River of Smoke

Four

For the journey from Mauritius to southern China Fitcher chose to follow the shortest route, which was by way of Java Head, with a stop for re-provisioning at Anger, the port that faced the perpetually smoking cone of Krakatoa from across the Sunda Straits.

When the order to hoist sail was issued, the Ibis was still at anchor in Port Louis. On her way out of the harbour, the Redruth passed within a few hundred yards of the schooner. There was no one on deck, and the bare-masted lbis looked tiny in comparison with the tall sailships that were anchored around it. It amazed Paulette to think that so small a vessel could play so large a part in so many lives; even when the Redruth’s sails filled with wind and sent the brig racing ahead Paulette could not tear her eyes away from the Ibis: it fell to Fitcher to remind her that she had a job to do.

‘Look sharp Miss Paulette: no time to lowster at sea…’

This, Paulette soon discovered, was no exaggeration: the business of tending plants on a ship at sail was one that allowed for very little rest. Something always needed doing; it was like caring for a garden that was tethered to the back of a large and extremely energetic animal. Almost never was the Redruth on an even keel; the closest she came to it was when she was merely dipping and tilting; at other times her decks were rolling steeply from side to side and her nose was either plunging into the sea or shooting out of it. And each of these movements was a potential hazard for the plants: a slight change in the angle of light could expose some shade-loving shrub to the fierce heat of the tropical sun; a breaking swell could send up a jet of seawater that would come down on the pots as a drenching shower of salinity; and if the decks tipped beyond a certain angle, the Wardian cases could escape their cables and go caroming along the gangways.

For each of these contingencies, and many more, there were procedures and protocols, all devised by Fitcher himself: he was not a man to provide lengthy explanations of his methods and for the most part Paulette had to learn by watching and imitating. But sometimes, as he was working, he would begin to mumble to himself – and there was much to be learnt, Paulette discovered, from these near-inaudible disquisitions.

On the subject of soils for example: Fitcher would take a look at a plant that was wilting, even in the shade, and he would trace its ills back to the composition of the matter in which it was planted. Some soils were ‘hot’, he said, and some were ‘cold’, by which he meant that some types of earth heated up quicker than others and some tended to retain their heat over long periods. To redress the balance, as necessary, he kept several barrels of soil in reserve, some marked ‘cool’ and some ‘hot’: the former tended to be lighter in colour, being of a chalky composition, while the latter were generally darker, being peaty, with a greater amount of vegetal matter. When one or the other was needed he would send Paulette down to fetch him some, and then he would apply the remedy in carefully judged amounts.

Paulette was inclined at first to dismiss these notions of hot and cold soils as a far-fetched fancy – but there was certainly no denying that Fitcher’s methods sometimes effected miraculous resuscitations.

Manure was another matter which Fitcher had studied in great depth. He was not by any means dismissive of some of the conventional materials that were used to enrich the soil – the Redruth’s holds contained many barrels of rape-cake, malt dust and ground linseed – but the fertilizers that interested him most were those that could be harvested or generated while under sail. Seaweed for instance: he believed that certain varieties of it could be turned, through a process of soaking, drying and pulverizing, into matter that was extremely beneficial for plants. Whenever the Redruth encountered a patch of seaweed, he would lower nets and buckets into the water to haul up some fronds: then, after picking out the undesirable varieties, he would soak the rest in fresh water and hang them up on the after-shrouds and the rigging. When dry, he would grind them in a mortar and apply the powder in pinches, as though it were a rare remedy.

The Redruth’s flock of chickens was another important source of plant food. One of Paulette’s duties was to clear the droppings out of the coop every morning; this, said Fitcher, could be turned into a powerful fertilizer if mixed with water and fermented. The bird’s carcasses were not neglected either: when a chicken was slaughtered for the table, every part of it was put to use, including the feathers and bones which were cut up into tiny bits before being added to the compost barrels that hung from the Redruth’s stern. Stray seabirds, Fitcher claimed, were even more useful in this regard since they could be chopped up whole. Whenever an exhausted auk or gull came down to the brig to rest there would be a furious scramble among the sailors – for Fitcher offered a small reward for captured birds.

Meat bones were another much prized composting ingredient: bones retrieved from the provisions’ barrels were broken up with hammers and then added to the compost. Paulette had never imagined that animal bones could be used in this way, but Fitcher assured her that this was a common practice in London where butchers made good money by selling the by-products of their trade to farmers – not just bones, but also hair and horns. Even bone dust and bone shavings could be sold for a price; boiled down and powdered, they were turned into cakes that were rich in lime, phospates and magnesia.

Nor were fish and fish-bones exempted from these uses. Two or three fishing lines were always trailing behind the brig; when a catch turned up and was large enough to be eaten Fitcher would part with it only on condition that it was carefully filleted so that the head, tail and bones could be composted; when the fish were too small to eat, he would slip them whole into the potting soil. In Cornwall, he said, refuse pilchards were considered excellent manure and were often ploughed whole into the earth.

One day a small plump porpoise was found entangled in the Redruth’s fishing lines. It was still breathing when it was hauled up and Paulette would have liked to set it free, but Fitcher wouldn’t hear of it – he had read somewhere that Lord Somerville had used blubber to very good effect at his farm in Surrey. He was delighted to see the creature on the Redruth’s deck ‘threshing about like a pilcher in a pan-crock’. To Paulette’s dismay the porpoise was quickly slaughtered and stripped of its fat, which was put into a special barrel to decompose.

The only substances which Fitcher had voluntarily debarred from use were what he referred to – at least in Paulette’s presence – as ‘excrementations’. But this was merely a necessity, imposed upon him by the prejudices of the crew; he admitted unhesitatingly that for his own part he would gladly have made use of them. The value of liquid excrementations, he said, had been amply proven by chemists, who had demonstrated that all urine, human and animal, contained the essential elements of vegetables in a state of solution. As for the other kind, well, not for nothing was it said in Cornwall that old Fitcher Penrose ‘was so near with his pennies that he’d skin a turd for its tallow’ – he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he himself had pioneered the use of night-soil as manure in Britain. This was one of several Chinese horticultural methods that was new to him.

‘Indeed, sir? Was there much else?’

‘So there was,’ said Fitcher. ‘Dwarfing for example – they’re right aptycocks at that. And greenhouses. Had them for centuries, and clever little vangs they are too, made of paper and wood. Then there’s air-layering.’

Paulette had never heard of this. ‘Pray sir, what is that?’

‘It’s when ee makes a graft directly on to a branch…’

This, said Fitcher, was a Chinese gardening method that he had popularized in Britain with great profit to himself: ducking into his cabin, he emerged with a piece of equipment that he had designed and marketed as the ‘Penrose Propagation Pot’. It was about the size of a watering-can, except that it had a slit down the side to accommodate a tree-shoot. Facing the slit was a small hoop with which the pot could be affixed to a branch: it was the perfect implement for allowing a shoot to develop roots without planting it in the earth.

‘Wouldn’t never have thought of it if I hadn’t of see’d it in China.’

These stories amazed Paulette. Fitcher was so unlike the plant collectors of her imagination, so peculiar in his appearance and mannerisms, that it was hard to imagine him as an intrepid traveller. But Paulette knew, from her father’s accounts, that even Humboldt, the greatest collector of all, was utterly unlike his legend – stout, dapper, and so much the boulevardier that people who sought him out often thought they had encountered an impostor. Not that Fitcher was an explorer of the same ilk – but the Redruth’s assemblage of plants and equipment was ample proof of his seriousness, his competence, and indeed, his passion.

‘Pray sir,’ she said one day, ‘may I ask what it was that first took you to China?’

‘That ee may,’ said Fitcher, with a twitch of his eyebrows. ‘And I’ll answer as best I can. It came about while I was sailing for a living, on a Cornish fruit-schooner…’

One summer, when the schooner was in London for a few days, it came to Fitcher’s ears that a certain Gent had made it known that he was looking for sailors who had some experience of dealing with plants. On making further inquiries, he was astonished to learn that the man in question was none other than Sir Joseph Banks, the Curator of the King’s Garden at Kew.

‘Sir Joseph Banks?’ cried Paulette. ‘Why sir, do you mean he who first described the flora of Australia?’

‘Exactly.’

Fitcher had not neglected his scientific interests during his years at sea: the leisure hours that other sailors spent in smoking, gossiping and catchum-killala, he had devoted to reading and self-instruction. He did not need to be told that Sir Joseph had served as the naturalist for Captain Cook’s first voyage, or that he was the President of the Royal Society, from which post he reigned unchallenged over a veritable empire of scientific institutions.

Such indeed was Fitcher’s awe of the Curator that his first encounter with him got off to an unfortunate start. Sir Joseph was as grand a gent as ever he had set eyes on, dressed to death, from the powdered curls of his wig to the polished heel of his shoe. On being shown into his presence, Fitcher became acutely aware of the shortcomings of his own appearance: the patches on his jacket seemed suddenly to become more visible, as did the attack of acne that had caused his shipmates to compare his face to a pot of bubbling skillygale. He was at the best of times a shy man, and in moments of awkwardness his tongue grew so heavy that even his siblings had been known to joke that he could say neither bee nor baw without sounding awful broad.

But Fitcher need not have worried. Sir Joseph guessed immediately that he was from Cornwall and proceeded to ask a couple of questions about Cornish flora – the first was about the ‘bladder-seed’ plant, and the second about the flower called the ‘coral necklace’ – and Fitcher was able to describe and identify both of them correctly.

This was enough to satisfy the Curator, who rose from his seat and began to pace the floor. Then suddenly he came to a stop and said he was looking for someone to go to China – a sailor with some horticultural experience. ‘Do you think you might be the man?’

Fitcher, ever stolid, scratched his head and mumbled: ‘It hangs on the pay and the purpose, sir. Can’t say nothing till I know a little more.’

‘All right then: listen…’

It was well known, said Sir Joseph, that the gardens at Kew possessed sizeable collections of plants from some of the remotest corners of the earth. But there was one region which was but poorly represented there, and this was China – a country singularly blessed in its botanical riches, being endowed not only with some of the most beautiful and medicinally useful plants in existence, but also with many that were of immense commercial value. Just one such, Camellia sinensis – the species of camellia from which tea was plucked – accounted for an enormous proportion of the world’s trade and one-tenth of England’s revenues.

The value of China’s plants had not been lost on Britain’s rivals and enemies across the Channel: the major physick gardens and herbariums of both Holland and France had also been endeavouring to assemble collections of Chinese flora – and for considerably longer than Britain – but they too had not had much success. The reasons for the lack of progress were not hard to fathom and the most important of them, without a doubt, was the peculiar obduracy of the Chinese people. Unlike the inhabitants of other botanically blessed countries, the Celestials seemed to have a keen appreciation of the value of their natural endowments. Their gardeners and horticulturists were among the most knowledgeable and skilful in the world, and they guarded their treasures with extraordinary vigilance: the toys and trinkets that satisfied natives elsewhere had no effect on them; even lavish bribes could not persuade them to yield their riches. Europeans had been trying for years to obtain viable specimens of the tea plant, offering rewards that would have sufficed to buy all the camels in Araby – but the quest remained still unrewarded.

A further difficulty was the fact that Europeans were not permitted into the country’s interior and were thus unable to wander about, helping themselves to whatever they chose, as they were accustomed to doing elsewhere: in China they were confined to two cities, Canton and Macau, where they were closely watched by the authorities.

Despite these obstacles, the major powers had not slackened in their efforts to obtain China’s most valuable trees and plants. Britain was not without advantages in this race even though some of her rivals had the benefit of an earlier start: the Hon’ble East India Company’s establishment in Canton was larger than any other, and in order to profit from the British presence, he, Joseph Banks, had persuaded some of the Company’s more scientifically-minded agents to assemble collections as best they could. This they had proceeded to do, and not without some modest success – but only to have their efforts confounded by yet another problem: it had proved damnably difficult to transport the plants from China to England. The vagaries of the weather, the seepage of salt water, and the many changes of climate were not the only dangers they had to contend with – a yet greater threat was the attitude of the seamen who looked after them – for as men go, mariners were probably the worst gardeners in existence. They seemed to regard the plants as threats to themselves, and would deny them water at the least sign of any scarcity; when their vessels were menaced by storms or shoals, the pots were treated no better than the most dispensable kinds of ballast.

All other expedients having proved unsatisfactory, Sir Joseph had decided, a couple of years ago, to send a properly trained gardener to Canton. The man chosen for the job was a foreman at Kew, a young Scotsman by the name of William Kerr. The fellow had done his job well enough for a while, but he seemed of late to have become somewhat restless: he had written to say that he was planning to go off to the Philippines next summer and he had requested Sir Joseph to send out a man who could be trusted to safely take home the collection that he had already put together, in Canton.

‘So what do you say, my good fellow?’ said Sir Joseph. ‘Are you of a mind to travel on such a mission? If so I will undertake to secure a place for you on a Company ship that is to depart for Canton next week.’

Fitcher had accepted the assignment, and even though his departure and arrival in Canton were much delayed, the ultimate results of the voyage were good enough to earn him the patronage of the powerful Curator: a few years later he was sent out to China again, not just as a custodian this time, but as a replacement for William Kerr. It was this second voyage that was to establish Fitcher’s reputation amongst botanists and horticulturists – for after spending two years in Macau and Canton, he had succeeded in bringing back many new plants. He had been careful to select varieties that were likely to prove hardy in Britain, and several of his introductions had quickly become established in English gardens: two varieties of wisteria, a seductive new lily, a fine azalea bush, an unusual primrose, a lustrous camellia and much else.

‘Canton’s placed many a foot on the ladder of fortune,’ said Fitcher, ‘and I was fortunate that mine was among them.’

‘And what is Canton like, sir?’ said Paulette. ‘Are there gardens everywhere?’

Fitcher gave one of his rare laughs. ‘Oh it’s nothing like that – it’s the busiest, most crowded city I ever saw. The biggest too, bigger even than London. It’s a sea of houses and boats and the plants are in places ee’d never expect. On the roof of a sampan, pouring over the top of a kewny old wall, hanging down from some sheltered balcony. There are carts that roam the streets, loaded with flower pots; there are sampans plying the river, selling nothing but plants. On feast and festival days the whole city bursts into bloom and flower-sellers hawk their wares at prices fit to make an English nurseryman turn chibbol-coloured with envy. Why, I m’self once saw a boatload of orchids sell out in an hour and that too, with each blowth valued at a hundred silver dollars.’

‘Oh how I long to see it, sir!’

Fitcher frowned. ‘But that ee won’t ee know.’

‘Oh?’ said Paulette. ‘But why not?’

‘Because European women aren’t allowed to set foot in Canton. That’s the law.’

‘But sir,’ cried Paulette in dismay, ‘how can that be so? What of all the merchants who live there? Do they not have their wives with them? Their children?’

Fitcher shook his head. ‘No. Foreign women can go no further than Macau – that is where they must remain.’

The discovery that she would not be able to travel to Canton came as a bitter disappointment to Paulette: it was as if a flaming sword had descended from heaven to shut her out of Eden, forever depriving her of the chance to inscribe her name in the annals of botanical exploration.

Paulette could feel tears starting into her eyes. ‘But sir! Will I not be able to go with you to Canton then? Where shall I stay?’

‘Many a respectable English family in Macau takes in lodgers. It’ll just be for a week or two at a time.’

Paulette had imagined that she would be collecting plants in the wild. Now cheated of her opportunity she burst into tears. ‘But sir, I will miss the best of it.’

‘Come now, Miss Paulette,’ said Fitcher. ‘Ee needn’t take it so hard. There’s a passel of islands along the coast where ee’ll be able to do some collecting. There’s no cause to be upset. Look, I’ll show ee…’

Fetching a chart of the south China coast, Fitcher pointed to the yawning mouth of the Pearl River and the hundreds of tiny islands that lay scattered across it. On the western hinge of the jaws lay the Portuguese settlement of Macau: this was where foreign ships had to go to obtain the ‘chop’ that would permit them to travel up the Pearl River to Canton. At the eastern end of the river mouth, lay a sizeable island called Hong Kong: it was a wind-swept, sparsely populated place and the people who lived there did not seem to mind if foreigners went ashore, men or women. Fitcher had been there once: it was the only time he had been able to collect in the field in China. He had found some fine orchids and had always wanted to go back, to give the island a thorough going-over.

‘That’s as good a place as ee could wish for Miss Paulette,’ said Fitcher. ‘Ee’ll be able to botanize in the wild there, just as ee’d hoped.’

*

Zadig greeted Bahram, as always, with a wide-armed embrace and kisses on both cheeks. It was only when they stepped back to look at each other that Bahram realized that a great change – a transformation – had come over his old friend.

Arre Zadig Bey! he said. You’ve become a white man! A sahib!

Zadig was dressed in duck trousers, a high-collared shirt, and a jacket and cravat – he glanced at his clothes in some embarrassment and made a gesture of dismissal. Don’t laugh too loud, my friend, he said. One day you may have to wear these things too. In a town like this it sometimes comes in useful.

They were in the salon of the Owners’ Suite, where two large Chinese armchairs had been arranged beside an open window. Ushering Zadig to one of the chairs, Bahram said: I hope you haven’t become too European for some paan?

No, said Zadig smiling. Not yet.

Good! Bahram gestured to a khidmatgar, who went off to fetch his paan casket.

Zadig, in the meanwhile, had been looking around the salon which he had visited many times before. I’m glad to see nothing’s been damaged here, he said. It was terrible to see what happened to the front of the ship.

Yes, said Bahram. We were lucky it wasn’t worse. I’ve never been in a storm like that one. Two of our lascars were swept away – and my old Parsi munshi was killed, just sitting in his cabin. Some of the holds got flooded too.

Was the cargo damaged?

Yes. We lost three hundred crates.

Of opium?

Yes.

Three hundred crates! Zadig raised his eyebrows. At last year’s prices that would have fetched you enough to buy two more ships!

A khidmatgar appeared with a silver casket and set it on a teapoy. Opening the lid, Bahram took out a fresh green betel leaf and smeared it carefully with chalky lime.

It was the worst storm I’ve ever been through, said Bahram. When I heard about the flooding in the hold I went to see what could be done. There was so much water in there I got knocked over and a very strange thing happened.

Yes? Go on, Bahram-bhai, I am listening.

Bahram reached for an areca nut and sliced it with a silver cutter. For a moment, he said. I thought I was drowning. And you know na, what they say, about the things a drowning man sees?

Yes.

I thought I saw Chi-mei. That’s one reason why I am so glad to see you, Zadig Bey. I want to know what you learnt about Chi-mei and Freddy when you were last in Canton.

Folding the betel leaf into a triangle, Bahram handed it to Zadig, who tucked it into his cheek.

I’m sad to say, Bahram-bhai, there’s not much I can tell you. I went to the floating city to look for Chi-mei’s kitchen-boat, but it wasn’t there. So I sought out your old comprador, Chunqua, and he told me what happened.

Bahram picked up the nut-cutter again. Yes? Tell me.

Zadig hesitated. It’s an ugly thing, Bahram-bhai, that’s why I didn’t want to write to you about it. I thought I should tell you in person.

Go on, said Bahram impatiently. What happened?

It seems there was a robbery. Some thieves boarded the kitchen-boat, and she tried to chase them away. That’s how it happened.

Bahram’s hand froze and the nut-cutter fell out of his fingers. Are you telling me she was murdered?

Yes, my friend, said Zadig. I am sad that it is I who have to tell you this.

And Freddy?

Chunqua could tell me nothing about him, said Zadig. He disappeared shortly before Chi-mei’s death and has not been heard from again.

Do you think something may have happened to him too?

There’s no knowing, said Zadig. But you should not jump to conclusions. He may just have left and gone off somewhere. I heard that his half-sister had married and moved to Malacca – maybe he went to join her there.

Bahram thought back to his last meeting with Chi-mei, three years ago, on the last boat she had bought – a large and fanciful vessel with a stern that was shaped like an upraised fishtail. He had gone to say goodbye to her, before leaving for Bombay. Having long since fallen into a relationship of easy companionability with Chi-mei, he often went to her boat for his evening meal – they had become, in a way, something like a long-married couple. Chi-mei did not usually cook when Bahram went to visit: her specialities were restricted to the subtle fare of Canton and she knew that he liked spicier food. She would send someone off to other boats nearby, to fetch some Dan-dan noodles, and some ‘Hot-and-Numbing Chicken’, and perhaps some fiery Sichuanese ‘Married-Couple-Slices’. When the food came she would serve it to him herself, sitting opposite him and waving a fan to keep the flies away. Over the years she had grown a little portly, and her face had become plumper, but her clothes were still sack-like in cut and severe in colour. It annoyed him that she took so few pains over her appearance and he had asked why she never wore any of the jewellery he had given her. She had fetched a gold-and-jade brooch, pinned it to her tunic and given him a wide smile: ‘Mister Barry too muchi happy now?’

Was it the jewellery they had come for, those thieves? He thought of her trying to fend off their knives, and an image appeared in front of his eyes, of a rent in the fabric of her tunic, where that brooch had been, and of blood welling up from her chest.

Bahram clasped his hands to his face: I can’t believe it; I can’t believe it.

Zadig came to stand beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. It is hard for you, isn’t it?

I can’t believe it, Zadig Bey.

Do you remember, my friend, said Zadig gently, all those years ago, when you and I talked of love? You said that what you and Chi-mei had was not love? That it was something else, something different?

Bahram brushed his hand across his eyes, and cleared his throat. Yes, Zadig Bey, I remember very well.

Zadig squeezed Bahram’s shoulder: I think maybe you were wrong, no?

Bahram had to swallow several times before he could speak: Look, Zadig Bey, I’m not like you – I don’t think about such things. Maybe it’s true what you say – maybe what I felt for Chi-mei was the closest I’ll ever come to these things you speak of: love, pyar, ishq. But what does it matter now? She’s gone, isn’t she? I have to carry on: I have a cargo to sell.

That’s correct. You have to look ahead Bahram-bai.

Exactly. So tell me, Zadig Bey, will you come to Canton with me? On the Anahita? I will give you a fine cabin.

Yes, of course, Bahram-bhai! It will be wonderful to travel again with you.

Good! So when will you come on board?

Give me a day or two and I will be back with my baggage.

After Zadig had left, Bahram could not bear to remain in his suite. For the first time since the storm, he decided to go up to the main deck.

He had been dreading the moment when he would see for himself the wound in the Anahita’s prow, and the sight proved even more shocking than he had expected. Although the jib had already been replaced, to Bahram’s eyes the absence of the gilded figurehead was starkly evident.

I cannot stand it, Vico, he said. I must go down.

Bahram’s horror was not so much for the loss itself, as for the effect it would have on the Mistries, most of all on Shireenbai, who was a keen votary of signs and portents. Bahram’s refusal to heed omens and oracles had long been a source of contention between them: she had never made any secret of her belief that it was largely responsible for the greatest of the many disappointments of their marriage: her lack of a son.

Shireenbai had grown up in a family of powerful, self-willed men, and even though they both doted on their two daughters, she had long wanted a boy of her own. To this end she had visited many magical wells, touched a great number of miraculous rocks, tied uncountable threads and sought the blessings of a legion of pirs, fakirs, swamis, sants and saints. That none of these missions had resulted in success seemed only to strengthen her belief in the potency of these intermediaries. She would often plead with Bahram to participate in her efforts to find a cure: but why? pante kain? why won’t you come with me?

Once, many years ago, she had overcome his objections and taken him to visit one of her gurus: she had somehow got it into her head that this man would be able to remedy her failure to bear a male child and she had insisted that Bahram go with her to see him. After resisting for months Bahram had finally relented when she pointed out that her child-bearing years were almost at an end: in the hope of buying some peace at home, he had agreed to visit the miracle-monger. This master of fecundity turned out to be a hirsute, ash-covered sadhu who lived in the jungles of Borivli, two hours from the city: he had asked Bahram many questions and had taken extensive readings of his pulse; then after much cogitation and coaxing he had announced that the cause of the problem had been revealed to him – it lay not with Shireenbai but with him, Bahram. The masculine energies of Bahram’s bodily fluids had become depleted, he said, because of his domestic circumstances: it could scarcely be otherwise with a ghar-jamai – a man who lived under the roof of his wife’s family was bound to be weakened by his dependency on his in-laws. To make him strong enough to sire a male child would be no easy task, but could be achieved if he, Bahram, were willing to dose himself with potions, apply certain ointments, and of course, contribute very large sums of money to the sadhu’s ashram.

Bahram had been uncharacteristically patient in enduring this performance, but at the end of it he let his annoyance show by asking: Are you sure you know what you are talking about?

The old man, whose cataract-clouded eyes contained a surprising glint of shrewdness, had smiled at him sweetly and answered: Why? Do you have any reason to think that your seed is capable of begetting a male child?

Bahram had understood at once that the old man had sprung a carefully crafted trap. To denounce him as a fraud would surely have excited Shireenbai’s suspicions, and expensive though the alternative might be, the cost was negligible in comparison with the price he would have to pay if it came to be known that he had already sired a son – a bastard. A short while ago, a similar revelation had caused an upheaval in the community: the man concerned, a trader of Bahram’s acquaintance, had been expelled from the Parsi panchayat. Not only had he become a social outcast, a pariah to whom no Parsi would so much as rent a room, he had also been financially ruined because no one would do business with him any more; there was almost no price that Bahram would not have paid to prevent such an outcome.

Yet, when he tried to speak the words of denial he found himself gagging on them. It was one thing to skim over the subject in silence; but to actively deny his son’s existence, to pretend that he had played no part in engendering the life of his own child – this was impossibly difficult. Fatherhood and family were a kind of religion to him, and it would be like denying his faith, erasing the sacred ties of blood that connected him, not only to his son but also to his daughters.

The sadhu, perhaps sensing his dilemma, said: You have not answered my question…

Bahram could feel his wife’s eyes boring into him, and somehow, swallowing hard, he had managed to say: No. You’re right; the fault must lie in my seed. I will take the treatment – all of it, whatever is necessary.

Over the next several months he had taken the sadhu’s tonics, applied the ointments, paid whatever was asked for and lain with Shireenbai in the prescribed ways, at exactly the prescribed times. The effort was not entirely wasted, for Shireenbai had never again talked to him about her wish for a son – but on the other hand, the failure of the ‘treatment’ had seemed only to confirm her forebodings about the future. Her belief in signs and omens had grown even more fervent than before.

Never were Shireenbai’s apprehensions more acute than when Bahram was about to set sail for southern China: in the weeks before she would make daily visits to the Fire Temple and spend long hours with the dasturs; the day and the hour of Bahram’s departure would be dictated by her astrologers and since he refused to consult fortune-tellers himself, she would seek them out, commissioning all kinds of prophecies and divinations. The night before, if an owl were heard, she would insist upon a change of date; in the morning, she would rearrange the household to make sure that he passed through a carefully constructed labyrinth of auspiciousness – a maid would materialize in the stairwell, with a pot of water on her head; the malis would be dispersed across the garden, as if uninstructed, but with their arms filled with the right sorts of fruits and flowers; when Bahram was about to step into his carriage a fisherman would mysteriously appear, just in time to give him a glimpse of his catch. Shireenbai would even dictate the route to the docks, planning it so as to avoid the washermen at Dhobi-Talao – for a dhobi carrying unclean clothes was a sight to be avoided at all costs.

Yet, even at their worst, Shireenbai’s superstitions and observances had never before amounted to much more than a source of distraction: they had certainly never posed a serious obstacle to Bahram’s ventures – not until this year, when she had done everything in her power to prevent him from leaving. Don’t go, she had beseeched him. Tame na jao… don’t go, don’t go this year. Everyone says there’s going to be trouble.

What exactly do they say? Bahram responded.

There’s been so much talk, she said. Especially about that British Admiral who was here with those warships.

Do you mean Admiral Maitland?

Yes, she said. That’s the one. Jhagro thase… they say there may be fighting in China.

It so happened that Bahram was well aware of Admiral Maitland and his mission: he was one of the few Bombay merchants who had been invited to a reception on his flagship, the Algerine, and he knew very well that the fleet under Maitland’s command was being sent to China only as a show of force.

Listen, Shireenbai, he said. There is no need for you to worry about these things. It’s my job to stay abreast of these developments.

But I’m only telling you what my brothers are saying, Shireenbai protested. They are saying China will stop imports of opium and that it may even lead to fighting. They are saying you should not go now: the risk is too great.

This had made Bahram bristle: Arre, Shireenbai, what do your brothers know about this? They should do their work and leave me to mine. If they had been doing business with China as long as I have they would know that there’s been talk of war many times before and nothing has ever come of it – no more than it will now. If your father were alive today he would have supported me – but it’s as they say, ‘when the wise one goes, things fall apart…’

After her first line of argument proved ineffective, Shireenbai confessed to the other reasons for her concern: one of her astrologers had declared that the stars were aligned in such a way as to signal danger to all travellers; a diviner had seen portents of war and unrest; a trusted pir had warned of upheavals on the high seas. Persuaded of her husband’s peril, Shireenbai enlisted their two daughters – both of whom were married by now, and blessed with several children – to add their entreaties to hers, begging him not to go. As a concession he twice agreed to postpone his departure in order that some propitious portents might be found. But after a fortnight of waiting none such were discovered, and at last, fearing that he would miss the start of the Canton trading season, he had had set a date, declaring that he could wait no longer.

When the appointed morning arrived, everything had gone wrong: an owl was heard at daybreak, a dire augury; and then his turban was found on the floor, having fallen down at night. Worse still, while dressing to accompany Bahram to the docks, Shireenbai had broken her red marriage bangle. Bursting into tears, she had again implored him not to go: Tame na jao. You know what it means for a wife to break her bangle, don’t you? Even if you care nothing for me: what about the family? Do you care nothing for your daughters and their children? Jara bhi parvah nathi? Do you care nothing at all…?

There was something in her voice that made it impossible for Bahram to answer her in his usual indulgent way: in her pleas there was an urgency and despair which he had never heard before. It was as if she had at last accepted him as something more than a substitute for the husband she should have had; it was as if, after forty years of performing her marital duties with apathetic punctiliousness, her feelings for him had suddenly ripened into something else.

That it should happen now, that he should have to confront an emotion that was so raw, so naked, after a lifetime of coping with her disappointed, dutiful indifference, seemed profoundly unjust – had it happened even the day before, he might have told her about Chi-mei and Freddy, but with the ship waiting to weigh anchor it was impossible to speak of it now. Instead, he put his arm around Shireenbai as she sat doubled over on the edge of their bed, clutching her broken bangle. Her thin, angular form was draped from head to toe in pale, brocaded China silk; her sari was a relatively plain one, as it happened, yet the sheen of the fabric filled the room with a milky glow: she was wearing no jewellery other than her bangles and the only points of colour on her body came from the scarlet Jinliang slippers she wore on her feet – he had bought them for her in Canton, many years ago.

Slowly unfurling her fingers, Bahram removed the broken glass hoop from her hand. Listen Shireenbai, he said; let me go this one last time, and when I come back I will tell you everything. You will understand then why it was so necessary.

When you come back? But what if…? She looked away, unable to finish the sentence.

Shireenbai, said Bahram, my mother used to say ‘a wife’s prayers will never be wasted’. You can be sure that yours will not.

*

Who were they to be?

The question weighed not just on Ah Fatt and Neel but on everyone who visited the weekly clothes market in the Chulia kampung, where many of Singapore’s lightermen, coolies and petty tradespeople lived. This was one of the poorest quarters of the makeshift new frontier town, a mushrooming bustee of bamboo-walled shanties and pile-raised shacks, squeezed between dense jungle on one side and marshy swamplands on the other.

The market was held in an open field, adjoining one of the tributary creeks of the Singapore River. The road that led there was not much more than a muddy pathway, and most of the bazar’s visitors came by boat. From the Malay and Chinese parts of town people came in perahus and hired twakow rivercraft, while sailors and lascars usually came directly from their ships, in brightly painted tongkang lighters, bearing the wares they hoped to sell or barter: sweaters knitted on ‘make-and-mend’ days; tunics of stitched selvagee and wadmarel; oilskins and pea-jackets recovered from the fernan bags of drowned shipmates.

Neel and Ah Fatt were among the few to come on foot and the bustle of the marketplace took them by surprise: after a long trudge along an unfrequented path, there it was, all of a sudden, a noisy melee of a mela, on the banks of a mangrove-edged creek. In appearance and atmosphere, the bazar was not unlike the weekly markets and fairs that gather around villages everywhere: it had its share of itinerant pedlars and hawkers, entertainers and snack-sellers, meat-hawkers and muff-mongers – but the clothes-stalls were the main attraction, and it was to those that most of the visitors went.

Amongst sailors and lascars the bazar was known as the ‘Wordy-Market’ which suggested that it had once been a market for vardis, or soldiers’ uniforms. Many garments of that description were still to be found there: certainly there were few other places in the world where a grenadier’s mitre could be exchanged for a Mongol wind-bonnet, or an infantryman’s shell-jacket for a pair of Zouave pyjamas. But these regimental items were not the market’s only wares: over the two decades of its existence the Wordy-Market had gained an unusual kind of renown, not just within Singapore, but far beyond. In the surrounding peninsulas, islands and headlands it was spoken of simply as the ‘Pakaian Pasar’ – the ‘Clothes-Market’ – and was known to be a place where every kind of garment could be bought and sold – from Papuan penis sheaths to Sulu skirts, from Bengal saris to Bagobo trousers. Well-heeled visitors to the island might prefer to do their shopping in the European and Chinese stores around Commercial Square, but for those of slender means and pinched purses – or those with no coins at all, but only fish and fowl to barter – this market, listed on no map and unknown to any municipality, was the place to go: for where else could a woman exchange a Khmer sampot for a Bilaan jacket? Where else could a fisherman trade a sarong for a coattee, or a conical rain-hat for a Balinese cap? Where else could a man go, clothed in nothing but a loincloth, and walk away in a whalebone corset and silk slippers?

Some of these articles of clothing came from the impecunious pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers and travellers who passed through the port. But many arrived from much farther afield, having been robbed, purloined or pirated at distant corners of the Indian Ocean – for amongst those who regularly plied these waters, it was well known that there was no better place than the Wordy-Market in which to dispose of stolen garments. Here, even more than in other bazars, buyers were well-advised to examine their goods carefully because many were marked by bloodstains, bullet holes, dagger punctures and other unsightly disfigurements. Caution was especially necessary with the more sumptuous garments – panelled chaopao coats and embroidered chang-fu robes – for many of these were retrieved from tombs and graves, and would often, upon inspection, be found to have been gnawed by worms. But if there were risks in shopping here, they were amply offset by the rewards: in what other place could a deserter exchange his tricorn and gorget for a suit of English clothes? That such a place would not be allowed to continue for ever was clear enough, but while it lasted, the Wordy-Market was recognized to be a godsend by all.

It was Neel who heard of the clothes bazar, from a Kalinga boatman who lived in the Chulia kampung. It was welcome news, for he and Ah Fatt had arrived wearing whatever clothes they had been able to acquire in the outer islands – pyjamas, vests and some threadbare sarongs. These bedraggled garments clearly would not do if they were to avoid drawing attention to themselves but their purses had dwindled by this time and the clothes that were on offer in the town’s shops were far beyond their means.

The Wordy-Market was the perfect solution to their plight: the first items they bought were cloth bags, and these they proceeded to fill, going from one stall to another, haggling in a mixture of tongues. Neel bought a European-style coat and some pyjamas, narrow and broad, a few sirbands and bandhnas to serve as turbans, and three or four light cotton angarkhas. Ah Fatt collected a similarly eclectic mix: a paletot, some shirts and breeches, several tunics, black and white, and a couple of Chinese gowns.

They were heading towards the shoe stalls when a voice came booming at them, loud enough to be heard over the din of the marketplace. ‘Freddy! Bloody bugger…!’

Ah Fatt froze and the blood drained from his face. He kept on walking, without looking back, prodding Neel to keep pace. After a few steps, he said, in an undertone: ‘Look-see who it is. What he look like?’

Glancing over his shoulder, Neel caught sight of a heavy-bellied man, impeccably dressed in European clothes: the face under the hat was very dark, the eyes white and protuberant, and he was hurrying after the two of them with an armload of newly purchased clothing.

‘How he look?’

Before Neel could say anything, the voice boomed at them again: ‘Freddy! Arre Freddy you bloody falto bugger! It’s me, Vico!’

From the side of his mouth Ah Fatt hissed at Neel: ‘You go on. Keep walking. We talk later.’

Neel gave him a nod and walked on at a steady pace, not stopping till he was a good distance away. Then, from the shelter of a stall, he turned to watch the two men.

Even from that distance it was clear that Vico was pleading with Ah Fatt, who seemed unconvinced and unresponsive. But in a while he unbent a little, and Vico, visibly relieved, gave him a hug before hurrying off towards the creek, where an elegant ship’s cutter awaited him.

Neel waited a bit before intercepting Ah Fatt. ‘Who was that?’

‘Father’s purser, Vico. I tell you about him, no?’

‘What did he say?’

‘He say, Father sick. He want me very much. I must go see him.’

‘And you agreed?’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Fatt in his laconic way. ‘I go to ship. Later today. They send boat for me.’

For reasons that he could not quite understand, Neel was deeply disquieted by Ah Fatt’s plan. ‘But we have to talk about this, Ah Fatt,’ he said. ‘What will you tell your father? When he asks where you’ve been these last few years what will you say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Will tell him nothing. Will tell him that I join ship and leave China three years before. At sea all this time.’

‘But what if he finds out that you were in India? And about your jail sentence and all that?’

‘Impossible,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘He can-na! After I leave Canton, all time I use different name. In jail they have only my body: no proper name, nothing. Nothing to connect me with all that.’

‘And after that? What if he wants to keep you with him?’

Ah Fatt shook his head. ‘No. He will not want me with him. He too much afraid Elder Wife will find out. About me.’

Then Ah Fatt had one of his odd moments of almost uncanny perceptiveness. Throwing his arm around Neel’s shoulder he said: ‘You afraid I am going to leave you alone, eh Neel? Do not worry. You my friend, no? I can-na leave you all lone in this place.’

That evening, after Ah Fatt had left to visit the Anahita, Neel went back to the kitchen-boat and sat waiting for a while. As the hours passed he began to doubt that Ah Fatt would return that night and he grew increasingly impatient with himself: what reason was there to feel that his own future hinged upon the outcome of Ah Fatt’s meeting with his father? If it came to a parting of their ways, he would have to manage as best he could – that was all there was to it. He rose to his feet, and made his way aft, to the covered ‘house’ in the stern of the kitchen-boat. This was where he had spent the last couple of nights and he fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down.

Some hours later, he woke up, urgently needing to relieve himself. Opening the door, he found the moon shining brightly upon the river. Afterwards, as he was making his way back to the cabin, his eyes strayed to the prow of the boat – he saw now that two figures were seated there, reclining in the bows.

Instantly, Neel was fully awake. He made his way quietly forward, until the two figures were only a couple of yards away. They were reclining against the moonlit bulwark: one was Ah Fatt and the other was the girl who did the cooking.

‘Ah Fatt?’

All he got in answer was a subdued grunt.

Stepping up to the bows, Neel saw that Ah Fatt was cradling a pipe in his hands.

‘What’s this you’re doing, Ah Fatt?’

‘Smoking.’

‘Opium?’

Ah Fatt tilted his head back, very slowly; his face was pallid in the moonlight and there was a look in his eyes that Neel had not seen before, subdued and dreamy, yet not somnolent. ‘Yes, opium,’ he said softly. ‘Vico give me some.’

‘Have a care Ah Fatt – you know what opium does to you.’

Ah Fatt shrugged. ‘Yen have catch me today: must bite bowl; must have tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘Father tell me something.’

‘What?’

There was a pause and then Ah Fatt said: ‘Mother dead.’

Neel gasped: he could see nothing of Ah Fatt’s face, and nor was his voice expressive of any emotion. ‘How did it happen?’

‘Father say, thieves maybe.’ He shrugged again, and said, on a note of finality, ‘No use talk about such-thing.’

‘Tell me more,’ said Neel. ‘You can’t stop there. What else did your father say?’

Ah Fatt’s voice seemed to fade, as though it were retreating down the shaft of a well. ‘Father happy see me. He cry and cry. He say he worry about me too much.’

‘And you? Were you happy to see him?’

Ah Fatt shrugged and said nothing.

‘But what else? Did he tell you what you should do next?’

‘He agree better I go to my sister in Malacca. He say after this season in Canton he give me money for start busy-ness. Just have to wait three-four month.’

Ah Fatt’s attention was clearly drifting away now, and Neel realized that it would be hard to get much more out of him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should sleep now. Better to talk tomorrow.’

But as he was turning to leave Ah Fatt called out: ‘Wait! Some news for you too.’

‘What?’

‘You want work for Father?’

Neel looked into his absent eyes and expressionless face, and decided that he was merely rambling. ‘What are you talking about, Ah Fatt?’

‘Father need munshi – to write letter and read paper. His old munshi dead. I tell him I know someone who can do this job. In jail I see you write letter, no? And you can write English, Hindusthani and all: true?’

‘Yes, but…’

Neel clapped his hands to his head and sat down again, beside Ah Fatt. He knew nothing about Bahram Modi except what he had heard from Ah Fatt, and these accounts had given him plenty of cause for misgiving. At times he had been reminded of his own father, the old Zemindar of Raskhali: between the two of them also there had been little communication, for the zemindar had spent much more time with his mistresses than at home. Their meetings, being infrequent, had involved much preparation and a great deal of anxiety: always, when the time came to enter his father’s presence, Neel would find that his tongue was stilled by a peculiar combination of emotions – a mixture of fear, anger and a dull mulish resentment – all of which came flooding back now, at the thought of meeting Bahram.

And yet what a relief it would be to have a job, to stop living like a fugitive.

‘Father want to see you tomorrow,’ said Ah Fatt.

‘Tomorrow!’ said Neel. ‘So soon?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you tell him about me, Ah Fatt?’

‘I tell him I meet you by chance here, in Singapore. All I know is you have done munshi-work before. He say he want see you tomorrow. Talk about job.’

‘But Ah Fatt…’

Neel was for once at a loss for words, but Ah Fatt, in his strangely intuitive way, seemed to know what was going through his mind.

‘You will like Father, Neel. All people love Father. Some say he great man. He see many thing, know many people, tell many story. He not like me you know. And I not like him.’ He smiled. ‘Only one time I am like Father.’

‘When?’

Ah Fatt held up his pipe. ‘You see this? When I have big-smoke, I become like Father. Great man who all people love.’

Five

The coast of China was only a week away when Paulette learnt that apart from a trove of living plants the Redruth was also carrying a ‘painted garden’ – a collection of botanical paintings and illustrations.

The reason why this discovery came so late was because the pictures were not on display: they were neatly bundled in ribbon-tied folders and hidden away in the dingy little storeroom where Fitcher kept his plant presses, seed jars and other equipment. This was no accident: Fitcher was not artistically minded and the aesthetic merits of the pictures meant little to him. He regarded them primarily as tools, but of a special kind – for him they were clues to guide him in the search for new and unknown species of plants.

To use paintings to look for plants struck Paulette as a marvellously inventive yet curious procedure: what could be more unlikely than to search for new species not in Nature, but in the most rarefied realms of human artifice? But this was an old and proven method, Fitcher explained, and he was by no means its inventor: it dated back to the earliest European plant-hunters to work in China – among them a British botanist by the name of James Cuninghame, who had visited China twice in the eighteenth century.

In Cuninghame’s time, travelling in China was a little easier for foreigners than it was later to become: on his first visit he had had the good fortune to spend several months in the port of Amoy. He had discovered there that Chinese painters were exceptionally skilled at the realistic depiction of plants, flowers and trees: this was fortunate for him because in those days no one could hope to bring live specimens from China to Europe by sea; the collector’s aims were rather to amass stocks of seed and to assemble ‘dried gardens’. To these Cuninghame had added another kind of collection, the ‘painted garden’: he had returned to England with over a thousand pictures. These illustrations had elicited much admiration while arousing also a great deal of scepticism – to eyes accustomed to European flora it had seemed unlikely, if not impossible, that flowers of such extravagant beauty could actually exist. There were some who said that these painted flowers were the botanical equivalent of phoenixes, unicorns and other mythical creatures. But of course they were wrong: in time the whole world would see that Cuninghame’s collection had contained pictures of many of the most notable flowers the world would receive from China – hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, flowering plums, tree peonies, the first repeat-flowering roses, crested irises, innumerable new gardenias, primroses, lilies, hostas, wisterias, asters and azaleas.

‘But it’s for the camellia that Cuninghame most deserves to be known.’

Never had he understood, said Fitcher, why Linnaeus had chosen to name the camellia after Dr Kamel, an obscure and unimportant German physician. By rights the genus ought to have been called Cuninghamia, in honour of Cuninghame, for whom camellias had been a passion, a quest: it was he who sent back the first camellia leaf ever to be seen in Britain.

It was not merely because of their flowers that camellias were of special interest to Cuninghame: he believed that next to the food grains this genus was possibly the most valuable botanical species known to man. This was not a far-fetched notion: the camellia family had, after all, given the world the tea bush, Camellia sinensis, which was already then the fount of an extensive and lucrative commerce. Cuninghame’s interest in its sister plants was sparked by a Chinese legend, about a man who fell into a valley that had no exit: he was said to have lived there for a hundred years eating nothing but a single plant. This plant, Cuninghame was told, was of a rich golden colour and yielded an infusion that could turn white hairs into black, restore the suppleness of aged joints, and serve as a cure for ailments of the lungs. Cuninghame named it the ‘Golden Camellia’ and came to believe that it might surpass the tea bush in value if it could be found and propagated.

‘And did he find it, sir?’

‘It’s possible, but no one knows…’

On his way back to England, after his second visit to China, Cuninghame had vanished without trace, off the coast of southern India. His collections had perished with him, and it came to be whispered later that he might have met an untimely end because of certain protected plants that were in his possession. Those rumours were further fuelled when a packet of his papers reached England intact: they had been mailed shortly before he embarked on his last voyage and they included a small picture of an unknown flower.

‘The Golden Camellia?’

‘Ee can see for eerself,’ said Fitcher, in his laconic way. Reaching for a folder he extracted a card-like square of paper and handed it to Paulette.

The card was not large, and the picture inside was only about six inches square: it was painted with a fine brush, on paper that was covered with a faint yellow wash. In the background, lightly etched, was a landscape of mist-covered mountains; in the foreground was a twisted cypress tree, and under it, the seated figure of an old man with a bowl cupped in his hands. Next to him lay a branch with a few brilliantly coloured blossoms. The scale was too small for the precise shape of the petals to be outlined in any detail, but the blossom’s colouring was strikingly vivid: a mauve that turned gradually into a sunburst of gold.

Facing the picture, on the opposite leaf of the card, were two columns of Chinese characters, running from top to bottom.

Paulette pointed to the writing: ‘Is the meaning of these lines known, sir?’

Fitcher nodded and turned the card over. Written on the other side, in a faint but distinctive copperplate hand, was an English translation:

The petals on their green tinged stem shine like the purest gold.

A purple eye looks up from the centre, setting the bloom aglow,

It remedies the pain of ageing bones and quickens the memory and mind,

It puts to flight the death that festers in the lungs.

Inscribed under these lines were the words: Hsieh Ling-yun, Duke of Kang-lo.

The Duke of Kang-lo, said Fitcher, was apparently a real person, not some mythical hero. He had lived in the fifth century of the Christian era and was regarded as one of the greatest of Chinese naturalists; these lines of his were thought to mean that not only could this flower reverse the effects of ageing, it could also be used to battle one of humanity’s most dreaded enemies: that scourge of the lungs – consumption.

Many years after Cuninghame’s death his papers had come into Sir Joseph’s hands. He too had come to be convinced that the Golden Camellia might be one of the greatest of all botanical discoveries: the plant-hunter’s Grail. This, said Fitcher, was one of the reasons why he had decided to send a trained horticulturist to Canton, at public expense – William Kerr.

‘But Mr Kerr did not find the camellia?’

‘No – but he did find evidence of it.’

The last consignment of plants that Kerr had sent back to Kew was exceptionally large, and to make sure of its safe arrival he had hired a young Chinese gardener to escort it to London. This boy’s name was Ah Fey, and although only in his teens he was exceptionally clever and remarkably skilled – he had succeeded in transporting the collection almost intact. On arriving at Kew he had also handed Sir Joseph a small ‘painted garden’ – a set of several dozen botanical illustrations made by Cantonese artists. Amongst them Sir Joseph had found a picture of an unknown flower, a camellia that was remarkably like the bloom depicted in Cuninghame’s painting.

Now, pulling another folder off the shelf, Fitcher took out a picture and handed it to Paulette. ‘Here – have a look.’

The picture was painted not on paper but on another material, something thicker, stiffer and of a pristine and polished smoothness: it was a substance made from the pith of a reed, Fitcher explained, and was much favoured by Cantonese painters. The sheet was about the size of a foolscap page and at its centre was a startlingly vivid burst of colour. The vibrancy of the image was enhanced also by the manner in which the painting had been crafted, with many layers of paint being applied upon the pith so that the subject seemed to stand out in relief against the smooth surface – it was a perfectly formed double blossom, with its petals arranged in several concentric circles. At the heart of the bloom lay a closely packed whorl of stamens that seemed to be lit from beneath by a glowing circle of mauve; this tint spilled over into the base of the petals, with the colours changing gradually as they moved away from the centre. The outer part of the corolla was a brilliant sunburst of gold.

Paulette had never seen such extraordinary variations of colour in a single bloom. ‘It is very beautiful, sir – so much that one must doubt that such a flower really exists.’

‘Can’t fault ee for that,’ said Fitcher. ‘But if ee look at the way the parts are drawn ee’ll see that they seem to be sketched from a live specimen. Wouldn’t ee say?’

Now, looking at the picture again, Paulette saw that the picture’s composition was not unlike that of a European botanical illustration: it had been so configured as to include many telling details. She focused her gaze on the leaves, of which two were depicted in the painting: they were elliptical in shape with beautifully defined drip-tips; the petioles were carefully drawn and the mid-ribs and veins were clearly indicated under the shining, glossy epidermis. A bud was also featured, with its head emerging from a wrapping of sepals, packed tightly together like fish-scales.

‘Was it Sir Joseph who showed this picture to you?’

‘So it was.’

Shortly after Ah Fey’s arrival at Kew, Fitcher had once again received a summons from Sir Joseph Banks. On presenting himself before the Curator he had learnt that apart from plants and pictures, William Kerr had also sent a letter with Ah Fey, asking to be relieved of his post in Canton. He had spent several years there already and was desperate to leave. Since he had collected more than two hundred new species, Sir Joseph had decided to reward him by granting his wish: a new post would be created for him in Ceylon.

‘But much useful work remains to be done in Canton,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘Indeed I have received intelligence of a flower that may be a greater prize than any of Kerr’s discoveries. For this reason, among others, I have decided that the next man I send to China will go not as a representative of Kew, but as the emissary of a group of private investors.’

With that Sir Joseph had handed Fitcher the recently received picture of the Golden Camellia.

‘I need hardly tell you, Penrose, that all this is in the strictest confidence.’

‘No, sir.’

‘So what do you say, Penrose? You’re a steady kind of fellow, aren’t you? Are you of a mind to make a name for yourself? And some money too?’

Fitcher knew right then that one way or another the offer would upend his life: three years had passed since his first voyage to China. On his return, he had been given a job at Kew, and had risen to the rank of foreman. On the strength of that he had married the girl he had set his heart on years before, in Falmouth, and she was now pregnant. Fitcher was loath to leave his wife at such a time, but it was she who persuaded him to accept the Curator’s offer: she could go back, she said, to her parents for the two or three years it would take for Fitcher to return. In Falmouth, where a great number of women were married to sailors, this was a predicament shared by many and she would manage well enough; an opportunity like this was not to be forgone.

So, it happened that Fitcher set off on his second voyage to Canton. After two years he returned with the trove of plants that was to make his reputation and lay the foundations of his fortune – but the Golden Camellia was not in that collection.

‘So you never found any trace of it sir?’

‘No,’ said Fitcher.

Sir Joseph had not been willing to entrust either of the camellia paintings to Fitcher: he had travelled instead with copies of the originals. Neither was particularly well-executed, and both had deteriorated during the long trip to China.

‘It’s different now that I’ve got the pictures,’ said Fitcher as he put the paintings back in their folders. ‘I know where to start.’

*

Within a minute of stepping on board, Neel saw that it was no exaggeration to describe the Anahita as a ‘palace-boat’. Not that she was exceptionally large, or imposing in size: at a mere hundred and twenty feet, she was smaller than many of the long-keeled European and American ships that were anchored in Singapore’s outer harbour. But these larger ships, well-trimmed and trusty though they might be, were all workaday trading vessels; the Anahita had more the appearance of a pleasure yacht, a rich man’s folly. Her brass fittings gleamed in the sunlight and her holystoned decks glowed with polish. Except for the absence of a figurehead, no sign of the damage she had recently suffered was anywhere to be seen. Not a rope or hawser was out of place, and a newly fitted bowsprit jutted proudly from her prow.

As he looked around the main deck, Neel’s eyes were drawn to the bulwarks: from the outside they had looked like solid lengths of timber, but now that he was on board, he saw that they were ornamented, on the inner side, with a series of panels that featured motifs from the art of ancient Persia and Mesopotamia: winged lions, fluted columns and striding spear-bearers. He would have liked to examine the designs more closely, but there was no time for Vico kept hurrying him towards the poop-deck. ‘Come, Munshiji. Patrao waiting.’

With its saloons, cabins and staterooms, the poop-deck was by far the most lavishly appointed part of the vessel. During the day, much of it was lit by a soft, natural light, filtering in from above through a series of ornamental skylights. As a result, the interior was free of the gloomy dankness that was so common inside wooden ships: instead it had a spacious, airy feel. The main corridor was panelled in mahogany and was hung with framed etchings of the ruins of Persepolis and Ecbatana. Here too Neel would have liked to linger, but Vico moved him briskly along until they came to the door that led to the Owners’ Suite. Then he raised a hand to knock.

Patrao, the munshi’s here – Freddy sent him.

Bring him in.

Bahram was at his desk, dressed in a light cotton angarkha and jootis of silver-threaded brocade; the beard that framed his jaw was neatly trimmed and he was wearing a simple, but impeccably tied turban.

In the Seth’s face, with its fine, high-bridged nose and dark brow, Neel could see the provenance not only of Ah Fatt’s good looks, but also of some of his other attributes – his sharp-eyed intelligence, for instance, as well as a certain element of will: a determination that bordered upon ruthlessness. But there the resemblance ended for in Bahram there was no trace of Ah Fatt’s wounded vulnerability: his manner was voluble, good humoured and disarmingly effervescent. This, Neel could see, was no small part of his charm.

Arre, munshiji, he cried out, gesticulating with both his hands. Why are you standing there like a tree? Come closer, na?

The cadences of his voice instantly dispelled Neel’s memories of his meetings with his father: he saw at once that Bahram bore no resemblance at all to the old zemindar – or indeed to any of the wealthy and influential men he had known in his previous life. In Bahram there was none of the world-weary boredom and sensual exhaustion that marked so many of those men; on the contrary, his restless manner, like his rustic accent, spoke of an energetic and unaffected directness.

‘What is your good-name?’

Neel had already decided to name himself after his new trade: Anil Kumar Munshi, Sethji.

Bahram nodded and pointed to a straight-backed chair. Achha, munshiji, he said. Why don’t you sit on that kursi over there, so we can look each other in the eye?

As you wish, Sethji.

In stepping up to the chair, Neel had a vague intuition that this was a test of some kind – a gambit which Bahram used in interviewing certain kinds of employees. What exactly was being tested he could not think, so he did as he had been instructed and seated himself on the chair, without preamble.

This was evidently the right thing to do, for Bahram responded with an outburst of enthusiasm. Good! he cried, giving his desk a delighted slap. Ekdum theek! Very good!

What exactly he had done right, Neel did not know, and it was Bahram himself who enlightened him. ‘Glad to see’, he said in English, ‘that you can manage chair-sitting. Can’t stand those floor-squatting munshis. In my position, how to put up with daftari-fellows who are always crawling on the ground? Foreigners will laugh, no?’

Ji, Sethji, said Neel. He bowed his head deferentially, mimicking the manner of the munshis he had himself once employed.

‘So you have seen the world a little, eh munshiji?’ said Bahram. ‘Done a chukker or two? Tasted something other than daal-bhat and curry-rice? Munshis who can manage chair-sitting are not easy to find. Can you handle knife-fork also? Little-little at least?’

Ji, Sethji, said Neel.

Bahram nodded. ‘So you met Freddy, my godson, here in Singapore, is it?’

Ji, Sethji.

‘And what you were doing before that? How you arrived here?’

Neel sensed that this question was intended not only as an inquiry into his past, but also as a test of his English – so it was in his clearest accents that he recounted the story he had prepared: that he was a member of a family of scribes from the remote kingdom of Tripura, on the borders of Bengal; having fallen out of favour with the court, he had been forced to make a living in commerce, working for a succession of merchants as a munshi and dubash. He had travelled from Chittagong to Singapore with his last employer who had died unexpectedly: this was why his services were now available.

The story seemed to hold little interest for Bahram, but he was clearly impressed by Neel’s fluency. Pushing back his chair he rose to his feet and began to pace the floor. ‘Shahbash munshiji!’ he said. ‘Phataphat you are speaking English. You will put me to shame no?’

Neel understood that he had unwittingly put the Seth on his mettle. He decided that from then on he would use Hindusthani whenever possible, leaving it to Bahram to speak English.

‘You can write nastaliq, also?’

Ji, Sethji.

‘And Gujarati?’

No, Sethji.

Bahram seemed not at all displeased by this. ‘That is all right. No need to know everything. Gujarati I can manage myself.’

Ji, Sethji.

‘But reading-writing is not all it takes to make a good munshi. Something else also there is, no? You know about what I am talking?’

I’m not sure, Sethji.

Bahram came to a halt in front of Neel, clasped his hands behind his back, and leant down so that his eyes were boring into Neel’s. ‘What I am talking is trust – shroffery – or sharaafat as some would say. You know the words no, and meanings also? For me munshi is the same as shroff, except that he deal with words. Just as shroff must lock the safe, so must munshi lock the mouth. If you are working for me, then everything you read, everything you write, all must be locked inside your head. That is your treasury, your khazana.’

Then, Bahram walked around the chair, placed his hands on Neel’s neck and turned his head from side to side.

‘You understand no, munshiji? Even if some dacoit tries to twist your head off, safe must stay closed?’

The tone of Bahram’s voice was playful rather than threatening, yet there was something in his manner that conveyed a faint sense of menace. Although discomfited, Neel managed to keep his composure. Ji, Sethji, he said. I understand.

Good! said Bahram cheerfully. But one more thing you should know: writing letters will not be the biggest part of your job. More important by far is what I call ‘khabar-dari’ – getting the news and keeping me informed. People think that only rulers and ministers need to know about wars, politics and all that. But that was only in the old days. Nowadays we are in a different time: today a man who does not know the khabar is a man who is headed for the kubber. This is what I always say: the news is what makes money. Do you understand me?

I’m not sure, Sethji, Neel mumbled. I don’t understand how the news can be of help in making money.

All right, said Bahram, pacing the floor. I will tell you a story that may help you understand. I heard it when I visited London with my friend, Mr Zadig Karabedian. It was twenty-two years ago – in 1816. One day someone took us to the Stock Exchange and pointed out a famous banker, one Mr Rothschild. This man had understood the importance of khabar-dari long before anyone else, and he had set up his own system for sending news, with pigeons and couriers and all. Then came the Battle of Waterloo – you have heard of it, no?

Ji, Sethji.

The day the battle was fought everyone was nervous in the London Stock Exchange. If the English lost, the price of gold would fall. If they won it would rise. What to do? Buy or sell? They waited and waited, and of course this banker was the first to know what had happened at Waterloo. So what do you think he did?

He bought gold, Sethji?

Bahram gave a belly-laugh and clapped Neel on the back. See, that is why you are a munshi and not a Seth. Arre budhu – he began to sell! And when he started to sell everyone thought, wah bhai, the battle is lost, so we’d better sell too. So the price of gold went down, down, down. Only when the time was right did Mr Rothschild step in to buy – and then he bought and bought and bought. You see? It was just that he knew the news before anyone else. Later some people told me the story is not really true – but what does it matter? It is a story for the times we live in, na? I tell you, if I had had the courage, I would have gone up to that man and touched his feet. You are my Guruji! I would have said.

Bahram had been pacing all this while, but now he came to a stop in front of Neel: So do you see munshiji, why khabar-dari is important for a businessman like me? You know, no, that we are going to Canton? When we get there you will have to be my eyes and ears.

Neel took alarm at this: In Canton, Sethji? But how? I don’t know anyone there.

Bahram shrugged this off. You don’t need to know anyone. You can leave that part to me. What you have to do is to read two English journals that are published in Canton. One is called the Canton Register and another is the Chinese Repository. Sometimes other papers also come out but you don’t have to bother with them – only these two are of interest to me. It will be your job to go through them and make reports to me. You must cut out all the phoos-phaas and just give me what is important.

Here Bahram reached over to his desk and picked up a journal. Here, munshiji, this is a copy of the Repository. My friend, Mr Zadig Karabedian, has lent it to me. He has underlined some bits – can you tell me what they say?

Ji, Sethji, said Neel. He ran his eye over the lines and said: It seems that these are excerpts from a memorial written by a high-ranking Chinese official and sent to the Emperor.

Yes, said Bahram. Go on. What does he say?

‘ “Opium is a poisonous drug, brought from foreign countries. To the question, what are its virtues, the answer is: It raises the animal spirits and prevents lassitude. Hence the Chinese continually run into its toils. At first they merely strive to follow the fashion of the day; but in the sequel the poison takes effect, the habit becomes fixed, and the sleeping smokers are like corpses – lean and haggard as demons. Such are the injuries which it does to life. Moreover the drug maintains an exorbitant price and cannot be obtained except with the pure metal. Smoking opium, in its first stages, impedes business; and when the practice is continued for any considerable length of time, it throws whole families into ruin, dissipates every kind of property, and destroys man himself. There cannot be a greater evil than this. In comparison with arsenic I pronounce it tenfold the greater poison. A man swallows arsenic because he has lost his reputation and is so involved that he cannot extricate himself. Thus driven to desperation, he takes the dose and is destroyed at once. But those who smoke the drug are injured in many different ways.

‘ “When the smoker commences the practice, he seems to imagine that his spirits are thereby augmented; but he ought to know that this appearance is factitious. It may be compared to raising the wick of a lamp, which, while it increases the flame, hastens the exhaustion of the oil and the extinction of the light. Hence the youth who smoke will shorten their own days and cut off all hope of posterity, leaving their fathers and mothers and wives without anyone on whom to depend; and those in middle and advanced life, who smoke, will accelerate the termination of their years…” ’

Stop! Bas! Enough.

Bahram snatched the journal out of Neel’s hands and tossed it on a table.

All right, munshiji, it is clear that you can read English without difficulty. If you want the job it is yours.

*

If there was one thing Paulette had learnt about Fitcher it was that he was a methodical man. This was why she was not surprised to discover that he had prepared, long in advance, a plan to trace the provenance of the camellia paintings. His hopes were centred especially on the illustration acquired by William Kerr: the picture was no more than thirty-odd years old and had almost certainly been painted in Canton – it was perfectly possible in fact that the painter was still alive.

‘But you will need an expert to identify the artist, sir, will you not?’

‘So I will,’ said Fitcher.

‘And do you know of anyone?’

‘No, but I know of someone who may be able to help.’

The man Fitcher had in mind was an English painter who had been living in southern China for many years: he was said to be well-connected and extremely knowledgeable. Fitcher intended to call on him in Macau, at the earliest possible opportunity.

‘And what is his name, sir?’

‘Chinnery. George Chinnery.’

‘Oh?’

Paulette’s attention was instantly riveted but she was careful to feign a tone of indifference as she asked: ‘Indeed, sir? And how did you hear of him?’

‘From a friend of his…’

The name had been suggested to him, said Fitcher, by a regular client of his Falmouth nursery – one Mr James Hobhouse, a portraitist who had known Chinnery in his youth. The artist had been living in southern China for over a decade, Mr Hobhouse had told him, and was reputed to be intimately acquainted with the painters of Macau and Canton.

Hobhouse had known Chinnery at the Royal Academy, where they had been contemporaries of J. M. W. Turner. Chinnery had himself once been regarded as a painter of the same calibre, but he was a man of changeable moods: wilful and witty, amorous and extravagant, he was this minute in a high good humour, and in a deep dudgeon the next. None of this was out of keeping for a member of that clan, Mr Hobhouse had added, for the Chinnerys were a family in which unusual talent seemed often to be combined with odd and excessive behaviour.

The artist had certainly inherited more than his measure of the family’s traits. The promise of a brilliant career was not enough to keep him in London. He had taken himself off to Ireland, where, like many a feckless youth before him, he had ended up marrying his landlord’s daughter. She had given him two children in quick succession which was perhaps too strong a dose of family life for his flighty stomach; he had taken off again, leaving his wife to cope with the infants as best she could. His destination now was Madras, where his brother was then living: after five years in that city, he had moved on to Bengal, settling eventually in Calcutta. There, in the capital of British India, he had met with tremendous success, being universally acclaimed as the greatest English painter in the East. When word of his triumph trickled back to England his family had decided to make their way to India to join him – first his daughter Matilda, whom he had last seen as a child, and who was now a young woman; then his luckless wife, Marianne; and finally his son John, who had hopes of embarking on a military career. But the move brought misfortune with it: within a year of his arrival, John was carried off by a tropical fever, and the loss had all but unhinged Chinnery, embittering him against his wife, the very sight of whom became unendurable to him. Once again he took to his heels, moving about as far as possible – to Macau, a place that had suggested itself, or so the wags said, because in the event of his wife’s pursuing him any further he could always take refuge in Canton, where he would be safe from all foreign women.

In southern China, said Mr Hobhouse, his old friend appeared to have found a niche that was to his liking, for he had remained there for the last thirteen years, a length of time that was, for him, an eternity. Now, at the age of sixty-four, safe from marital pursuit, he seemed to be content in the company of sea-captains, travelling merchants, opium traders and other itinerants. They for their part, seemed to regard his work with the greatest approbation: so many, and so lucrative were his commissions that he was reported to have created an atelier in order to keep pace with the demand, training his house-boys and servants in his methods of painting.

Did it matter to Chinnery that he, who had once been thought of as the equal of Romney, Raeburn and Hoppner, should be languishing in a place that was so far from the salons of Europe, a distant backwater where he had to serve a clientele of the grossest philistines? That he affected to be indifferent to such considerations needed hardly to be said – yet it was rumoured that the cognoscenti’s neglect of his work, in London, had filled him with so much bitterness that he had taken to the opium pipe in order to escape his distress. Whether or not this was the usual idle blather of the canting-crew Mr Hobhouse would not say: but even though he was unwilling to venture an opinion of his own on this subject, he did express the hope that Fitcher would look into the matter and throw some light on it when he returned to Britain.

Paulette listened to the tale in silence, and was careful to do nothing that might suggest that she knew anything at all about the artist or his career – but in point of fact, the Chinnery name was not unknown to her: far from it. Indeed, on at least one aspect of the painter’s life she was far better informed than was Fitcher: this was the matter of his other family – the two sons he had begotten with his Bengali mistress, Sundaree, during his twelve-year sojourn in Calcutta.

Paulette’s acquaintance with George Chinnery’s ‘natural’ sons had arisen out of a fortuitous connection between Sundaree and her own beloved nurse, Tantima. Tantima was Jodu’s mother and she had looked after Paulette since her infancy: it so happened that she hailed from the same village as Sundaree, on the banks of the Hooghly. The two women had renewed the bonds of their childhood in Calcutta, when they both found themselves presiding over the households of unconventional and somewhat addle-pated sahibs. But there the commonalities ended, for Paulette’s father, Pierre Lambert, was always something of an outcast within white society, and his circumstances, as a mere Assistant Curator of the Botanical Gardens, were never anything other than extremely modest. George Chinnery, on the other hand, had earned fabulous sums of money while in Calcutta and his household was as chuck-muck as any in the city, with paltans of nokar-logue doing chukkers in the hallways and syces swarming in the istabbuls; as for the bobachee-connah, why it had been known to spend a hundred sicca rupees on sherbets and syllabubs, in one week…

An adoring lover, Chinnery had lavished luxuries upon his cherished Sundaree, giving her an outhouse on the grounds to share with the two sons she had borne him. She had also been given her own little retinue of retainers: a khaleefa, several ayahs and khidmatgars, and even a paan-maker, who did nothing but fold betel leaves to suit her tastes. This arrangement had suited them both – Sundaree because it allowed her the freedom to eat and live according to her fashion; and Mr Chinnery because it meant that his precious little passion-pit was readily available when needed, yet safely out of sight when sahibs and ma’ams came to visit.

Sundaree was herself quite a colourful figure and had once enjoyed her own share of fame and glamour: the daughter of a village drum-beater, she had made a name for herself as a singer and dancer – this was how she came to Mr Chinnery’s attention, for he had paid her to sit for him after attending one of her performances. On becoming pregnant with his child, Sundaree had stopped performing and taken with gusto to a life of indulgence, bedecking herself with expensive textiles and unusual kinds of jewellery. In her prime, she had had no compunctions about ma’aming it over Tantima, pitying her for her cramped quarters and cluck-clucking over the straitened circumstances of the Lambert household.

But all this had changed dramatically when it came to be known that the artist’s other family was soon to descend on Calcutta. As with many another bohemian, Chinnery was in some ways, extremely conventional – the possibility that his legal wife and children might learn about his Bengali ewe-mutton and her two kids, threw him into a panic. The delectable little butter-bun of the day before suddenly metamorphosed into a gravy-making gobble-prick: she and her two boys were summarily evicted from their quarters and packed off to a tenement in Kidderpore, where a khidmatgar would visit them occasionally to hand over a monthly tuncaw.

The arrangement deceived no one, of course, for amongst the sahibs of the city Mr Chinnery’s private life was a matter of almost as much interest as the fluctuation of prices at the Opium Exchange. Marianne Chinnery had found out about her husband’s other family soon enough, and to her great credit she had tried to ensure that they were provided for and that her husband did his duty by them. She had even arranged a church christening for the two little boys: known to their friends as Khoka and Robin, they were christened ‘Henry Collins Chinnery’ and ‘Edward Charles Chinnery’ respectively – which became a source of great hilarity to their playmates, who continued of course, to use their Bengali nicknames.

More usefully perhaps, Marianne Chinnery had also prevailed upon her husband to take the boys into his studio, so that they might learn his trade, and both of them had spent a few years working under their father’s tutelage. Unfortunately for them, this interlude in their lives was not to last long: they had not yet reached their teens when their father fled the city, abandoning both his families.

This was a double blow, for by that time Marianne Chinnery too had lost interest in Khoka and Robin: perhaps the death of her own son had made it more difficult for her to deal with them; perhaps her daughter, having married an English District Magistrate, had pressed her to sever a connection that might be an embarrassment to her husband; or perhaps it was merely that greater exposure to colonial society had coarsened her own sensibilities. In any event, after George Chinnery’s departure, Sundaree and the two boys were more or less abandoned to their fate: the little money the painter sent was not enough to live on, and Sundaree had had to supplement her income by cooking and cleaning for a succession of British families. But Sundaree was a formidable woman in her own right: despite all her difficulties, she had done what she could to ensure the continuation of her sons’ training in the arts – other than the paintbrush, she liked to say, there was nothing to keep them from sharing the lot of every other street-chokra in Kidderpore.

Of the the two Chinnery boys, Khoka, the older, was a strapping, swarthily handsome lad, with light brown hair and a personable manner: He was an easy-going sort of chuckeroo who had a certain facility with the brush even though he had no great interest in art – had he not happened to have a painter for a father, no lick of paint would ever have stained his fingers. His brother Robin could not have been more different, either in appearance or in disposition: with his rounded cheeks, prominent eyes, and coppery hair, Robin was said to closely resemble his father; like him, he was plump, and short in stature. Unlike his brother, Robin was endowed with a genuine passion for the arts – a love so fervent that it all but overwhelmed his own very considerable gifts as a draughtsman and painter. Feeling himself to be incapable of creating anything that would meet his own high standards, he directed most of his energies towards the study of the works of other artists, past and present, and was always looking around for prints, reproductions and etchings that he could examine and copy. Curios and unusual objects were another of his passions, and at one time he was a frequent visitor to the Lambert bungalow, where he had spent hours rummaging around in Pierre Lambert’s collection of botanical specimens and illustrations. Although he was several years older than Paulette, there was a childlike aspect to him that made the difference in age and sex seem immaterial: he kept her informed about the latest fashions, bringing her little odds and ends from his mother’s dwindling collection of clothes and trinkets – perhaps a payal to tie around her ankles, or bangles for her wrist. Paulette’s lack of interest in ornaments always amazed him, for his own pleasure in them was such that he would often string them around his own ankles and wrists and twirl around, admiring himself in the mirror. Sometimes they had both dressed up in his mother’s clothes and danced around the house.

Robin had also taken it on himself to further Paulette’s artistic education. He would often bring over books with detailed reproductions of European paintings – his father had left many of these behind and they were among his most treasured possessions. He never tired of poring over them, and being gifted with unusually strong powers of visual recollection, he was able to reproduce many of them from memory. On learning that Paulette was making illustrations for her father’s book, he had gone to some lengths to tutor her, showing her the tricks of mixing colours and drawing a clean line.

Paulette’s relationship with Robin was not an easy one: as a tutor he was often insufferably overbearing and the ferocity of his disapproval, when she erred with pencil or brush, was such that it led to many quarrels. But at the same time she was also hugely entertained by his gaudy clothes, his unpredictable shrieks of laughter and his love of scandal – and she was sometimes strangely touched by his attempts to wean her from her hoydenish ways and turn her into a lady.

For all these reasons, Robin Chinnery had, for a time, been a large presence in her life – but that had come to an abrupt end when she was about fifteen. Around that time he had developed a strange fixation on Jodu and had decided to launch upon a project – a painting – in which Jodu and Paulette were to feature as the principal figures. The composition was inspired, he said, by one of the great themes of European art, but when Paulette asked what this was he would not tell her. She didn’t need to know, he said, and it didn’t matter anyway because he was re-interpreting it, and giving it a new spirit.

Paulette and Jodu were not at all enthusiastic about the project and their reluctance to participate grew stronger still when they discovered that they would have to spend hours standing still. But Robin’s pleas were too heartfelt to be brushed aside – this, he declared, was his opportunity of creating a masterwork, of forging his own identity as an artist – so they had taken pity on him and relented. For a fortnight or so, they had obeyed his instructions, standing side by side while he laboured at his easel. Through this time he never once allowed them to look at what he was doing: if they asked he would say, wait, wait, it’s not time yet; you’ll see it when it’s ready to be seen. In these sessions both Jodu and Paulette had worn their usual clothes, a gamcha or langot in his case, and a calf-length sari in hers, and although, at his pleading, they had sometimes wrapped these coverings a little tighter than they might otherwise have done, they had never once gone without them – neither of them could have imagined such a thing.

This was why, when at last they managed to sneak a look at the unfinished picture, they were doubly outraged to discover that they had been painted stark naked, with not a thread of clothing on their bodies. Not only that, they had been made to look utterly ridiculous in other ways as well, and shameless too, for they were shown to be standing under an enormous banyan tree, staring directly at the viewer as if to flaunt their nakedness – as though they were Naga sadhus or something. What was more, Paulette’s skin was painted an ashy-white colour and she was shown to be holding a mango (under a banyan tree!), while Jodu was an inky shade of black and had a cobra rearing up above his head. Fortunately Paulette’s mango was so positioned as to conceal that part of her which she would least have wanted the world to see – but Jodu was not so lucky with his cobra: even though the snake had its tail wound around his waist it did not cover what it could so easily have done; that part of his body could not only be clearly seen, it was painted in such vivid detail that it gave the clear impression of being uncircumcised, which added in no little measure to Jodu’s sense of injury.

The whole thing was so shocking and outrageous that Jodu, who was always quick to anger, flew into a rage and snatched the canvas off the easel. Robin was not his match in strength and could do nothing except plead with Paulette to intervene. Stop him, I beg you, he had said; I’ve painted you as Adam and Eve, in all the beauty of your innocence and simplicity; no one will ever know that it is you – please, I beg you, stop him!

But Paulette was almost as incensed as Jodu was, and far from heeding Robin she had boxed his ears and then helped Jodu rip the canvas to shreds. Robin had watched silently, with tears running down his face, and at the end of it, he had said: You wait and see; you’ll pay for this, some day…

After this the visits had ceased and from then on, Paulette had not followed the Chinnery boys’ doings closely. The little she knew of their subsequent careers came from Tantima’s occasional asides: she remembered hearing, a couple of years later, that Sundaree had fallen ill and that Khoka, the older boy, had been sent off to England as the personal emissary of the Nawab of Murshidabad.

Left to fend for himself in Calcutta, Robin had succeeded in using his talents in such a way as to enmesh himself in a scandal: he had started producing ‘Chinnery’ paintings. He was so familiar with his father’s style and methods that it was no great challenge for him to turn out canvases in the same manner and he succeeded in selling several of these, at great profit, claiming that they were works his father had left behind. But eventually the fraud was discovered, and rather than face a jail sentence in India, Robin had followed the example of his uncle William – he had fled the country. Rumour had it that he had run off to join his father, but where exactly he had gone, Paulette did not know. It was not till she learnt from Mr Penrose that George Chinnery had taken up residence in Macau that it occurred to her that this was presumably where Robin had gone – which meant that she might well run into him if she were to accompany Mr Penrose to the painter’s house. Given the circumstances of their last meeting she could not rule out the possibility that he might indeed find an opportunity to exact his revenge.

Although she remembered Robin with great warmth, and had often regretted the loss of his friendship, she knew also that he had a waspish, gossipy side and was perfectly capable of inventing stories that might cause a rift between herself and Fitcher. In considering all this, she let slip the moment when it would have been easiest to speak frankly to Fitcher about her connection with Robin. Something else came up and the opportunity was lost.

*

At Bahram’s insistence, both Neel and Ah Fatt stayed with him while the Anahita’s repairs and refurbishments were being completed: each had a cabin to himself – an almost unimaginable luxury after the privations of the last many months. Day and night they were plied with food: every morning at breakfast, Bahram would summon his personal khansamah, Mesto – a dark giant of a man with a shining bald head and well-muscled arms – and confer with him on what was to be served to his godson for lunch and dinner. Each meal was a feast of a different kind, sometimes Parsi, with mutton dhansak and brown rice; okra cooked with fish roe and patra-ni-machhi, fillets of fish steamed in banana leaves; sometimes Goan, with shrimp rissoles and chicken xacuti and fiery prawn xeque-xeques; sometimes East Indian, with a mutton-and-pumpkin curry and sarpatel.

But the situation was not without its discomforts: Neel had to be careful at all times to maintain the pretence that he and Ah Fatt were casual acquaintances who had met by chance in Singapore; and he also had to be vigilant about concealing his awareness of Ah Fatt’s real relationship with Bahram. This was not always easy for there were times when Bahram was himself unable to keep a firm hold on his god-parental mask: being spontaneous and affectionate by nature he would suddenly fold Ah Fatt into his arms and give him a huge hug; or else he would call him ‘beta’ or ‘deekro’ and pile food on his plate.

The fact that Ah Fatt was often unresponsive, and sometimes even resentful, of these displays of affection seemed to have little effect on Bahram. It was as though he were living, for the first time, the life he aspired to – in which he was a patriarch in his own right, passing on his wisdom and experience to his son.

To Neel there was something touching about the very clumsiness and excess of Bahram’s expressions of affection. He understood why they irritated Ah Fatt, and he understood too why he might regard them as scant compensation for the long years of neglect during which he had felt himself to be disowned and unacknowledged by his father.

But to Neel what was most striking about Bahram’s relationship with Ah Fatt was not its faults but rather the fact that it existed at all. In his previous life, in Calcutta, Neel had known many men who had fathered illegitimate children: not one of them, so far as he knew, had shown any trace of kindness in their treatment of their mistresses and their progeny; he even knew of some who, fearing blackmail, had had their babies strangled. His own father, the old Zemindar, was said to have begotten a dozen bastards, with a succession of different women: his method of dealing with the situation was to pay the women a hundred rupees and pack them off to their villages. Amongst men of his class this was considered normal and even generous; Neel himself had taken it so much for granted that he had never given it any thought – it had certainly never occurred to him to think of his father’s bastards as his own half-siblings. On succeeding to the Zemindari he could easily have inquired into the fate of his illegitimate half-brothers and sisters – yet the notion had never so much as crossed his mind. Looking back, Neel could not avoid acknowledging his own failings in regard to this aspect of his past, and this in turn led him to recognize that Bahram’s conduct in relation to Ah Fatt and his mother was not just unusual but quite exceptional for a man of his circumstances.

None of this was easy to explain to Ah Fatt.

‘For Father “Freddy” like pet dog. That why he pat and hug and squeeze. Father care only for himself; no one else.’

‘Listen, Ah Fatt, I know why you might think that. But believe me, most men in his situation would just have abandoned you and your mother. That would have been the easy thing to do; it is what ninety-nine men in a hundred would have done. It says something for him that he didn’t do it. Don’t you see that?’

Ah Fatt would dismiss these arguments with a shrug – or at least he would pretend to – but it was clear to Neel that despite all his grievances his friend was exhilarated to find himself where he had never been before: at the centre of his father’s attention.

As the days passed, Ah Fatt seemed to grow quieter and more despondent, and Neel knew that it was not just the prospect of being parted from his father that was gnawing at him but also the knowledge that he would not be travelling to Canton. One day, while they were pacing the quarter-deck, Ah Fatt said, with more than a trace of envy in his voice: ‘You lucky man. You go to Canton – number-one city in whole world.’

‘In the world?’ said Neel in surprise. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘No place like it, anywhere. You look-see for yourself.’

‘You miss it, don’t you?’

Ah Fatt allowed his chin to sink slowly into his chest. ‘Too much. Miss too much, Canton. But can-na go.’

‘Is there anyone you would like to send a message to? Anyone I should meet?’

‘No!’ Ah Fatt spun around on his heels. ‘No! In Canton you can-na talk about me. Must take care, too much care, all times. No lo-lo-so-so. Can-na talk of Ah Fatt.’

‘You can trust me Ah Fatt. But I wish you were coming too.’

‘Believe me, Neel. I also wish.’ Ah Fatt put a hand on Neel’s shoulder. ‘But be careful there, my friend.’

‘Why?’

‘In China people say ‘everything new comes from Canton’. Better for young men not to go there – too many ways for them to be spoiled.’