The Year of Dangerous Loving. John Davis Gordon

wheelhouse and showed her the chart. ‘Here’s Macao, here’s Hong Kong, forty miles apart, and here’s the international shipping lane connecting them. Outside of this lane is China’s waters and we can’t go there. All those islands over there –’ he pointed – ‘are China’s, and over the horizon is the mainland. If we enter their waters we’ll be arrested.’

      He explained the satellite navigation system, read off the latest fix and drew in their position on the chart with his parallel rulers. Olga was fascinated. ‘So we can never get lost?’

      ‘Of course, between Macao and Hong Kong I only need the compass. But on the high seas I wouldn’t get lost, provided the sat-nav keeps working. If it breaks down I would use this.’ He produced the sextant from its box. ‘Elementary geometry.’

      ‘Oh, you are so clever!’ She meant it.

      ‘A junior schoolboy could do it, after he’d read this book.’ He produced Mary Bluett’s Celestial Navigation for Yachtsmen, forty pages long, including the big diagrams.

      ‘Then I must study it.’ She reverted to the chart: ‘And where are we going to sleep tonight?’

      ‘Well, it’s getting late, the Marine Department headquarters will be closed. So we’ll anchor off one of the islands and check in tomorrow. Means we can’t go ashore tonight.’

      In the middle of the afternoon they cleared the end of Lantau Island and the magnificent colony opened up before them. He furled the sails and they cruised slowly through the anchored ships and into the fairway. Olga was enthralled. She sat on top of the wheelhouse, binoculars to her eyes, elbows on her knees, swivelling around, studying one side of the harbour, then the other. ‘So much business …’

      Hargreave was seeing the wonders of Hong Kong afresh through her excited eyes. ‘That’s the Ocean Terminal,’ he pointed, ‘and that’s the Star Ferry terminal, and behind it is Statue Square with the old Supreme Court building. And see that big glass skyscraper to the left – that’s the Bank of China.’

      ‘So much money?’

      ‘It owns most of the best real estate in Hong Kong. That tall building beside it is the Citicorp Bank, one of the biggest in America. And over to the right, that big grey monstrosity is the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, one of the richest in the world, where I keep my money. And behind it is Government House.’

      ‘Is that where you live, darling?’

      ‘When I’m in town. And see that ugly tall building to the left? – that’s the new Supreme Court, where I earn my money.’

      She peered through the binoculars. ‘Wow … So that’s where you’re the boss?’

      ‘Well, the Chief Justice, the Attorney General and I kind of share the joint. And ahead is the famous Wanchai where all the girlie-bars are.’

      ‘The World of Suzie Wong, I read the story! So nice! I feel she is my friend! Except I am luckier than Suzie, huh?’

      ‘Absolutely.’

      ‘Absolutely, poor Suzie, no director, no yacht. Oh darling –’ she flung her arms wide – ‘I’m so happy!’

      Hargreave grinned. ‘And so am I.’

      She smiled at him, eyes suddenly moist, then raised the binoculars again: ‘I’m a tourist!’

      Hargreave pointed. ‘And see all those junks over there – in there is the yacht club where my boat lives, and over there is our famous Kai Tak Airport, one of the most dangerous in the world. The aircraft have to fly straight towards those Kowloon mountains, then do a hairpin turn and skim over the rooftops to that narrow runway jutting out into all those boats.’

      She studied it through the binoculars. ‘Those pilots are almost as clever as you, darling.’ She swung back to the Peak. ‘Can we see where you live?’

      ‘Not from here. All right, it’s getting late, let’s go’n find a nice anchorage.’ He swung the wheel and turned around.

      The sun was getting low when they returned to Lantau Island. They were on their third bottle of wine. He dropped anchor a hundred yards offshore in a deserted bay. There was a small crescent of beach between two rocky points, and a new middle-class housing development up the coast, a few miles away. To the north Hong Kong island loomed. ‘Can we swim even though we haven’t been through immigration control yet?’

      ‘Provided you don’t set your pretty foot ashore.’

      But first they lounged in the cockpit in the sultry sunset, watching the lights of distant Hong Kong come on, drinking another bottle of wine. Olga was captivated all over again by the beauty of the place. The moon was coming up, and Hargreave was on his second whisky when she took it into her head that it was time to go for that swim. She pulled off her bikini and leaped up on to the wheelhouse top, silvery-golden in the moonlight. She dived into the moonlit sea, in a flash of streamlined femaleness. She broke surface, gasping, her hair swirling about her shoulders. ‘Come on! It feels so sexy naked.’

      Hargreave did not greatly enjoy swimming – in and out just to get cool was about his speed. And he didn’t like swimming in the dark – he imagined sinister marine creatures bent on discommoding him. But in all his forty-six years Alistair Hargreave had never swum naked with a woman, and it was that erotic notion that galvanized him into action – plus, no doubt, all the booze sloshing around inside him. He put down his glass, unzipped his shorts, clambered up on to the wheelhouse and dived in to join his glorious girl down there. Olga gave a squeal and began to thrash away into deeper water, away from the island she’d been forbidden to set foot upon. Hargreave thrashed after her, to get that silvery loveliness in his arms. Olga swam away from him, legs and arms flashing in the moonlight: they were about thirty yards from the yacht when she let him catch up with her. And oh, the glorious slippery feel of her in his arms, writhing against him as she trod water and thrust her laughing mouth against his: then the stomach cramps hit him.

      One moment Al Hargreave was laughing in a sensuous embrace, the next agony struck, a spasm that doubled him over, clutching his guts, holding him in a vice, wrenching his head underwater – all he knew through the agony was the terror of gasping in bitter salt water, the terrifying panic of strangulation. He thrashed back to the surface and gasped in another mouthful of choking water; he gagged and coughed, trying to spit it out. Another spasm wrenched him down, and Olga pulled him back to the surface. She grabbed him by the hair and hauled his head up, shouting, ‘Don’t panic!’ She pulled him over on to his back and thrust her hand under his chin to hold his face uppermost – ‘Don’t panic – don’t struggle – take deep breaths!’ She trod water desperately as Hargreave gasped, trying to tread water through the agony of the cramp, choking and gasping again, his heart pounding. ‘Kick your feet while I pull you …’ She started swimming with one arm, the other supporting his chin. She looked over her shoulder for the boat, and was horrified to see how far it was – and then she felt the current.

      The tide was going out, sweeping around the tip of the island; the boat was fifty yards off, and within a minute Olga knew she could not swim with Hargreave against the flow. She looked desperately at the other side of the bay – the rocky point was two hundred yards away. That was the only way she was going to get him out of this crisis, by using the current. Olga turned and started swimming desperately towards that point, on her back, frog-legging, one arm back-stroking, gasping; ‘Kick – kick like a frog!’ Hargreave tried to kick, the agony shooting through his guts, his arms desperately working, his chin clasped above water by Olga’s hand, gasping, coughing, retching.

      Olga swam and swam with the tide, desperately trying to steer towards the point, her heart pounding, and then the exhaustion began to take hold. She thrashed and thrashed and thrashed, and the pain came screeching into her arms and legs and pounding heart, exhaustion that built and built to agony, and still she thrashed, gasping ‘Kick – kick …’ Hargreave kicked and kicked, water slopping into his rasping mouth with each jerk, coughing and gulping in more: and then Olga could fight no longer; she just had to stop