‘“Achha” – that what Canton-yan call you people. You Hindusthanis – there you all “Achha” ’.
‘But “achha” just means “good”. Or “all right”.’
Ah Fatt laughed: ‘Is opposite in Gwong-jou-talk. Ah-chaa mean ‘bad man’. So you are Achha to me and Aa- chaa to them.’
Neel laughed too. ‘So your Adelie was half Achha? Where was she from?’
‘Her mother from Goa, but live in Macau. Her father Chinese, from Canton. Adelie very beautiful; she also like smoke opium. When Dai Lou travel, he tell me to look after. Sometime she ask me bite the cloud with her. We both half-Achha, but never seen India. We talk about India, about her mother, my father. And then…’
‘You became lovers?’
‘Yes. We both become din-din-dak-dak. Crazy.’
‘And your boss found out?’
Ah Fatt nodded.
‘What did he do?’
‘What do you think?’ Ah Fatt shrugged. ‘Just like country have laws, gaa have rules. I know Dai Lou try to kill me so I hide with mother. Then I hear hing-dai come for me, so I run away. Go to Macau, and pretend to be Christian. Hide in seminary. Then they send me to Serampore, in Bengal.’
‘And Adelie?’
Ah Fatt looked into his eyes and then pointed his chopsticks at the muddy waters of the river.
‘She killed herself?’
He answered with a barely perceptible nod.
‘But that’s all in the past, Ah Fatt: don’t you ever feel like going back to Canton now?’
‘No. Can-na go back, even though Mother is there. Dai Lou have eyes everywhere. Can-na go back.’
‘But what about your father then? Why don’t you go to see him?’
‘No!’ Ah Fatt slammed his cup on the table. ‘No. Don’t want see Father.’
‘Why?’
‘Last time I see him, I ask him to take to India. I want go away. Away from Chin-gwok, away from Canton. I know if I stay, something happen with me and Adelie. And I know also, Dai Lou can find out and then he can do anything – to her and me. So I go to Father one day. I ask him to take to India, on Anahita. But he say: No, no, Freddy, cannot go. Impossible. After that I angry too. Very angry. I never see Father again.’
Despite the vehemence of Ah Fatt’s tone, Neel could sense that the ship’s influence on his friend was strengthening, its magnetic field growing steadily more powerful. ‘Listen, Ah Fatt,’ he said. ‘Whatever may have happened between you and your father is in the past. Maybe he’s changed: don’t you think you should find out if he is on board the ship?’
‘No need find out,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘I know. He is there. I know he is there.’
‘How?’
‘See flag? With columns? Is only up when Father there.’
‘Then why don’t you send him a message?’
‘No.’ The word came out of Ah Fatt’s mouth like a small explosion. ‘No. Don’t want.’
Looking up, Neel saw that Ah Fatt’s face, which had shown very little emotion so far, had suddenly crumpled into a stricken mask. But almost immediately Ah Fatt straightened his shoulders and shook his head, as if to clear it. Then, swilling back a shot of liquor, he said: ‘Mister Neel, you make me talk too much. Now no more talk. We go sleep.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. In this boat. Lady say we can stay here.’
Four
For the journey from Mauritius to southern China Fitcher chose to follow the shortest route, which was by way of Java Head, with a stop for re-provisioning at Anger, the port that faced the perpetually smoking cone of Krakatoa from across the Sunda Straits.
When the order to hoist sail was issued, the Ibis was still at anchor in Port Louis. On her way out of the harbour, the Redruth passed within a few hundred yards of the schooner. There was no one on deck, and the bare-masted lbis looked tiny in comparison with the tall sailships that were anchored around it. It amazed Paulette to think that so small a vessel could play so large a part in so many lives; even when the Redruth’s sails filled with wind and sent the brig racing ahead Paulette could not tear her eyes away from the Ibis: it fell to Fitcher to remind her that she had a job to do.
‘Look sharp Miss Paulette: no time to lowster at sea…’
This, Paulette soon discovered, was no exaggeration: the business of tending plants on a ship at sail was one that allowed for very little rest. Something always needed doing; it was like caring for a garden that was tethered to the back of a large and extremely energetic animal. Almost never was the Redruth on an even keel; the closest she came to it was when she was merely dipping and tilting; at other times her decks were rolling steeply from side to side and her nose was either plunging into the sea or shooting out of it. And each of these movements was a potential hazard for the plants: a slight change in the angle of light could expose some shade-loving shrub to the fierce heat of the tropical sun; a breaking swell could send up a jet of seawater that would come down on the pots as a drenching shower of salinity; and if the decks tipped beyond a certain angle, the Wardian cases could escape their cables and go caroming along the gangways.
For each of these contingencies, and many more, there were procedures and protocols, all devised by Fitcher himself: he was not a man to provide lengthy explanations of his methods and for the most part Paulette had to learn by watching and imitating. But sometimes, as he was working, he would begin to mumble to himself – and there was much to be learnt, Paulette discovered, from these near-inaudible disquisitions.
On the subject of soils for example: Fitcher would take a look at a plant that was wilting, even in the shade, and he would trace its ills back to the composition of the matter in which it was planted. Some soils were ‘hot’, he said, and some were ‘cold’, by which he meant that some types of earth heated up quicker than others and some tended to retain their heat over long periods. To redress the balance, as necessary, he kept several barrels of soil in reserve, some marked ‘cool’ and some ‘hot’: the former tended to be lighter in colour, being of a chalky composition, while the latter were generally darker, being peaty, with a greater amount of vegetal matter. When one or the other was needed he would send Paulette down to fetch him some, and then he would apply the remedy in carefully judged amounts.
Paulette was inclined at first to dismiss these notions of hot and cold soils as a far-fetched fancy – but there was certainly no denying that Fitcher’s methods sometimes effected miraculous resuscitations.
Manure was another matter which Fitcher had studied in great depth. He was not by any means dismissive of some of the conventional materials that were used to enrich the soil – the Redruth’s holds contained many barrels of rape-cake, malt dust and ground linseed – but the fertilizers that interested him most were those that could be harvested or generated while under sail. Seaweed for instance: he believed that certain varieties of it could be turned, through a process of soaking, drying and pulverizing, into matter that was extremely beneficial for plants. Whenever the Redruth encountered a patch of seaweed, he would lower nets and buckets into the water to haul up some fronds: then, after picking out the undesirable varieties, he would soak the rest in fresh water and hang them up on the after-shrouds and the rigging. When dry, he would grind them in a mortar and apply the powder in pinches, as though it were a rare remedy.
The Redruth’s flock of chickens was another important source of plant food. One of Paulette’s duties was to clear the droppings out of the coop every morning; this, said Fitcher, could be turned into a powerful fertilizer if mixed with water and fermented. The bird’s carcasses were not neglected either: when a chicken was slaughtered for the table, every part of it was put to use, including the feathers and bones which were cut up into tiny bits before being added to the compost barrels that hung from the Redruth’s stern. Stray seabirds, Fitcher claimed, were even more useful in this regard since they could be chopped up whole. Whenever an exhausted auk or gull came down to the brig to rest there would be a furious scramble among the sailors – for Fitcher offered a small reward for captured birds.
