Gweilo (36 page)

I leant through the window and said,
'Chek Chue.'

With that, she was gone. The last I saw of her were her yellow roses on the back parcel shelf of the taxi.

When I arrived home, I told my mother what I had been up to.

'Well, you did your best for the poor soul,' she remarked.

'But the graves . . .' I said. 'No-one died of old age.'

'No, I'm sure they didn't,' my mother replied. 'That was their sacrifice. Those people founded Hong Kong. They set the ball rolling for all of us.' She was pensive for a moment before adding, 'I wonder what they'd think of it now.'

That evening, I sat on the balcony with all of Hong Kong spread out at my feet and tried to imagine it without streets and buildings and ferry boats. Instead of grey British and American warships I attempted to visualize men-o'-war and opium clippers and war junks. And it came to me that I was a descendant of those men, keeping the ball rolling merely by my being there.

My father had a fierce hatred of the trams based upon the facts that they had no brake lights, they caused traffic jams at tram stops where vehicular traffic had to give way to alighting or embarking passengers, and they had a right of way over the traffic lights. Worse, however, was their inability to stop as quickly as a car.

The first incident happened on Yee Wo Street. My father wished to turn right into Kai Chiu Road. Disregarding a tram coming up behind, he pulled smartly into the centre of the road – where the tram tracks lay – and waited for a break in the traffic. There was the sound of tearing metal. Sparks flew from the tram wheel. A North Point bound tram slid into the back of the Ford at an impact speed of about three miles an hour. I was mildly jolted in the back seat. My father got out to survey the damage. The rear offside lights of the Ford were smashed, the bumper and rear wing dented and deformed. The tram driver alighted, surveyed the situation then gesticulated for my father to get his car out of the way. On the tram, all the passengers were leaning out of the windows.

My father refused to move. My mother and I joined him. A crowd began to gather on the pavement expectantly awaiting what was an inescapable confrontation.

'Move the car towards the kerb, Ken,' my mother suggested.

'No, Joyce! Not until the police have seen it.'

'You've got me and Martin as witnesses.'

'No!' my father repeated bluntly. 'I want independent third-party verification. The law clearly states that the driver of any vehicle that goes up the back of another vehicle is liable. I'm not at fault here . . .'

My mother sought to placate my father. 'No-one says you are, Ken.'

'He's culpable,' my father said, pointing an accusatory finger at the tram driver, who took umbrage at being pointed at and let off a stream of invective in Cantonese that even I could not translate.

'Don't you speak to me like that!' my father retorted. 'You should have kept your bloody distance . . .'

At this, the driver decided not to keep any distance at all and closed on my father.

'Don't you come on to me like that!' my father muttered loudly and he removed his blazer, putting it in the car.

'Ken, I don't think this is helping matters,' my mother observed. 'Just let it go.'

'I'm damned if I will!' my father exclaimed over his shoulder. 'I'm not in the wrong here.'

The passengers in the tram, like schoolboys in a playground seeing a fight in the offing, started to egg the tram driver on. He commenced bouncing about on his heels like a boxer warming up.

This, I knew as a spectator at any number of coolie arguments, did not bode well, yet there was nothing I could do to defuse the situation.

Suddenly, the tram driver lunged at my father who blocked the blow. My mother tried to step between the combatants, safe in the knowledge that no-one would dare hit a
gweipor
. The tram driver dodged round her and took another swing. My father blocked it once more and managed to land a clout around his opponent's ear. The passengers on the tram and the audience on the pavement gave vent to a loud
Whoa!
intermingled with an undertone of
Ayarhs!

Needless to say, this enraged the driver further. He had lost face in front of at least two hundred onlookers.

Feeling I should do something, I stepped forwards and yelled at him,
'Wei! Lei! Heui la! Diu nei lo mo!'
(literally, Hey, you! Get lost! Go fuck your mother!).

At the time, I was ignorant of the exact meaning of the phrase but knew it was pretty expressive. My knowledge of the language of the streets exercised, I then stepped forward and shook my finger at him in a school-ma'amish fashion.

The crowd on the pavement broke out into hoots of hilarity. So did the passengers. The driver just stared at me, taken aback by this little
gweilo
who spoke at least a smattering of colloquial Cantonese.

A police traffic patrol arrived.

As the Ford was now askew across both the east- and westbound tram lines, it was quickly causing a backlog to build up in both directions. A traffic patrol had come to see what was creating gridlock half a mile down the road.

'This bloody fool—' my father began.

'I can see what's happened, sir,' a European police inspector interrupted him. 'Now, with your permission . . .'

A Chinese constable drove the Ford to the kerb whilst four others directed the traffic. The westbound trams started moving again. After a few words from a Chinese police corporal, the tram driver returned to his place and the tram went on its way.

The inspector took out a notebook and pencil then came over to my father.

'Not very lucky, are we, sir?' He opened the notebook. 'First the tricycle . . .'

He took down the details. The tram company paid for the damage. They also accepted liability for the next two, identical accidents. On the fourth, they sued for remuneration of income lost due to delayed services. They did not win the case. As a result, however, my father – like my mother before him – was the cause of a change in the law. It was henceforth illegal to stop a vehicle on the tram lines.

For as long as we lived in Hong Kong, my mother had attempted to get me to swim. She was a fairly competent swimmer herself and wanted me to be likewise, ostensibly as a life skill such as playing tennis or bridge or being able to ballroom dance, but actually so as to have someone to swim with.

At least once a week throughout my school holidays and often at a weekend during term, my mother and I would go to the beach together, sometimes in the company of friends, sometimes just the two of us. Her favourite spot when we lived at the Fourseas and on Boundary Street in Kowloon was 11 1/2 Mile Beach. It lacked any amenities whatsoever and the only shelter was three or four ruined beach houses destroyed in the war and a row of trees. However, a Dairy Farm popsicle seller was usually to be found in the vicinity.

The beach was of sand with a freshwater stream cutting through it at one end. Transport was provided by the Navy, which ran a daily families' bus service to Kadoorie Beach, seven miles further on with beach toilets, deck-chairs, ice-cream sellers and a
dai pai dong
or two. Whereas the latter was frequently crowded,
sap yat bun
(Cantonese for 11 1/2) as my mother called the beach, rarely had two dozen people on it.

As soon as her foot touched sand, my mother undressed. Wearing only a pair of shorts and a blouse over her swimming costume, she was stripped for action in seconds. I took longer out of a reluctance to join her. I would rather have spent my afternoon catching fish in the stream or hunting for tree frogs in the ravine down which it ran. Finally, unable to dismiss my mother's entreaties any longer, I would take off my clothes and, grudgingly be-trunked, wade out to join her.

The sea was always warm and lapped at my stomach. The sandy bottom was firm with only a few rocks here and there to which clung barnacles, minuscule sea anemones that packed a vicious sting and urchins with long black spines as sharp as hypodermic needles. A crevice in a large submarine rock was the residency of a small octopus which could be lured out with a dead fish or a piece of meat. It never completely quit its shelter but I often managed to encourage its tentacles and head into the open.

Yet we were not there to enjoy the wonders of marine nature. My mother would take my hands and, towing me as she walked backwards, attempt to get me to kick my legs. I watched as the water rose up her body and knew that once her bosom was submerged I was out of my depth. At this point, she would let go of one hand and tell me to move it breast-stroke fashion. I would obey but grip her other hand so tightly she could not cast me adrift. All the while, I would be breathing hard in panic and begging her not to let me go. She promised she would not and she never did. As a consequence she didn't betray a trust nor did I learn to swim. I possessed plenty of theory but precious little courage.

After a while, she would give up and swim out to the swimming platform where she would sit absorbing the sub-tropical sun, her head tilted back, her short blond hair golden in the light and her eyes closed, day-dreaming.

I would sit on the beach and look out at her, often wondering how life would be if it were just her and me. I think it was at those moments I came to love her rather than just rely upon her as children do their mothers. I was becoming independent and my feelings for her were altering – maturing – as a consequence.

At five o'clock, the grunting horn of the Bedford bus would summon us from the beach and we would climb the concrete steps to the road and board it. Because the seats were wooden and slatted we did not even need to change out of our wet costumes.

After our move to the Peak we frequented Tweed Bay, a secluded sandy beach set aside for the exclusive use of the members of the Prison Officers' Club at Stanley, of which my parents were curiously members. It lay in a tiny bay under the very walls of Hong Kong's top security jail and was reached by passing through several guarded gates. No-one had ever escaped from the place: only one prisoner had ever scaled the walls and he had broken his legs in the process. Every bather was a turnkey, his superior or their families.

I liked Tweed Bay the least of all the beaches we visited. There were no food or popsicle sellers, no streams or woods to explore – and if there had been, they would have been out of bounds as I found out when I tried to climb the hill behind the beach to get a look into the prison. I had not gone fifty yards before I was apprehended by two warders. In short, Tweed Bay was boring.

It was here I finally learnt to swim.

One Saturday afternoon, my mother and I drove to Tweed Bay with Philip and Ray as our club guests, riding in their Jaguar. Both the Bryants were good fun and, as they had no children of their own, I became a surrogate son whenever we were together. In retrospect, I think Philip appreciated how my father regarded me with indifference and decided to fill in a few of the cracks in his non-existent paternity.

We parked by the prison walls and walked to the beach. There were no changing facilities but, as usual, we wore our swimming costumes in lieu of underwear. In next to no time, the adults were in the sea and I was paddling in the shallows.

Eventually, tiring of this, I sat on the beach, absent-mindedly and unsuccessfully digging for the small opaque crabs that lived in holes in the sand. After a while, Philip left the sea and walked up to me.

'I think it's time,' he said.

'Time for what?' I rejoined.

'To swim. Before we go home, I'll have you frolicking like a porpoise.'

This I very much doubted but I trusted Philip and agreed he could have a go where my mother had failed. I was not to know that she and Ray were in on it too.

Philip and I walked out until the water was up to my chest. He then held his arms out and I lay across his hands, face down. The wavelets broke in my face, stinging my eyes.

'Now,' Philip said, 'kick your legs like frogs do.'

I did as he suggested.

'Now, don't stop kicking and move your arms, fingers closed, as if you were pushing the water behind you.' Again, I complied.