A Pack of Lies (7 page)

Liu’s heart fluttered between her ribs like a bird caught in a trap. The faces on the plate were showing clearly now. Wa Fan’s plan was laid bare. It was there for everyone to see. Would Wa Fan not pay for his daring with life itself?

‘Daughter! Bring me the plate!’

She could not disobey. She carried the plate to her father and he ate the remaining strawberries. Only a snow of sugar still rested on the blue and white shining garden of the Willow Pattern.

Ho Pa picked it up and examined it. ‘I see Wa Fan has done his finest work for my daughter’s wedding gift.’

But though he looked at the cruel and raging face of the man on the bridge, he did not recognize himself. For Ho Pa was vain and he thought himself handsome. He did not recognize the face of the girl on the bridge, for he had never cared enough to look closely into her face. And he did not recognize the face of his apprentice, for he had never looked upon Wa Fan as a man, only as a pair of hands which earned him money: a tool, an object, a thing. He turned to his daughter and said, ‘Fetch more strawberries. The plate is empty.’

He handed it into her hands — Wa Fan’s priceless wedding gift into her hands. He sent her from the room when all she had lacked was an excuse to leave the
room. Along the corridor she hurried, holding the plate to her breast — out into the garden where the sun shone smilingly, past the chrysanthemums, the painted pagoda, and along the lake shore to the little bridge. There, hidden among the tresses of the willow tree, she found Wa Fan, his long pigtail held anxiously between his nervous fingers.

‘You came,’ he said.

‘I came,’ she said.

‘You have left behind everything for me,’ he said.

‘I have left behind nothing,’ she said, ‘for look, I have the present you sent me and that is all in the world that I prize. I will never part with it.’

Then they crossed over the hunched little bridge, hand in hand, and into the world beyond.

They went to the harbour, and there they found a Portuguese merchant ship making ready to sail.

‘Carry us to your faraway land in the West,’ said Wa Fan to the Portuguese captain.

The captain — a swarthy man, fearful to Chinese eyes with his coarse-bearded jaw and big moist eyes — looked at the ragged Wa Fan and at Liu in her wedding dress. He plucked at his lip. He looked in vain for their luggage. ‘And how will you pay me, Chinaman?’

‘With hard work and thanks,’ said Wa Fan.

‘Oh many, many thanks,’ said Liu.

But the sea captain’s heart was as cold and sharp-pointed as the anchor of his ship. It lay like a moneybag within his chest and its purse-strings were pulled tight. ‘I vouch some father will pay me well for the return of his daughter,’ he said, twirling his dark moustache. ‘Some bridegroom will pay me well for the return of his bride.’

‘No, no!’ cried Liu, covering her face.

‘No, no!’ cried Wa Fan, shielding her with his arm. And the sea gaped, and the waves gasped, the topsail shook in the wind.

Then the captain saw the plate which Liu held to her
breast. His eyes gleamed and his hands could not help but reach for it. ‘Did you say you had no fare? This is Willow-Pattern china from the pottery of Ho Pa and the finest piece I ever saw. This will pay your fare!’

He snatched at the plate, he fumbled, and the delicate porcelain fell between ship and dockside. It floated on the water like a lily.

Into the water leapt Wa Fan and seized the plate and held it high over his head, and the sea captain snatched it — more precious to him than a child — from its watery destruction.

‘Wait!’ said Wa Fan struggling ashore. ‘The plate does not belong to me!’

The captain turned, scowling. ‘What’s that? Is it stolen?’

‘No, indeed! But it is the property of this lady, and only she may give it away!’

Liu looked long at the beautiful plate dripping between the sea captain’s hands. At last she said, ‘What is china compared with the fate of two hearts? What is a plate compared with the face of my Wa Fan? What is a thing made with hands, compared with the hands which made it?’

So Wa Fan and Liu set sail across a tangle of foam, towards the shores of distant Europe. Their souls were so filled with invisible joy as to fly like two birds above the ship, whiter than the flapping sail.

Meanwhile, the sea captain kept below decks and gloated over a thing moulded from clay and painted with the colours of crushed flowers. He thought the plate a rich addition to his cargo. But there are those who believe he had aboard his ship a far greater treasure.

* * *

‘Oh Brian!’ said the girl.

‘Oh Traycie!’ said the boy.

‘Oh buy it for me, Brian!’

‘Don’t be daft. It must be worth hundreds.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said MCC, and his eyes were as deep and dark as the South China seas but quite empty of sharks. ‘Value doesn’t always show itself in the price.’

Brian groped a handful of coins out of his jeans, and Ailsa wrapped the plate in tissue paper. She meant to scratch off any disappointing, tell-tale English pottery mark on the back, but there wasn’t one. There was only a long, dangling, Chinese cipher shaped like a chain of paper lanterns.

‘Where’s the sweet little book?’ wondered Traycie, searching about in the region of the
chaise longue
.

‘What book’s that?’ said MCC, resting his hand in the pocket of his green corduroy jacket.

Chapter Five

The Table:
A Story of Gluttony

On the first Saturday in every month, there were Sales at the Auction Rooms in Bridge Street. Ailsa and her mother had not been there for some time, because the shop never sold enough to need restocking. But after MCC had been with them for a month, spaces opened up between the crowded furniture, like the gaps in a grandstand towards the end of a day’s cricket. There was little to show for it in the till, for as soon as he made a sale, MCC was off shopping for books and yet more books. Still, MCC insisted they went today to the Auction Rooms.

‘But I don’t have any money to spend at an auction!’ protested Mrs Povey, as Berkshire held out her coat to her.

‘Speculate to accumulate. You’ve got to invest to survive. You’ve got to spend if you want to earn!’

‘You’ve been reading the economics books again, MCC,’ said Ailsa, and wondered why her mother had given in. They had no money to spend on new stock: they couldn’t even afford to pay the telephone bill.

‘Who’ll start me off at five pounds for this genuine reproduction samovar?’ asked the auctioneer.

The central heating was not on in the Auction Rooms, and a huddle of shivering, grumbling dealers sat hunched over typed lists of the things for sale. MCC said, ‘Why doesn’t anyone bid? It’s a nice samovar. It reminds me of my Great-Uncle Alexei who once got his
troika stuck in a snowdrift and lived on tea for three days.’ Coinstantaneously, Mrs Povey and Ailsa (who were sitting on either side of him) took hold of MCC’s hands to stop him bidding. He looked down in astonishment, squeezed their hands, and said, ‘How nice. Thank you.’

There was a ship’s wheel, a garden hose, a wardrobe, a half-made rug kit, assorted china, a broken scooter, a wheelchair, two dead aspidistras in pots, a sideboard, a fireguard, a fridge and a stuffed ferret. The dealers liked the sideboard and the china, but would not bid at all for the rest, though MCC’s hands twitched hungrily. ‘I knew a man once who owned a laundrette and trained a ferret to fetch out all the socks and handkerchiefs that got stuck in the machines.’

‘Did it work?’ asked Ailsa, tightening her grip.

‘Almost. It fetched them out every time. But it ate them.’

The auctioneer scowled at MCC and said, ‘Did I hear a bid, sir?’

‘No!’ squeaked Mrs Povey.

It was nearing lunchtime. The dealers got out their sandwiches, with a rustle of cellophane and paper bags. As they did so, a huge table was brought up on to the dais: a vast, polished mahogany oval as shiny and reflective as a village pond and almost as big. The dealers stirred in their seats and their frosty breath sprang up in a dozen plumes of admiration. Even Mrs Povey said, ‘Now
there
’s a lovely piece,’ and absent-mindedly let go of MCC’s left hand. She was dizzy at the sound of the spiralling bids — three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, five-fifty . . .

‘Seven hundred pounds!’ declared MCC, lifting his right hand as if Ailsa were no more than a handkerchief tucked in his cuff. Suddenly there were no more bids.

Mrs Povey burst into tears. ‘No bid! No bid!’ she tried to call, but it became all tangled with the tears and the shivering and the scraping of chairs as the dealers turned in their seats to identify the bidder.

‘Now are you happy?’ said Ailsa.

‘What’s the matter?’ MCC asked, hurriedly passing Mrs Povey his silk handkerchief.

‘Going once at seven hundred,’ said the auctioneer.

‘We don’t have it!’ hissed Ailsa.

‘But it’s worth much more than seven hundred,’ argued MCC, looking crestfallen. ‘You could make a nice profit.’

‘But we don’t
have
it!’

‘Going for a second time at seven hundred,’ said the auctioneer.

‘Don’t you worry your head about that,’ said MCC.

‘Sold to Povey’s Antiquary!’

‘
Oh!
’ howled Mrs Povey. ‘Go and tell him we haven’t got the money! Tell him it’s a mistake! He’ll have to auction the table again. I’ll never be able to show my face here after this.’

‘Now, now,’ said MCC. ‘Leave this to me,’ and he jumped and squeezed his way round and over the chairs to the front of the hall, grinning to left and right at the munching, smoke-breathing dealers. He approached the table as if he were about to plunge into the shiny depths of its reflections, and ran his hands over its legs as a horse dealer might over the fetlocks of a thoroughbred mare. ‘I’m sure! I’m almost certain . . . it must be . . . it’s so much like . . . it’s been a long time since I saw it, of course, but I’m sure . . .’

The dealers pricked up their ears like a pack of wolfhounds, and for all the auctioneer coughed and said, ‘Shall we get on?’ and the porters came to carry the table away, MCC would not allow it to be removed from the stage.

‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ he cried, turning on his audience. ‘I’m glad you’re here today to share in my good fortune. I do believe . . . though there’s no way of knowing for sure . . . but this table is so much like the one in the poem!’

‘What poem?’ The murmur ran round the hall.

‘What poem? Oh you must know it, surely!
The Night the Prince of Wales came Late to Dine
.’

‘The Prince of Wales!’ murmured the dealers, for the mere mention of royalty rings like money in the ears of an antique dealer. And then, because they did not want to look ignorant, they began to nod nonchalantly to one another. ‘Oh yes! By the Poet Laureate, wasn’t it?’

‘I thought Robert Browning.’

‘No — Kipling — I’m sure it’s Kipling.’

‘Or Goldsworthy?’

MCC had somehow edged the auctioneer off his rostrum and now bent his face towards the microphone. His eyes were as large, dark and oval as the table itself, and filled with the reflections of his restless, munching audience.

* * *

The visit of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to the home of The Right Honourable Lady Bowdley, Hampshire, 1899.

First came the linen, like a fall of snow —
A level glacier, glazed by starch and heat,
Falling in sheer, white bluffs to the rug below
To fold across the eight, carved, lion-claw feet;

And then the candelabra — silver trees
Like those which, dragon-guarded, bore the fruit
Which Herakles fetched from the Hesperides —
All along the table, six took root.

No armoury of serried pike and sword
Ever displayed so many prongs and blades
As the cutlery laid out to grace the board
Of Edward, Prince of Wales, by the maids.

Beside the window Lady Bowdley stood,
Her fingers clasped, her noble face dismayed:
Would the Prince be late? And if he would,
Could the quail omelettes be delayed?

The guests trooped in, the cream of English stock:
The County Squire, the Marchioness, the Dean,
The Lady Swann in long organza frock,
The Judge, a second cousin of the Queen.

They stood and eyed the empty, gilded plates,
The empty glasses, bowls, tureens and cups,
And pondered, if the Prince of Wales were late,
When the Lady Bowdley would serve up.

The Breton chef waved temperam ental hands
And wept into the simmering serving pans:
‘Monsieur le Prince is ruining my flans!
I cannot answer for my baked meringues!’

The rumblings of the guests grew menacing,
Like distant thunder rolling round the sky.
There was a flicking out and tucking in
Of napkins into bodices and ties.

The Dean began to nibble on a roll,
The Lady Fortescue began to bleat,
‘I think the Prince would want us, on the whole,
Not to wait all night but just to eat!’

So Lady Bowdley summoned up the soup,
The antipasto, whitebait, langoustine,
The avocados, prawns and cantaloup,
The pâté, lamb and pestoed tortellini.

Fish course began with lobster thermidor,
Then plaice and halibut and Dover dab,
And shark steak, roll-mop herring and yet more
Unidentifiable bits of crab.

Then came water-ices — lemon sorbet —
A frothy frost of egg white, slightly sweet,
To clean away the taste of fish before they
Plunged like porpoises upon the meat.

The Lady Edgar eased undone her zip
And drove her fork into the Vicar’s hand
As they contended for the dish of chips.
The Duchess said, ‘These artichokes are
canned
!’

Beef bled like a casualty of war.
The pork was pale as snow, with golden rind.
The more the guests devoured, it seemed, the more
The smoky stoves disgorged of other kinds.

The lamb was studded with a hundred cloves
Of garlic, plumed with fronds of rosemary;
The partridge, quail and widgeon sat in groves
Of feathers or on nest of vermicelli.

To sounds of silver trumpets in they bore
A roast swan stuffed with pineapple and dates.
The Bishop loosed his tie and softly swore,
And sped to clear his overloaded plates.