The Russian Concubine (10 page)

Countess.
Lydia became breathless at the thought. Her evening dress was of watered silk, the colour of deep burgundy, but it seemed oddly old-fashioned to Lydia with its full skirt and leg-of-mutton sleeves. Her aristocratic back was straight and she held her head high, pearls clustered at her throat, her pale blue eyes surveying Lydia with cool interest. Lydia had no idea what was expected of her, so she bobbed a small curtsy.

‘You have been well taught, child.
Devushki ochen redko takie vezhlevie
.’

Lydia stared at the floor, unwilling to admit she didn’t understand.

‘Oh, but Lydia doesn’t speak Russian,’ Anthea Mason said helpfully.

The countess raised one skilfully arched eyebrow. ‘No Russian? And why not?’

Lydia felt like digging a hole in the floor and climbing into it. ‘My mother brought me up to speak only English. And a little French,’ she added quickly.

‘That is disgraceful.’

‘Oh, Countess, don’t be so harsh on the girl.’

‘
Kakoi koshmar!
She should know her mother tongue.’

‘English
is
my mother tongue,’ Lydia insisted, though her cheeks were burning. ‘I’m proud to speak English.’

‘Good for you,’ said Anthea Mason. ‘Fly the flag, my dear.’

The countess reached out, tucked a finger under Lydia’s chin, and lifted it an inch. ‘
That
is how you would hold it,’ she said with an amused smile on her lips, ‘if you were at court.’ Her Russian accent was even stronger than Valentina’s, so that the words seemed to roll around inside her mouth, and she gave a little shrug of her shoulders but her cool gaze examined Lydia intently, so that Lydia felt she was being peeled, layer by layer. ‘Yes, you are a lovely child, but . . . ,’ Countess Serova dropped her hand and moved back, ‘far too thin to wear a dress like that. Enjoy your evening.’ She seemed to glide away across the hall with her companion.

‘I heard today that Helen Wills has won Wimbledon,’ Anthea was saying. ‘Isn’t it thrilling?’ She gave an apologetic little wave in Lydia’s direction.

For a full minute Lydia didn’t move. The hall was filling up as the evening grew busier but there was still no sign of her mother. A sharp pain had lodged just behind her breastbone and misery had soiled the new dress like a grubby stain. She was now acutely aware that she was all bones sticking out, her breasts too small and her hair the wrong colour. Too spiky in her mind, as well as her body. She was masquerading in the dress, just as she was masquerading at being English. Oh yes, she spoke it with a perfect English accent, but who did that fool?

At the end of a minute she raised her chin an inch, then went in search of her mother because the recital was due to start at eight-thirty.

The two figures stood close to each other. Too close, it seemed to Lydia. One, small and slender in a blue dress, had her back against the wall of a passageway, the other, broader and needier, was leaning over her, his face almost touching hers, as if he would eat her up.

Lydia froze. She was halfway down a well-lit corridor inside the club, but off to the right ran the narrow passageway that looked as though it led to somewhere like the servants’ quarters or the laundry. Somewhere hidden away. It was dim and over-warm, the large potted palm at its entrance throwing long shadowy fingers snaking along the tiled floor. She knew her mother instantly. But the man leaning over her took longer to place. With a shock she realised it was Mr Mason, Polly’s father. His hands were all over her mother, all over the blue silk. On her thighs, her hips, her throat, her breasts. As if he owned them. And she did nothing to push him away.

Lydia felt a swirl of sickness in her stomach. She longed to turn, to break the pull of it, but couldn’t, so she stood there, watching, unable to drag her eyes away. Her mother stood absolutely still, her back and her head and the palms of her hands pressed against the wall behind her, as if she would climb right through it. When Mason’s mouth seized Valentina’s, she let it happen but the way a doll lets its face be washed. Taking no part, eyes open and glazed. With both his hands clutching her body against his, Mason slid his mouth down her neck to the warm cleft between her breasts, and Lydia heard his groan of pleasure.

A small gasp escaped Lydia’s mouth, she couldn’t help it. Even though it was low and stifled, it was enough to make her mother twist her head. Her huge dark eyes widened when they fixed on her daughter’s and her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Lydia’s legs at last responded and she stepped back out of sight, into the corridor where she raced back around one corner and then another. Somewhere behind her she heard her mother’s voice. ‘Lydia, Lydia.’

That was when she saw someone she knew, a man she was sure she’d met somewhere before. He was heading for the main exit but his face was turned in Lydia’s direction. It was the man whose watch she’d stolen yesterday in the marketplace. Without thinking, she burst through the first door on the left and shut it behind her. The room was small and silent, a cloakroom, full of rows of coats and stoles, capes and Burberrys, as well as racks of top hats and walking canes. Off to one side was a small archway into a separate area where an attendant waited at a counter to receive or retrieve the guests’ outer garb. The attendant was not in sight at the moment but Lydia could hear him talking to someone in Mandarin.

She was trembling, her knees shaking beneath her, her teeth rattling in her head. She took a deep breath, made herself walk over to a glorious red fox wrap that hung nearby. Gently she rested her cheek against it and tried to calm her heaving stomach with the rich warmth of gleaming fur. But it didn’t work. She slid to the floor and wrapped her arms around her shins, rested her forehead on her knees, and tried to make sense of the evening.

Everything had gone wrong. Everything. Somehow everything had changed inside her head. All back to front. Her mother. Her school. Her plans. The way she looked. Even the way she spoke. Nothing was the same. And Mason with her mother. What was that about? What was going on?

She felt tears burn her cheeks and dashed them away furiously. She never cried. Never. Tears were for people like Polly, people who could afford them. With a shake of her head, she rubbed a hand across her mouth, jumped to her feet, and forced herself to think straight. If everything was wrong, then it was up to her to put it right. But how?

With hands still shivering, she brushed the creases from her dress and, more out of habit than intention, started to hunt through the pockets of the coats in the cloakroom. A pair of men’s leather gloves and a Dunhill lighter quickly came to hand but she put them back, even though it hurt to do so. She had nowhere to keep them, no evening bag or pocket, but a lady’s lace handkerchief she tucked into her underclothes; it would sell easily in the market. Next, a heavy black raincoat, still wet from the rain, a bulge in the inner pocket. Her fingers scooped out the contents. A soft pouch of deerskin.

Quickly, before someone comes. Loosen its neck, tip it upside down. Into her hand tumbled a glittering ruby necklace, lying like a pool of fiery blood in the centre of her palm.

8

Chang watched.

They came like a wave. Up from the heart of the settlement. A dark tidal wave of police that suffocated the street. With guns snug on their hips and badges proud on their peaked caps, as threatening as a cobra’s splayed hood. They leaped from cars and trucks, headlights carving the night into neat yellow slices, and they circled the club. A man in black and white finery, with medals bristling on his chest and a single glass lens over his right eye, strode down the steps toward them. He threw orders and gestures around, the way a mandarin scattered gold coins at his daughter’s wedding.

Chang watched, his breath cool and unhurried. But his thoughts probed the darkness, feeling for danger. He slid away. From the shadow of the tree and into the blackness while around him others scampered out of sight. The beggars, the vendor of sunflower seeds and the hot-tea seller, the boy, thin as a twig, performing backflips for pennies, all melted away at the first stink of police boots. The night air turned foul in Chang’s lungs and he could almost hear the cloud of angry nightspirits flitting and flickering past his head as they fled from yet one more barbarian invasion.

The rain still fell, heavier now, as if it would wash them away. It polished the streets and bowed the heads of the blue-uniformed devils, streaked their capes as they stationed themselves along the perimeter wall of the Ulysses Club. Chang watched as the man with the glass at his eye was swallowed up inside the building’s hungry mouth and the heavy doors closed behind him. An officer holding a rifle was placed in front of them. The world was shut out. The occupants shut in.

Chang knew she was in there, the fox girl, walking through its rooms the way she walked through his dreams while he slept. Even by day she appeared in his head, making herself at home there and laughing when he tried to push her out. He closed his eyes and could see her face, her sharp teeth and her flaming hair, her eyes the colour of molten amber, and the way they seemed to gleam from within when she’d looked at him, so bright and curious.

What if she didn’t want to be shut in the white devil’s building? Caged. Trapped. He had to loosen the snare.

He eased away from the wet bricks behind him and set off through the darkness at a low run, as silent and unseen as a cat snaking toward a rat hole.

He crouched. Invisible under a broad-leafed bush, while his eyes adjusted to the blackness at the back of the building. A high stone wall girded its grounds but no streetlights reached out to disturb the habits of the night. His quick ears caught the sharp screech of a creature in pain, in the talons of an owl or the jaws of a weasel, but the rattling of the rain on the leaves drowned out most other sounds. So he crouched and waited patiently.

He did not need to wait long. The round yellow beam of a flashlight announced the patrol of two police officers, with heads bent and shoulders hunched against the heavy rain as if it were an enemy. They hurried past, scarcely a glance around, though the beam danced from bush to bush like a giant firefly. Chang tipped his head back, lifting his face to the downpour, the way he used to do in the waterfall as a child. Water was a state of mind. If you think it your friend when you swim in the river or wash away the dirt, why call it your enemy when it comes from the heavens? From the cup of the gods themselves. Tonight it was their gift to him, to keep him safe from barbarian eyes, and his lips murmured a prayer of thanks to Kuan Yung, the goddess of mercy.

He stepped forward onto the road, inhaled deeply, drawing together the elements of fire and water, and launched himself at the wall. A leap, fingers finding an uneven stone for half a second, then a twist in the air and legs flying high up above his head to the top of the wall. A silent drop to the ground on the other side. All one smooth flowing movement that attracted no eyes. Just a toad voiced its surprise at his feet.

But before he had taken even one step, a single streak of lightning split the sky in two and lit up the club’s grounds for just long enough to rob Chang of his night vision. His throat tightened and his mouth went dry. An omen. But for good? Or evil? He didn’t know. For a moment his mind chased in wild circles. He knelt in the deeper blackness that followed, his body as slick as an otter’s in the rain, and feared that the omen was sent to tell him he was acting blindly. That the gods wanted to warn him that the
fanqui
girl would cost him too high a price. The smell of the drenched earth rose to his nostrils and he reached out, seized a handful of it, and raised it to his face. China’s earth, the yellow loess, rich and fertile, stolen by the barbarians. It felt cold when he crumbled the wet soil in his fingers, as cold as if it had died. Death marched with the foreigners wherever they went.

He knew he should leave.

But he shook his head impatiently and flicked out his tongue to lick the raindrops from his lips. Leave? It was not possible. His soul was tied to hers. He could no more turn and leave this place than a fish could leave its river. A hook was deep in him. He could feel it like a pain in his chest. To leave would be to die.

He moved swiftly and silently over the wet grass, becoming part of the trees, his shadow merging with theirs. Acres of neat lawns spread all around him, a small lake, flower gardens, and tennis courts on one side, a swimming pool big enough to drown an army on the other, all dimly illuminated by the lights from the building. To Chang it looked more like a fortress from the back, with two small round turrets, but then the foreigners had lost courage and softened its face with a long veranda and wide steps down to a crescent-moon terrace. A wisteria curved and writhed over the veranda roof, but the interior was hidden from view because long bamboo blinds had been lowered to keep out the storm. He could hear the blinds as they gusted and shook in the wind, billowing and rattling against the frame like the bones of the dead.

Uncertain which path to take, Chang swung away to the right. As he did so, something small and light fluttered into his face and clung to his cheek driven by the rain. His hand plucked it off and he was about to toss it away as an ill-fated moth, when he glanced at it more closely. A petal. A soft pink rose petal. Only then did he see that he was standing in the middle of a rose garden where the blooms were being slashed and torn by the wind and the rain. He stared at the single petal curled in the palm of his hand.
This
was a sign too. A sign of love. He knew now that he would find her, and anticipation surged hot in his veins. The gods were close tonight, whispering in his ear. He tucked the delicate offering of the petal inside the wet folds of his tunic, and his bare skin tingled at the touch of it. His pulse beat stronger.

He skimmed around the edge of the circle of light, keeping in the shadows, black on black, until he crossed a path to what was clearly the kitchens. The lights shone brightly from the windows and Chang could make out the cluttered surfaces and steaming pans, but no one was in there except a solitary black barbarian in police uniform standing near the door. Where were the workers with their noisy chatter and their cursing? Had the foreigners eaten them? What was going on tonight?

Soundlessly he slipped farther along the building and came to the window of a room that made his heart cry out with envy. It took him by surprise, this envy, and he tried in vain to tear it out. For he despised the Westerners and all they had brought to the East. Except for one thing: their books. He loved their books. And this room possessed a whole wall full of them, just lined up along each shelf for anyone to reach up and read. Not like the delicate scrolls of Chinese learning that were kept for the scholars only. These were sturdy and leather bound and full of knowledge.

Years earlier, Chang had been taught English. That was in the days before his father was beheaded behind the walls of the Forbidden City in Peking, the days he could no longer bear to let into his head because they turned his thoughts into stinging bees. His tutor had used Munrow’s
History of the Great British Empire
as reading matter for his pupil, and Chang had almost choked with shame when he discovered how small England was, a miserable piece of spit compared to the great ocean that was China.

The sound of angry words dragged his attention from the books to the two men in the room. One was Glass Eye, seated at a table, stiff and upright, his hand curled in a tight fist before him, his mouth throwing words like weapons. The other was white haired, standing tall and commanding in the centre of the room, his eyes fierce above a nose as hooked as a falcon’s beak. He did not flinch when Glass Eye crashed his fist down on the table and shouted so loud Chang could hear the words, ‘I will not stand for it. Under my very nose. As chief of police I insist that everyone be . . .’

The bark of a dog ripped through the night. Off to Chang’s left, somewhere unseen behind the cloak of rain. It lifted the hairs on his neck and he moved swiftly around the next corner where the windows were long and arched, giving him a view into a grand chamber that glittered and shimmered as brightly as the sun on the Peiho River. For a second he thought the room was full of birds, fluttering their fine feathers and trilling their sweet songs, but his eyes cleared and they were women in evening dress, chattering behind their fans. This is where she’d be, in this golden cage, and suddenly he had a feeling of moths inside his chest.

There were no men in the room. It was laid out with chairs in straight rows, all facing an object at one end that made Chang gasp with amazement because it looked like a monstrous giant turtle. It was all black and shiny on tall spindly legs and beside it sat a beautiful dark-haired woman occasionally touching its white teeth with one finger and sipping from a tall ice-filled glass. Her eyes looked bored and lonely.

He recognised her. He had seen her before, on the front steps of the club beside the fox girl. His breathing grew so shallow it hardly disturbed the air as his eyes sought a flash of copper hair among the crowd. Few of the women were seated; most were standing in groups or drifting around with a glass or a fan in hand, painted lips curved down in annoyance. Something was displeasing them. He moved closer until he was tucked tight against the stonework beside the window and suddenly he saw her. The world seemed to come at him and turn brighter.

She was standing apart against one of the marble pillars, almost hidden from view behind a fat woman with a clutch of ostrich feathers in her hair. By contrast the girl looked frail and pale except for the rich colour that glowed in her hair. Chang watched her. He saw her eyes flit uneasily to the door again and again and then grow dark with alarm when it opened abruptly and two women marched in. To Chang they looked like death bringers, all clothed in stiff white robes and strange white headdresses that reminded him of the nuns who had tried to make him eat their living god’s flesh and pour their god’s blood into his mouth when he was young. His stomach still spasmed at the memory of such barbarism. But these wore no boastful cross around their necks.

With polite smiles they escorted two of the younger women out of the room and it was only when the door closed behind them that some of the tension flowed out of the fox girl’s body and she started to prowl around the outer edge of her cage, her arms still stiff at her sides, one hand plucking at the soft material of her dress. He saw her drop a lace handkerchief on the floor as if by chance, but to Chang’s eyes her fingers knew exactly what they were doing, and he wondered why. The ways of foreigners were strange.

A tall woman in a gown the colour of ripe sloes spoke to her as she passed, but the girl returned no more than a nod of the head and a slight colouring of the cheeks. She was approaching the windows now and Chang’s chest tightened as he saw her come closer. Her cheekbones were finer than he remembered and her eyes more wide-set, but around her mouth the skin was blue, as when a child feels sick.

He leaned forward, reached out and touched the wet pane of glass that separated him from her, his fingers rattling a quiet drumbeat on its cold surface that could have been the rain. She stopped midstride, frowned, and looked out into the storm with her head cocked to one side like his father’s young hunting cur used to do. Before she could move away, he stepped into the circle of light thrown out from the window and gave her a respectful bow.

Her eyes and her mouth grew as round as the moon with surprise, and then came recognition and a smile. For a brief second he held out the open palm of his hand to her in a mute offer of help, and that was when something hard and cold slammed into the side of his head. Waves of blackness swept over him. The night splintered into sharp fragments of black glass, but his muscles tensed instantly for action.

With one sweep of his leg he could disable this attacker who breathed whisky fumes and curses in his face, or snap his worthless windpipe with a knife blade strike of his hand. But a sound stopped him.

A snarl. It spoke of death.

On the wet grass at his feet a wolf-dog was crouched, its body hunched ready to spring, its teeth bared in a low-throated growl that made Chang’s blood choke in his veins. The hound hungered to tear his heart out.

He did not want to kill the dog, but he would.

Slowly Chang turned his gaze from the animal to the man. He was wearing a blue-devil cape against the rain and was tall, with long gangling limbs and empty cheeks, the kind of tree it was easy to fell. In his hand was a gun. Chang could see his own blood glistening on it. The man’s thin lips were moving but the wind seemed to be roaring in Chang’s ears and he could barely hear the words.

‘Yellow piece of shit.’

‘Thieving Chink.’

‘Peeping Tom.’

‘Don’t you stare at our women, you bloody . . .’ And the gun rose to strike once more.

Chang dipped to one side and rotated his waist, and like the crack of a bullwhip his leg snapped out in an upward strike. But the dog was fast. It hurled itself between attacker and master and sank its teeth into the vulnerable flesh of Chang’s foot, forcing him onto his back on the wet earth. Pain raced up his leg as fangs tore at bone. But he inhaled, letting go of the tension in his body, and instead controlled the energy of the fear. He released it in one rippling movement that sent his other foot exploding into the face of the hound.