Excerpt

June, 1941

It begins like that. Her lilting laugh at a consular party. A spilled drink. A wet dress and a handkerchief hastily proffered. She is a sleek greyhound among the others—plump, braying women of a certain class. He doesn’t want to meet her—he is suspicious of her kind, all chiffon and champagne, nothing underneath, but she has knocked his glass down her silk shift (“There I go again,” she says. “I’m the clumsiest person in all Hong Kong”) and then commandeers him to escort her to the bathroom where she daubs at herself while peppering him with questions.

She is famous, born of a well-known couple, the mother a Portuguese beauty, the father, a Shanghai millionaire with fortunes in trading and money lending.

“Finally, someone new! We can tell right away, you know. I’ve been stuck with those old bags for ages. We’re very good at sniffing out new blood since the community is so wretchedly small and we’re all so dreadfully sick of each other. We practically wait at the docks to drag the new people off the ships. Just arrived, yes? Have a job yet?” she asks, having sat him on the edge of the tub while she reapplies her lipstick. “Is it for fun or funds?”

“I’m at Asiatic Petrol,” he says, wary of being cast as the amusing newcomer. “And it’s most certainly for funds.” Although that’s not the truth. A mother with money.

“How delightful!” she says. “I’m so sick of meeting all these stuffy people. They don’t have the slightest knowledge or ambition.”

“Those without expectations have been known to lack both of those qualities,” he says.

“Aren’t you a grumpy grump?” she says. “But stupidity is much more forgivable in the poor, don’t you think?” She pauses, as if to let him think about that. “Your name? And how do you know the Trotters?”

“I’m Will Truesdale, and I play cricket with Hugh. He knows some of my family, through my mother’s side,” he says. “I’m new to Hong Kong and he’s been very decent to me.”

“Hmmm,” she says. “I’ve known Hugh for a decade and I’ve never ever thought of him as decent. And do you like Hong Kong?”

“It’ll do for now,” he says. “I came off the ship, decided to stay, rustled up something to do in the meantime. Seems pleasant enough here.”

“An adventurer, how fascinating,” she says, without the slightest bit of interest. Then she finishes up her ablutions, snaps her evening bag shut and firmly taking him by the wrist, waltzes—there is no other verb, music seems to accompany her—out of the powder room.

Conscious of being steered around the room like a pet poodle, her momentary diversion of the moment, he excuses himself to go smoke in the garden. But peace is not to be his. She finds him out there, has him light her cigarette, and leans confidentially towards him.

“Tell me,” she says. “Why do your women get so fat after marriage? If I were an Englishman I’d be quite put out when the comely young lass I proposed to exploded after a few months of marriage or after popping out a child. You know what I’m talking about?” She blows smoke up to the dark sky.

“Not at all,” he says, amused despite himself.

“I’m not as flighty as you think,” she says. “I do like you so very much. I’ll ring you tomorrow, and we’ll make a plan.” And then she is gone, wafting smoke and glamour as she trips her way into the resolutely non-smoking house of their hosts—Hugh loathes the smell. He sees her in the next hour, flitting from group to group, chattering away. The women are dimmed by her, the men bedazzled.

The phone rings at his office the next day. He had been telling Simonds about the party.

“She’s Eurasian, is she?” Simonds says. “Watch out there. It’s not as bad as dating a Chinese, but the higher-ups don’t like it if you fraternize too much with the locals.”

“That is an outrageous statement,” Will says. He had liked Simonds up to that point.

“You know how it is,” Simonds says. “At Hong Kong Bank, you get asked to leave if you marry a Chinese. But this girl sounds different, she sounds rather more than a local girl. It’s not like she’s running a noodle shop.”

“Yes, she is different,” he says. “Not that it matters,” as he answers the phone. “I’m not marrying her.”

“Darling, it’s Trudy Liang,” she says. “Who aren’t you marrying?”

“Nobody.” He laughs.

“That would have been quick work.

“Even for you?”

“Wasn’t it shocking how many women there were at the party yesterday?” she says, ignoring him. The women in the colony are supposed to be gone, evacuated to safer areas, while the war is simmering, threatening to boil over into their small corner of the world. “I’m essential, you know. I’m a nurse with the Auxiliary Nursing Service!” The only way women had been allowed to stay was to sign up as an essential occupation.

“None of the nurses I’ve ever had looked like you,” he says.

“If you were injured, you wouldn’t want me as a nurse, believe me.” She pauses. “Listen, I’ll be at the races at the Wongs’ box this afternoon. Do you care to join us?”

“The Wongs?” he asks.

“Yes, they’re my godparents,” she says impatiently. “Are you coming or not?”

“All right,” he says. This is the first in a long line of acquiescences.

Will muddles his way through the club and into the upper tier where the boxes are filled with chattering people in jackets and silky dresses. He comes through the door of number 28 and Trudy spies him right away, pounces on him, and introduces him to everybody. There are Chinese from Peru, Polish by way of Tokyo, a Frenchman married to Russian royalty. English is spoken,

Trudy pulls him to one side.

“Oh dear,” she says. “You’re just as handsome as I remember. I think I might be in trouble. You’ve never had any issues with women, I’m sure. Or perhaps you’ve had too many.” She pauses and takes a theatrical breath. “I’ll give you the lay of the land here. That’s my cousin, Dommie.” She points out an elegant, slim Chinese man with a gold pocket watch in his hand. “He’s my best friend and very protective, so you better watch out. And avoid her, by any means,” she says, pointing to a slight European woman with spectacles. “Awful. She’s just spent twenty minutes telling me the most extraordinary and yet incredibly boring story about barking deer on Lamma Island.”

“Really?” he says, looking at her oval face, her large golden-green eyes.

“And he,” she says, pointing to an owlish Englishman, “is a bore. Some sort of art historian, keeps talking about the Crown Collection, which is apparently something most colonies have. They either acquire it locally or have pieces shipped from England for the public buildings—important paintings and statues and things like that. Hong Kong’s is very impressive, apparently, and he’s very worried about what will happen once the war breaks loose.” She makes a face. “Also a bigot.”

She searches the room for others and her eyes narrow.

“There’s my other cousin, or cousin by marriage.” She points out a stocky Chinese man in a double-breasted suit. “Victor Chen. He thinks he’s very important indeed. But I just find him tedious. He’s married to my cousin, Melody, who used to be nice until she met him.” She pauses. “Now she’s...” Her voice trails off.

“Well, here you are,” she says, “and what a gossip I’m being,” and drags him to the front where she has claimed the two best seats. They watch the races. She wins a thousand dollars and shrieks with pleasure. She insists on giving it all away, to the waiters, to the bathroom attendants, to a little girl they pass on the way out. “Really,” she says disapprovingly, “this is no place for children, don’t you think?” Later she tells him she practically grew up at the track.

Her real name is Prudence. “Trudy” came later when it became apparent that her given name was wholly unsuitable for the little sprite who terrorized her amahs and charmed all the waiters into bringing her forbidden fizzy drinks and sugar cubes.

“You can call me Prudence, though,” she says. Her long arms are draped around his shoulders and her jasmine scent is overwhelming him.

“I think I won’t,” he says.

“I’m terribly strong,” she whispers. “I hope I don’t destroy you.”

He laughs.

“Don’t worry about that,” he says. But later, he wonders.