his gold tooth gleaming as he smiled again, 'how are you like Shanghai?'
'Very nice,' Denton murmured. 'It's very hot, of course.'
'Very ho',' Mr Wei nodded emphatically. 'Perhaps a typhoon will come. Many rains.'
'Oh they bring many - a lot of rain, do they?'
'Quite a lo'. In winter it is col'.'
'Ah.'
'Very col'. But blue sky.'
'Not like England?'
Mr Wei shook his head, his glasses glinting flatly in the light from the veranda. 'Very col',' he repeated emphatically.
They paused. Denton, glancing stealthily at Mr Wei's unlined, taut-skinned face, was unable to put an age to it, Thirty? Fifty? It could be either.
Mr Wei's glance met his inquiringly and he looked away, clearing his throat. Yet he had nothing to say, so he waited awkwardly. Outside, a man's voice chanted a hawker's call and he imagined the heat and glare of the street, which the heavy wooden shutters dimmed.
'Mr Denton, for Chinese lesson, what are you want?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Chinese language many form, Mr Denton.' He held up his hands, pale fingers outspread, to indicate its variety. 'Mandarin, Shanghai, Canton, Fukien....'
'Oh, I see.'
'All same writing.' His gold tooth gleamed. 'Speaking all differen'.'
'Yes, well, I think Shanghainese, as that's where I'll be working.'
'Shanghai, good.' He nodded his head several times as though in approval, then took the lower book from the arm of the chair, holding it out to Denton with both hands and giving a little bow.
Denton half-rose to take the book, and some obscure intuition led him to take it with both hands too. Mr Wei's gold tooth gleamed as he smiled approvingly again. 'Mr Denton, you will be goo' pupil. Already you take thing Chinese way. One hand give or take is very ru'. Only for coolie,' his hand waved scornfully. 'For equal and superior must give and take with both hand. In China, teacher is superior,' Mr Wei went on, smiling widely. 'So you must take from me with both han'. Number one lesson, very goo'.'
Denton looked down at the book uncertainly. Was Mr Wei getting above himself? That suggestion of superiority - how would Mason have taken it? But Wei was speaking again in his precise yet stilted manner, unlike the toneless chanting of all the other Chinese he'd heard speaking English.
'You are official of Chinese Imperial Governmen',' Wei was saying with his gold-winking smile, his bright brown eyes watching Denton alertly behind the magnifying discs of his glasses. 'Not like business man, speak pidgin. You must learn proper Chinese, learn character! Three thousan' character enough for newspaper,' Wei continued, holding up his hand for attention, three fingers flung out rigidly. 'Only for news-paper, nor ver' goo'. How many alphabe' in English?'
'Alphabets?'
'Twenty-six alphabe',' Wei gave him no chance to answer. 'Twenty-six alphabe' in English, then all finish. No more to learn. But Chinese three thousan' character, only beginning. Five thousan', ten thousan', still not finish. I think three thousan' much more number than twenty-six? So, you see, to learn Chinese, you mus' work ver' har'.' He reached into his satchel. 'Here brush, and ink, and paper.' He drew them out one by one. 'To write Chinese character. Chinese character very difficul', Mr Denton. You must work ver' har'.'
'Yes I will,' Denton promised, infected by Wei's enthusiasm despite himself. 'I do want to learn to write well.'
'To write an' read well, goo'.' Mr Wei nodded encouragingly. 'Now we star' lesson.' He perched further forward, his hands on his spread knees, and gazed unblinkingly at Denton. 'Chinese language not like English language.'
'No....'
Wei held up his hand for stricter attention. 'If same sound have differen' tone, make differen' word. Listen.' He moistened his lips and spoke a few words slowly and distinctly, his voice rising and falling in that strange sing-song that Denton heard all round him in the streets. 'Now I say again.' He repeated the sounds, slowly and distinctly again. 'You hear the same or differen'?'
'The same,' Denton said promptly.
He shook his head, smiling his gold-winking smile again. 'The tone is differen', so they make differen' word'. One mean I know Chinese people, the other mean I eat Chinese people . Therefore tone in Chinese language ver' importan'. Now we begin to learn tone.'
15
UNABLE TO FIND any small cash, Denton paid off the rickshaw with an extravagant tip and walked apprehensively towards the wide stone steps that led up to the porch of the Browns' house. There was a balustrade each side of the steps, from which coloured paper lanterns hung on slender, swaying bamboo slips that had been fixed in the stonework. More lanterns swung gently on the veranda. Voices murmured behind the open windows. Denton fingered his bow tie anxiously as he climbed the steps. He peered up irresolutely at the lighted, empty porch.
'Ah. Mr Denton, it must be.' The tall stout lady he'd seen with Mr Brown at the cathedral appeared in the hall, dressed in a long black evening dress with billowy lace sleeves. 'How kind of you to come.' Her voice was stout too, booming in fact. Denton felt her pale blue eyes measuring him frankly, so that his hand crept up to his tie again, in case it had loosened. 'Do come in,' she said at last, as if pleased, or at least satisfied, by her inspection.
An elderly houseboy, his skin puckered into an apparently sardonic grin, took his hat.
'Ah Man!' Mrs Brown commanded, grasping Denton's hand firmly. 'Paraffin!'
The houseboy was already bending with a sigh under the black Chinese table with claw feet on which he'd placed Denton's new, and as yet unpaid for, silk hat. He brought out a spraying can and stooped to point it at Denton's ankles, pumping with a slow, wheezing sound. A fine, cold, oily haze enveloped his evening dress trousers, his socks and shoes, all bought with chits, glistening on them in a dew of little silvery droplets. Denton watched, mystified and vaguely alarmed.
'So much better than muslin bags, don't you think, Mr Denton?' Mrs Brown asked. 'Come along, then.' Denton nodded and mumbled while Mrs Brown sailed ahead of him towards a large sitting-room, her dress just brushing the floor behind her. 'The mosquitoes are quite terrible this year, we simply have to do something. It's all these canals, of course, I keep begging the municipal council to fill them in, but nothing ever gets done.'
Denton followed obediently in her train, awed and bemused, a distinct smell of paraffin rising from his feet. He saw Brown's round shining dome, with its fringe of grey curly wool, and twenty or so men and women, all splendidly dressed, who turned their heads and paused to survey him as Mrs Brown led him in. He stood meekly beside her.
'Now this is Mr Denton, Arthur's latest griffin,' she announced in her booming tones, and proceeded round the room, naming every person in the same loud voice, as if she thought he was deaf. Denton smiled stiffly, shook hands stiffly, bowed stiffly and mumbled how d'you do to one guest after another, forgetting every name as soon as he heard it. But near the end of the round, his cheeks rigid with his taut artificial smile, he found himself facing Everett, his fellow-passenger on the Orcades.
'Hullo, how are you getting on?' Everett asked, his round, ruddy cheeks, like little apples, crinkling as he smiled.
'Oh, you two have met already, have you?' Mrs Brown interrupted. 'Well, you can have a little chat later. I want you to meet some other people first, Mr Denton.'
Soon Denton was sitting beside an elderly lady whose sagging cheeks were pallid with powder. She had merely nodded when Mrs Brown introduced him, and now, fanning herself with fierce jerky energy, she turned her back on him to continue an edgy discussion with the couple on her left. The rapid movement of the fan in her mottled hand seemed to match a growing exasperation in her low, cracked voice. Another houseboy, with a dour unsmiling face, offered him a glass of sherry on a silver tray. 'No thank you,' Denton said, but the houseboy seemed not to hear, obdurately holding the tray out