And the Bride Wore Red

CHAPTER SIX

AS IT grew dark the lanterns came on in the courtyard and everyone gathered to hear Suyin sing. After a while Olivia slipped away and went to Lang’s room in the south house, glad of a moment alone to mull over what she’d learned tonight. She was beginning to understand Lang a little better-he was a man who hung back behind a quiet, even conventional mask, but who behind that mask was a dozen other men. Some of those men were fascinating, and some she should perhaps be wary of.

After giving her hair a quick brush, she left the room and found him waiting in the hall outside. She faced him with an air of indignation that was not entirely assumed.

‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ she said.

‘Are you mad at me? I’ve offended you?’

‘Don’t you give me that deferential stuff. I see right through it. You can’t open your mouth without fooling me about something.’

‘What have I done now?’

‘I asked you about your job and you gave me the impression that you were little more than the hospital porter. Now I find out you’re an important man.’

‘I deny it,’ he said at once.

‘A consultant.’

‘Junior consultant. It’s just a title that’s supposed to make me feel pleased with myself. The real big man is the senior consultant.’

‘Oh, really? And when is the big man going to retire and let you step into his shoes?’

‘That’s a long story. We should be getting back before they come looking for us.’

He was still smiling, but she had a feeling that she’d touched a nerve. The hospital was one of the biggest and most important in Beijing. If he was seriously hoping for a major promotion after only three years, then he was more ambitious than he wanted anyone to know.

‘They’ve already come to seek us out. There they are,’ Lang said, indicating outside where Biyu could be seen watching, accompanied by Wei, Suyin and an assortment of children. ‘From where they’re standing, you can see in through the window, and they’re waiting to see if we fulfil expectations.’

This was so plainly true that she chuckled. Some people would have found the blatant curiosity intrusive and dismaying, but Olivia-child of a fractured family where there had been much hysterical emoting but little genuine kindness-felt only the warmth of a large family welcoming her, similar to what Lang himself had felt, she guessed.

‘Then you’d better put your arm around my shoulders,’ she said.

‘Like that?’ His hand rested lightly on her shoulder.

‘I think you might manage to be a little more convincing,’ she reproved him. ‘We’re supposed to be giving them what they want, and I doubt if they can even see anything from there.’

‘You’re right,’ he agreed. ‘It has to look real.’

Tightening his arm, he drew her closer to him. Slowly he lowered his head until his lips were just brushing hers.

‘Is this real enough?’ he murmured.

‘I think-I think we might try a little harder.’

That was all the encouragement he needed. Next moment his mouth was over hers forcefully. There was no hesitancy now, but a full-scale declaration of intent; his lips moved urgently, asking a question but too impatient to await the answer.

Olivia responded with an overwhelming sense of relief. She had wanted this, and it was only now that she knew how badly. Since their first meeting she’d been fighting him on one level, responding on another. Now she was no longer torn two ways and could yield to the delight that flowed through her with dizzying speed.

She’d demanded that he be more convincing, and he was following her wishes to the letter. But then he lifted his head for a moment and she saw the truth in his eyes. The one brief touch of lips that they’d shared the day before had given barely a hint of what awaited them, and now he was as stunned as she by the reality.

‘Olivia…’

‘Don’t talk,’ she said huskily, pulling his head down.

Then there was only a silence more eloquent than words. She’d studied his mouth, not even realising she was doing so, wondering how its shape would feel against her own. Her imaginings had fallen far short of this overwhelming awareness of leashed power combined with subtlety.

He released her mouth and dropped his head so that his breath warmed her neck softly. He was trembling.

She wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say. No words would describe the feelings that pervaded her, feelings that she wanted to go on for ever. Tenderly she stroked his head, turning slightly so that they could renew the kiss. She wanted that so badly.

But one of the children outside gave an excited squeal and was hastily shushed. The noise seemed to come from a distance, yet it shattered the spell ruthlessly. Stranded back on earth again, they regarded each other in bewilderment.

‘I think,’ Lang said unsteadily, ‘I think we’d better-’

‘Yes, I guess we should,’ she replied, not having the least idea what she was talking about.

They walked out, bracing themselves for an ironic cheer, but the others had melted tactfully away. They’d seen all they needed to.

When it was time to leave, everyone embraced her warmly. Tao and Shu presented her with a glass pig, insisting that she must come again soon, and everyone stood outside to wave them off.

Lang drove in silence. Olivia wondered if he would speak about what had happened, but she was neither surprised nor disappointed when he didn’t. It wasn’t to be spoken of.

‘Let’s stop for a while before we go home,’ he said at last. ‘There’s a little place just down here.’

It turned out to be a teahouse constructed on old-fashioned lines, several connected buildings with roofs that curved dramatically up at the corners. Red lanterns hung inside, and stretched out to a small garden. They went to an outside table where their tea was served in elegant porcelain cups.

Lang wished he knew what to say. He’d come here hoping for time to think after having been disconcerted all evening. He’d wanted Olivia to make a good impression on his family, but she’d done more than that. She’d been a knockout. He smiled, remembering how brilliantly she’d swapped pig memories with Grandfather Tao, and how his female relatives had been won over by her fashion sense.

He’d been astonished, but he should not have been. In the brief time he’d known her she’d taken him by surprise more often than he could count. It was alarming-it turned the world on its head in a way that constantly caught him off-guard-but it was also part of her charm.

As an attractive man he was used to having women put themselves out to get his attention. He wasn’t conceited about it, he just didn’t know any different. Now he was relishing an experience that nothing had prepared him for.

To find himself powerfully attracted to a woman who was fighting her own attraction to him, to have to persuade her and tease her into a sense of security so that he could convince her of the value of romantic love, intrigued him and made him wonder just where this road was leading.

Wherever it led, he knew that he was happy to go there, and that the time of decision had come. He must act now or lose what might be the most precious gift of his life.

The courtyard of the teahouse was enclosed on three sides. On the fourth there was a small pond where ducks quacked for titbits, and a bridge where they could linger after drinking their tea.

‘Oh, this is so nice.’ Olivia sighed, enjoying deep breaths of the sweet air and tossing a crumb into the water. She’d taken a small cake from the table for this purpose, but had eaten none of it herself.

‘Are you sure you don’t want anything else?’ Lang asked.

She laughed. ‘No, the tea was delicious and I’ve had enough food to last me for a month. It was wonderful food. I’m not complaining.’

‘I am,’ he said frankly. ‘It felt like being fattened for the slaughter. They were in competition to see which one of us they could make collapse first.’

‘But they’re so nice,’ Olivia said. ‘It was all so warm and friendly, just like a family should be.’

‘I’m glad you felt that. I love them dearly, but I was afraid you might find them a little overpowering.’

‘I did.’ She laughed. ‘But I don’t mind being overpowered with kindness. Not one bit.’

She tossed another crumb into the water and watched the quacking squabble. At last she said, ‘Biyu mentioned something strange-apparently they’d expected you to be gone before now.’

He hesitated a brief moment before admitting, ‘I stayed because of you. I didn’t mean to. I’ve been packed and ready to go for several days, but I couldn’t make myself leave, or even make up my mind to come and talk to you.’

She nodded. The discovery that his confusion matched her own seemed to draw them closer.

‘When do you leave for the Yangzte cruise?’ he asked.

‘I join the boat at Chongqing in a couple of days.’

‘I’ve been planning to go to Xi’an,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘To see the mausoleum that Jaio escaped?’

‘In a way. It hasn’t been excavated yet, so I can’t go inside, but I can see the terracotta warriors nearby. They were based on the Emperor’s army.’

‘So one of them might be Renshu,’ she supplied. ‘It sounds a great trip, but if you’ve been in China for three years I can’t understand why you haven’t been there before.’

‘I have. It was one of the first places I went. But since I’ve lived here for a while I see things with different eyes. Then I was still a stranger. Now I feel part of this country, and I want to retrace my steps and try to understand things better.’ Suddenly he grasped her hand and said, ‘Olivia?’

‘Yes?’

He took a deep breath and spoke with the eagerness of a man who’d finally seen the way clear.

‘Come with me. Don’t say no. Ah, say you’ll come.’

It was only when she heard Lang beg her that Olivia fully understood how desolate she would have been if he’d left without a backward glance at her.

Don’t get flustered, said the voice within. You’re a woman of the twenty-first century. Stay cool.

‘You mean, to see the warriors?’ she asked with a fair display of casualness.

‘I want to find out if I can make you see them as I do. Or maybe you’ll show me something I’ve missed.’ He added reflectively, ‘You have a way of doing that.’

‘It’s quite unconscious.’

‘I know. That’s why it’s so alarming. It springs out at me suddenly, and I have no chance to guard against it.’

‘Do you want to guard against it?’

‘Sometimes.’

She waited, sensing that he had more to say, and at last he went on. ‘Sometimes you take fright and want to flee back to your old, safe life where things follow a pattern and nothing is too unpredictable. But then you realise that that’s a kind of death; the safety is an illusion, and there’s nothing to do but take the next step-whatever it brings. And sometimes-’ he made a rueful face ‘-you can’t decide between the two.’

‘I know,’ she murmured, awed by his insight.

‘I’m a coward,’ he said. Looking up, he added, ‘But maybe I’m not the only one.’

She nodded.

‘Now and then,’ she said slowly, ‘what passes for common sense is only cowardice in disguise.’

‘Does that mean you’ll come with me or not?’ he asked urgently. ‘We could leave for Xi’an tomorrow, and go on to Chongqing afterwards, if you wouldn’t mind my joining you on the cruise. And after that, well, we go wherever we fancy and do whatever we fancy.’

‘Whatever we fancy,’ Olivia murmured longingly. ‘I wonder…’

He drew her down the far side of the bridge and under the trees. There in the shadows he could take her into his arms and remind her silently of the things that united them. She came willingly, letting her own lips speak of feelings for which there were as yet no words.

She ought to refuse; she knew that. Step by seemingly innocent step he was enticing her along a path she’d sworn never to tread again, a path on which the delight in one man’s presence would silence all warnings until her life spun into turmoil. How virtuous it would be to be strong. How sensible. How justified! How impossible!

With every caress his mouth begged her to trust him with her heart and follow him to an unknown destination. Except that it wasn’t really unknown. It was the place where he wanted to be with her, and no questions were needed.

He kissed her again and again, breathing hard as his urgency and need threatened to overcome his control.

‘We’ll have the whole summer together,’ he managed to say. ‘That is, if the idea pleases you.’

‘It pleases me,’ she said softly.

A violent tremor went through him. He was resting his forehead against her, his eyes closed while he fought to subdue himself. She held him with passionate tenderness, waiting, wondering what was happening behind his eyelids, and half-convinced that she knew.

At last he drew away and spoke in a shaking voice.

‘Then let us make the arrangements quickly.’

He led her back to the table, took out his phone, and in a few brief calls changed her flights, booked her into his hotel in Xi’an, and just managed to grasp the last available place on the Yangtze cruise.

Then a silence fell. Both suddenly felt embarrassed, as though the emotion that had brought them thus far had abandoned them, leaving them stranded in alien territory where nothing looked the same.

‘Perhaps we should go home and start getting ready,’ he said awkwardly.

‘Yes-packing.’

Lang had recovered his composure and gave her a mischievous look. ‘Don’t forget to include that dress you’re wearing.’

‘Oh, do you like it? I wasn’t sure it suited me.’

‘Stop fishing. You know exactly what it does for you. And if you didn’t know at the start,’ he added, ‘you do now.’

‘Yes,’ she said, feeling her heart beat faster. ‘I know now.’

‘Let’s go.’

At her door he said, ‘I’ll be here for you at midday tomorrow.’

He gave her a brief peck on the cheek and drove away.

She began her packing in a dissatisfied frame of mind and grew more dissatisfied as she lay wakeful overnight. Her mood was nothing to do with Lang and everything to do with the fact that her wardrobe was inadequate. The only really glamorous item she possessed was the cheongsam, and something had to be done-fast.

When buying the cheongsam she’d lingered over several other items, wanting them but too prudent to spend the money.

But now she was going away with Lang, and to blazes with prudence.

He wouldn’t arrive until noon. The shop was three streets away, and a quick dash there and back in a taxi would enable her to collect what she needed and return before him. She took her suitcases down to the front door, and spoke to the tenant of the downstairs apartment.

‘If a man calls for me, will you tell him I’ll be back in ten minutes? Thanks.’

She called a taxi and waited for it outside, waving cheerfully at a little girl from one of the other apartments who was playing nearby. The taxi was prompt and she took off, managing to be back barely five minutes after midday. With luck, she thought, Lang wouldn’t be there yet-but it wasn’t really a surprise to find him ahead of her. What did surprise her was the volcanic look on his face.

‘Where the devil have you been?’ he demanded explosively.

‘Hey, cut it out!’ she told him. ‘I’m a few minutes late. It’s not the end of the world. I went to do a bit of last-minute shopping. I left you a message with the woman who lives downstairs. Didn’t you see her?’

‘The only person I’ve seen is a child who was playing here. She said you got into a taxi and went away for ever. That was her exact phrase.’

Olivia groaned. ‘I know who you mean. She saw me get into the taxi but the rest is her imagination. I just went to buy something. I’m here now. Have you been waiting long?’

‘Five minutes.’

She stared. ‘Five minutes? That’s nothing. No need to make a fuss.’

For answer he slammed his hand down hard on the bonnet of the taxi, causing the driver to object loudly. While they sorted it out, Olivia dashed inside to retrieve her suitcases.

She was stunned at what she’d just seen. Lang was the last man she would have suspected of such an outburst. Here was a troubling mystery, but her dismay faded as she emerged from the building and saw his face. It was no longer angry, but full of a suffering he was fighting to hide.

The driver, placated by a large tip, helped them load the bags, and then they were off.

In the taxi Olivia took Lang’s hand and rallied him cheerfully. ‘We’re going to have a great time. Don’t spoil it by being mad at me.’

‘I’m not. I’m mad at myself for making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, what’s five minutes? That’s the trouble with being a doctor, you get to be a stickler for time.’

He went on talking, turning it into a joke against himself. But Olivia knew it wasn’t a joke really. It wasn’t about five minutes; just what it was about was something she had yet to learn. In the meantime, she fell in with his mood, and they went to the airport in apparently good spirits.

The flight took two hours, and they reached the hotel in the evening.

‘Is your room all right?’ Lang asked as they went down to the restaurant.

‘Yes, I’m going to sleep fine. Not that I plan to do much sleeping. I’ve still got a lot of reading to do about the Emperor.’

‘I saw you buried in a book on the plane. Good grief, you’ve brought it down here with you.’

‘He fascinates me. He took the throne of Qin when he was only thirteen, unified all the states into one country, standardised money, weights and measures, built canals and roads. But he only lived to be fifty, and he seems to have spent the last few years of his life trying to find a way to avoid death.’

‘Yes, he dreaded the idea of dying,’ Lang agreed. ‘He sent court officials all over the world with orders to find a magic elixir. Most of them simply vanished because they didn’t dare go back empty-handed. He tried to prolong his life by taking mercury, but that’s probably what killed him so soon.’

‘Which makes it all the more ironic that he had over half a million men building his tomb for years.’

‘That was the convention. The pharaohs in Egypt used to do the same thing-start building their pyramids as soon as they ascended the throne.’

‘And in the end all those poor, innocent women were trapped in there with him.’ She sighed. ‘What a pity we can’t see inside.’

So far the tomb had not been excavated, although radar investigations had suggested many things of interest, including booby traps and rivers of mercury. Olivia knew that it would probably be several years before visitors could go into the tomb and see the place where Jaio would have died if Renshu hadn’t rescued her.

In the meantime there was the other great sight to be seen, the terracotta warriors, buried nearly a mile away from the tomb and discovered thirty-five years earlier by farmers who’d happened to be digging in a field. The inspiration for these statues had been the men who protected the Emperor, of whom Renshu was one.

‘I wonder how they met,’ she mused now. ‘Weren’t the concubines kept strictly away from other men, except eunuchs?’

‘Yes. The story is that Renshu was part of a group of soldiers who escorted her from the far city where she lived. Even so, he wasn’t meant to see her face, but he did so by accident. The other story is that he was on duty in the palace one evening and caught a glimpse of her.’

‘But could that be enough?’ Olivia asked. ‘They see each other for just a moment and everything follows from that?’

‘Just a moment can be more than enough,’ Lang mused. ‘You never know when it’s going to happen, or how hard it’s going to hit you. You don’t get to pick the person, either. She’s just there in front of you, and it’s her. She’s the one.’

He gave a faint smile, aimed mainly at himself.

‘Sometimes you might wish that she wasn’t,’ he said softly. ‘But it’s too late for that.’

‘Oh, really? And why would you wish that she wasn’t?’

‘Lots of reasons. She might be really awkward. She might get you in such a state that you didn’t know whether you were coming or going. You could go to bed at night thinking, “I don’t need this. How can I get her out of my hair?” But the answer is always the same. You can’t.

‘And you come to realise that whichever one of the deities decides these things isn’t asking your opinion, just giving you orders…“There she is, she’s the one. Get on with it”.’

Olivia nodded. ‘You say deity, but that voice can be more like a nagging aunt.’

‘You too?’ he asked slowly.

‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Me too. You try to explain to the aunt that she’s got it all wrong-you weren’t planning for anything like this guy-and all she says is, “Did I ask what you planned?”’

Lang laughed at her assumed hauteur. His eyes were warm as they rested on her.

‘It’s like being swept along by an avalanche,’ Olivia continued. ‘And sometimes you just want to go with it, but at other times you think-’

‘Not yet?’ Lang supplied helpfully.

‘Yes. Just a little longer.’

She wished she could explain the sweet excitement he caused within her, and the caution she still had to overcome. But he came to her rescue, saying, ‘I imagine Renshu felt the same when he fell in love with Jaio. He probably had a fine career in the army, and falling for the Emperor’s concubine just spelled big trouble. He must have fought it, and maybe he kidded himself that he was succeeding, until her life was threatened, and then nothing else mattered. He knew he had to save her, and then he knew he had to be with her for ever-to love her, protect her, have children with her.’

His voice became reflective, as though he was just realising something.

‘When he finally faced it, he was probably relieved. However hard the way ahead, he’d be at peace, because the big decision was made.’

‘And yet he gave up so much,’ Olivia mused. ‘It was easier for her, she had nothing to lose, but he lost everything.’

‘No, he gained everything,’ Lang said quickly. ‘Even though they didn’t have very long together, she fulfilled him as nothing else ever could have done. And he knew that she would, or he’d never have gone to such lengths to make her his.’

‘And yet think of how they must have lived,’ Olivia said. ‘On the run for the rest of their lives, never really able to relax because they were afraid of being caught.’

‘I expect it was more than just being afraid,’ Lang said. ‘They probably knew for certain that one day they’d be caught and pay a heavy price. And, when it came, they were ready. The story is that when the soldiers found them Renshu tried to make Jaio escape while he held them off, but she went to stand beside him and they died together.’

‘But what about their son?’ Olivia asked. ‘Shouldn’t she have tried to live for his sake?’

‘Her son had been rescued by the family. If she’d gone after him she would only have led the soldiers to him. Her choice was either to die in flight, or die at Renshu’s side. To her there was really no choice at all. They knew what was coming. That’s why they left those writings behind. They wanted to tell the world while there was still time.’

Olivia gazed at him in wonder.

‘You speak as though you knew them, as though they were real people here with you this minute.’

‘Sometimes that’s just how it seems,’ he confessed. He gave her a wry smile. ‘No doubt you think that’s ludicrously sentimental, you being such a practical person!’

‘But you’re a practical person too,’ she pointed out. ‘How could a doctor not be?’

‘Yes, I’m a doctor, but that doesn’t mean I only believe in things that can be proved in a test tube.’

‘So a doctor can be as daft as anyone else?’ she teased.

‘Emphatically, yes. More so, in fact, because he knows what a false god scientific precision can be, and so he’s wiser if he-’

He broke off abruptly and she guessed the reason. He was moving faster than her, so fast that perhaps he even alarmed himself.

But her alarm was fading. With every minute that passed the conviction was growing in her that this was right. She didn’t know what was lying in wait for them, but whatever it was she was ready, even eager, to find it.