He has, it must be said, an arresting face, and having been afforded the opportunity I did not neglect to make a close study of it.
You may think it odd Puggly dear, that I should say this of a China-man, but I swear to you, Puggly dear, it is true: Lynchong looks like one of those Renaissance cardinals whose portraits the Italian Masters were so often made to paint! The similarities in clothing are obvious enough – the cap, the gown, the jewellery – but the resemblance extends also to the beak-like nose; the fleshy jowls; the piercingly sharp eyes, hidden behind heavy lids – here, in other words, is a face filled with cleverness and corruption, cruelty and concupiscence.
I stepped away from the door just soon enough to avoid being detected. By the time it opened I had moved to a distance that allowed me to pretend that I had been browsing amongst the pots all the while.
Lynchong was alone, except for Ah-med: the others – khidmatgars, peons, lathiyals or whatever they were – had been left to cool their heels outside. He stood observing me for a minute or two, with a look of keen appraisal, and I was just about to chin-chin him, in pidgin, when he spoke his first words to me – and I promise you, Puggly dear, if the ground beneath my feet had turned to water I could not have been more surprised. For what he said was: ‘How’re you going on there, Mr Chinnery?’ – and the pronunciation was as you would expect of someone who had spent years wandering the streets of London!
I managed to summon the presence of mind to say: ‘Very well, sir. And you?’
‘Oh you know how it is,’ he said, ‘up and down, like the weather yardarm.’
Ah-med, in the meanwhile, had produced two chairs: Lynchong took one of them and assigned me to the other. Hardly had I absorbed my surprise at his earlier sallies than he began to speak again.
He was glad to meet me, he said; his name was Chan Liang, but I could call him Lynchong, or Mr Chan or whatever I wished: he was not partikler about this matter. And then, like a busy man of affairs, he turned with no further ado to the matter at hand: ‘I’m told you have something to show me.’
‘So I do,’ I said and proceeded to hand him the picture of the camellias.
The heavy-lidded eyes flickered as he looked at it, and an odd expression passed over his face. He tapped the picture with a fingernail that was at least two inches long.
‘Where’d you get this?’ he demanded to know and I told him it belonged to a friend who had asked me to make inquiries on his behalf. ‘Why?’ said he, in the same brusque way. I did not particularly care to be spoken to in that tone, so I told him it was because my friends wished to acquire a specimen for a botanical collection.
What would they pay? he asked me now, and I told him their intention was to propose an exchange, for they had with them an extensive collection of botanical novelties from the Americas.
Now a glitter came into his eyes, and his long fingernails began to scratch his palm as if to soothe the itch of acquisition. ‘What plants do they have? Have you brought any with you?’
No, said I. The plants were on board a ship that was anchored offshore, near Hong Kong.
‘That’s not much good to me, is it now? How’m I to know if they’re worth an exchange? These camellias, they’re monstrous rare they are – only to be found in the endermost places. I’m not one to trust to the figaries of chance, Mr Chinnery: I need to see the wares on offer.’
What was to be done now? I was at a loss for a moment and then an idea came into my head. I said: ‘Why sir, my friends could send me pictures to show you; one of them is a talented illustrator.’
He thought about this for a moment and then said yes, this would be all right, as long as I could show him the pictures soon – for it would take a while to have the golden camellias transported to Canton from the mountains where they grew.
‘I will write immediately, sir,’ I promised. ‘I do not doubt that I will have some pictures to show within the week.’
He had begun to fidget busily now, so I thought the interview was at an end and made as if to rise. But he stopped me by extending one of his long fingernails. ‘Let me ask you something, Mr Chinnery,’ he said. ‘This friend of yours – the one who owns that picture – is it possible that his name is Penrose? I forget his Christian name but I think they called him “Fitcher”.’
Can you imagine my surprise, Puggly dear? I promise you, through the duration of our conversation I had not once uttered Mr Penrose’s name: how was it possible then that this man should know about the ownership of a picture that had travelled halfway around the world?
But he undeniably did.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘The owner is indeed Mr Penrose.’
‘I remember him well – has a face like a pox-doctor, don’t he, old Fitcher Penrose?’
‘So you know him, sir?’
‘That I do,’ came the answer. ‘And he knows me too. When you write to him please tell him Ah Fey sends his most respectful salaams. He’ll know how the beer got in the bottle.’
So there you have it, Puggly dear: this was not the first time that Lynchong, or Mr Chan, or whatever you wish to call him was seeing Mr Penrose’s camellia picture: for he is none other than Ah Fey, the gardener who accompanied William Kerr’s collection to London!
Perhaps, my dear Lady Pugglesbridge, you will understand now why I am consumed with curiosity about this man. So take pity on me and send me pictures of your best plants as soon as you possibly can: I cannot wait to renew my acquaintance with Mr Chan.
*
As with a strictly run joint family, the rhythms of Bahram’s establishment were unvarying and unnegotiable. This was why Neel was knocked momentarily off-tempo when Vico, who was the orchestrator of this intricate symphony, announced that he was going to be away for a few days.
‘You will have to manage Patrao while I’m gone,’ said the Purser, with a big grin. ‘Don’t be gubbrowed; you can do it.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To Anahita, just for some work only.’
‘But isn’t she anchored off the outer islands?’
‘Yes,’ said Vico, picking up his bag. ‘I will have to hire bunder-boat from Amunghoy or Chuen-pee.’
Only in Vico’s absence did Neel begin to appreciate the importance of the purser’s role in the running of Bahram’s affairs. As the head of the firm the Seth was more an admiral than a captain, with his eyes turned to the far horizon and his attention focused upon long-term strategies. It was Vico who skippered the flagship and no sooner was his steadying hand lifted from the helm than the vessel began to lose its trim: the ‘mess’ – a smoky but well-heated part of the kitchen, where the two dozen members of the staff took their meals – was no longer properly cleaned, and food stopped appearing at the accustomed times; the lamps in the corridors became sooty and the kussabs neglected to light them at the usual hours; the khidmatgars and peons took to mudlarking in the grog-kennels of Hog Lane, often returning so late that they could not get up in time to prepare the daftar, in the prescribed fashion. This was a matter in which Bahram had been very strict in the past, but now he seemed neither to notice nor care that his instructions were being disregarded. It was as if a giant pair of dice had been cast up in the air – everyone, from the Seth to the lowliest topas, seemed to be holding their breath as they waited for the spinning cubes of ivory to come back to earth.
Yet, not a word was said, in Neel’s hearing at least, about the precise nature of the task that had taken Vico to the Anahita. The rest of the staff were a close-knit team and although of disparate communities and backgrounds, they all hailed from the hinterlands of Bombay: as an outsider from the east – and one who had jumped rank to boot – Neel knew that he was the subject of some suspicion and had to be careful about how he comported himself. He asked no untoward questions and when matters of business were being discussed in languages unknown to him – Gujarati, Marathi, Kachhi and Konkani – he did his best not to appear unduly curious. But he did not neglect to listen attentively, and he soon came to the conclusion that his colleagues knew no more about Vico’s mission than he did; if they were on edge it was not because they were aware of the purser’s assignment: rather, it was because they had learnt, through long habit, to attune themselves to their employer’s moods – and there wasn’t a soul in No. 1 Fungtai Hong who did not know that the Seth’s state of mind had been, of late, strangely precarious.
One sign of this was that he had stopped going out in the evening: every day, as the sun dipped towards White Swan Lake, Bahram would ask Neel what invitations he had accepted and after the list had been read out – and lists indeed they were, for it was not unusual for a reception to be followed by a rout and then a late whist- supper – he would ponder the matter for a minute or two before brusquely dismissing it.
