Free Fragrant Harbour by John Lanchester Page B

had ever known, the aura of wealth, intense and concentrated down to an essence – and the essence was not to do with luxury or being able to have anything material that you wanted, but to do with insulation. Here, you were insulated from all consequences. Nothing that happened anywhere in the outside world could affect you. It wasn’t that you were safe – because the idea of being safe admitted that you could be unsafe, implied the potential existence of its opposite. It was that the whole world could not reach you here. You could do anything you wanted to it and it could do nothing back.
    A door that I hadn’t noticed opened, and Oss said,
    ‘Dawn, would you care to step in with us?’
    I crossed the room, hearing my heels click, and went into what must have been Wo’s office, or one of them. It was a huge bright clean room with a large fancy antique desk at which was sitting, in a shirt and tie but no jacket, behind thick glasses, Wo himself. Without smiling he stood up and extended his hand.
    ‘Miss Stone,’ he said.
    ‘Mr Wo, it’s a great honour.’
    He gestured at a chair – a Mies van der Rohe, I think. Oss kept standing.
    ‘We would like to offer you a job,’ said Wo without preamble.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘A job,’ he said again.
    ‘I spoke about some of the special circumstances facing Hong Kong on the boat here,’ Oss said. ‘Special circumstances create special opportunities. Mr Wo’s concerns will invariably attract attention. Hong Kong is going to be crawling with press. The prediction is that there will be more journalists here for the handover than were in Atlanta for the Olympics. We want our relations with the press to be handled sensibly and intelligently by someone who understands the way the western media work. The job is as a media liaison for all of Mr Wo’s companies. You would be working for Mr Wo but, in the first instance, would report to me.’
    ‘It sounds like you’re buying me off.’
    ‘This is a serious offer.’
    ‘It sounds like glorified PR work.’
    ‘There is obviously a PR component. But you will have much more power than that. In the future, if there were the need for a little conversation such as the one you and I had earlier, it would be you who took the decision.’
    ‘I’m flattered but this sounds like a rather limited brief. What happens when they pack their bags and go home? Collect my P45 and get on the plane back to Heathrow?’
    Oss looked at Wo, who nodded. For a moment I thought he was agreeing with what I’d just said and that, yes, I would be on the jumbo with my severance pay crammed into the top pocket of my Armani jacket.
    ‘Mr Wo’s business interests are diversified and not all of them are in Hong Kong,’ Oss said. ‘There are opportunities all over the world and a wise man does not neglect any of them. The wise man also seeks to diversify his interests during difficult times – times of transition. There will be many opportunities for a hardworking executive in the areas in which you show knowledge. Mr Wo’s investments in the area of media already amount to many tens of millions of pounds. A not inconsiderable amount of those interests are in the English-speaking world. He’s a manwho has influence. The job we have to offer a successful executive in this field would be, it is safe to say, an opportunity of unparalleled range and interest and, dare I say so, power.’
    Then he mentioned the salary. That was how the strangest day of my life brought me to work for Philip Oss and for T. K. Wo, and for money. And that was my fourth and biggest break.
     *
    On the boat home, Oss left me to myself for the first quarter of an hour, and then, just as I was thinking, disappointedly, that I’d be on my own for the whole return trip, he appeared on the afterdeck carrying another bottle of champagne and two glasses.
    ‘So what do you think?’ he asked.
    ‘Of what? The place? Mr Wo? The offer?’
    He shrugged in a way that meant all the