The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure (5 page)

The doorkeeper pushed open the great brass-studded wooden gates. Jin Lao turned to his charge and bowed. The doctor bowed back. ‘Thank you, Jin Lao, as always,' he said. ‘Your health? I trust that it is improving?'

‘Sadly I am still troubled by my head pains.' A long white hand extended from its sleeve and moved upwards languidly to rub the the shaven temple. ‘No doubt it is age.'

‘I am grieved to hear it,' said the doctor. ‘Perhaps these pills would be of help?'

‘You are very kind,' said Jin Lao, taking the small packet that the doctor had pulled out of his waistcoat pocket. Jin's hand, with the packet, withdrew into the sleeve.

The doctor smiled. This was a ritual. He doubted whether the evil old chamberlain had ever had a headache in his life, but he knew that packets of western medicines sold for high prices in the marketplace. Not that this medicine would be effective for any serious complaint: it was merely a mixture of sodium citrate with bicarbonate, which he was in the habit of prescribing to his children for their more imaginary ailments. ‘Take two in the morning and two in the evening until you are well,' he said cheerfully. ‘Goodbye, my dear Jin Lao.'

Lifting his hat he turned and took a jaunty step towards the stone stairway that wound down the hill to the town. He heard the gate clang behind him. At the top of the steps he paused to take in the view. Welcome gusts of breeze brushed his face. He was already beginning to sweat in the oppressive midsummer heat. Crickets clattered in the pine trees on either side of the path.

The grey roofs of Shishan lay huddled below him. From his eminence (the
yamen
was built on a small hill on the northern edge of the town) he could make out few of the individual streets, but the main landmarks were clearly visible on this sunny afternoon.

The walls were the city's defining feature. What had once been crenellated battlements had fallen into disrepair and in parts the masonry had been stripped away leaving an eroded earth mound with trees growing from the top and artisans' houses nestled into the side, but the four great towers at each corner had survived time's depredations, and the gatehouse on the southern wall was intact. Its battlements and barbicans, topped by a curved, stacked roof, conjured visions for the doctor of medieval armies and sieges. It was manned by a small garrison, who were responsible for closing the thick wooden gates at sunset and monitoring the flow of assorted humanity, pack mules and camels that streamed in and out of the city in the daylight hours. The doctor could just make out the two antique field guns mounted on the walls at either side of the gatehouse, Major Lin's pride and joy.

The scene was peaceful and picturesque, a watercolour like the plates in the big leather collection of travellers' tales he had seen as a boy in his grandfather's library. Swallows nested in the wooden eaves of the towers, cavorting and flashing in the bright sunlight. Beyond stretched the shimmering yellow Manchurian plain which continued unbroken for hundreds of miles, north to the forested borders of Russia and east to Korea. The doctor peered beyond the south-eastern tower but the railway encampment by the river was invisible today in the haze. He could make out, however, the blue line of the Black Hills to the southwest, and the pagoda of the lama monastery on a smaller outcrop closer to the town. Above him, thin bands of cirrus floated in a dome of blue sky.

The dominating landmark in the centre of the city, edging the market square, was the Confucius temple. From this distance, its orange, red and green tiles and the curving eaves looked imposing. It was less imposing at street level: on his last visit he had been struck by the peeling paint on the pillars, its air of ill-kept shabbiness, the nondescript assortment of gilt statues peering out of the smoky gloom, monks and townsmen wandering aimlessly among the burning braziers, men of all classes kneeling in haphazard prayer, or, more often, loitering, chatting and selling their wares. Moneylenders in the temple were apparently quite acceptable in the all-embracing eclecticism of casual Chinese worship—if worship it could be called. He thought fondly of the small, clean kirk he had left behind in Dumfries.

Surrounding the temple were the merchants' houses, two- or three-storeyed affairs, architecturally unremarkable like most Chinese houses but they had neat balconies decorated with flowerpots, stunted bonsai trees and birdcages, and the grey tiles on the roofs were trim and well kept. The lower storeys were shops, open to the street. Some of the fronts were beautifully decorated and carved in wooden or gilt filigree. Streets were named after a particular trade—there were cobblers' streets and pan-makers' streets, streets for clothiers and pharmacists and sellers of porcelain—the green celadon and the beautiful blue and white Jindezhen ware imported from the south. The doctor loved the ritual of shopping: the tinkle of beads as one passed through the door, the ushering to a little table and the elaborate pouring of tea, the unctuous presentation of one bolt of silk finer than the next, the bargaining, the flattery, the sighs, the groans, the beaming acceptance of a price fair to all sides. He loved to loiter in the bookshops and the curio stores. The richer merchants—the grain and salt traders: Delamere's friend, Lu Jincai, the alkali king; Tang Dexin, the tin monopolist, who owned the mines in the Black Hills; Jin Shangui, the entrepreneur—possessed luxurious courtyard villas in addition to their shops and warehouses. The doctor could see patches of the green garden south of the town near the wall where most of these mansions were situated. Sometimes a merchant would invite members of the foreign community to his home for a banquet, on the occasion of a wedding, or if a nephew had achieved high marks in the imperial examinations. The ancestral hall would be draped in red silk, and tables would be laid out among the flowers and ornamental rock gardens. Nellie would put on her severe, long-suffering face as she tackled sea cucumber or roast scorpion or bird's nest soup, little rice birds baked whole, the occasional bear's paw or camel hump, and all the other nameless delicacies sent to torment her. Airton smiled. Poor Nellie.

His mind returned to the conversation he had just had with the Mandarin. He had been reassuring, and Airton looked forward to telling Frank Delamere that there was little foundation to the rumours of brewing unrest. Delamere was a credulous fellow, he decided. For all their experience of the country, some of these old China hands could swallow the most transparent fictions. The truth was that Delamere kept bad company. He drank too much and spent his time carousing with the merchants in that awful house of ill-repute, the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure. It was a pity that the foreign community in Shishan was so small that there was not a decent club for a man to go to in an evening—but he would not cast stones. Delamere was a widower and no longer young. It was sad that a man of undoubted abilities and charm should end up alone in a backwater like Shishan. He thanked Providence that he himself was blessed with a wife and family. ‘There but for the grace of God,' he said to himself cheerfully and, with a quick step, set off down the path to the town.

As it happened, Frank Delamere was one of the first people he met when he reached the bottom of the hill. The doctor had succumbed to temptation and was enjoying a short rest by a small bridge over the moat by the Drum Tower. It had been a hot walk down in his heavy serge suit, and his body was streaming with sweat. He had taken off his frock coat and waistcoat, and was fanning himself with his pocket-handkerchief. It was a quiet, secluded spot and he was startled to be hailed while he was in this state of undress. It was typical of Delamere to catch him unawares, pricking his little vanities: Delamere always had an irritating knack of being able to say or do the wrong thing at any time. And as he looked up at the beaming, florid figure in blazer and white ducks lifting a straw hat, humorous brown eyes twinkling above a heavy moustache, he smelt a whiff of brandy and cigar. Delamere had had another heavy lunch, it appeared.

‘Wearing your Sunday best, Airton?' boomed Delamere. ‘Hardly the right weather for it. Been paying a social call on the Grand Panjandrum, have we? What had he to say?'

‘Delamere,' acknowledged the doctor. ‘What a surprise. I didn't expect to see you in this part of town.'

‘Old Lu wanted me to have a squint at his new warehouse round the back there. I say, Airton, I've got splendid news. What do you know? My daughter's coming!'

‘Daughter? Where?'

‘Here! Little Helen Frances. Haven't seen her since she was this high. Now she's a blooming girl of eighteen or so. Who'd have believed it? Coming all the way to China to see her old dad! Sorry, old man, do you want a hand with that coat?'

‘I can manage well enough, thank you,' said Airton primly. Then he took in what Delamere had just told him. ‘But, my dear fellow, this is marvellous news. I didn't know you had a daughter.'

‘Skeleton in the cupboard, eh? If she's grown up like her mother she'll be a beauty, though I say it myself. Haven't really seen much of her since her mother died of the cholera in Assam in eighty-two. Took her as a baby to her aunt in Sussex, you see. Better to grow up there than with an old reprobate like me. I never married again…' An unusual cloud of melancholy seemed to have descended over his features. ‘Never mind all that.' He brightened. ‘She's coming, Airton! My little girl's coming to Shishan! I got the letter the company forwarded to me this morning.'

Airton smiled at his companion's obvious happiness. ‘This is a cause for celebration,' he said. ‘Nellie will be thrilled to hear. Which way are you walking, Delamere? You must tell me more.'

The two men strolled side by side. The doctor knew a shortcut through an alley of mud-walled houses. The two of them had lived there for so long that both were used to the stink of open drains, and unconsciously adjusted their steps to avoid the offal, dung and unidentifiable pools of slime that made a stroll through the poorer quarters a navigational trial. In a few moments they were in the main street and their senses were stunned momentarily by the noise and confusion of daily life in Shishan. Mule trains, each animal loaded with huge bundles of cloth or sacks of grain, trotted down the centre of the muddy road whipped on by the muleteers, their brown padded tunics tied to their waists, though they wore their distinctive fur hats even in the summer heat. Coming the other way were wooden-wheeled peasant carts piled with vegetables, or geese with their legs tied together or pigs in pokes. The drivers of the vehicles yelled curses at each other. Coolies threaded their way through the confusion, buckets hanging from poles stretched across their backs, or straining under loads of furniture. One tottered under three heavy wooden chairs, a table and a lampstand roped in a pyramid above his bent frame. A merchant's wife, bundles of shopping on her knees, held a handkerchief to her nose to avoid the dust as she lurched in a sedan chair carried by two burly porters. Hawkers and vegetable-sellers screamed out their wares on mats by the side of the road. Ragged children were taunting a blind beggar. A barber quietly shaved the pate of a young scholar sitting on a stool, his pigtail coiled round his neck as he held a book close to his face. Like the foreign doctor and alkali merchant, absorbed in their conversation, he was oblivious of the noise and chaos around him.

Frank Delamere raised his voice above the din, explaining to the doctor that his daughter's visit could not have been more conveniently timed. His sister, who had included a note with Helen Frances's gushing letter, had told him that since the girl left school she had been pressing her aunt to take her to see her father in China. His sister had been prepared to come, despite her arthritis and
mal de mer,
but she had been relieved when she had contacted his company headquarters in London to find out that an assistant was coming out from England to join him and, having met the young man, whom she described as a steady, mature boy and a county cricketer to boot, she felt quite confident that he would be a perfect chaperon for her niece on the journey. ‘So wasn't that fortunate?' said Delamere.

‘A young man as a chaperon?' asked the doctor, his eyebrows raised.

‘Oh, that's perfectly all right,' said Delamere. ‘Can't be a stick-in-the-mud these days. End of the old century and all that. Anyway, Rosemary's a good judge of character and I've heard fine things about young Cabot. It'll be his second tour in China. He was down in Nanchang before this and old Jarvis there spoke very highly of him. Said he was one of those young chaps with a head on his shoulders, middle-aged before he was young, if you know what I mean. Quite reliable. Not the sort for any hanky-panky business or letting the side down.'

He pulled the doctor by the arm to avoid a string of unladen camels being driven at full gallop by a laughing herdsman on a pony.

‘Damned maniacs,' he muttered. ‘Anyway,' he gave a boisterous laugh and slapped Airton on the back, ‘I'll see my little girl again!' he cried. ‘After six long years!'

‘Quite so,' said the doctor. ‘You never told me that you would be taking on an assistant.'

‘Did I not? Ah, well, age creeps up on you and it's time I started training a successor. Who knows? I might give all this up in a couple of years and get back to the old country before my liver packs up on me.'

‘The state of your liver is no joking matter,' smiled Airton. ‘Let me see your hands. Look at those mottled brown spots now.'

‘Come on, Doctor, no scolding. Today's a happy day. She'll be here very soon, you know. The letter was dated, what?, two and a half months ago, and the P and O was due to sail within a few days of that. She must be on the Indian Ocean or even nearing China by now. I wonder what she looks like. Her mother was a beauty. Did I ever tell you?'

‘Yes, just a moment ago.'

‘Yes, well, Clarissa was a tea-planter's daughter, you see. I was only a lowly manager on the estate. We married in 'eighty. Don't know what she ever saw in me … She was so … so handsome and wilful and full of spirit. When her father tried to horsewhip me, she shouted him down. I'll never forget her standing on the staircase, her cheeks flushed and tossing her hair. So imperious. Her dad couldn't resist her. No one could. I couldn't. She made her pa and me shake hands and be friends. A year later we were weeping together on her deathbed…' He sniffed loudly. ‘Excuse me, I haven't allowed myself to think about all that in a while. It wasn't a good time. Her father and mother came down with the cholera as well, and I was left in the empty great house with the babe, and the servants with their big white eyes in their darkie faces looking up at me asking what to do with the bodies. And I couldn't bear to look at the little girl, who was all that reminded me … Look out, old fellow, watch out for that cart! Do you mind if we don't talk about it? I get a little sentimental now and then. Doesn't mean anything … Why don't you tell me how you got on with the Mandarin?'