Shanghai

'Mm.'

The night air sliding over his face was mild and cool. 'I always thought Chinese were yellow, but he's paler than many Englishmen,' Denton risked again as the silence between them tautened once more.

'They come in all shapes, sizes and colours,' Mason answered brusquely.

Rebuffed, Denton didn't speak again. He recalled the moral distance he'd meant to keep from Mason and turned his head stiffly to watch the dark shapes of the ships they passed, each lit by pale twinkling lights. The launch put in at the Bund, near the Shanghai Club. Denton gazed up at the long, brightly-lit building with its wide verandas and balconies, from which he could hear the distant, muffled sound of music and laughter, cheerful and assured. He watched two Sikhs in red tunics and white turbans stamping their polished boots arrogantly outside the main entrance, magnificent under the heavy gas lamps as they summoned sedan chairs or rickshaws for the members emerging in evening dress from the open doors. As Denton watched, Mr Brown arrived in a sedan chair borne by four coolies, with an oil lantern burning yellowly on one of the poles. He inclined his shiny bald head, with its woolly circlet of grey hair, as the Sikhs saluted him and ascended the stone steps with a steady, stately step, as if he knew Denton was watching and wished to impress the dignity of his office upon him once more.

12

HE TOOK THE LETTER from the rack with a slight churning feeling in the top of his stomach, and walked slowly into the lounge. He'd recognised Emily's long-anticipated handwriting from a distance, but now that her letter had come, he felt an apprehensive reluctance to open it, as if it might contain bad news. Through the open doors he could hear the soft clack of balls in the billiards room as, his pulse quickening faintly, he pushed his little finger under the envelope flap and tore it open. He drew the letter out.

Dear John,

It is only a fortnight since you left, but it seems an age already.

I am back at the college and you will be somewhere in the Mediterranean by now. This last week has been quite hard and I always get a headache in the tram coming home. But I expect I will get used to it. The weather has not been too bad, although I expect you are getting a lot more sunshine than we are.... When you have got this letter, I expect you will be quite used to your new life. Write and tell me all about it, and how your trip was and everything. I expect you stopped at a lot of interesting places. I wish it was not quite so far away though.

Is it very hot? Do the natives understand English? I always thought Chinese was a hard language to learn, but I suppose you can if you have to. There is going to be another lantern show about the missionaries' work in China next month. I expect I will go.

Mother and Father send their best wishes and ask to be remembered to you.

Love from Emily.

PS I am sending this to the address you gave me. Hope it is right.

As he finished reading, Denton became aware again of the quiet clacking of billiard balls, then of Mason's high piercing laughter. He read the letter through once more, this time painting images to accompany the words. He saw her wavy brown hair, her hazel eyes, the way she held her head a little on one side and forward when she listened.

Folding the letter slowly, he put it back into the torn envelope, smoothing the rough edges of the flap down as if he were trying to seal it again.

They hadn't done much spooning, only holding hands and walking to the Band of Hope together, sitting side by side at lectures in the college and on the tram there and back. But he felt how pure their love was, unsullied by the sordid lusts of such as Mason, whom he heard again laughing loudly and penetratingly in the billiards room. Their love was spiritual, he thought solemnly, spiritual and undefiled.

He stood up, sliding the letter into his tunic pocket, and walked towards the stairs. She would wait for him, he would be faithful to her. Eventually he would send for her....

Lighting the gaslight in his room, he took off his tunic and drew the letter out again. A strange, slightly greasy smell seemed to cling to it. He frowned, holding it closed to his nose. Surely she hadn't used scent or perfume - not Emily? Then he remembered the threads of opium Mason had stuffed into his pocket. He felt deep inside until he could pick up the twisted little strands between his fingers. Rolling them between his finger and thumb, he sniffed cautiously. Yes, it was the same smell. Perhaps it wasn't so unpleasant after all - just very, very rich. He dropped the opium into the waste paper basket and wiped his hands carefully with his handkerchief. Opium, he was sure, was wrong, just as intoxicating liquor was wrong - a danger to religion and morals. Yet, in its rich, heavy way, that clinging smell wasn't at all unpleasant really...

13

THE CATHEDRAL'S PEWS were nearly all filled when Denton arrived, and a grave, tall sidesman with watery brown eyes motioned him to a chair in the aisle. He leant forward, covering his eyes, and whispered a prayer. When he sat upright again he had already forgotten the words he'd muttered, as though he'd prayed mechanically, as unconsciously as he breathed or blinked. He glanced round at the grey stone arches of the nave and up at the tall stained glass windows, which the burning sunlight outside struggled to pierce. Everything was new; the dark wooden pews, the unworn flagstones, the vivid colours in the windows, the fresh grey pillars. Musing treble notes wandered up and down the bass drone of the organ like ivy caressing a great broad tree. Denton thought of St George's at Enfield - so much smaller and dimmer than this magnificent airy building. He thought of Emily in her pew with her parents, lowering her eyes with a secret smile when he glanced at her from the choir stalls.

He clung to the poignant image, part-memory, part-fiction, until his eye was caught by the figure of Mr Brown walking up the nave toward a pew near the pulpit. A tall, stout lady rested her hand on his arm. They progressed at a stately gait, their heads erect and motionless until they reached their pew, when Mr Brown handed his wife in first with a grave inclination of his massive-browed bald head.

Denton glanced over the rest of the congregation, sweat oozing from his pores despite the gently-squeaking punkahs that fanned the air above their heads. All the people in the nave were evidently rich - taipans, he supposed. You could tell by their clothes, the women in gorgeous dresses and sweeping, wide-brimmed hats, the men in faultlessly-cut silk suits. Watching them, Denton felt vague confused, feelings both of envy and of alienation. He knew that he wanted to wear fine clothes like Mr Brown, to have a sedan chair waiting outside the cathedral, to belong to the Shanghai Club, to be looked upon with awe by people like himself. Yet he felt he was not like Mr Brown and the other taipans, and never would be. There was some essential difference that would always keep him removed from them, their lives unassimilable. His mind slipped off to the church at Enfield, where the congregation were all workmen and shopkeepers in stiff dark suits with frayed button holes and shiny collars, the grime still under their fingernails.

Shanghai was beginning to unsettle him. He was becoming dimly aware of possibilities in the distance that had lain far beyond the level horizon of his life even when he'd been accepted for the teachers' training college and his father had said he was out of it now, he'd never have to work in a factory.

To stifle his unease, he joined in the opening hymn with a loud voice, following the choir's tenor descant.

Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him,

Praise the everlasting King.

Denton waited, listening to the hushed coughing and the closing hymn books and the shuffling feet, determined to concentrate now on the worship of God. He gazed up at the gaunt face of the Dean, who had turned by the altar to face the congregation. But even while he was watching the Dean's grey head and penetrating, deep-set eyes, his fickle mind had slipped off again, and he was wondering about Emily his hand surreptitiously straying up to the pocket where her letter nestled. What would she be doing now? Sleeping? What would she be wearing? A nightdress? And under the nightdress? a voice whispered, while the memory of the girl on Mason's veranda, her breast uncovered beneath his tunic, floated across his mind. He jerked his mind guiltily back to the Dean, who had begun intoning in a high, strained voice, his eyes fixed in vacant reverence above their heads.

'If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves....'

He could feel a warm slow trickle of sweat rolling slowly down his cheek. Behind the Dean, over whose head a punkah moved slowly to and fro as though it were a blessing hand, he saw the choristers turning the pages of their hymn books, the leaves fluttering like little white butterflies.

14

Dear Sir,

I am honoured to accept to teach you the Chinese language, mandarin

or Shangahi dialect according to you choosing. My fees are $5 per

hour, for which you receive compensation from imperial customs service

on receipt. I will call at you in your rooms on Tuesday 9th August

at the 4 o'clock and esteem your honoured favour.

Wei Lam-tung.

Denton drew his watch out and held it away from him, letting it hang and slowly spin upon its chain. Five to four. He read the letter through again and replaced it on his desk. One of the little green lizards that had so disquieted him on his first day rippled along the wall above his head. He watched it pause in stone-like immobility then dart forward to take a little fly with a flick of its whiplash tongue, gulping it down before returning at once to that watchful immobility.

One minute before four there was a shuffling outside the door and a knock. The boy entered and wordlessly gestured a spare little Chinese with glinting, metal-rimmed spectacles towards Denton.

Denton stood up as the Chinese, dressed in a grey silk tunic and trousers, offered him a small, limp hand. 'Mr Denton?'

'Yes. Mr Wei?' Denton noticed the long, curling nail on the little finger of the man's other hand - a polished claw two inches long, just like the agent's on the Alexander the First. The hands were pale and hairless, paler than his own sunburned, reddish ones, which seemed, with their dark hairs, to be suddenly crude and coarse beside them. The long fingernail and anaemic pallor of Mr Wei's hands made him wonder a moment whether he could be related to the agent - Ching, wasn't that his name? But Ching was tall and uncomfortably mocking, whereas Wei was short and seemed to be open and eager.

'How do you doing?' Mr Wei smiled with a bird-like jerk of his neck. A gold tooth winked moistly in his lower jaw. 'Please' to meet you.' He was holding a leather satchel. He opened it deliberately and took out two books, placed them carefully on the arm of the chair Denton offered him, then perched himself on the edge of the seat as if ready to take flight. 'Mr Denton,' he asked, his gold tooth gleaming as he smiled again, 'how are you like Shanghai?'

'Very nice,' Denton murmured. 'It's very hot, of course.'

'Very ho',' Mr Wei nodded emphatically. 'Perhaps a typhoon will come. Many rains.'

'Oh they bring many - a lot of rain, do they?'

'Quite a lo'. In winter it is col'.'

'Ah.'

'Very col'. But blue sky.'

'Not like England?'

Mr Wei shook his head, his glasses glinting flatly in the light from the veranda. 'Very col',' he repeated emphatically.

They paused. Denton, glancing stealthily at Mr Wei's unlined, taut-skinned face, was unable to put an age to it, Thirty? Fifty? It could be either.

Mr Wei's glance met his inquiringly and he looked away, clearing his throat. Yet he had nothing to say, so he waited awkwardly. Outside, a man's voice chanted a hawker's call and he imagined the heat and glare of the street, which the heavy wooden shutters dimmed.

'Mr Denton, for Chinese lesson, what are you want?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Chinese language many form, Mr Denton.' He held up his hands, pale fingers outspread, to indicate its variety. 'Mandarin, Shanghai, Canton, Fukien....'

'Oh, I see.'

'All same writing.' His gold tooth gleamed. 'Speaking all differen'.'

'Yes, well, I think Shanghainese, as that's where I'll be working.'

'Shanghai, good.' He nodded his head several times as though in approval, then took the lower book from the arm of the chair, holding it out to Denton with both hands and giving a little bow.

Denton half-rose to take the book, and some obscure intuition led him to take it with both hands too. Mr Wei's gold tooth gleamed as he smiled approvingly again. 'Mr Denton, you will be goo' pupil. Already you take thing Chinese way. One hand give or take is very ru'. Only for coolie,' his hand waved scornfully. 'For equal and superior must give and take with both hand. In China, teacher is superior,' Mr Wei went on, smiling widely. 'So you must take from me with both han'. Number one lesson, very goo'.'

Denton looked down at the book uncertainly. Was Mr Wei getting above himself? That suggestion of superiority - how would Mason have taken it? But Wei was speaking again in his precise yet stilted manner, unlike the toneless chanting of all the other Chinese he'd heard speaking English.

'You are official of Chinese Imperial Governmen',' Wei was saying with his gold-winking smile, his bright brown eyes watching Denton alertly behind the magnifying discs of his glasses. 'Not like business man, speak pidgin. You must learn proper Chinese, learn character! Three thousan' character enough for newspaper,' Wei continued, holding up his hand for attention, three fingers flung out rigidly. 'Only for news-paper, nor ver' goo'. How many alphabe' in English?'

'Alphabets?'

'Twenty-six alphabe',' Wei gave him no chance to answer. 'Twenty-six alphabe' in English, then all finish. No more to learn. But Chinese three thousan' character, only beginning. Five thousan', ten thousan', still not finish. I think three thousan' much more number than twenty-six? So, you see, to learn Chinese, you mus' work ver' har'.' He reached into his satchel. 'Here brush, and ink, and paper.' He drew them out one by one. 'To write Chinese character. Chinese character very difficul', Mr Denton. You must work ver' har'.'

'Yes I will,' Denton promised, infected by Wei's enthusiasm despite himself. 'I do want to learn to write well.'

'To write an' read well, goo'.' Mr Wei nodded encouragingly. 'Now we star' lesson.' He perched further forward, his hands on his spread knees, and gazed unblinkingly at Denton. 'Chinese language not like English language.'

'No....'

Wei held up his hand for stricter attention. 'If same sound have differen' tone, make differen' word. Listen.' He moistened his lips and spoke a few words slowly and distinctly, his voice rising and falling in that strange sing-song that Denton heard all round him in the streets. 'Now I say again.' He repeated the sounds, slowly and distinctly again. 'You hear the same or differen'?'

'The same,' Denton said promptly.

He shook his head, smiling his gold-winking smile again. 'The tone is differen', so they make differen' word'. One mean I know Chinese people, the other mean I eat Chinese people . Therefore tone in Chinese language ver' importan'. Now we begin to learn tone.'

15

UNABLE TO FIND any small cash, Denton paid off the rickshaw with an extravagant tip and walked apprehensively towards the wide stone steps that led up to the porch of the Browns' house. There was a balustrade each side of the steps, from which coloured paper lanterns hung on slender, swaying bamboo slips that had been fixed in the stonework. More lanterns swung gently on the veranda. Voices murmured behind the open windows. Denton fingered his bow tie anxiously as he climbed the steps. He peered up irresolutely at the lighted, empty porch.

'Ah. Mr Denton, it must be.' The tall stout lady he'd seen with Mr Brown at the cathedral appeared in the hall, dressed in a long black evening dress with billowy lace sleeves. 'How kind of you to come.' Her voice was stout too, booming in fact. Denton felt her pale blue eyes measuring him frankly, so that his hand crept up to his tie again, in case it had loosened. 'Do come in,' she said at last, as if pleased, or at least satisfied, by her inspection.

An elderly houseboy, his skin puckered into an apparently sardonic grin, took his hat.

'Ah Man!' Mrs Brown commanded, grasping Denton's hand firmly. 'Paraffin!'

The houseboy was already bending with a sigh under the black Chinese table with claw feet on which he'd placed Denton's new, and as yet unpaid for, silk hat. He brought out a spraying can and stooped to point it at Denton's ankles, pumping with a slow, wheezing sound. A fine, cold, oily haze enveloped his evening dress trousers, his socks and shoes, all bought with chits, glistening on them in a dew of little silvery droplets. Denton watched, mystified and vaguely alarmed.

'So much better than muslin bags, don't you think, Mr Denton?' Mrs Brown asked. 'Come along, then.' Denton nodded and mumbled while Mrs Brown sailed ahead of him towards a large sitting-room, her dress just brushing the floor behind her. 'The mosquitoes are quite terrible this year, we simply have to do something. It's all these canals, of course, I keep begging the municipal council to fill them in, but nothing ever gets done.'

Denton followed obediently in her train, awed and bemused, a distinct smell of paraffin rising from his feet. He saw Brown's round shining dome, with its fringe of grey curly wool, and twenty or so men and women, all splendidly dressed, who turned their heads and paused to survey him as Mrs Brown led him in. He stood meekly beside her.

'Now this is Mr Denton, Arthur's latest griffin,' she announced in her booming tones, and proceeded round the room, naming every person in the same loud voice, as if she thought he was deaf. Denton smiled stiffly, shook hands stiffly, bowed stiffly and mumbled how d'you do to one guest after another, forgetting every name as soon as he heard it. But near the end of the round, his cheeks rigid with his taut artificial smile, he found himself facing Everett, his fellow-passenger on the Orcades.

'Hullo, how are you getting on?' Everett asked, his round, ruddy cheeks, like little apples, crinkling as he smiled.

'Oh, you two have met already, have you?' Mrs Brown interrupted. 'Well, you can have a little chat later. I want you to meet some other people first, Mr Denton.'

Soon Denton was sitting beside an elderly lady whose sagging cheeks were pallid with powder. She had merely nodded when Mrs Brown introduced him, and now, fanning herself with fierce jerky energy, she turned her back on him to continue an edgy discussion with the couple on her left. The rapid movement of the fan in her mottled hand seemed to match a growing exasperation in her low, cracked voice. Another houseboy, with a dour unsmiling face, offered him a glass of sherry on a silver tray. 'No thank you,' Denton said, but the houseboy seemed not to hear, obdurately holding the tray out in front of him. So Denton took the glass, shrinking back into his seat to avoid the elderly lady's bony elbow. He sat uneasily sipping the sherry which, like the beer Mason had ordered for him on his first day, and despite his pledge at the Band of Hope three years before, he was too timid to refuse.

Suddenly the old lady turned to him, fanning herself with vigorous impatience. 'So you're in the Chinese Customs?' she began accusingly.

'Er, yes. That is, I've just joined,' he answered deprecatingly. 'It's only probationary for two years....'

'I've never understood why we should give them any help at all,' she cut him off sharply. 'Such a corrupt, barbaric government.' Her fan became even more excited as her voice hardened. 'And as for that woman ... the Dowager Empress...!' She sniffed up the spite she seemed unable to express in words. 'It would never have been allowed if Queen Victoria were still alive,' she snapped finally. 'That I am quite sure of.'

Denton had no reply to give her, but in any case she had turned away already with a scornful shrug, as though looking for something more worthy of her steel.

At dinner he sat between two middle-aged ladies whose names he never caught. They talked to him so infrequently and perfunctorily that he was able to attend to all the knives and forks and the two wine glasses watchfully and without blundering. When the ladies suddenly got up to leave, Denton was about to follow them. He'd felt so thirsty that he'd kept on drinking the wines the boy poured for him, and he thought muzzily that those who were staying must be holding some meeting which he wasn't invited to. But Everett caught his arm and pushed him into the seat beside him. 'Come and sit with me,' he said loudly, then muttered, 'Port and cigars, the ladies are withdrawing.'

Denton flushed and nodded, humiliated. But now he was sitting next to Mr Brown, who appeared at first astonished to see him there, regarding him puzzledly for some seconds while he stroked his luxuriant grey moustache. Then, as port, brandy and cigars were set on the long, richly glossy table, the perplexity cleared from his eyes. 'Tell me, Mr Denton,' he asked, selecting a cigar, 'As a young fellow just out from home, what do they think of the China Question now?'

'The China Question, sir?' Denton felt himself sliding down through blank featureless waters while Mr Brown's pale blue eyes rested expectantly on his, as if following him down from the rim of a well. 'The China Question?' He clutched desperately at broken straws. 'Well, sir, I think that, er ... the new King has a different attitude to Queen Victoria's. I think,' he added doubtfully.

'From Queen Victoria's,' Mr Brown said precisely, pressing his lips together under the brushy grey fringe of his moustache. 'I must say I'm surprised by what you say. Personally, I disagree entirely with the imperialists.'

Denton nodded respectfully, as though he too might have said the same thing if he'd presumed to offer an opinion of his own. He watched Mr Brown turn aside as the boy lit his cigar, then lean forward again, blowing out a jet of greyish-blue smoke while he rubbed his bulging brow reflectively. The boy had filled Denton's glass with port and he drank it down, still trying to quench the thirst he'd felt all evening in his stiff hot clothes. His eyes were beginning to smart from the smoke, the humid heat, and the alcohol he'd unwisely drunk. As he waited uneasily for Mr Brown to speak again, it seemed to him that the room was beginning to waver in a blurry mist. Part of him felt an apprehensive tremor at this strange experience, but part seemed unconcerned and careless. He watched the boy fill his glass again and watched his hand reach out and raise it to his lips.

'Have you commenced your Chinese lessons yet, Mr Denton?'

Denton blinked, moving his head slowly to still the misty swaying of the room. 'Started on Tuesday, sir,' he said, trying carefully not to slur his words. 'One lesson a week.'

He was conscious of Mr Brown's eyes resting on him again, and felt he ought to say something more. 'The Chinese Question is very difficult,' he added uncertainly.

Mr Brown's eyes seemed to widen and cool slightly. 'It is said to be so,' he said distantly. 'But it was the Chinese language we were discussing.'

'What do you think of the opium trade, sir?' Everett asked suddenly as the silence grew longer and heavier after Mr Brown's last remark.

'The opium trade?' Mr Brown turned slowly to Everett, 'My government - that is, the Chinese government - allows it, we know it is harmless when indulged in moderation, and it fosters international commerce....'

Now Denton began to feel tired as well as muzzy. His lids kept sliding slowly down over his eyes and he had to open them with a start only to feel them slowly slide down again a few seconds later. He nodded vaguely as Mr Brown's voice flowed past him in a murmuring river of sound.

'We cannot take his choice from the individual,' Mr Brown was pronouncing judicially, 'even from the humblest peasant or coolie, without diminishing him in his essential nature. Free trade, Mr Everett, is closely associated with deeper freedoms - Mr Denton, I fear I am boring you?' Denton awoke with a start.

When they returned to the drawing room at last, Denton managed to seat himself between Everett on one side and a group of four or five people on the other, who only occasionally interrupted their discussion of servants and horses to glance curiously at him, when he would smile confusedly with bleary eyes and they would turn away with lifted brows and continue.

Everett stood up to leave at last, and Denton rose too, treading on one of the ladies' shoes, and mumbling apologies as she winced and stared at him under raised, curved brows.

'You must come again,' Mrs Brown boomed to Everett, then, more coolly, 'I hope you are getting along in your work,' she added to Denton.

Denton walked a little unsteadily down the steps beside Everett, while the boy hailed a rickshaw for them both. The paper lanterns were still softly glowing, but their luminousness seemed tired now, hazy-rimmed.

'You know, I'm afraid I may have made myself a bit ill with all that wine,' Denton confessed blurrily. 'D'you think anyone noticed? I'm not used to it, you see.'

'Oh I shouldn't think so,' Everett answered casually.

He turned to look at Everett anxiously, the words tumbling out of his mouth almost before he was aware of them. 'I'm not used to it, you see, and they kept filling up my glass. D'you think Mr Brown noticed anything?' Before Everett could answer, another nagging thought that had been vaguely troubling Denton all evening rose up like a bubble to the surface of his mind. 'And what's all that about muslin bags Mrs Brown told me? Do they catch mosquitoes in them or what? And spraying me with paraffin - what was the idea?'

'You tie the bags over your ankles.' Everett smiled patronisingly. 'It's just to stop the mozzies biting you. Like mosquito nets.' He leant back, wrinkling his nose as they passed by a festering little canal in which the pale, bloated body of a dog floated on its side. 'Some people prefer paraffin, other prefer muslin, that's all. We've got both in our mess.'

'We don't have anything in our mess.' Denton felt obscurely deprived and aggrieved. 'I hope I don't catch malaria.'

'Malaria? What's that got to do with mosquitoes?' Everett peered into his face. 'You really have had a bit too much.'

'No, I read about it in the paper in England,' Denton persisted doggedly, straining to remember through the mists that were rolling across his mind. 'Before I left home.'

'No, it's from the swampy air,' Everett said decidedly. 'You've only got to smell it.'

In the thick moist heat, with the coolie panting in front of them between his wooden shafts, amidst the shadowy figures, the weird cries of the Chinese, the ripe, rotting, alien smells, Denton's mention of home had tugged loose a little avalanche of self-pitying images. What with malaria and cholera and all those other diseases, he wondered desolately whether he'd ever see Emily or his parents or home again.