Most of those travelling first class were European, and the only two Chinese occupants of the carriage were dressed in Western attire. McColl exchanged smiles with a couple of fellow-Englishmen whom he recognised from his time in Peking, and after placing his suitcase in the luggage rack gratefully sank into the forward-facing seat of the last unoccupied booth. The train was already out in open country, and rapidly gathering speed.
The carriage had modern electric lights, both along the ceiling and above the seats. He took time to scan the other passengers, taking care not to arouse suspicion, and saw none who looked obviously German. Seeking to untangle the low murmur of voices, he could only pick out English, French and Chinese.
Surely he was safe for now. There might be Germans waiting in Nanking or Shanghai, but they had no jurisdiction in either. He just had to reach a telegraph office and send off the information he’d gathered, and they would have to accept that further pursuit was meaningless.
He closed his eyes and realised how easy it would be to fall asleep. But first there was work to do – summarising his findings as briefly as possible, and then encrypting them for dispatch. He pulled out his notebook and pen, ordered a whisky from the hovering steward, and put his mind to work.
It took about two hours, and the resulting page and a half of cipher seemed a somewhat derisory return on his investment of time and money, not to mention the risk to life and limb. But the aviation unit and bigger harbour guns were new information, and he thought that Cumming would be pleased. Not enough to give him a bonus, but perhaps enough to offer more work.
He yawned, switched off the light above his seat, and turned his mind to Caitlin Hanley. It was a long time since he’d felt so attracted to a woman. The name, like the dark brown hair and green eyes, suggested Irish descent, and the New York accent had seemed softer than most he remembered, even when berating the local American consul at a diplomatic reception. ‘Women deserve the vote more than men do,’ was the first thing he heard her say, and the patronising chuckles that followed from the consul and his minions had been enough to make McColl intervene on her behalf. He had no strong opinions on the matter of suffrage, but he knew a bunch of reactionaries when he saw one. It was hard to imagine, he told the other men, that women would make a poorer fist of running the world.
She had given him a suspicious look, as if uncertain of his motives, and soon walked away to join a Western-dressed Chinese couple.
McColl wasn’t sure he had liked her, but there was something there which intrigued him, and he’d casually asked one of the junior diplomats who she was. The young man had confided her name and the fact that she was a journalist, but he hadn’t known where she was staying. Next morning McColl had left Jed and Mac to sort out the automobile’s return shipment to Shanghai and tried, unsuccessfully, to track her down. He had come up empty at all the hotels favoured by foreigners, and then, remembering the Chinese couple, started on the better establishments catering to Europeans. She was staying at the third, but had just left on an overnight charabanc excursion to the Great Wall. A small payment to one of the bus boys secured the information that she was leaving in a week, and had already purchased her ticket back to Shanghai.
McColl had seen her once more. He was on his way to the railway station, his rickshaw passing her hotel at the exact moment her excursion returned. Which, he thought, had to be some sort of an omen. She had even offered a smile in response to his wave.
He stared out at the Chinese night. The sky had cleared, and an orange moon was rising above a wide plain. A few minutes later they crossed a wide braided river, moonlight rippling in the different channels as the train rumbled loudly across the iron structure. When the river disappeared and the noise of their passage abruptly lessened, he finally closed his eyes, a smile on his face.
Sleep, however, was still not on offer. The train was already slowing, and soon pulled in to a surprisingly well-lit station. Jenchou, the signs announced. A few minutes later a bulky American approaching old age squeezed himself into the seat facing McColl’s, offered a hand to shake, and introduced himself as Ezekiel Channing III. He was, it transpired, the missionary who ran the local orphanage, and was on his way to Shanghai to collect a shipment of American schoolbooks.
McColl listened, offering little in return. The American seemed a decent enough sort, and if he needed to interrupt each thought to insert a quote from the Good Book, then what was the harm? He was doubtless doing good work, and he did, eventually, notice that his audience was struggling to stay awake.
‘I didn’t get much sleep last night,’ McColl said apologetically.
‘Well, don’t let me stop you now,’ Ezekiel said affably, opening up his leather-bound Bible.
It was still in his lap when McColl jerked awake seven hours later, but the missionary was asleep, gently snoring with an almost beatific look on his fleshy face. McColl wondered how many years the man had been in China, and whether he would ever go home again.
The golden light of the just-risen sun was streaming in through their window, the train running along a high embankment. Dry paddy fields stretched towards the distant horizon, with only an occasional cluster of houses and trees to break the monotony. At the foot of the embankment two women and a water buffalo raised their heads to watch the train go by.
They were an hour from their destination according to the conductor, and McColl, seeing no reason to wake Ezekiel, stared out through the window at the Chinese landscape until the outskirts of Pukow came into view. The missionary woke with a start as the train rattled though points and entered the terminus, and he gave McColl a lovely smile.
On the platform rickshaw drivers and porters were jostling for position, intent on providing at least one European passenger and his luggage with transport to the river. Beyond them, some modern-looking railway workshops nestled incongruously in the shadow of ancient city walls.
McColl took his time, alighting almost last and waving away frantic offers of assistance. It was warmer than in Tsingtau, particularly out in the sun, but winter was winter, even this far south. He joined the Chinese crowd marching down towards the quay in the wake of the conquerors’ rickshaws, keeping a wary eye out for anyone looking suspicious. But he saw nobody, either on the road or down by the mile-wide Yangtze, where a shiny white steam yacht was waiting amongst the sampans to ferry them all across. He pushed through the beggars’ outstretched arms to the sloping gangplank and climbed back into the bosom of his fellow-Europeans.
Once aboard, it seemed an age before they cast off, but the crossing itself was quick, the launch ploughing through the ponderous brown current towards the far shore, and the high city walls of Nanking which lay just beyond. The only interruption was provided by a floating body, which surprised and distressed the American woman who noticed it. She would be well advised to avoid the Whangpo in Shanghai, McColl thought. Some days there seemed more bodies than boats in that river.
As he knew from the original journey to Peking, the walk from boat to station was fairly short on both sides of the Yangtze, but was he going straight on to Shanghai? The seven-hour journey was probably safe enough in daylight, but he felt eager to pass his information on, and the British consulate in Nanking was only a short ride away. If he missed the connecting train, there would always be another, and they weren’t expecting him in Shanghai for another couple of days. On the other hand …
The two men on the quayside decided him. They were Chinese, not German, but there was something in the way they scanned the disembarking passengers that put him on alert. True, one looked straight at him with apparent uninterest, but a watcher with evil intent would hardly attack him there and then, when he was surrounded by other Europeans.
McColl swung himself up onto a rickshaw, and let the man pull him fifty yards towards the station before ordering a change of course, onto the road which ran towards the nearest city gate. ‘The house of the British,’ McColl told him. ‘And the faster you get me there the more I’ll pay you.’
The speed increased, and as they swung through the huge gateway McColl leaned out to look back. There was no sign of pursuit, either then or when he looked again, half a mile or so down the long avenue which led to the consulate. The men he had feared had probably been waiting for a relative.
The Union Jack came into view, hanging limply above a traditional Chinese building. He paid off the rickshaw owner and thumped on the heavy wooden door, ignoring the sign in English and its highly inconvenient opening hours. A Chinese woman eventually opened it, and seemed too surprised by his fluency in Shanghainese to protest his walking past her. The official offices at the front of the house were empty, but a young Englishman was eating scrambled eggs in the kitchen at the back, still without a collar on his shirt.
‘I have a signal for London,’ McColl said as the young man swallowed. ‘Who are you?’
‘Tompkins, Neil. First Secretary. Only one, come to that. Nanking’s not exactly on the map these days.’
‘My name’s McColl. I work for a man called Cumming in London. Connected to the Admiralty,’ he added, with appropriate imprecision. He passed across the encrypted report. ‘It’s important this gets home as soon as possible.’
‘Ah,’ Tompkins said, staring blankly at the apparently meaningless jumble.
‘It’s in code,’ McColl pointed out.
‘Ah,’ he said again.
McColl had visions of the young man taking it down to the Chinese post office. ‘You can send it from here, I presume?’
‘Of course. We have our own connection to Shanghai. But what is it?’ he asked. ‘Or shouldn’t I know?’
‘It’s naval intelligence. From Tsingtau.’
‘Ah.’
‘The sooner it’s sent, the better.’
‘Our operator will be here at nine.’
‘Chinese?’
‘Yes, but utterly loyal.’
‘Good,’ McColl said. A pity, was what he thought – the sooner the Germans knew the information had been sent, the safer he would be. ‘I don’t suppose you know what time the morning train to Shanghai leaves?’
‘Ten o’clock.’ Tompkins consulted his fob. ‘You’ve still got time.’
*
It had been dark for an hour when McColl’s train pulled into Shanghai’s main station. He walked out across the wide forecourt to the tram stop on Boundary Road, where a huge crowd of Chinese were willing a tram to appear around the corner of Cunningham Road. Three or four trams would be required to carry so many, and even then oxygen would be in short supply. And he felt impatient after so much sitting on trains. Deciding to cut his losses, he checked the change in his pocket. The meal on the train had cost him his taxi fare, but a rickshaw was still within reach. He hailed one of the hovering coolies, and called out ‘The Palace Hotel’ as he stepped up into the seat.
They set off, the coolie jogging along beside the new tram tracks for a few hundred yards, before veering south onto North Honan Road. The smell of horse dung was strong in the air, the piles of manure waiting collection by the night soil teams. All of the shops and cafés were still open, lit by the yellow glow of their paraffin lamps, and despite the evening chill many owners were sitting outside, blankly watching the world go by.
The coolie turned off the main road and hurried down an alley, the rickshaw bumping on the uneven surface, causing McColl to grip the sides. They were still in the International Settlement, but these backstreets were Chinese territory in all but name, lined with vegetable and fruit sellers, cobblers and barbers and letter writers, fortune tellers and tea traders. A succession of aromas teased McColl’s appetite – clove-scented rice, roasting chestnuts, egg foo yong. Every now and then a beggar’s arm reached hopefully out, and just as swiftly disappeared.
There were people everywhere, and at first sight all of them seemed to be arguing, haranguing one another in that barking tone some Europeans found so offensive. But look a little closer and there were smiles on many faces, especially the children’s. Family life often seemed a happier affair here than it did in London or Glasgow, and even the dogs seemed less aggressive.
The rickshaw emerged from the maze of allies, turning onto North Szechuan Road just up from the General Hospital, and crossing the Soochow Creek with its myriad sampans and dreadful smell. The coolie was panting a little now, sending yellow gusts of breath out into the cold air, but his pace showed no sign of slackening, and soon they were passing the Chinese post office. Another two blocks and they took the last turn into Nanking Road. Here, outside the big stores, the faces on the sidewalk were mostly European, and the Chinese packed in the passing trams looked like tourists in a foreign town.
The coolie stopped as close to the hotel front door as the line of automobiles would let him, and carefully counted the coins McColl handed over. ‘Cumshaw,’ he demanded, holding out an upturned palm.
McColl had included a tip, but added another. Why argue over a farthing?
Inside, the Chinese desk clerk informed him that Jed and Mac had taken Room 501, but were currently out. Despite a careful perusal of McColl’s passport, he refused to relinquish the room key until the English night manager had been summoned from wherever it was he lurked. The latter accompanied McColl up in the brand new elevator, and opened the door on what turned out to be a suite – the others had somewhat exceeded their instructions. It was at the back of the hotel, which McColl hoped had lowered the tariff.
Once the manager had left, he took a look around. A Chinese variant on the British Army camp bed had been erected in the lounge, and Mac’s belongings were neatly stacked alongside it. Jed’s were liberally scattered on either side of the double bed in the adjoining room, which the two of them would presumably be sharing. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
The bathroom contained a large iron bath, and the hot water tap was actually that. For Shanghai, this was luxury. He started the water running in earnest, and by the time he’d come up with a fresh towel and a change of clothes, the bath was almost full. Stretched out in the water, he watched two tjik-tjak lizards chasing each other across the steam-blurred ceiling and thought about Caitlin Hanley.
Towelled and dressed, he went back down to the bar for a drink. They had Tsingtao beer, for which he had acquired a definite taste, and which seemed the appropriate brew for toasting his recent escape. He took it over to an empty table, where someone had abandoned a copy of the North China Daily News. The local news was uninteresting, but one short piece caught his eye. Mohandas Gandhi had been arrested in South Africa.
McColl had met Gandhi, and in somewhat unusual circumstances. Their paths had crossed more than fourteen years earlier, when he himself was a nineteen-year-old soldier in the British Army. During the Battle of Spion Kop, his regiment had been one of those ordered to a supposed summit, only to find itself surrounded by higher-placed Boers and subject to a withering crossfire. McColl had been badly wounded early on, then trapped underneath a dying comrade’s body for the rest of the night. The first face he had seen when the corpse was lifted off him belonged to a smiling Indian medic.
They had talked a lot on the long stretcher-trip down. The Indian was sure that McColl would recover – his faith in the body’s self-healing properties was only matched by a parallel faith in humanity’s. McColl hadn’t recognised his saviour’s name at the time, but had later discovered that Mohandas Gandhi was already a national celebrity. He had followed the Indian’s political exploits in the British press ever since, and knew he’d recently been leading a series of non-violent protests in Transvaal against the forced registration and fingerprinting of his fellow Asians. His arrest suggested he’d been too successful for his own good.
McColl sat back with his beer, remembering their walk down the mountain. It felt strange, even to himself, but ever since that day he had drawn comfort from knowing that the Indian was out there somewhere, offering up his beatific smile, and bringing hope to those without it. The only person McColl had ever told this to was his mother, and her only reply had been a tearful hug.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ a familiar voice said, interrupting his reverie. His younger brother was two inches taller than he was, but not much more than half his age. He bore a striking physical resemblance to their father, but lacked the latter’s less forgivable traits. Jed might be wilful, obstinate and full of himself, but he had inherited his mother’s kindness.
Although she had wondered out loud if the boy was old enough to go gallivanting around the world, she had made no real objection to the trip, provided his older brother promised to take care of him. And so far there’d been no cause to worry.
Mac was with Jed. ‘It’s good to see you too,’ McColl said, smiling up at the pair of them. Was he imagining it, or was Jed looking a little shamefaced? And Mac a little nervous?
‘I’ll get the beers,’ his younger brother said, with a conspiratorial glance at Mac.
‘So how was Tsingtau?’ Mac asked as he took a seat.
‘Cold. But useful.’ Mac and his brother knew that he’d been making enquiries for someone back in London, but had probably assumed it was all about commercial matters. McColl had done nothing to disabuse them of the notion. ‘Is the Maia in one piece?’
‘It’s fine. The railway did us proud – there was even a special boat waiting to take it across the Yangtze. It’s in the hotel basement for now, but we have to drive it over to Woosun on the 28th. The freighter doesn’t come upriver.’
‘Good.’ It sounded as if Mac had been his usual efficient self. He had worked for Athelbury’s firm for almost six years now, after answering an advertisement for a mechanic. Fifteen men had come for interview, but the skinny, shock-haired seventeen-year-old with the pleasant pug-like face had known more about automobiles and their engines than the rest of them put together.
Jed returned with three beers. He seemed to be growing by the day, McColl thought – their mother would hardly recognise him when they got home. ‘So where have you been this evening?’ he asked them.
They exchanged glances, almost involuntarily, McColl thought. He knew where they’d been.
‘Don’t blame Mac,’ Jed said. ‘I would have gone on my own if he hadn’t come with me.’
‘I hope you went somewhere decent. Somewhere clean?’
‘We went to the Lotus Flower – it’s in the French Concession. It’s famous – the Navy goes there.’
‘So diseases from all seven seas. I –’
‘Come on, Jack. Don’t tell me you’ve never been to a place like that.’
No, he couldn’t. And ‘not for a while’ would hardly help.
‘So how old were you the first time?’ Jed demanded.
McColl laughed. ‘The same age you are now. Satisfied?’
Jed laughed too. ‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Just don’t let Mum find out.’
‘I wasn’t planning to!’
‘All right. So did you enjoy it?’
‘Yeah. It was kind of quick, though.’
‘It gets slower.’
‘I was thinking – we only have a few days left …’
‘And you’d like another go?’
‘No, no. Mac and I were talking about trying some opium …’
‘Christ, first a sex fiend, then a drug addict. I’m supposed to be looking after you.’
‘You’re supposed to be showing me the world. And everyone says you can’t get addicted on one pipe. I’d just like to try it, see what it’s like. What harm could it do?’
‘You too?’ McColl asked Mac.
‘I’ve always been curious,’ Mac confessed.
‘You’ve had it, haven’t you?’ Jed challenged his brother.
‘Only once, when I was here before. But I met a lot of Europeans who liked to indulge, and some of them were addicted.’ He caught their expressions. ‘Oh all right – I don’t suppose one visit will do us any harm. But I’ll be busy for the next few days. How about celebrating the Chinese New Year in a stupor?’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Jed said
‘What are you busy with?’ Mac asked.
‘This and that. Somebody I said I’d look up for a friend. I don’t suppose either of you has run into Caitlin Hanley?’
‘Who?’
‘The American journalist from Peking. You thought she was too clever for her own good.’
‘Oh, her. No, I haven’t.’
Mac shook his head. ‘Nor me.’
‘I think he’s smitten,’ Jed suggested to Mac.
‘She is a looker,’ Mac responded, like the dimmer half of a comedy double act.
McColl drained his glass. ‘Let’s get some fresh air.’
They walked out onto the pavement, zigzagged their way through the traffic still filling the Bund, and leant in a line against the parapet above the river. The moon was rising downstream, the sampans shifting in the dark waters below. Some firecrackers exploded somewhere behind them, harbingers of the coming New Year, and what looked like a giant firefly was rising up above the opposite bank. ‘It’s a burning kite,’ McColl explained. ‘Someone just died, and a relation is sending their goods on behind them.’
They watched it climb and disappear.
‘I like it here,’ Jed said.
McColl smiled to himself, and cast a glance at his brother. He could smell the Chinese perfume on him, sense the liberation that his evening had been. And then, a darker thought, how young and full of life Jed looked, and how coldly that group of German businessmen had discussed the prospect of war on that afternoon in Tsingtau.
*
Jed and Mac seemed reluctant to rise the following morning, and McColl breakfasted alone in the huge Victorian dining room before venturing out into a cold, crisp air. Cumming had asked him to look into the recent visit of an Indian revolutionary named Mathra Singh while he was in Shanghai, and there seemed no time like the present.
The Central Police Station was only a five-minute walk away on the corner of Foochow and Honan, and he was soon presenting himself at the duty desk. Superintendent Brabrook was the contact name McColl had been given in London, but he was on compassionate leave. His deputy was a Chief Inspector Johnston.
McColl was escorted up several flights of stairs and along a corridor whose only concession to Chinese culture was a series of cuspidors. Johnston’s room was similarly English, with just an electric ceiling fan to distinguish it from a Scotland Yard office. The man himself was bald, red-faced, and seemed less than pleased by McColl’s arrival. ‘Yes, we heard you might drop in,’ he said after offering a moist hand. ‘But what Mathra Singh has to do with London I’ve no idea. Anything related to the Indian community here, we report to the DCI. In Delhi,’ he added, in case McColl had forgotten where the Department of Criminal Intelligence had its headquarters.
‘London is keeping a close eye on Singh’s allies in San Francisco,’ McColl explained calmly. ‘So they’re naturally keen to know what messages Singh brought across the Pacific.’
‘The usual gibberish, I suppose,’ Johnston said contemptuously. ‘But one of our own Sikhs, Constable Singh, has the details. Mathra Singh was his assignment.’
‘Was?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s gone. Back to India, I think. Singh will know. I’ll find out if he’s in the building.’
McColl was left to examine the paintings on the walls – all of hunting expeditions – and the photograph on the desk of an angry-looking wife and bored-looking children. ‘The usual gibberish,’ he murmured to himself.
Perhaps. Indian would-be revolutionaries had been giving the British some considerable headaches over the last decade. Groups of exiles, first in London and then New York City, had talked, published pamphlets, sought support and raised money in pursuit of liberation from British rule. They had been continually monitored, arrested and deported whenever sufficient cause could be found, and sometimes when not. But they kept popping up. The latest manifestations were in Berlin and San Francisco, where anti-English feelings were strong enough to grant the Indians significant political latitude. A young man named Har Dayal had arrived on the American West Coast in the summer of 1911, and over the last two years had managed to imbue Indian students and migrant workers with his brand of revolutionary fervour. The previous November he had launched a party and newspaper, both called Ghadar, the Punjabi word for ‘revolt’. Neither was likely to topple the Empire, but rather more worryingly for Cumming and Co, Har Dayal had cultivated links with other enemies of the Crown resident in San Francisco, most notably the Irish and Germans. If a European war did come, it wouldn’t be confined to Europe.
Johnston returned with a uniformed man in a turban. ‘This is Constable Singh,’ he told McColl.
They shook hands.
‘Tell him about your namesake,’ Johnston instructed the young man.
‘There’s not much to tell, sahib,’ he began. ‘Mathra Singh arrived on September thirteenth, and left on the Monday of last week. He stayed at a hostel in the Chinese city, and attended several meetings of the Indian community here. He was very outspoken, as you would expect. His views are not commonly held in my homeland, but they are not without supporters. Those who expressed agreement at the meetings here were noted, and an eye has been kept on their activities. The Ghadar newspapers which Mathra said were on their way from the United States have been intercepted and burnt, and I forwarded a full report of his visit to Delhi. I think that is all, sahib. Unless you have questions?’
McColl couldn’t think of any. ‘No. Thank you, Constable.’
Singh bowed slightly, exchanged glances with Johnston, and left.
‘And thank you, Chief Inspector,’ McColl added, shaking the moist hand again. ‘Your cooperation is appreciated.’
So that was that, he thought, once back outside – there was no need to think about Ghadar again until he reached San Francisco. He wasn’t sure whether he felt relieved at ducking a chore, or annoyed that a possible pay day had eluded him. A bit of both, probably. At least he could concentrate on looking after his brother, and finding Caitlin Hanley.
But first there was the matter of his wardrobe. He walked back up past the Trinity Cathedral to Nanking Road, and took a tram heading west. The tailor’s shop he’d used on his last visit was at the eastern end of Bubbling Well Road, across from the Race Club, and seemed unchanged from five years earlier. Li Ch’ün was still standing over his cutting table, scissors in hand, pins lined up between his lips. He not only recognised McColl, but even remembered his name.
‘I don’t think I’m any fatter,’ McColl said as Li took his measurements with a tape labelled ‘Made in Birmingham’.
‘Half-inch maybe,’ Li Ch’ün decided. ‘Look fabrics,’ he ordered.
McColl chose two, and saw no point in haggling over a few pennies. He arranged to pick up the suits in a couple of days, and told Li Ch’ün to expect a visit from his younger brother Jed.
‘I give good deal,’ the Chinese man promised, helping McColl into his coat.
A tram clanged to a halt as he reached the stop, and he climbed aboard, running the usual gauntlet of Chinese stares. The racing grounds slipped past on the right, and soon they were passing the town hall and back among the European shops on Nanking Road, where a posse of businessmen’s wives were window-shopping for jewellery. Where would she be staying? In one of the better Chinese hotels, as she had in Peking? There were so many more of them in Shanghai.
He decided he would try the European establishments first, if only because their number was limited. The Kalee, the Burlington and Bickerton’s were all within an easy walk, and then there was Astor House, the city’s most exclusive hotel, on the other side of Soochow Creek. Surely no self-respecting suffragette would stay there?
There was also the Hôtel des Colonies in the French Concession, and probably others he hadn’t heard of. It might make more sense to hang around the Shanghai Club and ask any fellow-Americans that he ran into.
Four hotels and two hours later, he passed between the two Sikh doormen and entered the Club intent on lunch. The food was disappointing, and expensive by Shanghai standards; more to the point, no one had news of his quarry. Two of the Americans he approached were certain she was still in Peking, while one was convinced she’d already gone home.
He left, walked south down the Bund, then turned inland along the canal which marked the border between the French and International Concessions. The Hôtel des Colonies was on the Rue du Consulat, but she wasn’t staying there either. He was back on the pavement, wondering where to start with the Chinese hotels, when he saw her across the street, in animated discussion with a rickshaw coolie.
Though discussion, as McColl soon discovered, was something of a misnomer. She wanted a ride to an authentic Chinese teahouse, and either the man couldn’t understand her or he was simply refusing to comply, on the not unreasonable grounds that single European women did not visit such places.
It turned out to be the former.
‘I didn’t know you spoke Chinese,’ she said, almost indignantly.
He seized his chance. ‘I know a teahouse not far from here. Will you let me buy you tea?’
‘A real one? One that the Chinese use?’
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘If there are any other Europeans, we’ll leave immediately.’
She smiled at that, and allowed him to help her into the rickshaw. She was wearing a long black coat over a crimson blouse and an ankle-length grey skirt, but no hat. Her hair was tied back in a loose bun, stray wisps hanging over her ears.
McColl told the bemused coolie where they were going – a teahouse he knew just inside the nearest Chinese city gate – and climbed up beside her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, giving him another smile.
Like most of the buildings which surrounded it, the teahouse looked shabby from the outside, but the carved wooden screen beyond the door was truly beautiful. ‘To keep out the bad spirits,’ she murmured to herself, as if she was remembering a line of homework.
Inside, numerous round tables were scattered across a huge room, and upward of a hundred people were talking, shouting, laughing, eating or playing mah jong. None of the faces were white, and if the stares the two of them received were anything to go by, European patronage was far from a common occurrence. Once they were seated, she showed no hesitation in staring back, her eyes aglow with excitement. When McColl asked her what tea she wanted, she just waved an arm and told him to order for both of them.
He did so.
‘There’s no deference,’ she noted with satisfaction. ‘They’re just being who they are.’
He had never thought of it that way, but she was right. ‘This is their city,’ was all he said.
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
‘I hear you’re a journalist,’ he said.
‘Yes, yes I am.’
‘On which paper?’
She reluctantly turned her face to his. ‘It varies. I’m here for the New York Tribune. Supposedly to report on the revolution.’ She smiled wryly. ‘But it seems to have been postponed.’
‘Yes.’
Their tea arrived, a green brew with floating jasmine blossoms.
She sipped at her cup, and grimaced slightly. ‘You must know China well?’
‘No, not all …’
‘But you speak the language.’
‘I speak quite a few. They just come easily, I’m afraid.’
She looked at him with what he hoped was interest. ‘How lucky. I wish they came easily to me.’
‘I suspect you have other talents.’
‘Perhaps, but not speaking the local language is such a handicap. I feel more than a little lost here, to be honest. I came to stay with a college friend – her name’s Soong Ch’ing-ling – but when Yuan Shi-kai attacked Sun Yat-sen her family all fled to Japan. Ch’ing-ling made sure I had somewhere to stay, but it’s not the same as having a friend who knows her way around.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘How long are you here for?’
‘Oh, quite a while.’ He felt absurdly reluctant to put any limit on his availability.
‘Well, if you have any spare time for chaperoning, I’d love to see the Chinese city – the rest of it, I mean. And eat some real Chinese food. And maybe see some of the countryside …’
‘I’d be delighted.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you.’ She pulled a watch from her purse and consulted it. ‘I’m afraid I have to go in the next few minutes – there’s someone else I’m meeting. And I have an engagement tomorrow. But can we do something on Friday? I could come to your hotel if that’s easiest.’
McColl felt faintly shocked by the suggestion. ‘No, I can pick you up. Just tell me where and when.’
She gave him the address. ‘It’s just off Bubbling Well Road.’
‘Ten o’clock?’ he suggested.
‘I’ll be waiting.’
He called for the bill, which arrived almost immediately.
She leaned across to look at it, and he felt the warmth of her breath. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I almost dragged you here. Let me pay my half.’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, again feeling slightly shocked.
‘All right, but on Friday we must share. Or I won’t come.’
He couldn’t help smiling. ‘If you insist.’
*
Thursday passed slowly. McColl wandered idly round the European city in the morning, in the vain hope that he might run into her. He was behaving like a schoolboy with a crush, he realised, and reminded himself that he knew next to nothing about the woman. Merely that she had modern ideas, and lips he dearly wanted to kiss.
Passing a shop with postcards on display, he went in and bought two – a photograph of a rickshaw and coolie for his mother, and one of the Bund for Tim Athelbury, his boss back in London. The nearby British post office supplied him with the necessary stamps, and he walked down Peking Road to the public gardens overlooking the confluence of Soochow Creek and the Whangpo River.
It was another sparkling winter day, and he found himself remembering the house in Morar with its view of the sea where he’d spent his early childhood. They’d moved to Fort William when he was seven, and then to Glasgow five years later, as his father worked his way up the union hierarchy. He wondered how his mother was coping, now that there was no child at home to act as a buffer.
He could picture her picking the postcard up off the hall carpet, and carrying it through to her chair in the parlour, but he couldn’t think of much to say. He told her he and Jed were safe and well, that the food was interesting but not a patch on hers, that all Chinese porridge was made with rice. Which was probably untrue, he realised – the best Shanghai hotels probably imported oats for their homesick Western guests. ‘Love to you and Dad,’ he concluded, preserving the form for her sake. He would have to go and see them when he returned – it had been almost two years since his last visit.
After scribbling a few trite lines to his boss – Tim was already receiving cabled reports of their sales – McColl walked back up the riverbank to their hotel, where he dropped off the cards in the guests’ posting box.
He spent the afternoon sightseeing with Jed, Mac having excused himself to write some letters of his own. As they traipsed around the Chinese city, McColl twice caught glimpses of the same Chinese man some twenty yards behind them. He could think of no reason anyone would be following him – the Germans would certainly know by now that he had unburdened himself of his Tsingtau observations – so it was probably a coincidence. Either that or a thief hoping to catch one of them alone in some dark alley. If so, he was out of luck.
But then, out on the Bund a couple of hours later, he thought he saw the man again. He and Jed were standing at the parapet across from their hotel, watching the never-ending show that was the river, when McColl caught a glimpse of the familiar silhouette, only to have it instantly obscured by a tram grinding its way round the bend into Nanking Road.
‘It makes me feel like an old hand,’ Jed was saying, and McColl followed his gaze to where a party of Europeans were disembarking from a steam tender, and taking what for many was a first wide-eyed look at the Orient. Seeing the expression on his brother’s face, he felt really glad he had persuaded their parents to let the boy tag along.
When he glanced back across the street his shadow was nowhere to be seen. A phantom, most likely. He remembered being told on his first visit that Europeans often imagined they were being followed – all empires, it seemed, were haunted by their subjects.
*
Friday morning he was up with the light. The carriage and ponies he had hired for the day would be at the hotel entrance by 9.30, which gave him time to attend to some business. After strolling down the Bund to the telegraph office, he had a five-minute wait for the doors to open, but the replies he was expecting had indeed arrived, and the three automobiles ordered earlier that month were awaiting shipment at the London Docks. Another two days and he could inform the Shanghai buyers that their vehicles were at sea.
He walked back to the hotel, pleased that the weather hadn’t deteriorated overnight. It was certainly cold, but the sun was out, the sky mostly blue. The countryside around Shanghai could be depressing at the best of times, particularly for those with a social conscience. And that, he suspected, was something Caitlin Hanley had in abundance.
The carriage was already outside the hotel, the smartly liveried Chinese handler chatting to one of the uniformed Sikh doormen, the ponies idly pawing the ground. McColl introduced himself to the handler, and received the usual graduated reaction to his fluency in Shanghainese, the surprise shifting into annoyance – this foreign devil would be harder to bamboozle. After he had taken a quick trip back inside to check his appearance and collect a bottle of Hirano drinking water, they started down Nanking Road, where both ponies chose to empty their bowels.
They found the house without difficulty, a suburban villa which wouldn’t have looked out of place in Hampstead. A Chinese amah opened the door, but Caitlin was right behind her, and ready to go. She looked approvingly at the ponies and carriage and allowed him to help her up. ‘So where are we going?’ she asked.
He joined her. ‘I thought we could drive out into the country for a few miles, turn south, and visit the Longhua Pagoda – I’m told it’s quite something. We can have lunch there – I got the hotel to pack a hamper – and then head back along the river to explore the Chinese City on foot. How does that sound?’
‘Wonderful,’ she said with a smile.
The handler jerked the Mongolian ponies into motion and directed them back to Bubbling Well Road. The road wound its way west for a couple of miles through European-style housing, passed the sentry box marking the border of the International Concession, and headed out into increasingly open country. The land was flat, criss-crossed by irrigation ditches and larger channels, and there seemed to be a lot of people working the fields for the time of year. McColl would have liked to explain what they were doing, but he didn’t have a clue. When was rice planted? And were those mulberry trees?
Fortunately for him, she appeared happy just to drink it all in. They sat in companionable silence for what seemed a long time – long enough, he decided eventually. ‘Where’s home?’ he asked her. ‘Where in the States, I mean.’
‘New York City. Brooklyn, if you know where that is.’
‘I do. Did you grow up there?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled, apparently at the memory, and hitched her riding skirt up an inch or so. ‘In a brownstone near Prospect Park.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
‘Two brothers, one sister.’
‘And what does your father do?’
‘He’s sort of retired,’ she said vaguely.
‘And did you always want to be a journalist?’
‘No. But I always wanted to be something. I went to Wesleyan College,’ she added, as if that explained something.
‘That’s in Connecticut, isn’t it?’
‘No, that’s Wesleyan University. Wesleyan College is in Georgia. It’s the oldest college for women in America. That’s where I met my Chinese friend Ch’ing-ling. She’s Sun Yat-sen’s secretary now – that’s why she’s in Japan.’
‘You do move in exalted circles.’
She laughed at that. ‘We were both outsiders at Wesleyan – which is probably why we became so close. She for being Chinese, me for – well, I didn’t come from a wealthy Protestant family like all the others. My aunt paid for me – she wanted me to have chances in life that she never had. She would have for my sister Finola as well, but Finola wasn’t the slightest bit interested in going to college. I love her dearly, but green eyes are about the only thing we two girls have in common.’
They were entering a cluster of houses, which, with its attendant trees, felt like a small island in the sea of paddies. There were men sitting outside most of the doorways, their eyes firmly fixed on the intruders, even when talking to each other.
‘I’d love to see inside one of the houses,’ Caitlin said hopefully.
McColl told the handler to stop, and tried to think up an acceptable reason to snoop around in someone else’s home. There wasn’t one. ‘I’ll give you a mace for a look inside your house,’ he told the nearest resident. A mace was worth about thruppence, probably quite a sum in a place like this.
The man quickly conquered his surprise and extended a hand towards his door. McColl took the lead, holding the door open to let in light. There was not much to see, just a few pots, a makeshift bed and a stub of a candle. It would be cold in winter, wet and mosquito-infested in summer. And they were less than ten miles from the Shanghai Club.
Caitlin was trying, and failing, to say thank you in Mandarin. McColl handed the man the coin he had promised, helped her back aboard, and gave the driver the nod to proceed.
‘Did you notice?’ she said. ‘They were all men. The women are in the fields.’
‘It’s the same the world over. In poor countries, the women work the land.’
‘I know. But why is that? And how do you square that with the situation back home, where women who want a career are frowned upon? Talk about having your cake and eating it!’
He knew better than to smile at her outrage. ‘Did you find it hard getting into journalism? There can’t be that many women writing for newspapers.’
She looked slightly sheepish. ‘I had help. A friend of the family. But once I was in, I had no trouble proving I could do the job. And well. I’ve been doing it for six years now.’
‘What area are you in?’ he asked. He found it hard to imagine her writing about fashion or cooking recipes.
‘Politics mostly. I was on the city desk for the first three years, and then I persuaded the editor to send me to England, to do pieces on the suffragettes and the situation in Ireland. Two years ago I covered the strike in Lawrence – did you hear about that?’
‘I did.’ Twenty thousand textile workers in the New England town – most of them poorly paid recent immigrants – had come out in protest when their pay was inexcusably cut, and eventually won a famous victory. ‘Being there in the thick of it must have been something.’
‘It was at the time, but go there now and it’s hard to believe they won. When last year’s strike in Paterson was lost it all felt very depressing, as if nothing would ever really change.’
‘You were there as well?’
‘Oh yes. And I met some wonderful people.’
‘You love your work, don’t you?’
She glanced across at him, as if to check he wasn’t pulling her leg. ‘I do,’ she said simply.
They travelled for several minutes in renewed silence, the ponies picking their way down the rutted road. In the fields on either side rows of plantings stretched towards the flat horizon. Winter wheat, he thought, but he wouldn’t have put money on it.
She asked what sort of business he was in.
‘Automobiles.’
‘Oh. There can’t be much of a market in China.’
‘Just a few rich Europeans, a few rich Chinese. But my boss in England likes the idea of having our cars on every continent, even if it’s only a handful of them. He says it’s an investment, but I think it just makes him feel important.’
‘He may be right about this country. Ch’ing-ling thinks that once things really begin to change, there’ll be no stopping China.’
‘But she’s had to flee to Japan.’
She grimaced. ‘True.’
‘The world never changes as fast as we want it to.’
She turned her face to his, challenge in her eyes. ‘Yes, but do you want it to? Do you want women to have the vote? Your Empire to end? Everyone to get their fair share of the wealth?’
He held her gaze. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I do. And what’s more, I’m pretty sure all those things will happen, whether I want them to or not. Women should have the vote and they will – it’s just a matter of time. And all empires come to a sticky end sooner or later, even those that do some good. As to sharing out the wealth, well I can’t see it happening anytime soon. But state pensions and unemployment benefits have been introduced in the last few years, at least in England and Germany. Things are changing …’
‘Just not as fast as I want them to,’ she quoted him.
‘Exactly.’
‘Maybe. On bad days, I think like you do. When I was in Lawrence, covering the strike, I saw how terrible the workers’ conditions were – it was heartbreaking. And the other day one of Ch’ing-ling’s Chinese friends told me that girls in the silk factories here are forced to spin the silk over pans of boiling water, so that the steam elasticises the threads, and their hands are completely crippled within a few years. And then the owners fire them, and throw them into the street. How can people like that live with themselves?’
‘I don’t know.’ It was, he realised, one of those questions he’d given up trying to answer.
‘Neither do I,’ she murmured, and it felt as if they’d come to some sort of basic agreement.
They reached the Longhua Pagoda early in the afternoon. The site was mostly ruins, the pagoda itself chipped and faded but impressive in a cold sort of way. Like most classical Chinese architecture, it appeared designed to awe rather than lift the spirit. The restaurant nearby seemed reasonably clean, and McColl ordered rice and vegetables for them both. She struggled with the chopsticks, but when he offered to ask if they had a fork she quickly refused. ‘It’ll help me get slim,’ she said.
When he raised an eyebrow at that, she gave him a look he couldn’t decipher.
They followed the line of the Whangpo back to Shanghai, and arrived at one of the southern entrances to the walled Chinese city. McColl arranged for the carriage to collect them up at the northern gate in a couple of hours, and led the way into the maze of narrow roads and alleys. They explored for an hour or more, stopping to look at temples, gardens and the hundreds of small shops. She only bought one thing – a small brass dragon. ‘A memento,’ she said, as the shopkeeper wrapped it in cloth. ‘I could have gotten it for a tenth as much, right?’
‘Probably.’
She shrugged happily, and he liked her for that.
They visited the famous Willow Pattern teahouse, heading upstairs for the view across the tiled rooftops. But McColl had other ideas for tea – a new establishment he’d visited a month earlier where the Chinese brought their caged songbirds, and sipped while they sang.
On the way to the gate they were forced to wait while a line of prisoners yoked in cangues filed past under guard.
‘They look like condemned men,’ she observed.
‘That space outside the first temple we saw is the execution ground,’ he explained, without stopping to think.
‘Oh,’ she said, more interested than upset, turning to watch the receding column.
He half-expected a plea to witness the executions, but she just shuddered slightly and walked on towards the looming gateway.
The carriage was outside, the handler feeding one of the ponies from a canvas bag. As they drove north across the French Concession she said, ‘I don’t want to presume, but I have some shopping to do – presents for the family – and I wonder if you would come with me, as an interpreter. It would make things so much easier.’
‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll meet you in the Whiteaway Laidlaw department store. In the tea room.’
‘All right.’
Perhaps he sounded offended, because she quickly added that she also wanted his company as a friend, and placed a hand on his to emphasise the fact. He felt something like an electric shock at the contact, and hid his confusion in an idiot smile. He had read about such reactions in novels but had never believed they were real.
*
She was punctual too, as he discovered again the following day. Over tea she asked him what he was doing for Chinese New Year, and he told her he’d be spending it with his brother and Mac. ‘We’ll probably eat too much and drink too much,’ he said, neglecting to mention their date with three opium pipes.
‘I’m spending the day with friends of Ch’ing-ling,’ she told him. ‘Seeing how the Chinese do it.’
They passed a couple of hours hopping from shop to shop on Nanking Road and its cheaper side streets, sifting through bronzes and brasses, cloisonné vases and Chinese jewellery, and then moved on to Honan Street, famous for its silk and furs. By the time darkness had fallen, she had presents for everyone – jade earrings for her sister, a beautiful shawl for her aunt, and dragon cufflinks for her father and older brother. She had already bought an antique map for her younger brother, who apparently loved such things.
When he offered to see her home in a rickshaw she suggested they take the tram instead. ‘Rickshaws make me feel guilty,’ she said. ‘I feel like jumping out and walking alongside to lessen the weight. I know it’s silly, I know I’m taking work away from them, but …’
They took the tram, and walked through the European houses to that of her absent friends. He carried the presents into the hall, and turned to find her shutting the door. She walked up to him, placed a hand either side of his waist, and told him she would like to be kissed.
He put his lips gently on hers, then matched her more passionate response, his momentary shock at her brazen behaviour swiftly subsumed by desire.
Their bodies pressed together with predicable results.
She pulled back slightly, and looked him in the eyes. ‘Jack,’ she said calmly, using his name for the first time, ‘would you like to take me to bed?’
He just stared at her.
‘A yes or no will do.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. But I have no –’
‘I do. Let’s go up to my room.’ Taking his hand, she led him up the wide staircase and along the landing to the furthest door. His brain dimly registered the large iron bed facing the screened-off window, the low tables either side bearing tall brass candleholders.
He might have dreamt a moment like this.
‘Light the candles,’ she told him. ‘I’ll be a few minutes.’
He did as he was told, turned out the lights, and took off his shoes and socks. He could hardly believe what was happening. There were so many reasons he should have said no, so many reasons she shouldn’t have asked, but all he felt was longing.
‘You’re still dressed,’ she said, coming back into the room. She was wearing a Japanese dressing gown, and unbound hair now framed her face. With a smile she discarded the kimono, offering a glimpse of nipples and the dark bush between her legs as she slipped under the blankets.
He removed the rest of his clothes, climbed in himself, and reached to take her in his arms. She held him back with a hand on his shoulder, looking into his eyes, as if for reassurance. Whatever she saw there seemed to satisfy her, and she snuggled up against him, her tongue looking for his, their bodies squirming this way and that with the rapture of embrace.
After he had come, he lay back in wonder at what had just happened. Some whores pretended to enjoy it, but his wife had not even done that – admitting on their honeymoon that she found the whole business disgusting, she had offered herself up with firmly closed eyes and unnerving rigidity. Never in his thirty-two years had he encountered a woman with Caitlin’s sexual passion. For the first time in his life he knew why they called it making love.
It was wonderful, yet still he felt disconcerted, a ludicrous sense that this was not how it was supposed to be.
She asked him for a cigarette, deepening that sense.
He leaned over, pulled a packet from his coat pocket, and turned back to find her sitting up against the wooden headrest, displaying her beautiful breasts.
She must have caught something in his expression. ‘In case you’re wondering,’ she said, ‘I don’t sleep with every man who takes me shopping. I’m not a virgin, as you now know, but I haven’t slept with hundreds of men. Or even ten. And you’ve probably slept with more women than that.’
‘Probably.’
‘So?’
‘It’s different for women,’ he said, almost reluctantly.
‘Why?’
‘Men can’t get pregnant.’
‘These days women don’t have to, as long as they’re careful. And I am.’ She put out the cigarette, and got up from the bed. He thought she reached for the kimono, then decided against it. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said over her shoulder.
A few minutes later she was, and seeing her walk towards him across the candlelit room almost took his breath away.
She climbed back into bed, and while her lips sought his, her hand found his rapidly hardening penis. ‘I think we’re ready again,’ she whispered.
*
‘I don’t think you should stay the night,’ she said, after they’d both listened to the clock strike eleven. ‘You know how people are, and I wouldn’t want anyone talking about scandalous goings-on in this house. My Chinese friends have enough problems to deal with at the moment.’
‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘But when can I see you again?’
‘I don’t know. I’m staying at my friend’s friends’ for the next two days, but after that …’ She smiled wickedly. ‘I’m sure we can find time to do this again before my ship sails on Friday.’
‘Which ship?’ he asked.
‘The Manchuria – why?’
‘I’m booked on the Manchuria.’
‘You are?’ There was confusion in her eyes, perhaps even a touch of panic. But nothing that looked like delight. ‘I assumed you were going back to England,’ she said, as much to herself as to him.
‘I am – via the States.’
‘Oh. Well, I expect we’ll see each other on the ship then.’
‘And before that? Can I call you? I saw the telephone downstairs.’
‘Yes, why don’t you? I’ll be back here late on Monday – I don’t know when.’
Her smile seemed forced, and he felt a sharp pang of disappointment.
She put on the kimono to accompany him downstairs, watched as he wrote the telephone’s number, and kissed him goodnight with what almost felt like anger. Walking away down the dark silent avenue McColl tried to make sense of what had just happened. And he could only find one interpretation that fitted the facts. She had seduced him, and enjoyed the experience, safe in the mistaken assumption that they would soon be parted by thousands of miles. Once aware of her error, and the impossibility of a brief and finite affair, she had not known what to do with him. Or more precisely, not known how to tell him goodbye.
It was all for the best, he told himself. He liked to think himself a willing part of a fast-changing world, but perhaps there were some things he just wasn’t ready for.
Which was easier to think than to feel, when all his senses were still dancing to her tune.
*
When McColl left their hotel late in the morning on Chinese New Year’s Eve the change in the weather mirrored his mood, and the cold fog hanging over river and city reminded him of the summer’s Fu Manchu stories. Sax Rohmer’s Chinese villain had spun his webs in London’s Limehouse, not Shanghai, but today the cities seemed eerily alike, from the yellow-lit trams to the mournful horns of invisible ships.
Mac and Jed had decided to ignore the fog and drive the automobile to Woosun. He hoped they wouldn’t run over any peasants, or end up in some stagnant canal. The two of them would be coming back by boat, and had left a note suggesting they all meet at the Carlton Hotel on Ningpo Road. The circled newspaper advertisement which accompanied the note claimed that the Carlton was ‘the one place where you can get a meal that reminds you of home’. And in case anyone conjured up a mental picture of cockroaches clinging to sausages, the kitchen was declared ‘open to inspection at any time’. McColl could hardly wait.
In the meantime, he had an anxious client to placate. After coffee at a Nanking Road café, he reluctantly made his way up to Hongkew for his appointment with Hsi Lun, one of the wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs who had ordered a Maia. The man had asked his son Chu to be there – a young man of around twenty who had returned from three years of college in America armed with enough alien habits, quirks and idiosycrasies to put anyone’s teeth on edge. Chu’s insistence on checking through every detail of the purchase agreement seemed tantamount to calling the buyer an idiot and the seller a thief, but his father looked admiringly on and McColl just smiled and bore it. The deal was already signed and delivered, and it always paid to keep a customer sweet, even when you felt like slapping his son.
After this encounter, McColl reckoned that a decent lunch and several stiff drinks at the Shanghai Club was the least he deserved. Emerging a couple of hours later, he thought he saw the possible shadow from several days before, but the air was still heavy with mist and he couldn’t be sure. After hiring a rickshaw, he spent much of the journey glancing back over his shoulder, but no one was following. He was imagining it – he had to be; if anyone was following him, where had whoever it was been the last few days? After alighting at the cable office, he stood in the doorway for more than a minute, scanning the street they’d come down, but no one loomed out of the mist.
Inside, he received his first good news of the day – Cumming not only praised him for his work in Tsingtau, but had also wired extra funds to cover his ‘unexpected costs’.
He went back to the hotel, spent the rest of the afternoon reading a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories he found in Mac’s suitcase, then set out for the promised feast. The boys were there when he arrived, and greeted him with stories of getting lost in the fog and almost driving into the sea – they had obviously had a good time. The meal proved as bad as expected, an impersonation of the British fry-up which tasted completely wrong but looked sufficiently familiar to make you cruelly aware of what you were missing. It didn’t so much remind them of home as of how far away it was.
Chinese New Year’s Eve in Shanghai, he thought sourly, and wondered where in the city she was.
*
New Year’s Day was at least sunnier, the bitter north wind having driven the clouds away. The three of them lunched rather too well at the Shanghai Club, took a walk along the Bund for exercise, and enjoyed a late afternoon siesta ahead of their meeting with China’s bane. McColl had got the address of a respectable opium den in the French Concession, and soon after dark their two rickshaws were pulling up outside a decrepit-looking building in a side street behind the Chinese theatre. The golden characters above the doorway claimed that it was Heaven’s Gate, which seemed somewhat optimistic. The interior, however, was as rich as the exterior was squalid, a symphony in sculptured wood, embroidered silk and exquisite watercolours. There was very little noise for a Chinese establishment, and most of those at the dark wooden tables sat alone with their thoughts and their tea.
‘Blimey,’ was Jed’s first reaction.
‘They’re on their way out,’ McColl told him. ‘Getting themselves ready for the outside world. Are you sure you want to go through with this?’
‘Of course,’ his brother declared, a sliver of doubt in his eyes.
McColl spoke to one of the staff, who led them upstairs and into a small panelled room. There was a wooden couch against each wall, and a large scroll painting of misty mountains on the one facing the door. The pillows were made of porcelain, and felt like it. In the centre of the room a low Chinese table with upturned ends held a small oil lamp and joss stick holder. The latter was already burning, infusing the room with its odour, but McColl could also smell the opium – heavier, sweeter, like bait in a trap.
They laid themselves out on the couches, the other two looking slightly self-conscious, and watched as a young girl lit the oil lamp and heated the sticky balls on wicked-looking needles. The look on her face was intensely serious, and reminded McColl of Jed as a small boy, trying to write his own name for the first time.
He took a few drags on the offered pipe, and lay back. ‘It’s not instantaneous,’ he warned the others, but it felt quicker than the last time he had taken it. The lines of wall and ceiling seemed to soften, curling like a burning piece of paper, only so much slower. He looked across at Jed, who smiled back at him, and the smile itself seemed to stretch, like something out of Lewis Carroll. He looked again and, for once, saw his mother’s face in his brother’s. He remembered skipping down the street with her, hand in hand, jumping over those paving stones with cracks and laughing fit to burst. He could feel his own smile stretching, and such pleasure in the memory.
Time loosened its hold. When the girl returned with the pipe he couldn’t have said whether hours had passed, or only moments. Both Jed and Mac had beatific smiles on their faces, and the flame of the oil lamp was dancing shadows on the ceiling. The smoke from the joss stick coiled like Caitlin’s hair, and when he closed his eyes he saw the green of hers. He felt no anger, no anxiety, no disappointment. And if there was sadness, it was oh so sweet. Everything was as it should be.
When the girl eventually led them downstairs, his watch said they’d been there for three hours. Tea was provided, and they sat in silence for a while, giving each other can-you-believe-it smiles and sipping from the patterned porcelain cups. As the drug began to wear off, McColl felt his sense of serenity slowly start to fracture, and he almost cried out in resentment.
The city itself was still wide awake, and while he settled their bill his companions decided on a second visit to the Lotus Flower. They tried to persuade him to join them, but Jed seemed more than a little relieved when he refused. ‘I have a call to make,’ McColl explained, without divulging who it was to, or his fear that no one would answer. Back at the hotel he asked the operator to get him the number, had a moment of hope when the phone was picked up, then listened to the amah intone, after a suspiciously long interval, that ‘Missee not home.’ Much to his distress, he could picture Caitlin at the top of the stairs, silently shaking her head.
He thanked the clerk, walked back outside, and worked his way through the traffic on the Bund to the parapet above the river. He just had to accept it, he told himself – it had been wonderful, strange and for only one night. It might be awkward at first on the ship, but they would soon get over it. She, it seemed, already had.
The sound of running feet pulled his eyes from the river, and he barely had time to shift his body before the man was upon him. A knife glittered in the yellow light as it arced towards him, and his out-thrust fist smashed across the side of his assailant’s head at exactly the moment the blade cut agonisingly into his abdomen. McColl was briefly aware of the man falling, picking himself up, and running away, and of shouts from several directions. He was, he realised, on his knees, the knife still buried in his body, the blood seeping through his questing fingers. He resisted the temptation to pull the knife out, and his last thought was self-congratulatory, that he had at least learned something from Gandhi and his fellow-medics on the long slog down from Spion Kop.