Elizabeth Hancock, née Swire, who had herself only recently gotten married on the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ship as it made its way to Hong Kong via Bombay, Penang, and Singapore, lent Emily her wedding dress. As Emily’s sister, I was supposed to play bridesmaid, but I didn’t know a thing about a bridesmaid’s duties, so Mrs Hancock helped us. She ordered Emily a bouquet from one of the finest florists in the D’Aguilar Street flower market. She did Emily’s makeup. She did Emily’s hair too. “I’ll do it just like Wallis’s. You’ll be the most fashionable Chinese bride in the city.” She helped Emily into the complicated white dress, shortened and tucked by her own seamstress to fit Emily’s smaller frame. The dress was very white, and the makeup that Mrs Hancock had applied was too pale for Emily’s golden skin. Is this how things will be from now on? I wondered. Do we go into the future as ghosts?

In my green velvet jacket, thankfully brought back to life under Amah’s careful ministrations, I played father and escorted Emily from the ladies’ powder room on the second floor (given over to us for the day) to the grand entranceway of the clubhouse. Together, we stood there at the threshold and gazed out over the lawn, all laid out for the ceremony. The guests were seated with their backs to us, row upon row of blond, red, and brown heads, dressed earnestly in their Sunday finest for a ceremony that was both a jest and deadly serious. Resentment welled up in the pit of my stomach about the jesting aspect, but I pushed it down because it didn’t serve Emily in any way. I gripped my sister’s hand to buoy her up, though she didn’t seem to need it … at first. Her eyes shone, exuding joy. She didn’t see the joke—she saw only the romance, and she rode its tender white wings as though on the back of a swan. But Tak-Wing was late. He was supposed to arrive at twelve o’clock sharp, stage left, with his brother Tak-Tam as best man. I heard the noonday gun at Causeway Bay go off, and far across the harbour, the one-ton brass bell of the clock tower at the Kowloon–Canton Railway station faintly rang. Where was he? Had he changed his mind?

Emily’s grip on my hand grew tighter. I could feel her imaginary wings drooping, her inner balloon deflating.

“He’ll be here any second, Em.”

“Where is he?”

“Don’t worry, darling, I know he’s coming.” I knew no such thing, but it wasn’t my role to introduce doubt.

“How can you know, ViVi? He’s supposed to love me. I’m not supposed to have any cause to worry.”

Still he did not come.

She fiddled with the ribbon binding her bouquet.