FORTUNE COOKIE

by Bryce Courtenay

  While I knew Dansford was only trying to help, the last thing I needed was another woman. I missed Mercy B. Lord totally – in mind, spirit and body. It was just that the first two were internalised and the third was manifest, but together they represented a constant longing, an ache that had nothing whatsoever to do with sexual gratification.

  It was only when I had been painting that my sense of loss seemed to fade a little. Mercy B. Lord’s image, slowly emerging from the flat white canvas, gave me a sense of her returning to my life. No longer did I need the ice-cube therapy or pace the floor each night mumbling the same mournful endearments.

  However, in the days that followed my sending the painting off to Hong Kong, I sank – crashed is a better word – into a deeper despair than ever. It was as if I’d now lost Mercy B. Lord all over again. Years later I would understand that in my mind and imagination I’d brought her to life. It was like feeling the presence of a phantom limb. In retrospect, I suppose it sounds pretty strange, but curiously, the comment most people made when they saw the painting was that it had enormous presence. In fact, of the sixty portraits by international artists accepted by the Hong Kong Art Gallery for exhibition, ‘Thursday Girl’ was described as the painting that most frequently caught the eye of visitors and drew them to it.

  The Chinese have a penchant for renaming things, the names usually based on some physical quality the thing possesses. For instance, a new high-rise building in Hong Kong featuring hundreds of round windows was immediately referred to as the ‘Building of a Thousand Arseholes’. A Guinness stout bottle featuring an Irish harp on the label has been known for over fifty years as the ‘Broken Bicycle-wheel Beer’. My portrait was renamed by a Chinese journalist as ‘The Princess with the Dragon Chisel’, and by some form of oriental osmosis, within a couple of days everyone was calling it that and it bore this new name whenever it appeared in the Chinese press. Someone on the gallery staff soon called and asked if they, too, could use the Chinese name in their promotional material, saying they planned to have a second banner printed for the front of the building with the new name in Mandarin. I hurriedly agreed to the name change, thinking it might cause less trouble for Mercy B. Lord. I had no wish to remind her of the subject of our last, fateful discussion.

  They’d also delicately referred to the suggestion made by Karlene Stein and the Straits Times that Mercy B. Lord didn’t exist. While not quite knowing what to say, I fired a shot in the dark and assured them that she lived and breathed and would be identified soon enough. I reasoned that if the worst came to the worst, I would ask Molly Ong to verify Mercy B. Lord’s existence and then cop whatever flak came my way. I daresay I could also have used Long Me Saw, but he constituted heavy artillery, almost like getting the prime minister to vouch for your character.

  Involving Molly was a lousy solution, and no doubt Mercy B. Lord would think I had betrayed her, but it was the only way I could think of to avoid a major embarrassment for the gallery and also stop the press from speculating. After all, what had occurred wasn’t the Hong Kong Art Gallery’s fault, and having Mercy B. Lord’s existence authenticated was the lesser of two unfortunate outcomes, if not for me then certainly for everyone else involved.

  Naturally, for the umpteenth time I chastised myself for my impetuosity – no, that sounds too lenient – for my downright carelessness and thoughtlessness in entering the competition. While there was no possible excuse, it never entered my head that I’d win or even be exhibited. Even the prospect of making the Salon des Refusés only occurred to me fleetingly. But that’s not the point, is it?

  And then there was my mother. Who the hell would have thought she’d be in Hong Kong just when this was all happening? But then again, Chairman Meow seemed to have an instinct for being where the action was. It had not endeared her to most of my uncles; she seemed to have an uncanny knack of appearing at one or other of the little empires each of them ran on behalf of the family at exactly the wrong or right time, depending upon whose viewpoint you were taking.

  As I mentioned earlier, she’d followed up her original excited mid-morning phone call with another that came just after Karlene Stein’s program. For me it was the worst possible timing. What I didn’t need was a Chairman Meow interrogation after Karlene Stein’s asinine remarks on TV.

  To my enormous relief, she announced in a voice filled with disappointment that she couldn’t come to Singapore the following morning because my Uncle Colin, responsible for the company real-estate portfolio, was causing a ruckus about a building in the CBD, which he wanted to demolish to build a high-rise office tower. ‘Can you imagine – no please or thank you – he had the nerve to tell your father that he had Whelan the Wrecker standing by and needed his signature on the contract to give him the go-ahead! Your father is very against it. The building is a Georgian masterpiece – Sydney sandstone – the first investment Little Sparrow ever made, apart from the restaurants and what-have-you. It’s been in the family for sixty years! Your father has called an extraordinary board meeting and I’m afraid I have to be there. Your Uncle Colin can be rather stubborn and his judgement isn’t always to be relied upon,’ she concluded in Chairman Meow business code. Roughly translated outside the boardroom, that last statement would go something like this: ‘Colin is a bumbling nincompoop, a philistine whose judgement can’t under any circumstances be trusted!’ There was an audible sigh from the Hong Kong end and then she concluded, ‘Anyway, I’d better go.’

  ‘Okay, Mum. Nice of you to call,’ I mumbled, then waited, knowing that her farewells often took longer than her conversations.

  ‘Never mind, darling. I’ll be back on the afternoon flight on Thursday week and we’ll fly to Hong Kong together on Saturday morning for the dinner in the evening. I am so looking forward to meeting your nice friends. Oh, and, Simon, you will be wearing black tie, won’t you?’

  ‘Mum! No. It’s optional. I’m supposed to be an artist – it won’t be expected,’ I protested. ‘I’ve got the suit you had made in Sydney.’

  ‘You’re also supposed to be a gentleman, darling. The two things are not mutually exclusive, unless you’re one of those new hippies. Besides, it is expected. I shall be with you and that suit is well below par. I shall be wearing a beautiful Christian Dior gown I bought in Paris last season, which I have yet to wear. It’s raw silk, with the bodice and hemline decorated with black Tahitian seed pearls. I think I’ve got a diamond dragon brooch somewhere – in the vault, I think – oh, and, darling, you will be sure to have a haircut, won’t you?’

  ‘Mum, this is “short back and sides” Singapore. And I don’t possess a dinner suit.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time to have one made, dear. One of those clever overnight tailors in Orchard Road will make it for you – single-breasted is what everyone’s wearing these days. You don’t want to look like a young Bob Menzies. What about your gorgeous Thursday Girl? You quite neglected to tell me her name this morning.’

  Whacko! Chairman Meow was back, her timing perfect. She’d slipped Mercy B. Lord into the conversation seemingly effortlessly. ‘It’s Mercy B. Lord.’

  ‘Did I hear you correctly? Mercy’s very nice, but Belord? That’s not a Chinese name.’

  ‘No, Mum, Mercy as in “to have mercy”, “B” as in the initial, and “Lord” as in Jesus. Mercy B. Lord,’ I repeated.

  ‘Oh, how extraordinary! And that’s her real name, Mercy B. Lord? But she is Chinese, isn’t she?’

  ‘Mum, she’s an orphan, left on the steps of a Catholic orphanage. That’s what the nun who discovered her exclaimed when she set eyes on the tiny swaddled bundle on the front steps – “Mercy be Lord!” – so that’s how she was named. Simple, really. As I told you this morning, she has absolutely no guanxi whatsoever.’

  ‘We’ll talk about all that when I get there, darling. I’ll see you on Thursday night.’

  ‘Yes, Mum. Why don’t you stay with me? Make a change from a hotel.’

  ‘You mean you’re on your ow
n? I was rather hoping —’

  ‘No, Mum, I told you this morning, she’s not mine!’ I replied sharply.

  ‘Oh, did you? I must have missed that in all the excitement.’

  ‘Yes, well …’

  A moment’s pause, then, ‘Oh, and tell me about Little Sparrow’s dragon chisel.’

  ‘It was an afterthought, Mum, instead of a toggle. I added it at the very last moment.’

  ‘Simon, I think you’re fibbing. It was no afterthought, or if it was, it’s a sign, a definite sign. Listen to me. I stood for an hour looking at your painting, looking into her eyes. That’s not something you can paint if it isn’t there.’

  ‘What isn’t there, Mum?’

  ‘Simon, that beautiful young woman has Koo – I mean you – written all over her.’

  ‘Mum, please, she’s not mine. Please don’t make any plans. They simply won’t work,’ I cried down the phone like a plaintive teenager.

  ‘I daresay she’ll wear the gown and shoes in the picture, but I thought I’d bring a set of diamond drop earrings, perfect with her lovely Sassoon helmet-style haircut.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What, darling?’

  ‘I told you – she’s not mine! I don’t even know if she’ll attend!’

  ‘Oh? But you have invited her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I haven’t heard from her.’ Technically, it wasn’t a fib.

  ‘And you sent flowers, I hope?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I sent roses – they didn’t have yellow, so I sent pink, a dozen.’

  ‘Good boy.’

  I breathed an inward sigh of relief. Fibbing to Chairman Meow was always dangerous. Beatrice Fong’s brush-stroked ‘BASTARD’ across the middle of my letter of apology wasn’t something you could explain to your mother. ‘She’s barely had time to reply,’ I explained, having trouble keeping my voice steady.

  There was another pause, then she said, ‘Darling, you do know how proud I am. An artist who becomes the chairman of the board of a vast family conglomerate …’ A titter came over the line from Hong Kong. ‘Now, wouldn’t that be something? Must go, darling, I’ll call you from Australia and, yes, I’d love to stay with you.’

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ I said, exasperated, and waited. But this time I heard the click as she replaced the receiver.

  I knew it was pointless telling Chairman Meow that Mercy B. Lord wasn’t part of my life, but at least she’d dropped the subject when she realised I was becoming upset. Chairman Meow and Mother combined had swiftly changed the subject, and in the process reminded me, not too subtly, of the end game: Simon Koo, Chairman of the Board.

  Very occasionally, the congruence between Chairman Meow and my mum increased. When this happened the decisions that resulted were forever chiselled in granite. The point I’m making is that both had made up their minds about Mercy B. Lord in a double-whammy decision and, like the Georgian building in the heart of Sydney’s central business district, no metaphorical Whelan the Wrecker was going to be allowed to reduce it to rubble. The apparent Freudian slip of the tongue – ‘That beautiful young woman has Koo – I mean, you – written all over her’ – I knew with absolute certainty was no slip at all.

  I clasped my head in my hands and shook it vigorously, gnashing my teeth and growling in frustration. Chairman Meow versus Beatrice Fong and the Wing Brothers would be an even and deadly contest. The fact that Mercy B. Lord or Simon Koo might want to be involved in this clash of the oriental Titans that was now almost certain to eventuate wouldn’t occur to either Chinese faction. Simple: Australia and Singapore would soon officially be at war.

  All this happened on what had been, for me, a very long day. Now I’d sent Louie da Fly to try to accost Mercy B. Lord as she entered or left the Beatrice Fong building. He’d left shortly before noon and hadn’t returned by five, so I could only assume he’d missed seeing her and gone home to return to the task in the morning.

  Because of yesterday’s media circus, I’d done no work in the agency and we had a meeting with Michael Johns of Texas Oil the next day. They planned to launch a new type of oil onto the Asian market. It was purported to increase the efficiency of the engine in much less time than normal engine oil, by lubricating the moving parts almost instantly upon ignition. Big Loud Mike’s idea for the copy was: the engine is instantly sprayed with tiger piss, which we were to translate cleverly into Chinese. Following the huge success of the Texas Tiger petrol campaign, he had practically become a legend back in Houston, Texas, and he now regarded himself as an expert on all matters relating to Chinese tigers and petroleum products.

  I was required to design a new twenty-four-sheet poster for service stations and roadside sites featuring the new oil. The tiger piss idea sounded ludicrous, but because you can’t easily read the oriental mind, we’d tried the name on a sample of forty truck owner-drivers and on the same number of taxi drivers in four Asian countries. Almost to a man, they’d burst out laughing when they heard it, shaking their heads at the absurdity of the idea and no doubt at the presumption of the gwai-lo.

  The Chinese, in particular, always try to second-guess what answer you would prefer when you ask them a question, and may never tell you how they feel personally about the subject discussed, so this spontaneous outburst of mirth at Big Loud Mike’s suggestion told us everything we needed to know: there are limitations even to the Chinese imagination, and the concept of tiger’s piss for engine oil was going a tad too far.

  The idea I’d settled on when designing the poster showed a tiger running fully stretched along a mountain road, with the immediate background scenery speed-blurred, and above it a dark brooding sky ripped asunder with a brilliant strip of lightning that ended on an illustration of the oil container. The caption read: ‘Tiger lubrication – greased lightning for ultimate engine care’. While it was a little clumsy in English, it translated well into most Asian languages with the exception of Tagalog, the language spoken in most parts of the Philippines.

  It was rendering rather well, the poster layout coming along nicely, and I’d lost all sense of time when I heard the night buzzer ringing in reception. I glanced at my watch; it was eight o’clock. I’d arrived at the agency at seven that morning and hadn’t eaten all day. I glanced out of the window to see that it was already dark and a streetlight had come on in the distance.

  Walking into reception, I switched on the light and was surprised to see Louie da Fly with his face pressed to the plate-glass front door, fist pounding for attention. I opened the door to the teenager, who panted excitedly, ‘You come now, boss, quick time. I got also rickshaw!’

  ‘Hey, whoa. Steady on, mate. What’s going on?’

  ‘You see, come, we go.’

  ‘Hang on, Louie da Fly. Calm down. Tell me what all this is about.’

  ‘I find Missy Mercy. She want to see you, boss. I got rickshaw. We go. She waiting for you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring her here?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘No! Too danger. We go. She be there by Muslim temple.’

  ‘Mosque?’

  ‘Ja, ja, big one, boss! More big all church and temple in Singapore. We go Kampong Glam.’

  He was talking about the Sultan mosque round the corner from Arab Street. Mercy B. Lord had taken me there as part of my orientation tour when I’d first arrived, and we’d discovered a Malay shop-house restaurant, where an old Muslim woman served and her even older husband, predictably named Mohammed Ismail, did the cooking under a single tiny electric bulb in the ceiling.

  We’d returned several times after that, but neither husband nor wife appeared to recognise us. It wasn’t one of those places where patrons were welcomed with a fuss, or welcomed at all. You sat, ordered, ate and paid. For all we knew, the old lady may have been snarling at us, so little could we see of her under her burqa, which covered her entire face apart from her eyes. But the attraction was the food, especially the curry. Mohammed Ismail made a wonderful chicken curry s
erved with raita, a yoghurt and cucumber dip seasoned with coriander, and roti jala, a lacy flatbread sometimes referred to as net bread. While the curry was already cooked, he made the accompaniments as they were ordered and the service was as slow as the movement of their ancient slipper-clad feet.

  The patrons were invariably young Malay labourers who, after a hard day’s work, were happy to linger, many of them sleeping at a work site or on the floor, a dozen men in a cheap, poorly ventilated room, so the lack of service wasn’t a problem for them. Needless to say, the curries, always three different kinds, were cheap as chips, though this was not the reason we went; the food was truly exceptional.

  The tiny restaurant was situated down a small lane not far from Arab Street, and when Mercy B. Lord had asked Mohammed Ismail if the eatery had a name, he had let out a toothless cackle. ‘The Ritz,’ he said, repeating the name twice. The joke seemed out of place coming from the old cook, but when more closely questioned, he explained that the name came from two ang mo (Europeans) who had somehow stumbled on the place. Enjoying his curry, they had asked him the same question and he’d replied that it didn’t have a name. They’d then suggested he name it The Ritz. ‘What means this name?’ he asked Mercy B. Lord. She’d replied that it meant it was a place with especially good food. She could have added ‘and very poor lighting’. ‘The Ritz’ was perpetually in semi-darkness and it was absolutely perfect for a clandestine meeting.

  I gave the rickshaw driver two dollars, the equivalent of the taxi fare, while Louie da Fly looked on, frowning in disapproval at my utterly profligate gesture. I invariably felt guilty taking a rickshaw. The poor bastard had, after all, pulled Louie da Fly from Beatrice Fong’s to the agency and then, with the added burden of the chunky Chinaman, a fair distance across town on a hot humid night where the acrid atmosphere caused by forest fires in Indonesia was dangerous to breathe. He deserved taxi rates or even more. A taxi driver sat on his arse, his only physical exertion involving a hand on the horn, a foot on the pedal, and yelling abuse at other drivers and pedestrians. Besides, there was something decidedly un-Australian about another human pulling you, using the sweat of his brow, as if he were some poor dumb animal.