The Piano Teacher

She stood in front of the mirror. The woman who looked back was sophisticated and groomed, a woman who travelled the world and knew about art and books and yachts.

She wanted to be someone else. The old Claire seemed provincial, ignorant. She had been to a party at Government House, sipped champagne at the Gripps while women she knew twirled around in silky dresses. She had her nose pressed up against the glass and was watching a different world. She could not name it but she felt as if she was about to be revealed, as if there was another Claire inside, waiting to come out. In these few hours in the morning, dressed in someone else’s finery, she could pretend she was part of it, that she had lived in Colombo, eaten frog’s legs in France or ridden an elephant in Delhi with a maharajah by her side.

At seven, after she had brewed herself a cup of tea and eaten some buttered toast, she made her way to the bedroom. She stood over her sleeping husband.

‘Wake up,’ she said quietly.

He stirred, then rolled over to face her.

‘Cuckoo,’ she said, a little louder.

‘Happy birthday, darling,’ he said sleepily. He propped himself up on one elbow to offer a kiss. His breath was sour but not unpleasant.

Claire was twenty-eight today.

It was Saturday, and the beginning of summer. Not too hot yet, the mornings had a breeze and a little bit of cool before the sun warmed the afternoons and the hats and fans had to come out. Martin worked a half-day on Saturday but then there was a party at the Arbogasts’, on the Peak. Reginald Arbogast was a very successful businessman and made a point of inviting every English person in the colony to his gatherings, which were famous for his unstinting hand and lavish foods.

‘I’ll meet you at the funicular at one,’ Martin told her.

At one o’clock, Claire was at the tram station waiting. She had on a new dress the tailor had delivered just the day before, a white poplin based on a Paris original. She had found a Mr Hao, an inexpensive man in Causeway Bay, who would come and measure her at home and charge eight Hong Kong dollars a dress. It had turned out quite well. She had sprayed on a bit of Jazz, although she found it strong; she dabbed it on, then rubbed water on it to dilute the smell.

At ten past one, Martin came through the station doors, and gave her a kiss. ‘You look nice,’ he said. ‘New dress?’

‘Mm-hmm,’ she said.

They took the tram up the mountain, a steep ride that seemed almost vertical at times. They held on to the rail, leaned forward and looked outside, where they could see into people’s homes in the Mid-Levels, with curtains pushed to one side, and newspapers and dirty glasses strewn on tables.

‘I would think,’ Claire said, ‘that if I knew people would be looking in my house all day from the tram, I’d make a point of leaving it tidy, wouldn’t you?’

At the top, they found that the Arbogasts had hired rickshaws to take their guests to the house from the station. Claire climbed into one. ‘I always feel for the men,’ she said quietly to Martin. ‘Isn’t this why we have mules or horses? It’s one of these queer Hong Kong customs, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a fact that human labour here often costs less,’ Martin said.

Claire stifled her irritation. Martin was always so literal.

The man lifted up the harness with a grunt. They started to roll along and Claire settled into the uncomfortable seat. Around them, the green was overwhelming, tropical trees bursting with leaves that dripped when scratched, bougainvillaea and other flowering bushes springing from the hillsides. Sometimes, she got the feeling that Hong Kong was too alive. It seemed unable to restrain itself. There were insects crawling everywhere, wild dogs on the hills, mosquitoes breeding furiously. They had made roads in the hillsides and buildings sprouted out of the ground, but nature strained at her boundaries – there were always sweaty, shirtless men chopping away at the greenery that seemed to grow overnight. It wasn’t India, she supposed, but it certainly wasn’t England. The man in front of her strained and sweated. His shirt was thin and grey.

‘The Arbogasts apparently had this place undergo a massive cleaning after the war,’ Martin said. ‘Smythson was telling me about it, how it had been gutted by the Japanese and all that was left was walls, and not many of those. It used to belong to the Bayer representative out here, Thorpe, and he never came back after he was repatriated after the war. He sold it for a song. He’d had enough.’

‘The way people lived out here before the war,’ Claire said. ‘It was very gracious.’

‘Arbogast lost his hand during the war as well. He has a hook now. They say he’s quite sensitive about it so try not to look at it.’

‘Of course,’ Claire said.

When they walked in, the party was in full swing. Doors opened on to a large receiving room, which led into a drawing room with french doors that looked over a lawn with a wide, stunning view of the harbour. A violinist sawed away at his instrument while a pianist accompanied him. The house was decorated in the way the English did their houses in the Orient, with Persian carpets and the occasional wooden Chinese table topped with Burmese silver bowls and other exotic curiosities. Women in light cotton dresses swayed towards each other while men in safari suits or blazers stood with hands in pockets. Swiftly moving servants balanced trays of Pimm’s and champagne.

‘Why does he do this?’ Claire asked Martin. ‘Invite the world, I mean.’

‘He’s done well for himself here, and he didn’t have much before, and wants to do something good for the community. What I’ve heard, anyway.’

‘Hello, hello,’ said Mrs Arbogast from the hall where she was greeting guests – a thin, elegant woman with a sharp face. Sparkly earrings jangled from her ears.

‘Lovely of you to have us,’ said Martin. ‘A real honour.’

‘Don’t know you, but perhaps we shall have the pleasure later.’ She turned aside, looking for the next guest. They had been dismissed.

‘Drink?’ Martin said.

‘Please,’ said Claire.

She saw an acquaintance, Amelia, and walked over. Too late, she saw that Mrs Pinter was in the circle, partially hidden by a potted plant. They all tried to avoid Mrs Pinter. Claire had been cornered by her before, and had spent an excruciating thirty minutes listening to the old woman talk about ant colonies. She wanted to be kind to older people but she had her limits. Mrs Pinter was now obsessed with starting up an Esperanto society, and would reel unwitting newcomers into her ever more complicated and idiotic plans. She was convinced that a universal language would have saved them all from the war.

‘I’ve been thinking about getting a butler,’ Mrs Pinter was saying. ‘One of those Chinese fellows would do all right with a bit of training.’

‘Are you going to teach him Esperanto?’ Amelia asked, teasing.

‘We have to teach everyone but the Communists,’ Mrs Pinter said placidly.

‘Isn’t the refugee problem alarming?’ Marjorie Winter said, ignoring all of them. She was fanning herself with a napkin. She was a fat, kindly woman, with very small sausage-like curls around her face.

‘They’re coming in by the thousands, I hear,’ Claire said.

‘I’m starting a new league,’ said Marjorie. ‘To help them. Those poor Chinese streaming across the border like herded animals, running away from that dreadful government. They live in the most frightful conditions. You must volunteer! I’ve rented space for an office and everything.’

‘You remember in 1950,’ Amelia said, ‘when some of the locals were practically running hotels, taking care of all their family and friends who had fled? And these were the well-off ones, who were able to book passage. It was quite something.’

‘Why are they leaving China?’ Claire said. ‘Where do they expect to go from here?’

‘Well, that’s the thing, dear,’ Marjorie said. ‘They don’t have anywhere to go. Imagine that. That’s why my league is so important.’

Amelia sat down. ‘The Chinese come down during war, they go back up, then come down again. It’s dizzying. They are these giant waves of displacement. And their different dialects. I do think Mandarin is the ugliest, with its wer and its er and those strange noises.’ She fanned herself. ‘It’s far too hot to talk about a league,’ she said. ‘Your energy always astounds me, Marjorie.’

‘Amelia,’ Marjorie said unsympathetically, ‘you’re always hot.’

Indeed Amelia was always hot, or cold, or vaguely out of sorts. She was not physically suited to life outside of England, which was ironic since she had not lived there for some three decades. She needed her creature comforts and suffered mightily, and not silently, without them. They had been in Hong Kong since before the war. Her husband, Angus, had brought her from India, which she had loathed, to Hong Kong in 1938 when he had become under-secretary at the Department of Finance. She was opinionated, railing against what she saw as the unbearable English ladies who wanted to become Chinese, who wore their hair in chignons with ivory chopsticks, too-tight cheongsams to every event and employed local tutors so they could speak to the servants in their atrocious Cantonese. She did not understand such women and constantly warned Claire against becoming one of such a breed.

Amelia had taken Claire under her wing, introducing her to people, inviting her to lunch, but Claire was often uncomfortable in her company, listening to her sharp observations and often biting innuendo. Still, she clung to her as someone who could help her navigate this strange new world. She knew her mother would approve of someone like Amelia, even be impressed that Claire knew such people.

Outside, the thwack of a tennis ball punctuated the low buzz and tinkle of conversation and cocktails. Claire’s group migrated towards a large tent pitched next to the courtyard.

‘People come and play tennis?’ Claire asked.

‘Yes – in this weather, can you believe it?’

‘I can’t believe they have a tennis court,’ said Claire with wonder.

‘And I can’t believe what you can’t believe,’ Amelia said archly.

Claire blushed. ‘I’ve just never –’

‘I know, darling,’ Amelia said. ‘Just a village girl.’ She winked to take the sting out of her comment.

‘You know what Penelope Davies did the other day?’ Marjorie interrupted. ‘She went to the temple at Wong Tai Sin with an interpreter, and had her fortune told. She said it was remarkable how much the old woman knew!’

‘What fun,’ Amelia said. ‘I’ll take Wing and try it out too. Claire, we should go!’

‘Sounds fun,’ Claire said.

‘Did you hear about the child in Malaya who had hiccups for three months?’ Marjorie was asking Martin, who had joined them with drinks in hand. ‘The Briggs child. His father’s the head of the Electricity over there. His mother almost went mad. They tried a witch doctor but no results. They didn’t know whether to take him back to England or just trust in fate.’

‘Can you imagine having hiccups for more than an hour?’ Claire said. ‘I’d go mad! That poor child.’

Martin knelt down to play with a small boy who had wandered over. ‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘Martin wants children,’ Claire said, sotto voce, to Amelia. Despite herself, she often found herself confiding to Amelia. She had no one else to talk to.

‘All men do, darling,’ Amelia said. ‘You have to negotiate the number before you start popping them out or else they’ll want to keep going. I got Angus down to two before we started.’

‘Oh,’ Claire said, startled. ‘That seems so … unromantic.’

‘What do you think married life is?’ Amelia said. She cocked an eyebrow at Claire. Claire blushed, and excused herself to go to the powder room.

When she returned, Amelia had drifted away and was talking to a tall man Claire had never seen before. She waved her over. He was a man of around forty with a crude cane that looked as if it had been whittled by a child. He had sharp, handsome features and a shock of black hair, run through with strands of grey, ungroomed.

‘Have you met Will Truesdale?’ Amelia said.

‘I haven’t,’ she said, as she put out her hand.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. His hand was dry and cool, almost as if it were made of paper.

‘He’s been in Hong Kong for ages,’ Amelia said. ‘An old-timer, like us.’

‘Quite the experts, we are,’ he said. He suddenly looked alert. ‘I like your scent,’ he said. ‘Jasmine, is it?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Newly arrived?’

‘Yes, just a month.’

‘Like it?’

‘I never imagined living in the Orient, but here I am.’

‘Oh, Claire, you should have had more imagination,’ Amelia said, gesturing to a waiter for another drink.

Claire coloured again. Amelia was in rare form today.

‘I’m delighted to meet someone who’s not so jaded,’ Will said. ‘All you women are so worldly it quite tires me out.’

Amelia had turned away to take her drink and hadn’t heard him. There was a pause, but Claire didn’t mind it.

‘It’s Claire’s birthday,’ Amelia told Will, turning back. She smiled, brittle, red lipstick stained her front tooth. ‘She’s just a baby.’

‘How nice,’ he said. ‘We need more babies around these parts.’

He suddenly reached out his hand and slowly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. A possessive gesture, as if he had known her for a long time. ‘Sorry,’ he said. Amelia had not seen; she had been scanning the crowd.

‘Sorry for what?’ Amelia asked, turning back, distracted.

‘Nothing,’ they both said. Claire looked down at the floor. They were joined in their collusive denial; it suddenly seemed overwhelmingly intimate.

‘What?’ Amelia said impatiently. ‘I can’t hear a damn thing above this din.’

‘I’m twenty-eight today,’ Claire said, not knowing why.

‘I’m forty-three.’ He nodded. ‘Very old.’

Claire couldn’t tell if he was joking.

‘I remember the celebration we had for you at Stanley,’ Amelia said. ‘What a fête.’

‘Wasn’t it?’

‘You’re still with Melody and Victor?’ Amelia enquired of him.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It suits me for now.’

‘I’m sure it suits Victor just fine to have an Englishman chauffeuring him around,’ she replied slyly.

‘It seems to work for everyone involved,’ Will said, not taking the bait.

Amelia leaned towards him confidentially. ‘I hear there’s been chatter about the Crown Collection and its disappearance during the war. Angus says it’s starting to come to the boil. People have noticed. Have you heard anything?’

‘I have,’ he said.

‘They want to ferret out the collaborators.’

‘A bit late, don’t you think?’

After a pause, when it became apparent that nothing more was forthcoming from Will, she spoke again: ‘I hope the Chens are treating you well?’

‘I can’t complain,’ he said.

‘A bit odd, though, isn’t it? You working over there?’

‘Amelia,’ he said. ‘You’re boring Claire.’

‘Oh, no,’ Claire protested. ‘I’m just …’

‘Well, you’re boring me,’ he said. ‘And life is too short to be bored. Claire, have you been to the different corners of our fair colony? Which is your favourite?’

‘Well, I have been exploring a little. Sheung Wan is lovely – I do like the markets – and I’ve been over to Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui on the Star Ferry, of course, and seen all the shops there. It’s very lively, isn’t it?’

‘See, Amelia?’ Will said. ‘An Englishwoman who ventures outside of Central and the Peak. You would do well to learn from this newcomer.’

Amelia rolled her eyes. ‘She’ll grow tired of it soon enough. I’ve seen so many of these bright-eyed new arrivals, and they all end up having tea with me at the Helena May and complaining about their amahs.’

‘Well, don’t let Amelia’s rosy attitude affect you too much, Claire,’ Will said. ‘At any rate, it was a pleasure to meet you. Best of luck in Hong Kong.’ He nodded to them politely and left. She felt the heat of his body as he passed her.

Claire felt bereft. He had assumed they would not meet again. ‘Odd man?’ she said. It was more of a statement.

‘You’ve no idea, dear,’ Amelia said.

Claire peeked after him. He had floated over to the side of the tennis court, although he had some sort of limp, and was watching Peter Wickham and his son hit the ball at each other.

‘He’s also very serious now,’ Amelia said. ‘Can’t have a proper conversation with him. He was quite sociable before the war, you know, you saw him at all the parties, had the most glamorous girl in town, quite high up at Asiatic Petrol, but he never really recovered after the victory. He’s a chauffeur, now.’ Her voice dropped. ‘For the Chens, actually, do you know who they are?’

‘Amelia!’ Claire said. ‘I give their daughter piano lessons! You helped me arrange it!’

‘Oh dear. The memory goes first, they say. You’ve never run into him there?’

‘Never,’ Claire said. ‘Although the Chens once suggested he might give me a lift home.’

‘Poor Melody,’ said Amelia. ‘She’s very fragile.’ The word said delicately.

‘Indeed,’ Claire said, remembering the way Melody had sipped her drink, quickly, urgently.

‘The thing with Will is …’ Amelia hesitated. ‘I’m quite certain he doesn’t need to work at all.’

‘How do you mean?’ Claire asked.

‘I just know certain things,’ Amelia said mysteriously.

Claire didn’t ask. She wouldn’t give Amelia the satisfaction.

September 1941

Trudy is dressing for dinner while he watches from the bed. She has finished her mysterious bathing ritual, with its oils and unguents, and now she smells marvellous, like a valley in spring. She is sitting at her dressing-table in a long peach satin robe, wrapped silkily round her waist, applying fragrant creams to her face.

‘Do you like this one?’ She gets up and holds a long black dress in front of her.

‘It’s fine.’ He can’t concentrate on the clothes when her face is so vibrant.

‘Or this one?’ A knee-length dress the colour of orange sherbet.

‘Fine.’

She pouts. Her skin gleams. ‘You’re so unhelpful.’

She tells him Manley Haverford is having a party, an end-of-summer party at his country house this weekend and that she wants to go. Manley is an old bigot who used to have a radio talk show before he married a rich but ugly Portuguese woman who conveniently died two years later whereupon he retired to live the life of a country squire in Saikung.

‘Desperately,’ she says. ‘I want to go desperately.’

‘You loathe Manley,’ he says. ‘You told me so last week.’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘But his parties are fun and he’s very generous with the drinks. Let’s go and talk about how awful he is right in front of him. Can we go? Can we? Can we?’ She wears him down. They will go.

So on Friday, late afternoon, he plays truant from work and they spend the twilight hours bathing in the ocean by Manley’s house. To get there, they drive narrow, winding roads carved out of the green mountain, blue water on their right, verdant hillside on their left. His house is through a dilapidated wooden gate and at the end of a long driveway, beside the sea, with a porch that juts out, and rough stone steps leading down to the beach. He’s had coolers filled with ice and drinks and sandwiches brought down to the sandy inlet. The still-hot sun and the water make them ravenous and they eat and eat and eat and curse their host for not bringing enough.

‘Me?’ he asks. ‘I assumed I had invited civilized people, who ate three meals a day.’

Victor and Melody Chen, Trudy’s cousins, wander down from the house, where they had been resting.

‘What are we doing now?’ Melody asks. Will likes her, thinks she’s nice, when she’s not with her husband.

A woman they have never met before, newly arrived from Singapore, suggests they play Charades. They all moan but acquiesce.

Trudy is one team’s leader, the Singapore woman the other. The groups huddle together, write words on scraps of damp paper. They put them into the empty sandwich basket.

Trudy goes first. She looks at her paper, dimples. ‘Easy peasy,’ she says encouragingly to her group. She makes the film sign, one hand rotating an imaginary camera lever.

‘Film!’ shouts an American.

She puts up four fingers, then suddenly ducks her head, puts her arms in front of her and whooshes through the air.

‘Gone With the Wind,’ Will says. Trudy curtsies.

‘Unfair,’ says someone from the other team. ‘Pet’s advantage.’

Trudy comes over and plants a kiss on his forehead. ‘Clever boy,’ she says, and sinks down next to him.

Singapore gets up.

‘She’s your nemesis,’ Will tells Trudy.

‘Don’t worry,’ Trudy says. ‘She’s idiotic.’

The afternoon passes pleasantly, with them shouting insults and drinking and generally being stupid. Some people talk about the government and how it’s organizing different Volunteer Corps.

‘It’s not volunteering,’ Will says. ‘It’s mandatory. It’s the Compulsory Service Act, for heaven’s sake. Why don’t they just call a spade a spade? Dowbiggin is being ridiculous about it.’

‘Don’t be such a grump,’ Trudy says. ‘Do your duty.’

‘I guess so,’ he says. ‘Must fight the good fight, I suppose.’ He thinks the organization is being handled in an absurd fashion.

‘Is there one for cricketers?’ someone asks, as if to prove his point.

‘Why not?’ somebody else says. ‘You can make up one however you want.’

‘I hardly think that’s true,’ Manley says. ‘But I’m joining one that’s training out here at weekends, on the Club grounds. Policemen, although I’d think they’d be rather busy if there was an attack.’

‘Aren’t you too old, Manley?’ Trudy asks. ‘Old and decrepit?’

‘That’s the wonderful thing, Trudy,’ he says, with a forced smile. ‘You can’t fire a Volunteer. And at any rate the one here at the Club is convenient.’

‘I’m sending Melody to America,’ Victor Chen says suddenly. ‘I don’t want her to be in any danger.’

Melody smiles uneasily, but says nothing.

‘The government is preparing,’ says Jamie Biggs. ‘They’re storing food in warehouses in Tin Hau and securing British property.’

‘Like the Crown Collection?’ Victor asks. ‘What are they going to do about that? It’s part of the British heritage.’

‘I’m sure all the arrangements have been made,’ says Biggs.

‘The food will go bad before anyone gets it,’ says another man.

‘Cynic,’ says Trudy.

She stands up gracefully and goes towards the ocean. All this talk of war bores her. She thinks it will never happen. They watch her, rapt, as she plunges into the sea and comes up sleek and dripping – her slim body a vertical rebuke to the flatness of the horizon between the sky and sea. She walks up to Will and shakes her wet hair at him. Drops of water fall and sparkle. Then someone asks where the tennis rackets are. The spell is broken.

Over dinner, Trudy declares that she is going to be in charge of uniforms for the Volunteers. ‘And Will can be the model,’ she says, ‘because he’s a perfect male specimen.’

Colin Thorpe, who heads up the American office of a large pharmaceutical company, looks doubtful. ‘Rather small and ugly, isn’t he?’ he says, although this is more a description of himself than of Will.

‘Will!’ Trudy cries. ‘You’ve been insulted! Defend your honour!’

‘I’ve better things to defend,’ he says. And the table falls silent. He is always saying the wrong thing, puncturing the gaiety. ‘Er, sorry,’ he says. But they are already on to the next thing.

Trudy is describing the tailor who is going to make the uniforms. ‘He’s been our family tailor for ages and he can whip out a copy of a Paris dress in two days, one if you beg!’

‘What’s his name?’