Under the Hawthorn Tree (16 page)

Each load weighed nearly fifty kilograms, and each time Jingqiu filled up her baskets and stepped on to the narrow plank she felt it rock alarmingly below her. She was scared that she would step out into mid-air and just plop into the river. She could swim, but the water was full of stones; she wouldn't drown, but most likely she would be killed by a rock. With her gaze fixed ahead, and holding her breath, she stepped on to the plank.

Once off the boat she had to pile up the sand. The bank was fairly level at first but then it rose up steeply. You would struggle empty handed, so you can imagine what it was like scrambling up there carting two heavy baskets of sand. She now understood why the men had divided themselves into teams of two; after the hair-raising experience on the plank her legs were like mush. If someone else took the sand up the bank she could have gone back to the boat and had a moment's rest, but as one person doing both jobs she had no option but to do it all in one go.

After two rounds her body was already drenched in sweat. In the sun it was blisteringly hot and, with no water to drink, she felt that she would faint from heatstroke. But then she remembered that she would receive one yuan and twenty cents for this day's work, and the fear of not finding a job for two days was fresh in her mind, so she gritted her teeth and carried on.

She didn't know how she managed to struggle through the day. Once at home she had to pretend to be fine so as not to worry her mother. That day she was so tired that after eating and a wash she collapsed into bed.

The following day she got up early. The previous day's pain was a trifle in comparison to what she felt now. Now she knew what it meant to ache in your whole body. The skin on both shoulders was red-raw, to the point where she couldn't put her clothes on. The skin on the back of her neck had also been rubbed away from constantly shifting the weight on her shoulders. Her legs were incomparably heavy and her face and arms were severely sunburnt. Just splashing water on them was painful.

Jingqiu's mother saw her daughter get up and rushed over to her. ‘You're too tired, you groaned all night in your sleep. Don't go today.'

‘I always groan in my sleep.'

Her mother grabbed Jingqiu's shoulder pole from her hands and begged, ‘Jingqiu, don't go, my girl, it's heavy work and you could do so much damage. You say you're used to it and you don't get ill, but you don't normally groan in your sleep. You must have been very tired yesterday.'

‘Don't worry, I know how things stand, I won't do anything too heavy,' she comforted her mother.

After two days of shovelling sand the attitude of her fellow workers started to improve. She may have been a girl, but they saw that she carried exactly as many loads as they did. One man called Wang volunteered to form a team with Jingqiu. ‘Piling the sand is tiring, I'll do that, you lift it off the boat.' Wang struggled to unload his sand in time to take the load from her as soon as possible, that way each time Jingqiu would have to walk fewer steps. Once or twice Jingqiu had just come down from the boat when Wang met her for the pole, causing the others to laugh and embarrassing Jingqiu.

She worked for a few more days before the pain started to ease and she wasn't panting and puffing quite as much. Now all she worried about was that they might run out of work and she'd have to return to Director Li's house to wait goodness knows how long for another job. For her, piles of sand left to shift was the very definition of happiness, that is, endless work and an endless summer in which to do it.

The day before their work finished Jingqiu had just carried a load down from the boat when Wang came up to her and said, ‘Let me, someone's come for you. They're waiting by the bank. Go.'

Who would come down here to find her? ‘Do you know who it is?' she asked Wang.

‘She looks like she could be your sister. No one I know.'

Her knees went weak at the word ‘sister'. Something must have happened to her mother, as her sister would never run down here in the hot midday sun without a good reason. She had intended to take a load down off the boat with her but she couldn't lift anything after hearing the word ‘sister'. She let Wang take over. ‘I'm sorry to bother you,' she apologised, ‘I'll go see what the matter is and come straight back.'

She scrambled up the bank and saw her sister standing in the shade of a tree, and beside her was another girl. She squinted. It was Fang. She let out a sigh of relief. ‘Fang, what are you doing here? I thought . . .'

Fang was fanning herself with a handkerchief. ‘Phew, it's hot. How come you're working here on such a hot day?'

Jingqiu walked over to the shade. ‘Did you come today? Are you going back tonight?' Fang nodded. ‘Then I'll ask for the rest of the day off.' She felt a bit awkward about asking for time off because she'd have to leave Wang to work on his own, and she thought that unfair. She saw Wang climbing up the slope with a load of sand so she ran over to him to discuss it.

‘Take the day off, I can do it myself, no problem.'

Jingqiu asked the boss and then took Fang and her sister back to the house. Fang hadn't eaten yet so Jingqiu busied herself in preparing a meal to welcome Fang. They didn't have any fresh vegetables, so she used the salted beans and cabbage that Fang had brought with her on her last trip. She soaked them in hot water, fried up two bowls and added some pickles, and served them with mung bean congee. It was surprisingly tasty.

By the time Fang finished her bowl it was getting late and she wanted to go back to the city to catch her bus. Jingqiu invited her to stay for a few days but Fang declined. Time was getting on so she said she'd go with Fang to the bus station. They went to the jetty to cross the river in front of Jingqiu's house. ‘Every time you come it's such a rush. You never get to enjoy yourself,' Jingqiu apologised.

‘Today was my fault. I came on the eight o'clock bus and arrived here at nine, but I forgot the way to your house. I asked here, I asked there, until someone pointed me in the wrong direction. I walked a very long detour. I'm useless with directions.'

When the boat had rowed halfway, Fang pulled out an envelope from her pocket and gave it to Jingqiu. ‘You're like a sister to me, and if you feel the same way too, then you'll take this. If you don't I'll be upset.'

Jingqiu opened it and found one hundred yuan tucked inside. She was flabbergasted. ‘You . . . you came to give me money?'

‘So that you don't have to work.'

‘Where did you get so much money?'

‘It's my sister's. She sold the watch Zhao Jinhai gave her.'

Jinhai was Fen's ‘face', that much Jingqiu knew. But why would Fen sell her watch to lend me money? She loved that watch, how could she just sell it like that? She pushed the money into Fang's hands. ‘Thank your sister from me, but I can't take it. I can work and earn money, I don't like owing anyone anything.'

Fang resolutely refused to take the money. ‘Didn't I just say you're my sister, how come you treat me like we're not family?'

The two of them pushed the envelope back and forth until the boatman called, ‘D'you want to sink the boat?' scaring the two girls so they didn't dare move. Jingqiu was squeezing the money tight, racking her brains as to how she was going to slip it into Fang's bag once they got on shore.

‘Look, it's such a hot day, and you're working outside loading sand,' Fang started earnestly. ‘I couldn't do it, how can you? Not to mention towing trailers, working on building sites – they're not jobs for us girls.'

Jingqiu thought it strange as she'd never mentioned her work to Fang before. How does she know details like ‘towing trailers' or ‘working on building sites'? ‘Is this really your sister's? If you don't tell me the truth I definitely won't take it.'

‘If I tell you the truth, will you take it?'

‘You tell me where the money's from, and I'll take your money.'

Fang hesitated. ‘You better stick to your word. Don't go asking me for the truth and then not agree to take it.'

Jingqiu was now all the more certain that the money wasn't Fen's. She thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Tell me whose money it is. You call me a sister, but you don't trust me?'

Fang said finally, ‘Old Third asked me to give it to you, but he told me not to say. He said he didn't know how he'd offended you, but if you knew it was his, you wouldn't take it.'

Fang looked at Jingqiu holding the money and thought she was taking it. Smiling, she boasted, ‘I said I could sort it out. Old Third didn't believe me, he thought I wouldn't be able to persuade you.' Fang took some coins out from her pocket, and rubbing them said proudly, ‘Old Third also gave me money to take the bus once I got here to the city. He told me to take the bus to the last stop, then take the boat, and I'd be able to see your house. But I didn't take the bus as I was worried that I'd take the wrong one. So I got lost instead, but I did save the bus money.'

Jingqiu thought, perhaps he never got my letter. She thought it best not to mention the letter to Fang, so just asked, ‘Old Third? Is he all right?'

‘Why wouldn't he be? But he did say he's been anxious since the holidays started. He reckoned you'd gone out to work and he's worried you'll fall from a ladder or into the river or something. He's always talking about you to me. He was pressing me to deliver the money to you, saying that if I didn't go soon it might be too late and something might have already happened. It wasn't that I didn't want to come as soon as possible, it's just that our holidays start later than yours. In fact, I came as soon as I could. If I hadn't, he would have talked 'til my ears bled.'

Jingqiu fell silent. Then, pretending nothing had happened, she said, ‘How could he tempt fate by saying things like that? Lots of people do extra work and how many of them have been killed or drowned?'

The boat reached the bank and the two girls stepped down. ‘I'll take you on the bus,' Jingqiu said. ‘That way, you'll get to know the route and next time you won't get lost.'

This was the first time Fang had ridden a city bus, and it was an exciting experience for her; she was too consumed with the view out of the window to chat to Jingqiu.

At their stop Fang followed Jingqiu, as they shoved their way off the bus. ‘Such a short ride? We can't have gone far enough. It was really far when I walked, how can it be so quick on the bus?'

At the long distance bus station Fang bought one ticket for the three o'clock bus. ‘Aren't you scared about walking on the mountain road alone?' Jingqiu asked.

‘I won't walk that way, I'll go on the lower road where there're always lots of people.'

Jingqiu realised there would be no more opportunities to sneak the money into Fang's bag, so she'd just have to get tough. She grabbed Fang's hand, stuffed the money into it and then closed it. ‘Thank Old Third for me, but I can't take his money. And tell him not to do this again.'

Fang's hand was clamped shut in Jingqiu's, and so she had no choice but to wait for another opportunity to give it back again. ‘Why won't you take it? He's trying to help you, so let him. Are you only happy when he's worrying?'

‘I don't want him to worry, and he needn't.' Jingqiu paused in thought, and continued, ‘He has . . . a fiancée, he should be worrying about her.'

Jingqiu was longing to hear Fang say, What fiancée? He doesn't have a fiancée, but instead she asked, ‘What has this got to do with his fiancée?'

‘So he's really got . . . a fiancée?'

‘Apparently their parents organised it, many years ago.'

Jingqiu was distressed, as subconsciously she had been hoping that it wasn't true. Dumbly, she asked, ‘How do you know he has a fiancée?'

‘He said so himself, and he gave my sister-in-law a picture of them together.'

‘Yumin said that she put the photo under the windowsill in your room. How come I haven't seen it? He must have taken it and hidden it.'

‘Don't go making false accusations, I was the one who took it. Someone told me that if you cut a photo of two people in half – without cutting into either person, mind – then you can split them up in real life. So, I cut them apart.'

Jingqiu thought this sounded very childish, not to mention superstitious, but also quite fascinating, if it really worked, that is. ‘Did you manage to cut them apart perfectly?'

‘Ah, more or less. But their shoulders were a bit close together. Old Third's shoulder was tucked behind her shoulder, so when I cut the photo Old Third lost a chunk of it. Don't tell him about this, it's bad luck.' Fang didn't look like she believed in all that, and started laughing. ‘If Old Third had a sore shoulder that day, it's all my fault.'

‘It'd serve him right. How can he do this? He's got a fiancée, and yet he's giving other people money?'

‘Just because someone's got a fiancée, doesn't mean that they're not allowed to give other people money,' Fang said, surprised. ‘He's got a good heart, he doesn't mean anything by it. Don't misunderstand him, and think he's got his eye on you. He's not that kind of person. He's got a soft heart and can't bear to see other people suffering. Didn't he help Cao Daxiu from the village, remember?'

‘Who's Cao Daxiu?'

‘You know, that girl whose father is an alcoholic – people call him “Three-slugs-a-day Cao”. Have you forgotten? He once came round when Old Third was having dinner at ours and asked him for money.'

Jingqiu remembered, oh him. ‘Old Third helped his daughter? How?'

‘Daxiu's father loves drinking and brawling. Her mother died young – it's possible he beat her to death. He was always hitting her mother, no matter how much he had had to drink, and even when completely sober. Three times at the drink, and three times at it with his fists, why else would he be called “Three-slugs-a-day Cao”?