Cheung heard the child screaming before he saw it. It sounded like the ghost of an ancestor improperly mourned. Emily stepped onto the pitch. She held a tiny bundle in her arms—it was from that bundle that the howling poured. Yim-Fong stood and Cheung rose with her, startled at how unwell Emily looked. Nowhere in her being was there a sign of the beautiful woman Tak-Wing had married five years ago. Her back hunched, and her body seemed to have collapsed from the inside, as though none of its internal structures had the strength to fully hold her up. Her hair had been neatly pressed in soft waves, but as she came closer, Cheung could see it was streaked with grey. Her skin sagged and there were dark circles beneath her vacant eyes. This woman was only twenty-four years old, but she looked fifty-four. The unearthly demon in her arms shrieked, and Cheung shuddered. It was as though time were running in the wrong direction. As though, instead of looking at his daughter-in-law holding his grandson, he was gazing back into the past at his grandmother holding his father in her arms. For a moment, he longed for Wong Nai Chung Village.

Tak-Wing rushed up and put his arm around her. Cheung had been reluctant to place his son on the British team, but Noma had expressly asked, “What about that sportsman son of yours, the pan-Asian hero who showed up all the white men on the pitch and the court? The Asian star of all the British games?”

One of the bankers must have told him of Tak-Wing’s reputation. Cheung had had no choice but to put Tak-Wing on the British team, though he feared desperately for his son. Cheung grimaced when he saw Tak-Wing, so handsome and neat in his cricket whites. The thought of losing his only remaining son was unbearable, yet he had to bear it.

Together, Tak-Wing and Emily approached the stand and bowed. Emily held the child out toward Cheung. This modern woman whom his son had insisted on marrying spoke in the most old-fashioned way: “Honoured Father-in-Law, honoured Mother-in-Law, I have had the good fortune to have borne you your first grandson.”

Still the child bawled.

“Raymond Duk-Ming, as you wished to name him,” croaked Emily, joyless but polite. “Shh, little one, hush,” she whispered.

The child did anything but. He kicked and wailed, as though furious to have been born into the world when it was in such a sorry state.

At least he is strong, thought Cheung.

Emily bowed again. Tak-Wing smiled, though there was something grim behind the smile.