The Year of Dangerous Loving
It was the usual hostile stuff that lawyers prefer, advising him that they were instructed by Elizabeth Amelia Hargreave to institute divorce proceedings against him in the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, reminding him that in terms of the law of California, where the marriage was solemnized, the said Elizabeth Hargreave was entitled to half the matrimonial assets. The grounds for divorce were his ‘mental cruelty’, his ‘persistent refusal to lead a normal social life’, his ‘unnecessary dedication to work at the expense of his home life’, his ‘excessive drinking and gambling’, his ‘embarrassing attentions to other women’, his ‘unreasonable withholding of conjugal rights’ and his ‘mediocre performance of same’. No mention of her shooting him. Fuller particulars of his cruelty would be provided in the petition that would be served on him shortly: meanwhile it would expedite matters and reduce expenses if he would indicate whether he intended to contest the action.
Lord, it hurt him. And mortified him. But no way would he contest it – Unreasonable withholding of conjugal rights and his mediocre performance of same … No way could he wash his dirty linen in public; no way was he going to stand in the witness box and argue about any of it, let alone his lousy sexual performance. Anything rather than that – let Elizabeth take him to the cleaners, let the divorce slip quietly through undefended, just let the earth swallow him up, let him resign his post immediately, fold his tents and steal out of this bloody awful town.
That letter arrived on a hot Saturday at the end of that long, tormenting summer, six weeks after Hargreave came out of hospital. He had intended venturing out socially for the first time since the shooting incident, and had arranged to meet Bernie Champion at the horse races in Happy Valley, the first meeting of the season: but the letter changed that. He could not face his friends with that letter ringing in his ears, nor the yacht club crowd; but neither could he face the empty apartment. So that left only one place to go, to get the hell out of himself, out of this embarrassing town: Macao.
And so it was that Alistair Hargreave, on impulse, took a taxi down to the hydrofoil jetty and boarded a vessel to the Portuguese colony of Macao, forty miles away, on the other side of the River Pearl: and his life took a very serious turn.
Many events in life are mere coincidences, in that something happens only because something else has just happened to happen. Had the lawyer’s letter not arrived that very day Hargreave would have gone to the races in Happy Valley, not to Macao, and he would not have made a fistful of money by betting recklessly on greyhound races – he knew nothing about greyhounds and didn’t bet on animals whose form he had not studied. Had that letter not arrived that Saturday he would not have got drunk in the process of making a fistful of silly money and he would not have gone on to the clamorous floating casino to blow it. Hargreave, being a cautious, serious gambler, believed in quitting when he was ahead, and furthermore he eschewed games of pure chance. Had he not gone to the casino he would not have found himself throwing silly dice at the crap table, winning more money, and standing next to the beautiful Olga Romalova. Had the letter from Elizabeth’s lawyer not arrived that very Saturday, had Hargreave gone to Macao the following weekend to drown his sorrows, even if he had ended up at the very same floating casino, he would not have met Olga Romalova, for her work permit expired that week and she would have returned to Russia. Had he not been winning silly money, the beautiful Olga would not have followed his bets, jumping up and down in excitement and planting a big fragrant kiss on his cheek. Had she not done that he would not have rubbed the dice against her for luck and felt her magnificent femininity as she hugged him in delight when he won yet again, he would not have been emboldened to invite her for a drink. Had he not done that, his life would have been very different.
Despite all the whisky inside him Hargreave was surprised that she accepted: he had presumed that elsewhere in the clamorous casino was a husband or a boyfriend about to reclaim her. When, at the noisy bar, she looked into his eyes and said she was totally unattached, Hargreave thought it was his lucky day. What a beautiful, magnificent girl … So when he invited her to dinner, thinking that beat-up Alistair Hargreave had made a conquest, her reply disappointed him greatly.
‘Thank you, that would be very nice, but I am a singer at a night-club so we must first go there so you can arrange to take me out.’
Bitterly disappointed, was Hargreave. A prostitute – what kind of night-club singer can you ‘arrange’ to take out? So it wasn’t his lucky night – it wasn’t true love after all. A prostitute, a smashing girl like this … But night-clubs, and prostitutes, were simply not Hargreave’s scene – he had not been to bed with a bar-girl in twenty years. So he mumbled an excuse and watched her walk away to work with regret.
It was watching her walk away that did it: those long golden legs, her silk dress sliding over her beautiful buttocks, her tumult of blonde hair down her back, the dazzling smile and cheery wave she threw over her shoulder: she was pure sexuality. If he had not watched her walk away, if he had shrugged off his alcoholic disappointment and gone back to the crap table, his life would have been very different: but for the next hour, while he drank another row of whiskies midst the Chinese clamour, that image of her sexuality steamed in his mind. Maybe she really was a singer, not a prostitute? Maybe arranging to take her out meant nothing more than advising the manager she was going to be absent for a while, perhaps it simply meant rescheduling her performance? And when he finally scraped together his drunken resolve and set out into the teeming Macao waterfront to look for her, coincidence continued to play a vital part, for he did not know which night-club she worked in. He could have wasted hours looking in the Troubadour or the China Nite or the Pearl, and given up: but he went first to the Heavenly Tranquillity because it was a well-known place he remembered hearing about over the years. And if he had been even five minutes later he would not have found her, because she was a very popular prostitute.
‘Hullo, Alistair,’ she murmured behind him as soon as he had sat down at the crowded bar in the glittery tourist joint, ‘so am I very lucky tonight?’
Even then Hargreave had no actual intention of trying to go to bed with her, despite the drink: he had looked for her only out of an intoxicated desire to see that female sexuality again, and maybe to hear her sing, to admire her, to lust after her from afar. But when he turned and saw her again, that lovely face, those big blue eyes and the sparkling smile, those perfect breasts, those long golden legs, he was lost: if she was a prostitute he simply had to have her, he simply had to possess that magnificent body just once.
‘Olga. What a surprise!’
‘Is it? You didn’t look for me? I am disappointed.’
‘Will you have a drink?’
‘Will you have a dance with me first?’
Oh yes … Alistair Hargreave was not a dancing man, but he had to feel this glorious woman close against him immediately, he just had to hold her in his arms.
Her dress was mid-thigh length to show off her long legs, her lovely breasts swelled against the low-cut bodice, her smooth skin warm through the slippery silk. They danced close, and he could feel her body-heat against him, the warmth of her belly and thighs, he could feel the cleft of her buttocks under his hand, her mound of Venus pressed against him.
‘You want to make love,’ she whispered.
Oh yes please. Hargreave was smouldering with desire. He did not ask, ‘How much?’ He did not care how much.
3
It was very expensive: five hundred American dollars bar-levy to buy her out of the club for the night, plus five hundred dollars ‘for me’. Hargreave knew it was an outrageous sum, that he could have her for half if he protested, but it would be ungentlemanly to bargain with a lady. He paid unflinchingly at the bar, with his winnings. He had not had a woman for a long time, and he simply had to have this glorious girl splayed out beneath him tonight.
And what a wonderful night it was. When he woke up beside her in the Estoril Hotel that Sunday morning to the sound of church bells, hungover and exhausted, he felt no remorse. He was not concerned about having been recognized in the Tranquillity club: it was a well-known tourist venue and anyway there had been nobody he knew. He did not flinch when he remembered he had not used a condom, he felt no moral guilt at the sound of those church bells.
When he woke up he was thinking of her golden nakedness, the breathtaking beauty of her as’she had slipped the silk dress off her shoulders: her glorious curves, her jutting breasts, her soft hips, her long perfect legs. She was the most naked woman in the world. Then came the wildly erotic business of showering together, the glorious soapy feel of her, her breasts and buttocks and thighs gleaming, slippery: he had wanted her so much that he had not been able to produce an erection. That’s how come he had not used a condom: he remembered her leading him to the bed, her riotously golden hair splayed across his loins as her wide mouth did its magic on him. That’s when he had thrown caution to the wind, toppled her over and clambered on top of her nakedness, thrusting frantically up into the sweet hot depths of her.
No; no regrets. And when he woke up that sultry church-belled Macao morning with Olga’s sleepy nakedness against him there was no question about an erection. And after it was over, in a crescendo such as he had never known, he had no doubt about how he was going to spend today. Lying beside her, exhausted, he said:
‘Don’t go. Stay.’
She sat up, tousled, and beamed down at him: ‘Yes? Lovely!’ Then she added apologetically, ‘But I regret you must pay.’
Hargreave grinned. Of course she didn’t regret it, but the solemn way she said it was endearing. ‘How much?’ He did not care.
‘The same as last night?’ she said with an anxious little frown.
‘On a Sunday? Surely there’s a discount for a Sunday; no night-clubs do big business today.’
‘No,’ she said earnestly, ‘every weekend in Macao is high season. Monday to Thursday is low season, but Sunday is full price: I’m sorry, darling.’ It seemed she almost meant the endearment.
‘But the night-club won’t know – tell them you spent the day in bed with a headache.’
She said earnestly: ‘They know everything, and if I do not pay they will punish me.’ She widened her eyes, made a guttural noise and drew her finger across her throat.
Hargreave grinned. ‘And such a beautiful throat. Okay, but I haven’t got five hundred US on me.’
‘Credit-card!’ She scrambled up on to her knees and hugged his head against her glorious breasts. ‘I’m so happy!’ She reached for the bedside telephone, punched the buttons, and spoke rapidly in Russian.
They were lying squashed up together in the bubble-bath, drinking champagne sent up by room service, when there was a knock on the door. Hargreave heaved himself up and draped a towel around his waist.
A tall white man stood outside, smiling politely. He had slick black hair, was athletically built, and carried a briefcase. ‘My name is Vladimir. I have come about Olga, sir. I am the accountant.’ He walked in, opened his briefcase and pulled out a credit-card machine.
Accountant? Very fancy name for a pimp. He was the guy to talk to about discounts. ‘I get a different price on Sunday?’
‘Will Olga return to the club at seven o’clock?’
Oh, he wanted her tonight. ‘No.’
‘Then it is full price, sir.’ He ran the machine over the card, wrote ‘Goods’ on the slip, and gave it to Hargreave to sign. It was made out to Gorky Enterprises. ‘You are satisfied with Olga’s service, sir?’
‘Oh yes.’
Vladimir produced a visiting card, printed in English on one side, Chinese on the other: there was no address but it gave a Macao telephone number. ‘If you have any complaints, please call immediately. We have many girls, all very good, all speak English, sir.’
Lord, a thousand dollars. But Hargreave signed the slip without second thoughts.
‘Thank you,’ Vladimir said. ‘Have a nice day.’
It was a lovely day. Afterwards, when he was to look back, it seemed the happiest day of his life to date, the start of the happiest period of his life. After finishing the champagne in the bath – her happy, slippery nakedness all over him felt like love – they had a late breakfast on their balcony overlooking the waterfront and harbour, with another bottle of champagne, while downstairs the hotel’s casino hummed and tinkled.
‘So tell me about yourself, Olga.’
‘Where do you want me to begin?’ She grinned. ‘And what do you want me to leave out?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Not even about my profession?’ She added, with a twinkle in her lovely eyes, ‘You must not worry about Aids, you know. I always make love only with a condom. You were the first time I did not.’
He was thankful to hear that, though he had not thought about it since the sound of the church bells. ‘Why didn’t you?’
She clasped her hands under her chin. ‘Because … I wanted to do it like that. I wanted it to be natural. Because I like you. Because I was –’ she searched for the word – ‘reckless about you.’
He wanted to laugh, and squeezed her hand. ‘Yes, I also felt reckless. Because I like you too.’ He felt like a teenager.
‘Because you think I am sexy?’
‘Because you are very sexy, and very beautiful, and because you are a very nice person.’
‘How do you know? All I did was take your money and say let’s fuck, like a prostitute.’ She smiled: ‘Because you wanted me to be a nice person? Because you are unhappy with your wife?’
Her perspicacity surprised him. ‘How do you know I even have a wife?’
‘In my business you learn about people. You looked like a man who is not experienced in talking with prostitutes, you were very polite, so I thought you are probably a nice married man and such a man must be unhappy with his wife if he has followed me to my night-club when he should be at home with her.’ Before he could respond she added, ‘Is she nice, your wife?’
He was surprised that he wanted to talk to her about it: he had never confided in anyone except Jake McAdam, and for the last seven weeks he’d been too embarrassed about the shooting incident to show his face socially, yet here he was sitting over breakfast with a Russian prostitute and it felt as if he wanted to open his heart. But he only said:
‘Yes, she’s nice. However, she’s gone back to America now, we’re getting divorced.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She looked concerned. Then she snapped her fingers. ‘Of course! That scar on your chest – you said it was an accident. But she shot you, your wife! I read it in the newspaper.’
He was surprised and embarrassed. Even a Macao prostitute knew about his humiliation? ‘You read the Hong Kong newspapers?’
‘And your photograph, I recognize you now!’ She pointed a scarlet fingernail at him. ‘You told me you are a business man, but really you are a big lawyer!’ She swept both hands down over her golden locks. ‘That big English wig!’
Hargreave smiled wanly. ‘So you do read the papers.’
‘For my English. So,’ she smiled, ‘you are a lawyer. So your nice wife is asking for lots of nice money in her divorce?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And now you are spending so much money for me!’ She took both his hands across the table and sparkled mischievously: ‘So I will make it a very good day for you, don’t worry, darling! We will make love as much as you like. Any way you like! Tell me how you like to do it.’
Hargreave seemed to feel his loins turn over. He grinned.
‘Let’s check out of here and go to the Bella Mar Hotel, it’s more secluded. And I’d like you to go home and change into a daytime dress. Bring a bikini, they’ve got a nice pool at the Bella Mar. I’ll meet you there. Know where it is?’
‘Of course I know the Bella Mar.’
4
Of course she knew it – she was a Macao whore. But that did not trouble Hargreave – he was going to have a nice day for a change. A lovely day! Nor did it worry him that he might be recognized – in an appropriate dress Olga would be just another tourist. Nonetheless he checked the hotel register when he signed in and was relieved that all the guests were foreigners; nor was there anybody he knew in the bar or on the terrace.
The Bella Mar is a grand old Portuguese hotel on the knoll, overlooking the tree-lined esplanade and the Pearl River estuary. The floors are polished wood, the ceilings are high and a sweeping staircase leads up to airy, old-fashioned suites with ceiling fans. The blue swimming pool is on the terrace below the verandah.
Olga Romalova dived and swam the length underwater, her long blonde hair streaming silkily behind her. She broke surface at the shallow end, her hair plastered. ‘How much?’
‘Nine seconds. You’re improving.’
‘Once more.’
She climbed up the ladder, gushing sparkling water, and walked back to the deep end in her tiny bikini. Hargreave, seated at a table under a beach umbrella drinking a Tom Collins, watched her every movement. She was truly beautiful. There were other couples at other tables, all watching her. The Chinese waiters were watching her. They doubtless knew her, but Hargreave did not care: they didn’t know who he was and he was happy – surely every man here must envy him, every woman must surely envy her exuberant beauty. Olga came to the deep end of the pool, held up her finger and demanded, ‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’ Hargreave looked at his wristwatch.
‘Now!’ She dived in like a goddess and streamed frantically underwater, her feet kicking. She gushed up at the shallow end. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes – eight seconds flat.’
A man at a table clapped, then everybody was clapping good-naturedly. Olga climbed out of the pool, beaming, gave them a wave and flopped down in her chair under the umbrella. She picked up her vodka and grinned: ‘I am improving, last week my best time was ten seconds. It is because I have stopped smoking.’
‘You come to the Bella Mar often?’
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes. It depends.’
‘I wanted to be an athlete,’ Olga said, ‘a swimmer. Athletes make good money in Russia. But there was no pool on the collective, so I swam in the river. So cold. For a pool I must go fifty kilometres on the bus. So expensive. So I thought, I will be a gymnast. I could walk on my hands, do backward somersaults. At my school we had parallel bars, a springboard, climbing ropes. I practised like crazy. But my teacher told me I am too big to succeed.’
‘Can you still do backward somersaults?’
‘Yes. Want to see?’
‘Later,’ Hargreave grinned.
She continued: ‘My mother always told me that the farm is not good enough for me, I must leave when I grow up – so little money, so much work. She died when I was ten. So I looked after my father, he was a sick man – he was a foreman, a very good farmer, but he was always sick, with tuberculosis, he died when I was fourteen. My big brother, he left many years before to work in the mines. So I went to an orphanage. I wanted to study to become a vet, but there were many difficulties, so when I was sixteen I went to work in a factory in Yekaterinburg. Do you know where that is?’
‘No.’
‘In the Urals. Very cold in winter. Big city, grey skies, grey buildings. I worked in an aluminium factory. We made plates, cups, pots, knives, forks. Millions and millions. But nobody buys them because people do not like the taste of aluminium. But still we make them, because Gosplan says so, because of the mines and the big hydroelectric stations producing the power. You know Gosplan? It is our big ministry for economics.’
‘Yes.’
‘Nobody buys our aluminium plates. Our wages are very little, and always late. Then we heard that some KGB men are stealing our plates and cups and making them flat with a steam roller and selling it to the West for much money. We were angry. But still we went on making plates for the KGB to steal because Gosplan said we must. Then one day the factory director sends for me. In his office is a man I haven’t seen. He says, do I want to be an actress, because I am pretty.’
‘He was wrong. You’re beautiful.’
‘I said, “Yes, of course!” So immediately I go to Moscow. Many days by train. So exciting. In Moscow they say to me: “We are the KGB, Mosfilm does not really want you, we want you to be a diplomat.”’
‘A diplomat? How old were you?’
‘Eighteen. Of course I was not going to be a diplomat, they were cheating me from the start, I was going to be one of their girls who sleeps with foreigners to get information. And for blackmail. But I did not know then. They said: “To be a diplomat you must first learn how to dress nicely, Western ways.” So they began to train me.’
‘What did they teach you?’
She grinned. ‘Mostly how to make love. And I already knew that, most Russian girls learn that very young because there is nothing else to do. I was kept in a hostel like a student, but I was really a hostess for KGB officers. I was taught to cook and entertain, even to sing Western songs, how to dance, very sexy, but after the party – there were always many parties – after the party I had to go to bed with one of my trainers.’
‘How did you like that?’
She shrugged. ‘I hated it, but they said it was part of my training. One of them I liked, the others I didn’t like.’
‘Were you paid a salary?’
‘Yes, I was working for the state. Then after only six months Gorbachev disbanded the KGB. Everybody was very anxious, and angry also. Then my trainers told me I was being sent to Istanbul to continue my studies. But, of course, when I got there I had to be a whore.’
Oh, Hargreave was so glad to learn she had been tricked. ‘Istanbul? Did you protest?’
‘At first I cried and cried, and argued. But what can I do? They hit me. The other girls told me the KGB would kill me if I tried to run away. They said a girl called Natasha had been killed, as a lesson. And I had no passport, no money. No job in Russia. And we were kept in this big house with high walls, and there were guards.’
Hargreave thought, Oh, you poor child. ‘And? Who were your customers?’
‘Rich Turks. Rich Arabs. And some Westerners, businessmen, English, Italian, Germans.’
‘How did you feel?’
He felt a stab of anguish when she shrugged. ‘Afterwards I got used to it. It was a nice big house, nice rooms, nice bar, nice garden, good food. The madam saved your money for you, every month you got paid, you could send it home or buy things, or put it in the bank. So I thought, this is better than Yekaterinburg, better than the KGB hostel where I got fucked for nothing.’
Hargreave didn’t want to hear that. ‘Were you allowed out?’
‘Only when the KGB trust you. But if you run away they will catch you. And how can you run away without a passport?’
‘Did you try?’
‘Not then. Natasha tried. They killed her.’
Lord. You poor child. ‘So the KGB were still functioning despite being disbanded?’
‘No, the Mafia was controlling us. But many KGB are Mafia now.’
Yes, Hargreave thought, that was common knowledge. Right now the Hong Kong police were trying to deal with the Russian Mafia who were using Hong Kong as a staging post for international smuggling. And here he was sitting in the Bella Mar Hotel with one of the Mafia’s girls: in principle he was compromising himself. But he did not care, he was happy for the first time in a long while, he was having a lovely day with this exotic girl, and she had nothing to do with smuggling – prostitution in Macao and smuggling in Hong Kong were far removed from each other, the one almost legal, the other not. Nonetheless he said: