My Favourite Wife. Tony Parsons

bored-looking security men were attempting to move the villagers on. But they didn’t want to move and began to argue with the guards. Then the dispute suddenly erupted into fury, the kind of hysterical, almost tearful scene that Bill had seen break out without warning on the streets of Shanghai. Press the wrong nerve, he thought, and all at once these people go ballistic.

      He watched as a grubby-faced boy of about twelve drew back from the wire, and picked up something from the ground. He hefted it in his hand – a broken brick, discarded by the builders – and then threw it high and hard in the direction of the palace that had appeared on their land. The brick fell short, but they all turned to look as it clattered against the show home’s cast-iron gates.

      Orders were barked and the villagers took off across the field with the security guards on their tail. Bill saw that Ho had disconnected himself from Chairman Sun’s side and was with them.

      ‘Hilarious,’ said the woman from Shanghai Chic. ‘Isn’t this hilarious?’

      The boy who had thrown the brick paused by a neat stack of fresh bricks and began hurling them at the chasing pack. An old man joined him, one of those wiry old Chinese men without a gram of fat on his body, and Ho and the security guards hid behind a bulldozer as the bricks rained down. Then they started throwing the bricks back.

      Bill shook his head. ‘It’s like a medieval battle,’ he said.

      ‘China is a medieval country,’ Shane said. ‘A medieval country with broadband.’ He looked across at the press delegation. ‘We should put a stop to this, mate,’ he said. ‘It’s not good in front of journalists. Even tame journalists.’

      ‘I’ll deal with it,’ Bill said. ‘You get Tiger.’ He began walking towards the press pack. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, if you would care to step back inside, Chairman Sun will take questions.’

      But nobody was listening. They were watching the guards chasing the old man and the boy across the open mud flats. The old man was too slow, and when he fell the guards were immediately on him, lifting him by his arms. The boy had stopped, uncertain if he should run or fight, and then they had him too. As Ho barked instructions, the guards began hauling them back to the show home.

      ‘Hello, Bill,’ Alice smiled. ‘Going to get rich in China?’

      Bill smiled along with her. ‘That’s the plan,’ he said, watching the security guards. They were taking the old man and the boy to the PSB. That’s what they were going to do, he saw. Turn them over to the law. The cops had gone to the gates to meet them.

      ‘You know who’s going to get rich here?’ Alice said. ‘The Chinese. A few of them, anyway. Chairman Sun, for example. And some of his pals. You comfortable with that, Bill?’

      He looked at her and said nothing. She was still holding her notepad in her hands. She may have been at his wedding, and she may have been his wife’s best friend when they were growing up, but she still looked like trouble. He began walking towards the gates. Alice followed him.

      ‘You’re an intelligent man,’ she said. ‘And I’m just curious to know what you think is happening here. Off the record.’

      ‘And what do you think is happening?’ he said, not breaking his stride. ‘On the record.’

      Alice shrugged. ‘Looks like a standard land-grab to me. The new rich get their mansions. The local politicians get their cut. And the farmers get shafted.’

      He stopped and stared at her. ‘You think these people are going to be robbed?’ he said, genuinely outraged. ‘Is that what you think is going to happen? I’ve seen the details of their compensation package.’

      She laughed at him.

      ‘Just think about it,’ Alice said. They had all arrived at the gates at the same time. Ho and the guards were handing over the old man and the boy to the PSB. The old man looked resigned to his fate but the child looked terrified. ‘Until the mid-nineties all the land in China was owned by the People,’ Alice said. ‘And then suddenly it wasn’t. One day you woke up and the land your family had farmed for generations was owned by someone you had never met. And he wanted you out.’

      ‘These people are going to receive generous compensation packages,’ Bill said, watching one of the security guards shove the old man. That wasn’t right. They shouldn’t do that.

      ‘Don’t buy that, Bill. We both know that the money goes to the local government. Your friend Chairman Sun – is he going to see the farmers right, Bill?’

      He ignored her. The security guards were conferring with the PSB cops as they gripped the arms of the old man and the boy. They were working out what to do with them. Bill hesitated, unsure if he should stick his nose in here.

      ‘Every foreigner who works in China has to learn the ostrich trick,’ Alice said. ‘You know what the ostrich trick is, Bill? It’s when you ignore what’s going on right in front of you.’

      Ho suddenly got tired of all the chit-chat and punched the boy full in the face. The child went flying backwards and Bill watched him sprawl in the mud. For a moment Bill could not believe what he had seen. Then he was on Ho, pushing the larger man as hard as he could and not budging him, screaming in his face, telling him to leave the boy alone, let the police deal with it.

      Bill helped the boy to his feet, trembling with shock and rage, and discovered that he had to keep holding him because the punch had knocked him senseless. There was blood on the boy’s lips and chin from a broken nose. Bill searched in his pockets for something to wipe it with and found nothing. Two of the PSB officers took the boy’s arms and eased him from Bill’s grip.

      ‘This is intolerable,’ Bill said, even though he knew they didn’t understand a word. His voice was shaking with emotion. ‘My company will not be a party to this, do you hear me?’

      The PSB led the boy and the old man away. Ho chuckled and gestured at Bill with real amusement. The guards gawped at him with their infinite blankness. Bill looked up and saw Alice Greene offering him a Kleenex.

      For the blood on his hands.

      On the road back to Shanghai, Tiger had to swerve to miss a blue Ferrari coming in the opposite direction on the wrong side of the road. As Tiger wrestled the limo across pockmarked gravel, Bill caught a glimpse of a boy and girl laughing behind their sunglasses.

      ‘Look at that,’ Shane said, placing a grateful hand on Tiger’s shoulder as the Ferrari weaved off in a cloud of dust. ‘There’s about fifty million of them driving around who were on bicycles last year.’

      Tiger revved the engine, trying to ease the car out of a pothole. A family of peasant farmers, their skin black from the sun, sullenly watched them.

      ‘Very low,’ Tiger said. ‘Very low people.’

      Nancy looked up. ‘I am from Yangdong,’ she said in English, but Tiger was fiddling with his climate control, and gave no sign that he had heard her.

      Bill looked at Nancy and tried to remember her file. She had gone to two of the top colleges in the country – Tsinghua University Law School, then the University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. To get that kind of education, to become a lawyer after growing up in this dreary landscape – it told him that Alice Greene was wrong, and that Chinese ingenuity and hard work and intelligence would ultimately triumph over Chinese cruelty and corruption and stupidity.

      That’s what it told him.

      But he didn’t quite believe it.

      Back at the firm, Devlin came into his office. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked Bill.

      ‘I’m fine,’ Bill said.

      ‘I heard what happened. The boy and the old man.’ He shook his head. ‘Ugly business.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But we can’t get squeamish here,’ Devlin said. Bill looked up at him and Devlin touched his arm. ‘I mean