‘Why wouldn’t you speak to me, after you came to the office?’
Stevie rolled away from him, unpeeling her sticky limbs from his. He persisted.
‘A polite “no, thank you” would’ve been enough, you know. You didn’t have to leave me not knowing anything.’
Stevie levered her legs out of the bed and leaned down, picking up her underwear from the floor. She was afraid she was going to cry so she spoke fast, the words cramping each other, and without looking at him she put one leg and then the other into her knickers.
‘I know you’ll never leave her and I wouldn’t want you to. If you must know, the reason I like you is that you’re already married to someone else and can’t try to get married to me. But I won’t sneak around more than is dignified. Those are the rules.’ She picked up her dress and threw it over her head, struggling a little to get her arms into the right place.
‘Rules?’ Harry sat up.
‘We can have some fun as long as nobody gets hurt and –’
‘No.’
This was so vehement that Stevie turned to look at him. The force of her glare made him stutter.
‘I mean, yes, we can have fun, of course, but that’s not what this is about. I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to just – look, I’m trying to say.’ He faltered, ‘Damn.’
Stevie slipped on her shoes. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to suffer for this. I know you’re a gentleman and all but please, spare me the agonies. We both knew what we were doing.’
She was so aware of the flimsiness of her argument that she didn’t look back as she reached the door. Relenting for a moment she said, ‘You can call me if you like. I can’t guarantee I’ll talk, though.’
Harry stopped her. ‘Where are you going?’
She looked at him guardedly. ‘Why, what’s it to you?’
‘This is your flat.’
Chapter Eight
It was unbelievably hot in the room and it was so crowded it seemed unlikely to her that there were any Europeans at all left in Europe – they must have all been there in that small low-ceilinged nightclub. Considering the onslaught of grim news from England it wouldn’t have been surprising if they were. Stevie and Declan sat at a corner table and matched each other shot for shot, shouting over the music. The alcohol burned her throat and made her feel alive.
There was a gap in the swirling, tightly packed crowd. In that split second she saw him for the first time since the day of the first-aid incident – could it really only have been three days? This was the encounter she had been dreading since he had left her bed. Everything was suspended. Harry was at a large table, near the swaying, shuffling dance floor. His hand was on the back of Sylvia’s chair, loosely playing with her hair. A gold strand was wrapped around one of his fingers. The gesture was intimate and like a knife through her.
Maybe she gasped because something made Declan follow her gaze. He caught sight of Harry just before the crowd closed round him again. He shook his head – surely this magnificent girl wasn’t pining over a great, lanky Brit. But moments later Stevie was on her feet. She walked as close to Harry’s table as she could, pointedly swaggering. Harry felt her rather than saw her. He picked up her scent just after she swung past his chair and, alert as any animal, he knew the back of her. Excusing himself, he stood up. Sylvia, equally alert, seemed to take note of the alacrity with which he pushed towards the exit before she turned back to the company.
Outside in the slightly cooler air, Stevie was waiting in the shadows. She saw Harry burst out of the narrow club door into the alley. He looked from right to left and she let the rush of adrenalin fill her at the sight of him. She relished for a moment the urgency with which he looked for her. His need was palpable. She stepped towards him and then her back was pressed hard against the wall, bricks indenting her flesh as they kissed. Each part of their bodies as close to the other as possible. An urge to be one.
Rowdy voices. A group tumbled from the club into the alley. In the half-light they were amorphous. One laugh was momentarily shrill and Harry gave Stevie a look of such yearning that she almost laughed too. The situation was simultaneously distressing and absurd. Then he stepped forward into the core of the group and was subsumed. Stevie, holding still in the deep shadow, watched them stagger along the alley, Harry’s head above the others, his arm over Sylvia’s shoulders. It was pain that she felt.
The British Army briefing hut was large and solid if lacking in any niceties. Military and fit for purpose. Every uncomfortable fold-up chair was in use, the world’s press preferring to sit while at work. Stevie stood insolently against the back wall and listened to Harry whilst remembering the feel of him on her. She had her notebook open in her hand but made very few notes. Jishang was eager for any military information from Hong Kong. His last cable had reminded her in no uncertain terms that it was important to go to all the briefings. She had almost heard his familiar admonishing voice with its disconcerting cut-glass English accent as she read the last line. ‘Do not under any circumstances attempt to write about the war preparations.’
She looked at Harry over the sea of heads. Jishang’s words echoed in her ears and she felt a blush of confusion. There was guilt towards her unfinished business with Jishang and she promised herself that when she saw him the first thing she would do would be to confirm their status as friends and partners. She did not think he would be much surprised.
But overwhelmingly there was her shameless obsessive desire for Harry, she was helpless in its grip.
And there he was, upright and dapper in his uniform. His voice effortlessly carried the authority invested in it. She could see the tousled back of Declan’s head in among the others.
‘In conclusion, I’d like to stress that in the unlikely event of an invasion we have every confidence that the island and its territories would hold out long enough for the Chinese Army to mobilise and enter into the engagement alongside the British and Canadian forces. Every confidence.’
A balding man in a double-breasted suit stood up. His tone was harsh.
‘Quite right to be confident, Major. I mean it’s not as if the Japanese could possibly form an intelligent fighting force capable of threatening ours, is it? And what with the Russians now wading in against them too, well, they’re doomed, aren’t they.’
Some laughter. But Harry didn’t smile.
‘We are confident, sir, but it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the enemy threat. One might consider a force able to occupy China to be a formidable one by any standards.’
‘Is that why the women and children are being evacuated?’
‘We have clearly stated many times that this is a precaution. But one worth taking, I think we all agree.’
‘Not a sign of loss of nerve, then?’
‘Absolutely not, sir. Hong Kong is as safe as any other part of His Majesty’s empire and will be vigorously defended as such should the need arise. Thank you.’
Harry stepped away from the microphone and the buzz of voices gradually rose. The reporters stretched and picked up their dropped pens and closed their notebooks and wondered where to go for lunch. Harry shook a few hands as he made his way to the door. Stevie was waiting.
‘Do you have every confidence, personally, Major Field?’ she asked as he brushed past her.
‘Personally? I think Hong Kong is indefensible. And there’s no reason on earth why the Chinese would rush to rescue us.’
‘Can I quote you?’
‘What do you think?’
He grinned at her and she was overwhelmed by him again before he was reclaimed by the world and swept on by.
Stevie was a whirlwind. She gathered armfuls of strewn clothes, the coloured fabrics slipping as she ran. Opening the closet door, she threw them in, slamming the door shut on the unkempt pile. In the bathroom she stared at her reflection. Her hair was beyond help but her cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes sharp. She turned the tap and patted some cool water on to her face. A hap
py shiver and a fast brush of her teeth. I’ll have to do, she thought, though there were discernible bags under her eyes and the laugh-lines dug deeper than she liked.
Harry meanwhile ignored the ringing telephone and, dropping a file of papers on his desk, rushed out of the office. Ken Ramsay, at his typewriter, chose not to ask where he was going.
When the doorbell rang Stevie sprinted for the door, stopping for a second to shove a pair of knickers under a cushion of the sofa. Victor opened an eye from his corner but knew better than to get in her way. The door wasn’t closed behind him before they were scrabbling with each other’s clothes, Harry’s uniform joining her dress on the floor.
Harry, naked and transfixed, sat on the edge of the bed. Stevie straddled him, her legs tight around his waist. They were very still. She could feel the pumping of his heart and smell the sour sweetness of their lovemaking.
‘I love you.’
Stevie seemed not to have heard.
Again. ‘I love you.’
She closed her eyes against him. Against the words. He took her face in his hands.
‘I love you. And I want to be with you.’
‘Well, don’t.’
Harry tightened his grip on her waist and lifted her off him. He almost threw her on to the bed. She was still there, tightly guarding her heart, when he left a few minutes later.
Victor glanced up at the sound of the banging door.
Stevie didn’t.
Chapter Nine
The meal had been a great success. Lily was glowing with the pride of it. Her family had been surprised when she had suggested she might bring her American room-mate for the day. Lily had been keeping her city life at a remove from her home life. Away from them, it was easy for her to enjoy and embrace her assimilation as a British citizen, wearing her European-style skirts and high-heeled Mary Janes. Even her cheongsams were a little tighter, the side splits a little higher. Her family didn’t mind. Lily had a job and was giving them enough to feed everybody including the family next door, so what she chose to keep separate was her prerogative. All in all, the arrival home of Lily and this disappointingly dark American woman was cause for celebration. Lily didn’t mention to them that Stevie was Jishang’s lover. It didn’t seem absolutely necessary and the omission was hardly a crime. It would have embarrassed Mrs Li, her mother, who would have worried about the etiquette. What was the traditional form for welcoming the mistress of a distant and illustrious cousin? It wouldn’t have been immediately obvious; much hand-wringing and discussion would have ensued. Lily was shrewd for eighteen and understood where omission was preferable to disclosure. She had come a long way from the farm and took particular pleasure in her beautifully manicured hands. Her nails were long and perfectly maintained, usually bright red or, depending on the occasion, pearly pink. Today they were dark red, like the walls of the house.
The journey to Lily’s village took about an hour from Hong Kong island. It might as well have taken a century, judging from the difference in the pace of life. Leaving behind the paved streets, the cars, the neon signs, the advertising hoardings and the twentieth-century speed, Stevie was enthralled by the slowing down. Oxen drew wooden carts along the paths between fields. The sound of a million insects vibrated through the air. Her cotton hat was futile against the strength of the sun and she envied the wide straw hats that cast a shadow over the villagers’ entire bodies.
This was rural mainland China. Vast, stubborn and quietly surprising.
The family compound was a whisper to the shout of Madame Kung’s country retreat. The dust had won the battle on the open veranda and the single-storey building looked in on itself like a mountain valley. Life was lived in the shade lent by a tortured-looking orchid tree to one side of the courtyard. The table had been drawn right up to the peeling trunk and every chair and box in the house had been put into service. The family were having a big day.
Stevie, however, felt she was being given a rare insight into the everyday life of a traditional village compound. Lily did nothing to disabuse her. She was happy to see her despised backward home through the eyes of a foreign stranger. She relished every word of Stevie’s appreciation for the feast they were served. Nothing seemed too small or insignificant to pique Stevie’s interest. Lily could no more have understood Stevie’s fascination than she could have read a Russian novel in the original – but she did understand that Stevie saw value in this place. And that, for the time being, was enough for her.
The plates were cleared away and jasmine tea was being poured when a young man appeared on the veranda. His loose trousers were stained red from the dust of his journey. Lily saw him first. She raised an arm as if to wave him away. Stevie followed her alarmed gaze. She instantly recognised him as Chen, the young man from the battle of Kun Lung Wai, as she and Declan had taken to calling it, the angry young man with whom Harry had been in conversation.
Lily spoke to him tersely in Cantonese.
‘You picked your moment.’
‘Nice welcome. A feast and just for me! You shouldn’t have.’
The rest of the family seemed almost paralysed with confusion. Stevie, not understanding all the words but alert to the atmosphere, rescued them by standing up and introducing herself. She held out her hand. ‘I’m Stevie Steiber, Lily’s friend from Hong Kong.’
He approached the table, throwing a sibling glance of triumph in Lily’s direction before he shook Stevie’s hand. ‘Chen. Lily is my sister.’
‘I think I saw you before. You were in Kun Lung Wai a few weeks ago.’
Wariness replaced amusement in his eyes.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Yes. I’m sure it was you. There was some trouble. You talked to my – my friend Major Field.’
‘No.’ Chen smiled again. ‘An easy mistake to make. We are all similar to your eyes.’ He sat down, his wiry body still coiled. ‘As you are to ours.’
Chen picked up a teacup and drained it. ‘Are you the American woman who writes for that Shanghai magazine?’
‘Why?’ Her tone was neutral, guarded by habit, expecting the familiar criticism. What does a foreigner know about Chinese business? What is it to her? Why should she have a voice in the politics of the nation?
Lily, assuming offence, came to the rescue in rapid English. ‘Please forgive him, he’s a thug. We haven’t seen him for months and to be honest we’d prefer it if he never came.’
‘No, it’s all right. I don’t mind the occasional thug.’
Chen leaned towards her, his voice low and level but his delivery gruff with passion.
‘You consider yourselves radical but this is just debate and talk. Where are the facts about what’s happening with Mao? Why don’t you publish them?’
‘The magazine is debate. That’s its job and its title.’
‘You have a duty to tell what’s happening. The Communists are being demonised when all we are doing is fighting for better working conditions, for decent hours in return for decent wages, for an end to child labour, a voice in the running of our country. These are basic human rights. You have them in your country, why shouldn’t we?’
‘The magazine is a forum for discussion not a podium for making speeches.’
Lily, exasperated and ashamed of her brother’s rudeness, said, ‘You don’t need to fight the government, you need to join it.’
Chen snorted. ‘Go back to your fashion magazines, little sister.’
‘What’s wrong with the government, anyway? They freed us from those traditions you’re so against, they’re all for the new way of thinking and they’re all scholars and poets and well-educated people so they should know what’s best for us. They’re not just a bunch of ignorant peasants and boys like you.’
Chen ignored her and turned back to Stevie. ‘You see, while dumb people think like this we have to watch the Kuomintang steal all of China’s resources and hide them in banks in America and Switzerland. There’s no time for this kind of bourgeois talk. Maybe late
r. But not now. Now we need people to know what is actually going on.’
‘Write it and we’ll publish it.’
He turned away in contempt. ‘Tell your playboy boyfriend that Shanghai isn’t the centre of the universe.’
The insult was clear and it landed. Stevie laughed, an insult in return.
Lily, pink with embarrassment under her stiffly rolled film-star hair, hissed at her brother. ‘Leave her alone, Chen.’
Stevie put out her hand. ‘It’s fine. He’s right. The Communists should be heard too, otherwise they’ll be marginalised from the mainstream argument.’
Chen nodded and stood up, stretching. ‘I need a wash.’ And, in the familiar slouch of young men everywhere, he swaggered across the courtyard towards the house, kicking up dust as he went.
Mrs Li followed him and Lily started a torrent of excuses: he’s only young, he needs to learn, he’s always been undisciplined but really, no manners at all, this Communist thing was getting out of hand . . .
Stevie reassured her that she was not offended and leaned back in her chair. The pale leaves on the tree were almost translucent in the sunshine. She could see their skeletons.
Two days later Stevie had finished a draft of her first interviews with Madame Kung. She had had enough of the stifling heat in the apartment and decided to take the package to the post office herself. She was sending the pages to Jishang for his comments before she redrafted and then finally she would show them to Madame Kung herself. She enjoyed the bustle and crush of the streets after the solitude of her room and had decided that she’d go straight to the market and buy noodles and pak choi and maybe some water chestnuts on her way home and surprise Lily with a meal. She turned the corner out of the alley into the wider street and there right ahead of her she saw Harry. She ran to catch up with him but in the moment before she reached him, Sylvia stepped out of a shop and took his arm.
Stevie stopped in her tracks. A sudden mist in front of her eyes, such heaviness in her bones. She watched them as they got lost in the crowd, their intimacy burning into her.
The Harbour Page 9