Peter May - The Firemaker

There was a scattering of applause around the club as Lotus finished her song and gushed her thanks. She was finished for the night, she said, and stepped down from the stage. Margaret was uncertain whether the applause was for the performance or the fact that it was over. Lotus approached their table, flushed and a little breathless. Yongli was on his feet in an instant, pulling out a chair for her. ‘I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?’

‘Some white wine.’ Lotus had learned to affect a taste for wine during the many meals she had sat through in restaurants in joint-venture hotels. She looked at Margaret expectantly, waiting for an introduction.

In English, Yongli said, ‘Lotus, this is Li Yan’s friend…’

‘Margaret,’ Margaret said.

Lotus shook her hand. ‘Ver’ pleased meet you,’ she said.

‘Lotus only speaks a little English,’ Yongli told Margaret, almost apologetically.

‘A lot more English than I speak Chinese,’ Margaret said.

Lotus sat down as Yongli headed for the bar. She was clearly intrigued by Margaret, immediately seeking her approval. ‘You like my singing?’

In other circumstances Margaret might have been ambiguous, perhaps ironic, even cruel. But somehow there was such innocence in Lotus’s question that she couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than lie with great sincerity. ‘Very much,’ she said.

Lotus beamed with pleasure. ‘Thank you.’ She reached out and touched Margaret’s hair as if it were gold. ‘Your hair ver’ beautiful.’ And she gazed into Margaret’s face quite unselfconsciously. ‘And your eyes so blue. You ver’ beautiful lady.’

‘Thank you.’

‘ Bukeqi .’ Margaret frowned. It sounded like boo keh chee .

Li said, ‘It means you are welcome.’

Lotus took Margaret’s hand and ran her fingers lightly over the forearm. ‘I never see skin so white. So many beauty spot.’

‘Freckles,’ Margaret laughed. ‘I hated them when I was a kid. I thought they were ugly.’

‘No, no. They ver’ beautiful.’ She turned to Li. ‘You ver’ lucky.’

Li blushed. ‘Oh, no, we’re not… I mean, Margaret’s a colleague. From work.’

‘What are you saying?’ Margaret asked, surprised by Li’s sudden lapse into Chinese.

‘Just that we only work together.’ He blushed again. Lotus’s arrival had unsettled him completely.

‘You policeman?’ Lotus asked Margaret with incredulity.

‘No. A doctor.’

‘Ah. You fix up his face?’

‘Sort of.’ She smiled at Li’s bruised and battered face.

Yongli returned to the table with two bottles of champagne in an ice bucket, and four glasses. Lotus gasped in delight, forgetting to speak English. ‘Champagne! What’s this for, lover?’

‘A small celebration.’

‘What are we celebrating?’

‘Oh, the fact that it’s three in the morning and Big Li’s not tucked up in his bed yet. The fact that he’s out on the town with a woman …’

‘Aw, shut up,’ Li said.

‘She’s a doctor,’ Lotus protested.

Yongli leaned over confidentially. ‘That’s what she tells all the boys. Actually she cuts up dead people for a living.’

Lotus looked at Margaret, shocked. Margaret said, ‘What’s going on? Will somebody speak English?’

‘Ma Yongli’s just playing the fool,’ Li said.

‘No I’m not.’ He squeezed the cork out of one of the bottles and started filling the glasses, champagne foaming over brims and spilling on the table. ‘I’m just proposing a toast.’ He pulled his chair in beside Lotus and raised his dripping glass. ‘To the two most beautiful women in the Xanadu. Probably in Beijing. Maybe even the whole of China.’

Margaret looked around. ‘What table’s the other one at?’

Lotus laughed and put a hand on her arm and said, as if to an idiot, ‘He mean me and you.’

Margaret supposed it was unfair to make judgments on someone’s intelligence based on the few words of your language that they knew. She took in Lotus’s almost childish delight at having to set her straight. It was quite possible, she supposed, that Lotus was wondering how someone so stupid could possibly be a doctor. ‘Oh,’ she said, and smiled, raising her glass. ‘Well, I’ll drink to that.’

And when they had finished the first bottle, Yongli opened the second, and Margaret began to lose track of their conversation. The champagne on top of the vodkas, on top of her lack of sleep, had resulted in the club starting to make slow revolutions around her. They all seemed to be laughing a lot, even Li, who in her experience was not given to laughing easily. She had no real idea of what she was saying. Answering, it seemed, endless silly questions about America, about money, about… she wasn’t sure what. Every time she lifted her glass it seemed to have miraculously refilled itself. Was there a third bottle on the table?

It seemed like a long time later, and Lotus had her by the arm, and she thought they must be going to the little girls’ room. There was a very large step up, and she almost fell. Somewhere in the distance she heard Li’s voice. He seemed to be calling her name. He didn’t think she should be doing this, whatever it was she was doing. Perversely, it made her more determined to do it. And suddenly there were a lot of bright lights in her eyes and faces turned up towards her, and a sound like running water. Only it wasn’t running water. It just sounded like it. And then she realised it was people clapping. Lotus put something in her hand. It was heavy and tubular with a mesh ball on the end. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, and heard her voice booming around the club. More running water.

Lotus turned her to her left and she saw a blue screen, words frozen on it in white. Yesterday … The sound of an acoustic guitar. Lotus’s voice. ‘You sing.’ But she couldn’t, and missed the first line, and Lotus leaned close and sang instead. Now it look a though they hee to stay … All she could see now was Michael’s face. All she could hear was his voice. I didn’t do it, Mags . And she felt the tears running hot down her face as Lotus’s grotesque parody of The Beatles’ original forced its way into her consciousness, each word stinging like a slap in the face. She had thought the pain would be all gone now. But Michael seemed to want to go on hurting her for the rest of her life. He took her in his arms now, saying something softly in her ear, but she couldn’t make out what it was. He led her back down the high step, past the running water. She felt fresh cool air in her face. She turned to look at him, with the weary anticipation of more earnest protestations of innocence. But it wasn’t Michael after all. Of course, she remembered, she was in China. And Michael was dead. And these people were speaking another language.

‘Where are you going to take her, Li?’ Yongli wasn’t exactly sober himself.

‘Back to the apartment.’

‘Do you need help with her?’ Lotus said.

Li nodded. ‘Yes. Please.’

The smell of smoke and coffee was the first thing she was aware of. Very slowly the room began to take shape around her, a room similar in shape and size to Chao Heng’s living room. Through the glass panes that boxed in the balcony on the far side of the room, she could see the tops of trees swaying slightly in the wind, leaves reflecting light from the streetlamps. There was very little light in the room itself. A small lamp somewhere in a distant corner. She tried to focus on where she was. On a settee, she realised, half sitting, half lying, her head pitched to one side. She turned it to the other side as she felt a movement beside her, and saw Lotus kneeling there with a steaming mug of black coffee, trying to get her to sip it. But the smell of it was doing unpleasant things to her stomach. ‘Bathroom,’ she said, and wondered distantly if the urgency she felt was conveyed by her voice. Apparently so, for hands were quickly helping her to her feet. And it wasn’t far to stagger, it seemed, to a room filled with bright hard light reflecting from white tiles. The unpleasantness in her stomach rose rapidly into her consciousness, and she pitched forward on to her knees, clutching at the rim of something hard and white, mouth and throat filled with a horrible burning sensation. Then she was on her feet again and someone was splashing cold water on her face, and the lights went out on the world.