House of Trembling Leaves, The (16 page)

‘‘But almost everybody speaks mix-match of kitchen English.''

Pietro trailed his fingers in the water. ‘‘Sounds chaotic to me.''

‘‘
Aiyooo!
No, lah.'' She gripped the pole under her arm and made a bowl out of one hand. ‘‘Say this cup of tea is Malaya.'' She pretended to spoon something into the cup. ‘‘Add one sugar you have Chinese, second sugar Indian, third is Malay people. All put into cup of tea, mix it up, then everything blended.''

They stopped and watched the ducks drift on the lazy current. A magical dappled tranquility descended. Later, as Pietro read the newspaper, he jabbed her in the ribs. ‘‘Listen to these headlines. ‘
Civil war in Spain looming!'
Oh what tommyrot, that Franco's such an ugly, louche man, let's see what's next – ‘
Edward VIII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson vacationing in Biarritz on a yacht!' –
naughty Eddie's playing hide the popsicle again, terrible way for the King of England to behave, and, oh,
brah-haa
look here, you'll like this one – ‘Tibet willing to accept Chinese sovereignty? Yes, according to Wu Chung-hsin.'

‘‘That man is a liar! Tibetans will never give up their independence.''

‘‘Who's this Wu fellow? Any relation to Adie?''

‘‘Chinese director of Tibetan Affairs. I'd like to shove a pair of chopsticks up his fat nose.''

‘‘But reading the article, he sounds like he has such charm, dahling!'' Pietro teased.

‘‘Charm? This man, lah, he has same charm as open air shithouse in downtown Penang.''

Pietro laughed, which in turn brought a smile to Sum Sum's face.

When their hour was up they moored the punt by the Anchor pub and hopped on to dry land. Pietro took Sum Sum by the arm and together they capered and pranced like children playing hopscotch back to his rooms in Christ's. ‘‘Feeling peckish, dear sausage?''

‘‘Small bit, lah.''

‘‘I was going to take you to luncheon at a little place in Huntington, but the gorgon behind the bar took a dislike to me last time I went. Let's pop into the college kitchen. Illingworth and I will whip something up in no time.''

‘‘You remind me of my younger brudder. His name is Hesha. I used to play a game with him when he was nine years old. We pull five ingredients out my mother's market basket and he had to prepare a meal in the time that it took A-Ma to finish her small pouch of snuff. Hesha always win.''

‘‘Where's he now?''

‘‘Hesha still in Tibet. He seventeen years old now. He say he wants to go over to Nepal and join Gurkha Army and fight for the British.''

Sum Sum stopped dead in her tracks. There it was again, the same sly breath of camphor. She caught in on the breeze. But where had it come from? She couldn't trace it.

She grabbed Pietro's elbow. ‘‘Can you smell it?''

‘‘Smell what?''

She sniffed the air. ‘‘Liniment, camphor.'' The fine little hairs on the back of her neck lifted.

She kept her eyes doggedly fixed on the road behind.

Pietro turned to see what she was looking at.

For a second she thought she saw a figure in the shade. When she looked again the shadow was gone. She shook her head in frustration. Her mind was playing tricks on her. ‘‘No, it's nothing, sorry.''

They entered the gates of Christ's and headed into the court toward the Buttery where they sat in comfortable leather armchairs.

‘‘Are you feeling unwell, sausage?''

‘‘I'm fine, Pietro. Not worry.''

Sum Sum took a deep breath and felt her shoulders relax.

Only my imagination.

She repeated the words in her head several times. The eight syllables echoed softly inside her brain, sounding like waves lapping the shore.

‘‘Perhaps what you need is a spot of refreshment,'' said Pietro. With a delicate
tinkle-tinkle
he rang a silver hand bell and a college servant appeared.

‘‘Two lime drinkees, Hargreaves, and a plate of your thrilling biscuits please.'' He waited for Hargreaves to leave the room. ‘‘Did you see the look on his face? Not sure he likes me bringing you here. Hargreaves is like everyone else in college. They frown at me for what I am. Only Illingworth understands. But we outsiders have to stick together, right?''

Sum Sum said nothing. Instead, she ran her eyes along the walls, admiring the elegant walnut panelling.

A few minutes later, as he sipped his lime cordial, Pietro said, ‘‘You must miss them.''

‘‘Who?''

‘‘Your family in Tibet.''

‘‘Yes. Yes I do. I am thinking maybe I will go back to Tibet one day. I have to speak to Lu See about this.''

Pietro shook his head. ‘‘I would never leave my family.''

‘‘Well you are here in Cambridge, which means you left your mother, no?''

‘‘My parents died when I was twelve.''

Silence.

Pietro set his delicate jaw.

‘‘This is the point in the conversation when you should look mortified and apologize profusely.''

‘‘I'm … I'm sorry, Pietro.''

He leaned across and took her hand. ‘‘You weren't to know, sausage. It's all so terribly macabre. Why do you think I stay here in Cambridge when term's broken up during the Long Vac? No, I go back to Italy once a year, at Christmas to see my surviving relatives. The Italians say that leaving your family is a little like dying.'' He lifted a finger to his chin as if remembering something important. ‘‘Speaking of dying and going to heaven, dear Samson, you simply must try this recipe of mine. Let's go have a poke in Illingworth's larder, shall we?''

From Illingworth's pantry cupboard he retrieved a bar of Rowntree chocolate, a can of sweet condensed milk and a fistful of fresh rosemary from the windowsill. He placed them on the kitchen counter. ‘‘Now this culinary triumvirate will serve you well for the rest of your life, sausage. Prepare to be dazzled!''

Clad in aprons, they mixed sugar with flour and tossed in an egg. ‘‘This will make the shortbread,'' he said. Then they combined a cup of condensed milk with some golden syrup and whisked in the rosemary, melting it with a dollop of butter until it turned to toffee, after which they spread it onto the shortbread and left it to set. ‘‘Finally break the chocolate into a bowl and heat it over a pan of boiling water. Now let it cool and pour it over the shortbread. And abracadabra, my boyfriend's an actor: rosemary and chocolate
frollino
.''

Two minutes later they tried it. Sum Sum had never tasted anything so delicious in her life.

‘‘Now I bet your Hesha would struggle to come up with something better than that.''

Sum Sum had to concede. She scribbled down the recipe in a brand new blue exercise book. When she put her pen down Pietro asked her what she wrote. She wiped her hands on her apron and squared her shoulders proudly. ‘‘One day, maybe ten or twenty years from now, I open a damn-powerful restaurant.''

‘‘Where?''

‘‘Perhaps in Malaya. The Malays and Chinese love noodles. Maybe even in Tibet.''

Pietro struck his palm on his milk-bottle white forehead. ‘‘A Tibetan girl cooking pasta in a jungle trattoria? Whatever next, Mussolini addressing the nation in a tutu?''

 

When the London taxi dropped Lu See at the store front near the Angel tube station she saw immediately that something wasn't right. The black Vitrolite fascia, hung above the main entrance with the legend
Conrad P. Hughes – Pipe Organ Specialists
in crimson raised letters, was gone. Furthermore, the windows and main entrance were boarded up tight. She entered the grocer's next door and asked the frowning, lined face of an old man what happened. ‘‘They moved,'' he said.

‘‘Moved where?''

He gave her the address of a warehouse near the river.

The same taxi took her through a series of wretched streets, past large unkempt depots without rails or fences. At the said address she stood in front of an abandoned warehouse. Nearby chimney smoke rose in slow suspended scrawls. There was a smell of old fish.

Lu See stood and stared at the ‘In Receivership' sign. She clenched and unclenched her fists several times. A sense of emptiness and gullibility and failure spread up her arms and legs.

At least there was no one around to see her cry.

Lu See covered her face with a web of fingers.

The reality of the matter was almost too painful to be digested. Conrad P. Hughes, aware he was on the brink of insolvency, must have taken her money and absconded. Earlier, she'd filed a report at the Islington police station, but the duty sergeant said there wasn't much he could do, especially if Mr Hughes had fled the country. It was the first time she'd ever been in an English police station, or any police station for that matter. ‘‘Where would he have gone?'' she asked the duty sergeant. ‘‘Perhaps to one of the lesser colonies,'' he replied. ‘‘Tanganyika's quite popular these days.''

Lu See pulled her fingers from her eyes. ‘‘What the hell am I going to do now?'' she exclaimed.

Adrian and Sum Sum shrugged their shoulders. They were in the Pickerel on Magdalene Street. The low-ceilinged pub still carried the smell of old beer and pipe tobacco.

Lu See stabbed a fork into her square of Stilton.

‘‘I thought you said you'd never touch a Stilton Ploughman's again,'' said Adrian.

‘‘I'm punishing myself.''

Adrian sipped from his pint of Adnams. ‘‘You'll just have to write to Second-aunty Doris and get her to send more money.''

Her face filled with colour. ‘‘I can't do that.''

‘‘Why, meh?'' asked Sum Sum. ‘‘Too proud to say to her you make a mistake?''

Lu See covered her eyes and sighed. ‘‘Don't try to get inside my head.''

‘‘True, lah. Nothing in there anyway.''

Lu See turned to Adrian. ‘‘How much do you have in the bank?''

‘‘Not much. Ever since my father discovered I was a communist he's been keeping the purse strings tight. My allowance barely covers my food and lodging.''

‘‘What am I going to do? If I can't pay for the pipe organ then Second-aunty Doris will refuse to support me. Girton, all my hard work, all my dreams … I'll have to go home with my tail between my legs …'' She left the words trailing.

‘‘Look, I tell you what, goosey, I'll sell my car. It's a bit of a wreck but I'm sure it'll get us something.''

‘‘And I can start selling rosemary shortbreads on street,'' said Sum Sum. ‘‘Pietro has tip-top recipe.''

Lu See forced a laugh. ‘‘Well, I hope it won't come to that.''

‘‘So what will you do?'' asked Adrian.

‘‘I'll arrange to head up to Yorkshire and meet with another organ maker. Brinkley & Fosler was one of the other names on the list I made. I'll plead my case, and see if I can get a ready-made console at a knock-down price.''

‘‘And if you can't?''

‘‘Then I suppose pumpkin-head and I might just as well take the next boat back to Malaya.''

When Adrian left them outside the pub, Lu See's mouth drooped. She'd been half-smiling up until that moment, but she couldn't keep up the pretence of lighthearted unconcern any longer. ‘‘What the hell am I going to do?'' There were tears in her eyes.

Sum Sum immediately enveloped her in a hug. She put her hand in Lu See's and together they wiped the teardrops from her face.

‘‘I shouldn't be crying,'' said Lu See.

‘‘Don't be scared to cry. But be scared of giving up. You must not give up. You know that, meh?''

‘‘I'm sorry.''

‘‘Don't be sorry, lah, be strong.'' Lu See nodded. ‘‘We will get through this together,'' continued Sum Sum, fiercely. ‘‘Yes?''

‘‘Yes.'' Now it was Lu See's turn to hug Sum Sum. ‘‘I love you, pumpkin-head. I don't know what I'd do without you.''

 

The following day Lu See received another one of her mother's letters.

 

… there are times when I cease to comprehend who you are. Ever since you turned 17 you have been uncontrollable with passions. Passions I cannot even begin to understand. I have been in contact with Uncle Big Jowl. He says you are determined to stay in England. Your Ah-Ba is threatening to hire a private detective to come and claim you, stick you in a burlap sack and carry you home. Which of the Gods did I upset to deserve such a daughter?

More calamitous news – your brother Peter has joined James as a Jehovah's Witness and has been rebuffed by his fiancée. Irene Ting now refuses to marry him due to his extreme religious views. First you damage our social standing by turning your back on the Chows, now Peter causes huge loss of face with the Tings. Cha! What sins did I commit to warrant such children? Sometimes I wonder if you were all secretly reared by jackals.

Ah-Ba is forced to shun the weekly mahjong games at the turf club for fear of ridicule. His ankles remain swollen because of too much salt in his diet – I think he is sneaking prawn crackers into his mouth at nighttime when I sleep.

The lawsuit with the Woos continues. They sue us, we sue them – only happy people are the lawyers.

Our rubber plantation continues to suffer. Prices are being squeezed like the last mango in the shop. Hip Sing Rubber Processing Co. wants to buy us out on the cheap. I think the Woos are behind this.

It hurts me more knowing you are in league with one of them.

 

With an exasperated puff of her cheeks, Lu See scrunched the paper between her fingers. She went over to the stone fireplace, struck a match and set it alight.

‘‘Ai-yoo, what is it with you and fire,'' observed Sum Sum. ‘‘You always burning things.''