Читать книгу Shanghai - Christopher New - Страница 21

THE WEEK AT THE WOOSUNG FORTS passed slowly and vacantly for Denton. There was so little to do, it was like seven Sundays, he thought. Only without church. When they were not inspecting the junks and barges that infrequently put in for Customs clearance, Johnson would go wandering round the old stone buildings, many of them creeper-covered ruins that hadn't been touched since the British captured the forts in the opium wars sixty years before. Although it was late September and the sun was lower in the sky, the steamy heat seemed just as relentless. Yet Johnson would scramble tirelessly over fallen parapets, peer through crumbling gun embrasures and explore overgrown paths, even at midday when the sun was fiercest and his clothes were drenched with sweat. At first Denton went along too, unwilling to seem unsociable; and, despite the heat, he too enjoyed exploring the place, especially when they followed tracks that led to intensely green paddy fields with peasants working in them, or to placid fish tanks, or sudden little temples, half-derelict and no bigger than a room, in which sweet-smelling joss sticks from some unknown worshipper were still burning amongst the cobwebs and litter. But Johnson's insistently monotonous voice and interminable commentaries on everything they saw began to grate on him more and more. There was nothing, no matter how obvious or insignificant, that escaped Johnson's laboriously detailed explanations. 'That butterfly only lives for six days,' he would announce as Denton watched the fluttering spread of its gorgeous wings among the leaves. 'It lays two hundred eggs.' Or 'That's a joss stick. They burn for over an hour.' Denton had only wanted to stand and look, to absorb the scene through his senses, his imagination, to feel it working on him through the silence and the heat, but Johnson would be counting the bricks aloud or calculating how long ago the joss stick must have been lit.

So he began to make excuses. He had letters to write, he would mutter a little awkwardly, or his Chinese to study. And Johnson, unperturbed, would walk off alone along one of the almost overgrown paths, taking his sketch book with him.

'What's happened to those two smugglers?' Denton asked him as they sat at tiffin one day in the bare but cool stone hut that served as their mess. Johnson had just come back from one of his 'hikes,' his face red and glistening with sweat.

'Oh, I haven't heard. It usually takes a few months at least before they come to trial. I'll have to give evidence then, unless they're satisfied with my written report.' He shrugged, picking up a shred of chicken with his chopsticks, which he was patiently teaching Denton to use. 'You never can tell, they might be off scot-free by now. I might never hear of them again. And it'll take at least a couple of months before I get my bounty for the salt, too. Won't be much, of course, but I should be able to hire a boat to get me up to Hankow.' His jaws munched slowly and regularly - rather in the way he talked, Denton thought. 'Hope it comes through before Christmas. Look, try picking up a bean with your chopsticks. Like this. That's a good test of your skill.'

Denton felt a little prick of disappointment and hurt that Johnson unquestioningly assumed the bounty would all go to him, but he tried to reason the smart away. After all, he told himself glumly, as the bean kept slipping off the tips of his chopsticks, his fingers aching with the effort to control them, after all, he'd only gone along to watch, he'd been no help at all, so why should he expect any of the bounty to come his way? He laid his chopsticks down on the plate almost sullenly while Johnson methodically, obliviously, demonstrated with his own how you must hold the bottom one tight with the crook of your finger and thumb against the middle knuckle of your second finger.

'Have you got any plans for Christmas?' Johnson asked casually. Denton sensed an invitation was in the offing to join Johnson on his trip to Hankow and inwardly he resisted it. He looked away uncomfortably as the boy took the plates, guilty over the chagrin he felt about the bounty, guilty that Johnson's blandly persistent friendliness was so tedious. Could it be that overbearing, immoral Mason and wordly-wise Jones secretly interested him more? 'There was some talk about going on a houseboat and doing a bit of shooting,' he said vaguely, continuing to avoid Johnson's mild, solicitous gaze. 'Mason and Jones were talking about it. I don't really know of course. I might be on duty, I suppose.' He glanced apologetically at Johnson's still perspiring face.

Johnson's brown eyes glimmered in their depths, but then he nodded and smiled wryly, almost as if he'd expected all along that Denton wouldn't want to join him. After a few moments' silence he set off for the river bank with his sketchbook, the wry but not unfriendly smile still on his lips. Watching him walk away with his firm, energetic stride, Denton thought remorsefully how solitary he looked, recalling too that he never seemed to be with anyone for long. In the mess he would join a table and converse in his affable yet lifeless manner, and then, when the meal was over, he would be left sitting there by himself. And in the billiards room or the lounge, it always seemed the same - eventually he would be left alone while the others had formed groups with their backs towards him. Was that why he'd been so friendly to him, because he was shunned by all the others?