Kathy Duffy had told me that there was a burial mound in Kowloon called Sung Wong Toi, and that that last kings of the Song were buried there. “Imagine,” she said, “if they had lived. Imagine if the Song dynasty had continued to flourish in Hong Kong for the last eight hundred years. Imagine that they retained their dream of liberty through all that time and into the present. You’d have to imagine that they might at some point have developed freedoms for women. Sometimes that is what I like to dream of—that the Song came here to Hong Kong and flourished. And that it perhaps brought back some of the wonders of the Tang. When I look at your people, sometimes I think that you could carry that in ways that people in other parts of China could not. What do you think, Violet? Would you like to live in such a place?”

I had nodded yes. But now I think it strange that an old Irish lady, educated at Trinity College Dublin, would dream such a dream.

I thought about my old father then, and all the ways that one can be a Hong Kong Chinese. I thought about that creepy old taipan, my great-great-grandfather Henry Witt-Weatherall, and how he made us old Hong Kong Chinese and took our Chineseness away from us at the same time. I thought about how we might be different if he had acknowledged us as family. Would my grandfather have married a Chinese woman? Would my father? Would I then even be here as Violet Mah Wai-Man? I thought about the cricketers at the HKCC, and their lost King Edward VIII, and whether or not their lives would have been any different if he hadn’t abdicated.

CHAPTER 16NOT GOLDEN

July 14, 1937

Old Cheung was back at the Tai Hang house, and had already done most of the packing. Furniture, clothing, pots, and pans were all stacked up by the window in the front room. He sat on a stool outside, smoking a cigarette, while Yim-Fong washed the floors. Tak-Tam came up the road alongside the big nullah, a wistful look on his face. He handed his father a package of wedding lunch leftovers, though he didn’t say where they were from.

“At least one of my sons still comes home,” grumbled Old Cheung.

“I’ve come to help you with the move, Ba,” said Tak-Tam, pulling up a stool to sit beside him.

“It’s all done, except the beds. I hope you’re sleeping here tonight?”

“I hope so too.”

“But you won’t tell me where you were today, or where your lousy brother has gone.”

“Can’t. Sworn to secrecy.”

“Doesn’t matter. I already know where you were. I was there.”

Tak-Tam didn’t want to admit that he had seen Old Cheung, so he said nothing.