Gweilo (33 page)

Typhoons were not the only natural force with which Hong Kong had to contend. Heavy rain invariably caused landslides, avalanches of rock and soil sliding down the hillside taking trees, bushes, boulders, squatter shacks and even substantial buildings with it. People were frequently buried alive or crushed to death. Hundreds were made homeless. Roads were blocked, sometimes for several days.

Despite the prevalence of typhoons and tropical storms, droughts were not uncommon either. The reservoir levels would plunge, brush fires spring up and smoulder for days, a terrible threat to the squatter areas. The wind, when it blew, was hot and dry, the only humidity in it picked off the sea. In such times of water shortage, restrictions were enforced, the mains water only being switched on for a few hours a day – or even every other day. When the taps were running, every receptacle in the house would be filled – baths, basins, saucepans, woks, empty bottles. It was common colonial practice to retain Gordon's gin bottles for, being flat on one side, they were ideal drinking-water containers which fitted in the fridge on their sides. In a drought, up to two dozen stood on the kitchen floor, filled to the brim and awaiting their turn to be chilled.

With the baths being used for water storage, and showers redundant, many people went to the beach in the evening to wash. It became an everyday sight to see bathers lathering their hair or soaping every inch of flesh not covered by a swimming costume. Sweetmeat vendors caught on to the exodus from the city, and soon the beaches were lined with purveyors of everything from sweet pickled turnip and sugar cane to Dairy Farm popsies. There would be almost a party atmosphere at the bigger beaches, especially at Repulse Bay where the Chinese occupied the strand whilst the Europeans, once they had bathed, dressed in smart casual clothes and decamped to the bar of the famous Repulse Bay Hotel.

My parents chose to drive further afield, to a wide sandy beach at the eastern extremity of Hong Kong island called Shek O. To one side, a tiny fishing (and once notorious pirate) village stood on a promontory. The bay, facing straight out into the South China Sea, was frequently visited by deep-water-dwelling sharks, and although they very rarely came close into shore, a lifeguard seated on a tall bamboo lookout tower kept watch for them.

At weekends, Shek O beach was crowded, all the beach tents rented by half-past nine, but on mid-week and 'personal hygiene' evenings (also known as sweat 'n' swim nights), the beach was usually all but deserted. The bus service ceased at dusk so only those with cars could reach it.

Shek O was my mother's favourite beach. The water in the bay was usually calm, there was no undertow and the sea floor shelved gently. By her own admission, my mother was a recreational swimmer, 'pootling about like a mermaid on holiday', as she put it, but despite his naval pretensions, my father hardly ever went in the water. Indeed, he could not really swim. His excuse for not swimming was that someone had to guard the tent containing our clothes, watches and so on, yet this was unnecessary. There were no thieves.

Late one afternoon, we drove to Shek O armed with swimming costumes, towels, shampoo and soap. Offices tended to close early on sweat 'n' swim days to allow staff to see to their maritime ablutions before it got dark. By the time we arrived, the beach was occupied by no more than a dozen parties, mostly Europeans. We rented a tent, bought a pannier of fresh water and, wading in up to our waists, my mother and I washed ourselves. Small fish, undeterred by the lather and unused to legs that were not thrashing about, nibbled at our shins and feet. Feeling clean – if salty – we then returned to the tent and sat in deckchairs while my father washed.

By now, it was dusk. The tent boy brought round two oil lanterns and placed them on the sand in front of the tent. The air was warm, the sea black and the world seemingly at peace. From the direction of the café beneath a huge awning of tangled vines on the beach before the village, came the distant clatter of mahjong tiles, the only sound other than the lap of waters. The only lights were our oil lamps, those of the café and perhaps the lanterns on a sampan fishing south of the islet.

'It's time we were going, Joyce,' my father suggested, studying the luminous hands on his gold Cyma.

'Not quite yet, Ken. It's a wonderful evening.'

'It's already night. I don't like driving on the twisting roads—'

'It's hardly the Khyber Pass under snow,' my mother interrupted. 'No highwaymen or wily Pathans. No black ice.'

At this point, my mother stood up from her deckchair, tugged the hem of her swimming costume down round her buttocks and announced, 'I'm going to have another quick dip before we go.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Joyce,' my father said. 'No-one swims in the dark. It's dangerous.'

'Rubbish!' she retorted.

'And I think it's against the law.'

'So call a policeman.'

'You'd never see an attacking shark,' my father continued. 'Or a jellyfish. What if. . . ?'

'I'd never see an attacking shark in broad daylight. In any case,' my mother came back at him, 'they don't stalk you, you know. As for a jellyfish, I'd feel the stings long before it drifted my way.'

It was truly dark by now. My mother set off for the water's edge. My father, abandoning his sentry post, followed her. I sat on a deckchair to watch.

'Joyce! Do not go in the water.'

My mother walked on, her tanned back glowing in the light of the lamps.

'Joyce! I'm telling you not to go in the water.'

There was no moon. The sky was a carpet of stars. Far out to sea were the lights of a cargo ship hove to until morning.

'Joyce! I forbid you to go in the water.'

'Forbid all you want, Ken,' she replied merrily over her shoulder and stepped into the sea.

My father returned to the tent, sat down next to me and said, 'Do you know, the stings from a jellyfish can give you a heart seizure.'

He got up, moved the lanterns behind us and, standing by a guy rope, squinted into the sea.

'I can't see her,' he murmured. 'If the tide's going out. . .'

To my surprise, he appeared to be genuinely concerned.

Then a voice called out urgently, 'Martin! Come here!'

'I forbid you to go,' my father said.

I got out of my deckchair.

'If you go down there, you'll get no pocket money for a month.'

I headed for the water's edge, my father keeping pace just behind me. My mother was the one who doled out my pocket money now and obeying her could hardly be construed as disobedience. It was, although I did not know how to express it, a conflict of interests. My mother's won.

'If you go into the water, I'll write to Grampy and tell him not to send any more
Eagles
.'

That I knew, as the water lapped at my ankles, was a bluff. My father enjoyed reading them too.

'Walk slowly,' my mother called. She was standing up to her waist in the sea, not ten yards from the beach. 'You too, Ken,' she added.

'I think two corpses at Shek O are enough to make the headlines in the
South China Morning Post
,' my father replied sourly and, somewhat nonplussed by his family's rebellion, returned disconsolately to the tent.

I stood next to my mother.

'Watch!' she said.

She splashed the water. Suddenly, all around her radiated with a ghostly, pale green light.

'You do it!'

I brought my hands down on the sea. A fire of pale light spread out from my hands, dancing on the surface. The splashes on my body glimmered briefly.

I was entranced. Every movement I made produced an eruption of luminosity. China, I considered, was a land of spirits and spectres and this was incontrovertible proof.

'It's called phosphorescence,' my mother said. 'Isn't it marvellous?'

'Is it made by ghosts?' I enquired, feeling my toes dig into the sand. Whenever I felt uneasy, especially approaching dog shit on the pavement, they curled.

'No,' she answered, 'it's made by millions of microscopic organisms called plankton. When the air touches them, a chemical called phosphorus in their body glows. Look!' She pointed to some breaking wavelets approaching us. They were not white but an unearthly pale green, as if touched by death.

'Maybe,' I suggested, 'it's the light of Tin Hau come to save her brothers.'

'Maybe,' my mother replied, adding ironically, 'she's protecting us from sharks and jellyfish.'

I did not question how my mother had come to acquire such information. I accepted it as I did all she said, for she was knowledgeable in the world whereas my father was only conversant with the ways of military chandlery.

We splashed around for a few more minutes then waded in to rejoin my father. He sat in the deckchair, smoking his pipe and staring out to sea as we took turns in the tent to dress.

'That was one of the bloody stupidest things I've ever known you to do, Joyce. And that's from a pretty bloody comprehensive catalogue of benighted stupidities. As for taking Martin with you . . .'

'Tell me, Ken,' my mother asked as we reached the car, 'have you ever, in your entire bloody life, done anything out of the norm, on the spur of the moment, because you suddenly felt the urge?'

My father did not answer. He got in the car, started the engine and waited for us to get in. We drove the length of Hong Kong island in silence. Back at the apartment, my mother turned on the radio while my father headed for the drinks cabinet. Ten minutes later, my mother came into my room to tuck me up although, in the hot weather, this involved nothing more than making sure the cotton sheet I slept under was pulled up. She had heard an old colonial wives' tale that, if the stomach was not covered at night, one could be dead by morning. Of what, it was never stated. Assured that my belly was protected from the diseases of darkness, she leant over and kissed me.

'Goodnight, Martin. That was fun, wasn't it?'

'Yes,' I confirmed. 'It was.'

'Don't ever tell,' she whispered, 'but if it weren't for you, I'd leave him . . .'

I did not at the time understand what she was talking about and closed my eyes.

'Goodnight, Joyce,' I said: I had taken on occasion to addressing my parents by their given names, although my father insisted I called him
sir
when we were in company.

She touched my head then. Perhaps for luck.

Close to Pinewood Battery there was a narrow road that ran down the north side of High West. It led nowhere, just petering out on the hillside, and it was extremely steep. Consequently, few people ever went down it and the wildlife that inhabited the undergrowth was undisturbed. I sometimes went that way in the late afternoon, the sun warm off the rocks, the sky hazy and tired to the west. Skinks rustled in the leaf litter or scurried ahead of me, their azure tails swinging from side to side to counteract their movement. Butterflies sunned themselves on the cracked concrete of the road bed or fluttered over the lantana florets. Balmy breezes blew up from the docks and narrow streets of Sai Ying Pun, carrying the sounds and smells of the city. Every now and then, the bellow of a cow in the Kennedy Town abattoir might lift up to me, to be abruptly cut short. All around me, unseen in the cover, birds caroused as they mapped out their territories for the night.

One particular afternoon, I went that way straight from school, hiding my Hong Kong basket full of games kit and homework under a bush a few yards from a boulder with the inscription:
25
^th
. Battn Middlesex Regt. "Tyndareus" Feb. 6
^th
1917.
It was in memory of soldiers who had died when their troopship, bound for Hong Kong, struck a German mine off South Africa.

Setting off down the road, I had no specific purpose in mind. It had been a bad day at school. I had scored poorly in a maths test, been awarded fifty lines for sucking a
wah mui
in class ('It helps me concentrate, Miss') and been given a severe ticking off for putting the wire seal on my statutory mid-morning third of a pint of milk ration back in the empty bottle.

A little way beyond the
Tyndareus
memorial, I suddenly felt strangely ill at ease. It was not the maths test result nor was it the fact that I would have to own up to getting lines. The feeling was far more primeval, coming from the pit of my soul, from that part of the brain that has no apparent function. I looked back in case I was being followed, yet there was no-one – and no thing – in sight. I could see over a hundred yards in both directions.

Then, from the undergrowth, a small rodent appeared on the concrete not five paces ahead of me. It stopped, stared at me and then ran directly towards me, skittering between my legs and on down the road. In a few seconds, it was followed by two others which behaved in exactly the same way. I reasoned they were running from a snake and stood quite still. Yet no snake showed itself so, after a few minutes, I went back up the hill, collected my school basket and set off towards the Peak Tram terminus.

I had gone barely two hundred yards when a muntjak bounded out of the trees and down a steep bank. It stood in the middle of the road then, with one leap, was gone downhill in the direction of the reservoir. I could mark its progress through the forest by the noise it made. To see the creature in albeit by now fading daylight was rare enough. For it to make such a shindig as it fled was quite extraordinary. These were animals which could walk silently over a three-inch-deep layer of fresh cornflakes.