Ghostwritten Part 6

What was I going to do? I rolled up my s.h.i.+rt and looked on my forearm. There was a snake which Tomoyo had drawn on with a blue pen yesterday afternoon. I asked her, why a snake? She'd laughed at me like she was in on a joke that I wasn't in on.

Two thoughts walked into my place.

The first thought said that we hadn't slept together because s.e.x would have closed an entrance behind us and opened an exit ahead of us.

The second thought told me quite clearly what to do.

Maybe Takes.h.i.+'s wife was right maybe it is unsafe to base an important decision on your feelings for a person. Takes.h.i.+ says the same thing often enough. Every bonk, he says, quadruples in price by the morning after. But who are Takes.h.i.+ or his wife to lecture anybody? If not love, then what?

I looked at the time. Three o'clock. She was how many thousand kilometres and one time zone away. I could leave some money to cover the cost of the call.

'Good timing,' Tomoyo answered, like I was calling from the cigarette machine around the corner. 'I'm unpacking.'

'Missing me?'

'A tiny little bit, maybe.'

'Liar! You don't sound surprised to hear me.'

I could hear the smile in her voice. 'I'm not. When are you coming?'

And so we talked about what flight I could catch, where we would go, how she would level things with her father, what I could do to avoid eating into my meagre savings too much. I felt as near to Paradise as I have ever been.

Hong Kong

The moon, the moon, in the after...

There's a mechanism in my alarm clock connected to a switch in my head that sends a message to my arm which extends itself and commands my thumb to punch the OFF b.u.t.ton a moment before the thing beeps me awake. Every morning, without fail, no matter how much whisky I drank the night before or what time I finally got to bed. I've forgotten.

f.u.c.k. That was a horrible, horrible dream. I can't remember all the details, and I don't think I want to. The office was being raided. Huw Llewellyn had stormed in, with the Chinese police and my old scoutmaster whose Volvo I once shat on, they were all on rollerblades, and in my haste to erase the suddenly numerous files relating to Account 1390931 I keep mis-typing my pa.s.sword. K-A-T-Y-F-R-B K-A-T-Y-F-R-B, no, K-T-Y K-T-Y, no, K-A-T-Y-F-O-R-B-W K-A-T-Y-F-O-R-B-W no, and I'd have to start over. They work their way up the building, floor by floor, coffee cups were spilling in their wake, the electric fan swings its eye this way again, and unpaid telephone bills flutter through the air, bats at dusk... There's a window open, and forty days and nights up the wind is vicious. The mouse on my computer sits there frozen, refusing to double-click. Was it any of this? Was what any of this? I've forgotten. no, and I'd have to start over. They work their way up the building, floor by floor, coffee cups were spilling in their wake, the electric fan swings its eye this way again, and unpaid telephone bills flutter through the air, bats at dusk... There's a window open, and forty days and nights up the wind is vicious. The mouse on my computer sits there frozen, refusing to double-click. Was it any of this? Was what any of this? I've forgotten.

How many times have I dreamed of computers? I'd keep a dream diary, but even that might be used to help nail me one day. I imagine reporters printing the screwier ones, and prison a.n.a.lysts discussing the p.o.r.n ones in supermarket aisles. I wonder who had the first computer dream, where and when? I wonder if computers ever dream of humans.

Horn-rimmed Llewellyn. I'd only met him yesterday, and here the c.u.n.t was already gatecras.h.i.+ng my subconscious.

f.u.c.k. The minute hand clicks again. The second hand glides around, reeling in my life surely as a kite string when it's time to go home. f.u.c.k. I'm eating into my morning time safety margin. Another morning feeling as shattered as I felt the night before. My face feels cracked and ready to fall off in Easter-egg bits. And to cap it all I'm going down with another bout of 'flu, I swear it. Hong f.u.c.king Kong and I spend half my life walking around feeling like a steamed dumpling. Easter must be around now. Come on, Neal, you can make it as far as the shower. A hot shower will do the trick. b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. Some speed would do the trick, but it's all snorted away.

I haul myself out of bed, stepping on a cold waffle and a plate. f.u.c.k! She's coming today, I think, she'll clean it up. At least there'll be some food waiting when I get back. Something Chinese, but at least I won't have to face another waffle.

Into the living room. There was a message for me on the answer machine. Luckily I'd remembered to switch on the Sleepeasy mode before I'd gone to bed, otherwise I'd have got even less sleep than I did. I swiped all the c.r.a.p on the sofa onto the floor, jabbed the 'Play' b.u.t.ton, and lay on the sofa...

'Rise and s.h.i.+ne, Neal! This is Avril. Thanks for disappearing last night. Remember you've got the meeting with Mr Wae's lawyers at 9.30, and Theo wants a full briefing beforehand, so you'd better get here by 8.45 sharp. Get the coffee perkin'. See you soon.'

Avril. Nice name, silly slag.

Don't get too comfortable there, Neal. One, two, three, up! I said 'up!' Into the kitchen, chuck the old filter into the overflowing bin, f.u.c.k, it's gone everywhere, ho-hum sorry, maid, fresh filter, fresh coffee, more than the recommended dosage thank you very much, click 'on'. Trickle your thickest juice there for your Uncle Neal my baby, that's the way. I've forgotten. Open the fridge. Half a lemon, three bottles of gin, a pint of milk that expired over a month ago, dried kidney beans, and... waffles. G.o.d is still in heaven, I still have some waffles left. Waffle in toaster. Back to bedroom, Neal. There'll be a white s.h.i.+rt hanging in the closet, where she hung them up every Sunday, every one the skin of a gwai lo, gwai lo, s.h.a.gged and fleeced. I'll be so f.u.c.king angry if she's yanked them off the hangers again... She'll do anything for attention. s.h.a.gged and fleeced. I'll be so f.u.c.king angry if she's yanked them off the hangers again... She'll do anything for attention.

No, it's okay. Hanging in a neat row. Boxer shorts, trousers, slung over the chair where you left them last night. The cheap, tubular, chair. I miss the Queen Anne one. It was the one thing in this apartment older than me. One more bit of Katy gone. Grab a vest, a s.h.i.+rt, your jacket, something's missing belt. Where's my belt?

'Okay. Very f.u.c.king funny. Where's my belt?'

The air conditioner droned from the living room.

'I'm going into the living room right now. Unless I find my belt on the arm of the sofa, I am going to go f.u.c.king ballistic.'

I went into the living room. I found my belt on the arm of the sofa.

'Just as f.u.c.king well.'

I remembered that I had got dressed without my shower. I stunk, and there was a meeting with what's-his-face from the Taiwan Consortium this morning.

'You plonker, Neal,' and n.o.body disagreed. When you call yourself a plonker n.o.body ever disagrees with you. The shower would cost me the rest of my safety margin. Unless the morning routine 'routine' went like clockwork, I would miss that crucial ferry, and have to start fabulating some impressive excuses.

I clicked off the air-conditioner. 'It's only f.u.c.king May. You want to freeze me to death? Who would you have to drive round the bend then, hey?'

In the bathroom I found she'd been up to her usual tricks with the soap bottle. Katy always bought those pump-action containers of liquid soap, and so did the maid, which was all well and good until she discovered what fun it was to hammer the pump up and down. It was all over the walls, in the toilet bowl, on the floor of the shower cubicle, probably yes under where I'd just lain my s.h.i.+rt. Smeared trails everywhere like jerked-off s.e.m.e.n.

'Very f.u.c.king amusing. Are you going to clean up this mess?'

Funny, she never touched any of the toiletries that Katy had left behind. It was only ever my stuff. Why didn't I just chuck that woman-stuff out? I still had a box of tampons in the cabinet. Two boxes. Heavy flow, light flow. The maid never touched the tampons I couldn't understand why. Maybe it's a Chinese thing, like the babies not wearing nappies, and just c.r.a.pping through that b.u.m-flap wherever and whenever. The maid suffered no qualms about working through the talc.u.m powder, skin moisturisers and bath pearls, though. Why should she feel any qualms, if she didn't about anything else?

The shower deluged my head. Soak, shampoo, rub, rinse, conditioner, finger up a smearage of the pumped-out body soap, lather, rinse. I gave myself a full two minutes. Bathe now, pay later.

Towelling myself dry, I suck in my gut, but it doesn't make much difference these days. Neal, when did that thing start growing on you? Stress is supposed to make you lose weight. Doubtless it does, but a dietary credit of ninety per cent waffles, fruit pastilles, cigarettes and whisky must outweigh the stress debit. You look pregnant. 'Ow!' I flinch. If Katy had got pregnant... would anything be different? Would you have got out while you could, or would you have more to worry about? Is it possible to worry more than I do and not... not just die from it? I don't know.

Something was burning! f.u.c.k, the iron!

No, I hadn't switched the iron on. That's waffle-smoke. f.u.c.king great. No f.u.c.king breakfast. Take your time, Neal, it's a waffle past redemption. A Waffle Too Far. When is a waffle not a waffle? When it's a piece of f.u.c.king charcoal, that's when. I'd just have to heap the sugar into the coffee, I suppose. Liquid breakfast. Into the living room. A trickle of black was coming under the door, and I thought it was blood. Whose blood? Her blood? Nothing would surprise me in this apartment any more. Then I saw it was dark brown. f.u.c.king great. I'd used two filters instead of one, and we know what happens when you do that, don't we, Neal?

Into the kitchen. Off with the coffee machine, off with the toaster, off with his head. Fancy a nice gla.s.s of water for breakfast, Neal? Why thank you, Neal. No clean gla.s.ses. Okay, a bowl of water. Splendid. 'Bon appet.i.t, Neal.' I surveyed my culinary empire. It looked like Keith Moon had been a house-guest for a month. No it didn't. Keith Moon would leave it cleaner than this. Sorry, Maidie. I'll make it up to you later. 'You'll f.u.c.king well make sure I will, won't you?'

Put on your tie and get to work, Neal. Mustn't keep the slitty-eyed moneymakers waiting any longer than you probably will. What a morning, I hadn't even looked out of the window to see what the weather was doing. I looked on my pager: dry and cloudy. No umbrella, then. That Asian non-weather. I've forgotten. I already knew the view: bare hillside, dulled by mist, and the lethargic sea.

I clicked off the air-conditioner. Again. I leave the alarm clock radio on for her, like my mum used to for the dog. From the bedroom I hear the business news in Cantonese. I don't know if she likes it. Sometimes she switches it off, sometimes she doesn't, sometimes she re-tunes it.

'Try to behave,' I said, squeezing into my laced-up shoes, grabbing my briefcase and picking up my clutch of keys.

Katy always answered, 'I hear and obey, oh hunter-gatherer.'

She never answers.

Going, going, gone.

The elevator was on its way down. Thank G.o.d. Otherwise I'd miss the bus to the ferry. The doors opened. I squeezed into the all-male s.p.a.ce, half-yellow, half-pinko-grey, but all the same Financial Zone Tribe. We couldn't afford to live here if we weren't. The s.p.a.ce smelt of suits, aftershave, leather and hair-mousse, and something lingering. Maybe badly ducted testosterone. n.o.body said a word. n.o.body breathed. I turned around, so that my d.i.c.k wasn't facing another moneymaker's d.i.c.k, and saw the door to my apartment: 144.

'Not good,' Mrs Feng had said. '"Four" in Chinese means "Death".'

'You can't spend all of your life avoiding Four,' Katy had protested.

'True,' said Mrs Feng, closing her sad eyes. 'But there is another problem.'

'Which is?' said Katy, giving me a half-smile.

'The elevator,' said Mrs Feng, opening her sharp eyes.

'We're on the fourteenth floor,' I said. 'Don't tell me we can't use the elevator.'

'But it's directly opposite your own door!'

'So?' Katy was no longer smiling.

'The elevator doors are jaws! They eat up good luck. In this place you shall have none.'

I looked up, and saw myself looking down through smoked gla.s.s, from amongst the tops of my unmoving heads. Like I was spirit-walking.

'You're also on Lantau Island,' she had added as an afterthought.

Ping, went the bell.

'What's wrong with Lantau Island? It's the one place in Hong Kong where you can pretend the world was once beautiful.'

'We don't like the currents. Too much north, too much east.'

Ping, went the bell, ping, ping, ping. First floor. Ground floor. Whatever. The bus was waiting. We all ran across the road and boarded it, the James Bond music blaring in my head. I thought of little boys boarding a pretend-troop transporter in a game of war.

Standing room only on the bus, but I don't mind. It reminds me of being crushed on the Dear Old Circle Line back in Dear Old Blighty. The cricket season will be starting now. That's why I like this bus. From the moment I get on it until the moment I enter the office, everything is out of my hands. I don't have to decide anything. I can zombify.

Until, that is, some f.u.c.ker's cordless phone drills through my ear-drum. That is so annoying! Answer it. Answer it! Deaf-o, answer your f.u.c.king telephone! What are you all looking at me like that for?

Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realise they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.

I answer it, allowing the electrons of irrelevance to finish their journey along wires, into s.p.a.ce and back into my ear.

'Yeah? Brose speaking.'

So, now every last jacka.s.s on this bus knows my name is Brose.

'Neal, this is Avril.'

'Avril.' Who else? She had probably slept over in the office. She was still hard at work on the Taiwan Portfolio when I left last night stroke this morning stroke whenever it was. Jardine-Pearl had a posse of lawyers working on this one. Cavendish had me, Avril and Ming, who couldn't manage the lease on our I mean my apartment without f.u.c.king it up and getting me right royally rogered on the deposit. The Chinese are bad enough, estate agents are even worse, but Chinese Estate Agents are Satan's Secret Servicemen. They should be lawyers, but they probably make more cash doing what they do. f.u.c.k, the Taiwan Portfolio! On top of everything else I had to worry about, I had this maze of details, small print, traps. It was probably good Avril was on this case, but f.u.c.k, she got on my t.i.ts sometimes. London had sent her in January, and she was so piously keen. Me, three years ago.

'Sleep well?'

'No.'

Avril probably wanted me to apologise for leaving early last night. This morning. One a.m. Early, right. She could f.u.c.king forget it.

'I'm phoning about the Mickey Kwan File.'

'What about it?'

'I can't find it.'

'Oh.'

'So where is it? You had it last night. Before you went home.'

f.u.c.k you, Avril. 'I had it yesterday evening. Six hours before I went home.'

'It's not on your desk now. And it's nowhere in Guilan's office. So it must be in your office somewhere, because I haven't touched it since yesterday afternoon. Might you might it have been misfiled? Could it have been put under something, again? In a drawer somewhere?'

'I am on a bus on Lantau Island, Avril. I can't quite see my office from here.'

I thought I heard somebody sn.i.g.g.e.ring behind the wall of suits, ties, and faces pretending not to listen. Sn.i.g.g.e.ring like a loooooooooony. Maybe it was just a sneeze.

Avril was a walking experiment in humourlessness. I should nickname her 'Spock'. 'I don't understand you sometimes. Yes, I know you can't see your office from there, Neal. I know that very well. But in case you've forgotten again Horace Cheung and Theo want a progress report on the Wae Folio in 52 no, 51 minutes. You are not here, because you are still on a bus on Lantau Island. You will not get here for another 38 minutes, 41 minutes if you haven't had breakfast and have to stop for doughnuts. Mr Cheung is always 10 minutes early. This means I have to complete said progress report by the time you waltz in through that door. As I need the Mickey Kwan File to do this, I need it now.'

I sighed, and tried to think of a withering response, but I was all out of wither. I must be going down with this 'flu that's doing the rounds. 'What you say is all true, Avril. But I honestly, really, truly, madly, deeply don't know where the file has got to.'

The bus lurched to and fro. I caught a glimpse of tennis courts, the international school, the curve of a bay and a fis.h.i.+ng junk in the tepid Asian white.

'You have a copy on hard disc, don't you?'

I was suddenly very awake. 'Yes, but-'

'I'll download the file off your hard disc, and whip off a copy on my printer. It's only about twenty pages, yeah? So just tell me your pa.s.sword.'

'I'm afraid I can't do that, Avril.'

A pause while Avril thought. 'I'm afraid you can, Neal.'

I remembered watching a rabbit being skinned, where, or when I couldn't remember. The knife seemed to unzip it. One moment a dozing Mr Bunny, the next a long rip of blood, from buck teeth to rabbity p.e.n.i.s.

'But-'

'If you've downloaded any Swedish dominatrix hard p.o.r.n pix from the internet, I promise your secret is safe with me.'

No matter how quietly I tried to speak, ten people would hear me. 'I can't tell you my pa.s.sword like this. It's a security breach.'

'Neal, you probably haven't noticed, in fact I know you haven't, otherwise you wouldn't have gone home last night, but we are on the verge of losing this account. The Dae Folio is worth $82 million. Dutch Barings and Citibank are both singing under their balcony every night, and they sing more sweetly than we do. If we don't have the Mickey Kwan gains to offset the upsets in Bangkok and Tokyo, we're history. And D.C. is going to know exactly why I'm not going to take the rap for this. You might be happy spending the rest of your life managing a McDonald's in Birmingham, but I want a little more out of life. Now tell me your pa.s.sword! You can change it when you get to work. Your "security breach" is going to last 49 minutes. Come on! If you can't trust me, who can you trust?'

Absolutely f.u.c.king n.o.body, that's who I can trust. I pulled my jacket over my head and held the phone in my armpit. Quasimodo Brose. 'K-A-T-Y-F-O-R-B-E-S.' Don't tell her not to snoop. That would make her snoop. 'There. Happy?'