Shanghai Sparrow (38 page)

A few moments later he was gone.

Eveline caught Beth looking at her.

“What?”

“You looked, the two of you...”

“We looked what?”

“You looked like two of a kind,” Beth said. “You’re enjoying this, both of you.”

“No! What, with my mama in danger and you...”

“I don’t mean that part. But the thought of fooling Holmforth... and whoever else... you had exactly the same expression.”

“He’s a bloody...”

“Folk? Evvie... he can’t help that. I think he’s all right.”

“He’s all we’ve got, that’s the thing. I still don’t know if he’s to be trusted.”

“I know. But Eveline...” In the darkness, Eveline felt Beth clasp her hand. A small hand, callused with work, warm. “I
am
.”

Airborne

T
HE
G
LORIANA,
HUGE,
magnificent, loomed in the vast cave of the hangar. Figures crawled about it like tiny monkeys. A great train of baggage trundled towards it, the carts pulled by porters uniformed in blue and gold.

Eveline had never seen it on the ground before, only in the air. It seemed much bigger, this close; a great silvery whale of a thing, the fragile gilded gondola of the passenger section dwarfed by the vast swell of the balloon.

“Our luggage is already on board,” Holmforth said. “Now, ladies, if you please?”

“Where is Mama?” Eveline hissed.

“I arranged for her to be escorted on board separately.” Holmforth ushered them forwards.

They walked up the gangplank. The bag loomed out above their heads. Eveline saw Beth looking at it all, wide-eyed as a child, and felt a trickle of envy. She might be in danger – although Eveline was fairly sure that Beth had no idea what Holmforth was really like – but she could still enjoy herself.

Of course, Beth didn’t have her mother imprisoned somewhere on board this contraption. And she actually
liked
the idea of flying.

And to think I once thought what a prize the
Gloriana
would be
, Eveline thought to herself. Her stomach had contracted to a small hard knot.

Inside, it was positively luxurious, in a strange, airy way. The fittings were very fine, but all of light pale wood and metal, looking – to Eveline’s eye – as though they would snap if you breathed on them. They passed by a bar and a smoking room, all done out in that same strange, airy style. “Oh, it’s all for the weight, isn’t it?” Beth said.

Holmforth only said, “Come along, don’t dawdle.”

Everywhere were fine clothes and posh voices. Eveline saw two Chinese men, in navy topcoats and stovepipe hats, both middle-aged, standing alone in a small pool of silence, as the crowd flowed and jabbered around them.

Holmforth hastened the girls through the chattering throng and installed them in a cabin with two small beds, a built-in dresser with a basin of hot water steaming on the stand and a small window. “I am going to take the precaution of locking you in,” he said. “Just in case you should be feeling adventurous.”

Beth’s face fell. “Oh, I hoped I might see the engines. Or... well, anything.”

“Perhaps another time.” He walked to the window, peered out, and then turned, clasping his hands behind his back and looking at them solemnly. “You are involved in something very important. Far more important than you, or I, or any one individual. I can permit nothing to get in the way. Please understand, Miss Duchen, that I would not have involved your mother, except that I am not convinced you will fully appreciate the significance of what I will ask of you. Personal desires, personal feelings, should be as nothing, but...” He sighed. “Really this is not the sort of thing that should be on the shoulders of a woman, especially one so young, and without even the benefit of a proper upbringing. Had I any other choice... but you, Miss Duchen, you can be part of something so much greater than yourself. Endeavour to understand that. In the meantime, make yourselves comfortable. I am in the cabin next to you” – he tapped the wall – “should you need anything.”

He went out, locking the door. The girls looked at each other.

“He still hasn’t told you what he wants you to do, or what it’s for,” Beth said. “Has he?”

“I s’pose he’s afraid I might gab. He doesn’t know...” She glanced at the partition wall and lowered her voice. “He doesn’t know that I know everything, except what I actually bloody need to, like how to make it work.”

“Would you? If you could?”

“Oh,
I
don’t know.” Eveline scowled at the floor. “For all I know, this stupid machine don’t do anything anyway, and Holmforth’s madder’n a ripe cheese, not to mention Liu. Maybe someone’s been fooling the lot of ’em. Maybe it’s a magician like that Chung Ling Soo, I saw him once. Anyway we got to get there first. How high do these things go? No,” she said, as Beth drew breath to speak. “Don’t tell me. I hope my mama’s all right.”

“Are you feeling quite well?”

“No,” she said. “Oh, it moved!”

Beth ran to the window. “They’re taking us out!”

Eveline huddled on the bed, and buried her face in the fine linen sheets. “I don’t wanta know.”

There were thumps and bumps and shifts and shouts, the burbling hum of engines and a sudden, strange, lifting sensation, accompanied by cheers she could hear right through the walls. Eveline clutched the sheets tighter and squinched her eyes shut. Beth gasped. Eveline pulled the sheets over her head.

“Oh, do look!” Beth said. “Oh, it’s wonderful, Eveline, do look!”

Eveline uncovered half an eye. The cabin was lighter. Beth stood at the window, gripping her hands together, her face lit with delight. “I can see everything!”

“Like what?”

“Clouds! I never knew – gosh, London’s
really
dirty. It looks as though there’s a filthy grey blanket over it. I can just about see the river. Don’t you want to see?”

“No.”

Beth pressed the side of her face against the glass. “Oh, I can’t see the engines at
all.
Maybe I’ll get a chance later... Oh, look! Eveline, we’re
in
a cloud! Did you ever think of such a thing?”

“No, and I never wanted to. Just tell me when we’ve landed safe.”

“That’ll be
hours
yet, and we’ll have to stop partway and refuel anyway. You’re not going to even look?”

“No.”

Having nothing to do, and nothing to look at but the walls, gave free rein to Eveline’s grinding anxiety. She clutched the sheets so hard her hands hurt, and the knot in her stomach only got smaller and tighter and harder.

When Holmforth arrived with a tray of food, she couldn’t even contemplate eating any of it, fancy though it looked. “And how are you finding your first flight?” he said.

“Wonderful!” Beth beamed at him, then glanced guiltily at Eveline.

“You don’t agree?” Holmforth said. Eveline gripped the table with both hands and hunched her shoulders. “This is an opportunity few will ever have. You should make the most of it. This is a British ship, one of the best in the world, you know.”

“I’m sure,” Eveline gritted out, wishing he would go away.

“Well, here is your lunch. I shall check on you again in an hour or so.” He went out, locking the door behind him.

“Do try a little,” Beth said. “It’s very good.”

“I can’t.”

“I’m sorry I sounded so... but I
am
excited, even if it is all...”

“Oh, I know, and I don’t care. I mean, I don’t mind.”

T
HEY STOPPED IN
Africa to refuel. Eveline was barely aware of the descent, the bustle, the brilliant light, the heat that seeped through the window, though Beth moaned with frustration. “Oh, I want to
see
. Africa! The colours... Oh, it’s so unfair, not to be able even to step outside. There might be lions!”

“Good reason not to step outside, then,” Eveline said absently.

“Evvie, do look!”

“Later.”

“We won’t be here later.”

“If I don’t get this right, we won’t be anywhere later.”

Eventually they set off again, into the darkling sky. Even Beth finally had to abandon her post at the window and sleep, though she left the curtain open so that she could look at the stars. Eveline huddled in the bed, trying not to think about the thousands of feet between her and solid ground, gnawing and gnawing over what she was to do, worrying about Mama, incarcerated somewhere in this blasted unnatural beast of a thing.

Shanghai

W
HEN SHE WOKE
, Beth, already up and dressed, was at the window. “I was about to wake you. I think we’re coming in.”

“Is it Shanghai?” Eveline said.

“It must be. But I can’t see a great deal, the fog is almost as bad as London. Oh, there’s another airship! That must be the aerodrome!”

Holmforth came to fetch them, looking as quietly dapper as ever, the velvet collar of his grey overcoat turned up around his neck, his hat at a precise, gentlemanly angle. “You’re ready? Good. Come with me.”

“Where’s Mama?”

“She has gone ahead to the hotel,” he said, with a slight air of impatience, for all the world as though Madeleine Duchen was a normal traveller, instead of a hostage.

He had someone with him, Eveline thought. He must have, to deal with Mama. Unless he was simply paying people both in London and here – but surely that would risk drawing attention? He was immensely secretive, after all; he still hadn’t told
her
what he wanted. She must remember not to let slip that she knew anything.

Shanghai turned out to be cold, and grey, and thick with rain – much like London, in fact, except for the rickshaws, which were everywhere, and smell, which was slightly different from Limehouse.

Now and then she thought she caught a glimpse of Liu; of course, there were Chinese everywhere, though none of them turned out to be him.

You’d better do what you’re supposed to, Liu.
She’d ended up relying on him for a big chunk of the plan, and now she wished there’d been another way.

Holmforth raised his cane. Instantly they were surrounded by eager rickshaw drivers clamouring for their business, claiming how fast, how clean, with what astonishing speed they would reach their destination... Eveline realised she could follow the pidgin quite well, and even the few words of Chinese that she caught. That was Liu’s doing, too. Now she knew he was Folk (half-Folk, yes, all
right,
half, she’d allow him that much), she wondered if that had something to do with how quickly she’d learned a language that was, after all, far harder to pick up than French.

The rickshaw drivers were all terribly thin, and woefully underdressed for the weather in ragged cotton trousers and shirts worn to transparency. Only one of them had a thick quilted jacket for the cold, and even that was so dirty and faded its original colours could scarcely be guessed at. Apart from the cast of their features, there was little to choose between them and the factory workers at home.

Holmforth made his choice and settled the girls in, one hand firmly on Eveline’s arm. He didn’t seem nearly as troubled about Beth running off.

Their driver bent to the shafts, the knobs of his spine clearly visible through his rain-dampened shirt, his queue a poor straggly thing, nothing like the glossy thickness of Liu’s. Eveline wondered however he was supposed to pull the three of them, but somehow he managed, though his ragged breathing was audible even over the noise of the crowds.

“What’s that sound?” Beth said. A rising roar could be heard from somewhere beyond the vast buildings of the Bund.

“The racetrack. Racing is very popular here,” Holmforth said. “I have never understood the appeal, myself. But then, many of the European population have a great deal of both leisure and money at their disposal, which they choose to fritter away in such pursuits. Not a good example. But then, you will be unlikely to meet them.”

Eveline thought wistfully of the races she had attended at Alexandra Palace, and the excellent pickings they had offered. If only a sharp-eyed peeler was the worst she had to worry about now.

Yet, like Beth, she could not help staring at the hundreds of ships drawn up along the waterfront, the great cargo steamers and tiny fragile junks, the huge warehouses and businesses with their elaborate classical frontages. Hundreds of people, Chinese and European and a great multiplicity of others of all types and shades and costumes, more variety than she had seen even in London. Men in long, loose white robes over white trousers, in square-jacketed suits of silk, in frock-coats and brightly coloured robes. Round black hats, hats with tassels, hats with buttons, stovepipe hats and flat caps and turbans. There were women, too, though far fewer out on the streets among the men. Perhaps they were all hidden away. There were Chinese women with babies or baskets strapped to their backs who walked in the strangest way, swaying from side to side, as though on tiptoe, European women in nip-waisted dresses with tiered skirts and fantastical hats with flowers and birds and veils, holding fringed umbrellas painted with Chinese characters. Everywhere the snapping rhythms of pidgin and the slip-slide musicality of Chinese, but also the quick liquidity of French, and the clatter and twang of a dozen other languages she knew not at all. Even some of the English was strange to her ears, with drawn-out vowels and odd rhythms.