Qui en dit du mal, veut l’acheter.
(He who decries a thing, wants to buy.)
Author’s Note
Cantonese is Hong Kong’s language. I have mostly transcribed names and places in unsophisticated syllables as a stranger like Lovejoy would, and ignored the pretty Barnett-Chao and other romanization systems. Elsewhere, I have used the most common anglicized forms as experienced by the average Western reader. Where mainland place-names have lately made the headlines, I have followed modern practice and used the north Chinese romanization. The Cantonese terminal “-a” I transcribe as the rather posher “-ne”; it is simpler to read.
With regard to Hong Kong itself (where I lived for some years), I have chosen to disregard all modern advances such as the tube (MTR, Mass Transit Railway) and the under-harbor tunnel, and have left the physical city as it was in the sixties. I like it that way.
—Jonathan Gash
Jade Woman
1
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MEMORY makes desires of its own. Deep in the candle hours it casts Hong Kong up like a shimmering sea of color against flames made of ache, fright, wonderment. Above all, it remembers her, when it ought to be getting on with life and other things. But it’s no use trying to stop memory, and I’ve given up.
But first, a tip for trendy travelers: Go careful in Hong Kong. Don’t get yourself murdered making love, surrounded by assassins on a beach beside the China Sea. I know this from experience.
That’s how this story nearly ends, but it begins in happier times—in rainswept East Anglia, with me being evicted, bankrupted, sued, and dispossessed. A woman had arranged it all, needless to add. You know the way they do, to help. I have helpers like winter has weather.
I’m the world’s one and only honest antique dealer. No, honestly, never mind what people say. Which made it pretty hard watching that bailiff’s men load up my furniture.
’Twas past three o’clock on a cold frosty morning when all hell was let loose. Four aggressive bruisers broke in, bringing a dry-as-dust accountant with a sniffle. They stood me shivering on the grass, barely dressed, while they humped my belongings.
“I’ll sue you,” I feebly threatened.
“Wrong, Lovejoy.” Mr. Dowding’s face wrinkled like a mirthful nutmeg. “We are suing you. Ninth time lucky!” He shook merrily, wiping his spectacles in celebration.
“I’ll call the police.”
He pointed to the somnolent bulk of Geoffrey, our village bobby, leaning on his bike watching.
I called, “You’re doing a grand job, Geoffrey.”
“You got me up early, Lovejoy,” our trusty protector grumbled.
A vannie carried a stack of paintings to the wagon, which really made me panic.
“Here, mate,” I pleaded. “Can’t you leave that big one? Only, it’s—” I halted, stricken.
“Lovely antique. Worth a bit, Lovejoy.” Dowding sniffled. “More even than you!”
The joke was it was worth me exactly, for I’d made it, on the orders of Big John Sheehan, homicidal crook of our parish. Today was hand-over time. And the penalty for disappointing my least favorite rollerman was sudden execution. It was a lovely job, an Unterberger view of Venice nearly more perfect than that wonderful artist himself had painted a century gone. They slammed the tailboard on my painting. My tombstone. I gagged silently.
“Sign here, Lovejoy.” Dowding’s men boarded up the doors and windows of my—that’s my—cottage.
“No.” I ignored his clipboard.
He sighed and tilted his balding head. “It never was your cottage, Lovejoy. Not even with forged mortgages.” A fine drizzle started on me.
“Look, Mr. Dowding.” I’m pathetic. At times like this I tend to whine. “Just a few more days, eh?”
“You had a few more days years ago.”
Morosely I watched them sling their tools into the van and leave. I walked Dowding down to his car. I really wanted to know one thing.
“Here. Who bubbled me?”
He paused, hand on the car door. “It’s not our policy…” then relented. “If you promise not to bear a grudge, Lovejoy. A wealthy lady contacted us, wanting to pay off your mortgage as a present.” He sniffed. “Naturally, we examined the records—”
A kind lady friend. I should have guessed. “I knew it.” I’d got one Evadne to fiddle her computer and nick the cottage’s deeds on which to raise a little money. She’d then take a new job in a building society where we did the temporary-mortgage trick all over again. It works great, as long as friends don’t start helping. Wealthy lady meant Janie.
I’d strangle the silly cow.
Dowding drove off after his load of muscle. I glared at the “For Sale” notice they’d erected, and made for my rusty old Ruby, thinking to go into town and do something about this mess.
Geoffrey snickered. “Pointless starting that old heap, Lovejoy.” I paused. Bobbies laughing mean I’m coming off worst. “It’s impounded. Court order. Once a useless scruff, Lovejoy, always a pillock.”
He rolled in the aisles all the way up the lane.
By nine o’clock it was all done. My old Austin Ruby had been towed away, though a mechanic kindly lent me a tool for a minute when I explained that my dog had been accidentally boarded up in the cottage. “Honest,” I said. “Poor thing. You’d think the bloody bailiffs would have realized…”
Half a minute later I was indoors and the garage blokes gone. I stood there in the empty place feeling ashamed, as if the cottage were blaming me. At least I still had the phone. This was actually Big Mistake Number One, but at the time it seemed a lifeline.
Daft as ever, I dialed Janie, Mistake Number Two. I decided to be the manager of Harrods.
“Good morning,” I intoned gravely to the bloke who answered. “Little Hawkham Manor?”
“Yes. Markham speaking.”
“Harrods of Knightsbridge. My apologies for this early hour, but may I speak to Mrs.
Jane Markham? Her special order of, er, cloth has arrived, and—”
“Hang on, please.” I heard him mutter and the receiver clatter. They must be having breakfast, selfish swine. No thought for us starving homeless.
“Hello?” She sounded wary. “I’m afraid there’s some—”
“It’s me. I’m at the cottage. Get over here.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed brightly. “That material! Good heavens. I’d quite forgotten! You’ve taken such a time—”
“Well, I’m sorry,” I blurted, instinctively defensive. “But deliveries are…” Then I caught myself. I wasn’t really the manager of Harrods at all; there was no material. Women’d have me apologizing for the bloody weather. No wonder you lose your rag.
“Your representative will be at The George by ten?” she prattled on. “Very well, Mr.
Henderson. I’ll try to call.” She was hiding a laugh as she rang off. Typical of a woman, being amused at a bloke’s plight. Now, Charles Dickens would have made me the hero of a sob story—
A motorbike came into the drive coughing and scuffing gravel. Algernon, my untrainable trainee, making his space reentry on his lumbering old roadster.
“Good morning, Lovejoy,” the apparition boomed. It took its head off and Algernon grinned fresh-faced into the world. He lives for engines. His old Uncle Squaddie, a blind ex-antique dealer who believes Algernon will one day be the world’s greatest antiques expert, pays me good money to enact the pointless ritual of trying to teach the nerk.
Another instance of dangerous help.
“Wotcher, Algernon. Notice anything?”
His expression clouded. He came nearer, glancing about like a soldier in a minefield.
“You’re wearing a Victorian shirt? Antique shoes?”
For months I’ve been springing quizzes on him about antiques. Three days ago he’d told me a Chippendale bureau was a Woolworth’s, or vice versa; he makes little distinction between crud and the loveliest masterpieces on earth.