Golden Boy Page 14

  Every now and then, my mother demanded my father stop for her to take a photo. Inevitably, every time she requested a halt, it was twenty yards before we came to a standstill so my father had to back up. Before long he was seething. When my mother suggested turning into a side road into the countryside, he lost it completely.

  ‘Joyce!’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘We’ve come to drive round the New Territories. Not into them. I am not driving into the blithering hills. For all I know, we could wind up in Communist China.’

  ‘That’s not likely,’ I injudiciously piped up. ‘If we take a road on the left we’ll stay in Hong Kong. China’s to the right. Anyway, you can’t drive into China because there’s a border and a river to cross and the river’s only got one bridge for the train and the police and the army—’

  ‘Shut up!’ my father exploded.

  Several hundred yards further on, his patience was again tested by a duck farmer moving his gaggle of about two hundred birds from one pond to another, driving them ahead of him by means of two long, thin and very flexible bamboo poles. The ducks and a few geese waddled down the middle of the road. My father tentatively beeped his horn. The duck farmer turned. My father signalled curtly with his hand for the man to get a move on. At this, he turned and walked towards the car. My father unwisely wound his window down.

  ‘Mat yeh?’ the farmer said, somewhat belligerently. This translated roughly as: What d’you want? The added sub-text was: Damn your eyes, foreign devil.

  My father, who spoke barely a word of Cantonese, looked blank.

  ‘Mat yeh?’ the farmer repeated, more antagonistically.

  My father, still with a vacant look on his face, then suggested, ‘Martin, you’re always playing in the street. What’s he saying?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I lied.

  At this juncture, the farmer shrugged and turned. The ducks had meantime broken ranks and were all over the road and grass verge. The farmer picked up his herding poles. Taking his time, he rounded them up and continued to make his steady way ahead of us. We edged forward in a grinding first gear accompanied by my father’s grinding teeth.

  At the next left junction, we turned up a narrow road towards a steep hill, the road eventually petering out in a grassy bank. We stopped and got out. My mother took photos of the view, my father stood wondering how he was going to do a three-point turn. Whilst he pondered, my mother and I set off up a path.

  In a short distance, we came to a semi-circular stone platform with a horseshoe-shaped wall about two feet high running round half its circumference. In the wall was a tiny stone door upon which some characters had been written in red paint. In front of the door were two rice bowls containing a sludge of dead leaves and rainwater and a stone weighing down a wad of faded Hell’s Banknotes.

  ‘What is this?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a grave,’ my mother answered. ‘Behind that door is the coffin.’

  I looked at it with a feeling of suppressed terror. I had visited my maternal grandfather’s grave in a municipal cemetery in Portsmouth but had never really come to terms with his body lying six feet under an oblong of stone chippings. Here, there was a man reclining in death just behind a door.

  Higher up the slope we came upon a narrow terrace cut into the hillside. It was overgrown with grass and held a row of very large urns with lids like inverted plates. The view was spectacular, a vista of wetlands over which soared flights of ducks and, beyond, the sea.

  My mother busying herself with her camera, I decided to look in one of the urns. It seemed strange that they had been left there, in the middle of nowhere, on a bleak and windswept mountainside. I took hold of one of the lids and lifted it clear. Inside, neatly packed away so that it might all fit in, was a human skeleton, the skull on top. The bones were brown and looked as if they had been lightly varnished. I quickly replaced the lid.

  ‘It’s called a kam taap,’ my mother said, not taking her eye from the viewfinder. ‘I’ve been told that when a Chinese dies, they bury the body for seven years then they exhume it, clean the bones and put them in an ossuary – that’s one of those urns.’

  We walked down to the car. My father had turned it round and was buffing off scuff marks – caused by his reversing into a bush – on the rear bumper with a soft cloth.

  ‘The view’s wonderful,’ my mother said sweetly as we joined him.

  ‘You’re a bloody nuisance, Joyce,’ my father snarled.

  We drove down to the main road and along it as fast as the surface and law would allow and my father’s temper could contain. It was not until my mother saw a sign off to the right reading Kadoorie Beach that she spoke.

  ‘Go down there, Ken,’ she commanded in a voice that would brook no opposition.

  My father did as he was asked and we drove down a narrow lane overhung by Chinese pine trees, the wispy, delicate variety one saw in classical paintings. The lane culminated in a small car park and a sandy beach gently lapped by the sea. Removing her shoes, my mother tripped off down to the water’s edge. Beyond her, indistinct under the early-afternoon sky, was the island of Lan Tau, its peaks rising into a sub-tropical sky almost devoid of colour in the hot sun. A request that I might be allowed to join her was bluntly rebuffed by my father, so I sat in the car for fifteen minutes with my mouth shut.

  When my mother returned to the car, my father said, ‘Make sure there’s no sand on your feet. I don’t want to be hoovering the bloody carpets for weeks.’

  ‘I do wish you’d shut up, Ken. It’s only a bloody car,’ she answered and, without removing the sand from her soles or putting her shoes back on, she got in the front and slammed the door.

  In a mile or so, we came upon another sign by the road. It pointed to The Dragon Inn. My father, unbidden, turned and parked. Inside the inn, a cross between an English country pub, a Chinese tea house and a French café, we were served a plate of hot buttered toast, which my mother and I now considered must be obligatory once one crossed the Kowloon hills. My mother ordered tea, I asked for a Coke and my father requested a San Miguel beer. Then he had another. At the third, my mother reminded him he was driving. He ordered a fourth to make his point. She commented that the car was brand new, the first he had ever owned, and would it not be a pity if it got dented.

  ‘Already bloody ruined by that benighted bush,’ my father grumbled, but he did not order a fifth beer.

  The bill settled, we went to look at a tortoise the size of a half barrel that was said to have been hatched in the Ming dynasty. A notice stated rather obviously: A Tortoise Several Hundred Years Old; it occurred to me that it would have to be in a country where eggs could be a century old. The poor creature lived in a concrete-walled enclosure about four times its size, with a trough of stale water and a pile of bedraggled greens. At least it had a roof to protect it from the searing heat of the sun.

  Disturbed by these conditions, I suggested to my mother that we either set up a tortoise protection society or come back that night and kidnap it. Her reply was that the car boot could not take the weight, with which I had sadly to concur. However, I was permitted to sit on it to have my photo taken.

  At about five o’clock, we arrived back at Boundary Street. My mother strode directly into my parents’ bedroom and locked the door. I heard her running herself a bath. My father spent an hour rubbing imaginary scratches off the rear panelling of the Ford Consul. I went to my room and kept a low profile.

  Over the coming weeks, I paid repeated clandestine visits to Kowloon Walled City. I did not, however, become acquainted with many people. Whereas the stall-and shopkeepers of Soares Avenue and Mong Kok were open and welcoming, those of the walled city were polite but reticent.

  Whenever I arrived, Ho appeared before I had gone twenty yards, trotting towards me and smiling expansively. It was as if some unseen sentry had been watching out for me, relaying news of my impending arrival. For as long as I was in the enclave, he would accompany me, talking all the time, improving his English a
nd my Cantonese. Sometimes, we took a bowl of soup together in a shack done out as an eating-place, with tables and chairs and an elderly waiter who limped. On many occasions, I offered to pay but Ho invariably pushed my money aside. On the other hand, he never paid either.

  Apart from inviting me into the opium den and to drink tea or broth with him, Ho took me nowhere else. I had hoped he would show me the temple but any attempt to steer the conversation or our feet in its direction were futile.

  After a while, Ho told me he was going ‘long time Macau-side’ and introduced me to his ho pang yau (his good friend).

  This man was in his mid-twenties, not tall but immensely handsome, lacking the prominent cheekbones, Adam’s apple and slightly flared nostrils of the average Cantonese male. He could, I thought, easily have been a film star. Muscular in a trim way, his hands were small but very strong. To my surprise, he spoke good pidgin English.

  ‘My name is Lau,’ he introduced himself when we first met. ‘I am Ho’s friend.’

  ‘I am Martin,’ I replied.

  ‘Mah Tin,’ he repeated. ‘In Cantonese, this mean horse, electric. You are electric horse.’ He grinned at his interpretation and mimicked riding a lively steed. ‘Like at Laichikok fun garden.’ It was a reasonable translation of fairground.

  We shook hands and drank tea to cement our new-found friendship.

  ‘When you come Kowloon Walled City-side,’ he went on, slurping at his bowl of tea, ‘I be here for you. If I not here, you no come. You unner-stand? If you are good boy, I will show you this place.’

  I agreed to these terms. After all, to have a personal guide to this maze of shanties and ancient buildings was more than I could have hoped for.

  Our tea finished, I said goodbye to Ho and set off with Lau. He walked with a measured, easy pace. Everyone greeted him and stepped aside to let him pass in the narrow alleys. In his turn, he invariably made way for heavily laden coolies and young women. The former breathlessly grunted their thanks whilst the latter giggled.

  ‘I will show you some thing,’ Lau said as we made our way past the building with the balustrade. ‘From long time before. When China have emperor.’

  We reached a place where the hutong widened. Lying beside the wall of a larger than average shanty were two massive cannons.

  ‘This,’ Lau began, ‘Chinese gun one time on city wall. Fight English like you.’ He grinned. ‘But no more fight. Now live no trouble, make money.’

  Carrying on, we arrived at the temple and entered. At first, my eyes adjusting to the gloom, it looked no different from any other – dim lighting, incense smoke, the occasional wavering candle … Yet, as my eyes accepted the twilight, I saw that this one was grander than any I had previously seen. First, it had three larger-than-life-size effigies completely covered in gold except for the carving of their tightly curled, black painted hair: yet even that had a gold finial on top. All three were seated in front of intricately embroidered gold tapestries. The altar table was huge, made of black wood and finely carved with gold-painted designs of leaves, dragons and curlicues. Upon it were not only the customary offerings but also exquisitely painted porcelain vases and two gold-leaf-coated lanterns. To one side, an old man was carefully applying gold leaf to one of the idols with a damp sponge. Second, the temple was spotlessly clean: usually they were dusty places, the floor scattered with the ashes of Hell’s Banknotes or the fine powder of burnt joss-sticks. Third, there was a sleeping dog chained to the wall on the left which got to its feet and snarled menacingly at me.

  ‘You like?’ Lau enquired.

  ‘Like plenty,’ I replied, took a joss-stick and, lighting it, bowed to the effigies with it held between my supplicating hands before sticking it in the sand of the incense bowl.

  Lau watched me, bemused.

  ‘You no …’ he looked for the word in English and failed to find it ‘ … Gai duk toh?’ He made the sign of the Cross on the palm of his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Church of England.’

  ‘Why you … ?’ He pointed to the altar and made a cursory bow.

  ‘Respect,’ I said, but Lau just smiled in his incomprehension.

  We walked on. Suddenly, Lau stopped and said, ‘You no like ovver gweilo boy.’ For the first time, he touched my hair. ‘Now I show you good place.’

  Our destination was the balustraded building I had visited on my first excursion into the Walled City. We entered it, passed through the downstairs room, still devoid of occupants although I could hear the noise of snoring emanating from upstairs, went behind the screen, out through a door into what might once have been a flagstoned courtyard and down some steps to a semi-cellar about thirty feet square. At the bottom of the steps was an old wooden door secured by a large padlock. Lau produced the key and we entered.

  There was a small table in the centre of the room, the walls of which were lined by benches similar to those used for gym lessons in the KJS school hall. Upon the walls hung various pennants and banners in red with serrated black borders and black writing upon them. Opposite the door was an altar bearing a small idol of a male god with a fierce-looking face, one candle alight before it.

  ‘God Kwan Ti,’ Lau explained. ‘This my god.’

  Yet it was something other than the banners and Kwan Ti that caught my eye. Hung between the banners were macabre, sadistically ferocious-looking weapons. One was a chain with a ball set with spikes at one end; another chain culminated in a spear-point blade. Balancing in a wooden rack were a number of metal six-pointed stars of varying diameters. From their shine, the points were clearly well sharpened.

  ‘What is this place?’ I enquired.

  Lau made no attempt to explain but said, ‘Gweilo no come here. You vew’y lucky boy I show you.’

  Taking the chain with the point on it, he gave it a quick flick. The blade flashed through the air, faster than the eye could follow, and embedded itself in the rear of the door. It took both Lau’s hands to dislodge it. Once the blade was free and hanging back on the wall, he took down one of the smallest stars. With a brief twist of his wrist, it spun through the air and also lodged itself in the door timbers.

  ‘More good gun,’ Lau said. ‘No boom boom.’ He ushered me out. ‘You no tell you see here,’ he added as he locked the door. ‘You tell, plenty trouble for me. Plenty more for you.’ He made the sign of a knife slicing across his throat. ‘You, me,’ he said pointing from me to himself.

  I nodded and we went back the way we had come. As we moved through the big room in the building, a boy of about my age descended the stairs carrying a tray upon which there was a small lamp, several minute bowls, a number of metal needles and the most bizarre pipe. My grandfather always smoked a simple-looking Dunhill with a wooden bowl; my father, on occasion, smoked a swan-necked Meerschaum. This was very different. A good fifteen inches long, the stem was made of bamboo, the mouthpiece of milky-coloured jade or soapstone. The bowl was a curious device for it had nowhere that I could see in which to put the tobacco: indeed, it appeared to be a virtually sealed container. All there was in it was a tiny hole in the top.

  ‘Nga pin?’ I asked tentatively.

  Lau stared at me.

  ‘How you know nga pin?’

  ‘I know,’ I shrugged, still not knowing exactly what it was.

  He took me by the hand and led me up the stairs.

  ‘No talk,’ he whispered.

  As my head rose above the first-floor level, I saw half a dozen men lying on the kangs. All but one were asleep on their sides, their hands tucked between their drawn-up legs or under their necks. One snored, another intermittently moaned softly, the only other sound was their breathing. The air had a strange and familiar perfume to it and it was at least a minute before I recognized it as the scent of the rickshaw coolies’ pipes on my first night in Hong Kong.

  The man who was awake had by his head one of the little lamps, the flame contained within a thick glass funnel. The boy moved past us, giving me a quick and puzzled glan
ce. He went to the man and impaled a small bead of something on one of the needles, starting to revolve it in the lamp flame: then, very adroitly, he placed it over the tiny hole in the pipe bowl, passing it to the man who lay on his side and sucked evenly on the pipe. After doing this three times, the man lay down and closed his eyes. The boy removed the pipe and blew out the lamp.

  ‘We go,’ Lau murmured.

  Once we were outside, I asked, ‘What was that man doing?’

  ‘He smoke opium,’ Lau answered. ‘Get dream, go good time-side.’

  ‘Can I smoke nga pin?’ I suggested.

  ‘No,’ Lau said emphatically. ‘No good for gweilo. Only for Chinese people.’

  As I went to leave the walled city, Lau escorted me. Passing a very big shack indeed, I glimpsed a large pig through the wide door. Its feet were tied together. A man in a pair of bloodied shorts stepped up to it, grabbed one ear and yanked it back. The pig squealed, an eerie, unearthly sound. The butcher ran a sharp knife under its neck and slit its throat, stepping smartly backwards. The pig fell on its side, thrashing about and gurgling obscenely. Blood sprayed from its neck.

  Lau put his hand on my shoulder in an affable manner and said, ‘You talk you see, maybe you like this.’

  He pointed to the pig, its lifeblood soaking in the earth floor of the shack. And I knew he meant it.

  The row of old buildings stood to the eastern end of the walled city. One day, as Lau and I were walking through the hutongs, the heavens opened. We ran for cover under one of the balconies. Standing on what must once have been the arcaded raised side of a street, I somehow sensed in a daydream the ghosts of history walking by: a mandarin in his fine brocades, a peacock feather in the jade finial of his hat, his retinue behind him; a Chinese soldier with an axe-bladed pikestaff; a British naval officer in a cocked hat accompanied by a platoon of marine ratings, bayonets drawn.