James clavell

Such a long time ago, a thousand years ago, another lifetime, she thought. Such wonderful ghastly terrible beautiful agonising days: will he die today or come back today? Will I die today, in the morning bombing or in the evening one? Where's Dad and Mum and is the phone just bombed out of service as usual or has the rotten little terraced house in Streatham vanished along with all the other thousands like it?

One day it had and then she had no past. Just Ian and his arms and strength and confidence, and she terrified that he would go like all the others. That was the worst part, she told herself. The waiting and anticipating and knowing how mortal the Few were and we all are. My God how quickly we had to grow up!

"I hope it is forever, darling," she said in her cool, flat voice, wanting to hide the immensity of her love. "Yes. I want you to be immortal!"

He grinned at her, loving her. "I'm immortal, Penn, never mind. After I'm dead I'll still be watching over you and Glenna and Duncan and Adryon and all the rest."

She watched him. "Like Dirk Struan does?"

"No," he said serious now. "He's a presence I'll never match. He's perpetual—I'm temporary." His eyes were watching hers. "You're rather serious tonight, aren't you?"

"You're rather serious tonight, aren't you?"

They laughed.

She said, "I was just thinking how transient life is, how violent, unexpected, how cruel. First John Chen and now Borge, Kathy..." A little shiver went through her, ever petrified she would lose him. "Who's next?"

"Any one of us. Meanwhile be Chinese. Remember under heaven all crows are black. Life is good. Gods make mistakes and go to sleep so we do the best we can and never trust a guai loh!"

She laughed, at peace again. "There are times, Ian Struan Dunross, when I quite like you. Do you th—" The phone rang and she stopped and thought, God curse that bloody phone. If I was omnipotent I'd outlaw all phones after 6:00 P.M. but then poor Ian'd go mad, and the bloody Noble House'd crumble and that's poor Ian's life. I'm second, so are the children and that's as it should be. Isn't it?

"Oh hello, Lando," Dunross was saying, "what's new?"

"Hope I'm not disturbing you, tai-pan."

"Not at all," he replied, all his energy concentrated. "I've just got in. What can I do for you?"

"Sorry, but I'm withdrawing the 15 million support I promised for tomorrow. Temporarily. The market makes me nervous."

"Nothing to worry about," Dunross said, his stomach churning. "Gornt's up to his tricks. That's all."

"I'm really very worried. It's not just Gornt. It's the Ho-Pak and the way the whole market's reacting," Mata said. "With the bank run seeping over to the Ching Prosperity and even the Vic... all the signs are very bad so I want to wait and see."

"Tomorrow's the day, Lando. Tomorrow. I was counting on you."

"Have you tripled our next gold consignment as I asked?"

"Yes, I did that personally. I've Zurich's telexed confirms in the usual code."

"Excellent, excellent!"

"I'll need your letter of credit tomorrow."

"Of course. If you'll send a messenger to my home now I'll give you my check for the full amount."

"Personal check?" Dunross held on to his astonishment. "On which bank, Lando?"

"The Victoria."

"Christ, that's a lot of money to remove just now."

"I'm not removing it, I'm just paying for some gold. I'd rather have some of my funds in gold outside Hong Kong for the next week or so, and this's an ideal moment to do it. You can get them to telex it first thing tomorrow. First thing. Yes. I'm not withdrawing funds, Ian, just paying for gold. If I were you I'd try to get liquid too."

Again his stomach fell over. "What have you heard?" he asked, his voice controlled.

"You know me, I'm just more cautious than you, tai-pan. The cost of my money comes very high."

"No more than mine."

"Yes. We'll consult tomorrow, then we'll see. But don't count on our 15 million. Sorry."

"You've heard something. I know you too well. What is it? Chi pao pu chu huo." Literally, Paper cannot wrap up a fire, meaning a secret cannot be kept forever.

There was a long pause, then Mata said in a lower voice, "Confidentially, Ian, old Tightfist's selling heavily. He's getting ready to unload all his holdings. That old devil may be dying but his nose is as sensitive to the loss of a brass cash as ever and I've never known him to be wrong."

"All his holdings?" Dunross asked sharply. "When did you talk to him?"

"We've been in contact all day. Why?"

"I reached him after lunch and he promised he wouldn't sell or loan any Struan's. Has he changed his mind?"

"No. I'm sure he hasn't. He can't. He hasn't any Struan stock."

"He has 400,000 shares!"

"He did have, tai-pan, though actually the number was nearer 600,000—Sir Luis had very few shares of his own, he's one of Tightfist's many nominees. He's unloaded all 600,000 shares. Today."

Dunross bit back an obscenity. "Oh?"

"Listen, my young friend, this is all in the strictest confidence but you should be prepared: Tightfist ordered Sir Luis to sell or loan all his Noble House stock the moment the rumours started this morning .100,000 was spread throughout the brokers and sold immediately, the remainder.... the half million shares you bought from Gornt were Tightfist's. The moment it was evident there was a major assault on the House and Gornt was selling short, Tightfist told Sir Luis to go ahead and loan it all, except for a token 1,000 shares, which he's kept. For face. Yours. When the exchange closed, Tightfist was very pleased. On the day he's almost 2 million ahead." Dunross was standing rock still. He heard that his voice was matter-of-fact and level and controlled and that pleased him, but he was in shock. If Tightfist had sold, the Chins would sell and a dozen other friends would follow his lead and that meant chaos. "The old bugger!" he said, bearing him no grudge. It was his own fault, he had not reached Tightfist in time. "Lando, what about your 300,000 shares—plus?"

He heard the Portuguese hesitate and his stomach twisted again, "I've still got them. I bought at 16 when you first went public so I'm not worried yet. Perhaps Alastair Struan was right when he advised against going public—the Noble House's only vulnerable because of that."

"Our growth rate's five times Gornt's and without going public we could never have weathered the disasters I inherited. We're supported by the Victoria. We've still got our bank stock and a majority vote on the board so they have to support us. We're really very strong and once this temporary situation's over we'll be the biggest conglomerate in Asia."

"Perhaps. But perhaps you'd have been wiser to accept our proposal instead of leaving yourself constantly open to the risk of takeovers or market disasters."

"I couldn't then. I can't now. Nothing's changed." Dunross smiled grimly. Lando Mata, Tightfist Tung and Gambler Chin collectively had offered him 20 percent of their gold and gambling syndicate revenue for 50 percent of Struan's—if he kept it as a wholly private-owned company.

"Come, tai-pan, be sensible! Tightfist and I will give you 100 million cash today for 50 percent ownership. U.S. dollars. Your position as tai-pan will not be touched, you will head the new syndicate and manage our gold and gambling monopolies, secretly or openly—with 10 percent of all profit as a personal fee."

"Who appoints the next tai-pan?"

"You do—in consultation."

"There, you see! It's impossible. A 50 percent control gives you power over Struan's and that I'm not allowed to give. That would negate Dirk's legacy, make my oath invalid and give away absolute control. Sorry, it's not possible."

"Because of an oath to an unknown, unknowable god in which you don't believe—on behalf of a murdering pirate who's been dead over a hundred years?"

"For whatever reason the answer is, thank you, no."

"You could easily lose the whole company."

"No. Between the Struans and the Dunrosses we have 60 percent voting control and I alone vote all the stock. What I'd lose is everything material we own, and cease to be the Noble House, and that by the Lord God, is not going to happen either."

There was a long silence. Then Mata said, his voice friendly as always, "Our offer is good for two weeks. If joss is against you and you fail, the offer to head the new syndicate stands. I shall sell or lend my stock at 21."

"Below 20—not at 21."

"It will go that low?"

"No. Just a habit I have .20 is better than 21."

"Yes. Good. Then let us see what tomorrow brings. I wish you good joss. Good night, tai-pan."

Dunross put down the phone and sipped the last of his champagne. He was up the creek without a paddle. That old bugger Tightfist, he thought again, admiring his cleverness—to agree so reluctantly not to sell or barter any Struan shares, knowing that only 1,000 remained, knowing the revenue from almost 600,000 was already safe—that old bastard's a great negotiator. It's so very clever of both Lando and Tightfist to make the new offer now .100 million! Jesus Christ, that'd stop Gornt farting in church! I could use that to smash him to pieces, and in short order take over Asian Properties and put Dunstan into an early retirement. Then I could pass the House over to Jacques or Andrew in great shape and And then what? What would I do then? Retire to the moors and shoot grouse? Throw vast parties in London? Or go into Parliament and sleep in the Back Bench while the bloody Socialists give the country to the Communists? Christ, I'd be bored to bloody death! I'd...

"What?" He was startled. "Oh sorry, Penn, what did you say?"

"I just said that all sounded like bad news!"

"Yes. Yes it was." Then Dunross grinned and all his anxiety dropped away. "It's joss! I'm tai-pan," he said happily. "You've got to expect it." He picked up the bottle. It was empty. "I think we deserve another... No, pet, I'll get it." He went to the concealed refrigerator that was set into a vast old Chinese scarlet, lacquered sideboard.

"How do you cope, Ian?" she asked. "I mean, it always seems to be something bad, ever since you took over—and there's always some disaster, every phone call, you work all the time, never take a holiday... ever since we came back to Hong Kong. First your father and then Alastair and then... Isn't it ever going to stop pouring cats and dogs?"

"Of course not—that's the job."

"Is it worth it?"

He concentrated on the cork, knowing there was no future in this conversation. "Of course."

To you it is, Ian, she thought. But not to me. After a moment she said, "Then it's all right for me to go?"

"Yes, yes of course. I'll watch Adryon and don't worry about Duncan. You just have a great time and hurry back."

"Are you going to do the hill climb Sunday?"

"Yes. Then I'm going to Taipei, back Tuesday. I'm taking Bartlett."

She thought about Taipei and wondered if there was a girl there, a special girl, a Chinese girl, half her age, with lovely soft skin and warmth, not much warmer than herself or softer or trimmer but half her age, with a ready smile, without the years of survival bowing her—the rotten growing-up years, the good and terrible war years, and childbearing years and child-rearing years and the exhausting reality of marriage, even to a good man.

I wonder I wonder I wonder. If I was a man... there're so many beauties here, so anxious to please, so readily available. If you believe a tenth of what the others say.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, loving him. She touched his glass. "Be careful on the hill climb."

"Of course."

"How do you cope with being tai-pan, Ian?"

"How do you cope with running a home, bringing up the kids, getting up at all hours, year after year, keeping the peace, and all the other things you've had to do? I couldn't do that. Never could. I'd've given up the ghost long ago. It's part training and part what you're born to do."

"A woman's place is in the home?"

"I don't know about others, Penn, but so long as you're in my home all's good in my world." He popped the cork neatly.

"Thank you, dear," she said and smiled. Then she frowned. "But I'm afraid I don't have much option and never had. Of course it's different now and the next generation's lucky, they're going to change things, turn things around and give men their comeuppance once and for all."

"Oh?" he said, most of his mind back on Lando Mata and tomorrow and how to get the 100 million without conceding control.

"Oh yes. The girls of the next generation aren't going to put up with the boring 'a woman's place is by the sink.' God how I hate housework, how every woman hates housework. Our daughters are going to change all that! Adryon for one. My God I'd hate to be her husband."

"Every generation thinks they're going to change the world," Dunross said, pouring. "This's great champagne. Remember how we did? Remember how we used to bitch, still do, about our parents' attitudes?"

"True. But our daughters have the pill and that's a whole new kettle of fish an—"

"Eh?" Dunross stared at her, shocked. "You mean Adryon's on the pill? Jesus Christ how long... do you mean sh—"

"Calm down, Ian, and listen. That little pill's unlocked womanhood from fear forever—men too, in a way. I think very few people realise what an enormous social revolution it's going to create. Now women can all make love without fear of having a child, they can use their bodies as men use their bodies, for gratification, for pleasure, and without shame." She looked at him keenly. "As to Adryon, she's had access to the pill since she was seventeen."

"What?"

"Jesus Christ, Penn, of course not," Dunross spluttered, "but Jesus Christ who? You... you mean she's having an affair, had affairs or...."

"I sent her to Dr. Tooley. I thought it best she should see him."

"You what?"

"Yes. When she was seventeen, she asked me what to do, said most of her friends were on the pill. As there are various types I wanted her to have expert advice. Dr. Too—What are you so red about, Ian? Adryon's nineteen now, twenty next month, it's all very ordinary."

"It isn't by God. It just isn't!"

"Och laddie but it is," she said, aping the broad Scots accent of Granny Dunross whom he had adored, "and my whole point is that the lassies of today know what they're aboot and dinna ye dare mention it to Adryon that I've told ye or I'll take my stick to your britches!"

He stared at her.

"Health!" Smugly she raised her glass. "Did you see the Guardian Extra this afternoon?"

"Don't change the subject, Penn. Don't you think I should talk to her?"

"Absolutely not. No. It's a... it's a very private matter. It's really her body and her life and whatever you say, Ian, she has the right to do with her life what she pleases and really nothing you say will make any difference. It'll all be very embarrassing for both of you. There's face involved," she added and was pleased with her cleverness. "Oh of course Adryon'll listen and take your views to heart but you really must be adult and modern for your own sake, as well as hers."

Suddenly an uncontrollable wave of heat went through his face. "What is it?" she asked. "I was thinking about... I was just thinking."

"About who was, is or could be her lover?"

"Yes."

"She's too young for God's sake!"

"I don't agree, dear. As I was saying, there's really nothing you can do about progress, and the pill is a marvellous fantastic unbelievable leap forward. You really must be more sensible. Please?"

"It's... Christ, it's a bit sudden, that's all."

She laughed outright. "If we were talking about Glenna I could unders—Oh for God's sake, Ian, I'm only joking! It never really occurred to me that you wouldn't have presumed Adryon was a very healthy, well-adjusted though foul-tempered, infuriating, very frustrated young lady, most of whose frustrations spring from trying to please us with our old-fashioned ideas."

"You're right." He tried to sound convincing but he wasn't and he said sourly, "You're right even so... you're right."

"Laddie, dinna ye think ye'd better visit our Shrieking Tree?" she asked with a smile. It was an ancient clan custom in the old country that somewhere near the dwelling of the oldest woman of the laird's family would be the Shrieking Tree. When Ian was young, Granny Dunross was the oldest, and her cottage was in a glade in the hills behind Kilmarnock in Ayrshire where the Struan lands were. The tree was a great oak. It was the tree that you went out to when the deevil—as old Granny Dunross called it—when the deevil was with you, and alone, you shrieked whatever curses you liked. "... and then, lassie," the lovely old woman had told her the first night, "... and then, lassie, there would be peace in the home and never a body has need to really curse a husband or wife or lover or child. Aye, just a wee tree and the tree can bear all the curse words that the deevil himself invented...."

Penelope was remembering how old Granny Dunross had taken her into her heart and into the clan from the first moment. That was just after she and Ian were married and visiting for the second time, Ian on sick leave, still on crutches, his legs badly burned but healing, the rest of him untouched in the flaming crash-landing but for his mad, all-consuming anger at being grounded forever, she so pleased secretly, thanking God for the reprieve.

"But whisht, lassie," Granny Dunross had added with a chuckle that night when the winter winds were whining off the moors, sleet outside, and they all warm and toasty in front of the great fire, safe from the bombing, well fed and never a care except that Ian should get well quickly, "... there was a time when this Dunross was six and, och aye, he had a terrible temper even then and his father Colin was off in those heathen foreign parts as always, so this Dunross would come to Ayr on holiday from boarding school. Aye, and sometimes he would come to see me and I'd tell him tales o' the clan and his grandfather and great-grandfather but this time nothing would take away the deevil that possessed him. It was a night like this and I sent him out, the poor wee bairn, aye I sent him out to the Shrieking Tree___" The old woman had chuckled and chuckled and sipped whiskey and continued, "Aye and the young deevil went out, cock of the walk, the gale under his kilt, and he cursed the tree. Och aye, surely the wee beasties in the forest fled before his wrath and then he came back. 'Have you given it a good drubbing,' I asked him. 'Aye,' he said in his wee voice. 'Aye, Grandma, I gave it a good drubbing, the very best ever.'

" 'Good,' I said. 'And now you're at peace!' " 'Well, not really, Grandmother, but I am tired.' And then, lassie, at that moment, there was an almighty crash and the whole house shook and I thought it was the end of the world but the wee little bairn ran out to see what had happened and a lightning bolt had blasted the Shrieking Tree to pieces. 'Och aye, Granny,' he said in his piping little voice when he came back, his eyes wide, 'that really was the very best I ever did. Can I do it again!' "

Ian had laughed. "That's all a story, I don't remember that at all. You're making it up, Granny!"

"Whisht on you! You were five or six and the next day we went into the glade and picked the new tree, the one you'll see tomorrow, lassie, and blessed it in the clan's name and I told young Ian to be a mite more careful next time!"

They had laughed together and then, later that night, she had woken up to find Ian gone and his crutches gone. She had watched and waited.

When he came back he was soaked but tired and at peace. She pretended sleep until he was in bed again. Then she turned to him and gave him all the warmth she had.

"Remember, lassie," Granny Dunross had said to her privately the day they left, "if ye want to keep your marriage sweet, make sure this Dunross always has a Shrieking Tree nearby. Dinna be afeared. Pick one, always pick one wherever you go. This Dunross needs a Shrieking Tree close by though he'll never admit it and will never use it but rarely. He's like the Dirk. He's too strong...."

So wherever they had gone they had had one. Penelope had insisted. Once, in Chungking, where Dunross had been sent to be an Allied liaison officer after he was well again, she had made a bamboo their Shrieking Tree. Here in Hong Kong it was a huge jacaranda that dominated the whole garden. "Don't you think you should pay her a wee visit?" The tree was always a her for him and a him for her. Everyone should have a Shrieking Tree, Penelope thought. Everyone.

"Thanks," he said. "I'm okay now."

"How did Granny Dunross have so much wisdom and stay so marvellous after so much tragedy in her life?"

"I don't know. Perhaps they built them stronger in those days."

"I miss her." Granny Dunross was eighty-five when she died. She was Agnes Struan when she married her cousin Dirk Dunross—Dirk McCloud Dunross, whom his mother Winifred, Dirk Struan's only daughter, had named after her father in remembrance. Dirk Dunross had been fourth tai-pan and he had been lost at sea in Sunset Cloud driving her homeward. He was only forty-two when he was lost, she thirty-one. She never married again. They had had three sons and one daughter. Two of her sons were killed in World War I, the eldest at Gallipoli at twenty-one, the other gassed at Ypres in Flanders, nineteen. Her daughter Anne had married Gaston deVille, Jacques's father. Anne had died in the London bombing where all the deVilles had fled except Jacques who had stayed in France and fought the Nazis with the Maquis. Colin, the last of her sons, Ian's father, also had three sons and a daughter, Kathren. Two sons also were killed in World War II. Kathren's first husband, Ian's squadron leader, was killed in the Battle of Britain. "So many deaths, violent deaths," Penelope said sadly. "To see them all born and all die... terrible. Poor Granny! Yet when she died she seemed to go so peacefully with that lovely smile of hers."

"Perhaps it was joss. But the others, that was joss too. They only did what they had to, Penn. After all, our family history's ordinary in that. We're British. War's been a way of life for centuries. Look at your family—one of your uncles was lost at sea in the navy in the Great War, another in the last at El Alamein, your parents killed in the blitz... all very ordinary." His voice hardened. "It's not easy to explain to any outsider, is it?"

"No. We all had to grow up so quickly, didn't we, Ian?" He nodded and after a moment she said, "You'd better dress for dinner, dear, you'll be late."

"Come on, Penn, for God's sake, you take an hour longer than me. We'll put in a quick appearance and leave directly after chow. Wh—" The phone rang and he picked it up. "Yes? Oh hello, Mr. Deland."

"Good evening, tai-pan. I wish to report about Mme. deVille's daughter and son-in-law, M. Escary."

"Yes, please go ahead."

"I am sad to have the dishonour of bringing such bad tidings. The accident was a, how do you say, sideswipe on the upper Corniche just outside Eze. The driver of the other car was drunk. It was at two in the morning about, and when the police arrived, M. Escary was already dead and his wife unconscious. The doctor says she will mend, very well, but he is afraid that her, her internal organs, her childbearing organs may have permanent hurt. She may require an operation. He—"