Read Online World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) by Richard Mason - Free Book Online Page B

I said coldly, and handed her the ten dollars. She took it without gratitude, still in a huff, and walked away briskly across the road. An oncoming tram narrowly missed her. And I was so angry at being exploited, my vanity was so hurt, that I half wished it had run her down.
    And it was not until weeks later that I really forgave her: not until one night when, glancing at Doris as she sat alone in her usual erect, schoolmarm way, I happened to notice with surprise that her eyes were closed, and that there were tears running from under the lids behind the rimless glasses.
    â€œLook,” I said, pointing her out to Gwenny. “What’s the matter with Doris?”
    â€œIt’s her children—you know she has two?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “Are they ill or something?”
    â€œNo, but she has no money. She’s only had one short-time in the last week.”
    I gave Gwenny ten dollars, asking her to slip them somehow into Doris’s bag. It was conscience money because my effort at kindness had been so feeble, and so short-lived—as if one invitation to lunch could cancel out years of bitterness and despair.

Chapter Four
    T he lunch with Doris had occurred only about ten days after I had moved into the Nam Kok. And it was on that same day that another extraordinary thing happened.
    I had been so ruffled by Doris’s behavior that my work that afternoon had been worse than indifferent, and at five o’clock I decided to pack up. There was a film I wanted to see at the New York. I couldn’t afford it—but what was another couple of dollars after the debacle at lunch? I cleaned my hands with paraffin and then washed them in the basin. I looked round for the towel. It was on the back of the armchair. The seat of the chair was cluttered with odd sketches and drawings, and as I dried my hands my eye fell on the charcoal sketch at the top. It was the sketch of Mee-ling——the little virgin of the ferry.
    It was not yet a week since our encounter, and despite the absorbing interest of the Nam Kok she had kept returning to my mind. That round enchanting little face. That look of mischievous innocence. That absurd pony tail—and those knee-length jeans. And only two days ago I had thought I recognized her on the quay, in a crowd of ferry passengers disgorging from the pier. I had been astonished at my own excitement. I had dashed toward her, but had tripped over the gangplank of a junk and sprawled headlong—and by the time I had picked myself up she was being whisked off in a rickshaw. The pain in my shin had not stopped me racing in pursuit. I had shouted her name, and the rickshaw coolie had looked back over his shoulder and slowed his pace.
    â€œMee-ling!” I had called again.
    â€œHah?” A girl’s puzzled face had looked out of the rickshaw. A fringe and two gold teeth. I had made a mistake.
    â€œI’m awfully sorry—I thought it was somebody else.”
    â€œHah?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter.”
    I had left her staring after me in bewilderment. I had felt very foolish—and my shin had ached all the more because I had hurt it for nothing.
    I finished drying my hands, smiling at the caption under the sketch, “Yes, virgin—that’s me.” I was still musing about her as I left the room. I handed the key to Ah Tong who was talking to the liftman. Somebody was calling the lift from downstairs and there was an angry buzzing. The buzzing became continuous as we rumbled downward. We reached the ground floor and the liftman clanked open the gates. A sailor and a girl were waiting outside, the girl with her hand on the bell-push. She gave it a couple of final jabs to express her indignation at being kept waiting. I had not seen her before during my ten days’ residence, but several girls had been away because of illness or because they had “regular” boy friends, and new faces were still turning up. She