The Year of the Woman (21 page)

Alice called a tentative goodnight as she passed. KwayFay, concentrating on her screen, gave a distant nod. Tony bellowed and did his dance, creating an impression. Franny the new stats girl, a Hong Kong University graduate who claimed to have investments of her own – a fiction, supposed to bring the boys flocking – gave her a guarded smile, but only after checking HC was on the phone. Franny was a plain girl whose uncle was a political man among the godowns in Shek Tong Tsui. She bragged about him on every day except the Double Tenth when the Nationalists put their stupid flags out and talked of moving to Taipei where they could “live in freedom” among the Komintang. The Red Guard factions called Taiwan (still “Formosa” to old English people) The Island of Looters.

Only Charmian the servant remained, sweeping up and humming a melody from the famous
White-Haired Girl
opera. HC struck, seeing KwayFay.

This was it. Resigned, she left her screen.

“I am a forgiving person,” HC said straight out, standing shaking his keys and twitching his shoulders.

“Yes, Business Head.”

“I am keeping you on for a few days, see how you go.”

“Thank you.”

“You did not warn me about the Cook Bounty Island Pacific Republican currency.”

“I did. It is in the records.”

“Don’t contradict!” he bellowed. “You did not warn me! I lose money!”

“Sorry, sir.”

“I review your job in three days.”

He turned then and saw her for the first time in her
new clothes. He started, sweat already speckling his forehead. He had lost weight. He regarded her, his eyes travelling up and down, studying her hair as if across a graph of London percentage-earning ratios. He almost shook his head – no, couldn’t be true; wasn’t this a slut from squatter shacks?

She left when he said nothing more.

“Say again.”

Ah Min seated himself to hear. He had previously been standing, impatient to have done with her. Now he had to absorb it slowly. It was after all about money. He had only recently escaped censure by the forgiveness of Tiger Wong. He looked at the fistful of money the man Tang held.

“Little Sister would not take it all.”

“She did not spend as instructed?”

“No, First Born.”

Ah Min closed his eyes. Yet more impossibilities. Useless to ask “Why not?” as if there were reasons for such irrationality. The girl was bone poor. So whose pay was she in? The sudden hope that she was betraying the Triad because of a better deal rose to comfort him.

“She gave this money back.”

“She …” Ah Min dared not open his eyes. Money was food, air, survival in a malevolent world. She discarded money, for death? The room swung.

“She said to say, First Born …”

“Say it.” This new phenomenon had to be
exterminated
before its canker spread and destroyed the
universe
.

“She will buy Tiger Wong back, and set him free.”

This was better. The girl was mad! Ah Min opened his eyes and studied the man awaiting orders. The dolt was starting to guess that his life was forfeit for concocting such a hopeless fantasy. Buy back the head of the Triad? A person who could fund investments, new currencies from newly-independent Pacific republics with barely a thought, and make mints from an afternoon’s whim? Who could call out hundreds of adherents to change destinies of whole industries, even countries? The girl clearly was insane.

Relief swept through him. He would escape the
consequences
now quite easily. The gods were with him. Accountability was restored.

“Tell more.” Comfortable now.

“She seems to think Business Head is hostage.”

“And?”

“She says she will look after him once he is freed.” Tang hesitated then rushed on in a gabble, “She said Tiger
Sin-Sang
can live with her, and he can carry water from the stand pipes and mind squatter babies.”

The girl, a street urchin with nothing – with
no thing,
nothing except some hutch she’d built from fragments of corrugation and cardboard on some hill where she had
no thing
of her own – was offering to buy the Triad head? Such delusion was more than crazy, it was
gigantic
in its madness. He beckoned for the wad.

The threat-man riffled the notes to show nothing was concealed. Ah Min watched his face and saw only simple concentration there. He had not done this before. Ah Min signed again. The man put the money on the table.

Perhaps he had been too hasty to think of having the man killed?

“Tell me again what she said.”

Ashen, eyes staring with effort, the man began to repeat the story. “We followed. She would not take the limousine. She turned as we neared Statue Square…”

Ghost Grandmother was annoyed. KwayFay thought this so unfair. She’d learned everything Ghost
commanded
. There seemed no plan to Grandmother’s
bullying
, no system. Ghosts ought to be fair, relatives or not.

“Did you learn it?”

“Learn what, Grandmother?”

“Typical! Just typical!” Ghost screeched like ghosts did, as if being strangled, then instantly reverting to a normal querulous voice. “What of this funeral house you buy? When,” Grandmother said pointedly in scorn, “Ching Ming festival already gone!”

“I have not been told of a funeral house, Grandmother.”

“Buy in Kowloon,” Ghost instructed testily. “No Wanchai rubbish. First go to Lion Rock, give green
vegetable
on noodles and mushrooms for the Old Man’s ancestors.”

“Which ones, Grandmother?”

“His male ancestors, stupid girl!” Ghost cackled a derisory laugh. “You think to honour his female
ancestors
, silly child? That would diminish luck for male ancestors! Only Wuhan idiots do that! And make sure the food is hot.”

“I have no money for hot food!” KwayFay wailed.

“Do without your own meal,” Ghost ordered
comfortably
. “Then you have money. Now tell me. How will you make sure honoured ancestor has finished eating his fill?”

Miserably, KwayFay gave the right answer; anything to shut Ghost Grandmother up.

“Toss two coins. If one heads, one tails, then
honoured
ancestor’s spirit is still eating. When two heads or two tails, then finished.”

“Good. You go today to Lion Rock. His great
grandfather
was very angry man. That trouble over the Hoklo girl wasn’t his fault. She was a bitch, always putting on airs. I shall tell her so, too, the cow, next time I see her.”

“You didn’t say where at Lion Rock, Grandmother,” KwayFay reminded, but Ghost had gone.

She got up at the right time and the thin suited man Tang sat beside her on the bus.

“Little Sister, remember this number.” He leant close and muttered. She nodded. “It is instead of paying. You understand?”

“Yes. I buy funeral house today.”

He looked at her, frowning. “Who told you?”

“I go to Lion Rock. Then funeral house.”

That seemed to throw him. He shook his head. “I know nothing of Lion Rock, or any funeral house.”

“Please can I have a lift?”

She paid with the last of her money for noodles in a
foil-covered
polystyrene bowl, with fresh vegetables and mushrooms, and held them in her lap in the limousine all the way to Lion Rock. It was the best she could do to keep the food warm. She was hungry but didn’t dare to contravene Ghost Grandmother’s instructions. She felt close to tears, everybody giving her orders, do this, do that, and she not knowing the consequences of any of them.

The instant they were in sight of Lion Rock near Tsz Wan Shan she had the man stop. She alighted, walked
into the new country park until it felt right, then sat on a stone and undid the foil. Nobody was in sight. She placed her chopsticks on the bowl’s rim, balanced the bowl and waited, making a mental apology to Old Man Tiger Wong’s ancestors for the poor meal she had brought.

Knowing it would be rude to invite Old Man’s
ancestor
’s spirit to dine, she kept silent. Spirits had rights just like everyone else. It was only fair. The driver man stood some distance off checking the time, but his bosses were no concern of hers. She was doing as she was told.

Ten full minutes she stayed immobile, then
apologetically
brought out two coins. She begged the spirit’s
pardon
, not to give offence, and spun them. One heads, one tails. She said a polite apology and put them away. It was vulgar to ask too often if a spirit had finished his meal, so she waited a similar period before spinning the coins again. Two heads; the spirit had finished. She said her thanks that Honoured Ancestor had accepted the meal, took her chopsticks and walked back to the path.

The driver was speaking into his cell phone.

“Why Lion Rock, Little Sister?” he asked, phone held out at arm’s length.

“It is the right place.” She was impatient to be in Kowloon buying the funeral house. She’d had nothing to eat all day. The food she had left on the stone was no longer food, for its goodness had been eaten by ghosts of ancestors. It had to be left there.

The motor was a hundred paces off, but easy walking. The driver followed, muttering into his cell phone. She wished he would stop. He was so annoying.

“Little Sister? Who told you about a funeral house?”

“I’m not telling you.” She was so annoyed. All these tasks, no time of her own, starving to death.

He was still growling into his phone when she was
sitting
in the motor. He clicked it shut and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Kowloon, Jordan Road.”

He paused before turning the ignition. “Not Wanchai?”

“Hurry, please.” She now knew which paper shop was necessary. She would easily find it, and only hoped the proprietors – five workers in the family, not counting eleven women and girl children, the boys naturally at a fee-paying school – would not recognise her as the street-stealer child who once purloined regularly from their premises. “Take quickest route, please.”

She knew paper shops. Choosing one now was difficult. None felt right. She’d not been down this street since she’d thieved here.

One she particularly liked. She used to filch
fragments
of coloured paper, her favourite. Her pattern was well established by the age of ten. She sold the paper to young thugs from North Point, fifty cents for twenty scraps, as long as the edges were not torn.

Alighting at the corner, she stared in dismay. The shop had gone! In its place stood a quick-sell shop crammed with phoney-logo jeans, anoraks, hooded
jackets
of fake leather and sham alpacas.

She wandered down the road examining the
remaining
paper shops. Each was typical, but would any
suffice
? The threat-man Tang had told her a secret no-pay number. It was a command, get the order right. How?
What order, exactly? For whom?

Then she saw it, the one from which she’d stolen. It had simply moved round the corner! The last time had been four years ago, when she’d graduated to being a pickpocket at City Hall, the Star Ferry concourses and the Lantern Market. She’d had to pay squeeze for
permission
to thieve. The Stanley bus – Number Six from Central, to Stanley Village – was the most favoured
pickpocket
route. For a place on the No. 6 she had to
surrender
four-fifths of every stolen item. Robbery! She was good on the No. 6.

So relieved, to see her favourite paper shop.

Hesitant in case the proprietor recognised her, she dawdled and peered in at the funeral papers. Responsibility weighed heavily. How many of the Hundred Deities, to which everybody had to sacrifice at New Year, would one offend, if you got funeral rites wrong? She felt close to tears. Tears were happening a lot lately, since this all began.

Resolute, she made herself stand in the doorway. The shop had shrunk to less than a third of its size. It still looked the best. Dazzling colours, not a single deity
forgotten
, everything a dead ancestor might want in the Hereafter.

As in all paper shops, huge candles of red wax, with golden dragons swarming vigorously up them, hung in bunches from the ceiling on red twine, quite like drying vegetables. These were always necessary for funeral rites. Incense sticks were also customary. She did not favour the stout fragrant incenses, for they burned with great slowness and she wanted incense to burn properly, or it would waste money. (She had never actually bought
incense, only stolen it; the fat three-inch-diameter incense sticks were too difficult to steal, being
impossible
for a little girl to conceal while running away; the thin ones were a disgraceful insult to ancestors, who might take terrible ghostly retribution; the intermediate size, quarter of an inch in diameter, were best.)

Pigeon-holes along the shop wall held Hell banknotes printed, with cavalier disregard of solemnity, in the
jauntiest
shade of lucky red. They were all in fantastically high denominations, bundles of them.

“Yes, Little Sister?”

A middle-aged man appeared, making her jump, smoking his crumpled fag and wiping his hands as he came from the back room. He did not scream for the police. She remained aloof, as if she had a family and had come to buy goods for ancestors in the Afterlife.

“I want to place an order.”

“Certainly. For …?”

“Make me a funeral house.”

“A death! I am sorry, Little Sister.” The man’s
expression
did not change. Sympathy was transient. You
couldn
’t sell sympathy. His interest in the value of her order for his wares, however, was immediate, permanent and total. “How much?”

“Money.” She reflected, wavered. The command had not said.

“What limit for your honoured relative?”

“None,” she said, calling to mind Ghost Grandmother’s abjurations. Ghosts had to be treated with respect, or they might punish the living severely. They would brook no excuse if they were
short-changed
. Nothing cheap.

“No limit.”

The man leant back to eye her, incredulous. For an instant his brow cleared – was it recognition, the street urchin racing from his back door with paper streamers flying from her hand as she scampered into the warren east of Nathan Road? Then his natural shopkeeper’s instincts took hold, and they were off, for this was money.

“No limit,” KwayFay repeated. “I want fast order. Concubines – eight – in paper house, with gardens, trees, eight Rolls Royces and a Bentley, all gold. Three storeys, eight bedrooms, gold bathrooms on every floor.”

“Garden!” He was impressed. “Yes, Little Sister! How soon?”

“Make from new,” she commanded, now in the swing. “Fastest. All clothes, many greys and blues, no green dresses for concubines.”

“Naturally, Little Sister. Green colour for foolish, right?”

“Shoes,
cheong saams,
suits, kitchen and dining rooms with feasting everywhere. Bed clothes, linen, very best beds, every possible thing. And many Hell Bank notes and ingots.”

“The payment …” He was respectful. A
money-money
order.

“This number.” She dictated the sequence she’d
memorised
and saw him literally tremble as he repeated the numbers.

“You sure, Little Sister?”

“Telephone any Hong Kong number at eight o’clock tonight to check.” That was the instruction. Finished
with.

“No need!” he chirruped anxiously. “That no-limit number! How soon, Little Sister?”

“Soon. Tonight, at darkness.”

He said anxiously, “Real tonight?”

“Nine o’clock exactly. Not sooner, not later.”

“Can!” he cried, understanding immediately: this Little Sister’s ancestors were partial to nine o’clock. Nine it had to be.

“You want me to sign?”

“No need! No-limit number!”

She left, her task done. She prayed she’d ordered exactly what the threat-men wanted. If it was wrong, she would have no excuse; she had to have guessed right.

That night she worked late. The office closed, except for Charmian, the foki cleaner who slept, KwayFay thought, somewhere in the building by arrangement with the night security men who were bossed by two Sikhs with shotguns, the usual guardians in Hong Kong.

At eight o’clock she shut her console down, took up her laptop and left. She caught the Star Ferry to Kowloon and walked to Jordan Road. The paper shops were busy, clusters of people looking in at the wares. Outside the shop, standing in the gutter, was a structure made entirely of iron, with holes for carrying poles. It was almost exactly the size and shape of an ancient sedan chair, in which
fokis
used to carry ladies up Hong Kong Peak in the olden days before the Peak Tram came. This iron sedan was a Government edict. In it, KwayFay’s funeral paper house would burn safely, and not cause a wholesale spreading conflagration, as so
often funeral ceremonies had in the past.

She went to stand on the pavement and saw her paper house being carried out exactly ten minutes before nine. It took four men. Amahs would have been as careful, but women were cheaper than men, and Immortals, not to mention ancestors who were to receive this expensive sacrifice, would be offended if they suspected she had ordered on the cheap.

“
Waaaiiii!
” went the crowd, clustering closer, impressed by the lavish paper house. KwayFay was pushed back. Not tall, she had difficulty seeing the lovely structure close.

It was somewhat taller than a doll’s house and entirely made of coloured paper. Lit from within by cool amber light; she couldn’t see how but that didn’t matter. All its doors were ajar, elegant rooms inside the tall storeys. Every room was complete with paper furniture of Chinese Imperial design. She managed to eel her way closer, and was particularly pleased with the miniature bedrooms. In the master bedroom, a grand paper bed was already made with pillows, the bedclothes turned back. On the bed lay paper dressing gowns, with white Cloud-Striding Shoes and slippers by the foot of the bed. Everything paper, so tiny and intricate she inhaled with pleasure.

Along the path of the paper garden, eight miniature paper concubines wandered in elegant court dress. Eight superb small Rolls Royces and a grand stately paper Bentley glowed in gold paper, ready for Honoured Ancestor to drive about the skies. Trees, ornamental shrubs of exquisite design were distributed about the lovely walks and ponds. The garden walls were even
more ornate than those of the China Centre on Hong Kong Island.

Downstairs, paper tables were laid for sumptuous feasting, paper food and cutlery, with paper carpets of superb design, and armchairs awaited ghost guests. Upstairs in other rooms, wardrobes stood open
revealing
suits of western and traditional Chinese cut. The paper curtains, looking as if made of pure velvet and silk, were drawn back to display the artistry. Pictures and paper mirrors adorned the walls, and paper windows were cunningly coloured to show vistas of natural
splendour
and cloud-forming heavenly countryside of
moving
beauty.