Free Fragrant Harbour by John Lanchester Page A

compared to here? That we’re all infantilised back home? There’s no real poverty in England. If there were, people would go and do what they do here – they’d shine shoes. It only costs a couple of quid to buy polish and brushes and set yourself up. But they’d rather sit on their arses and whinge about benefits. Here people go and work. And if they make money, what do they do? In England they piss it away. Spend it as if it were water. The proles spray Bollinger all over each other, and the toffs buy big houses and give themselves delusions about being lord of the manor. Here a rich man keepsgoing to work every single day and concentrates on looking after his family. Since the market became a big thing here, you have cab drivers, hotel doormen, lift operators who are worth millions. They all keep on doing what they do because they haven’t been turned into children. But they know damn well that money is the only subject in the whole world that is completely serious.’
    ‘Is that why you asked me out on your boat?’ Oss had been leaning closer and closer towards me as he spoke; he smelt, not unpleasantly, of cologne.
    ‘I liked your piece about local billionaires very much,’ he said. ‘Terribly amusing. Wonderful detail about Bob Lee’s first business partner ending up in the foundations of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    There was a pause; this wasn’t quite the kind of congratulations I’d had in mind. Still, if your boss’s boss’s boss likes something you’ve done, you don’t fuss about the form of the praise. Then Oss said:
    ‘But I’m afraid we can’t publish it.’
    I didn’t know what to say. I have once or twice seen people’s jaws drop; it does actually happen; I suspect on this occasion it happened to me.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Perhaps I should have said, there’s bad news and there’s good news. The bad news is, as I say, we can’t publish the piece. This is an extremely sensitive time for Hong Kong. The territory is about to enter a difficult period. The eyes of the world will be on us. The glare of publicity. It is a transitional phase. In thirty years’ time, when China is the richest country in the world, people will be careful what they say. They will not lightly attract her wrath. At the moment there are some people who feel they can say anything , make any criticism, however intemperate. Hong Kong, or rather the future prosperity of Hong Kong, has many enemies. This story, in this form, will be a tremendous boon for them. I am sorry.’
    I stood and ran upstairs. I was gasping for air, and I felt sick. We were round the corner of the island, and the water was less rough, so it wasn’t that. It was a feeling from childhood. Something had been taken away from me. I started crying.
    Oss left me alone for about ten minutes, and then came out to the rail beside me with a handkerchief and more champagne.
    ‘I’m taking you to Po Lam. It’s an island where Mr Wo has a house,’ he said.
    ‘Great, fabulous, whatever,’ I said. He nodded. We did not speak again until we got to the island. When we did, Oss said, ‘This is the good news part.’
     *
    I’d never seen anything like the house. But why would I have? It’s not as if I knew lots of billionaires. If pressed, I think I would have imagined that Wo lived somewhere big and traditional. Where he did live was somewhere huge and modern, devised by a famous Chinese–American architect. It seemed to rise out of a bamboo terrace and weave around the hillside with views out over the smaller outlying islands. I was left on my own in the sitting room beside a gleaming Bang and Olufsen stereo which was playing some plinky-plink minimalist modern music. Oss had gone off ‘to attend to a couple of things’. So far the only people I had seen were four silent Chinese servants dressed in white smocks and black trousers. I was feeling highly pissed off and also highly curious. The whole place had, more than anywhere else I