with her sleeve, summoning the courage to say something. She was no longer wearing her usual dress, a brownish affair that was too short in the sleeves. Today she was in Sunday best, a bright, stiff blue that suited her ill. “You going to see your friends?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes.” Mary hoped this wouldn’t take long. Perhaps she ought to play the callous, cocky boy after all. Gentleness could swallow up another half hour.
“In St John’s Wood?”
“Maybe. I got lots of friends, you know.” She glanced around, as though in a hurry.
“I suppose you have.”
But Winnie looked so forlorn that Mary relented. “You can’t follow me about, Winnie. It ain’t safe.”
“I weren’t following! I wanted – I was going to ask—” Here, she drew a deep breath and rattled out a speech so quickly that Mary scarcely caught it. It was clearly one she’d been rehearsing for some time. “Would you like to come to Poplar with me, for Sunday dinner, at our house? It’s always proper food, Chinese food, not like all that muck at Miss Phlox’s, and my mother, she’s a wonderful cook, and my father, he’s home on shore leave, and – oh, I think you’d like it, ever so much. It’d remind you of – well, of home, and all that.”
For one incredulous minute, Mary thought she might be dreaming. Or perhaps it was a nightmare. The idea of Winnie’s Sunday dinner – a Chinese family, a Chinese meal – made her stomach twist with a complex stab of fear, resentment, inadequacy, jealousy.
Stupid Winnie, who invited strange boys to her family’s home.
Hateful Winnie, who had a family to go home to.
Smug Winnie, who thought her family so superior.
Lucky Winnie, who had a family at all.
Mary looked at the girl’s pink face, her hopeful, timid eyes. And the knowledge of what Winnie had in Poplar – a mother who was a wonderful cook, a father who’d come home from the sea – made Mary go cold and numb. “Can’t. I’ve got things to do.”
And she spun on her heel and walked away.
She was crying. Again.
Mary ducked into another alley and tried to staunch the flow. Sometimes, it felt as though she’d never stopped. But rather than calming her feelings, the luxury of privacy – even in a smelly back alley – seemed to stir up even more, and she began to bawl outright. Curling herself into a ball, she huddled against a dusty stone wall and wept. For her mother, dead and gone. For her father, lost and forgotten. And, mostly, for herself. For Mary Lang, the mixed-race child, daughter of a Chinese sailor and an Irish needlewoman. For the sweetness of her childhood, while her parents lived, and then for its horror, after they died. For the fact that she’d once belonged, and the knowledge that now she never would again. Winnie hadn’t deserved such rudeness, but she would also never understand just how privileged she was.
Mary cried as she hadn’t in years. Perhaps as she never had. And even as she wept, she understood that this couldn’t go on. This was her last such indulgence – a farewell of sorts. Because after these minutes of weakness, she must let go of her Chinese identity. She would deny it, protect it, conceal it at all costs, because the truth was simply too painful and too dangerous. There was no room in English society for half-castes, and her choice was simple: either deny her Chinese blood, or be for ever limited by it. The last thing she wanted was to be defined solely by her father’s race – and so she would have to sacrifice it entirely.
It was a crude choice, a hateful one. But it was better to choose than to have her fate thrust upon her. Gradually, her sobs eased. Tears dried up. She wiped her face as best she could, using the inside of her jacket. Then she took a deep breath, embracing the fetid smell of the river as a means of concentrating her attentions. And she set out once again for Westminster.
Twenty-five
On Sunday mornings, the Pig and Whistle had the aspect of a busy church: clean and polished, and all within gathered for the same purpose. Most tables were occupied by quiet clusters of three or four, while a number of solo gentlemen leaned against the bar, meditatively sipping beer. The landlady, a rosy, bosomy woman in a ribboned cap, polished imaginary smears from the bar.