well, it’s my name, and I’m simply known to my patients as Dr Whisky.’

  ‘That a good name!’ Jimmy exclaimed. ‘Dr Whisky? It got panache.’ I could see Jimmy was greatly taken with Whisky No Gin.

  It was the first time that ‘Whisky No Gin’, or plain ‘Whisky’, or even ‘Dr Whisky’, as she would variously become known to us, mentioned that she was a doctor of medicine. Over lunch she told us briefly about her life. Of course, it has taken a long time and many trips to Hong Kong to get the whole story, particularly of her childhood. I hope to encourage her to write it down, as it is a remarkable story of survival and determination that deserves to be told. But at our first lunch together, for our benefit she briefly outlined the forty-two years of her life.

  She had spent her first five years in the compound of Big Boss Yu, whom she seldom saw and who, as far as she could recall, never spoke to her. In 1937, with the certain invasion of the Japanese, they left for Taiwan and then, after the war, did not return to Shanghai but went instead to Hong Kong. Whisky attended school in Taipei, where Big Boss Yu insisted she learn English. She must have been a bright child because at the age of thirteen, when they’d arrived in Hong Kong, she sat for a scholarship to a private girls’ school attended by both expatriate children and the wealthy Chinese. The gain of face Big Boss Yu had received from this success, along with Wang Po’s injunction to give her all the privileges of a male child, had overcome his predisposition not to educate her beyond primary school. She eventually became head prefect and the captain of the school lacrosse and hockey teams, and when she sat for her ‘O’ levels won a scholarship to the University of Hong Kong to study medicine.

  I don’t know why we all assumed she was single – perhaps because we’d always thought of her in the singular. But when she told us she was married to an Englishman named John Forsythe who worked for Jardine Matheson as an accountant, and had a twenty-year-old son, Mark, who was in his second year of medicine, I think it came as a bit of a surprise. We learned that her husband was a man of sixty-two and on the edge of retirement, and of course we eventually met him and Mark. Nicole later found out that her daughter’s marriage had been a difficult one, although Whisky didn’t pretend that her husband was entirely to blame.

  ‘When one has experienced my sort of background one’s emotions are always a contradiction,’ she explained to her mother some years later. ‘You want passionately to be loved, but don’t know how to reciprocate. Loving is a learning process and I’d never had any tuition in the subject. John comes from a rigid, upper-middle-class English family, and with his father in the military he spent most of his childhood at boarding school, so he is almost as emotionally crippled as I am. While Mark has changed that somewhat for me, his father is perhaps too set in his ways to change and a mother’s love for a child isn’t transferable to her husband.’

  It was sad to think that this lovely woman, like her mother, had lived such a sad life. That’s the problem with real life – it seldom turns out the way you want it to. Mark turned out to be a very nice young bloke, and loved to spend his holidays on the island – mostly out on the fishing boats. With such a busy practice, and her dedicated work with the poor, unfortunately Whisky seldom found the time to visit, although Nicole grew to love her dearly and, in the end, mother and daughter became very close.

  The business arrangement with Eddie Ching who, after returning to America for a year, returned to Hong Kong after the death of Big Boss Yu two days after his eighty-ninth birthday, prospered. At seventy the Countess retired and spent the next seven years travelling to and from Hong Kong to see Whisky and her grandson and to supervise the building of the Lily No Gin Children’s Hospital in the New Territories to take care of the needs of the poor. The No Gin Trust set up by her is endowed with ten million US dollars and, along with Whisky, who runs the hospital, and Mark, a paediatrician, Nicole presides over the hospital board. John Forsythe died of a heart attack last year and Whisky now spends most of her time working in the emergency ward of the hospital, often not returning home for three or four days at a time. At fifty-four she is no longer a spring chicken, but Jimmy, who sees a lot of her, says she’s a driven woman and sometimes he has to drive over to the hospital and haul her out for a decent meal.

  Jimmy and Whisky have grown very close since John Forsythe’s death, and I know he’s very fond of her. For once the charismatic James Pentecost Oldcorn has hit a brick wall with th
e opposite gender. Whisky, in the parlance of today’s pop psychology, is too damaged for a relationship, and has put all her emotions into getting to know and love her mother, and into the care of neglected, disadvantaged and sick children. As she says, in her pragmatic medical way, ‘I understand the sick children with whom I work. Superficially they suffer from the diseases of neglect, but psychologically I share with them the symptoms of emotional neglect. I don’t suppose I can change now.’ I always think this a great pity because Jimmy also suffers from the same symptoms – if anyone can understand Whisky, Jimmy is the man. But there you go. I guess when the heart is emotionally damaged in childhood it becomes the hardest of human afflictions to cure as an adult.

  Jimmy is the chairman of the No Gin Trust and Eddie Ching is also a member of the Trust and the hospital board. His family recently donated four million US dollars to the establishment of a new research complex under the joint control of the University of Hong Kong and the hospital, to be named the Yu Ya-ching Children’s Diseases Research Centre. I explained earlier how we were forced to work with the Triads and the Japanese Yakuza if we hoped to export abalone, the fish-importing industry in Asia being totally in their control, however, you may wonder why Nicole would appoint Eddie Ching to the hospital board and also make him a member of her trust fund. He is trusted and even respected in Hong Kong business circles, where he is known as a charismatic and highly regarded entrepreneur, just as his father once was in Shanghai. All I can use in Nicole’s defence are her own words: ‘A poor parent is not fussy where the help to save the life of their child comes from, as long as it’s available.’ China simply doesn’t work the same way as the West, as Jimmy and I discovered so long ago as prisoners of war.

  Jimmy took over working with Eddie Ching when Nicole retired, and for the past ten years has spent a great deal of time in Hong Kong, living there for almost half the year. ‘Sometimes, Brother Fish, what dey do don’t make no sense. But always, in da end, it Chinese logic an’ it work out. Those dudes dey crazy, but crazy like a fox. Yoh know what I mean?’ While Jimmy loves the complexity and convolutions of doing business with the Chinese, I’m rather glad Wendy and I run the island side of the business with the help of Jimmy’s various children, my K-Force mates who joined Ogoya and their children, and, of course, the islanders.

  As I come to the end of my story there is so much I need to wind up. Gloria died quietly in her sleep ten years ago. She was the first of the Kellys since Mary the Great to make it into the big time as the matriarch of a family who went from being a pinch of the proverbial to one of the most successful in the land. Father Crosby buried her with a full Latin mass, and has a brand new church to show for it. In its nave is the beautiful carving of the Madonna and Child brought back from the Launceston Art Gallery to where it belongs. Sue, now retired, never married, but does a great deal of charity work on the island, and the new operating facility at the cottage hospital is named the Matron Susan McKenzie Theatre. The twins Steve and Cory are still fishermen, happy each to skipper one of the company fishing boats. Cory spends his free time at the pub and has a long-suffering wife, Jane, while Steve spends his free time in his shed restoring vintage cars and has a long-suffering wife, Melissa. Between them they have eight rowdy kids, who Wendy and I love to death. Father Crosby is in an old-age home in Launceston for Catholic priests who refuse to die. I visited for a few minutes yesterday to take him a bottle of Irish whiskey. ‘You’re your mother’s boy, you are and all, Jacko. Will you not be thinking of coming over to the true faith now?’ he asked me. Mike Munday is the Reg Ansett of mining exploration and air surveying, and Munday Aviation is now a worldwide operation that can still land a plane on a sixpence anywhere you like, but it’s going to cost you more than a few bob.

  THE GALLIPOLI BAR – 1986

  When this story began I was seated where I am now, at the Gallipoli Bar in the Anzac Hotel in Launceston, waiting for Jimmy to arrive from Hong Kong. It is the thirty-third anniversary of our return from Korea and, alas, the saddest of them all. The Countess is dying in Launceston Hospital. She has recently been diagnosed with cancer and, at her age of seventy-nine, it is inoperable. Thank God she claims to have very little pain. When Wendy and I visited her yesterday she was quite bright, giving us specific instructions on how she is to be buried. She wants her grave to be in her wild garden overlooking the cliffs, with nothing in sight but the whitecaps rolling in all the way from South America. There are to be no orations, but I am to play the harmonica and Jimmy is to sing ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington’. I’ll bet Noël Coward never envisaged a six-foot nine-inch American Negro with a voice as deep as Paul Robeson’s singing his song at a funeral service.

  Two days ago I put a stepladder in the back of the ute and drove around to her cottage, climbed up and took down the beautiful board bolted to the wall above her bed.

  Thank you for the strawberry milkshake love affair. V.S.

  When the time comes it will be set into the lid of her coffin.

  I am to be the unfortunate owner of Vowelfowl. Nicole informs me he has his birthday on the first of January, and next year he will be sixty-six. The old bugger is going to outlive us all. Thank goodness Jake, Cory’s eldest son, loves him like a brother, even though his own vowel sounds are anything but rounded.

  Jimmy is bringing Whisky and Mark down with him from Hong Kong. He and I will have a quick beer to continue the tradition we started thirty-three years ago, and then we’ll all visit the Countess in hospital.

  I suddenly feel a large hand on my shoulder. Jimmy has arrived looking a little the worse for wear, his suit crumpled and his tie loosened – not his usual immaculate self.

  After going through the scene of trying to catch a taxi at the airport, and, for the thirty-third time, toasting our friendship and our traditional 9th of August reunion, he produces a soft pack and a lighter and places them on the bar. He lights up and takes a short, sharp drag, then places the fag into the lip of the glass ashtray and blows the smoke out through his nostrils. He turns to me and says, ‘It’s been a long journey, Brother Fish.’

  ‘No longer than usual. I’m the one can’t sleep on planes – you always look like you’ve just stepped out of Johnny Chang’s tailor shop in Kowloon.’

  ‘Nah, not da trip, da journey.’ He picks up his glass. ‘Our Countess,’ he says, his voice low and gentle. ‘Hell, man. I done love her so much.’

  Jimmy, his beer halfway raised to his mouth, is crying, softly, without a sound – just tears running down his ‘high-yella’ face.

  We finish our beers in silence. ‘Let’s go, mate,’ I say, feeling pretty choked up myself. I go to pay the barman but he waves his hand.

  Jimmy dropped Whisky and Mark off at the hotel where Wendy and I are staying and they’ve gone ahead to the hospital, so he and I leave from the Anzac together in a cab.

  Nicole is very weak and seems even more frail than she looked yesterday. Jimmy bends to kiss her. ‘How ya doin’, Countess?’ he asks.

  ‘You look a mess, James,’ she replies, her voice hardly above a whisper.

  ‘Bad trip,’ Jimmy says, explaining no further.

  Then Whisky speaks up. ‘Mother, I have something to say.’

  Nicole looks at her precious daughter through deeply hooded eyes, ‘Better say it quickly, darling – there isn’t a lot of time left.’ Even now, she is still able to joke.

  ‘I’ve learned how to do it,’ Whisky says, her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Do what, darling?’ Nicole asks, her voice only just audible.

  ‘To love. James Pentecost Oldcorn and Dr Whisky are getting married. Please, please, stay for the wedding tomorrow,’ she sobs.

  At two a.m. in the morning, on the hour Whisky was born, the Countess can’t hold on any longer. I take out my harmonica and play the opening chords and Jimmy starts to sing ‘The Fish Song’ in his deep baritone voice as the Gods, ours and the others, lift her good, good soul up and away from us.

/>   East Asia

  Korea

  Acknowledgements

  I always feel guilty when writing the acknowledgements. It seems unfair: I get to put my name on the cover while so many people who helped to create a work of fiction appear tucked away in the back pages. This book spans four continents and stretches over eighty years of the history of the twentieth century. To make it happen I had to borrow from the minds of hundreds of people who gave generously of their time and knowledge. Many of them I shall never meet, but to all of you, my grateful thanks; for better or worse Brother Fish is the sum of our collective minds.

  For most of my books Celia Jarvis has been my principal researcher. She knows I make constant and unreasonable demands, but she never fails me. She has been my friend for thirty years and is a consummate professional who has always given me much more than I have a right to expect.

  Then there is Graham Walker, a Vietnam veteran and friend who is an accomplished writer on military matters, who often planned incidents of a military nature that I couldn’t possibly have understood. He makes the complex seem simple. I thank him for his guidance, counsel and help throughout.

  For information on China and the Chinese I turned to husband and wife team Geoff Pike and Phyllis Kotewell-Pike. Geoff Pike is an internationally acclaimed novelist who is known for his superb narratives and intimate knowledge of Hong Kong and the Orient. Geoff helped me factually, his transliteration and understanding of the idiom superior to mine. Phyllis educated me in the day-to-day ways and lives of the Chinese people, supplied the Cantonese expressions and words I use in the book and diligently checked my narrative for accuracy. I simply cannot thank you both enough.