The Man in the Wooden Hat (2 page)

Terry Veneering was to be on the other side in the Case Edward Feathers was about to fight in Hong Kong. He was, however, on a different plane, or perhaps staying in Hong Kong already, for he had a Chinese wife. Eddie was becoming expert in forgetting about his detested rival, and was concentrating now in the airport lounge on his solicitor, Ross, who was splattering a pack of playing cards from hand to hand, cutting, dealing, now and then flinging them into the air in an arc and catching them sweetly on their way down. Ross was raising a breeze.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” said Filth. “People are becoming irritated.”

“It’s because hardly any of them are able to,” said Ross. “It is a gift.”

“You were messing with cards the first time I met you. Why can’t you take up knitting?”

“No call for woollens in Hong Kong. Find the Lady.”

“I don’t want to find the bloody Lady. Where’s this bloody plane? Has something gone wrong with it? They tell you nothing.”

“It shouldn’t. It’s the latest thing. Big square windows.”

“Excellent. Except it doesn’t seem to work. The old ones were better last year. Trundling along. Screws loose. Men with oilcans taking up the carpets. And we always got there.”

“We’re being called,” said Ross. He snapped the cards into a wad, the wad into a pouch, and with some Gypsy sleight of hand picked up both briefcases and thumped off towards the lifts. From above he looked like a walking hat.

Filth strode behind carrying his walking stick and the
Daily Telegraph
. At the steps up to the plane Ross, as was proper, stood back for his Counsel to pass him and Filth was bowed aboard and automatically directed to turn left to the first class. Ross, hobbling behind in the Dr Scholl’s, was asked to set down the hand luggage and show his seat number.

But it was Ross who saw the cases safely stowed, changed their seats for ones that could accommodate Filth’s long legs, the plane being as usual half empty, and Ross who commanded Filth’s jacket to be put on a hanger in a cupboard, declined to take off his hat and who demanded an immediate refill of the complimentary champagne.

They both sat back and watched England gallop backwards, then the delicious lurch upwards through the grey sky to the sunlit blue above.

“This champagne is second-rate,” said Ross. “I’ve had better in Puerto Rico.”

“There’ll be a good dinner,” said Filth. “And excellent wine. What about your hat?”

Ross removed it with both hands and laid it on his table.

A steward hovered. “Shall I take that from you, sir?”

“No. I keep it with me.” After a time he put it at his feet.

The dinner trolley, with its glistening saddle of lamb, was being wheeled to the centre of the cabin. Silver cutlery—real silver, Ross noted, turning the forks to confirm the hallmark—was laid on starched tray cloths. A carving knife flashed amidships. Côtes du Rhône appeared.

“Remember the
Breath o’Dunoon
, Albatross?” said Filth. “Remember the duff you made full of black beetles for currants?”

Ross brooded. “I remember the first mate. He said he’d kill me at Crib. He
wanted
to kill me. I beat him.”

“It’s a wonder we weren’t torpedoed.”

“I thought we
were
torpedoed. But then, I have been so often torpedoed—”

“Thank you, thank you,” roared out Filth in the direction of the roast lamb. He was apt to roar when emotionally disturbed: it was the last vestige of the terrible stammer of his Welsh childhood. “Don’t start about torpedoes.”

“For example,” said Ross, “in the Timor Sea. I was wrecked off . . .”

But vegetables had arrived and redcurrant jelly and they munched, meditating on this and that, Ross’s heavy chin a few inches above his plate. “You ate thirty-six bananas,” he said. “On Freetown beach. You were disgusting.”

“They were small bananas. This lamb is splendid.”

“And there’ll be better to come when we’ve changed planes at Delhi. Back to chopsticks and the true cuisine.”

After the tray cloths were drawn and they had finished with their coffee cups they drowsed.

Filth said that he’d have to get down to his papers. “No—I’ll fish them out for myself. You look after your hat. What do you keep in it? Opium?”

Ross ignored him.

Hot towels were brought, the pink tape round the sets of papers undone, the transcripts spread and Ross slept.

How he snores, thought Filth. I remember that on the old
Dunoon
. And he got to work with his fountain pen and a block of folio, and was soon deaf, blind and oblivious to all else. The sky that enwrapped them now blackened the windows. Below, invisible mountain ranges were speckled with pinpricks of lights like the stars all around and above them. Before long, seats were being converted into beds—not Filth’s; he worked on—and blankets and warm socks were distributed. Night already.

“Brandy, sir? Nightcap?”

“Why not,” said Filth, pulling the papers together, taking off his cashmere pullover and putting on a Marks & Spencer’s. A steward came to ease off his shoes.

I have seldom felt so happy, he thought, sipping the brandy, closing his eyes, awaiting sleep. I wonder if I should tell the Albatross why? No. Better wait till after Delhi.

But then: Why not? I owe him so much. Best person, just about, I’ve ever met. Most loyal. My salvation. I’ve had other salvations but this one looks like lasting.

He watched the strange sleeping face of the dwarf, and Ross opened his eyes.

“Coleridge?”

Albert Ross looked startled.

“Coleridge, I have something to tell you.”

At once the playing cards were flying. Ross began to shuffle and deal them.

“Will you put those bloody things away?”

“Do I understand,” said Ross, setting them carefully down, “that there is to be some sort of revelation?”

“Yes.”

“Much better find the Lady,” said Ross, beginning to deal again.

“I
have
found the lady, Coleridge. I have found her.”

There was silence; only the purr of the plane.

The silence lasted until Delhi and all through the stopover, the pacing in the marble first-class lounge, the buying of trinkets in the shops—Ross bought a case of blue butterflies—the resettling into Air India. Along swam the smiling painted girls in their cheongsams. The final take-off for Hong Kong.

“So,” said Ross. “You are about to be married. It is a revelation all right, but immaterial to your profession. Wait until you’ve done it as often as I have.”

Filth looked uneasy. “You never told me any of that, Albert.”

“I consider that they are my private affairs. Who is she?”

“She’ll be in Hong Kong when we get there. Waiting. Today.”

“She’s Chinese?”

“No. No, a Scottish woman. But born in Tiensin. I met her—well, I’ve been meeting her off and on for a year or so. Whenever we come out East. The first case you got for me. In Singapore.”

“So that I’m to blame?”

“Yes. Of course. I’m very glad to say. You will, I hope, be best man at my wedding. Without that hat.”

“Her name?”

“She’s called Elisabeth Macintosh. Betty. She’s a good sort. Very attractive.”

“A
good sort
!” The cards again were flying. “A
good sort
?” He was wagging his weird Johnsonian head from side to side.

“She hasn’t actually accepted me yet,” said Filth. “I’ve only just asked her. In a letter from Chambers sent to her hotel and marked ‘To await arrival.’ She’s just passing through with a friend. They’ve been in Australia—or somewhere. She has had some sort of work—I’m not sure. Rather hush-hush. She’s a natural traveller but not at all well off. She’s at the Old Colony Hotel.”

“Never heard of it.” Without apparent volition the cards rose like liquid into a circle, and subsided.

“Look, Albert, on the whole perhaps not mention it yet. I think she
may
accept me. Seems quite fond of me. She hasn’t actually said—”

“I’m glad that she seems fond of you. It is the usual thing.”

“And I’m really very fond of her. What’s the matter?”

“You haven’t slept with her then?”

A steward looked away but went on listening.

“No,” cried Filth, loud and unaware. “No, of course not. She’s a lady. And I want to marry her.”

“How young?”

“I’ve never asked. She’s a young girl. Well, she can’t technically be a girl. She grew up in the war. Japanese internment camp in Shanghai. Lost both parents. Doesn’t speak about it.”

“Have you ever asked her about it?”

“One doesn’t intrude.”

“Edward, what does she know about
you
? That you ought to tell her? What have you talked about? Will she stay with you?”

“She’s good at birds and plants. So am I. My prep school. She’s very lively. Infectiously happy. Very bright eyes. Strong. Rather—muscular. I feel safe with her.” Filth looked at the throbbing structure of the plane. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I would die for her.”

“Yes, I will,” the girl was saying in the shabby hotel in the back street, and street music playing against the racket of the mah-jong players on every open stone balcony. The overhead fan was limp and fly-spotted. On the beds were 1920s scarlet satin counterpanes with ugly yellow flowers done in stem stitch. They must have survived the war. Old wooden shutters clattered. There was the smell of the rotting lilies heaped in a yard below. Betty was alone, her friend Lizzie out somewhere, thank goodness. Betty would have hated not to be alone when she read Edward’s letter. What lovely handwriting. Rather a shame he’d used his Chambers writing paper. She wondered how many rough drafts he’d made first. Transcripts. He was wedded to transcripts. This was meant to be kept.

And she would. She’d keep it for ever. Their grandchildren would leave it to a museum as a memento of the jolly old dead.

Eddie Feathers? Crikey! He does sound a bit quaint. (
Would you consider our being married, Elisabeth
?) Not exactly Romeo. More like Mr. Knightley, though Mr. Knightley had a question mark about him. Forty-ish and always off to London alone. Don’t tell me that Emma was his first. I’m wandering. I do rather wish Eddie wasn’t so perfect. But of course I’ll marry him. I can’t think of a reason not to.

She kissed the letter and put it down her shirt.

Over the South China Sea Albert Ross was saying, “Do you know anything about this girl? Do you think she knows a bloody thing about you?”

“I’d say I was pretty straightforward.”

“Would you!
Would
you?”

The plane lurched sideways and down. Then again sideways and down. It tilted its wings like a bird that had suddenly lost concentration and fallen asleep in the dark. Though, thought Filth, the prep-school-trained ornithologist, they never do.

“Elisabeth,” he said, “makes me think of a kingfisher. She glitters and shines. Or a glass of water.”

“Oh?”

“A glass of clear water in a Scottish burn rushing through heather.”

“Good God.”

“Yes.”

“Has she ever
seen
heather? Born in Tiensin? Is she beautiful?”

Filth looked shocked. “No, no! My goodness, no. Not at all. Not
glamorous
.”

“I see.”

“Her—presence—is beautiful.” (It must be the glass of champagne that had been served with breakfast.) “Her soul is right.”

Ross picked up the cards. “You are not a great connoisseur of women, Edward.”

“How do you know, Coleridge? We didn’t talk about women on the
Breath o’Dunoon
.”

“So what about the Belfast tart?”

“I never told you that!”

“The shilling on the mantelpiece. You talked of nothing else when you were delirious with poisoned bananas.”

Filth in his magnificence pondered.

“You’d better tell Miss Macintosh the outcome.”

“How did you hear the outcome?”

“Oh, I know people.”

“Look here, I’m cured. I have a certificate. ‘VD’ they called it. Peccadilloes up there on the frontier. Old as soldiers. Old as man. Mostly curable.”

“You weren’t on the frontier. You went to bed with an Irish slag in a boarding house in Belfast.”

“I was sixteen.”

“Yes. Well. You were curiously unperturbed. I’m worried about your . . .”

“What?”

“Fertility.”

“For the love of God, Ross! I’m not sure I can go on knowing you.”

“
Think
, Eddie. Nobody knows you like I do.”

Below them the sun was rising from the rim of the globe. Mile-high columns of mist stood about in the air. Curtains of a giant stage. Stewardesses were clicking up the blinds letting in one bar of sunlight after another. The canned music began. Chinese music now. Ting-tang. Sleeping bodies began to stir and stretch and yawn, and Edward Feathers smiled. Looking out, so near to landing and yet so high, he waited for the first sight of the three hundred and twenty-five islands that are called Hong Kong.

On one of them Betty Macintosh would be reading his letter. He saw her smiling and skipping about. Sweet child. So young and dear and good.

What would she have made of him on the
Breath o’Dunoon
? Young, ravaged, demented, shipwrecked? She’d have been a child then. He’d been a gaunt, sick boy, just left school. With an Adam’s apple. Though women had never been scarce, from the start.

Isobel.

Nowadays women looked at him as if he were a cliff face. I’m not attractive, he thought, but they’ve been told there’s a seam of gold about. Called money, I suppose.

“We’re here,” said Ross and Kai Tak airport was waiting below.

They swung round the harbour: the familiar landing pad that stuck out over the water like a diving board. During the war a plane a week had been lost there. Since then only one had tipped over into the harbour. But passengers on beginning to land always fell quiet for a moment.