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СКАЧАТЬ is when Doctor Olga Romalova arrives!’

      Hargreave grinned. ‘And when are you going to start studying?’

      She looked up at him seriously, upside-down.

      ‘When I leave Macao. I already have enough money, even after I have bought a farm for my brother and me – I have decided I will not buy an apartment.’ She paused. ‘But, of course, if you do not tell me to go away, I will start after you leave Hong Kong.’

      Tell me to go away. Oh you poor girl. Before he could respond she twisted on to her stomach, scrambled to her knees and flung her arms around his shoulders. ‘Oh, don’t be frightened of me – I am not putting pressure on you! I am so sorry! Oh darling, of course you are not responsible for me, we are just discussing and the truth is I love you so of course I want to do what you say, but I am not a crazy girl who thinks everything is decided, I am just telling you what I have decided about my life because I do not like to be a prostitute any more!’

      ‘I didn’t look frightened, did I?’ Hargreave grinned.

      ‘Oh –’ she waggled her sweaty breasts against his head and hugged him – ‘your face, so funny, so worried! Darling, there is no problem for you, I am just telling you my exciting future now I am almost not a whore any more. And I have already written a letter to the University of Moscow, and the University of Miami, asking how much it costs, soon I will know something. Oh darling –’ she clasped his face to her and rocked him – ‘do not be frightened of me – now let’s stop talking about it.’

      No, he was not frightened of her: he was enchanted. Her enthusiasm and energy seemed as boundless as her beauty.

      That afternoon they anchored in an empty cove on Tap Mun Chau and went ashore with goggles and snorkels. They swam along the rocky shoreline, looking at the marine life: Olga led the way, and Hargreave was not watching too much marine life; he was entranced by the beautiful form ahead of him, her buttocks, her lovely long golden legs smoothly working the flippers, her long blonde hair streaming silkily behind her: she was the most sensuous creature in the world. They walked along the deserted beach together, looking at the shells and seaweed and jetsam, Olga crouching to examine bits of this and that, holding them up to the sun to admire the colours: she caught a very worried sandcrab and held it up for Hargreave to admire.

      ‘Look how perfect this animal is. Look at his shell, to protect him. Look at his little claws, to catch his food – so strong. Look at his little breathing place – and look at his eyes! How can eyes so small have all the lenses and nerves and things to tell him what he is seeing?’ She put the crab down and watched it scurry away gratefully. ‘God is very clever, even though I don’t believe in Him.’

      ‘I think you do.’

      ‘Yes? Then why is there so much suffering?’

      ‘Because long ago God decided to let us do our own thing and not interfere, so we would develop our characters, become strong.’

      ‘But if He decided not to interfere, why do you pray for help?’

      ‘In the hope He will grant it.’

      She mused, walking along, head down, very dissatisfied with that answer. ‘But God knows everything. So He knew long ago whether you would pray or not, and He knew long ago He would not interfere because He wanted you to be strong. So what is the hope in praying? You cannot make God change His mind by praying because He already knew before the world began what He was going to do.’ She stopped to pick up a shell. ‘I wish I understood that. If I did, I would pray.’

      Hargreave wished he understood it too. ‘Maybe by praying we harness some of His strength to ourselves.’

      ‘Hmm,’ Olga mused, ‘I must think about that. Like the yogis. Maybe that is the solution to the puzzle.’

      They were swimming nude, about twenty yards from the yacht, when Jake McAdam’s junk came around the point and turned into their bay. There were three girls sunbathing topless on the foredeck, Jake and a dozen people on the big afterdeck. Jake shouted: ‘Come over for a drink!’ He steamed past them and dropped anchor about a hundred yards away. Hargreave and Olga swam back to their yacht. She mounted the swimming ladder and put on her bikini and he pulled on his swimming trunks.

      ‘Remember you’re a singer.’

      ‘That’s me. At the big hotels. And I’m making my holidays.’

      ‘And we met in the floating casino, because Jake knows I don’t go to night-clubs.’

      They clambered down the ladder into the inflatable dinghy. He started the outboard motor and they chugged over to Jake’s junk and tied up to his swimming ladder.

      ‘Welcome aboard!’

      Hargreave need not have worried. Jake remembered Olga – ‘How could I forget that tango?’ – but nobody else had seen her before. The party was going strong and everybody was very jolly. Jake was with a physiotherapist called Monica with whom he had a long-standing affair of convenience: Hargreave knew most of the fourteen people aboard, at least casually: they were a mixed bag, as Jake’s parties usually were, from highbrow to low-brow: Doc Dobson, a bachelor from the government clinic whose ‘tiresome duty’ it was to keep tabs on the venereal health of Wanchai bar-girls; Jack-the-Fire, a senior fireman with his ageing live-in girlfriend, Nancy Smythe, who was a teacher; Harry Howard, the stockbroker with his imperturbable Chinese mistress, Petal, who was a psychiatrist (‘He’s crazy, even more than me’); Denys Watson, a very successful barrister whose weaknesses were whisky and women, who had left his long-suffering wife at home; Whacker Ball, a misogynist who was the editor of the Oriental Israelite, a caustic weekly digest of Hong Kong news owned by Jake; Isabel Phipson, the very attractive headmistress with her lesbian lover, Penny, who was Jake’s bookkeeper: though there were some new faces, Hargreave counted these people as his friends – and Elizabeth’s – and they all seemed pleased to see him. Nobody mentioned Elizabeth or his bullet wound – his dramatic scar was exposed – although there were many interested looks cast at Olga. (‘Wow,’ Isabel Phipson joshed him, ‘lucky boy, Al, where did you find her?’ ‘Hands orf!’ Hargreave grinned, and Isabel went into giggles.) ‘What a lovely girl, Al,’ Denys Watson murmured, ‘where’s she from?’

      ‘You hands orf, too, Denys!’ Isabel giggled, and they all laughed. Hargreave liked Denys, who stoically excluded his friends’ women from his weakness.

      ‘She’s from Russia,’ Hargreave said, ‘she’s a night-club singer in Macao.’

      ‘How do you do; I am Olga Romalova from Russia,’ he heard her say above the music and chit-chat, pumping hands energetically with Whacker Ball.

      ‘And what brings you to our part of the world, Olga?’ Whacker boomed.

      ‘I am a singer, now I am making some holidays …’

      Doc Dobson put his hand on Hargreave’s shoulder and whispered, ‘What a charming girl. Even Whacker likes her.’

      Charming – that was the word for her. Hargreave watched surreptitiously as he circulated around the big afterdeck: now Olga was the centre of a small circle of people, the formerly-topless girls and Harry Howard: they all laughed uproariously at something she had just said. Jack-the-Fire, who was getting along with the whisky, murmured, ‘Good on yer, Al – I hope she’s not going back to Russia too quick.’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ