It’s a summer night in 2006 on Gerrard Street, the main artery of London’s Chinatown. A lone gunman walks into a drinking den, JoJoBar, and shoots one of the customers as he embraces a female companion. The gunman escapes and none of the witnesses will speak to the police. The inexplicable murder of Donald Quek, a cocky young tourist from Malaysia, is set to remain unsolved unless his former girlfriend, Molly, can crack the case.
This new novel from author and poet Grace Chia is a banquet of a book serving romance, coming-of-age and murder-mystery sides as well as the main course which exposes the plight of ethnic Chinese migrants in London.
Molly is no Sherlock Holmes, nor is Donald much of a Romeo. Their relationship fizzled out after a few sessions of frenetic teenage sex and Donald left their childhood home, a rural town in Malaysia, to study in London. Molly also ventured abroad and is halfway through a teaching degree in Singapore when the killing occurs. Still nursing an unrequited love for Donald, she rashly agrees to go to London on behalf of his parents and find out what happened.
After a series of knockbacks, Molly eventually finds a room to rent in New Cross and begins her investigations. Through Molly’s outsider eyes, Chia explores the intricate network of relationships and (sometimes illegal) activities which underpin London’s Chinatown. Gerrard Street, demarcated by decorative arches or gates at its access points, is a physical manifestation of the Chinese enclave: difficult to penetrate; impossible to leave. It goes without saying that the food, concocted for British diners who wouldn’t know any better, is pretty bad too.
Molly’s initial enquiries at JoJobar are fruitless but she catches the eye of Ee-Ling, a Hong Konger who has come to London to stay with her sister and is working illegally as a waitress. Ee-Ling offers to help Molly get a job at Sin Cha Tien, a Gerrard Street restaurant, and she accepts. At the same time, Molly becomes involved with Iain, a British photographer whose pictures help to unlock the mystery of Donald’s death.
The murder, it turns out, is a small aspect of the novel and merely (spoiler alert!) a case of mistaken identity. The intended victim, the gangster Jin Ge, and his mistress, Mandy—who was kissing Donald when he was shot—are technically minor characters but their story is the backbone of the plot. Mandy’s history is particularly distressing. Chia places her as a survivor of the real-life (and utterly shameful) 2004 disaster where a group of trafficked Chinese workers drowned picking cockles in the UK’s Morecambe Bay. Mandy is “rescued” from the ensuing enquires by the snakehead, Wu Jie, and pressed into prostitution. Without a proper passport, Mandy is trapped as the kept woman of her exclusive client, Jin Ge.
Nearly every character that Molly encounters has struggled with the move to the UK. Some have fled their homeland for political reasons or economic necessity, leaving family behind, while others are motivated by a lust for adventure or riches—and don’t always find them. By weaving these individual tales into the novel, author Chia delivers much more than a murder-mystery. The Arches of Gerrard Street is ultimately a wide-ranging study of the forces which drive so many ethnic Chinese into London’s Chinatown and what happens to them when they arrive. Chia does not sugar-coat their experiences. From the get-go, the odds are stacked against them. Even the naive Molly recognizes the unfairness of the system:
Why is it that certain nationalities can enter, live and work in some countries and others can’t? Why should citizens of certain countries be privileged or penalized simply due to the place of their birth?
Many of the novel’s characters cling to the belief that coming to London will afford them a better life. Chia shows that this is by no means guaranteed and queries whether in fact anyone has agency in their own destiny. Jin Ge attributes his missed appointment with death to a twist of fate. “Sometimes lady luck chooses her favourites too,” he says. When Molly realises that Donald’s death was purely random, her education is complete. Chia writes:
The truth is awful and absurd. Truth so random there is no satisfying release. Shit happens. That’s it. I feel drained, sick to the core. This world is truly cruel and unbearable… we are mere pawns played out in games for the whims of fate.
Chia mollifies this rather depressing conclusion by showing the positive influence of love. Molly’s romance with Iain works out and she decides to temper reality by telling Donald’s parents, of whom she is very fond, that he died in the crossfire defending others. Meanwhile, Molly’s parents continue to emotionally support her even though she plans to stay far away from them in London. Life sucks, Chia tells us, but love will see us through.
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