The Trophy Taker

As Georgina looked up and nodded her appreci ation, Lucy saw that her cousin’s eyes were watery. She jumped up. ‘More tea! We need more tea!’ And she scurried back out to the kitchen. ‘Chinese tea, the best! Do you like it?’ she called.

Georgina didn’t answer: she was transfixed by the photograph. Lucy came in again, carrying a tray. ‘Long time ago, this picture, huh? You know this picture was taken when our family first moved here to Hong Kong. See! There is father, mother, and two little girls. My mommy and yours, see? When our family came from mainland China, long time back … they had big hopes then, but …’ she shrugged ‘… didn’t work out so good, huh? But your mom, she did fine,’ Lucy continued. ‘She was good in school … learn a lot … worked in a bank. Really good how she manage to get that kind of job.’

‘She met my dad in that bank.’

‘Yes! Very lucky. My mommy not so lucky.’ Lucy shrugged. ‘Maybe she not so clever …’

Lucy poured out more tea. Georgina was still looking at the photo. ‘Have you got any more photos?’

‘No, shame, I have very little of our family. Now not many of us left, huh, juz the three of us now.’

‘Lucy, I am very grateful to you for letting me stay. But what about you and Ka Lei? You have to share a room now?’

‘No problem. We always share.’

‘My room is always empty?’

‘An American girl had your room. I don’t know where she is now.’ Lucy rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Nice girl, very pretty; blonde hair, long nails.’

He liked her nails. It was one of the first things he’d noticed about her. He liked women who looked after themselves. He had made her paint her nails especially, on that last day before he chased her through the forest. He’d made her paint them in stars and stripes, like the American flag. She had painted her nails with expert precision, each stripe was perfectly in line. In the centre of each nail she had painted one red star and sprinkled it with glitter. He smiled to himself, satisfied. Now he would always know which finger was hers.

15

Max lived in Sheung Sai Wan, Western District. It was an area that, despite its name, was the least westernised district of all Hong Kong. It was also the place that the British had first settled in, then hastily fled from when malaria came biting at their heels. Industries in the area were small and family run. Life was as it used to be. Profits were small and everyone had something to sell. Traditional skills and oriental sundries crowded the cobbled alleyways. Bolts of silk that were rolled from one-hundred-year-old spools. Chinese calligraphy that was carved into ornate ‘chops’ made from ivory and jade. Snakes had their gall bladders removed and presented to the purchaser to drink, before being placed back in their wooden box – gall-bladderless. But Western District’s days were numbered: new developments were poking their bony fingers out of the living decay and time-debris. The Fong family – Max, his brother Man Po and his father – lived on Herald Street. It was one of the broader, quieter roads at the lower end of the district. Most of the buildings on Herald Street had a shop front. Some shops were still in full use, merchandise spilling out and obstructing the pavement. Others had rusted-up metal shutters and decrepit doorways that had been a long time silent. There was a peaceful, dusty old quiet about Herald Street, but there was also a permanent smell of decay there: rotting, fermenting vegetation, cultivated by years of neglect. The Fong family lived in a four-storey building situated three-quarters of the way along the street. They had had a thriving business once. Father Fong had been a well-respected doctor. He had held his practice on the ground floor of the house, and the shop front had served as the dispensary. Queues had formed from the shop entrance and continued down Herald Street on most days, with people waiting patiently to see him. He was so respected that it was widely accepted he could perform miracle cures, and his notoriety spread in both Chinese and Western circles.

The shop was crammed with all ma

Father Fong had panicked into marrying her – anyone was better than no one, and the boy needed a mother. But, once married, Nancy quickly grew discontented and let the business fall into decline. Then, as luck would have it, just as Father Fong’s patience was stretched to breaking point, she fell pregnant and became so tired that she had to sit in the upstairs lounge all day, feeding the canary and eating buns. In jubilation at her pregnancy, Father Fong forgave her laziness and bought her a dog, a small white toy Pekinese. All you could hear all day long was the tap tap of the ping-pong ball and the yap yap of little ‘Lucky’, as Nancy played with her beloved dog.

That summer, when Nancy was pregnant and Father Fong too busy to see her cruelty, she poured pints of vindictive venom on her stepson, whom she hated with as much perverse energy as she loved the dog. Max was beaten and starved and locked in the store cupboard, which had no artificial light, just a tiny barred window. It had been summer and the storms had come, lightning illuminating the room for seconds at a time. The heat made his clothes stick to his body, so that he had to pull them off and sit naked, squashed up in the suffocating darkness, panting, breathless with fear and excitement, screaming as the lightning blinded him and the rain came lashing down.

That summer he became a man. He touched his body in the darkness and felt its yearnings and longings. He became a man, caged in that cupboard, howling at the storm.

One day, in the last stage of Nancy’s pregnancy, while she was resting, Max found himself alone with Lucky. The dog sat watching him from its place on the leather-look sofa. Its pink tongue protruded as it panted in the heat. It kept its bulbous eyes on the bedroom door, patiently waiting for its mistress to wake. Max looked at the dog and gave in to an overwhelming desire to kill it. Taking Lucky by the throat, he shook and squeezed the little dog until its eyes bulged from its head and its body stopped ru