âHello, Martin,' Mr Zhou said without a trace of an accent. âTell me, when is your birthday?'
âI've just had it,' I replied.
âThis I know,' said Mr Zhou, pulling over a stool, âbut tell me the date.'
âThe seventh of September 1944.'
âYou were born in the Year of the Monkey. It is a good year for you.' He started now to speak more to my mother. âA male born in this year is very intelligent and good at solving mysteries or problems. Like a monkey, he can be devious or cunning. Very big-headed, I think you say. Maybe arrogant. Those born under this animal are always moving, have a quick mind. Now,' he positioned his stool directly before me, ârelax yourself.'
For the next five minutes, Mr Zhou thoroughly felt my head, studied my palms and looked intently at my face. All the while, he
muttered in an undertone, the lady taking notes. This done, he produced a highly polished tortoise shell from a drawer. It was complete except for the tortoise. He studied this, muttered some more then put it away.
Upon a writing desk, Mr Zhou set out a fan of cards with pictures on them. Taking down the bird cage, he stood it on the end of the desk and opened the door. The tenement window was open, the sounds of the street below and the warm, diesel-tinged air wafting in. The chances of the zebra finch doing a Joey were, I thought, pretty high.
Instead, the bird flew out of its cage, strutted along the cards, picked one out with its beak and flew straight back into the cage. Mr Zhou closed the door and gave the bird a small berry from a jar.
He studied the card and the lady's notes. We watched as he wrote a long document in black ink on coarse, buff-coloured Chinese paper. His brushstrokes were rapid. Every so often, he used another brush to draw a red circle. Finally, he waited for the ink to dry, folded the oblong sheet and slipped it in an envelope on which he wrote my name.
âIn summary,' he announced as he handed it to me, âyou will be a clever man but sometimes very lazy. You will be a leader, a famous man in what you do. You will live to be sixty-four years old and you will be prosperous and have sons. You will have a good marriage. In your fifty-seventh year, you will have much illness but in the remainder of your life you will be healthy.'
With that, he stood up, shook my mother's hand, briefly put his hand in mine and left the room, closing the door behind him. My mother paid the lady with a cheque.
âSo now we know,' my mother remarked as we reached the street. âYou'll have a good life.'
She seemed relieved, as if prior to this she had had her doubts.
âMr Zhou is highly respected,' she continued. âHe's considered the best fortune-teller in the colony. They say the Governor's wife goes to him.'
I did not comment, but I saw little difference between him and those I saw outside the Tin Hau temple in Yau Ma Tei, except that he spoke English and operated from a tenement flat.
We walked to Tkachenko's for a mid-morning coffee and Black Forest gateau.
âRemember,' my mother warned me, ânot a single, solitary word to your father.' I nodded my agreement. âIf he finds out,' she went on, âI'll be branded a witch, given a broomstick and sent to Coventry.'
âWhy would he send you there?' I asked.
âIt's just an expression.'
I sipped my drink and said, âWell, at least I'm not going to be a dustman.'
My mother looked at me for a moment then broke out laughing. I liked it when she laughed. It was not that often that she did.
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Christmas Day 1953 dawned bright. The sky was cloudless and blue, the air chill. At nine o'clock, we embarked upon the Christmas-morning ritual of present giving.
In the lounge, we had a Christmas tree, of sorts. Imported from California, it was about three feet high and had started to lose its needles somewhere around Hawaii. By now it was a tinsel-hung, glass-ball-strewn, fairy-lights-lit skeleton of near twigs with an embarrassed-looking angel on top. We gathered before it, shortly to be joined by Wong and his family. Tuppence held back. The master's side of the house was unequivocally out of bounds
to him and any excursion into it was bewildering. My mother took him by the hand and led him in. Whilst she appreciated the exclusion rule and agreed it was necessary, the egalitarian in her disapproved of it. Tuppence was seated on an armchair and showered with small presents which included clothing as well as Chinese sweets and toys. Wong and Ah Shun received their presents, coffee was served and then we got on with opening ours.
Lunch that day could have graced a monarch's table. The turkey, a gift from The Asia Provision Company, which presented all its customers with a hamper of gratitude every Christmas, was raised in Australia. Its skin, as highly polished and varnished as the table upon which it stood, looked like that on a whole Ho Man Tin pig. It was stuffed with cranberry, sage and thyme and the flesh fell apart like fish. The pudding was traditionally round and the size of a football, with a sprig of holly on top. We wondered where Wong had got it: holly was not indigenous to southern China. Then we found out. It was made of icing sugar. As for the pudding, it was so big we were still eating it fried in butter in the first week of January. The only thing that marred the meal was my father's half-hour fit of pique when he found out the thing had been set alight with his best armagnac.
Christmas afternoon was spent playing Dover Patrol on the lounge carpet, listening to the Queen's Speech (which my father considered obligatory) and settling the surfeit of food. Late in the afternoon, I walked down to a block of 1920s apartments near the Peak Cafe to visit a friend. We messed around a bit and I set off for home just before dark. It was a cool South China winter's night. A stiff breeze blew by the cafe, rippling the creepers on its roof.
Reaching the tourist observation point, I stood alone, the updraft of wind from the harbour below making my eyes water. The lights of the city glistened in the cold air. A lone vehicular ferry made its way towards Yau Ma Tei. In the middle of the
Kowloon peninsula, I imagined I could see the red, blue and green neon sign on the front of the Fourseas and immediately felt homesick for Soares Avenue and the
dai pai dongs
of Mong Kok: I doubted there was a single hundred-year-old egg anywhere on the Peak. Especially on Christmas night.
Feeling, as my mother would have put it, a little blue, I trudged on up the steep hill to Mount Austin, hauling myself along on the railing. My parents were playing canasta at the bull terrier coffee table when I arrived home. My mother had a gin and tonic at her side, my father a tumbler more than half full of neat whisky. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Wong immediately appeared and poured me a glass of milk. Without asking, he then set to making turkey sandwiches. I took my milk into the lounge and settled down in an armchair to read the latest
Eagle
album, a Christmas present from Grampy, along with a five-pound postal order.
After a while, my father put a 78 record on the phonograph: the Original Dixieland Jazz Band playing âTiger Rag'. It was tentatively suggested that I might go to bed, but I pleaded turkey sandwiches and Christmas night and the subject was dropped.
At about half-past ten, my mother went out onto the veranda. This was a nightly ritual. She would stand there sometimes for fifteen minutes, just taking in the panorama. I was not to know it, and nor was my father, but she was beginning to scheme secretly how she might make Hong Kong her home for the rest of her life.
âKen,' she called a few minutes later, her voice tight with urgency, âget your binoculars.'
âWhat is it?' I enquired, joining my mother on the veranda.
âI don't know,' she replied, pointing across to the north-western end of Kowloon. âWhat do you make of it?'
A dull ruddy blush glowed behind some low hills. My father
arrived and put his binoculars to his eyes, turning the focusing ring.
âOh, my God!' he murmured.
My mother snatched them from his face.
âCan I see?' I insisted. I had to ask several times before she would relinquish them.
I adjusted the focus. It seemed as if a whole hillside was ablaze. It was the Shek Kip Mei squatter area going up in flames. The fire was intense. Even from a distance of five miles, individual flames could clearly be seen licking into the air. The highest must have reached fifty feet. I thought of my experience at Ho Man Tin, of the young man with only the photo of his family to link him to his former life back in China, before the Communists destroyed it.
My mother turned into the lounge, calling for Wong.
âYes, you wanchee, missee?' he asked, expecting an order for more sandwiches or a fresh bottle of tonic water.
âLook!' she exclaimed, pointing once more at Kowloon.
He stepped on to the veranda and looked at the distant fire through the binoculars. His face showed no emotion whatsoever. To the Chinese, this was fate and it was his good luck to live and work in a comparatively non-flammable building, and the squatters' ill luck not to.
âNo good for plenty people, missee,' he said.
My mother set to work.
âWong, get all the blankets out of the camphor wood chest. Martin, youâ'
âWhat are you doing, Joyce?' my father asked.
âWhat do you think I'm doing?' she snapped back. âGo and get the car.'
âGet the car ⦠?' my father repeated. âIt's after eleven, Joyce! On Christmas nightâ'
âI know! Get the bloody car, cloth ears!' It was a derogatory expression my father often used on her.
In thirty minutes, all the bedding in the house was tied into individual bundles of one blanket and two sheets. My school Hong Kong basket was full of turkey sandwiches and there were two cardboard boxes of tonic and soda water. This was all loaded into the car and we set off. My father was all for leaving me behind but my mother would not have it.
We drove down the Peak and on to the vehicular ferry. There were only two other private vehicles on board, both large American saloon cars filled with raucous party-goers returning home. The remainder of the deck was occupied by several fire engines and ambulances.
Once landed at Yau Ma Tei, it was only a matter of a mile or so to Shek Kip Mei but we were halted by a road block at Prince Edward Road and forced to turn right. My father drove a short way and parked in the forecourt of an apartment block. My mother got out, piled me high with blanket and sheet bundles and, with as many as she could carry herself, set off in the direction of the fire. I followed. My father was forgotten in her rush: maybe she thought he would rather guard and polish the car.
We had not gone three hundred yards when a British police officer stopped us. Beyond him, crowds were gathering in the streets.
âYou can't go beyond here,' he ordered my mother.
âSt John Ambulance,' she replied, adding unnecessarily, âblankets. More coming.'
Her bluff worked. He let us through. The side streets were thronged with hordes of people sitting down. What was unnerving was that they were virtually silent, unlike most Chinese crowds which usually chattered like a flock of migrating starlings. My mother handed out bundles to the first families she came
across. They took them, smiling at her. One man stood up, said, âT'ankee you, missee,' and touched my hair. For his family, at least, things were not going to be so bad after all.
The air was contaminated with the foul smell of burning rubber and cloth. Ash blew past us like grey snow, some of the flakes still alight. A fire engine pumped water down a fat undulating hose from a street hydrant but it could not have had much effect. The sky was alight with sparks and flames, a thick column of smoke rising into the night sky then bending away on the wind. Spotlights played upon the havoc.
Next, we distributed the turkey sandwiches but carrying the boxes of bottles was beyond us so we returned home with them.
âBloody long way to come to give away a dozen blankets and a picnic,' my father remarked irritably as we halted at the vehicular ferry pier.
âShut up, Ken,' my mother said tartly and, curling up on the back seat, promptly fell asleep.
My father and I settled down to drink the tonic and wait at the car ramp for the next ferry departure, scheduled for two o'clock.
The following day, the full extent of the fire was broadcast on the radio. Ten thousand huts over an area of forty-five acres had been totally destroyed; sixty thousand people had been made homeless. The blaze, which had developed into a fire storm, had reached such high temperatures that aluminium cooking vessels had been completely burnt away. Incredibly, no-one was killed. This prompted the conjecture that the fire had been set deliberately to force the government into speeding up the squatter re-housing and rehabilitation programme. If this were the case, it worked. Within a year, the site of the Shek Kip Mei blaze was a brand-new refugee housing estate.