The Year of Dangerous Loving
‘Moscow.’
‘Congratulations on that heroin case,’ Whacker rumbled. ‘Twenty years – that’ll keep Edward Lo out of mischief for a while.’
‘Will it stand up on appeal?’ Denys asked. ‘Evidence mostly circumstantial.’
‘It’ll stand up,’ Hargreave said. ‘There was nothing wrong with the judge’s summing up.’
‘The Chinese will probably shoot convicts like Edward Lo when they take over,’ Denys said, ‘appeal or no appeal. That’s what Mao did when he took over China. Oh, justice is going to be such fun after 1997.’
‘Are you staying on?’ Hargreave asked.
‘Where else can a beat-up lawyer like me make money like this? I’ll stay until they make life too uncomfortable, like shooting defence lawyers as subversives. And you?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘I thought you were definitely quitting?’ Isabel Phipson said. Isabel didn’t know about Californian divorce law and Community of Property.
‘Why don’t you go up on to the bench, Al?’ Denys said. ‘You’ll probably be safer from the Comrades up there.’
‘Until I hand down judgements they don’t like?’
‘Oh, justice is going to be such fun,’ Denys said again.
‘And what about our pensions?’ Isabel said. ‘We better save like hell in the next eighteen months, chaps, I don’t see the Comrades letting our pensions flow out of the holy soil every month. Are you leaving, Whacker?’
‘Me leave?’ Whacker growled. ‘When the Comrades take over is when the Oriental Israelite really starts getting bitchy – it’ll be an honest journalist’s dream.’
‘Until they close you down,’ Hargreave said. ‘And shoot you, for “literary hooliganism”.’
‘Amen,’ Denys said. ‘And us for defending him. And the judge for acquitting him.’
‘If there’s a trial at all,’ McAdam said. He turned away to recharge his glass.
‘Hullo, my dear,’ Denys murmured to Olga as she joined them. She looked radiant, the sunset on her golden hair and face. Hargreave smiled at her proudly.
‘I’ll go down fighting,’ Whacker growled. ‘I’m almost seventy, for Christ’s sake, what else is there to live for at my age but the truth? And I’ll defend myself, thanks, really give ’em an earful. No, I’m staying. I wouldn’t miss the fun for the world.’
‘Do you really think,’ Monica asked Hargreave, ‘that China will get rid of people like Whacker? And Jake? And Martin Lee?’
‘No doubt about it,’ Denys said.
Hargreave said, ‘China probably won’t shoot them, but a trumped-up charge to throw them in jail after a show trial is quite likely, to silence them.’
‘I’ve begged Jake,’ Monica said, ‘to pull his punches in his electioneering, but he won’t. I think he’s being very foolish, antagonizing China so.’
Whacker growled, ‘Courageous yes, reckless maybe, but foolish never. He’s got to tell the people the truth.’
‘He can’t tell the truth for long if he’s in jail,’ Monica said.
‘What is the difference,’ Olga asked, ‘between Jake and Martin Lee?’
Monica grinned: ‘Martin Lee is richer, smarter and better-looking.’
Everybody laughed.
‘Richer, no doubt, smarter, probably,’ Jake said, returning with his glass recharged, ‘but personally I’ve always wondered about the better-looking.’
‘I mean,’ Olga grinned, ‘why is Jake an independent, not working with Mr Lee, what is the difference?’
‘None,’ Whacker said, ‘except Martin Lee is a gentleman who only calls a spade a spade; Jake calls it a fuckin’ shovel.’
Everybody laughed again. Jake said to Olga: ‘No difference except, as an independent candidate I can say things he can’t because I’m not bound by party rules.’ He added: ‘However, I won’t win a seat – my eyes are the wrong shape. I’m only really interested in making a lot of noise so the people hear what I have to say.’
‘And what is that?’ Olga asked.
McAdam sighed. ‘What Martin Lee says: we must have a strong democracy in place so we can stand up to China when she takes over. We must show China we are a voice to be reckoned with, we must insist that Britain – and the United Nations – enforces the Joint Declaration, forces China to abide by its international undertakings, forces China to abide by the agreement that our Court of Final Appeal will be made up of respected Western judges, not party toadies appointed by Beijing who can’t read English, let alone understand English law and who will do what the party instructs – ’
‘Hear, hear,’ Hargreave said.
McAdam made a fist: ‘We must insist that Britain punishes China when she sweeps aside our elections, insist the world comes down like a ton of bricks with all kinds of economic sanctions: freeze her foreign assets, close down her embassies, throw them out of the United Nations, treat them as untouchables – really hurt them. Even threaten war – Christ, there’re six million Chinese British subjects in Hong Kong who’re entitled to Her Majesty’s protection.’
‘Hear, fuckin’ hear,’ Whacker growled.
‘But what is Great Mother Britain doing? Appeasing China at every turn, so as to not rock the boat, appeasing “in the interests of a smooth transition”. By the Joint Declaration China must not interfere with the running of Hong Kong until 1997, and our autonomy after 1997 is guaranteed but China is interfering all the time, announcing they’ll kick out our Legislative Council and abolish our Bill of Human Rights, threatening our business community with reprisals if they don’t toe the China line, throwing Hong Kong journalists in jail, telling our press they had better “bend with the wind”. And they’ve slandered our Governor for introducing reforms, calling him a “liar” and a “criminal”, “a prostitute”, a “Buddha’s serpent”, “a villain condemned by history for a thousand years”.’ He looked at Olga, ‘And what does Great Mother Britain do? Does she shake a stick and say: “We insist you adhere to the Joint Declaration or we’ll make sure the whole world kicks your arse”? No. Britain simpers and whines and does a hand-wringing exercise and appeases and compromises, all for the sake of,’ he made quotation marks with his fingers, ‘“a smooth transition”. The result? We face a Communist tyranny here in eighteen months.’ He ended grimly: ‘Britain must realize that the only way to protect her subjects is to be tough. That’s what I’m telling the people.’
‘You can’t tell them a damn thing if you’re sitting in jail,’ Monica said. Her eyes suddenly moistened. ‘Excuse me.’ She headed away abruptly to the booze table.
Everybody glanced at McAdam. Denys, to fill the brief silence, said to Olga: ‘And tell me, my dear, what’s it like in Russia these days?’
‘Alas, it is very bad,’ Olga replied. ‘So much chaos …’
Jake McAdam murmured in Hargreave’s ear: ‘She’s a knockout, Al. Now, are you guys going to stay for dinner?’
‘Thanks, Jake,’ Hargreave said, ‘but I think we’ll go back, we’ve got some nice fresh oysters waiting.’
‘Oysters?’ Jake joshed him. ‘Go for it, pal, happy sailing …’
11
And it was happy. Sailing around Hong Kong’s multitude of islands, anchoring in deserted bays for long boozy lunches and sensual siestas: they meandered through the archipelago of Sai Kung district, went ashore in the dinghy to explore Chinese hamlets with little smoky temples to Tin Hau, goddess of the seas, where the people seldom saw a white man. They lived as they had before the battles long ago, and had come from the age of warlords to the age of television without a revolution. Hargreave bought fish and prawns and oysters from them. On up the crooked coastline they sailed, across Tolo Channel to Wong Wan Chau, then up to Crooked Harbour and Kat O Chau, overlooking Mirs Bay which brave Chinese lads and lasses swam to escape to Hong Kong, the ‘Golden Mountain Where Men Eat Fat Pork’. They sailed through Starling Inlet to Shatau Kok where the border runs through the middle of the road that is called Chung-Ying Street, Chung being an abbreviation of Chung Kwok which means China-country, Ying an abbreviation of Ying-Kwok meaning England-country. Olga was enthralled. Hargreave knew all the islands very well, they were old-hat to him, but now he was seeing them afresh through her eyes, and they became exotic all over again. They swam in deserted little bays, splashing around and playing the fool, snorkelling along the rocks exploring the underwater world, beachcombing, climbing grassy hills just to see what was on the other side: it seemed to Hargreave he had never been so happy.
And, oh no, he did not want her to go back to Macao next Monday, he could not bear the thought of her going back to ‘work’. Anyway, how could he afford to keep paying for her? He would have to make a final settlement with Vladimir and take her away from all that, or forget about her – and he could not forget about her. So there was only one realistic thing to do.
It was on Friday, the second-last day of their sailing idyll, that Alistair Hargreave finally made up his mind. They were at anchor in a little cove on Kai Sai Chau, in the hour after love; he said, rehearsed:
‘I’ve got some leave accumulated, about four weeks – I didn’t take it all last year. Why don’t we go to the Philippines, you and I, sail this boat down there, spend some time cruising those islands?’
There was silence for a moment, then Olga scrambled up on to her knees and looked at him. ‘Oh, can we really?’
Hargreave grinned, delighted with her delight. ‘It’s only six hundred miles to Manila, I’ve sailed it often, and the islands are lovely; hundreds and hundreds of them, white beaches and turquoise water. And if we get bored we can go ashore and explore inland.’
‘Oh, darling …’
Hargreave looked, at her and made the commitment. He said soberly, ‘And meantime I don’t want you to go back to Macao, Olga. I don’t want you to go back to the Tranquillity. I want you to come to stay with me in my apartment until we sail for the Philippines.’ There – he had said it.
Olga stared at him, her blue eyes shining.
‘Oh darling!’ She knelt forward and hugged him, her beautiful breasts squashed against his chest, her shapely bottom up in the air: ‘Oh, darling, how wonderful!’
Hargreave grinned. ‘So what we’re going to do is this: tomorrow we’ll sail over to Macao to fetch your things – I don’t want you doing that alone, coming back on the ferry and perhaps falling foul of our immigration clerks again. Anyway, I’ll have to see Vladimir and tell him what’s happening, clear the air.’ He left out ‘and settle my bill once and for all’.
Olga sat upright. ‘Oh, you don’t pay him any more, darling! Only for last weekend, and that is it. Finished! Don’t talk to Vladimir, let me do it, he’ll try to cheat you!’
‘But what about your so-called contract with him?’
‘I haven’t got any new contract with him! Yes, when I came from Russia I had a year’s contract so it would be legal with the Portuguese, but I finished that contract three weeks ago. All I did was extend my visa, I didn’t sign any new contract. Yes, I continued to work in the Tranquillity, but I did not sign anything, I can walk out any time I like!’
Maybe, but he didn’t think Vladimir would see it like that: Hargreave would rather make a deal than have trouble. ‘I want everything cut and dried with Vladimir, so I’ll have to see him. And we’ve got to get your passport from him, you’re going to need it to go to the Philippines.’
‘I’ll get my passport, don’t worry, even if I have to steal it from him. I’ll tell him he won’t get paid for last weekend unless he gives it to me. Just you leave Vladimir to me, darling!’
That was fine with Hargreave, if it worked – the less he had to do with the likes of Vladimir the better.
Olga hugged him joyfully: ‘Oh, I’m so excited! A whole month sailing in the Philippines!’
That’s what they were going to do. They were going to have a lovely time. But after the month was over, then what? Hargreave did not care; a lot of things would become clear in a month, he would know what to do. All he knew right now was that he could not let this happiness go, that he could not let her go back to work on Monday.
And then they were struck by Sod’s Law of the Sea.
Any experienced sailor will tell you about Sod’s Law, how crises never come one at a time at sea but in twos or threes or more. In Hargreave’s case they came in eights.
That Friday afternoon they were heading back to Hong Kong Island to clear port formalities on Saturday morning so they could sail on to Macao: they were in a strong wind when a faulty fitting on the backstay parted, the mast broke with a crack like a cannon and came crashing down on the rails, the sails falling into the sea. The second crisis was set in motion by Hargreave unwisely starting the engine to give him control over the boat while he cut the steel rigging with bolt-cutters: as the shattered mast finally crashed free into the sea the sails billowed under the keel and got wrapped around the churning propeller. The third crisis came when the mast, which was still attached to the tangled sail, hit the rudder and damaged it badly. By the time Hargreave had dived over the side with a carving knife to free the propeller, the mast had bent the drive-shaft as well. That was the fourth crisis: now they had no sails, no engine power, no steering, and no radio because the antenna had been at the top of the mast. Crisis number five was that darkness was falling and the wind and swells were buffeting the stricken yacht towards the shore. Sod’s Law number six struck at midnight when they were driven aground on the beach of Clearwater Bay.
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