Part 10 (1/2)

Good. He had an insight coming on. 'We're a corporation. A top-line corporation. But that's not all we are, Nile, my word no. We are a family! Isn't that so, Jim?'

Jim Hersch smiled his 'you've put your finger on it!' smile.

'Sure, we have our family squabbles. Jim and I have had some fine old cat-fights in our time, haven't we, eh, Jim, eh?'

Same smile. 'Sure have, Sir D.' You smooth American f.u.c.k, Hersch.

'You see, Nile? No quarter given to yesmen at Cavendis.h.!.+ But we pull through in the end, Nile, and let me tell you how! Because we understand the value of co-operation. Mutual reliance. Mutual trust. Mutual a.s.sistance.' He lit his cigar like Winston Churchill and gazed at the portrait of his grandfather who gazed back. I wanted to sn.i.g.g.e.r. The man was a walking cliche. How could this f.u.c.k-for-brains run a law firm with offices in five continents? The answer was obvious: he only thought he ran it. 'Playing the Asian markets requires a certain... how did I put it to Grainger, Jim, the other day?'

'I believe you said ”flair and verve in the strategising stages”, Sir D.'

'Flair! And verve! That's it, you see, Flair Flair! And verve verve! In the strategising stages strategising stages! Now in London, New York, everyone knows what's what. The playing field is even, the goalposts are fixed. But Asia is the last wild frontier, eh? The bandits of corruption live in the Chinese hills, and make lightning raids! Regulators? Forget 'em! Paid off. Every last man. No, for our towns.h.i.+ps to prosper in Asia, we have to play by their rules, but play better! I'm talking about originality in capital-manipulation! About reinterpretation! You have to recognise the real but invisible goalposts when you see them! And use whatever means are at your disposal to score. You with me, Nile?'

'One hundred per cent, Sir Denholme.'

What was the old f.u.c.k on about?

'I want to add a special account to your Hong Kong Portfolio. It's for an ally of mine. A Russian chap, based in Petersburg, you'll meet him one day. You'll be hearing from him soon enough. A splendid fellow. Chap by the name of Andrei Gregorski. A real mover and shaker. He's done a few favours for us in the past.' He leaned forward over the desk, tapping his cigar into an intricate ashtray inlaid with jade and amber, and etched with lotus flowers and orchids.

'He's asked me to set up an account for his operation with our Hong Kong branch. I want to put you in charge of it.'

'What do I do with it?'

'Whatever he tells you to. However much, wherever, whenever. Child's play for a trooper of your experience.'

We'd come to the clincher.

'I think I can manage that, Mr Cavendish.'

'Keep it hush-hush. Just between you, me, Jim and grandfather here, eh?'

I get it. The old f.u.c.k's asking me to bend the law.

'One thing matters and one thing only.' I'd always a.s.sumed it was his leather chair that creaked, but now I wondered whether or not it was really him. He prodded each word at me with his cigar. 'Do you have the b.a.l.l.s?' The blackheads on the tip of his nose urgently needed squeezing. 'Eh? Eh?'

I'm a financial lawyer. I bend the law every day.

'They were firmly attached when I last used them, Sir Denholme.'

D.C. was deciding whether or not he liked my answer. Then his laughter ignited, sending a projectile of saliva hurtling between my eyebrows. Jim Hersch smiled too, a photo smile of a manager in a local newspaper. And I was smiling the same smile, too.

Do I go back further?

How about this? Hong Kong had been appropriated by British drug pushers in the 1840s. We wanted Chinese silk, porcelain, and spices. The Chinese didn't want our clothes, tools, or salted herring, and who can blame them? They had no demand. Our solution was to make a demand, by getting large sections of the populace addicted to opium, a drug which the Chinese government had outlawed. When the Chinese understandably objected to this arrangement, we kicked the f.u.c.k out of them, set up a puppet government in Peking that hung signs on parks saying 'No dogs or Chinese', and occupied this corner of their country as an import base. f.u.c.king G.o.dawful behaviour, when you think about it. And we accuse them them of xenophobia. It would be like the Colombians invading Was.h.i.+ngton in the early 21st century and forcing the White House to legalise heroin. And saying, 'Don't worry, we'll show ourselves out, and take Florida while we're at it, okay? Thanks very much.' Hong Kong became the trading hub of the biggest, most populated continent in the world. This led to one big burping appet.i.te for bent financial lawyers. of xenophobia. It would be like the Colombians invading Was.h.i.+ngton in the early 21st century and forcing the White House to legalise heroin. And saying, 'Don't worry, we'll show ourselves out, and take Florida while we're at it, okay? Thanks very much.' Hong Kong became the trading hub of the biggest, most populated continent in the world. This led to one big burping appet.i.te for bent financial lawyers.

Or is it not a question of cause and effect, but a question of wholeness?

I'm this person, I'm this person, I'm that person, I'm that person too.

No wonder it's all such a f.u.c.king mess. I divided up my possible futures, put them into separate accounts, and now they're all spent.

Big thoughts for a bent little lawyer.

My forehead kissed the tarmac, soft as a sleeping daughter. I keeled over into foetal position. A lurching tide of voices sloshed the hull of my hearing. What the f.u.c.k is going on?

Now I understand what this insane f.u.c.king day has been about!

Hilarious!

I am f.u.c.king dying!

No doubt about it. Now it's happening again it's all coming back to me.

Thirty-one years old, and I am f.u.c.king dying!

Avril's going to be so f.u.c.ked off with me. And when D.C. hears, well, I think I can safely kiss my six-figure bonus goodbye. How will Katy take it? That's the clincher. Dad?

Hilarious...

She comes through the wall of legs and torsos. She looks down at me, and she smiles. She has my eyes, and the maid's body, in miniature. She gives me her hand, and we pick our way through the crowd of gawpers, the shocked, the t.i.tillated, and the gum-chewing. What can have happened to fascinate them so on such an afternoon?

Hand in hand we walk up the steps of the Big Bright Buddha, brighter and brighter, into a snowstorm of silent light.

Holy Mountain

Up, up, and up, and down, maybe.

The Holy Mountain has no other directions. Your left and right, your south, north, west, east, leave them at the Village. You won't be needing them. You have ten thousand steps to go before you reach the summit.

There is a road, now. I saw it. Buses and trucks go up and down. Fat people from Chengdu and further drive up in their own cars. I watched them. Fumes, beeps, noise, oil. Or they drive up in taxis, sitting in the back like Lady Muck Duck. They deserve all the fleecing they get. Engine-powered pilgrimages? Even Lord Buddha doesn't give a shovelful of chickens.h.i.+t for engine-powered pilgrimages. How do I know? He told me Himself.

On the Holy Mountain, all the yesterdays and tomorrows spin around again sooner or later. The world has long forgotten, but we mountain-dwellers live on the prayer wheel of time.

I am a girl. I was hanging out the was.h.i.+ng on a line I had suspended from the upstairs-room window-ledge and the Tree. The height of our Tea Shack above the path, it was safe from thieves, and the Tree tells the monkeys not to steal our things. I was singing to myself. It was spring and the mist was thick and warm. Upbound, a strange procession marched out of the whiteness.

The procession was ten men long. The first carried a pennant, the second, a kind of lute I'd never seen, the third, a rifle. The fourth was a footman. The fifth was dressed in silken robes the colour of sunset. The sixth was an older man in a khaki uniform. Seven to ten were baggage carriers.

I ran to get my father, who was planting sweet potatoes behind our house. The chickens fussed like my old aunts in the Village. When my father and I got around to the front, the strangers had reached our Tea Shack.

My father's eyes popped open. He hurled himself onto the ground, and yanked me down into the dirt with him. 'Silly little b.i.t.c.h,' he hissed. 'It's the Warlord's Son. Kowtow!' We knelt, pressing our foreheads into the ground, until one of the men clapped.

We looked up. Which one was the Warlord's Son?

The man in silk was looking at me, smiling from the corner of his mouth.