‘You loved each other, that’s all that matters.’

‘No, durochka, you little fool. It’s not enough. You need more.’

‘But you were happy together, you were, you’ve always said so.’

‘Yes, we were. But look at me now. The curse of my family has done this to me.’

‘That’s crazy. There are no such things as curses.’

‘Don’t you kid yourself, darling. The one thing that monster Confucius got right among all his claptrap about women is that you should obey your parents.’ She tapped her glass on the top of Lydia’s head. ‘That’s something you need to learn, you little alley cat. Parents really do know what’s best for their children.’

Lydia began to laugh. She couldn’t help it. It just bubbled up from nowhere and burst out regardless. Once she’d started she couldn’t stop and laid her face in her mother’s lap, howling with laughter.

‘It’s the drink,’ Valentina murmured, ‘you silly thing.’ But she was starting to laugh herself.

‘Do you know,’ Lydia giggled, ‘that Confucius said a nursing mother should feed her grandparents from her breast when they can no longer eat solid food.’

‘Good God!’

‘And,’ Lydia gasped out, ‘a man should feed his own fingers to his parents in time of famine.’

‘Well, dochenka, it’s about time you fed me yours.’ She picked up one of Lydia’s hands and took a bite of her smallest finger.

Lydia went weak with laughter, tears streaking her cheeks and her breath coming in great noisy hiccups.

‘Wicked child,’ Valentina suddenly exclaimed, ‘look, the vermin is here!’

Lydia rolled her head around and saw the long white ears flicking with concern by her side. Sun Yat-sen had hopped off her bed and come to inspect the noise. She scooped him up into her arms, placed a kiss on the tip of his pink nose, laid her head down on her mother’s lap, and was instantly asleep.

31

Christmas Day was difficult. Lydia got through it. Her mother had a hangover, so hardly spoke, and Alfred was ill at ease playing host in his small and rather gloomy bachelor flat across the road from the French Quarter.

‘I should have booked a restaurant,’ he said for the third time as they sat at the table while his cook presented them with an overcooked goose.

‘No, angel, this is more homey,’ Valentina assured him. She managed a smile.

Angel? Homey? Lydia cringed. She pulled her Christmas cracker with him and tried to look pleased when he placed a paper hat on her head.

Two high points made the rest almost bearable.

‘Here, Lydia,’ Alfred said as he held out a large flat box wrapped in fancy paper and satin ribbon. ‘Merry Christmas, my dear.’

It was a coat, a soft greyish-blue. Beautifully tailored, heavy and warm, and instantly Lydia knew her mother had chosen it.

‘I hope you like it,’ he said.

‘It’s lovely. Thank you.’

It had a wide wrapover collar and there was a pair of navy gloves in the pocket. She put them all on and felt wonderful. Alfred was beaming at her, expecting more, and it made her want to explain to him, Just because you gave me a coat, it doesn’t make you my father. Instead she stepped forward, put her arms around his neck, and kissed his cleanly shaven cheek that smelled of sandalwood. But it was the wrong thing to do. She could see in his eyes that he believed things between them had changed.

Did he really think he could buy her that easily?

The other highlight of the day was the electric wireless. Not the cat’s whisker kind, but a real wireless. It was made of polished oak and had a brown material mesh in the shape of a bird over the speaker at the front. Lydia adored it. She spent most of the afternoon beside it, fiddling with its knobs, flicking between stations, filling the room with the strident voice of Al Jolson or the honey-smooth tones of Noel Coward singing ‘A Room with a View.’ She let Alfred’s attempts at conversation flow unheeded most of the time, but after an item of news about Prime Minister Baldwin, he started on about the wisdom of signing a tariff agreement and officially recognising Chiang Kai-shek’s government, proud that Britain was one of the first countries to do so.

‘But it’s Josef Stalin, not us Brits,’ he said, ‘who has had the foresight to pour military advisers and money into Chiang’s Kuomintang Nationalists. And now Chiang Kai-shek has decided to get rid of the Russkies, more fool him.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Lydia muttered, one ear still tuned to Adele Astaire and ‘Fascinating Rhythm.’ ‘Stalin is a Communist. Why would he be helping the Kuomintang who are killing off the Communists here in China?’

Alfred polished his spectacles. ‘You must see, my dear, that he is backing the force he believes will be the victor in this power struggle between Mao Tse-tung’s forces and Chiang Kai-shek’s government. It may seem a contradictory choice for Stalin to make, but in this case I must say I think he’s right.’

‘He’s expelled Leon Trotsky from Russia. How can that be right?’

‘Russia, like China, needs a united government and Trotsky was causing factions and divisions, so… ’

‘Shut up,’ Valentina snapped suddenly. ‘The pair of you, shut up about Russia. What do either of you know?’ She stood up, poured herself another full glass of port. ‘It’s Christmas. Let’s be happy.’

She glared at them and sipped her drink.

They left early, but didn’t speak on the way home. Both had thoughts it was best not to share.

It was on New Year’s Day that everything changed.

The moment Lydia stepped into the clearing at Lizard Creek, she knew. The money was gone. The sky was a clear-swept blue and the air so cold it seemed to take bites out of her lungs, but wrapped up warm and snug in her new coat and gloves she didn’t care. The trees bordering the narrow strip of sand were bare and spiky, their branches white as skeletons, and the water a dazzling surge of energy beneath. Lydia had come intending to add yet another mark to the flat rock, a thin scratched line, to show that she had been here again, however pointless it may seem.

But the cairn was gone.

The mound of pebbles she’d built at the base of the rock. Destroyed. Scattered. Gone. The spot of earth where it had stood looked grey and rumpled. She felt a thud in her chest and tasted a burst of adrenaline on her tongue. She dropped to her knees, tore off her gloves, and scrabbled with her hands in the sandy soil. Though the earth elsewhere was frozen hard, here it was soft and crumbly. Recently disturbed. The glass jar was still there. Ice cold in her fingers. But no money inside. The thirty dollars gone. Relief crashed through her. He was alive. Chang was alive.

Alive.

Here.

He had come.

In a clumsy rush she unscrewed the metal lid of the jar, pushed her hand inside, and withdrew its new contents. A single white feather, soft and perfect as a snowflake. She laid it on the palm of her hand and stared at it. What did it mean?

White. Chinese white. For mourning. Did that mean he was dead? Dying? Her mouth turned dry as dirt.

Or…

White. A dove’s feather. For peace. For hope. A sign of the future.

Which?

Which one?

She remained for a long time kneeling beside the small hole in the earth. The feather lay wrapped between her carefully cupped hands like a baby bird, while the wind knifed in off the river and straight into her face. But she barely noticed and eventually placed the feather in her handkerchief, folded it into a neat package, and tucked it into her blouse. Then she drew the penknife from her pocket, cut a lock of her hair from her head and dropped it into the jar. She screwed the lid up tight and reburied it. Built another cairn.

To her eyes it looked like a grave marker.