Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

The Shanghai Club at number 2 the Bund was an ornate, classical stone building, with a red iron-framed awning shielding its entrance, Italianate cupolas capping a colonnaded facade of Ningpo granite. The street outside was quieter than usual, a group of chauffeurs kicking their heels, talking and smoking next to their sleek black cars. The rickshaw pullers stood discreetly about twenty yards down the street.

On the Whangpoo, Field could see two dragon boats pulling away from the shore, their sides and bows decked out with bright-colored silk hangers and paper lamps. He waited again for a tram to come past, then crossed the road, walking between the line of cars parked down its center. He headed for the war memorial-a bronze angel standing above a square stone pillar. Some children were playing tag around it while their parents watched the dragon boats.

Field looked at his watch. He did not want to be either early or late.

He waited for a few minutes. A steamer, loaded to the gills with people bent low beneath a canvas awning, made its way downriver. It was towing three cargo barges, but still moving faster than a similarly overloaded sampan struggling to get out of its way. Both were making for the wooden jetty that jutted out ahead of him.

Field leaned over the wall, looking down into the muddy waters. The lights along the shore came on suddenly. They were electric here.

He looked at his watch again and turned to survey the solid majesty of the Bund. It was like the Strand, or any of London’s other classical streets; every building along it, he thought, a projection of European and American power. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked back across the road and through the iron gates. The glass doors at the top of the steps swung back as he reached them.

“Good evening, sir,” the doorman said, bowing, next to a pair of Greek goddesses that guarded the entrance. He spoke with a thick Russian accent and wore a bright blue and gold uniform. Behind him, a broad staircase of white Sicilian marble climbed toward the first floor.

“I’m here to meet Geoffrey Donaldson.”

The man pointed toward the lobby. “Mr. Donaldson is not in yet, but if you’d like to wait through there…”

Field walked through to the colonnaded hall across a black and white marble floor. The opulence of his surroundings was testament enough, he thought, to confidence in the permanence of the European presence here. He looked up at the ceiling with its ornate plasterwork and the enormous light that hung from a chain thick enough to hold a ship’s anchor. There was a balcony above and, on the walls behind, pictures of Shanghai life-hunting out in the fields beyond the city limits, men standing at the Long Bar of the club, and a panorama of the Bund.

Field moved to a glass cabinet full of silver trophies at the edge of the lobby. Beyond it was a bulletin board covered in the latest Reuters reports, pulled from a telex machine. He read one that detailed further intercommunal riots in Rawalpindi and was grateful again that he’d not chosen to join the Indian police instead.

Field turned to see a tall, sandy-haired, pleasant-looking man limping toward him.

“Richard.” He was smiling. Field tried to wipe the sweat from his hand in his pocket before offering it. “I’m sorry to be late,” Geoffrey said.

“No, I was early.”

“Did you see the dragon boats?”

“Yes, in the distance.”

“You should take a closer look. It’s quite a spectacle.”

Field was suddenly embarrassed and searched for something to say. “How often do they have them?”

“Once a year. They are to celebrate a hero’s death. A faithful minister of state was dismissed by his prince, or so the legend goes, and threw himself into a small river in Hunan to show his humiliation. His friends gathered to throw rice across the water so that his spirit wouldn’t starve, and since then, on the anniversary of his death, they race boats on the river, presumably looking for his body.” Geoffrey smiled. “Let’s go through.”

He led the way down the corridor toward a set of glass doors that Field guessed must have been twenty-five feet high, with brass handles the size of a medium-size dog. As they approached, the doors were opened by Chinese waiters in newly pressed white linen uniforms.

The room he found himself in was the size of a tennis court, perhaps larger, furnished with sumptuously upholstered golden sofas and high-backed leather armchairs, dim lamps, and potted plants. A series of ceiling fans turned in unison. A long, L-shaped bar made of old, unpolished mahogany stretched all the way from one end of the room to the other.

“The longest bar in the world,” Geoffrey said as he led Field to the bay window at the far end, overlooking the Bund, the preserve of taipans and other members of the city’s elite. “Thought we’d have a quick drink, then meet up with Penelope at the country club. Been there?”

Field shook his head.

“Have you come here?”

“No.”

Field thought it would have been so easy for Geoffrey to patronize him-just a brief raise of the eyebrows, perhaps to remind him, as the family back home so often did, of their reduced circumstances-but his warm face was without any hint of prejudice. He was exactly how Field remembered him from their last meeting almost ten years ago, and he liked this man instantly again.

“Gin and tonic times two,” Geoffrey instructed the waiter, turning to Field to see if that was all right. He leaned against the bar to take the weight of his wooden leg. “How is your mother? I got the letter you posted for her.”

“She’s all right, thank you. You know how things are.”

He nodded. “I keep trying to send her money, but…”

“She won’t take it. It’s good of you to try.” Field sipped his gin. “I’m so sorry about… I know it’s a long time ago now, but Mother told me…” Field pointed to his uncle’s leg.

“Can’t be helped.” Geoffrey’s smile became somber. “I miss your mother. I’ve never held with all this nonsense from the rest of the family. I’m rather sorry I’ve been so far away.” His face was full of the compassion of a man who understands suffering. “I was, of course, sorry to hear about your father. Is your mother… is she all right-financially, I mean?”

Field did not know what he should say, or what his mother would want him to.

“Don’t worry,” Geoffrey said, touching Field’s shoulder. “I’ll have another go at her.” He took out a packet of cigarettes. Field didn’t feel like smoking, but wanted to be sociable, so accepted one when it was offered. “I never quite gathered,” Geoffrey went on, “and it’s difficult to write to your mother about it. But the final verdict was suicide?”

“Yes.” Field nodded, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“It was the business… the bankruptcy?”

Field hesitated. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“It was you who found him?”

“Yes. It was.”

“Sorry. Probably crass of me to talk about it.”

“No, really…”

Geoffrey was staring at his hand. “He was a good man, your father.”

Field didn’t answer.

“Quite tough, I suppose, but his heart was in the right place.”

Field sensed some reaction was expected of him. He shrugged.

“Sorry, not my business, Richard.”

“It’s the family’s business.”

“Jolly tough if luck goes against you. That’s all life is, Richard, the merry-go-round of fate. I believe they loved each other, and in better circumstances, things might have been very different.”

“But we have to live with the circumstances we are presented with.”

Geoffrey looked embarrassed. “He was tough on you, I know. Or so it’s been said. But not for want of affection, I’m sure.”