Hong Kong Belongers. Simon Barnes

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      How early could you have a drink? This was not a question to be dismissed lightly. He had dined the previous night off a six-pack of San Mig and a packet of peanuts, and had played patience until the beer was finished. One o’clock was all right, surely? Well, twelve. The pubs opened in England on Sunday at twelve. On weekdays they opened at eleven, and this was a weekday. He did a deal with himself: a beer after he had spoken to the editor of the China Gazette. This was the competition, if such it could be called, to the Times, a newspaper that expressed the spirit of opposition by seeking to outdo its rival in fuddyduddyness. Alan bravely rang the number. The editor would be in at two.

      By five past two, Alan had finished the second beer of the day. The first didn’t count and the second was necessary. He had learnt that no vacancy of any kind existed on the China Gazette. He had run the gamut of Hong Kong newspapers.

      The telephone splintered the silence. It was Bill. ‘Bad luck, lad, I know, yes, Simpson’s a bad man. Look, I don’t know what your plans are, but there’s a friend of mine who produces a shitty little magazine that circulates free to businessmen. Sells editorial space, that kind of carry-on. It’s not exactly journalism, but nor is working for the Times is it? Know anything about business?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘That’s all right, nor does Reg. I know he’s looking for an assistant, by which he means someone to do the dirty jobs while he goes to the bar and to Bangkok and so on. Want his number?’

      It took Alan a couple of tries to say thank you, yes please. Then, after Bill had rung off, he dialled the number without giving himself a moment to think.

      ‘Top-hole,’ said Reg unexpectedly. ‘Excellent. Let’s discuss it right away. Beer after work, you know the Two Brewers in Lockhart Road?’

      Alan spent the afternoon playing patience, an attempt, not as effective as walking, at keeping both hope and despair at bay. Then he took a taxi to the heart of Wanchai, and walked along Lockhart Road, a narrow gully above which hung an endless procession of Damoclean neon signs: Crazy Horse, New American Restaurant, Ocean Bar, Seven Seas Bar. Alan walked, striving to give no more than a casual glance at the photographs, outside the topless bars, of glorious ping-pong ball breasts.

      The Two Brewers stood between a tattoo parlour and a restaurant decorated with the wind-dried corpses of chickens. To open the door was to pass, as through the looking-glass, into the Home Counties. The sort of dingy pub you find by the railway station. There, beer and a copy of Hong Kong Business on the bar before him, in safari suit (electric blue) and behind a small paunch, Reg. Two strange white tufts of hair sprang from his head, behind his ears. They looked like powder puffs. Reg looked like a saloon-bar golfer, half a pint of cooking and a Scotch egg please, landlord. Odd to think that his favoured, apparently unashamed, leisure pursuit was not golf but whoring.

      ‘So you’re a friend of Bill’s, what a good sort he is, terrible shame of course but there you are, that’s Hong Kong. But he knows his job and he says you’re OK, and that’s good enough for me. Worked at the Times myself, of course, years ago, never could get on with Simpson, set up on my own and here we are.’

      Reg was not a man to deal with any subject briefly, but several beers later, hands were shaken on a decision. Alan was to work for Reg five afternoons a week for two thousand dollars a month. ‘Flexible as you like, old chap, so long as we get the work done. I need a dogsbody, to tell you the truth, and some of the work will be an awful grind. But if you can put up with that, I’m more than happy to have you on board.’

      Alan could. He was invited to start the following Monday. Did he need an advance?

      Back on the fifteenth floor, head slightly fuzzy after his interview with Reg, Alan stood at his window with the telephone in his hand. He could see the harbour between the two buildings that rose up in front of him, the moving lights of the shipping, the still lights of Kowloon on the far side. He grasped the instrument like a weapon, Bond setting an assignment in motion. ‘Hello. This is Alan Fairs, remember we met –’

      ‘Alan, my dear. How perfectly splendid. Are you coming out to see us again? How is the Hong Kong Times?’

      Alan did not feel it necessary to hide things from André. ‘Rather why I’m calling you. I’ve just been sacked.’

      ‘I knew you were the right sort for us. I have an instinct. But my dear old thing, how perfectly rotten all the same. Being sacked always depresses me for hours. But, Alan, could it really be that you are coming to join our glorious community on Tung Lung?’

      ‘Is the flat still free?’

      ‘Yours for seven hundred bucks a month.’

      ‘Done.’

      ‘Naturally you must sign some bits of paper and shake hands with your new landlord. Let me see. Tomorrow I can make the four thirty ferry home from Central. Why not catch it too?’

      Home. ‘All right.’

      ‘And your life in Hong Kong can begin.’