Jane Gardam - The Man in the Wooden Hat

“Hello, Amy.”

“So, when did you get home?”

“Home? I’ve not had a home for years.”

“Oh, get on,” said Amy.

“I’m on holiday. Passing through. I’m drifting.”

“Alone?”

“With a girlfriend. Lizzie Ingoldby. D’you remember? Older than us, at school. Where’s Nick?”

“That was Nick, yelling at the Buddhists. He’s trying to write a sermon on Submission to God. He’s upset. They all fall in love with him out here and he hates to disappoint a woman. By the way, we’re having another.”

“I can see.”

“It will make four. And we’re broke. Have you any spare money?”

“Not a bean. I’m coming into money when I’m thirty. My parents thought I might be flighty. Instead, I’m hungry.”

“Well, don’t become a missionary. We’re not hungry but we’d like a sideline. We’re not allowed a sideline. A rich one who puts his arms round me would be nice.”

The old lady, a Mrs. Baxter, had now silenced the baby with Hymns Ancient & Modern , and called out, “Oh, I do agree! I am not a nun.” And began to dab her eyes. Amy passed her a very small cup of rice wine.

“We’re just about all she’s got,” said Amy. “She hasn’t the fare to England and there’s nobody she knows there now if she even got there. So what sort of sideline have you got, clever old Elisabeth of the Enigma Variations and always top of the form, star of St. Paul’s and St. Anne’s?”

“I think — well, I think — I’m going in for a husband.”

“Oh? Really? Oh, very, very good. Who is it?”

“You don’t know him. Well, I don’t think you do. I don’t know him very well, either. I came to ask you if I should do it. He’s flying in tonight. I’ll have to make up my mind. I’m sick of fretting on about it. By tomorrow. Maybe tonight.”

“What is he? English or Chinese? Is he Christian or ghastly agnostic? Your eyes have tears in them.”

“He’s English. Christian. Not Christian like you are, full time. More like I am. Doesn’t talk about it. Oh, yes, and he’s already pretty rich. He’ll get very rich. He’s got the touch. He’s an advocate. He’ll be a judge.”

“Oh, he’s in his nineties. Does he dribble?”

“No. He’s quite young. He’s brilliant. And he’s so good-looking he finds he’s embarrassed walking down the street. Thinks they belong — his looks — to a different man. He’s very, very nice, Amy. And he needs me.”

“So?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“He’s not the sort. I don’t even know. .”

“He’s a virgin?”

“Oh, no. Not that. I’ve heard. In the war he was close to Queen Mary.”

“He had an affair with Queen Mary?”

They stared at each other and began to howl and laugh and roll about, as at school.

“He must be very grand,” said Amy.

“No. Oh, no. He never knows who anyone is. Social stuff doesn’t interest him.”

“And you? You, you, you? D’you love him?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I suppose I should but you see I’m retarded. I want the moon, like a teenager.”

“You should want the moon. Don’t do it, Bets. Don’t go for a forty-watt light bulb because it looks pretty. You’ll get stuck with it when it goes out. You are so loyal, and you’ll have to soldier on in the dark for ever afterwards.”

Mrs. Baxter announced that Jesus was the Light of the World.

“That’s right,” said Amy. “Have some more wine.”

“And Him only shalt thou serve,” said Mrs. Baxter.

“Amy, I must go. He may already be here. At any minute.”

“But come back. You will come back, won’t you? Bring him.”

Betty tried to see Edward standing in the pools of rice in his polished shoes, the Buddhists chanting, Mrs. Baxter weeping.

“I’d love your life, Amy.”

“So you say,” said Amy.

And so, a few hours later, into the sea dropped the great red yo-yo sun and darkness painted out the waters of a bay. Then lights began to show, first the pricking lights under the ramparts they stood on, then more nebulous lights from boats knocking together where the fishermen lived in houses on stilts, then the lights of moving boats fanning white on black across the bay, and then across faraway bays and coastlines of the archipelago; lights of ferries, coloured lights of invisible villages and way over to the south dim lights staining the darkness of Hong Kong itself.

Edward Feathers and Elisabeth Macintosh stood side by side, looking out, and a drum began to beat. Voices rose in a screech, like a sunset chorus of raucous birds: Cantonese and half a dozen dialects; the crashing of pots and pans, clattering pandemonium. Blue smoke rose up from the boats to the terrace of the hotel and there was a blasting smell of hot fish. Behind the couple standing looking out, waiters were beginning to spread tablecloths and napkins, setting down saucers decorated with floating lights and flowers. The last suggestion of a sun departed and the sky was speckled with a hundred million stars.

“Edward? Eddie — yes. Thank you. Yes. I will and I will and I will, but could you say something?”

Some of the older waiters would respond to Elisabeth’s voice in the slow English of before the war. It was beginning to sound Old World. Proud, unflinching, Colonial. Yet the girl did not conform to it. She was bare-legged, in open-toed sandals with clean but unpainted toenails. She was wearing a cotton dress she had had for years and hadn’t thought about changing to meet her future husband. The time in the Shanghai detention centre had arrested her body rather than matured her and she would still have been recognised by her school first-eleven hockey team.

Edward looked down at the top of her curly head, rather the colour of his own. “Chestnut,” they call it. Conker-colour. Red. Our children are bound to have red hair. Red hair frightens the Chinese. Our children’ll have to go Home to England, if we settle here. If we have any children. .

She said, “ Edward ? Please?”

At last then he embraced her.

“We must get back,” he said and on the ferry again across the harbour they sat close together, but not touching, on a slatted seat. Nearby sat a pasty young Englishman who was being stroked and sighed over by a Chinese girl with a yearning face. She was plump and pale, gazing up at him, whispering to him, kissing him all the time below the ear. He flicked at the ear now and then as if there were a fly about, but he was smiling. The ferry chugged and splashed. The Englishman looked proud and content. “She’s a great cook, too,” he called in their direction. “She can do a great mashed potato. It’s not all that rice.”

At Kowloon-side Edward and Elisabeth walked a foot or so apart to his hotel, climbed the marble steps and passed through the flashing glass doors. Inside among the marble columns and the lilies and the fountains Edward lifted a finger towards the reception desk and his room key was brought to him.

“There’s a party now.”

“When? Whose?”

“Now. Here. It’s tomorrow’s Judge. It’s going to be a long Case and he’s a benevolent old stick. He likes to kick off with a party. Both sides invited. Leaders, juniors, wives, girlfriends, fiancées. And courtesans for flavour.”

“Must we go?”

“Yes. I don’t much want to, but you don’t refuse.”

When he looked down at her she saw how happy he was.

“Have I time to change?”

“No. It will have begun. We’ll just show our faces. Your clothes are fine. I have something for you to wear, as it happens. I’ll go up and change my jacket and I’ll bring it down.”