The Year of Dangerous Loving. John Davis Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ she exploded her hands – ‘because so many foreigners are coming now that Communism is finished. And I am going to make a lot of profit when I sell it. And you know what I am going to do with it?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Buy some farmland. My father was such a good farmer, and he taught me. And the Russian Government is saying, buy land and be good farmers. But my father was frightened of the responsibility because he only knew the Collective where the state pays for everything. My brother was the same. But I am going to buy some land for my stupid brother and me, and we’ll have our own ducks and chickens and cows and pigs and rabbits and vegetables and we’ll sell them in the market for the real price – and you know what else we’ll have?’

      ‘What?’ Her enthusiasm was endearing and infectious.

      ‘Horses! I love horses. And we’ll build a nice, proper house, with a real toilet and bathroom! No more kettles for the tub on Saturday. No more shitting outside in the little house.’

      Hargreave grinned. He glanced over his shoulder to see if his friends had heard, but they had moved. ‘Say that again, not everybody heard it all.’

      ‘What?’ Then she smiled. ‘Okay, a bit loud, huh?’

      Hargreave grinned: ‘Was it really like that?’

      ‘Shit yes!’ Then she clapped her hand over her mouth and burst into giggles. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ They laughed together so everybody looked at them. When they subsided she leant forward and whispered in his ear:

      ‘Let’s go’n dance downstairs …’

      And did they dance?

      Hargreave had no intention of dancing more than just enough to humour her, to be romantic, but Olga had her own ideas. ‘I’ve got my dancing feet on!’ The Bella Mar, with its dance-floor beside the pool, was a rather sedate Old China-Hand place, the elderly Chinese band given to waltzes and a bit of modest rock’n’roll occasionally just to show they weren’t totally old-fashioned. But Olga Romalova, after the first rock-’n’-roll – which Hargreave performed quite well – called across to the band: ‘Hey, can you do a tango?’

      ‘The tango!’ The Chinese bandleader beamed, and his men struck up.

      ‘Der-der-der-DA!’ Olga cried, and she swept back into Hargreave’s astonished arms and leant back so her blonde hair swept the floor. ‘Der-der-der-DA –’ and she swung upright and clasped him dramatically; then she swirled away – ‘Der-der-darra-darra-der-der-Da!’

      And so Olga Romalova taught Hargreave the tango. Everybody left the floor when they started – nobody knew the dance, it seemed. But Olga Romalova sure did. At first Hargreave was mortified and tried to lead her off the floor but she had cried ‘No way!’ and pulled him back. And so Alistair Hargreave, Director of Public Prosecutions, was forced to dance the tango with the most beautiful woman in the world – and he found he could.

      He could! Liz had declared him a failure, but with this glorious woman in his arms, laughing into his eyes, whispering instructions, everything that Liz had tried to teach him came flooding back with the drama of the beat, and with Olga leading him it seemed he knew what to do. So there was Al Hargreave sweeping earnestly round the terrace of the Bella Mar, doing the tango very creditably with the most exotic of partners, her hair sweeping, her breasts jutting, her long legs stalking, her back arching. And when the number ended, and fifty tourists burst into applause, it was Olga who led it, clapping her hands and laughing to the crowd.

       ‘Didn’t he dance good?’

      There were shouts of ‘Yes’ and Hargreave was blushing as he laughed. Up there on the balcony McAdam and Judge Peterson and Max were clapping.

8

      The next day, after an early breakfast, they went for a walk. It was the first time they had ventured outside their secluded hotel: but they would meet nobody he knew at this hour in this part of Macao and even if they did they would not know Olga – even if they recognized her, so fucking what? She was a night-club singer, that’s all. And if they didn’t believe that, fuck ’em, he was a free man!

      It was a hot Sunday morning, the church bells pealing. They walked hand-in-hand along the old stone Praia Grande, under the trees, past the gracious old Leal Senado, the legislative council, past the governor’s residence. Out there land-reclamation barges were at work building big dykes to hold back the muddy River Pearl, to turn the bay into freshwater lakes with artificial islands where giant modern buildings would go up, hotels and shops and offices, all connected with the old shore by sweeping thoroughfares. Hargreave had difficulty understanding it: for centuries Macao had been a small, sleepy, faded Portuguese enclave on the China coast, thoroughly neglected by Lisbon; now, four years before the joint was to be handed back to China, in 1999, there was this frenetic burst of staggering investment that would transform the place into a mini-Hong Kong.

      ‘Has Lisbon suddenly acquired a guilty conscience?’

      ‘No,’ Olga said, ‘it is all local taxes from the casinos, it’s called the Infrastructure Programme, to make Macao survive after 1999.’

      ‘How do you know all this?’

      ‘It is in the newspapers.’

      ‘You read the Portuguese newspaper too?’

      ‘I try. It is interesting to know what is going on. The same is happening in Hong Kong, not so?’

      Yes, the same was happening in Hong Kong and Hargreave had difficulty understanding that too. One and a half years to go before the handover to the Comrades and Hong Kong businessmen and overseas investors were pouring billions into land reclamation all along the waterfronts to make more of the most expensive real estate in the world for more towering buildings: even the highly successful Hong Kong Hilton, in Central, was being pulled down to be replaced by another towering office block. And now the colonial government was building a massive new international airport on reclaimed land off Lantau Island, and when it was finished the old runway jutting out into the harbour would be sold as more real estate to be crammed with yet more skyscrapers; and all along the old flight path into Hong Kong the existing height restrictions would be repealed, old buildings would be torn down and replaced by yet more high-rise development. Lord, was there no end to the optimism and sang-froid?

      ‘It is the China fever,’ Olga said, ‘now that Communism is dead, China is going to go vroom. Imagine: one thousand million new customers for the world! Russia can be the same.’

      ‘But,’ Hargreave said, ‘just up the coast are Shanghai and Swatow and all the other China ports, and just up the River Pearl is Canton, a huge port – fantastic development is going on in all those places too. Shanghai is going to become the biggest industrial centre in China, not Hong Kong. A businessman could build in Shanghai for a fraction of the cost.’

      ‘It is because Hong Kong has the experience,’ Olga said sagely, ‘and British laws.’

      Hargreave snorted. ‘It doesn’t take a Chinese long to learn anything; Shanghai will soon catch up on experience and I think a lot of Hong Kong investors will burn their fingers. And I wouldn’t bank on there being British law for very long – China will throw it out the window as soon as it suits them. And,’ he added, ‘I wouldn’t bank on Communism СКАЧАТЬ