Johnny, on his hospital bed, wavered between pain and jubilation. The old French cretin had given him a real going over, but he was savouring in advance his revenge. In three or four days, he would be out. Out of the question to take the one week of sick leave which these irresponsible doctors had just prescribed for him. Chambon could not escape providing he didn’t give him time to breathe. And since the old man had become fond of Siu Fung, he would start by taking care of her.
How old was she now? Let’s see, sixteen at the time, plus… He had never been good at mental arithmetic. The age range he came up with did not match what he had expected, and the effort made him dizzy. He gave up. Everyone was older by the same number of years, that’s all.
Every morning, Roger sent Siu Fung to buy the newspaper and do the shopping.
“Tomorrow, you go, I am fed up.”
“Me? But I will be spotted…”
Perhaps so, but honestly what a pain the excursion was! She made a detour every time, never the same, so as not to be tailed. Extensive and bleak routes: the warehouse where they were hiding was not the only abandoned one. The entire zone presented only peeling walls and padlocked gates, with not a soul in sight, as if everybody had deserted to China. All this to end up in rows of shabby buildings, uglier than any she had ever seen. What’s more, no Wellcome! Just a market where it was not easy to steal. Roger would have made a fuss if she had admitted it to him, but with the little money they had left, and the exorbitant price of things, they would have been close to starvation if she had had to pay for all their groceries. What kind of world did he live in, this guy, to have not the slightest idea about a budget for two!
When she got back to their refuge she would throw the paper at him and he would devour the maritime pages in order to find out about the movements of vessels. Frantic reading which always left him disappointed.
“What the hell is this ship doing?”
Depression for the rest of the day. Siu Fung even preferred to go out again and wander through the ghost factories, rather than put up with his brooding.
“Be careful at least.”
One morning, at last: “The Ville de Marseille! That’s it. She has arrived!”
Roger could have danced with joy. Siu Fung, on the other hand, remained impassive. Was it such good news?
They left Tuen Mun for the harbour. From the top of a hill overlooking the sea, shining under the sun, they saw the vessel berthed at the Modern Terminals.
“Magnificent, isn’t she?” enthused Roger.
Tonight, he would go to the Mariners’ Club, where Trinquet stayed when he put into port in Hong Kong.