Hong Kong Belongers. Simon Barnes

ever, not for Christmas nor for anything else. Alan raised his glass, intending to drain it in a final brave swallow, to run to the ferry, last one aboard, just as the gangplank was pulled away. But with the swallow half done, he lowered his glass. A weak defiance had seized him. Thus do our lives change for ever.

      The ferry hooted once more, reproachfully, and began its effortful journey back to the island of madness. Leaving Alan on the island of Tung Lung. It was warm, and anyway he had on the back of his chair his bad jacket, an unfortunate purchase in purple tweed. And he had money, money enough for another beer, at any rate. He would watch the sun go down from this scrap of a café, from this table on the edge of the toy harbour, watch the sun go down behind his Chinese scroll.

      It was then that the impossible happened. Ambling, strolling at his ease, in marked contrast to the babbling crowds that had preceded him, not so much a stroller as a flâneur, tall – an inch or two over six foot – clad in a suit of unnatural perfection but worn with a studied insouciance, a gweilo. A round-eye, a European, a foreign devil, and anyway, quite clearly an Englishman. There was a slim attaché case in his hand, a garment bag over his shoulder. By his side walked a Chinese boy, pushing a trolley on which stood two suitcases of imposing size and solidity. The gweilo – Alan already thought in the Hong Kong idiom – was smiling faintly to himself.

      He turned into the café and, in a voice of unexpected harshness, shouted out a few words of Cantonese. The fat proprietor came out to meet him. The two shook hands and discoursed with some warmth. Then the gweilo turned away, laughing, throwing out some quip that made the proprietor laugh in turn. Still smiling to himself, he walked to the tables by the harbour. It was then that he noticed Alan. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, all trace of coarseness gone from his voice.

      ‘Hello,’ Alan said. He saw with some surprise that the newcomer was a little younger than himself; for all that, his ease of manner and his maturity of expression left Alan rather intimidated. In this moment of awkwardness, he wished very much that he had caught the ferry that was now turning away to the north.

      The man stopped at the adjoining table, a move nicely calculated to avoid any accusation of unfriendliness without seeming to force friendliness upon him. It was a moment of perfect Englishness. Before sitting, he hung his garment bag from a branch of the banyan tree that shaded their tables. He did so with an air of quiet delight, as if the tree had grown in that shape especially for his convenience, and he couldn’t help feeling flattered by the attention. He then sat, unbuttoned the collar of his shirt of virginal whiteness, and unknotted his tie. This he rolled around his fingers and slipped into the pocket of his jacket.

      The proprietor approached him with a glass and a dewed bottle, and received courteous thanks in Cantonese. Then, with very careful attention, the gweilo poured liquid gold into tilted glass. He placed bottle and glass on the table, not drinking, savouring their beauty.

      ‘Visiting the island?’ he asked.

      ‘Came out for lunch. Can’t bear to go home.’

      ‘My dear chap. Stay for ever. Beer?’

      ‘Thank you.’

      He filled Alan’s glass with the same care with which he had filled his own. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

      ‘Happy Christmas.’

      They drank.

      ‘I’m André Standing.’ This announcement took Alan by surprise. It was simply not English, neither the name nor the bare fact of its announcement. After the business of the man’s choosing of his seat, Alan had expected to be playing by English rules. André, clearly, was English, yet not English. Alan played his own name in return; André asked: ‘On holiday?’

      ‘In a manner of speaking. I’ve just started work at the Hong Kong Times. We all got Christmas Day off, by a miracle, so I thought I’d spend it on Tung Lung.’

      ‘Get on all right with old Simpson?’ This unexpected dropping of his editor’s name was disquieting.

      ‘Only met him the once. Seems all right. Rather a change of pace after Fleet Street.’ Alan was seeking to impress in his turn. ‘What about yourself? What brings you out here?’

      ‘My dear chap. I live here, you see.’

      Alan was riven through the heart with envy. ‘What do you do?’

      ‘Well, I’m sort of an entrepreneur, really. Bit of import/export. Do a fair bit in your line too; I’ve been known to sell advertising space for the odd magazine. Take my card.’ He pincered two fingers into his breast pocket and produced it. It was nicely engraved, a statement of class.

      ‘Merchant,’ Alan read.

      ‘That seems to cover it, on the whole.’

      ‘Very stylish.’

      ‘Well, very Hong Kong, really. Or very Asia – I’m just back this minute, actually. Been in Seoul, South Korea, you know. Just for a few days, but did some very sweet business.’

      ‘What sort of thing?’

      ‘Oh, the usual stuff, you know. I’m interested in the pharmaceutical trade.’

      ‘Oh.’ Alan drank, from nervousness. André, observing this, called out again in Cantonese; the fat proprietor returned with two new bottles. He seemed greatly exhilarated, and clapped André on the shoulder several times. The two exchanged a series of surprisingly excited remarks, all in Cantonese, and then the proprietor withdrew, beaming. André, too, seemed tremendously bucked by the exchange.

      ‘Good old Tung Lung,’ he said, pouring his beer.

      ‘It will make my flat in the Mid-Levels seem doubly poky tonight,’ Alan said.

      ‘Yes,’ André said. ‘I love it here. Don’t suppose I’ll ever move away. Most Europeans are just staying in Hong Kong for a while. How long have you been in Hong Kong? Standard Hong Kong question. But here on Tung Lung, I’m home. I have a nice flat, a nice boat, nice friends, a nice life. Nice Chinese girl – well, some days she’s nice enough. But all thanks to this island here. Who cares if Ng’s well runs dry and you have no water for a week? This is Tung Lung, and it simply doesn’t matter.’

      ‘Mm, yes, I envy you.’ Alan thought all this was rather overdoing it, sympathetic though the message was. But then André, lowering his voice in a rather stagy manner, came down to it. ‘In fact, I may be able to fix you up with a flat on Tung Lung. Do you like the sound of that?’

      So that was what they had been talking about. ‘My God. I’d adore it. But –’

      ‘That’s settled, then.’

      ‘But what time does the last ferry leave Hong Kong in the evening?’

      ‘Oh, late enough. Ten thirty.’

      A thud of despair. ‘No good. I’m a downtable sub; I don’t finish work till eleven thirty. Three times a fortnight, I do a late turn, finish at three.’

      ‘Oh really. I say, what a terrible bore. You’re the sort of chap who’d do well here. Resign at once, come and join us out here.’

      ‘Wonderful thought.’

      ‘No, really, you can do it: moonlight flit on the job and the flat, take up residence here, start merchant-venturing about the place. I’ve got a row of contacts in your line of work. You’d be up to your eyes in business in no time. How about it?’

      ‘André – I wish I could. But it’s not possible right now.’

      ‘Ah well. You’re still new here, aren’t you? You’re not close enough to the edge yet. But you’ll get there soon enough. I promise you that.’

      Alan sat on the ferry drinking his beer. André had insisted on buying him a can for the journey. They had shaken hands warmly by the café, and then André had