Mr Ma and Son (31 page)

‘No, I’m not drunk. You must be, though!’ She swayed across to him. ‘Fancy you having the cheek to kiss me! You!’

‘Mary!’ He took her hand.

She let him hold it, bent her head and laughed like mad. She laughed and laughed, and then her voice changed, and she began to cry.

All this while, Napoleon had been looking at them, wondering what the dickens was going on. Suddenly he pricked up his little ears, and gave two barks. And Mr Ma opened the door and came in.

At the sight of their expressions, Mr Ma was flabbergasted, and lost himself in thought for a long moment, the outcome of which was that he lost his temper.

‘Ma Wei! What on earth is going on!’ asked Mr Ma in a tone of righteous indignation.

Ma Wei didn’t reply.

Mary said nothing, just let Ma Wei help her downstairs.

Ma Wei felt a terrible ache of distress, as if he’d been stabbed, and was filled with remorse that he’d ever drunk wine with Mary. It pained him to think of the way she’d treated him, and his heart filled with bitterness as he realised she had no understanding of his love. Yet he recalled the fragrant hue of the few minutes past, those tender lips, and felt . . . terrible. Not bothering about his father, he went straight upstairs.

Mr Ma was in quite a state. Ever since Mrs Wedderburn had turned him down, he’d been boiling with wrath inside, but up till now he’d had nowhere to spill it. Now that this opportunity had presented itself, he was determined to pick a fight with Ma Wei.

He drank all the wine that they’d left, and, his rage thus fortified, went upstairs to see his son.

Ma Wei was quite safe, though, having locked his door. Mr Ma knocked, to no avail, and stamped his feet in vain, unable to get in.

‘I shall see you tomorrow morning, Ma Wei. We must have a talk tomorrow! You have no business getting young ladies drunk, nor holding hands with them! Have you no shame? I shall see you tomorrow!’

Ma Wei uttered not a peep.

M
R MA
had a good and peaceful night’s sleep, and slept all his anger away. The next morning, his stomach felt very empty, and all he could think of was breakfast, so he forgot all about his reckoning with Ma Wei.

After breakfast, he adjourned to the study to smoke his pipe, and it never occurred to him that Ma Wei would actually seek him out. But in came his son, frowning, his face set, with not the slightest sign of meekness in his eyes.

Mr Ma summoned back his anger of the previous evening.
I’d forgotten about it,
he told himself,
but he’s got the nerve actually to come and see me! Right then, we’ll have it out, you cocky young fellow!

Looking at his father, Ma Wei could see nothing that failed to evoke his loathing, and Mr Ma, for his part, had decided that his son merited a minimum of three hundred strokes with the military rod. Neither had ever hated anyone so much before, but today it were as if some gust of evil cosmic energy, blown in from beyond the skies, was making them more and more furious as they looked at one another.

‘Right, Dad,’ said Ma Wei, speaking first, ‘shall we talk things over then?’

‘Very well!’ Sucking on his pipe, Mr Ma squeezed out the words between his teeth.

‘We’ll discuss the business first, shall we?’ asked Ma Wei.

‘No, let’s discuss the young ladies first, shall we?’ Mr Ma gave his son a very acerbic look.

Ma Wei’s face went pale, and he smiled sardonically. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘young ladies and not so young ladies . . . As far as women are concerned, Dad, neither of us have a leg to stand on.’

Mr Ma gave a couple of coughs, and said nothing. His face slowly reddened.

‘Shall we discuss the business, then?’ asked Ma Wei.

‘Business – it’s always business! Anyone would think that I had a head made for nothing but business!’ said Mr Ma impatiently.

‘Why shouldn’t we mention business?’ asked Ma Wei, glaring at his father. ‘The shop’s our livelihood, our bread and butter. We’ve got to thrash it out properly today – once and for all!’

‘You, you young puppy! You dare to glare at me! You dare to tell me to my face what I should do! It’s my shop – you needn’t concern yourself. No need for you to trouble yourself about it!’ Mr Ma was really worked up. He’d never allowed himself to fly off the handle at Ma Wei before.

‘So, I’m not to trouble myself with it. Fine, then. We’ll see who
does
trouble himself about it, then! And anyone who does is a bl—’

Not wanting to swear, Ma Wei pushed open the door and marched out.

Once outside the house, Ma Wei wondered where he should go. If he didn’t go to the shop, he’d be wasting a day’s trade. And to go to the shop would irritate him no end, after his father’s words.

Suppressing his anger, he decided he’d have to go to the shop after all. All said and done, his father was still his father, and, anyhow, the business wasn’t just his father’s. If the shop collapsed, they’d both be doomed. Nothing else for it. Why did he have to have such a father?

London was a huge place, but Ma Wei felt very alone. There were seven million people in the city, but who among them was even aware of his existence? Who had any sympathy for him? His own father didn’t understand him, had even cursed him. Mary rejected him, and he hadn’t got any real friends who understood and appreciated his way of thinking. He felt terribly miserable and lonely, even though London was such a bustling, busy place. He had nowhere to go, even though there were four hundred cinemas in London, sixty-odd theatres, so many museums and art galleries, tens of thousands of shops and countless houses. He had nowhere to go. Everything looked so bleak and desolate. Everything he heard made him feel weepy. He’d lost the greatest treasure of humankind: love.

As he sat in the shop, listening to the noise of traffic in the streets and the sounds of the bells of St Paul’s, he knew that he was still in the thriving, prosperous city of London, yet he felt as wretched as a solitary wanderer in the Gobi Desert, or a marooned sailor on a desert island, with only a flock of wild birds for company.

He tried to shake himself, to suppress his melancholy.
Go off, go dancing, go to the theatre, go and watch a game of football, go and see a film. Argh, I can’t leave this shop! No one to give me a hand, and nobody could care less about me than my father! Make a complete break with him? Don’t want that, though. Ignore him, but don’t go dancing or out on the town either. Instead, just get down to your study and work, and try to reap some knowledge and experience from the misery of it all. Easier said than done. Emotions often get the better of intellect. When you’re so worked up, you can’t get stuck into your reading.

If only Mary loved me,
thought Ma Wei.
If I could just kiss her once a day, hold her hand every day, be with her and chat with her, nothing else would bother me. I’d get stuck into my work and studying, and share all my happiness with her. Perhaps my dad’s thinking the same sort of thing, longing for Mrs Wedderburn. Well, sod him! Poor old Mary. She’s longing for Washington just like I long for her. The things people do for love. There’s never any system, never any certainty. The world’s just one big net, trapping us all. Everybody wants to break out, trying to slip through it, but we all end up dying in the net. There’s no way out. Human beings are feeble creatures, and our aspirations are useless!

No, aspirations are mighty things, made of iron and steel. Anybody can be a hero if only he hacks through hardship and the silk strands of emotion with the steel blade of willpower.
Ma Wei bunched his fist, and gave his chest a couple of thumps.
Get moving. Take action! Forward march! What’s loneliness? A figment of your emotions! What’s weakness? The lack of clear goals.

An old woman came in and asked Ma Wei whether he sold China tea. He forced a smile, and saw her out.

There’s business for you! Can’t blame my father for hating business. Do you sell tea? Bloody hell, no, we don’t!

Li Tzu-jung’s the only happy person I know,
thought Ma Wei.
He looks at things as they are, just the tiny bits in front of his nose, and ignores everything else, and as a result he hasn’t got a care or worry. He’s like a lion that exerts itself as much to catch a deer as to catch a rabbit, and is equally pleased with either. As longs as it catches something, whether it’s big or small doesn’t matter.

Li Tzu-jung’s a giant character because he’s able to create a world of his own. In that world there’s only work, no ideals; only men and women, no love; only material things, no illusions; colours but no fine arts. He’s happy, though, and anybody who can manage to be happy is a hero.

Ma Wei didn’t see eye to eye with Li Tzu-jung, but he greatly admired and respected him. He wished he could be like him, but it was no good, he could never do it.

‘Hello, Ma Wei!’ shouted Alexander outside the window, his voice making the glass tremble. ‘Where’s you father?’

He opened the door, almost pushing it off its hinges, and came in. His nose was exceptionally red, and the smell of beer on his breath was like that from an open keg. He wore a new reddish-grey overcoat, and, as he stood there, he looked the image of a small mountain at sunset.

‘My father’s not here yet. Why?’ Ma Wei shook Alexander’s big hand. Alexander’s thumb was every bit as big as Ma Wei’s wrist.

‘All right, then I’ll give this to you, eh.’ Alexander pulled out ten one-pound notes, and, as he handed them to Ma Wei, said, ‘He told me to put some money on a couple of horses for him. One horse won, and the other lost. This is the balance of what I’ve still got to give him.’

‘Does my father often bet?’ asked Ma Wei.

‘Need you ask? You Chinamen all love a flutter, what!’ said Alexander. ‘I say, Ma Wei, is your father really getting married to Mrs Wedderburn? That day when he’d had a few, he told me he was going to go and buy the ring. Is it true?’

‘No, couldn’t possibly be. How could an English woman marry a Chinaman, what?’ said Ma Wei, smiling sarcastically, with a bitter tone in his voice.

Alexander glanced at Ma Wei, and creased his big lips in a smile. ‘Better for both of ’em if they don’t get married. Better for both of ’em,’ he said. ‘Might I ask if your father told you whether he’d be going to the film studios today?’

‘No. What would he be doing there?’ asked Ma Wei.

‘There you are, you see! The Chinese are always so secretive. Your father’s agreed to help me make a film. Should be going there today. He mustn’t forget.’

Ma Wei felt he hated his father more than ever.

‘Is he at home?’ asked Alexander.

‘I don’t know.’ Ma Wei’s reply was curt.

‘See you soon, Ma Wei.’ So saying, Alexander rolled his mountainous self out the door.

‘Gambling, drinking, buying wedding rings and making films, and he didn’t tell me a thing about any of it,’ Ma Wei muttered to himself. ‘All right, then! You needn’t tell me. We’ll see what we’ll see when the time comes.’

A
PRIL’S FINE
rain, suddenly coming and going, washed the air clean and fresh. The tender leaves of the trees were still very small, but everywhere there was a hint of green. The shy spring sun ventured a few soft rays from the thin clouds, and the shadows of people and trees on the ground were very pale. The almond blossoms were the first to come out, pale pink and swaying in the breeze like bright-eyed little village girls dressed with simple charm.

The football and so forth had now come to an end, and people were beginning to discuss the spring season’s horseracing. Sport is the most vital part of the English education, and is also an indispensable feature of English life in general. The Englishman derives from sport a great deal of discipline, obedience, patience, orderliness and team spirit.

Ma Wei had given up sport, and neither went rowing nor for any brisk walks. Day in day out, he sat at home or in the shop, brooding and feeling miserable. He saw nothing of Miss Ely, nor did Mary take much notice of him either. He was always carrying a book but couldn’t keep at his studies, and the very sight of the gold lettering on the book cover would make him bitterly reproach himself. Li Tzu-jung didn’t come often to the shop, either. And when he did, they struggled to make conversation.

Mr Ma was planning to sell the antique business and give the money to Manager Fan of the Top Graduate restaurant, to help him expand his restaurant’s trade. In that way, Mr Ma would become a kind of shareholder and wouldn’t need to bother about anything, just wait for his portion of the dividends. Ma Wei disagreed with the plan, and there were a good number of rows between father and son on that score.

Besides such actual troubles, Ma Wei also felt spiritually depressed. As springtime flourished, he grew ever more mentally and physically out of sorts, inexpressibly miserable. Such unhappiness is a heritage from primitive man, and at certain seasons it shoots forth its leaves and buds, just as the flowers do.

His overcoat felt too heavy now, so he wore a raincoat to the shop. When he reached St Paul’s, he stood dumbly, gazing at the golden pinnacle of the bell tower. He loved looking at it.

‘Ma, old mate!’ Li Tzu-jung grabbed hold of him from behind. Ma Wei turned his head and looked round. Li Tzu-jung had a very flustered air, and his face was paler than usual.

‘Ma, old mate,’ Li Tzu-jung said again, ‘don’t go to the shop!’

‘Why? What’s up?’ asked Ma Wei.

‘You go home. Give me the keys to the shop.’ Li Tzu-jung was speaking quickly and urgently.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Ma Wei.

‘The workmen from the East End are going to smash your shop up. You hurry back home. I know how to handle them.’ Li Ma Wei.

‘Fine!’ Ma Wei suddenly perked up. ‘I feel like a fight. Smash up the shop, eh? They’ll have to take me on first!’

‘No, old Ma – you go back home. Leave it all to me. I’m a good friend, aren’t I? And you trust me, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do. Like an elder brother. But I can’t let you go there on your own. What if they attack you?’

‘They won’t. But if you’re hanging around, it’ll be all the more difficult to deal with them. You go – you go. Off you go, Ma Wei.’ Li Tzu-jung was still holding out his hand for the keys.

Ma Wei shook his head. ‘No,’ he said between clenched teeth, ‘I can’t go, old Li. Couldn’t think of letting you get hurt. It’s our shop. I’ve got to take the responsibility. I’ll give them a fight. Fed up with life, I am, and in the mood for a good old scrap . . .’

‘Are you trying to send me spare, Ma Wei?’ said Li Tzu-jung, spluttering frantically.

‘Would you mind telling me just why they want to smash up our shop?’ asked Ma Wei with a bitter smile.

‘No time to explain. They’ve already started out from the East End,’ said Li Tzu-jung, rubbing his hands together fretfully.

‘I’m not scared. Come on, tell me,’ said Ma Wei adamantly.

‘No time. You clear off!’

‘Right, if you won’t tell me, then
you
clear off, old Li! And I’ll have a go at them on my own.’

‘I can’t do that, old Ma! How could I leave you in the lurch like this? What sort of a creature do you take me for?’ Li Tzu-jung spoke so earnestly that Ma Wei relented. In the space of this one exchange, Ma Wei realised that Li Tzu-jung wasn’t just some ordinary fellow with a knack for business and earning money, but that he was a real, gutsy hero into the bargain. He felt as if he’d glimpsed Li Tzu-jung’s very heart, which was as warm and honest as his words.

‘Hey, old Li, how about we both go?’

‘Well, you’ll have to promise me one thing: whatever happens, you mustn’t let them see you. Only move into action if you hear me call you to come out and fight. Otherwise, you’re not to take a step outside the back room. Agree to those conditions?’

‘All right. I’ll take my orders from you. I don’t know what to say, old Li. Just for our sake, you’re —’

‘Get a move on – cut the sentimental stuff. No time for that!’ Li Tzu-jung dragged Ma Wei into the little street where the shop was. ‘Open the door, and take down the shutters! Quick!’

‘What? And get everything nice and ready for them to come and smash up the lot?’ asked Ma Wei, with a look of indignation on his face.

‘Forget the questions. You just do whatever I tell you. Switch the light on, but leave the back room light off. Right – you get in there, and you’re not to come out unless you hear me call you. Sit by the telephone, and if you hear me clap my hands once, phone the police and tell them there’s a robbery taking place here. No need to ring a number: just ask for the police station. Got that?’

Reeling all his instructions off in one breath, Li Tzu-jung frantically stowed a few of the more valuable things from the shop in the safe. Then he seated himself next to the display shelves without a sound, like some great general guarding a city.

Ma Wei sat in the back room, his heart thumping. Not that he was afraid of a fight, but he just didn’t like waiting for it. He stealthily rose to his feet, and took a look at Li Tzu-jung. That made him feel calmer. Li Tzu-jung was sitting there absolutely motionless, as steady and sure as some old Buddhist monk in meditation.
With a friend like that,
thought Ma Wei,
there’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?

‘Sit down, old Ma!’ Li Tzu-jung issued a command. Ma Wei went back and sat down quite mechanically.

Four or five minutes later, a Chinese man with a flat cap appeared outside the window, peering in a sinister way into the shop. Li Tzu-jung stood up, and pretended to be tidying the goods on the shelves. Shortly afterwards, a good few flat-capped Chinese men came crowding up to the window, speaking and gesticulating wildly. Li Tzu-jung couldn’t make out clearly what they were saying. All he could hear were the long drawn-out ends of their Cantonese sentences: ‘. . . ouuuu!’, ‘. . . louuuu!’, ‘. . . ouuuu!’

Crash!
A chunk of brick knocked a big hole in the windowpane. Li Tzu-jung clapped his hands, and Ma Wei picked up the telephone.
Crash!
Another brick hurtled through.

Li Tzu-jung cast a glance back at Ma Wei, then slowly walked towards the door.

Crash!
Two bricks came flying in together, bringing with them a host of glass splinters that made them look like two comets. One fell right at Li Tzu-jung’s feet, and the other hurtled to the display shelves and smashed a vase.

Li Tzu-jung got to the door. The men outside were now trying to enter. As they attempted to barge their way in, Li Tzu-jung pushed back against the doorknob with great force. Then all of a sudden, he let go, and three or four of them came tumbling inside and landed in a heap.

With one leap, Li Tzu-jung jumped on top of the uppermost man, straddling him, and treading with one foot on the neck of the man underneath.

‘
Ow!
’ ‘
Argh!’
‘. . . 
louu!
’ The men beneath him were shouting, making the weirdest noises. Sitting on them, he was pushing down as hard as he could while they were heaving upwards for all they were worth. He knew that he couldn’t keep it up for much longer. He shouted to the men still outside the door.

‘Chow, Hong, Lee Sam-hing! Pan Kow-lei! This is my shop! It’s my shop! What are you up to?’ He was shouting in Cantonese. He knew the men from his work as an interpreter. All the East End Chinese knew him too.

Hearing Li Tzu-jung call them by name, the men outside didn’t push their way in, but instead just looked at one another, as if they didn’t know what to do. Seeing that he’d shocked them into inaction, Li Tzu-jung jumped backwards off the pile of men, tumbling to the floor. As he scrambled to his feet, they did too, and Li Tzu-jung planted himself squarely in front of them, barring their way.

‘Run! Run!’ Li Tzu-jung yelled at them, waving his hands. ‘The police’ll be here any minute! Run!’

The men turned and shot a look towards the end of the street, where already a bunch of onlookers was gawping. But it was still early morning, and there weren’t many people about. The Chinese men looked at each other once more, hesitant and wavering, and Li Tzu-jung let them have another. ‘Run!’

One of them ran off, and the others, without a word, took to their heels too.

Just then, the police arrived at the end of the street, caught a couple of them and carted them off. But all the rest had managed to escape.

The lunchtime issues of the evening papers all bore the big headlines:

Photographs of the Mas’ antiques shop, and of Ma Wei, appeared on the front page of the newspapers, and the
Evening Star
even printed under Ma Wei’s photo the words ‘Hero whose fighting fists routed the gangsters’. Crowd upon crowd of newspaper reporters turned up with their cameras to interrogate Ma Wei, and some of them even found their way to Gordon Street to interview Mr Ma. Their published reports of his words were ‘Me no say. Me no speak’, although Mr Ma had used no such language. When the newspapers report the English spoken by Chinese, they always use that kind of rubbishy nonsense style, otherwise readers wouldn’t believe the articles. The English have no gift for languages, so they can never imagine that a foreigner might be able to speak good English.

The affair shook the whole city. Two extra squads of police were drafted to the East End to keep an eye on the movements of the Chinese. That same evening, a Member of Parliament questioned the home secretary as to why he didn’t expel all the Chinese from the country.

From noon till the shop closed, there was a cluster of people outside the Mas’ antiques shop, and within three hours Ma Wei sold more than fifty pounds’ worth of goods.

Mr Ma was so frightened that he didn’t dare set foot outside the house all day, and he waited eagerly for Ma Wei’s return so that he could see whether in fact his son had been hurt in the fighting. At the same time he resolved to shut up shop, lest sooner or later his own head be knocked off by a flying brick.

There were two men standing outside the front door of Gordon Street all day. According to Mrs Wedderburn, they were plainclothes detectives. Mr Ma grew more nervous and even stopped smoking, for fear the detectives might glimpse the sparks from the bowl of his pipe.