The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo (3 page)

"It's a shame I'm no sort of artist," he
said, so low I had to strain to hear him over the noise. "How I
should like to paint those lines."

Now what is one supposed to say to that?

"I'm sure you'd be nice to paint too," I
said, unable to think of anything better.

Hardie laughed.

"Poor Ariel," he said. "Alone on an
incomprehensible island. Has any other mariner heard your whispers,
or did they think it just the wind?"

"I'm really more of a Caliban," I said
primly.

Hardie tilted his head.

"Even better," he said.

At that point, thank goodness, someone called
out to him: "Hardie! We need your opinion on a matter of very great
importance!" He sounded serious and precise and drunk, so it was
probably something silly.

Before I could turn away, Hardie put his hand
on my arm.

"Come and see me again," he said.

That was all. The next moment he had vanished
in the crowd, and I fled. I didn't even say goodbye to Ravi. I hope
he didn't spend too much time searching for me.

I do not like Hardie, it was beastly what he
said about Ravi being only clever. And he wrote a foolish book.
Being good-looking and interesting and having the heavy-lidded gaze
of a romantic tapir does not excuse writing a foolish book.

Perhaps he did not mean it. Probably he did
not mean it. If he did not mean it, it is all right. I will wake up
tomorrow and water my pansies and write as usual. This will be
nothing but a dream.

My red dress smells of alcohol and smoke.

I shouldn't have gone. Why did I go? Curse
this restless thirst for excitement! You would think living on
one's own miles from home in the most thrilling city in the world
ought to be enough, but no. I've got to rush off to see married
authors in clandestine circumstances.

Sebastian Hardie is married! I suppose I
ought to have known that, but he isn't quite posh enough to be in
Debrett's, and he certainly didn't mention it in his letter. What a
lot of nonsense he spouted about it in person—but I am getting
ahead of myself.

It was a whole week before he wrote. I'd
almost persuaded myself that he wouldn't when I received the
letter. It was rather warm in its sentiments, considering we'd only
met the once. But I must confess something shocking: I wasn't
shocked.

The problem is that I have never had the
chance to be naughty. When I was little I was too busy reading
books for it to occur to me. When I was older there was never any
opportunity—everybody I knew was so well-behaved, and it's no fun
being bad on your own. Now I am living on my own in London and
ignoring pleas to return home, which I suppose is badness
enough.

But I want a chance to be properly bad. So
far all I have done as an unaccompanied maiden in London is read
and write and cook. This is hardly tasting the delights of
debauchery in the immoral West.

Of course, I didn't go to see Hardie with the
idea of debauching—or being debauched, I suppose, since I imagine
any bauch he ever had has long been removed. (Certainly his letter
gives this impression. I had to look up most of the words.) I just
wanted to see what would happen.

This time the butler knew me. He ushered me
in when I'd scarcely even given my name. I don't know what I was
expecting, but I certainly didn't think to find the family sat down
to tea.

There was Hardie, looking like a statue with
a mind too grand for pigeons to disturb, and a queenly woman with
lovely red hair, and two little boys. It was the little boys that
made me stop. The letter burned in my pocket.

"Oh," I said. "Is this not Hardy's house? I'm
sure the man outside told me Thomas Hardy lived here. I read
Jude the Obscure
and thought I should come to England and
tell Mr. Hardy how I admired it. I must go and give that man
outside a piece of my mind. I'm so sorry to have bothered you—"

"Do sit down, my dear," said the lovely
red-haired one. "We've been expecting you. Sebastian's told me all
about you."

"I hope you don't mind that we've begun
without you," said Hardie. "Julian and Clive were ravening for
their tea, and we don't stand on ceremony in this house. This is my
wife Diana."

There seemed nothing to do but to sit
down.

"That's all right," I said. "Tea is a made-up
meal to me anyway."

"Do you not have tea in China?" said
Diana.

The British are a peculiar race. My
grandfather was transported to Malaya because they needed tin, and
yet I've never once met a Briton to whom the thought had occurred
that perhaps I spoke English because I am from one of their
colonies. It is as if I were a piece of chess in a game played by
people who never looked down at their fingers.

"We have the beverage, but not the buns," I
said, to avoid tiresome explanation.

"I am glad to be English, then. I should miss
the buns," said Diana. "And you were the one who wrote about the
terrible
Mimnaugh
, if I recall correctly."

"That's right," I said.

"Dear Ravi, what magnificent risks he takes,"
said Diana, smiling.

"One loves him for his purity," said Hardie.
"He's quite unspoilt, despite Cambridge and all this unhealthy
mingling with lesser specimens of the Bloomsbury genus."

"Yes. Ravi," I said, "is more like a mountain
view than a human being, really."

They laughed, though I am not sure that we
were all amused at the same thing. The conversation was like
walking along a narrow cliff path in the dark, never knowing
whether the next step would take you over the edge. And yet one was
drawn in despite oneself.

I think Hardie could sense I was cross,
because he said:

"Ravi certainly has a genius for seeking out
the genuine. I do not know anyone with such an unerring eye."

"Your essay bears out that truth," said
Diana, nodding at me. "But Sebastian, we were discussing Mrs.
Woolf's novel. You did not like it?"

Hardie shrugged. "I did not think there was
anything to like, or dislike for that matter. There is nothing
there. It is all surface."

"Sebastian is really a thwarted reactionary,"
said Diana to me. "He hates to see anyone do anything new with a
book, or for anyone new to do it."

"Calumny!" cried Hardie.

"I must say I share Hardie's feelings in
this," I said, thinking of
The Duke's Folly
.

We spoke of literature, or rather Hardie and
Mrs. Hardie did, until the buns were consumed. Then Hardie got
up:

"Our visitor shall decide. If you will come
to the library with me, I'll dig up the book for you and we shall
see what you think of it. I shall be deeply injured if you think it
no worse than
Mimnaugh
."

"Go on, my dear," said Diana, looking up from
the table. "Julian takes ever so long over his tea."

I trotted obediently out of that sun-drenched
familial scene into the dusty seclusion of the library. Hardie shut
the door behind me, swept me into his arms, and kissed me.

His chin was rough and he smelt of tobacco. I
hit him in the chest and shrieked.

"Please, there's no need to be distressed,"
he gasped. "You looked so beautiful in the light—I couldn't contain
myself. I thought you wouldn't mind."

There was a sturdy-looking desk. I planted
myself behind it.

"By what byzantine chain of logic did you
arrive at that conclusion?" I demanded.

"Did you not read my letter?"

"This letter?" I took the letter out of my
pocket and waved it at him. "This letter? Is this a letter for a
married man to write?"

Hardie stopped looking foolish. His face
softened. His eyes went kind.

"Is that the problem?" he said. "Dear
girl—dear innocent girl. I shall explain all."

"Not with two minors in the house, you
won't," I said.

"I love Diana. She is my mate in the purest,
truest sense of the word," he said. "But the glory of a love such
as ours is that it is subject to no limits. The wellspring of an
eternal love does not run dry. Diana knows this as well as I. We
are as one in this, as in everything. We promised each other at the
very beginning that we should never allow any appalling Victorian
archaism to be a restriction on us. I am allowed my passions—for
literature, for art, for beauty in all its forms."

He was coming closer. He was so dreadfully
good-looking! I am not used to good-looking gentlemen leaning very
close and speaking in low tender tones. Girls ought to be given
training in their youth, to be prepared for such an
eventuality.

"And Diana's passions?" I said.

The light in Hardie's eyes dimmed.

"The conjugal act gives her little pleasure,"
he said. "But she knows all of my heart and mind—she has joy in
that, and in our children, and the garden. She has her own friends.
She paints—she will never be great, but it gives her pleasure."

"Quite the perfect marriage," I said.

I had thought the position behind the desk
the most secure, because with the wide rampart of the desk before
me, I would only have to defend a limited space. It now became
apparent that there was a flaw in my thinking. Having a limited
space to defend also meant there was limited space for escape—space
that could all too easily be filled up by the determined bulk of a
man.

Hardie is surprisingly tall for a sensitive
poet type.

"With such ideal domestic arrangements, I can
scarcely see why you would need me," I said.

Perhaps I could scramble over the desk? Oh
dear.

He smelt really very nice.

"Can you not?" Hardie whispered. He kissed me
again.

I'm afraid I melted against him a bit. No one
had touched me in months and months. Mine was an affectionate
family and I missed human contact. And I have never been touched by
a man, so of course that was exciting.

Hardie was doing quite uncivil things with
his mouth. It was a trifle wet, but warm and strangely
pleasant.

A pigeon took off from the window. The sound
of its wings woke me out of my stupor. I broke away and said to
Hardie,

"I am going home now."

"Will you come and see me again?" said
Hardie.

I know what he means by "see me"! I am not so
innocent as all that! And he can't have thought me so very
innocent, considering the letter he wrote me. Anyone who wanted to
stay innocent would have been scared away by that.

Perhaps that was the point.

That was quite a lot badder than I meant to
be.

I do not know what to think. I have been
restless all day.

Succour from an unexpected source. I am to go
to France with Aunt Iris. The beautiful Rose and the exquisite
Clarissa are staying with friends; Uncle Gerald is tied down with
business; and Aunt Iris must go to Paris to see a tailor about a
dress. What strange exigencies drive the rich. But Aunt Iris cannot
go anywhere alone, and so she has commandeered me.

I could not in any case have refused without
awkwardness, but I will be glad to go. I must be out of London,
even if it means days of uninterrupted Aunt Iris. And she has
promised to pay my expenses, so that will mean at least a week's
outgoings I needn't worry about.

I had a dreadful thought yesterday. Wouldn't
it be terribly good for my career to have an affair with Sebastian
Hardie? This literary high life is in a fair way to turning me into
a monster of depravity.

I am in Paris, the city of romance! It is a
most peculiar place. You walk along gazing at the wonderful pretty
buildings and their graceful wire railings to the tune of your
intolerable aunt going on at you for not dressing better and not
being married and not having a respectable profession etc. etc.
etc. Then suddenly the scene is interrupted by the pungent stink of
manure and urine, which rises out of nowhere and envelopes you. It
is difficult to have the correct sentiments about the sight of the
Eiffel Tower lit up at night when the smell is that of a poorly
kept public toilet.

But we have had wonderful food, despite Aunt
Iris's faces at the bills. I know I say a great deal that is
unConfucian and unkind about Aunt Iris, but she has never forgotten
herself so far as not to appreciate good food. Today we had a
sultan's spread of a brunch: gigantic cups of milky coffee, little
flaky croissants and sugared crepes, perfectly spherical roast
potatoes like tiny yellow suns, crispy bacon and fat sausages and a
bowl of scrambled eggs like liquid gold. (I suppose not quite a
sultan's spread, then, given the bacon and sausages.) And for
dessert, yoghurt with an elegant comma of raspberry coulis in it,
and skinless pink segments of grapefruit that burst juice all over
your fingers when you picked them up.

The grapefruit was a novelty. It is like
pomelo, only smaller, bitterer and more pink. I must see if I can
bring one for Ma to try the next time I go home—whenever that
is.

I have written a letter to Ravi. I saw him
last Tuesday and he said he would like to hear what I thought of
Paris, so he shall. I have written the letter twice and have copied
it out fair once. I expect he won't answer it, though.

Disaster: Hardie is here. I opened the
newspaper this morning, thinking of looking for a cartoon and
seeing if I could make out its meaning, and there in the letters
section was his face staring up at me.

Blast the man! What is he doing, turning up
in every corner of the world one thinks of visiting? You would
think following Aunt Iris to Paris to carry her bags and watch her
try on an endless series of hideous dresses would be enough to
propitiate the gods. And yet here Hardie is, to give some talk or
other at a loathsome Institute. The next thing I know, when I think
of doing so much as sitting down on a comfortable sofa, it will
turn out to be Hardie on his hands and knees, with a figured cloth
and some cushions laid on him.