FORTUNE COOKIE

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘I go home now, boss?’ Louie da Fly asked, eyeing the rickshaw about to depart. ‘I tell him two dollar you pay also for take me home?’

  I handed the rickshaw driver another fifty cents. ‘Go on, scram. And thanks, mate.’

  When I entered the beaded door of the shadowy Ritz, it was just past eight-thirty and the labourers had already departed. The small room was empty but for a Muslim woman in a burqa sitting at a table in the corner, whom I took to be Mohammed Ismail’s wife putting her feet up after a busy evening. My heart sank. Mercy B. Lord had obviously grown impatient and left. I almost sank to my knees in despair, but then the woman in the dark corner called out quietly, ‘Simon, over here!’

  I reckon my smile was wide as a slice of watermelon. Just three words – impossible to tell if they were happy, sad, angry or simply businesslike, but I hadn’t heard her voice for months and didn’t care. I wanted to dance up to her, suddenly transmogrified into Fred Astaire, from tree stump to top hat, white tie and tails, my arms extended as I swept her from the chair, the ugly hangings of black cotton she wore transformed into an elegant silk ball gown with skirts that flounced as we danced. I guess I lumbered rather than danced to her table, propped and tried to see if her eyes were friendly and welcoming, but the black headgear denied me any sign whatsoever. It was impossible to tell – the light wasn’t great, and eyes alone are not the indicator they’re always claimed to be.

  ‘Mercy B. Lord, thank you, thank you for seeing me. I wanted to apolo—’

  ‘It’s nice to see you, Simon.’ Her voice was slightly muffled by the mask of black muslin.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’ It was only at that moment that I saw the orchid. I mean, it was pinned over her heart for all the world to see but I’d been so intent on her eyes that I’d missed this magnificent splash of colour against her dark blouse. I pointed to the bloom. ‘I hope you didn’t think it presumptuous, which of course it was.’

  ‘Simon, it’s lovely.’

  ‘May I sit?’

  ‘Of course.’

  My heart sank. Her tone was measured, not exactly the voice of a long-lost lover finding her beloved again. Whatever happens, keep your head. Don’t let it get emotional straightaway, I urged myself.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day.’

  Mercy B. Lord laughed, the first tiny breakthrough. ‘You need a good woman to care for you, Simon Koo.’

  I winced visibly. ‘I wish!’

  ‘Well, you’ll be happy to know your chicken curry is on the way, with the usual raita and net bread.’ She laughed again softly. ‘I’m afraid Mohammed Ismail thought he was through for the night. The old lady was washing dishes as I entered. I think “go slow” has assumed a new meaning in the kitchen of The Ritz.’

  Her tone of voice was now sufficiently light for me to venture the next question. ‘Have you converted to the Muslim faith, Mercy B. Lord? If you have, you’ll have to change your name to Mercy B. Allah.’

  Her eyes danced as she laughed once more. I’d broken through. Mercy B. Lord reached up and removed the part of the burqa covering her nose and chin, then pushed back the scarf resting on her forehead so that her entire face was revealed. I knew how pretty she was – no, how beautiful – but the sight of that gorgeous face still made me catch my breath. Swathed in black with only her face revealed, she looked like an oriental Madonna.

  ‘Simon, just one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you tell Molly Ong to call me?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, certain.’

  ‘Do you know why she called?’

  ‘Yes, I have a fair idea.’

  ‘Why?

  ‘The Singapore Girl?’

  ‘Simon, it sounds like one of your ideas.’

  I attempted a laugh. ‘Don’t you ever say that in front of Molly. She’ll think I appropriated the idea. No, honestly, it’s all hers, 100 per cent. She … ah … saw the … er … thing in the paper and called me. I told her it was a great idea, but that’s all.’ I looked directly at Mercy B. Lord. ‘And it is. She asked me if I’d seen you and I said no, there had been no contact, then she …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She asked if you, that is, if she managed to persuade you … you know, on the idea, whether I would have trouble working with you.’

  ‘And?’

  I grinned. ‘You can guess my answer. I assured her I’d be over the moon, doing handstands, double somersaults in the air, jumping over tall buildings in a single bound.’

  I had hoped for a reaction, even a twitch of a smile, but instead she picked up her handbag, opened it and withdrew a piece of folded newspaper. Of course I knew instantly what it was – the moment of truth was upon me. ‘Mercy B. Lord, I know it’s pointless, too late and all that, but I am truly sorry! I never for one moment expected this to happen. It was just … well, painting you was a way of keeping you in my life each day … like you hadn’t left. The competition was just something … a deadline that kept me, you know, painting.’

  By this time she’d unfolded the newspaper and smoothed it out on the Laminex surface of the table. She stabbed at it with her finger, pinning her portrait so that I winced at the gesture. I waited for the expostulation to follow, averting my eyes and shaking my head in regret, willing myself to accept whatever she said, determined to offer no protest other than my regret at having humiliated her. But no explosion followed. Mercy B. Lord remained silent, her finger rigid, motionless, blood pooling above the nail, turning the tip a darker shade under the skin. Had it been a stiletto blade stabbed into her breast it couldn’t have been more meaningful.

  I can’t say how long it was. In my mind the days and weeks and months since she’d left me passed in what was perhaps no more than an agonising half a minute in real time. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, she said, ‘Simon, have you any possible idea of the harm you’ve done?’

  Sometimes you have to believe in a higher force. Just then, a slap-slap of slippers approached as Mrs Mohammed shuffled towards the table with our dinner on a large painted tin tray now scratched and worn. Placing the curry and raita on the table, she muttered something in Malay to Mercy B. Lord.

  I waited until the old lady had departed and looked into Mercy B. Lord’s eyes. I could see she was close to tears, while I was not far from them myself. ‘Mercy B. Lord, I’m an arsehole.’ She folded the newspaper clipping and returned it to her handbag, then started to silently serve me rice and chicken curry, tears now streaming down her cheeks. ‘I’ve done the wrong thing,’ I continued. ‘I know that now. It was arrogant and thoughtless and entirely out of order.’

  ‘Yes, it was all of those things, Simon,’ she said, her eyes averted as she replaced the serving spoon.

  ‘But there may be a way out of this mess,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Karlene Stein’s program and yesterday’s Straits Times have both suggested that you may be a figment of my imagination.’

  ‘Yes, I know. So?

  ‘I’ll withdraw the painting.’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  ‘Admit it – that the portrait is phoney.’

  ‘Oh, I see, and promptly create another media mess?’

  ‘Yeah, possibly, but one that leaves you out of the equation.’

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell them that, technically speaking, it’s a fake. That it’s based on a guide who showed me around Singapore when I arrived almost three years ago. I asked her if she’d allow me to paint her portrait and she agreed.’ I glanced up. ‘Do you agree that’s true so far?’

  Mercy B. Lord nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I then did half a dozen preliminary pencil sketches.’

  ‘Yes again.’

  ‘Then nothing more.’

  Mercy B. Lord nodded again.

  ‘Okay, then we eventually lost tou
ch.’

  ‘That’s stretching things a bit.’

  ‘Yeah, but not essentially untrue. Then, six months ago, two and a half years after we’d met, I set about painting her portrait pretty well from memory and contrary to the rules of the competition.’

  ‘Is that true about the rules?’

  ‘As it turns out, yes, although at the time I simply filled in the entry form and didn’t bother reading the small print or even the larger print. My only ambition was to finish. I’m an art director – my life is ruled by deadlines. Not in my wildest dreams did I think the painting would get anywhere.’ I grinned. ‘The last prize I won for portraiture was in primary school, when I painted a picture of Miss Thomas, my teacher.’

  ‘Do the rules state that you have to have the permission of your subject to exhibit?’

  ‘Yes, as it turns out, the express permission, and it’s the right of the gallery to authenticate the subject’s existence.’

  ‘And you are refusing to give her name?’

  ‘Well, the gallery hasn’t brought it up yet but, yes, on TV and in the interviews I did. I simply insisted it was – she was – to be referred to as the Thursday Girl.’

  ‘And no one asked you why – why Thursday Girl?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I told them it was the day I met you.’ I paused to take a mouthful of chicken curry.

  ‘Simon, you idiot, it was a Saturday!’

  ‘Oops!’

  ‘So far you’re doing very well, I don’t think. Still, I’d be surprised if anyone checked, so go on.’

  ‘Well, from the perspective of the Hong Kong Art Gallery, it’s beginning to look very much on the nose. With all this TV and newspaper speculation, it might appear that the woman in the portrait is a figment of the artist’s imagination. The subject, if the artist is telling the truth, is, at best, based on a few hurried sketches in his notebook, and he hasn’t seen her and refuses to name her without permission. It’s all pretty bloody suss, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Until tonight.’

  ‘Until tonight, what?’

  ‘Well, I’m here.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re happy for me to announce to the world that you’ve been found?’

  A sudden look of real fear crossed Mercy B. Lord’s face. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No, you can’t! If they find out we’re meeting, they’ll …’ She pulled herself up just in time and my heart skipped a beat. She’d confirmed she was in some sort of danger. But I knew instinctively this was the wrong time to pursue the matter.

  ‘Well, there we go. So we didn’t meet tonight.’

  ‘But this is ridiculous. Your cousins Peter and Professor Kwan, Mrs Sidebottom, Long Me Saw and Molly Ong, the Wings, Dansford Drocker, Beatrice Fong, Elma Kelly, and I daresay there are others, have all seen us together. We lived together!’

  ‘Hang on, I haven’t denied that, but it doesn’t change a thing. If anyone brings that up, I have simply respected your privacy. It doesn’t alter the facts of the matter. As for those in the know, that’s just it, see! Some, like the Wing brothers and Beatrice Fong, have reasons not to speak to anyone. My cousins will keep their mouths shut; so will Dansford and Mrs Sidebottom, and if Elma Kelly hears about it – well, I imagine she’ll call me before she says anything. She’s pretty sharp.’

  ‘And what about Molly Ong and Long Me Saw? Oh, and the tourism minister? I was pretty alive and well as your partner at Dansford’s pink-hair cocktail party!’

  ‘Ah, that’s the best part!’

  Mercy B. Lord frowned and looked stern. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Simon?’

  ‘Well, thinking laterally …’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘It’s from a book I’ve been reading by a guy named Edward de Bono. It means thinking outside the square, looking for a lateral rather than a conventional or direct solution to a problem. You know, something perfectly obvious when you see it, but nobody’s thought to do it that way or in that manner before.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand …’

  ‘Let me give you an example. A hotel chain, I forget which one, but they’ve got a hotel in Hong Kong and, anyway, the problem exists in all five-star hotels —’

  ‘How do you know so much about five-star hotels?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, my mum, she’s an expert on finding the best hotels. Anyway, they were finding that they had to replace the very expensive carpet in the foyer lounges every two years, due to uneven wear as people came and went from the hotel. Now, you can imagine that to replace carpet in every hotel in a worldwide chain costs millions of dollars. So they called Dr de Bono in as a consultant and told him that if they could extend the life of the foyer carpets for, say, a further eighteen months, the savings would be enormous.’

  ‘Why didn’t they just use polished wood instead?’ Mercy B. Lord suggested.

  ‘Ah, not a bad idea, but that’s a conventional solution and, dare I say, well within the square. Wooden floors are noisy, and because the foyers are where all the traffic is, it would immediately detract from the relaxed ambience and the appearance of luxury. Too clever by far, and the public are not stupid and clearly know a cost-cutting measure when they see it.’

  Mercy B. Lord leaned over and touched my hand. ‘Oh, it’s so nice to be here, Simon. Just to talk. You always make me think, even if it is about five-star hotels.’ My heart skipped several beats as she continued, ‘I thought we might have a row. That you’d be angry with me.’ She withdrew her hand as suddenly as she’d placed it on mine, as if she’d momentarily forgotten the circumstances of our meeting. She seemed to take a deep breath, although it was hard to tell under the ugly tentlike burqa. But when she spoke her voice was bright, as if she were forcing herself to stay calm and pleasant. ‘Okay, smartypants, what did your clever Dr de Bono do?’

  ‘It was simple really – he looked heavenwards.’

  ‘He asked God?’ Mercy B. Lord had an endearing tendency to take things too literally sometimes.

  ‘No, the chandeliers. Most luxury hotels have those enormous fancy chandeliers. This chain was no exception. Edward de Bono simply suggested they change to bulbs with a lower wattage. This, in turn, added to the ambience of the foyers while effectively concealing the wear on the carpet, extending its life, as it turned out, for a further two years. Simple solution.’ I leaned back. ‘In a nutshell, that’s lateral thinking.’

  Mercy B. Lord smiled. ‘That’s very clever. And you’ve come up with one of these lateral ideas?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think so. Bear with me a moment. I announce to the Hong Kong Art Gallery people that I’ve broken the rules and painted a woman pretty much from memory who I met three years ago, did so without her permission, and I refuse to give them her name unless she agrees.’

  ‘And she can’t be located,’ Mercy B. Lord completed the sentence for me, implying that our meeting at The Ritz was off the record.

  ‘Precisely, so they have no option but to withdraw the portrait and award the prize to the guy who came second, and that way you’re off the hook.’

  ‘Oh, Simon, what about you? That’s simply awful. Your reputation as a painter will be ruined. The portrait is brilliant!’ she cried.

  I grinned. ‘What reputation? It didn’t exist before I won the bloody prize, so I’m just back to square one. It’s not a big deal.’

  ‘But you’ll lose face! That’s terrible.’

  I grinned. ‘I seem to be pretty good at that. No point stopping now. You rescued me at the airport, so I owe you one.’ I paused. ‘Mercy B. Lord, I truly beg your forgiveness – I’ve let you down terribly.’

  She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath, then tossed her head as if to change the subject. ‘Go on, we’ll get to that later.’

  ‘Yes, well, with my tail between my legs I metaphorically slink back to Singapore with the portrait and cop the media flak.’

  ‘Oh, Simon, is all this necessary, this personal disgrace? I sometimes think to hell with everybody.’ She looked down at
her hands. ‘My life is fucked anyway. I should have the courage to go on Karlene Stein’s program and tell everyone, let them see how brilliant you are and clear up the whole stupid mess!’

  ‘And then what?’

  Mercy B. Lord looked straight into my eyes. ‘Does it matter?’

  I reached over and held her hand. I’d never heard her use the ‘f’ word in that ugly way before. ‘Darling, it matters more to me than anything else in my life. May I ask you a question?’ I could sense that we were about to break down simultaneously and that I must avoid doing so at all costs. Her safety was paramount; nothing else mattered.

  She averted her eyes. ‘It depends on the question, Simon,’ she said softly.

  ‘Are you in danger? Physical danger?’

  Mercy B. Lord was silent and her hand went to the orchid and touched it lightly. ‘It’s beautiful. I’ve never had a corsage before.’

  ‘Please, you don’t have to say anything, just nod or shake your head.’

  Her eyes rose slowly to meet mine and she nodded. I sighed and nodded in turn. ‘Right.’

  ‘Please, Simon, no more questions.’

  I told myself I must hold my nerve, keep my resolve. She’d answered my question; now was not the time to pursue the subject. I attempted to keep my voice calm as her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Okay, where was I? Oh, yes, the portrait is brought back to Singapore in disgrace.’ I paused. ‘But not entirely.’

  ‘How is that?’ Mercy B. Lord asked, clearly grateful for the release of tension.

  I grinned and shrugged. ‘I’m a dumb artist. Artists don’t read the rules, everyone knows they’re away with the fairies. Anyway, it’s obvious to everyone that I love beautiful women.’

  Mercy B. Lord grinned. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Well, naturally everyone wants to see it, the portrait, in the flesh, so to speak. Take a gander, see what all the fuss is about. So the Tourist Promotion Board borrows the portrait of a supposedly impossibly beautiful Singaporean woman, this figment of the fevered imagination of a disgraced artist, and displays it in the City Hall for public viewing.’