The Boy with Blue Trousers

by Carol Jones

  ‘Does he always swagger up and down like that?’ she asked her instructor, when he stepped outside briefly to answer a call of nature.

  ‘Most days he sticks his head around the door a few times but that is all,’ the older girl said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Little Cat.

  ‘He preens like a tomcat for Little Cat,’ said Mei Ying.

  ‘You are talking nonsense, Mei Mei. Only last month he challenged me to a fight.’

  Mei Ying shrugged. ‘That is one way of getting close to a spitting cat, I suppose.’

  All the Wu girls giggled at this remark, with Ah Wei’s little sister laughing so hard that she almost knocked over the basin of bubbling cocoons, yelping as she righted the hot pan with her bare hand.

  ‘You don’t know what you are talking about. Why would your pious brother be interested in a girl who… who…’ she spluttered, suddenly lost for words. With a girl who… what? What kind of girl was she, exactly? Sometimes she no longer knew. The only thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t want the same life as her friend Siu Wan and most of the other girls in the village. She dreamed of a different life.

  ‘A girl who acts like a boy?’ Mei Ying finished her question for her, looking around with a smug smile.

  ‘I do not act like a boy!’

  Why would the girl say such a thing? Just because Little Cat had breasts like cherries rather than apples, didn’t mean she wasn’t as much girl as any of them. Wu’s little sister was being her usual troublemaking self.

  ‘Be quiet, Mei Mei!’ hissed Ah Wei. ‘I can hear him returning.’

  When Young Wu swaggered through the door once more, all the Wu girls were sitting with heads lowered, eyes cemented to the interminable strands of spinning silk. Only Little Cat was motionless, her hands curled into fists upon her lap, as she glowered in the direction of the doorway.

  ‘What?’ he asked, halted in his tracks by the flush of anger on her face.

  ‘Nothing. We are all good little Wu girls here.’

  12

  Little Cat sat with the other girls on the veranda of their house, braiding each other’s hair before heading to the mulberry groves to prepare the trees for the coming winter. Even without the aid of a calendar they could feel winter on its way. Already the mornings were crisp, and in the wormhouses paper sheets of eggs had been put into storage until autumn. Siu Wan finished twisting Little Cat’s hair into a single braid, tying it with a length of red silk purchased from a pedlar only last week. Then she turned around so that her friend could return the favour.

  ‘I think I might comb up my hair and become a sworn spinster like Ah Wei. Then I would answer to no man,’ Little Cat said, checking to see the other girls’ reactions.

  ‘But who will look after your spirit tablet if you become a sor hei? Who will burn incense for you when you are dead?’ Siu Wan was so horrified at this idea that she jerked her pigtail right out of her friend’s hand, her mouth wide with shock. ‘Who will rend their clothes at your funeral?’

  ‘Perhaps I will adopt a poor orphan to be my heir.’

  ‘Perhaps you won’t have to worry. Perhaps no man will have you,’ Mei Mei said with a cheeky laugh.

  ‘And maybe you won’t be laughing when your husband wants to jab you down there after you’ve just pushed out his first son,’ Little Cat replied, indicating Mei Mei’s lap. ‘One month off from baby-making won’t seem like very long then.’

  The girls’ laughter was interrupted by a voice calling from the alley. ‘Is anyone there?’

  At first she thought it was Elder Brother come to effect his usual morning ruse of pretending to collect her so that he could speak with Siu Wan. She whispered to her friend to answer the door so the lovers would have a few moments to themselves. But when she returned to the veranda it wasn’t Elder Brother following her. It was Young Wu.

  ‘Daaih Lou, what are you doing here?’ said Mei Mei. ‘Boys aren’t allowed in the girls’ house.’

  Young Wu halted in the middle of the sky well and stood with his fists resting on his hips. ‘I think you are all safe from me,’ he said.

  Little Cat wasn’t sure whether he meant this as insult or reassurance.

  ‘And I think we can take care of ourselves,’ she said, not bothering to get up from where she sat on a low stool. She expected him to return the jibe in some way and was almost disappointed when he merely smiled saying, ‘I come with a message.’

  ‘Does Ma want something?’ asked Mei Mei.

  ‘The message is for Little Cat.’

  Everyone turned to stare at her. Who would be sending her a message from the Wu household? Any official business would be conducted through her father. And anything unofficial would be most unusual. She barely knew Mrs Wu. The elder Wu sisters had married and left the village years before. Big Wu barely knew her, and like most girls, she preferred it that way. An unwelcome thought buzzed about her head like an opportunistic mosquito. Was she about to lose her job at the filature already? Was Big Wu unhappy with her work? Or was his son the unhappy one? Perhaps that was why he had merely smiled at her rudeness.

  Little Cat wasn’t rude as a matter of policy. There were actually people in the village who found her quite pleasant. But there was something in Young Wu’s manner that set her hackles to rise. She wanted to spit and claw and urinate on his bedding. The superior way he stood with his hands on his hips irritated her. The way he swaggered through the village as if he owned it rankled like a splinter in her foot. The way he made pronouncements rather than conversation set her teeth on edge. Actually, so many things about him made her crazy. And that smug smile almost drove her to punch him.

  Why then did her heart skip a beat at the thought that he wanted to be rid of her?

  ‘Which one of you Wus has a message for me?’ she said, finding her voice – smaller than she would have liked.

  ‘My father wishes to speak with you.’

  That gave her pause. Big Wu was the headman of the village. The Emperor counted on him to collect the grain tax, repair the riverbanks and keep up the Imperial roads. The village counted on him to maintain the alleys, the temples, and guard the crops. He gave permission for fairs and markets and travelling theatre troupes. He decided where wells could be dug, temples could be built, and people could be buried. He decided which rule breakers should be punished and how. Big Wu was the most important personage in the village. What could he possibly want with her?

  Nothing good, she suspected.

  ‘I’ll ask Daaih Lou to come with me.’ Her older brother would know better what to say to the headman. He would be a bulwark in any storm.

  ‘No need to take him from his worms.’

  ‘Perhaps I should get my father.’

  ‘There’s no need for that…yet,’ said Young Wu. He smiled again and Little Cat grew more worried. The smile seemed to hold either promise… or threat. She could not be sure which.

  ‘Come along then.’ He swivelled on his heel, strutting across the sky well and turning into the alley without a backward look.

  Expecting her to follow.

  ‘And he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

  13

  The Residence of Recommended Man Wu sat on the high side of the village, beyond the clan hall, looking down towards the river. There was no danger of flooding up here. In years when the river rose higher than usual, and water seeped into the alleys and sky wells of the village, Big Wu kept his feet and his rice dry. Everyone in the village knew what the sign outside his house said, even if they could not read, for the title of Recommended Man was awarded to few. It was the mark of a scholar. Yet it was rumoured that Wu had not sat the provincial examination at all. He was too busy overseeing clan and family to devote the necessary years to study. Instead he had paid a noted scholar to sit the tests for him. But since even failure at the Imperial examinations brought honour to one’s ancestors, no one in Sandy Bottom Village condemned him for cheating on the infamous eight-legged-essay. No one would dare.


  Once the Wu residence had comprised only the customary three bays, but with prosperity, Wu had added a second house and larger courtyard to the rear. All this Little Cat knew by reputation only, for until now she had never ventured beyond the two towering timber doors that barred the front entrance. Her father said that when the doors first arrived on a bamboo raft, up the river from Kwangchow, they were taller than the wall and Big Wu had to add three more rows of bricks to accommodate them. Today the doors were guarded by the fading remnants of two fierce red door gods, pasted there last New Year, and a banner suspended alongside, proclaiming the old saying that even she could recognise: ‘The five good fortunes have arrived at the door.’ She wasn’t so sure.

  As Young Wu stepped over the high doorsill and marched into the small front courtyard, she paused to twitch her sleeves straight and take a fortifying breath, before following after him. The first thing she noticed was that the courtyard was paved with grey flagstones, unlike the usual dusty sky wells of the village houses. It was surrounded by rooms on all four sides, with soaring timber columns, like a row of mighty trees, supporting the veranda. Gatekeeper Wu, a distant cousin of Wu’s deceased father, limped from a room by the entrance and regarded her suspiciously through his one good eye, the other roaming the courtyard disconcertingly.

  ‘Master says to take the girl through to the second courtyard,’ he announced importantly, and slammed the doors with a reverberating boom behind them.

  If Young Wu was surprised that she was ordered through to the family’s private quarters he did not show it in her presence, ordering her to ‘Come!’ in his usual peremptory manner. Meanwhile, her stomach curdled as if she had feasted on rotten clams. As a child, going unnoticed by Big Wu had become a skill practised by virtuous and naughty alike. If the headman became familiar with your name it could mean only one thing. Trouble. One of her father’s Mo cousins had become so distressed after an interview with Big Wu that she hanged herself from a camphor tree beside her family’s wormhouse and it had been cursed with dying worms ever since. At least, that was the story told late at night in the girls’ house when they wanted to scare each other with ghostly tales. But that girl had died before Little Cat was born, so who knew the real truth of the story. All she knew was that a visit to the residence of Recommended Man Wu was not to be recommended.

  She followed Young Wu’s broad back across the courtyard, over the granite paved veranda, through the reception hall lined with rosewood chairs and the ebony altar limned in gold, and into a second, larger courtyard shaded in summer by a peach tree. Here, shiny-leaved kumquat bushes and azaleas flourished in ceramic urns, and the veranda was hung with red silk lanterns. At Little Cat’s house, the only decorative object was her mother’s dowry vase of blue and white porcelain, and that was marred by a long crack where Little Cat had used it as a stool when she was six.

  ‘My father will be in his study.’

  Although the outer walls of Wu’s house were rendered earthen brick like the rest of the village, the inside walls were fashioned from timber panels, carved into an intricate cracked ice lattice and pasted with rice paper to keep out draughts. Most of the doors to the family’s private quarters were thrown open to allow light and air to enter, but one corner held a room, which was shut up, tight. This was the room to which she was led.

  ‘Is that you, Hoi Sing?’ A brisk voice responded to Young Wu’s knock.

  ‘It is. I have brought Mo Lin Fa.’

  ‘You took your time.’

  Little Cat hesitated in the doorway behind Young Wu. Did he expect her to kneel and kowtow? Was head-knocking in order? Was she here to beg forgiveness? Or had she done something unforgivable? Perhaps she had discarded one too many cocoons in error. Or snapped one too many filaments of silk through less than perfect concentration. Was the headman about to turn her out when she had barely begun to help Elder Brother earn his bride gift? She did not want to prostrate herself like a kowtow worm, but nor did she wish to anger him. In the end she decided upon the wanfu, cupping her hands together loosely at chest height, and shaking them up and down three times as she bowed. She hoped it would be sufficient.

  ‘This worthless son apologises for his tardiness,’ said Young Wu, dropping to his knees and knocking his head on the floor. It was strange to see this boy – usually puffed up like a bullfrog – make himself so small. But he appeared to take it as a matter of course. ‘Here is the girl Lin Fa, known as Little Cat. The one we have spoken about,’ he added, rising once more to his feet.

  ‘Good morning, Wise Master,’ she said, while staring at the embroidered panel decorating the hem of the headman’s sleeves, for that seemed a safer option than looking at his face. She might find something there she did not know how to handle. An uncomfortable thought.

  ‘Ah Sing, you are to take these documents to Wu Village under the Mountain and give them to the clan elder,’ he said, handing his son two scrolls tied with ribbon.

  ‘But that is almost a day’s walk, Ba.’

  Little Cat risked an upward glance as father and son spoke. She had never set foot in a room full of such shiny new furniture. A large cupboard dominated one wall, gold writing emblazoned on the black panels of the doors. A tall open-shelved cabinet was filled with numerous vases, ornaments and a few scattered books. There were several more carved rosewood chairs, a rattan bed for the enjoyment of a pipe of opium, a large blue and white urn for storing scrolls and an ornate desk where Big Wu sat looking up at his son through narrowed eyes.

  ‘Then you had better start now if you wish to be home before the moon sets. I will deal with this girl.’

  She did not like the sound of that. Nor did she like the way his gaze lingered on her as he ordered his son about. His eyelids drooped low with age and his eyebrows sprouted wayward grey hairs that seemed to writhe at her like snakes as he spoke. A black silk cap covered his shaved scalp and his greying queue draped whip-like in a tight braid over one shoulder. On the desk before him, his tools lay ready: an abacus, a bamboo backscratcher, an ink stone and paper, a wooden stand holding several calligraphy brushes, and a solid soapstone seal curled in the shape of a crouching tiger. She eyed them apprehensively, unsure whether she was about to be chastised by word, deed, coin or letter. None of which appealed.

  Young Wu graced her with one cursory glance before nodding at his father. He took a step backwards and bowed once, saying, ‘I will depart now then, honourable father. The old man at the gate will see you home, Little Cat.’

  ‘I know the way.’

  He stepped through the door and out onto the veranda. Despite herself, Little Cat looked after him longingly. For years, she had wished him gone, resenting the way he preened for her brother’s attention. Now she would do almost anything to have him remain. She did not relish being left alone in this room with its old-man smell of ink and opium and hair pomade. Left alone with Big Wu’s mean eyes and stern voice.

  She parted her lips but no sound emerged. Begging him to stay would incur a debt – if only of friendship – and she could not risk that. In any case, he would not disobey his father. He was nothing if not a dutiful son.

  ‘And close the door after you. Too many flapping ears out there listening to conversations that don’t concern them.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Young Wu crossed the courtyard once more, arms swinging, without a backward glance. When he had departed, his father leaned back in his chair to consider her. He scowled as his gaze travelled from the top of her already untidy braid to her bare feet, filmed in dust. Big Wu’s scowl was another of his tools, calculated to strike fear into villagers young and old. She folded her hands and waited to be told how she had offended.

  ‘So… you have been reeling silk for my son at our filature.’

  ‘I have, Wise Master.’

  ‘My son has told me about you.’

  What had Young Wu told him? This did not sound good.

  ‘I wanted to get a good look at you. You’ve grown up. Tall,
like your brothers. A bit gangly for my taste, but not without charm.’ He folded his hands inside his wide sleeves.

  She did not know whether he expected thanks for his words, so she kept silent.

  ‘Has your father arranged a match for you yet?’

  ‘He has not informed me of any match.’

  ‘Of course, with the money he owes the Wu lineage for that second plot he farms beyond the wormhouse, he won’t have much cash to spare for any dowry. And there’s your two brothers to provide with bride gifts too.’

  She bowed her head in silence. Not to hide her shame… but her anger.

  ‘You don’t have anything to say about that? My son tells me that for a girl you usually have more than enough to say.’

  ‘No, Wise Master,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  Surprising her with his swiftness, he pushed back his chair and swept towards her. She flinched, but he only strode past, opened the door and shouted, ‘Old Man! Where are you?’

  Soon enough, the gatekeeper appeared on the veranda. ‘What is it, Wise Master?’

  ‘I have important matters to discuss with this girl. I am not to be disturbed until I call.’

  Once the gatekeeper had shuffled back across the courtyard, he did not return to his chair, as she hoped. After closing the door, he took two steps towards her so that she could smell his morning breath of salted fish upon her face. Her legs wobbled like silken tofu as she resisted the urge to back away. Why had he really brought her here? Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps her unmaidenly ways had brought shame upon the Mo family and he was so offended that, rather than send for her father, he had chosen to berate her personally.