The Orchid Tree (5 page)

It’s late August, and I wake up after a hot, mosquito-infested night. I think about Charles. Something changed in him when he spent twenty-four hours in the prison. He’s been avoiding me, and doesn’t even come swimming these days . . .

I crawl off my mattress. There’s a small black spot, marooned in the middle of my sheet. ‘What’s that?’

‘A bed bug, I think.’ Papa squashes the speck between his thumb and forefinger. ‘What a stink!’

I wrinkle my nose and inhale a whiff of bitter almonds.

Papa fetches a knife from the kitchen, turns the mattress over and cuts a hole. Thousands of slimy, shiny, black insects squirm as if irritated at being disturbed.

I back away, revolted. I stare at the spots on my legs and my stomach heaves. ‘I thought these were mosquito bites. Do you think they’re in your beds as well?’

‘More than likely,’ Papa says.

Mama pulls up her nightdress and examines the angry, red wheals on her thighs. Her face blanches. ‘I can’t take any more,’ she sobs.

‘There, there.’ Papa pats Mama on the back. ‘I’ll find something to get rid of them and, in future, we’ll make sure we do spot checks.’

I clutch my sides as hysteria builds up. ‘Ha, ha, ha spot checks!’

‘Be quiet, you silly girl!’ Mama slaps me on the arm. ‘We can’t let the neighbours know we’ve got bed bugs. Whatever will they think?’

‘If we’ve got them they’ve probably got them too. Stay here with your mother, Kate, while I look for a container.’

He manages to find an old kerosene tin, which he trundles over to the Police Block. I strip the beds as my mother looks on helplessly.

Half an hour later, Papa returns with Bob.

‘Aalreet, pet?’

Bob pours carbolic acid from the tin into our only pan, then mixes it with the water I collected in a bucket from yesterday’s rainfall. ‘This is how we deal with the little beasties,’ he says, setting the pan on their hotplate.

The water boils, and Papa soaks all three mattresses with the liquid. Then Bob and I haul everything over to the balcony. Mama stands to the side and fixes the policeman with a frosty stare.

‘I’ll be off now,’ Bob says. ‘Got to get back to me rice cooking shift. Did you hear the good news?’ He smiles. ‘There’s been a delivery of pork today. Disease has struck a pig farm in the New Territories and they’ve killed the whole herd. We’ll have some meat with our dinners for once.’

Papa shakes Bob’s hand and thanks him for his help. I go with my friend to the bottom of the stairwell, and watch him saunter across the village green. He stops and throws a “cannon ball” with a group of children.
Such a nice man.

Back indoors, I help Papa scrub our sheets in lye soap, wishing my mother had shown more gratitude to Bob.

‘How low we’ve sunk that we can even contemplate eating diseased food,’ she says.

Papa heaves a sigh. ‘I’m sure the Colonial Vet will check to make sure it’s safe.’

Mama glowers at him. ‘We’d have been able to buy more bully beef from the canteen if you hadn’t used up our spare cash for your wretched tobacco.’

‘There hasn’t been any tinned meat available for ages, my dear. Do you think I’d put my pipe before your needs?’

‘I can’t understand why you still insist on smoking it when it’s so difficult to get hold of tobacco. I’ve managed to give up my cigarettes. You should give up your pipe too.’

‘Having a smoke clears my airways. You don’t want me catching TB again, do you?’

Papa’s TB was the reason my mother and I were still in Hong Kong when the Japanese came. Most of the British women and children, including Mary and my other school friends, had been evacuated eighteen months before then, as the authorities must have thought war was on the cards. If it weren’t for that TB scare, Mama wouldn’t have had the excuse to stay and nurse him back to health.

Papa never believed the Japanese would attack, so he was happy for her to remain, and I didn’t want to go without her. Mama fed him huge amounts of protein and moved his bed onto the veranda so that he could breathe plenty of fresh air. When fog came to the Peak, she bundled him into the car and drove him to Repulse Bay with the window down. Gradually he recovered, but his poor health kept him out of the Volunteers.

Thank God
for that.
If he’d survived the battle he’d be in the POW camp in Kowloon instead of with the civilians in Stanley.

I put the sheets in the sun. The mattresses are still airing on the balcony, so I sit on the concrete floor. A sudden rumble of thunder, and I run outside. Rain peels across the village green and people scurry for cover. Everything is soaked.

Mama bursts into tears. ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘Maybe tonight we’ll sleep in soggy sheets stinking of carbolic acid,’ I say. ‘But it’s better than being eaten alive by bed bugs, don’t you think?’

‘Cheer up!’ Papa puts his arm around Mama and gives me a disapproving look.

‘I’m sorry,’ I stutter. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

***

From then onwards, Papa’s pipe makes rare appearances. Often, I see him stooping and picking up cigarette butts discarded on the roadside. He retrieves the small amount of tobacco then mixes it with dried sweet potato leaves and toilet paper, which is really just a piece cut up from
The Hong Kong News.

Our neighbours soon give every indication that they’re struggling with the over-crowded conditions as well. They’ve divided their room in two by hanging a curtain made from old sheets stitched together. It’s difficult sharing the kitchen and bathroom with the Chambers and the Morrises. Squabbles often break out between us about who’s responsible for cleaning the communal areas.

I remember the first time I met the two couples last February. After an awful meal on our first night, I stood with my parents at the door dividing our rooms. A grey-haired man staggered to his feet. ‘Professor Stuart Morris, Hong Kong University,’ he said.

A mousy-looking woman got up from her camp bed. ‘And I’m his wife, Diana.’

I spotted another woman, fast asleep under a large, brown overcoat. A tousle of wavy red hair spread over the pillow.

‘You’ll excuse my wife if she doesn’t get up?’ A burly man with a dark beard stepped forward. ‘She’s suffering from a nasty cold. Bloody freezing here at night. We’re the Chambers by the way. Tony and Jessica. Welcome to Stanley!’

‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’ Mama held out her hand. ‘Weren’t you at the Boxing Day Meet last year?’

‘Of course. How could I forget?’ Tony Chambers clapped his hand to his forehead.

His brown eyes smiled at me. ‘You’re something of a horsewoman, young lady, aren’t you?’

‘I can’t stand the creatures myself,’ my mother chipped in. ‘They make me sneeze. Well, we’d better get on. Things to do. No doubt we’ll meet again.’ She laughed in an almost hysterical way and I followed her through the door, wishing I could have shrunk to a speck of dust on the floor, I was so embarrassed.

Since then, I’ve seen a lot of Professor Morris at school as he’s my Latin teacher, and his wife helps out with French. But the Chambers keep themselves to themselves.

***

After the discovery of the bed bugs, Mama has become obsessed with getting me to do the cleaning. She makes me scrub our room from wall to wall every day then wash the clothes. I rub them with lye soap until my hands bleed.

‘Off you go,’ Mama says to me one morning after I’ve done my chores. ‘I can’t be doing with you getting in my way any longer.’

‘I haven’t been getting in the way. I’ve been slaving over a scrubbing board. Why can’t you do more of the work?’

Mama lifts her hand. I duck, and before my mother’s palm can reach its target, Jessica Chambers pokes her head around the door. ‘Your daughter has stolen my lipstick.’

Mama’s eyes widen. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Well, who else? The children are out of control, thieving left, right and centre.’

Mama gives me a stern look. ‘Did you take Mrs Chambers’ lipstick?’

I cross my fingers behind my back. ‘Of course not.’

‘Let this be a warning to you, Little Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-In-Her-Mouth,’ Jessica spits. ‘If ever I catch you in our room, you’ll receive the severest of punishments.’

‘Please don’t threaten my daughter!’ Mama holds up her hands. ‘I know my Kate’s mixing with all
sorts
of people in this place, but she wouldn’t steal.’

I slip out of the room, pretending that I’m leaving. But I hide behind the door instead, peer through a crack, and listen.

‘Perhaps it wasn’t her. The lipstick went missing yesterday. Not the first thing that’s been taken,’ Jessica says, the colour rising in her cheeks.

Jessica Chambers has red hair. Not auburn, but deep red. Bob’s hair is distinctly carroty by comparison. Jessica is probably only in her mid-twenties, no more than a decade older than me, yet in spite of the months of living in close proximity, Jessica hasn’t spoken a word to me until this morning, which makes her fair game. Jessica left the lipstick in the kitchen, so what did she expect? She should have looked after it. I turn around and march out of the flat.

On my way down the stairs, guilt ties my stomach up in knots. Maybe Mama is right and Stanley is changing me? I wouldn’t have dreamt of stealing anything when I lived on the Peak. I put my hand into the pocket of the shorts I stitched together from an old rice sack, and clasp the tube. I’d wanted to make myself look pretty for Charles. Now I’ll have to bury the lipstick on the hillside behind the cemetery, so no one will discover I took it.

I reach the village green and stop dead. Derek Higgins is bent double, surrounded by a circle of European men, his white buttocks bared and receiving six of the best from a thin bamboo cane.

The cane comes down with a thwack, and I wince. Thwack, thwack, thwack. I screw my eyes shut.
Poor Derek!

Finally, the men leave and Derek comes up to me. ‘Why were you watching? I suppose it seemed funny to you.’

‘Not it didn’t. Not at all. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. Who were they and why were they beating you?’

‘From the camp tribunal. They caught me with some cans of bully beef I took from the canteen a few weeks ago. I only took them because my dad is sick.’

‘Gosh! I wouldn’t like that to happen to me. Do you think they’d beat girls as well?’

‘More than likely. Better than the Japanese Gendarmerie, I suppose. Well, I’d better get back to my parents. Dad’s ill with beriberi because he’s not getting enough vitamins. That’s why I took the cans.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry. Did you know the Red Cross are sending comfort parcels? Hopefully they’ll arrive soon and we’ll have some extra food.’

I wave Derek off and go up to the cemetery. Burying the lipstick, I promise myself I won’t take anything that belongs to someone else ever again. What was I thinking of?

***

Three weeks before my sixteenth birthday, in early September, Papa rushes into the flat and exclaims with a wide grin, ‘The parcels are here. Come on, we’re to line up at the canteen.’

We wait for an hour in the queue, Mama complaining all the while that she has things to do. What these things might be, I can’t imagine. After all, I’m the one doing all the washing and cleaning . . .

‘Flora, my dear, you don’t want to be shut up indoors on such a lovely morning,’ Papa says, laughing. ‘It’ll do you good to get some fresh air.’

I look up at the sky, so blue and cloudless it seems to go on forever. For once, the high hills separating Stanley from the other side of the island are clearly visible, not hidden by warm mist.

Finally the Red Cross representative hands us two packages each. Back in the Indian Quarters, Mama says we don’t have enough storage containers so we can indulge in an instant feast. I open my parcel.
Chocolate tablets, biscuits and packets of sugar!
I tear the wrapping off a Dairy Milk bar and stuff every morsel into my mouth, savouring the sticky sweetness. A sensation of fullness settles in my belly, which lasts the rest of the day. For the first time in months I go to bed without feeling hungry.

The sound of screaming wakes me, and I blink in the morning sunshine. What’s wrong with Mama?

‘There are ants crawling on everything,’ she wails.

‘I’ll boil up some water and pour it over them,’ Papa says in his keep calm voice.

Mama eyes the soaked sugar. ‘All ruined now. What a mess!’

I help Papa scoop up the soggy packets then glance at my mother.
Oh, no!
Her face has a yellowish tinge.

***

That night, a moan comes from Mama’s mattress. ‘I feel terrible. I’ve got the shakes and my head is killing me.’

Papa grabs a thermometer and takes her temperature. ‘Good God! It’s one hundred and three,’ he says, shaking the glass tube. ‘I’ll fetch some water, my dear.’