Part 7 (2/2)

I knew she was there, and I knew there was no such child.

The conclusion was obvious.

Fear breathed on the nape of my neck.

Half a building blew up. 'We'd better get some more FBI agents,' said the stupid deputy who didn't trust Bruce Willis.

Reason entered, brandis.h.i.+ng its warrant. It ordered that I behave as though nothing untoward was happening. What was I going to do? Go screaming from the apartment to where? I'd have to come back at some point. There was Katy to think about, too. Was I to tell her that a ghost was watching us morning, noon and night? If this drawbridge was lowered, what else would come in? I forced myself to pretend to finish the article, though it could have been written in Mongolian.

Fear was handcuffed, but it could still yell at the top of its lungs, There's a f.u.c.king ghost in your apartment! A f.u.c.king ghost, you hear me? There's a f.u.c.king ghost in your apartment! A f.u.c.king ghost, you hear me?

She was still there, swimming. She was on her back now.

I had to lower the paper. Would it mean I was mad if she was there, or if she wasn't?

What did I know about her?

Only that she wasn't threatening me.

I folded the newspaper and looked at where I had thought she was.

n.o.body, and nothing. See? See? said Reason, smugly. said Reason, smugly.

Neal, said Neal, you're cracking up.

I walked resolutely towards the kitchen.

Behind my back I heard her giggle.

f.u.c.k you, said Fear to Reason. said Fear to Reason.

I heard the lock being jiggled, and Katy's keys echoing in the hallway outside. She dropped them. I walked over to the door and opened it for her. She was bending down, so she couldn't see my expression, which I'm glad about.

'Phew!' said Katy, smiling and straightening up.

'Welcome home,' I said. 'I say. Is that champagne?'

'Champagne, lobster and lamb, my hunter-gatherer. You've been asleep, haven't you? You're all groggy.'

'Uh... yeah. Don't tell me I've missed your birthday again?'

'No.'

'Then what?'

'I want to feed you up, so you make lots of sperm and get frisky. I've decided that I want a baby. What do you think?'

How Katy.

I was in a ramshackle yard, walled in by falling-down fisherman's cottages. Paths forked off and forked off some more. A black dog eyed me with its one eye, looking at what I am. I wished it were on a chain. What are the odds of that dog having rabies? Enough of their masters certainly seem to. A woman stood up from behind a cabbage the size of a small hut. She said, 'You going to the Big Buddha yes?'

I saw myself, blundering in her yard. A foreign devil with mud round his ankles, shoes from Pennsylvania, a silk tie made in Milan, a briefcase full of j.a.panese and American gadgetry worth more money than she saw in three years. What must she think?

'Yes,' I said.

She pointed with a blunt vegetable down one of the paths.

'Thank you.'

At first the path was clear, but as it went deeper into the wood it grew more ambiguous. Leaves, stems, shoots, nodules, thorns, thicket. A common dirt-coloured bird that sang in emerald and opal. Dry gra.s.s. Soil, stones, loose rocks, worms moving underground.

I'm not thinking about it. The day was just beginning to warm up.

I heard a helicopter, and imagined Avril and Guilan leaning out with a headset and binoculars. Avril would be speaking into a camera like a radio station's traffic reporter. I giggled. Something jumped and thumped in the undergrowth. I froze, but heard nothing more. There's a thought. Are there snakes on Lantau Island?

Thirty-one days hath September,April, June and November.And f.u.c.k the rest...

Insects buzzed around my head, thirsty for sweat to drink.

It's time to bring in the maid.

Fair's fair, she was Katy's idea from the start. I never wanted one, didn't choose her, and for the first six months until this winter, I didn't even see her. I never even met the maid until Katy was back in Britain. There was a circle of men at Cavendish who were into hiring maids willing to do more than fluff pillows and take the kids to school and back. Most of the men at Cavendish's hired Filipinos, because they had no permanent residency, and so had to be more compliant. They also know that the more accommodating they were, the more likely they'd be handed on when their master left Hong Kong.

Maybe Katy had heard these tales in the wives' club. Maybe that was why she chose a Chinese maid. I was surprised when Katy told me she wanted one. Katy came from an upper-middle-cla.s.s Cambridge family, but from a firmly lower-middle-cla.s.s income bracket where you traded on your family's name and tightened your belt to put the kids through good schools. We met at a law firm in London, for f.u.c.k's sake, not the House of Lords.

But here we were, out in the colonies. Well, the ex-colonies. I was disappointed that she'd been swayed by the Wives' Club. But then, as Katy pointed out, I wasn't the one who had to clean up my mess. I couldn't argue when Katy pointed out that after she got pregnant, she'd have to take it easy. I suspected Katy was on a culture-bridging kick, and had chosen penetrating the Chinese psyche as a hobby.

If that suspicion had been correct, then for Katy it badly backfired. All Katy got from her hobby was grief, which she then pa.s.sed on to me, the moment I was through the door. Katy gave her presents, but she took them without saying a word. Katy said she was surly, inscrutable, and kept dropping mile-wide hints about how her starving family in the mainland needed more money. Katy suspected she was working at a hostess bar for more money at night. Katy couldn't be sure, but she thought a pair of gold earrings had gone missing. Looking back, I wonder if that was the work of our host daughter?

'If you're not happy with her, sack her.'

'But how about her starving family?'

'It's not your problem! You're not Lady Bountiful.'

'Spoken like a true lawyer.'

'You're the one who's whinging about her morning, noon and night.'

'I want you to speak to her, Neal.'

'Why me?'

'I've tried, but women only respect men in this culture. They respect men in this culture. Just be a.s.sertive. I'll give her this Sat.u.r.day off, and ask her to come on Sunday. Make sure you're here.'

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