The Trophy Taker

19

She packed her evening dress away in her locker, put her leather trousers back on and said her goodbyes to the handful of girls left in the Dressing Room. She had done enough work for one night. It was only when she reached the line of taxis that she decided she wasn’t in the mood to return home just yet – she deserved a little fun after her ordeal. She caught a cab to the Macau ferry terminal, just a short distance away, and boarded the waiting ferry.

The journey would take nearly an hour, but tonight she didn’t mind. Usually she was impatient to arrive; but this time she knew it would give her the time and space to mull things over. Mostly she thought about Georgina, who had just arrived – landed, almost – in their lives. She smiled to herself. Those big hands! That innocent face! She brought out the maternal instinct in Lucy. God knows, that was funny, feeling maternal to a girl just two years younger than herself. But why not? She could take care of them all.

She sat back to take stock of her surroundings and to enjoy the anticipation and the rush of pure adrenalin and excitement that only Macau gave her. Gambling was a need that had grown in her over the last few years. She had become addicted to its thrills, its uncertainty – knowing that she could lose everything she had, or simply win the world. It was a thrill second to none. But it was a deadly game to play. Macau was run, ruined and ruled by triads.

She looked out of the window to see the lights flickering on the horizon. They would be docking soon. She shifted in her seat and smiled to herself. Her buttocks were raw – it had taken her time to get used to it: the pain, the fear. But she had to cut herself a niche in the hostess market. There were just too many pretty Chinese girls out there.

She’d started young – she’d had to, when their alcoholic mother was found floating among the boats in Aberdeen, just another piece of flotsam. Then Lucy had to provide for herself and her little sister. She was twelve when she sold her virginity to a Taiwanese, and when that money ran out she went to work in the clubs. She might not be the best-looking girl but she was one of the smartest. She cottoned on quickly to a dark sadistic side to men that they so desired but never dared ask for. Lucy let them have their heart’s desire – as long as they paid, and paid well. It was a lucrative market. There wasn’t a Caucasian she’d met that didn’t like to inflict pain. Not the Chinese so much, except the ones who were educated abroad like Chan. Middle Eastern men wanted that and nothing else, and the Japanese? Don’t ask! Not only could Lucy perform almost any act of self-degradation, in truth she quite enjoyed it. The sting of smarting flesh, the power of perversity. She liked to look into their eyes at that point of abandonment and steal a part of their soul. But Chan had gone too far tonight, and not for the first time. In Chan she had met her match.

Lucy sighed to herself. It would all be worth it one day, maybe even this day. Perhaps tonight would be the night to change everything. She looked around and sized up her fellow passengers. No one she recognised, which was a relief. A bunch of Americans, over-sized and over-dressed. The men wore a uniform of Farah slacks and club ties. The women dressed too young, had sharp features and orange skin, and ridiculously over-dyed, back-combed hair. That’s not beautiful, thought Lucy. Much better to have a good Hong Kong girl than that!

Apart from the Americans and a few Portuguese returning home, the ferry was practically empty. She stared at the Americans and tried a smile. She might still be able to catch herself a Gweilo. An American passport, that would be the one! Canadian or New Zealand would do very well too. She would even take British if she could get it! At the age of twenty-four she would be happy with any ticket out for her and Ka Lei.

It didn’t work this time, though. The men’s wayward attention was refocused and held in a mental headlock by their eagle-eyed wives.

Lucy gave up and stared out at the lights coming from Macau. They were gliding on the water, on its skin, like oil. Her thoughts returned to the future. Lucy wondered what difference her English cousin’s arrival would make in the grand scheme of things. She and Ka Lei were like twins separated at birth, now reunited. They were so innocent, so young. Both of them were like children: laughing, playing, running around the apartment. And Lucy was like their mother. Something told her that whatever it was that lay ahead, her newfound cousin would feature in it.

She shifted in her seat again: the sitting was beginning to irritate her and concentrating was becoming more difficult. Anyway, that was enough speculation. She didn’t like dwelling on things to come or things gone. ‘Now’ was what counted. Bernadette had told her that life was like driving a car – you just needed to look in the mirror now and again to see what was behind you. The rest of the time, keep your eyes on the road ahead.

Tonight all roads led to Macau, and one big win would take care of them all: Ka Lei, Georgina, all of them. Lucy knew something big was coming – she felt it.

But, while it was true that tonight would change her life irrevocably, that all their lives would never be the same from this night on, it was not in the way that Lucy hoped. Not at all.

20

Macau was busy – always busy – twenty-four hours a day. Hong Kong didn’t allow casinos, but Macau did. The smartest one was the newest: the Royal Palace. A floating, multi-floored casino that was moored alongside its sister ship, the Portuguese Queen. It had opened only a month previously and it was the first time Lucy had seen it. It was as she was about to enter that she saw Chan. She recognised him from behind: his flat arse swivelled like a woman’s when he walked. Funny, she thought, they had been together just hours before, having sex, and now they were both here! How alike they must be in some ways.

Chan was keeping an eye on things for the Wo Shing Shing. CK was one of two partners in this new casino; the other was a prominent member of the Chinese government. Money was becoming the new Communist ideal, and Hong Kong was more than happy to wet-nurse. The milk of capitalism flowed freely from her bosom – enough for everyone.

CK had been cultivating friendships with state councillors and prime ministers for some time. He’d been working his way up the ladder over the years and had built himself an impressive network of influential friends. He finally nailed it after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was the only one of the prominent Hong Kong businessmen to step forward and support China’s stand.

Lucy thought nothing of seeing Chan there: he was a VIP after all, and she knew that he was probably involved in many ventures. She watched him walk into the casino and wondered what made him tick. It remained a mystery to her why he had chosen to buy her out on the occasions he did. Surely two concubines and a wife were enough ‘face’ for the man with an erect penis the size of a middle-finger salute? He had weird tastes even by Lucy’s standards: the pretend-virgin thing wasn’t the normal, it was more rape than seduction. And ‘Daddy’, as he wanted her to call him, could certainly inflict pain, but could he take it? No way! ‘Daddy’s’ S&M games were strictly fun for one. Knowing when to stop was a definite problem.

At the entrance to the casino Lucy caught the doorman’s eye and slipped him one hundred Hong Kong dollars. She always over-tipped the doormen. They had helped her out many times, if just to jump the taxi queue, and it was worth it. She paused for a second or two to admire the casino’s flamboyant foyer, and, as she did so, Chan turned and noticed her. He acknowledged her presence with a slight incline of his head and a curious smile, before passing through the carved mahogany doors into the Royal Palace.

That night Lucy moved from blackjack to roulette and back to blackjack with losses that were inconceivable. Nothing stemmed the tide of money lost and the speed with which it disappeared. So strange was this catastrophic losing streak for Lucy, who, as a rule, always gained as much as she lost, that she read into it signs of the wrong kind. She began to believe that some huge win was coming her way – she only needed to keep playing – she just needed to stay in the game. But it wasn’t coming, and Lucy eventually took a loan from a triad, a massive loan that she would never be able to repay.

It was Chan who came to her aid when her money ran out. It was Chan who gave her the loan. It was Chan who moved in on Lucy like carrion on roadkill.

21

‘I’m comin’!’

Glitter Girl had run out of places to hide and he had found her. The more she struggled against the rope around her neck, the tighter it became. In the end, only her body continued the fight. Her mind said:

Let me go … Let it be quick … And please, sweet Jesus, let someone find my body …

Strangely enough, her last thoughts were of Darren, in the days before he’d started hitting her. In the days of disco balls and hot, salty, stolen kisses, fevered embraces and love that should have been forever. She had never truly managed to hate him. She still loved the man she wished he could have been.

Now her photo stared out from the wall, with the others, and her index finger bobbed in a jar of formaldehyde, just like the one her grandma kept pickles in. In certain lights it still glittered.

Tonight he would start his hunt again.

22

Lucy stumbled off the Macau ferry in a daze, right at the start of the morning rush hour. The bright sun stabbed at her eyes and the car fumes caught in the back of her throat. The walk home was tortuously slow. All she could do was keep her head down, shuffle along the crowded pavement, and pray that soon she would find some respite from the raw guilt she felt. One minute her heart beat so fast she couldn’t breathe, and she thought she would pass out; the next it slowed down so much that she thought she must be walking in a dream.

Lucy was in shock, in mourning. She had squatted in the gutters of Macau and aborted all her dreams, and not just hers … All the years she had protected her sister from harm and kept her off the streets, made sure she could follow her dream and become a nurse. Now all those dreams would be shattered. Both their lives would be ruined if she couldn’t think of a way to pay back what she owed – a triad debt was a family debt. The pain of retribution would be shared. In fact, Lucy knew that it would be Ka Lei they would come after first, just to teach Lucy a lesson.

After an hour of shuffling along pavements she finally reached home. She turned the key to the apartment door as quietly as she could and crept inside. There was not a sound in the stagnant gloom of the flat except the plonk plonk of the leaky kitchen tap. Ka Lei had already gone to work and Georgina was still asleep. Lucy listened to the droning of the air-conditioning unit coming from her cousin’s bedroom.

She tiptoed into her room and sat on the edge of the bed, scared to move, frightened to make a sound in case she woke Georgina and then she might have to tell what she’d done. She couldn’t do that. She definitely couldn’t do that.

As the hours passed she stared at the blacked-out windows of the adjacent building, seeing nothing, reliving the events of the previous evening. The light in the room changed hue. Shadows lengthened and altered shape. Somewhere outside, the sun arced in the sky, the earth turned, the universe existed, the day completed its rota. Inside the room Lucy went over the process of self-recrimination countless times. She relived the events that had led to her destruction over and over until she became quite exhausted by the process. She hovered above herself and watched herself lose and lose again. Why had she continued? She knew why. She just couldn’t leave, not then, not when she was so down. She just needed to stay in the game, like she always did. It had happened that way so many times before: lose a lot, win a lot more. She had always come out on top – but not this time. Lady Luck had stabbed her in the back last night. Now Lucy must find a way not just to bear it, but to end it.

Gradually, over the course of the following day, the shock subsided, until, by reworking the events in her mind, they changed shape and became something of far less consequence. She began to reassess the situation. She had survived worse – she would survive this. But now her survival was out of her hands. Lucy had unwittingly made a pact with the devil.

23

She waited in the Dressing Room for two hours before her name was called. She knew when she followed Mamasan Linda past the dance floor that they were heading to Chan’s favourite seat. She knew he would be watching her walk the length of the club, his eyes fixed on her. She knew she had to try every trick in her book to make this work.

‘Hello, Ka Mei, how’s things?’ His cold eyes fixed on her face.

It was the first time Chan had ever called Lucy by her Chinese name. It did not bode well. She was momentarily startled into letting her guard down. In the half-light she could see he was sneering rather than smiling. She looked downwards at her lap, trying to compose herself. Stick to the plan, she told herself, just as rehearsed: slightly submissive, slightly flirty – humble yet brave. She had been over this meeting a hundred times in her head.

Chan was sprawled in his usual place, and as Lucy sat down he extended one arm so that his hand rested on the nape of her neck.

‘Good evening, Mr Chan,’ she said, and waited for an answer. She felt the electricity in his fingertips commute to a burning sensation as he rubbed the same spot at the base of her neck repeatedly. He was a tightened band that threatened to snap at any moment. ‘I have been a bit worried, Mr Chan,’ she said, tilting her head sideways to look at him.

‘Worried?’ He played along, and carried on stroking her neck. ‘Worried about what, Ka Mei?’

Lucy summoned up all her courage. She locked her gaze on his. ‘About the money I owe you, Mr Chan.’

Chan nodded his head slowly, deliberately, like a judge considering the gravity of the situation before passing sentence.

‘Yes, Lucy. You did borrow a lot of money. I hardly remember how much it was now.’ Lucy caught a glimmer of hope and looked up from her lap to see him still nodding. ‘But it was more than is prudent for a girl in your position.’

She would do the ‘what a silly girl I’ve been’ act if that’s what it took.

‘I do have some money to return to you, Mr Chan.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘But I do not have it all … at the moment.’

Chan raised an eyebrow.

‘How much do you have for me … at the moment?’

‘I have thirty thousand dollars. My savings, everything.’ She pleaded silently, trying every trick in her extensive book to find that deeply buried corner of Chan that cared.

Chan switched from nodding his head to swinging it from side to side. ‘Not really enough, is it, Lucy?’

Lucy felt the fluttering of panic begin in her gut. Chan slipped into his soliloquy:

‘You know you borrowed a lot of money from me, and not just from me, from the Wo Shing Shing. And you say to me, “Sorry, Mr Chan, I can only afford to repay you a measly thirty thousand dollars at the moment”, when you owe ten times that amount. Do you think that is fair?’

Lucy shook her head, feeling the blood drain from her face. The actual sum she had borrowed was being inflated as she sat there. Suddenly it seemed insurmountable. She hadn’t reckoned on such calculated cruelty. He couldn’t really expect her to pay all that, could he?

‘So, Lucy, what do you think I should do?’

There was a pause and Lucy returned to staring at her lap and shaking her head miserably.

‘Have you no one to help you?’

Lucy was puzzled. What could he be driving at? He was waiting to spring a trap on her, all her instincts told her so.

‘I know that your sister – Ka Lei, isn’t it? I know that she works at the hospital. She relies on you, doesn’t she, Lucy?’

Lucy’s eyes flitted back and forth across his face, searching desperately.

‘You live with your sister, don’t you? She’s young, isn’t she? She is training to be a nurse. Is that right? There’s just the two of you?’

Lucy nodded her head almost imperceptibly while twisting her hands as they lay in her lap.

‘Not just the two of you at the moment, is there, Lucy? Your English cousin is staying with you. She’s a very attractive girl, I hear. Maybe she can help you? She can’t live off you forever, can she? Plus, she’s family – and this debt is a family debt. You didn’t just borrow from me personally, you borrowed from the Wo Shing Shing. You understand the implications of that, don’t you, Lucy?’

Lucy nodded her head miserably.

‘Maybe she can help you?’

He knew everything. Every small detail of her life. She was doomed. They were all doomed.

‘Georgina’s parents are dead. My sister and I are her only family. I don’t see how she can help, Mr Chan.’ Lucy looked up, suddenly sensing an awful point to Chan’s questions.

‘She can come and work here. We are always in need of good foreign hostesses. Chinese girls are as plentiful as grains of rice; a good foreigner can bring a lot of new customers. Bring her in tomorrow and I will wipe a quarter of the debt away immediately. Then I will see what else I can do to help you. Because …’ Chan placed his hand over hers, ‘I like you, Lucy … really, I do.’ He moved his hand to her thigh and squeezed it hard. Lucy winced. ‘But Daddy has to be strict sometimes.’

24

‘Anyway, juz be for a little while. You like to work with me, huh? Family, huh?’ Lucy put the suggestion to Georgina over breakfast the next morning.

‘I’ve never done any waitressing or anything like this before. Are you sure I can do it?’

‘You got to believe me, it’s perfec job for you,’ Lucy assured her.

‘Is no.’ Ka Lei stood with her arms folded across her flat chest. Her English wasn’t as good as Lucy’s. When she was trying her hardest to find the word she wanted, her hands flitted in front of her face in expressive gestures and her head tilted to one side, then she lifted her eyes skyward and twittered like a starling. Now, she stamped her foot and dug her hands deeper into her sides, and looked much younger than her seventeen years as she blocked Lucy’s way, preventing her from reaching Georgina.

‘Club no goo for Georgie. No goo place. She petter do nudder job.’

They quarrelled in Cantonese. Lucy looked past Ka Lei to Georgina.

‘Juz want show off my beautiful cousin from England. Juz for few days. That’s all.’

‘What would I have to do? …’

‘Juz sit an talk. Drink a little. If the client like you, he buy you out of club for a few hours – take you to dinner, nice expensive restaurant. No problem, huh? Goo money. Nice place.’

With a sigh and a smile Georgina gave in. ‘Okay, Lucy. I’ll give it a go.’

Ka Lei also eventually agreed. After all, hadn’t Lucy always made the decisions for her? And now she would make them for Georgina too. It seemed only natural.

She would start on the coming Saturday. That gave her three days to find a dress.

While Ka Lei was at work, Lucy and Georgina began their search of the shopping malls. It was no good. They were never going to find one to fit. Georgina was too tall, too curvy. One had to be made.

Lucy took her to a tailor in Western District. The tailor stood on a chair to measure Georgina’s chest. After much wrangling and deliberation between Lucy and the tailor, a dress was decided upon. It was black with spaghetti straps and a split up one leg.

The next day she went for a fitting. On Saturday they picked it up. Georgina tried it on for Ka Lei.

‘So beautiful … you be mos beautiful girl in club.’

Georgina stared at herself in the mirror. Her breasts – two white mounds sitting proudly above the neckline of the dress. Not sure this is what Iris meant by ‘finding my wings’. Georgina looked at the unfamiliar image in front of her and felt a feeling of panic.

Ka Lei smiled reassuringly.

‘Be okay, Georgie. Lucy loo atter you.’

That night Georgina and Lucy left for work at eight. They had no need to hail a taxi, as Max was waiting for them.

Lucy explained to Georgina that Max was a friend of sorts. He liked to look after them. He always took her to work as it marked the start of his night shift. All through Lucy’s explanation Max nodded and grinned at Georgina in the mirror. Max was very good to them, Lucy said, and not just her. He had been very kind to all the girls who had lived in Lucy’s apartment. He had looked after them all over the years, and there had been several. He was getting on now and would have to retire very soon.

‘Shame,’ said Lucy. ‘We will miss him.’

Max shook his head sadly and shrugged resignedly. No one would miss the job more than him.

Georgina sat in the back, peering silently out of the window while Lucy and Max chatted. She didn’t bother to try to understand the conversation, it was too fast for her and she had other things on her mind. She was nervous about starting work at the club. She needed a few minutes’ peace to prepare herself. As much as she loved her cousin, Lucy’s voice was pitched at a level louder than comfortable, so Georgina was glad it was directed at someone else for a few minutes.