Free The Year of the Woman by Jonathan Gash

scorn. What a boor! You passed even the smallest gift with
two
hands, proper Cantonese style, not one. Sloven; she worked for a sloven. The shame of it! Ghost Grandmother would go on about him tonight. She’d say, “What a tortoise! Forgetting the Eight Laws of Politeness! What is he, a Japanese?” and cackle at her offensive wit. Little sleep tonight, then. KwayFay hated him.
    “Is it rebate?” Definitely her own voice now andwithout a quaver.
    “Rebate?” His smile became a ghastly rictus.
    Over time, HC imposed fines on the staff. She was especially at risk. Smarting over some domestic reversal with Linda his gambling-mad wife, he’d say, “KwayFay! You are bated five per cent! Work faster, understand? More encouragement for clients to invest!”
    And one-twentieth of her wage would be missing. Or one-tenth, on a bad day. Mostly for his wife’s gambling, or sheer spite caused by poor trading figures. She understood . His theft was therapy, as a doctor gave tranquillisers to see a patient through some horror. At her expense, of course. She and her friend Alice never discussed this except by nudges and looks.
    “Rebate?”
    HC tried to make it an imperious demand, but failed. Astonished, KwayFay recognised supplication, like the expression he wore when attempting a maul. She might have felt compassion but detestation proved more satisfying .
    “Of the fines.”
    “The fines!”
    He attempted a laugh. It strengthened her. She felt as if she had burned joss sticks at the little Tai Wong Temple on Ap Lei Chau island where the god Hung Shing was worshipped; or, more aptly, pausing for a discreet mental worship when she passed by 22, Tin Hau Temple Road, where, decades ago there once stood the Fung Sin Ku Temple. Uplifted, perhaps. A temple, however poor, had a right to memory just as if it were a person. Ignore that kind of responsibility and you would find yourself in trouble. Righteousness overcameignorance at every level. Perhaps she might tell Ghost Grandmother that tonight, it being quite clever, able to boast a little, at the thought. But was it clever to refuse money?
    “Yes, the fines.”
    “Who takes notice of those!” he boomed. “Flea bites, KwayFay! A captain has his hand on the tiller, so a boss has to control his business by discipline!”
    She rose slowly. The heat had stuck her bottom to the chair. How slovenly to skim office spending on proper chairs! Those Triad men had the grace to think ahead in this; why not a businessman?
    “I must get back to work.”
    Sack me for that, she thought with belligerence. The red and gold envelope seemed to wince:
I am money, left ignored?
    “KwayFay. Please.”
    “I have problems,” she invented, to escape. “Bounty Cook Island Republic. The Hang Seng Bank will refuse to set a currency exchange rate at three o’clock.”
    “Will they?” he shrieked in a frantic gusher of sweat. She observed him with open contempt. “For sure?”
    She was surprised. She’d simply assumed that’s what would happen. The Hang Seng gave the cheapest rates of exchange for tourist money, as everybody knew except tourists. Why would a sound bank do otherwise with a dud currency?
    “Sure.” Let him do what he would with her guesses. Today was awry, things in it beyond her control.
    “Then we mustn’t touch it!” he gasped out, clutching his chest.
    “I’ve already refused it twice.”
    No thought that she might have guessed wrong. What if Australia or some place, New Zealand even, maybe Fiji if things went disastrously wrong, decided to support the new money for political reasons?
    “Tell all the other staff.”
    “No, First Born.” And explained, cold, “You docked my salary last month for doing that.”
    “No!” He wiped his brow, looking about as if for escaped logic. “Yes! No, KwayFay! I’ll see to it!”
    His bravado, truculence in the face of adversity, such as a brave man might feel, was as convincing as a cardboard cut-out.
    She marched out, pleased.