World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) (18 page)

We turned down the steps. It was dusk and most of the washing had been taken in, leaving the bare bamboo poles jutting horizontally overhead. Far below the canyon was discharging its stream of pedestrians into the broad river of the street. Trams clanked past. The noise of the city came up to our ears like the noise of a busy factory.

Suzie said, “What dress shall I wear in England? You think Chinese dress would look best, or English dress?”

“You've plenty of time to think about that, Suzie,” I said. “Three years is a long time.”

“No, it will go very quickly. What do you think, Robert?”

“I think you should stick to Chinese dress. You'd be a sensation in London.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “I think Chinese dress, too.”

The last light went quickly: it was dark when we reached the bottom of the steps. The neon signs along the main road leaped on and off, flashing out their messages in red, green, white, pink, blue. They said: Don't mourn the sun. The sun is a spoilsport, and now that it is out of the way we can enjoy ourselves, get on with the night's gaiety.

A tram came along, clattering and sparking. We climbed to the top deck and were carried jolting along between the swarming pavements and cliffs of neon; into the dim quiet streets of the Central District that had begun to die its nightly death; out again into the lights, the neon, the swarms of Wanchai.

“I don't want to go to that dance hall tonight,” Suzie said. “I feel too happy.”

“We'll have dinner somewhere.”

“Yes, let's go to that Pekin place.” She giggled. “That place where we went after Ben spanked me.”

At the restaurant she wanted to sit at the same table as before: it brought Ben nearer. She talked about Ben and about going to England all through dinner. Her happiness made her look very radiant and pretty; but she was remote from me, in a dream world that I could not enter, and it was as though there was a sheet of plate glass between us. After the meal I asked her if she would like me to walk home with her; and she said, “If you want—you can walk home with me if you want.” She did not care one way or the other.

“No, I think I'll get back,” I said.

“All right, good night, Robert. I shall sleep tonight!”

“Yes, sleep well, Suzie.”

I strolled down the street to the water front. The stalls along the pavement were lit by the white glare of pressure lamps. I stopped at a fruit stall where there were laichees hung in bunches from the wooden posts and joists: as a child in England I had sometimes been given tinned laichees as a special treat, but I had not eaten fresh laichees until I had come to Hong Kong. They were as succulent as the best hothouse grapes. The stall keeper unhooked a bunch, and weighed it, and put it in a paper bag. I took a loose one from the bag and shelled it as I walked along. A flock of half a dozen rickshaws overtook me. They contained a party of sailors. When I turned the corner onto the water front they were paying off the rickshaw men outside the Nam Kok. They went into the bar. I passed the bar entrance and went through the main entrance into the hall. I stood waiting for the lift and thinking about Rodney. I thought: I hope Suzie was right about him not committing suicide. I hope he hasn't cut his wrist, or hung himself from the ceiling.

But just then the lift came down, and the gate clanked open, and inside stood Rodney.

He came out quickly, his crew-cut head lowered, not seeing where he was going, and walked straight into me, nearly knocking the paper bag out of my hand. Several laichees rolled on the floor.

He started to apologize. “I say, I'm awfully—” He stopped as he recognized me. His eyes turned hostile. Then they became glazed and remote as he canceled out the recognition, tried to look as if I wasn't there. He turned away abruptly. He went through the swing door into the bar.

I smiled to myself. Well, that's better than finding him hanging, I thought. He may be a pain in the neck, but I'd be sorry to find him hanging. I'd feel there was something I could have done.

I picked up the fallen laichees and went into the lift. The liftman heaved on the rope. We rumbled slowly upwards, causing that sudden mysterious “clank” as we passed each floor.

Chapter Five

I
t was two days later that Suzie turned up at my room, at the unusual hour of three o'clock in the afternoon, looking white and shaken. She could not have looked more ghastly if she had just seen a judge put on a black cap and heard herself sentenced to death.

“Suzie! What's happened?”

“Nothing.”

She pretended to look at a painting leaning against the wall. She said, “When did you do that?”

“That picture? Several weeks ago.”

She nodded, tense and bottled up. I knew that she must have just come from a lunchtime appointment with Ben, and I thought I could guess what had happened: Ben had given her the brush-off. I had been half expecting it. The more I had thought about those business lunches of Ben's, the less I had believed in them; and I had not been able to share Suzie's faith in the fortuneteller.

She looked at the canvas on the easel. “Who's that?”

“You.”

She nodded vaguely. She said, “I just met Ben.”

“Oh, yes?”

“We're finished.”

I said inadequately, “Suzie, I'm awfully sorry.”

“My fortuneteller must have made a mistake. Ben just told me, ‘Suzie, we've got to finish—because my wife has found out everything.' Oh, yes, we only have to finish because of his wife. He still loves me, you know.” I knew she did not believe this; she was only saying it to save her pride. She realized that her voice had lacked conviction, and added, “Oh, yes, he still loves me. He told me, ‘I love you terribly, Suzie—I never loved anybody so much in my life.'” She stood tensely, her face white and taut. “All right, I go to the cinema now.”

“The cinema? Suzie, stay and talk for a bit—I'll get some fresh tea.”

“No, I want to go to the cinema. I hear the film at the Roxy is very good. A musical film—you heard about it, didn't you?”

“I don't think so.”

“Oh, everybody is talking about that film—I don't want to miss it.” She went to the door, trying to look as though nothing mattered to her except the film.

“Can I come with you, Suzie?”

“No, I will go alone. I don't think that film would interest you.” She opened the door, then paused and said unconvincingly, “It's just the money I care about, that's all. That's the only reason I mind finishing. Of course I'd have been hurt if he didn't love me still—but he only finished because of his wife. You believe that, don't you?”

“Of course, Suzie,” I lied.

“Oh, yes, don't worry, it was only because of his wife. He still loves me very much—you needn't worry about that.” And she went out stiffly, and closed the door.

II

Ben extended his legs from the balcony chair, laid his hands complacently on his stomach, and said, “Of course the most important factor in the relationship between a man and a woman is mental companionship. The physical side doesn't matter a damn—not a tuppeny damn.” He gave me a glance and said tolerantly, “All right, you can smile. You can smile all you want, old chap, it doesn't bother me.”

“I'm sorry, I was just remembering that morning at the Kit Kat, when you'd just discovered that lack of sex was responsible for all human ills.”

“I was talking nonsense—absolute nonsense. I was suffering an attack of delayed adolescence, that's all. I was like a kid with a new toy. But I can't say I regret the experience. I'm sure it was very necessary for my development. It gave me a sense of values. And I know now that it's all rubbish, this fuss that chaps make about sex.”

I said, “Like the fuss that chaps in the desert make about water.”

“I'm not quite with you.”

“I mean the chap who's just had a surfeit of water is inclined to underrate its importance to those without it.”

“Well, I don't care what you say. I've got this business all worked out now. And I've no doubt you'll learn for yourself one day.” He had never been more pompous. “Anyhow, you must admit that old Liz has behaved marvelously over the whole affair—absolutely bloody marvelously.”

He had rung up only a few minutes after Suzie had left the room and asked if he could drop in to see me. He had felt he owed me some explanation of what had happened. It was apparently quite true that Elizabeth now knew about Suzie, for he had told her himself the night before—not by way of confession, but in order to hurt her. It seemed that the marital bliss about which he had told me at the Kit Kat had been short-lived, and the old domestic frictions had long since returned; they had begun to have rows again with increasing frequency, and these had culminated in a major row last night after a cocktail party at their own house. During the course of this Ben, well primed with drink, had been provoked by some wounding remark of Elizabeth's into seizing upon the most lethal weapon in his armory with which to retaliate. And he had told her all about his lunchtime betrayals with Suzie.

At first Elizabeth had refused to believe him. Then she had turned as white as a sheet, and without another word had gone to her bedroom. Fifteen minutes later he had heard her drive off in the car. He had helped himself to another whisky, muttering “Good riddance.” But by midnight, when she had still not returned, he had begun to grow anxious. He had been filled with remorse. He had spent the next hour telephoning friends and hotels, but nobody had seen her. Then he had remembered her once saying, as they had walked together along a cliff-top on the far side of the island, “If ever I wanted to kill myself, this is where I would do it.” He had been convinced that she had committed suicide. He had been seized by panic. He had summoned a taxi by telephone, driven across the island to the cliffs, and searched for two hours among the rocks at their foot. He had returned home empty-handed as daylight broke, to find still no sign of her at the house, and had set off again to make a round of the police stations. He had finally got back to the house again at about eight-thirty, guilt-stricken and in despair—only to be greeted on the doorstep by Elizabeth herself.

“Oh, hullo, darling,” she had smiled, with the same casual composure with which she might have greeted him on his return from the office. Then she had noticed his disheveled appearance, and exclaimed in apparent astonishment, “Good heavens, what on earth have you been doing?”

She herself had spent the night with friends, who at her request had denied her presence when Ben had rung up at midnight to inquire for her. They had been horrified to hear of her terrible ordeal, and had offered her sleeping tablets upon retiring. But she had refused them. She hated having to fall back on drugs—it seemed somehow so weak-minded.

“And as a matter of fact I never slept better,” she told Ben brightly. “And oh, by the way,” she held out a letter, “here's my ultimatum.”

The ultimatum, written on the friends' notepaper after the good night's sleep, had laid down her conditions for continuing to live with him. These had included, in addition to a number of other minor restrictions on his activities, a complete ban on after-office drinking at the Kit Kat, and of course the immediate dismissal of Suzie. However, she had made one concession. She had come to realize, she had explained, that her objection to his sailing had been very shortsighted, and had no doubt partly accounted for his kicking over the traces and so shamefully demeaning himself with the Chinese girl; and accordingly she had decided to allow him to resume his sailing on Saturday afternoons.

“Absolutely marvelous,” Ben repeated. “Yes, there's no doubt that old Liz has certainly turned out tops. I don't believe that one woman in a hundred would have behaved so well. No, let's go further—let's say not one in a thousand.”

I was silent. I thought it might have augured better for their future if Elizabeth had behaved a little less well.

Ben went on complacently, “And it's made the turning point of our marriage—no doubt about that. We've both learned our lesson. We shall be able to make a real go of it now—on the basis of mental companionship. Of course I realize that it's all been very hard on Suzie. But I don't mind telling you, I'd decided to finish with her anyhow.”

“Yes, I gathered you'd been cooling off a bit,” I said.

“Well, let's face it, old chap, a relationship of that kind is doomed from the start—because there's no mental companionship whatsoever. I'm not blaming Suzie, mind you. Considering her profession and upbringing, she's a very decent girl. It's not her fault that she never went to school, that she's illiterate. But we'd nothing in common—nothing to talk about.”

“We always find plenty,” I said.

“Frankly, I can't imagine what. Mention anything you like—business, politics, sailing, something you've read in the newspaper—and what do you get? Blank looks. Do you know, I found out the other day she hadn't even heard of Winston Churchill.”

“I'm astonished,” I said. “Are you sure?”

“My dear chap, positive. I said, ‘Come off it, you must have heard of Winston Churchill—British Prime Minister during the war.' But she didn't even know what a Prime Minister was.”

“Well, she's heard of Mao Tse-tung and Sun Yat-sen and Ching Ming—which is probably more than you have.”

“I know the first two. I don't know that last chap.”

“It's not a chap. It's the Chinese festival for honoring the ancestral spirits.”

“Oh, I know what you mean now—and a damned nuisance it is, too, because the Chinese staff in the office expect a day's holiday on full pay, and we have to shut down the office while they all troop up to the cemeteries with buckets and mops to clean the graves. Well, frankly, old chap, that just goes to prove my point. Because let's face it, you can't have mental companionship with a girl who's been brought up to believe in all that ancestor-worship nonsense—it's just bloody barbaric.”

And it was only later, as he was leaving, that a chink momentarily appeared in the armor of his pomposity and revealed the doubts lurking below. He had just risen from the balcony chair, and glancing over the balustrade he noticed a sailing boat from the Yacht Club skimming along the water close to the quay, its wind-taut sails gleaming white in the sun. His eyes shone with eager anticipation. “That's what I'll be doing on Sunday,” he said.

I said, “I thought your license was only for Saturday afternoons.”

And I had no sooner spoken than I saw that he had realized the significance of his own mistake: he had unconsciously wished that it might indeed have been Sunday, when he could have sailed all day: that it might have been both Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and that it might have been in freedom, whenever he chose, and without a license to be obtained.

He said, “That's right, Saturday. I meant Saturday.” But his eyes no longer shone, they were confused.

And just then his attention was caught by something else in the harbor: the winking light of an Aldis lamp on the bridge of a cruiser. Anchored over towards the Kowloon side, it was flashing a message to H.M.S.
Tamus,
the shore station in Hong Kong. Ben watched, his lips silently shaping each letter that was winked out.

And then I noticed his eyes again; all their confusion had gone, and had been replaced by a look of calm and untroubled satisfaction such as I had never seen in them before—the look of a skipper on his bridge when he feels the ship under his control and knows himself master of its destiny: the look of a man engaged in a man's job. And I knew that for a moment he was back in the Navy—back in a life of clear-cut relationships, clear-cut objectives, clear-cut orders to give and obey. Back in a life with no women, no nagging, no untidy emotions, no sex.

The light gave a few last quick winks and went out. He paused another moment then turned away. The look of satisfaction had gone from his eyes, the confusion had returned.

He took out his wallet. He said, “Do me a favor, will you? I tried to give Suzie some money, but she wouldn't take a cent. But you could take her out to dinner for me—get her mind off it a bit.”

He gave me a hundred-dollar note. He opened the door, then paused again.

“You know to tell the truth I never thought she cared a damn about me,” he said. “I always thought she was really in love with you. The way she talked about you—well, I mean, one would have thought her head over heels.”

“I expect that was before the spanking,” I said. “It was that Tarzan stuff that did the trick.”

“Well, I don't know.”

“Of course it did. It made her your slave. You ought to try it out on Elizabeth.”

“On old Liz? My dear chap, I wouldn't dream—” He broke off and smiled. “Well, it would be something to do on Sunday. I'll have to give it a thought.”

III

“That man is no good! No, I pity any girl who gets mixed up with that man! Nothing but lie, lie, lie! ‘Suzie, you're so sweet!' he says. ‘Suzie, you're so pretty! I shall divorce my wife, Suzie! I shall take you to London, Suzie!' Yes, he said that fifty, a hundred times! And now he pushes me out!”

Suzie exploded about my room as unpredictably as a firecracker. She had not been to the cinema, but had walked about the streets brooding for nearly three hours; and though she had returned with her feelings still bottled up, and still pretending not to feel hurt, I had seen that she was not far from bursting point, and had done everything I could to provoke the burst; and by the end of ten minutes her injured feelings had begun to come out. And when once Suzie gave vent to her feelings, she could throw as theatrical a scene as any prima donna: the tense white-faced little figure in jeans had turned improbably into a tornado, and another five minutes had seen the end of my ash tray, which now lay about the room in a thousand scattered fragments. She had hurled it against the wall to help out expression.

I thought this a very healthy sign and was delighted. However, I had taken warning from the ash tray, and worked my way round the room surreptitiously concealing other breakable items.