Jade Woman

27

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YOUR expensive materials will be in Hong Kong in three days, Lovejoy.”

“Oh, aye.” That couldn’t be right, for most of the stuff was from East Anglia. But I’d learned not to argue.

Marilyn tapped a thick envelope with that laugh I was coming to recognize as Hong Kong’s way of signaling that money had been mentioned. It means anything or naught.

“You will select your studio today.”

We were in the Canton Road jade market noshing some dim sum, the waiters flitting about carrying wicker cylinders full of hot bite-size grub, jubilantly yelling what they’d got. Beats me how they keep going without getting scalded. Marilyn hardly ate anything.

“Some of that’s not jade.” We were watching a jade seller. “It’s Burmese agate.” The old devil was parading a string of lovely translucent green pieces much shinier than jade. “And those other pieces are from a funeral.” Jades in halves have usually been cut from a corpse—bangles especially. In the old days jade was buried with the deceased as an emblem of immortality. “Rotten twister.”

“Say nothing. It’s survival for him.”

That shut me up. He went on his way, offering and boasting. Most of the street jade I’d seen was from New Zealand or the Americas, and carved no earlier than last week.

“Did you get the list of addresses I gave to Ling Ling? Paints, brushes, materials, canvases in special sizes, all that? Only, it’s urgent. I can phone East Anglia. This bloke—”

“Your Tinker is insufficiently fast, Lovejoy.” Which stopped my breath. That’s my trouble. I always think I’m secret.

“Your agents know that everything has to be handmade? The pigments must be ground from natural minerals, made by old processes.” She gave the money laugh. I was all on edge, maybe because I’d had a couple of kai bau tsai, chicken buns steamed to solidity, which slam your belly to the floor. It was a struggle finishing the sweet fungus dumplings and coconut pud.

I shrugged and rose. The waiter came to tot up the bill. The little dishes littering our table were all different shapes—easy to price the nosh, see. Marilyn paid and we stepped outside into the slamming heat.

“Okay, assistant,” I said. “Let’s stop mucking about and go for gold.”

Now to pull off the eighth wonder of the world.

Searching for my studio was an incidental, tiring and of little importance. But something happened which gave me understanding.

We scoured Hong Kong both sides of the harbor. I had a good look at some places Marilyn showed me, and finally decided on a second-floor flat in Wan Chai, big windows, north aspect.

“Ah,” she said. “This one may not be possible, Lovejoy.”

I was narked. “The Triad promised me anything, love.” Just because a woman’s beautiful doesn’t entitle her to welsh on a deal. When my life’s on the line it especially doesn’t.

“Ah Chuen?” We’d collected this old lazaroid bloke who smoked incessantly—cigarettes, I hasten to add—and trailed us in a rickety van. I’d asked Marilyn about him because he was treated with respect by our bodyguards.

Chuen gave me a long look, walked about the empty place, touched the windows. “No, Little Sister.” He explained to Marilyn in Cantonese. And walked out.

I was flabbergasted. “No? What the hell’s it got to do with him?”

She laughed her embarrassed laugh. “Fung shui, Lovejoy. He’s the geomancer.”

“A wizard?” See what I meant about Hong Kong? You’re always wrong. “You’re off your bloody head.” I could have clouted her.

She pointed at the harbor. “See those banks, Lovejoy? The hotels? They cost billions, ne? Every building is placed according to its fung shui. Its disposition, shape. And forces. Balance of wind and water. Of dragons.”

Hellfire, I thought, closing my eyes. I’d give anything for just one day without a splitting headache. Frigging dragons. I felt her take my arm sympathetically and we started downstairs.

“You see, Lovejoy, these things are vital. For business, luck, success, to good fortune.

You Westerners have forgotten all your ancestral wisdoms, ne? We Chinese dare not.

Chuen says this place would spoil your creativity.”

“He’s in on it?” I screeched, in a panic sweat.

“He belongs to us.” She was quite calm. “He is paid twenty American dollars a square foot. He has seen that two dragon spirits fly out of those windows to Causeway Bay.

They do not like doors, ne?”

“Course not,” I said. Always humor nutters.

“You think it is superstition, Lovejoy. But Peking is situated where it is because fung shui decided so. And the multibillion-dollar Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank redesigned itself to preserve the yin yang. As all government buildings, hotels, factories, shops.”

“Here, er, Ah Chuen.” Outside on the pavement I caught him up lighting another fag.

“Are you a fraud? Honest, now.”

“Lovejoy See-Tau,” he said politely. “Fung shui governs life. The taipans say you must be given your wish, whatever place you choose.” He coughed, indicated the apartment block. “Go ahead. Take this one. You find out if fung shui is fraud.” He gave a grin full of bad teeth. “Then you tell me.”

Loony, but fair. I got in the limo and off we trekked to the next. I’ve said I’m not superstitious, hand on my heart. I honestly believed all this gunge about ghosts, dragons, fung shui was balderdash. I mean, the Triad owned megazillions, yet hires a tubercular old scarecrow to sus out how floors feel? Barmy. I can see how superstitions spread, though. Look at the Surtons— educated people, yet calmly explaining how the university authorities de-ghosted their buildings by ritual redecorating.

After that I waited until Chuen had done his magic divination before bothering to take a look myself. No good risking any narked dragons nudging my elbow on their way to a quick swim. Ne?

We finally settled on two upstairs rooms where Cleverly Street runs between Queen’s Road West to Bonham Strand. I could see the trams along Des Voeux Road West and the harbor if I giraffed out of the window. Old Chuen, hands in pockets and looking as unmysterious as anybody could, nodded when I said I could have two rooms knocked into one.

“Can,” he said. “Have downstairs flat for amah.”

“Okay. No bad dragons? No silly ghosts?”

“No.” Quite calm. He’d been criticized before.

I showed where I wanted the wall removed, a bench installed, water piped.

Two architects appeared to draw squares and argue while I peered out of the window.

“You are smiling, Lovejoy.” Marilyn was watching.

I hadn’t realized. “Mmmh? Just remembering. That’s where the horses used to go.”

“Horses? There are no horses in Central District.”

“Not now. Hundred years ago, I mean. Don’t you Cantonese still call it Big Horse Road?”

“You can’t speak… How do you know this?”

I was practically dangling out of the window. The street below was crammed with shops, people streamed along in a hell of a clatter. I liked it. I pulled myself in and found everybody staring silently.

“Know…? Oh, read it somewhere.” I smiled reassurance, looked out. “Can’t you just see pompous old Sir Henry Pottinger riding along!”

“You see the horses?” Marilyn asked shakily.

“Oh aye,” I said. “Hundreds of the bloody things.” Barmy.

But not quite so barmy. In two days the flat was rebuilt, decorated, fitted out, and spotlessly ready. And the day following I arrived to find the materials I’d asked for from a world away, the boxes laid out in a long line.

After one quick gulp at the power of the taipans, I started work.