When We Were Orphans Page 7

  These would take place at our house, usually during the week when my father was at the office. Typically, four or five ladies would arrive and be led into the conservatory, where a table would have been laid amidst the creepers and palms. I would assist by passing around cups, saucers and plates, and wait for the moment I knew would come: that is, when my mother asked her guests how, when they “searched their hearts and consciences,” they viewed their companies’ policies. At this point the pleasant chatter would cease and the ladies would listen silently as my mother went on to express her own deep unhappiness with “our company’s actions,” which she regarded as “un-Christian and un-British.” As I remember it, these luncheons always became quiet and awkward from this stage on, until the moment, not so long afterwards, when the ladies would utter their frosty farewells and drift out to the waiting carriages and motor cars. But I knew from what my mother told me that she did “win through” to a number of these company wives, and the converts were then invited to her meetings.

  These latter were much more serious affairs and I was not permitted to attend them. They would take place in the dining room behind closed doors, and if by chance I was still in the house while a meeting was in progress, I would be required to tip-toe around silently. Occasionally I would be introduced to a personage my mother held in special esteem—a clergyman, say, or a diplomatist—but by and large Mei Li was instructed to have me well out of the way before the first guests arrived. Of course, Uncle Philip was one of those always present, and I often endeavoured to be visible as the participants departed so as to catch his eye. If he spotted me, then invariably he would come over with a smile and we would have a little talk. Sometimes, if he had no pressing engagement, I would take him aside to show him the drawings I had done that week, or else we might go and sit together for a while out on the back terrace.

  Once everyone had left, the atmosphere in the house would undergo a complete change. My mother’s mood would invariably lighten, as though the meeting had swept away every one of her cares. I would hear her singing to herself as she went around the house putting things back in order, and as soon as I did so, I would hurry out into the garden to wait. For I knew that once she had finished tidying, she would come out to find me, and whatever time was left before lunch she would devote entirely to me.

  Once I was older, it was during these periods, just after a meeting, that my mother and I went for our walks in Jessfield Park. But when I was six or seven, we tended to stay at home and play a board game, or sometimes even with my toy soldiers. I can still remember a certain routine we developed around this time. In those days, there had been a swing on our lawn not far from the terrace. My mother would emerge from the house, still singing, step on to the grass and sit on the swing. I would be waiting up on my mound at the back of the garden, and come running up to her, pretending to be furious.

  “Get off, Mother! You’ll break it!” I would jump up and down before the swing, waving my arms about. “You’re much too big! You’ll break it!”

  And my mother, pretending she could neither see nor hear me, would swing herself higher and higher, all the time continuing to sing at the top of her voice some song like: “Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do.” When all my pleading had failed, I would—the logic of this now eludes me—attempt a succession of headstands on the grass in front of her. Her singing would then become punctuated by gales of laughter, until eventually she would come down from the swing, and we would go off to play with whatever I had prepared for us. Even today, I cannot think about my mother’s meetings without remembering those eagerly anticipated moments that would always follow.

  A few years ago, I did spend some days in the Reading Room of the British Museum researching into the arguments that raged over the opium trade in China during those times. As I sifted through many newspaper articles, letters and documents of the day, a number of issues that had mystified me as a child became much clearer. However—and I might as well admit this—my main motive in undertaking such research was the hope that I would come across reports of my mother. After all, as I have said, I had been given to believe as a child that she was a key figure in the anti-opium campaigns. It was something of a disappointment then that I did not once find her name. There were others repeatedly quoted, praised, denigrated, but in all that material I collated, I did not once find my mother. I did though stumble upon several mentions of Uncle Philip. Once, in a letter to the North China Daily News, a Swedish missionary, in the process of condemning a number of European companies, referred to Uncle Philip as “that admirable beacon of rectitude.” The absence of my mother’s name was disappointment enough, but this was a cruel twist indeed, and I abandoned my researches thereafter.

  BUT I HAVE NO WISH to recall Uncle Philip here just now. There was a time, earlier this evening, when I was convinced I had mentioned his name to Sarah Hemmings during our bus ride this afternoon—even told her one or two basic things about him. But going over yet again all that took place, I am now reasonably sure Uncle Philip did not come up at all—and I must say I am relieved. It may be a foolish way to think, but it has always been my feeling that Uncle Philip will remain a less tangible entity while he exists only in my memory.

  I did though tell her a little about Akira this afternoon, and now that I have had a chance to think it over, I do not really regret having done so. I did not, in any case, tell her very much, and she did appear genuinely interested. I have no idea what it was that caused me suddenly to start talking to her of such matters; I certainly had no such intention when I first boarded that bus with her in the Haymarket.

  I had been invited by David Corbett, a man I have come vaguely to know, to lunch with him and “a few friends” at a restaurant in Lower Regent Street. It is a fashionable lunch spot, and Corbett had booked a long table at the rear of the room for a dozen of us. I was pleased to see Sarah among the party—and a little surprised, since I had not been aware she was a friend of Corbett’s—but arriving rather late, I was not able to sit within speaking range of her.

  It had clouded over by that time, and the waiter had lit for us a brace of candles on our table. One of our party, a fellow called Hegley, thought it a good joke to blow the candles out, and then to summon the waiter back to relight them. He did this at least three times in the space of twenty minutes—whenever he judged the boisterous atmosphere to be sagging—and the others did seem to find this very amusing. From what I could see, Sarah was at this stage enjoying herself, laughing with the rest of them. We had been there for perhaps an hour—a couple of the men had excused themselves to return to their offices—when attention turned to Emma Cameron, a rather intense girl, sitting at Sarah’s end of the table. For all I knew, she had already been talking for some time to those nearest her about her problems; but it was at this stage that a lull falling over the rest of the table suddenly made her the focus of the whole party. There followed a half-serious, half-ironic discussion of Emma Cameron’s troubled relationship with her mother—which was evidently reaching a new crisis on account of Emma’s recent engagement to a Frenchman. All kinds of advice were offered to her. The man called Hegley, for instance, proposed that all mothers—“and aunts too, naturally”—be kept in a large zoo-like institution to be constructed beside the Serpentine. Others made more helpful comments based on their own experiences, and Emma Cameron, relishing all the attention, kept the topic well stoked with ever more theatrical anecdotes to illustrate the thoroughly exasperating nature of this particular parent. The discussion had been going on for perhaps fifteen minutes when I saw Sarah rise and, mumbling a word into the host’s ear, leave the room. The ladies’ powder room was located in the lobby area of the restaurant, and the others—those who noticed her exit at all—no doubt assumed that was where she was bound. But I had caught something in her face as she had left, and after a few minutes, I too rose and went out after her.

  I found her standing at the entrance of the restaurant, looking out of the windows into Lower Regen
t Street. She did not notice me come up to her until I touched her arm and asked:

  “Is everything all right?”

  She gave a start, and I noticed little traces of tears in her eyes, which she quickly tried to mask with a smile.

  “Oh yes, I’m fine. I felt a little stuffy, that’s all. I’m fine now.” She gave a little laugh and gazed out searchingly into the street. “I’m sorry, it must have looked awfully rude. I really should go back in.”

  “I see no reason why you should if you don’t want to.”

  She studied me carefully, then asked: “Are they still talking about what they were talking about?”

  “They were when I left.” Then I added: “I suppose neither of us is able to contribute much to a symposium on troublesome mothers.”

  She suddenly laughed and wiped away the tears, now no longer trying to hide them from me. “No,” she said, “I suppose we’re disqualified.” Then she smiled again and said: “It’s so silly of me. After all, they’re just having a nice lunch.”

  “Are you expecting a car?” I asked, for she was still looking out earnestly at the traffic.

  “What? Oh no, no. I was just looking.” Then she said: “I was wondering if a bus would come. You see, look, over the street. There’s a stop. My mother and I, we used to spend a lot of time on buses. Just for the pleasure of it. I’m talking about when I was small. If we couldn’t get the front seat on the top deck, then we’d just come straight down and wait for another one. And we’d spend hours sometimes, going around London, looking at everything, and talking, and pointing things out to each other. I so used to enjoy it. Don’t you ever go on buses, Christopher? You should. You can see so much from the top.”

  “I must confess I tend to walk or get a cab. I’m rather afraid of London buses. I’m convinced if I get on one, it’ll take me somewhere I don’t want to go, and I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to find my way back.”

  “Shall I tell you something, Christopher?” Her voice had become very quiet. “It’s very silly, but I only realised it recently. It had never occurred to me before. But Mother must already have been in a lot of pain. She wasn’t strong enough to do other things with me. That’s why we spent so much time on buses. It was something we could still do together.”

  “Would you care to ride on a bus now?” I asked.

  She looked out again into the street. “But aren’t you very busy?”

  “It would be a pleasure. As I say, I’m rather frightened to go on buses alone. Since you’re something of a veteran, then this is my opportunity.”

  “Very well.” She suddenly beamed. “I’ll show you how you ride on a London bus.”

  We eventually boarded not in Lower Regent Street—we did not wish the lunch party to emerge and see us waiting—but in nearby Haymarket. When we climbed to the upper deck, she showed a childish delight in finding her front seat vacant, and we sat there swaying together as the vehicle lumbered its way towards Trafalgar Square.

  London looked very grey today, and down on the pavements, the crowds were well prepared with their mackintoshes and umbrellas. I would suppose we spent a half-hour on that bus, perhaps longer. We took in the Strand, Chancery Lane, Clerkenwell. Sometimes we sat looking at the view below us in silence; at other times, we talked, usually of innocuous things. Her mood had lightened considerably since the lunch, and she did not mention her mother again. I am not sure how we got on to the subject, but it was just after a lot of passengers had got off at High Holborn, and we were moving down Gray’s Inn Road, that I found myself talking about Akira. I believe at first I did no more than mention him in passing, describing him as a “childhood friend.” But she must have probed me, for I remember not long afterwards saying to her with a laugh:

  “I always think about the time we stole something together.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “So that’s it! The great detective has a secret criminal past! I knew this Japanese boy was significant. Do tell me about your robbery.”

  “Hardly a robbery. We were ten years old.”

  “But it torments your conscience, even still?”

  “Not at all. It was just a small thing. We stole something from a servant’s room.”

  “But how fascinating. And this was in Shanghai?”

  I suppose I must then have told her a few further things from the past. I did not reveal anything of any real significance, but after parting with her this afternoon—we eventually got off in New Oxford Street—I was surprised and slightly alarmed that I had told her anything at all. After all, I have not spoken to anyone about the past in all the time I have been in this country, and as I say, I had certainly never intended to start doing so today.

  But perhaps something of this sort has been on the cards for some time. For the truth is, over this past year, I have become increasingly preoccupied with my memories, a preoccupation encouraged by the discovery that these memories—of my childhood, of my parents—have lately begun to blur. A number of times recently I have found myself struggling to recall something that only two or three years ago I believed was ingrained in my mind for ever. I have been obliged to accept, in other words, that with each passing year, my life in Shanghai will grow less distinct, until one day all that will remain will be a few muddled images. Even tonight, when I sat down here and tried to gather in some sort of order these things I still remember, I have been struck anew by how hazy so much has grown. To take, for instance, this episode I have just recounted concerning my mother and the health inspector: while I am fairly sure I have remembered its essence accurately enough, turning it over in my mind again, I find myself less certain about some of the details. For one thing, I am no longer sure she actually put to the inspector the actual words: “How is your conscience able to rest while you owe your existence to such ungodly wealth?” It now seems to me that even in her impassioned state, she would have been aware of the awkwardness of these words, of the fact that they left her quite open to ridicule. I do not believe my mother would ever have lost control of the situation to such a degree. On the other hand, it is possible I attributed these words to her precisely because such a question was one she must have put to herself constantly during our life in Shanghai. The fact that we “owed our existence” to a company whose activities she had identified as an evil to be scourged must have been a source of true torment for her.

  In fact, it is even possible I have remembered incorrectly the context in which she uttered those words; that it was not to the health inspector she put this question, but to my father, on another morning altogether, during that argument in the dining room.

  CHAPTER 5

  I DO NOT REMEMBER NOW if the dining-room episode occurred before or after the health inspector’s visit. What I recall is that it was raining hard that afternoon, making it gloomy throughout the house, and that I had been sitting in the library, watched over by Mei Li as I went through my arithmetic books.

  We called it the “library,” but I suppose it was really just an anteroom whose walls happened to be lined with books. There was just enough space in the middle of the floor for a mahogany table, and it was there I always did my schoolwork, my back to the double doors leading into the dining room. Mei Li, my amah, saw my education as a matter of solemn importance, and even when I had been working for an hour, it never occurred to her, as she stood sternly over me, to lean her weight on the shelf behind her, or else to sit down in the upright chair opposite mine. The servants had long since learnt not to blunder in during these moments of study, and even my parents had accepted they should not disturb us unless absolutely necessary.

  It was, then, something of a surprise when my father came striding through the library that afternoon, oblivious of our presence, and went into the dining room, closing the doors firmly behind him. This intrusion was followed within minutes by another from my mother, who also strode past briskly and disappeared into the dining room. During the minutes that followed I could catch, even through the heavy doors, the occasional word
or phrase that told me my parents were locked in argument. But frustratingly, whenever I tried to hear a little more, whenever my pencil hovered too long over my sums, there would come Mei Li’s inevitable reprimand.

  But then—I do not remember quite how this came about—Mei Li was called away, and I was suddenly left alone at the library table. At first I just continued to work, too fearful of what would happen if Mei Li returned and found me out of my chair. But the longer she was gone, the greater grew my urge to hear more clearly the muffled exchanges in the next room. I did finally rise and go to the doors, but even then, I would hurry back to the table every few seconds, convinced I could hear my amah’s footsteps. In the end, I managed to remain at the door only by keeping a ruler in my hand, so that if surprised by Mei Li, I could claim to be in the process of measuring the dimensions of the room.

  Even so, I managed to hear whole phrases only when my parents forgot themselves and raised their voices. I could make out in my mother’s angry voice the same righteous tone she had used that morning to the health inspector. I heard her repeat: “A disgrace!” a number of times, and she referred often to what she called “the sinful trade.” At one point she said: “You’re making us all party to it! All of us! It’s a disgrace!” My father too sounded angry, though in a defensive, despairing sort of way. He kept saying things like: “It’s not so simple. It’s not nearly so simple.” And at one point he shouted: