The Russian Concubine Part 2

'Ah, but these are hard times. Who has money for such things as this when there is no food on the table?'

'It is lovely craftsmanship.'

His finger moved, as if it would stroke the silver piece once more, but instead it stroked his little beard. 'It is not bad,' he admitted. 'More tea?'

For ten minutes they bargained, back and forth. At one point Lydia stood up and put the watch back in her pocket, and that was when Mr Liu raised his offer.

'Three hundred and fifty Chinese dollars.'

She put the watch back on the table.

'Four hundred and fifty,' she demanded.

'Three hundred and sixty dollars. I can afford no more, Missy.

My family will go hungry.'

'But it is worth more. Much more.'

'Not to me. I'm sorry.'

She took a deep breath. 'It's not enough.'

He sighed and shook his head, his long queue twitching in sympathy. 'Very well, though I will not eat for a week.' He paused and his sharp eyes looked at her a.s.sessingly. 'Four hundred dollars.'

She took it.

Lydia was happy. She sped back through the old town, her head spinning with all the good things she would buy - a bag of sugary apricot dumplings to start with, and yes, a beautiful silk scarf for her mother and a new pair of shoes for herself because these pinched so dreadfully, and maybe a . . .

The road ahead was blocked. It was a scene of utter chaos, and crouching at the heart of it was a big black Bentley, all wide sweeping fenders and gleaming chrome work. The car was so huge and so incongruous in the narrow confines of streets designed for mules and wheelbarrows that for a moment Lydia couldn't believe she was seeing straight. She blinked. But it was still there, jammed between two rickshaws, one lying on its side with a fractured wheel, and up against a donkey and cart. The cart had shed its load of white lotus roots all over the road and the donkey was braying to get at them. Everyone was shouting.

It was just as Lydia was working out how best to edge around this little drama without attracting notice that a man's head leaned out the rear window of the Bentley and said in a voice clearly accustomed to command, 'Boy, back this d.a.m.n car up immediately and take the road that runs along the river.'

'Yes, sir,' said the uniformed chauffeur, still hitting the cart driver with his peaked cap. 'Of course, sir. Right away, sir.' He turned and gave his employer an obedient salute, then his eyes slid away as he added, 'But is impossible, sir. That road too narrow.'

The man in the car struck his own forehead in frustration and bellowed something Lydia didn't hang around to hear. Without appearing to hurry, she ducked down a small side street. Because she knew him, the man in the car. Knew who he was, anyway. That mane of white hair. That bristling moustache. The hawkish nose. It could only be Sir Edward Carlisle, Lord Governor of the International Settlement of Junchow. Just the old devil's name was enough to frighten children into obedience at bedtime. But what was he doing here? In the old Chinese town? He was well known for sticking his nose in where it wasn't wanted, and right now the last thing Lydia needed was for him to spot her.

'Chyort!' she swore under her breath. she swore under her breath.

It was to avoid avoid contact with white faces that she came here, risked trespa.s.sing on Chinese territory. Selling her ill-gotten gains anywhere in the settlement would be far too dangerous. The police were always raiding the curio shops and p.a.w.nbrokers, despite the bribes that flew into their pockets from all directions. contact with white faces that she came here, risked trespa.s.sing on Chinese territory. Selling her ill-gotten gains anywhere in the settlement would be far too dangerous. The police were always raiding the curio shops and p.a.w.nbrokers, despite the bribes that flew into their pockets from all directions. c.u.mshaw c.u.mshaw, they called it. It was just the way things were done here. Everyone knew that.

She glanced around at the street she had sneaked into, narrower and meaner than the others. And a flicker of anxiety crawled up the back of her neck like a spider. It was more an alleyway than a street and lay in deep shadow, too cramped for sunlight to slide in. Despite that, lines of washing stretched across it, hanging limp and lifeless as ghosts in the dank heat, while at the far end a man under a broad coolie hat was trundling a wheelbarrow toward her. It was piled high with dried gra.s.s. His progress was slow and laborious over the hard-packed earth, the squeal of his wheel the only sound in the silent street.

Why so silent?

It was then she spotted the woman standing in a squalid doorway, beckoning. Her face was made up to look like one of the girls that Lydia's friend Polly called Ladies of Delight, heavy black paint round the eyes and a slash of red for a mouth in a white-powdered face. But Lydia had the impression she was not as young as she would seem. One red-tipped finger continued to beckon to Lydia. She hesitated and brushed a hand across her mouth in a childish gesture she used when nervous. She should never have come down here. Not with a pocketful of money. Uneasily she shook her head.

'Dollars.' The word floated down the street from the woman. 'You like Chinese dollars?' Her narrow eyes were fixed on Lydia, though she came no nearer.

The silence seemed to grow louder. Where were the dirty ragam.u.f.fins at play in the gutter and the bickering neighbours? The windows of the houses were draped with oiled strips of paper, cheaper than gla.s.s, so where was the sound of pots and pans? Just the squeal, over and over, of the barrow's wheel and the whine of black flies around her ears. She drew a long breath and was shocked to find her palms slick with sweat. She turned to run.

But from nowhere a scrawny figure in black stood in her path. 'Ni zhege yochou yochun de ji!' 'Ni zhege yochou yochun de ji!' he shouted in her face. he shouted in her face.

Lydia couldn't understand his words but when he spat on the ground and hissed at her, their meaning was only too clear. He was very thin and despite the oppressive heat he wore a fur cap with ear flaps, below which hung wisps of grey hair. But his eyes were bright and fierce. He shook a tattooed fist in her face. Stupidly her eyes focused only on the dirt beneath his torn fingernails. She tried to think straight, but the thudding of her heart in her chest was getting in the way.

'Let me pa.s.s, boy,' she managed to say. It was meant to be sharp. In control. Like Sir Edward Carlisle. But it didn't come out right.

'Wo zhishi yao nide qian, fanqui.' fanqui.'

Again that word. Fanqui. Fanqui. Foreign Devil. Foreign Devil.

She tried to step around him but he was too fast. He blocked her way. Behind her the squeal of the wheelbarrow stopped, and when she glanced over her shoulder the woman and the wheelbarrow man were now standing together in the middle of the alleyway, swathed in dark shadows, watching her every move with hard eyes.

A thin hand suddenly clamped like a wire noose around her wrist.

She panicked and started to scream. Then the demons of h.e.l.l itself seemed to let loose. The street filled with noise and shouts as the woman ran forward, shrieking, on hobbled feet, and the man abandoned his barrow and hurled himself with a growl toward Lydia, a long curved scythe at his side. And all the time the old devil's grip on her wrist tightened, his nails sinking like teeth into her flesh the more she struggled.

With no sound a fourth person stepped into the street. He was a young man, not much older than Lydia herself but tall for a Chinese, with a long pale neck and close-cropped hair and wearing a black V-neck tunic over loose trousers that flowed when he moved. His eyes were quick and decisive but there was a stillness to his face as he took in the situation. Anger flared in his dark eyes as he stared at the old leech hanging on to her wrist, and it gave Lydia a flicker of hope. She started to shout for help, but before the words were out of her mouth the world seemed to blur with movement. A whirling foot crashed full into the centre of the old man's chest. Lydia clearly heard ribs splintering, and her tormentor was sent sprawling onto the ground with a yelp of pain.

She stumbled as he fell, then caught herself, but instead of fleeing, she remained where she stood, eyes wide with astonishment. Entranced by the movements of the young Chinese man. He seemed to float in the air, hover there, and then swing out an arm or a leg as fast as a cobra strike. It reminded her of the Russian ballet that Madame Medinsky had taken her to at the Victoria Theatre last year. She'd heard about such fighting skills but never seen them in action before. The speed of it made her head swim. She watched him approach the man with the scythe and swing backward with elbows raised and hand outstretched, like a bird about to take flight, and then his whole body twisted and turned and became airborne. His arm shot out and crashed down on the back of the man's neck before the scythe could even begin its swing. The Chinese woman's red mouth opened in a wide scream of terror.

The young man turned to face Lydia. His black eyes were deep-set, long and almond-shaped, and as Lydia looked into them an old memory stirred inside her. She'd seen that look before, that exact expression of concern on a face looking down at her in the snow, but so long ago she'd almost forgotten it. She was so used to fighting her own battles, the sight of someone offering to fight them for her set off a small explosion of astonishment in her chest.

'Thank you, xie xie xie xie, thank you,' she cried, her breath ragged.

He gave a shrug of his broad shoulders, as if to indicate the whole thing were no effort, and in fact there was no gleam of sweat on his skin in spite of the speed of his attack and the stifling heat in the alley.

'You are not hurt?' he asked in perfect English.

'No.'

'I'm glad. These people are gutter filth and bring shame to Junchow. But you should not be here, it is not safe for a . . .'

She thought he was going to say fanqui. fanqui.

' . . . for a girl with hair the colour of fire. It would fetch a high price in the perfumed rooms above the teahouses.'

'My hair or me?'

'Both.'

Her fingers brushed aside one of the locks of her unruly mane that had fallen loose from under her hat, and she caught the stranger's slight intake of breath and the softening corners of his mouth as he watched. He lifted his hand and she was convinced he was about to put his fingers into the flames of her hair, but instead he pointed at the old man who had crawled into the shadow of a doorway. A black earthenware jar stood in one corner of it, its wide mouth stoppered by a cork the size of a fist. Bent double with pain, the man lifted the jar and with a scream of rage that brought spittle to his lips, he hurled it at the ground in front of Lydia and her rescuer.

Lydia leapt back as the jar shattered into a hundred pieces, and then her legs turned weak with fear when she saw what burst out of it.

A snake, black as jet and more than three feet long. A few seconds, that's all it took for the creature to slither cautiously toward Lydia, its forked tongue tasting her fear in the air. But abruptly it swept its head in a wide arc and disappeared toward one of the cracks in the wall. Lydia almost choked with relief. Those few seconds were ones she would not forget.

She looked back at the young man and was shocked to see that his face had grown pale and rigid. But his eyes were not on the snake. They were fixed on the old devil where he lay hunched in the doorway, staring up at them both with malice and something like triumph in his eyes.

Without dropping his gaze, the young Chinese said in a quick urgent voice, 'You must run.'

Lydia ran.

3.

Theo Willoughby liked his pupils. That's why he ran a school: the Willoughby Academy of Junchow. He liked the raw untarnished eagerness of their young souls and the clear whites of their eyes. All unblemished. Untainted. Free from that d.a.m.ned Apple with its knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet at the same time he was fascinated by the change in them during the years they were under his wing, the gradual but irresistible journey from Paradise to Paradise Lost that took place in each of them.

'Starkey, stop chewing the end of that pen. It's school property. Anyway, you'll catch woodworm from it.'

A faint t.i.tter ran round the cla.s.sroom. The pupil in the second row of desks dug inky fingers into his mop of brown curls and threw his teacher a look of pure hatred.

Theo, at thirty-six years old, was as adept as any Chinese poker player at keeping his expression blank, so he didn't chuckle. Just gave a curt nod. 'Back to work.'

That was another thing he liked about them. They were so malleable. So easy to provoke. Like kittens with tiny little claws that barely scratched the surface. It was their eyes that were their true weapons. Their eyes could rake your heart to shreds if you let them. But he didn't let that happen. Oh yes, he liked them all right, but only up to a point. He was under no illusions. They stood on the opposite side of the fence and it was his job to haul them over it into a well-equipped adulthood, whether they wanted to or not.

'I would remind you all that the essay on Emperor Ch'eng Tsu is due in tomorrow,' he said briskly. 'No slackers, please.'

Instantly a hand went up at the front of the cla.s.s. It belonged to a fifteen-year-old girl with neatly bobbed blond hair and a sweet dimple in each cheek. She looked slightly nervous.

'What is it, Polly?'

'Sir, my father objects to the fact we are learning Chinese history. He says I must ask you why we are finding out what some heathen barbarians got up to hundreds of years ago, instead of . . . ?'

Theo brought down the wooden-backed board eraser with such a crash on his desk that it made the whole cla.s.s jump. 'Instead of what?' he demanded. 'Instead of English history?' His arm shot out, pointing to a pupil in the front row.

'Bates, what is the date of the Battle of Naseby?'

'1645, sir.'

The arm swung around to the back of the cla.s.s. 'Clara, what was the name of Henry the Eighth's fourth wife?'

'Anne of Cleves.'

'Griffiths, who invented the spinning jenny?'

'James Hargreaves.'

'Who was prime minister during the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bills?'

'Lord Grey.'

'When was the introduction of macadamised roads?'

'1819.'

'Lydia . . . ,' he paused, 'who introduced the rickshaw to China?'

'The Europeans, sir. From j.a.pan.'

'Excellent.' Theo slowly uncoiled his long limbs from his seat, his scholar's gown billowing around him like great black wings, and walked over to Polly's desk. He stood looking down at her, as a crow might look at a wren with its tiny foot in a snare. 'So, Miss Mason, does that indicate a lack of knowledge in our little group of the history of our n.o.ble and victorious country? Would your father not be impressed by such a display of historical facts?'

Polly started to turn pink, her cheeks ripening to the colour of plums. She stared down at her hands, fiddling with a pencil, and stammered something inaudible.

'I'm sorry, Polly,' Theo said smoothly, 'I didn't quite catch that. What did you say?'

'I said, yes, sir.' But still her words were mumbled.

Theo turned to face the room. 'Cla.s.s, could any of you hear what Miss Mason said then?'

In the back row Gordon Trent stuck up a hand and grinned. 'No, sir, I couldn't hear nothing.'

'We will ignore that appalling use of the double negative by Mr Trent and return to Miss Mason. So, let me remind you of my question, Polly,' he said quietly. 'Would your father not be impressed by such a display of historical facts?'

Before Polly could reply, Lydia jumped to her feet.

'Sir,' she said politely, 'it seems to me that Chinese history is much like Russian history to an English person.'

With deadly calm, Theo abandoned the bowed blond head before him and moved back to his own desk. 'Do enlighten us, Lydia. In what way is Chinese history much like Russia's to an English person?'

'They are both irrelevant, sir, to an English person who is living in England. I think what Polly means is that only out here in China do they matter at all. And all of us in this cla.s.s will one day soon be living in England, more than likely.'

Polly cast her friend a grateful glance, but Theo was not aware of it. He was staring at Lydia in silence. His grey eyes narrowed and something tightened around his mouth. But instead of the outburst his cla.s.s expected from him, he sighed.

'You disappoint me. Not only are you late for cla.s.s this afternoon but now you exhibit a gross misunderstanding of the country you are living in.'

At that moment a sudden crackle of noise and explosions outside in the street broke up the tension in the room.

'Firecrackers,' Theo said with a wave of his hand toward the open window. 'A Chinese wedding or celebration of some kind.' He leaned forward with sudden interest. 'And why do they traditionally use firecrackers at such times, Lydia?'

'To frighten away evil spirits, sir.'

'Correct. So in spite of condemning all Chinese history as irrelevant irrelevant, you do actually know at least something about it.' He pointed a finger at Polly in the front row. 'Tell me, who invented gunpowder, Miss Mason?'

'The Chinese.'

His finger travelled once more along the young faces.

'Who invented paper?'

'The Chinese.'