The Rice Paper Diaries Read Online Free PDF

some joke that he first made six months ago.
    ‘Yes.’ The boy had his hand on the door. ‘Dai is a good Welsh name!’ he said, smiling. ‘Good afternoon, Captain.’
    ‘Goodbye, Dai Lo,’ Elsa said as she passed him, in good spirits again now that Mimi Forsyth had gone on ahead. ‘Nice to see you again.’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Captain. Goodbye.’
    As Tommy closed the door behind them Elsa caught a glimpse of Dai Lo running a cloth over the ring marks and cigarette burns that had pushed their way through the tabletops like spores. He told her once that he loved the races.
    Tommy was in a good mood. He and Ronald were doing well, and there was one race to go. Elsa could see the starter pistol held up in the air, waiting for the signal. That moment, as his fingers pulled the trigger, stretched out like elastic, so that later all Elsa would remember of this afternoon would be the straw roughly strewn underfoot, the crouched jockeys poised for the off, and the startled horses jumping one after the other. Two minutes later, after a flash of silky brown muscles, it was over.
    ‘Where have Ron and Liz got to?’
    Tommy was pushing a good handful of dollar bills into his wallet.
    Elsa caught sight of them coming out of the clubhouse. Liz looked untidy and happy. Tommy put his arm around Elsa, and they walked over to Ronald’s car.
    ‘I’m so pleased you came today,’ he said to her. The air was much cooler now, and she was glad of his arm on her shoulder.
    A man walked past them the other way, back into the clubhouse. He wore a smart suit, and had his hair combed back off his face.
    ‘Was that Oscar Campbell?’
    ‘I didn’t see. I don’t think so,’ said Tommy, pulling her back towards him and kissing her on the neck as he held the car door open for her.
    Ronnie drove along Sassoon Road, where rows of shoe shops rubbed up against each other, and Elsa waited for Tommy to make a joke about the pairs of shoes lined up at the bottom of her wardrobe. But he hadn’t even noticed them. He was talking in a quiet, quick voice to Ronnie, and Ronnie was nodding in silence, his eyes in the mirror sliding from left to right along the pavements.
    The car passed a chemist’s with a bottled embryo on display, so small and jellied Elsa found it hard to believe it would ever have grown into a real baby. Liz held a handkerchief against her mouth. A beggar pushed his hand through the open window at one of the intersections – ‘Please, please,’ – frightening both of them and making Ronald swear.
    ‘For God’s sake Liz, close the window,’ he said.
    And then they turned the corner past the hairdresser’s and Jimmy’s café, and the neon lights of the city began to fade into a glowing mass below them.
    Tommy winked at Elsa over his shoulder.
    ‘Won’t be long now,’ he said.

4
    It was only once Elsa had put one foot on the stairs leading to the upper deck of the tram that she realised her mistake. Lam hung back, pointing to the Chinese sign next to the driver.
    ‘I can’t come up there. Chinese sit downstairs. You go up, and I’ll let you know when we need to get off.’
    The windows were open at each side, letting in a cross - draught that carried with it the smell of fish. On the street below, long, thin shops were fronted by metal trays piled high with paak tsoi , gnarled bulbs of ginger, sweet potatoes, and green grapefruit. A butcher stood over a chopping board, a cleaver in one hand and the other pinning a fish to the board. It flapped up and down helplessly, first head, then tail, from one end to the other. He struck it over the head with the handle of the knife and then started gutting it. It was still moving, the transparent white fin on its side thrashing up and down.
    ‘Des Voeux Road, Mrs Jones.’
    Lam said it quietly enough, but her voice carried up the stairs. Elsa held onto the metal pole and pulled herself to her feet. Lam was waiting for her on the pavement.
    ‘Where’s the shop?’
    They were making