Mr Ma and Son (10 page)

‘Me? Study.’

‘Study what? Are you going to be another one of those who wrangle themselves a degree by translating a chapter of our old
Taoist philosopher
Chuang Tzu
?’ asked Li Tzu-jung with a smile.

‘No, I’m thinking of studying commerce. What do you think?’

‘Commerce, eh? Fine. First go and brush up your English, and then, when you’re confident, go and study commerce. Not a bad idea.’

The two of them talked for ages, and the more Ma Wei got to know Li Tzu-jung, the more likeable he found him. As they spoke, Li Tzu-jung grew increasingly enthusiastic and lively, and they chatted until four o’clock before calling it a day. As Ma Wei was on the point of leaving, Li Tzu-jung told him he’d accompany him and his father to the police station tomorrow morning, to help them report their arrival.

‘Lawyers and doctors are two indispensable treasures to the English, but you’re better off using neither while you’re here. I warn you: don’t break the law, and don’t get sick. The two most vital things when you’re in England!’ Li Tzu-jung carried on hastily, ‘Look here, from tomorrow we’ll speak English when we see each other. You’ve got to practise it. There are lots of Chinese overseas students who can’t stand speaking foreign languages, but luckily we’re “working-class” students with no need to imitate the gentry.’

The two of them stood outside the shop, talking for ages. As they were chatting, the manager of the shop next door came out, and Li Tzu-jung hastened to introduce him to Ma Wei.

Ma Wei raised his head and glanced at the dome of St Paul’s. Without waiting to be asked, Li Tzu-jung launched into a history of the cathedral.

Having listened to the history of St Paul’s, Ma Wei made to leave again. Li Tzu-jung came after him, as eager as some Robinson Crusoe who’s met his
Man Friday
.

‘Can I ask you something, Ma, old lad? Has your father given you that ring of yours?’

‘No, he’s still got it,’ said Ma Wei quietly.

‘Ask him to hand it over. Your uncle left it to you, and what’s yours is yours.’

Ma Wei nodded his head, and slowly made off along the street. The clock of St Paul’s Cathedral struck five o’clock.

S
PRING DEPARTED
with the flowers and summer, wrapped in a suit of green leaves, came dancing along upon the warm breezes. And what do you know – even London came in for its share of clear skies. Carloads of Americans in straw hats sped the streets, catching a fleeting glimpse of London on their tours of the continent. The leaves of the city’s towering plane trees shimmered in the sun as they stirred to and fro, radiating a green sparkle. All around the edge of the blue sky over the buildings hung a white vapour of mist. It was all quite exhilarating, but somehow made you feel rather impatient.

Huge, piteous, pitiful bulldogs, seeming to expend all their energy from their tongues, panted along by the legs of their young mistresses. There was more traffic than ever on the streets, with tourists – forty or fifty to one coach, and wearing little paper hats of different colours – haring around, yelling and screeching, cramming London to bursting point. In stations, at bus stops, in the main streets and on the buses were hung gaudy posters advertising summer holidays. Besides dodging in and out of the traffic, people all seemed preoccupied with trying to manage a few days by the sea or in the countryside.

The girls looked especially pretty, with their white arms bared and wearing big straw hats with brims that swept down to their shoulders. And the hats themselves had all kinds of wonderful decorations – embroidered purses from old China, china dolls from Japan, ostrich feathers, huge daisies . . . If you sat upstairs in the bus and looked down, it appeared as if countless large, bright mushrooms were walking along both sides of the street.

In the midst of such exciting bustle, Ma Wei’s eyes would brim with two hot tears, and he’d say to himself, ‘Look at them all: earning money; enjoying life. Happy, full of hopes. And just look at us, all suffering and hardship, scrimping and scraping. Save a couple of coppers, and the military bigwigs grab it from you. Huh . . .’

From May onwards, Miss Wedderburn spent a lot of time working out where to go for her summer holiday. Every evening she discussed it with her mother, but they never reached any decision. Her mother wanted her to go to Scotland to see some of her relatives, but the daughter thought the train fares would be too expensive, and was in favour of going to a nearby seaside resort for a few days. The mother changed her mind, and decided to go with her daughter to the seaside, but then the daughter felt it would be more interesting to go to Scotland than to the sea. The mother was on the point of writing a letter to her relatives in Scotland when it occurred to the daughter that there’d be much more excitement to be had at the seaside than in Scotland.

Young ladies take summer holidays not to enjoy a restful interlude, but to find a crowded place where they can skip around, having a ball, showing off their new dresses, exhibiting their slim, pale arms, and – it being the seaside – taking the chance to display their fair, bare thighs. So mother and daughter fought like cat and dog, in accordance with that English independence of spirit whereby each person must have his own idea and never yield to the other, which results, as the argument proceeds, in an ever-increasing distance of opinion between the two parties.

‘Mary’ – that was Miss Wedderburn’s first name – said Mrs Wedderburn one day, ‘we can’t go together. If we both go away, who’s going to cook for Mr Ma?’

‘Tell them to go and have a summer holiday too,’ said Miss Wedderburn, twinkling her dimples like a mischievous child.

‘I’ve asked Mr Ma about it, and he’s not taking any time off.’ Mrs Wedderburn uttered the word ‘not’ with particular vehemence, and stuck the dainty tip of her nose into the air as if to shoo some fly that had settled on the ceiling. There was a fly there, too, as it happened.

‘What?’ Mary’s eyes popped so wide that her eyelashes shot up. ‘Not taking a holiday? I’ve never heard of such a thing!’

Yes, the English really have never heard of such a thing – that there should be people in this world who work for their living all year round, and never, ever stop working. She paused for a moment.

‘That young Ma Wei,’ she said with a giggle, ‘told me he wanted to take a trip to the seaside with me. I told him I wasn’t going with any Chinaman! Go with him – what a laugh!’

‘Mary! You shouldn’t be so rude to people. Actually, Mr Ma and his son really aren’t so bad.’ Although Mrs Wedderburn didn’t like Chinese people, she had an argumentative spirit. If somebody said that red roses smelt the best, she’d unfailingly declare that white ones had the most marvellous perfume, or at least that pink ones were the best – despite having been perfectly aware right from the start that neither smelt as beautiful as red ones.

‘Oh-ho, Mum!’ said Mary, cocking her head on one side and twisting her rosy lips sarcastically. ‘You’ve fallen for that old Mr Ma, thanks to his tin of tea and that dinky teapot. If I were you, I’d never have accepted his gifts. Look at the old wretch’s face: looks as if someone’s punched it swollen. Have you noticed how he just sits there for ages without saying a word? And that young Ma Wei’s even more horrible. When he’s got nothing else to do, he asks me if I’ll go out with him. Asked me again yesterday, he did – if I’d go to the pictures with him. I —’

‘And when he does take you to the pictures, it’s always him who buys your ticket, isn’t it?’ Mrs Wedderburn rebuked Mary, with a stern look on her face.

‘I’ve never asked him to pay for my ticket. If I give him the money, he won’t take it. And while we’re on that subject, Mum, you still owe me sixpence.’

‘I’ll pay you back tomorrow, I promise.’ Mrs Wedderburn felt around in her purse, but as she’d thought, she didn’t have enough. ‘You know what I think? The Chinese are more generous than us. You just watch when Mr Ma gives Ma Wei any money. He just stuffs his hand into his pocket, and hands him money without even counting it. And when Ma Wei does any shopping for his father, he never pesters him to get the money back. What’s more,’ Mrs Wedderburn shook her head, then put her bun back in place with a gentle prod of her finger, ‘every week when Mr Ma pays the rent, he takes the receipt and crams it into his pocket with barely a glance, and hands me the money. Never ever argues about the amount.’

‘How quaint! How novel!’ said Mary, smiling.

‘What do you mean?’

‘“Ethics alter in accordance with economics.”’ Mary stuck out her chest and put a hand behind her back, with the air of a university professor. ‘Our forebears used to live with all the family, young and old, together in one house, with everything shared – including money – just like the Chinese do. Nowadays we’ve got a different economic system, with each earning his own money and eating his own food. And our ideas of what’s good have changed along with it. We prize independence, so we stake our claim to our own money. And the Chinese aren’t any more generous than us, either! It’s just that their economic system hasn’t developed to —’

‘Where on earth did you get all that from? Trying to show off with your learned airs!’

‘Never you mind where I heard it from.’ Miss Mary rolled her eyes, tipped her head to one side and giggled. ‘Anyhow, it’s true isn’t it, Mum? Isn’t it?’ Seeing her mother nod, she continued. ‘It’s no good you sticking up for the Chinese, Mum. If they weren’t so horrible, why would all the Chinese in films and plays and books be murderers or arsonists or rapists?’

Miss Mary’s economical and ethical notions derived from her reading of the newspaper, along with her hatred of the Chinese. As none of this knowledge was really the product of her own research, you couldn’t really blame her. If China wasn’t such a shambles of a country, where would the foreign newspapers get their bad news from?

‘None of the things you see in films are true.’ In her heart, Mrs Wedderburn didn’t exactly feel any great love for the Chinese, but she couldn’t resist rebutting her daughter’s arguments. ‘In my opinion, it’s very mean to laugh and make jokes about people from weak countries.’

‘Go on, Mum! If it’s not true, then every film and every play and every book is wrong, and even if fifty per cent of them are wrong, that still leaves fifty per cent that have to be telling the truth, doesn’t it?’ Mary was determined to win her mother round to her way of thinking, and, poking her head forwards, demanded, ‘Doesn’t it, Mum? Doesn’t it?’

Mrs Wedderburn gave a feeble cough and said nothing, buying time as she formulated further arguments with which to assail her daughter.

A sound came at the door, then another, like a bit of hemp rope thwacking against the wood.

‘Napoleon!’ Mrs Wedderburn said to Mary. ‘Let him in.’

Mary opened the door and in bounded Napoleon, wagging his tail.

‘Napoleon, my darling. Come here and help me make her see sense.’ Mrs Wedderburn clapped her hands and called to Napoleon. ‘She’s got no business going and listening to all that rotten twaddle, and then coming back here to try to show us how smart she is. Has she, darling?’

As Napoleon came into the room, Miss Wedderburn knelt down, knees together on the carpet, and started playing. As she crawled backwards, the little dog flattened his forelegs and got ready to leap forwards. She screwed up her mouth and suddenly let out a ‘Whooh!’ The little dog jerked himself back with a flick of his body, then gave a bark. She watched him sideways out of the corner of her eye as he sidled up to her and gently took her plump wrist in his mouth.

They carried on playing like that until Mary’s hair had got all untidy with the bumping and romping, and all the powder had come off her nose. Then Napoleon went round behind her and nipped the heel of her shoe.

‘Mum! Look at your dog – he’s bitten my new shoes!’

‘Come here quickly, Napoleon. Don’t bother playing with her.’

Mary stood up, out of breath, and after tidying her hair she brandished her fist at Napoleon. The little dog took refuge under Mrs Wedderburn’s legs, peeping out at Mary with his beady eyes blinking wetly.

Once she’d got her breath back, Mary launched into the holiday discussion again with her mother. Mrs Wedderburn was still suggesting that they go on their summer vacations separately so that the Mas could be catered for, but Mary wasn’t having a bar of it.

‘Anyway, I can’t cook, can I, Mum?’

‘Then you ought to start learning!’ Mrs Wedderburn seized the chance to take a dig at her daughter.

‘I tell you what,’ said Mary. ‘We’ll go together, and we’ll write a letter to Aunt Dolly and get her to come here and cook for them. How’s that? She lives in the countryside, so I bet she’d love to spend a few days in the city. We’ll have to pay her train fare, though.’

‘All right then. You write her the letter, and I’ll pay her train fare,’ agreed her mother.

Miss Wedderburn went to wash her hands, looked at herself in the mirror, put her head to one side and powdered her face. Examining herself from every possible angle, she kept on till the powder was spread evenly and flawlessly over her whole face. Then she fetched her stationery, pen and ink, pushed the small table right up to the drawing-room window, sat down, pulled the pleats of her skirt straight, and stuck the pen in the ink bottle.

A man outside selling apples gave a shout, so she put the pen down and pulled aside the curtain to have a look. Then she picked the pen up again, put her head on one side, drew a few tiny apples on the blotting paper, then lightly flicked the stem of the pen with her middle finger so that the ink came off the nib drop by drop, slowly blotting out the little apples she’d drawn. Next, she stuck the pen back in the ink bottle and inspected her plump hands. She pulled out a nail file and filed her nails, then placed the file on the blotting paper, but, thinking better of it, picked it up again, blew on it, and placed it beside the envelopes. Picking up the pen once more, she flicked a few further blots onto the blotting paper. Some of the blots weren’t perfectly round, so she carefully perfected them with the nib of her pen. And when she’d finished rounding off the blots, she stood up.

‘You write it, Mum. I’ll go and give Napoleon a bath, shall I?’

‘I’ve got to do some shopping!’ Mrs Wedderburn came across the room, holding the little dog. ‘How is it that when you’re writing to your boyfriends, you can dash off five or six pages with no trouble? Very strange, I must say!’

‘Nobody likes writing to their aunts!’

Mary handed her mother the pen, took Napoleon from her and ruffled his ears. ‘Come with me and have a bath, you filthy little creature!’