Patrick nodded. The mizzling rain had eased a little and here was as good as anywhere.
‘Sure, I’ll just need to be a bit careful with the levels.’ Eric was standing at the very front of the demonstration, yards from a thick line of Hong Kong police. He was wearing what looked a lot like school trousers and his T-shirt had green fluorescent graffiti-style writing on it, calling for Freedom Now! The cops wore full riot gear and had their shields raised, although Patrick had the feeling that this was largely for show, at least for now. The atmosphere this side of the police line was more festive than threatening, but Patrick had learnt from experience how quickly that could change. Eric and his gang were standing behind a long waterproof canvas banner that read Occupy Central with Love and Peace in English and Cantonese. Patrick slipped his headphones on and asked Eric for his name and title and, while listening to the answer, adjusted the levels on his digital tape recorder. When that wasn’t quite enough, he asked the hardy perennial question about breakfast. Eric frowned. ‘It was an awfully long time ago, but I had a boiled egg for my breakfast.’
The levels looked fine.
‘Great, so here we go. Eric Fung, what makes you think that Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protest can succeed when so many other similar movements have failed?’ Listening to his own voice though the headphones, Patrick was aware that he sounded tired. More than tired in fact – cynical. Eric, by contrast, was upbeat.
‘I believe that we have learnt useful lessons from North Africa and the Middle East. We are resolute.’ As he spoke his fellow revolutionaries nodded and passed around the hand sanitiser. Patrick had noticed that the Hongkongers’ revolutionary fervour came coupled with a deep-seated fear of germs. Earlier, he’d watched as wave after wave of protestors – marching hand in hand – arrived at the gridlocked stretch of motorway and promptly reached into their backpacks for baby wipes and hand gel. The ever-entrepreneurial locals had noticed this too, and there were makeshift stalls selling hand sanitiser, a variety of snacks and, of course, plastic umbrellas of every conceivable colour; the brighter they were the better they sold. The umbrella had become the symbol of this new revolution and it was a powerful one. But it would take more than plastic umbrellas to defeat the Hong Kong authorities and, at their back, the Chinese state. Patrick pressed his young interviewee on this point.
‘The protestors I met in Tahrir Square were resolute too. The young Egyptians that we called Generation Revolution now refer to themselves as Generation Jail. Why will things be any different here?’
Eric nodded. ‘Hong Kong has a long history of protest. We are good at this. We know how to organise and we understand that success will take time. This is a process, not a moment. We understand that.’
Patrick could see why these kids had picked Eric to represent them. He was impressive.
‘I heard the same thing in Cairo and Istanbul, in Bahrain. I heard people saying similar things in Ukraine just the other week.’
Eric pushed the thick bottle-top glasses back up the bridge of his nose and smiled.
‘Perhaps you are an unlucky charm, Mr Reid? I hope you’re not here to bring us bad luck …’ He smiled at his colleagues. Patrick got the impression that Eric didn’t often crack jokes. ‘Maybe I should be asking you the questions. Why do you think all those other protests failed?’ Patrick shrugged. ‘If we can learn these lessons then we might have a better chance of success.’
Patrick shook his head.
‘I’m better at asking questions than answering them I’m sorry to say.’ He asked a few more and Eric did a good job of answering them. They had learnt lessons from other protest movements, a few at least, although Patrick still sensed a certain naivety, especially in the rather amateurish the way they were communicating with each other and organising themselves – text message and Facebook and so on. It reminded him of things he’d seen in Turkey and some of the mistakes the protestors had made there. Deadly mistakes as it had turned out. But he had the quotes he needed and he’d rained on these idealistic Hongkongers’ parade long enough. He thanked Eric, slipped his headphones down around his neck and switched off the digital recorder. Once it was off, Eric relaxed and his manner became less formal.
‘I meant what I said about being interested in what you have seen elsewhere. In Egypt and Turkey. Perhaps it would be possible to talk again?’
‘Sure.’ It would be useful to have a contact right at the front line of the protests; Patrick had tried to make similar connections in all the countries where he’d been working. He took a BBC business card from inside his wallet and handed it to Eric. Swapping business cards was a popular hobby in Hong Kong, even the students had them, but it seemed Eric Fung was the exception. He pocketed Patrick’s card but offered nothing in return. Patrick got a pen out instead. ‘Do you want to scribble your number down?’
Eric shook his head. ‘I’m in between phones at the moment, but I’ll contact you. I assume you’re staying at the Headland Hotel with all the other media people?’ Patrick acknowledged, slightly reluctantly, that yes, he was.
Hovering nearby and clearly hoping to talk to Eric next was a square-jawed American, a newspaper reporter by the look of him, in camo pants and a black flak jacket with PRESS printed on it in white capital letters. Patrick had seen this guy approach several of the same protestors that he’d been speaking to right after he’d finished talking to them. He’d found this more than a little irritating; going after all the same interviews was either lazy or, at the very least, poor form. If William Carver, his former boss and a journalist of the old school, had been here, he’d have flayed the bloke alive. Patrick checked himself; maybe he was just in a bad mood? Perhaps the guy was new, he had that look about him – all the gear, no idea – that would have been Carver’s verdict. Patrick pushed through the crowd, away from the heart of the demo and found a quieter spot next to a thick white water-filled crash barrier. As he moved, Patrick could feel the American’s eyes following him. He knelt down next to the barrier and studied the digital display on the front of his recording machine, flicking through the audio files and listening back to snatches of some. He had at least ten interviews and plenty of wild track: chanting, the pounding sound of rain on umbrellas, police announcements on a tinny-sounding tannoy, traffic noise. It was more than enough to make a decent radio package. He just needed to dig John Brandon out of bed or prise him away from the bar long enough to write and record his script and he’d be done. Then a hot bath and an early night. Sleep was what he really needed. He packed his kit up, tucked it away carefully at the bottom of his shoulder bag and stood. His own, slightly battered, navy blue flak jacket felt heavy – the thing seemed to absorb water like a sponge – the white cotton shirt he had on underneath was sodden and cold. He walked back down the hard shoulder, past streams of predom-inantly young people, lots of them still wearing school uniforms and carrying umbrellas, striding towards the heart of the demonstration. Eventually the crowds began to thin. Patrick removed his flak jacket and put that in his bag too, then set off in the direction of the harbour and his hotel.
Hong Kong was unlike any other city he had been to. Every buildable bit of land was built on, every pavement filled with quickstepping pedestrians, every road filled with traffic – long lines of battered Toyotas and flashy Mercedes jostling for space alongside the double-decker buses, red and white taxis and the Hong Kong police weaving between the chaos on flatulent-sounding motorcycles. A labyrinth of flyovers, underpasses, tunnels and towering skyscrapers. It was the evening rush hour now and the streets were a chaos of commuters, food and tea stalls. Patrick smiled, recalling something Carver had told him on a previous visit, the only other time that he’d been to the city, but one of William’s many visits: ‘Fragrant Harbour my arse.’ As different as Hong Kong was from the rest of China – as different as it believed itself to be – as far as Carver was concerned, it still smelt the same. ‘Duck shit, fried food and petrol.’
As well as this bouquet, which William had id
entified, there was also the simple smell of people. Too many people living too close together. Patrick didn’t have a great memory for statistics but he remembered this one … more than seventeen thousand people were squeezed into every square mile of Hong Kong. For a while he just followed the crowd, his face inches from the person in front, more people pushing at his back. A dizzying mix of sweat, bad breath, aftershave and cheap perfume. There was a commotion on the pavement up ahead and a loose knot of Englishmen came crashing through the crowd, stolen beer glasses still in hand. They were mad drunk and drenched with rain, blue shirts stuck to their flabby bellies. Patrick moved to one side and let them pass, staring down at his feet.
Above the sound of the rain and the traffic he heard the deep basso call of a foghorn from the harbour. He made his way in that direction, up Connaught Road, past the Hing Yip Centre and on. Then he stopped, unsure at first exactly why or rather what had brought him to such a sudden halt. He looked around. In a city where almost everything was strange, something here was familiar. He glanced up and saw that he was standing underneath the sign for Mrs Wang’s – Carver’s favourite Hong Kong café. Last time he was here, William had brought Patrick to Mrs Wang’s for a corned beef bun and milk tea – the best on the island in Carver’s opinion. William had been greeted like the prodigal son.
Patrick received no such welcome this time, but waiting in line he recognised the owner, an elegant, white-haired woman who was standing at the counter taking orders. William had introduced them. When his turn came, he ordered his food in clunky Cantonese then switched to English.
‘I have been here before.’
Mrs Wang didn’t look up from her note making. ‘We are a popular restaurant.’
‘Yes, but not just me. I was here with William Carver.’ Now she looked.
‘You’re here with Car-ver-ah?’ She pronounced every letter in the name, adding syllables. ‘I guessed he would come. Any time there is trouble here in Hong Kong – he comes. Where is he?’ She gazed past Patrick at the rows of plastic tables, scanning the faces. While she looked for William, Patrick studied her. You could still see the young, very beautiful woman in the older woman’s face. If you took the time to look. Patrick wondered how long Carver had been coming here. How long he’d known her. ‘I cannot see him.’
‘No, I’m sorry, it’s just me this time.’
‘Just you? Why is he not here?’
Patrick paused, looking for a proper explanation. He paused too long.
‘Car-ver-ah is dead?’
‘What? No, he isn’t dead. He’s just taking some time off. He’s having a rest.’
The woman tried this idea out for size.
‘Car-ver-ah is having a rest?’ She seemed unconvinced. ‘Why would he want a rest?’ She shook her head. Much more likely that he was dead. A sweaty-faced cook, wearing a hairnet, appeared at the service hatch behind the woman and palmed a hotel reception bell, yelling something that sounded vaguely like Patrick’s order. She went and collected Patrick’s corned beef roll and tea, plated up and steaming hot. She put the food down on a red plastic tray and pushed it across the metal counter.
‘That looks amazing, thank you.’ There was an awkward pause. ‘So, I’ll tell William I was here. I’ll tell him I saw you and that you said hi.’ Mrs Wang shrugged. If this lanky, blond English boy believed that he could commune with the dead then so be it. She nodded politely and turned her attention to the next customer in line.
3 The Golden Rules
STOCKWELL ROAD, LONDON
William Carver pressed a fresh crease into his trousers with the iron then spent some time hopping around his living room in a stiff-legged fashion, trying to put them on without undoing his good work. The radio was on and the Right Reverend somebody was talking about her local parish flower show. Bit of an obvious choice for any Thought For The Day-er, Carver thought – ripe with religious metaphor. Overripe. Having said that, she was doing a good enough job. Usually he tuned out during Thought For the Day – either mentally or literally.
‘All flowers begin as simple seeds and, once grown, all flowers bend towards the sun …’ It was an ear-catching phrase and William wondered who had coined it. The Right Reverend lost him a little after that. The garden was God’s garden of course, we were the seeds, the rain was just the rain, Jesus got to be chief gardener, as per usual. He wandered back into the bedroom to finish getting dressed. Since starting his work at the College of Journalism, Carver had made some adjustments to his wardrobe. To be more accurate, he’d thought about the clothes he wore for the first time in a long time. It seemed to him that teaching required a level of smartness several notches higher than that of a jobbing journalist. He’d spent the best part of one month’s pay in John Lewis on a new raincoat, a brown corduroy jacket, blue shirts and two new chalk-stripe suits, plus a pair of brogues and a leather briefcase. The overall effect made him look, in his friend McCluskey’s words, ‘… a proper blueberry. John Lewis really saw yous coming, didn’t they? I bet they’ve been waiting thirty years to sell tha’ cord jacket. They certainly haven’t manufactured any with leather elbow patches this century.’
William was supposed to see McCluskey, a long-serving employee of the BBC Monitoring service at Caversham, later that day but that would not affect his choice of clothes. Carver was happy with the new wardrobe, which to his mind made him look rather like his old geography teacher – a kind man in a school full of sadists and, moreover, a good teacher. Brushing his teeth, he glanced up at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, then winced. The jabbing pain in his right hip would sometimes agree to be walked off, but it seemed as though it was settling in for the duration today. He popped a couple more ibuprofen into his mouth and washed them down with a swallow of water from the tooth mug. This number of pills risked unsettling his stomach. He’d be farting his way up the Northern line, but he and the rest of the morning commute were just going to have to grin and bear it.
Taking his raincoat from a coat hanger on the back of the front door, Carver noticed his grab bag – a brown leather and canvas shoulder bag that contained three changes of clothes, two passports, four hundred pounds in a variety of currencies and a washbag. Most importantly, it contained his old recording equipment – a MiniDisc recorder and a Marantz the size and weight of a brick, but almost impossible to break, wrapped up inside a yellow plastic bag. He shoved the somewhat dusty-looking bag back into the corner between the door jamb and wall with the side of his foot. He should really put the thing away in a cupboard. Maybe later. Carver picked up his new briefcase, inside the tools of his current trade: a laptop and a few acetate slides. Not as exciting, maybe, but no less important. More important some might say. Nurturing tomorrow’s talent.
The College of Journalism occupied the top floor of a 1970s-built tower block overlooking the Elephant and Castle roundabout. The rest of the building was home to other more arty types: painters, potters, ceramicists, sculptors. He’d been a bit intimidated by this lot when he first started, but now Carver rather enjoyed hanging around in the basement café, watching the students and other teachers and trying to guess which subjects they were studying or teaching.
Half an hour before the lesson was due to begin he caught the lift up to the top floor and settled in. The overhead projector that he’d requested was sitting there on his desk and Carver gave a satisfied grunt of approval. He’d found the machine and a box of unused transparencies and red and blue markers at the back of the college storeroom and decided to give it a whirl. He knew that most of his students wouldn’t recognise a landline telephone if they saw one and so were unlikely to be familiar with the 3M 2000 projector, but that could be a good thing. Shake them out of their stupor long enough to learn a thing or two.
The buttery light in the room reminded William of the classrooms he’d known as a child – back in the Triassic. He took another look at his slides and typed notes and when the clock on the wall reached ten a.m. he opened the door to a line of anxious-looking y
oung faces.
‘Good morning.’
Carver stood just inside the classroom, a red metal fire bucket held out in front of him. The students filed in. ‘You remember the drill, stick your phones in the bucket.’
The first student in line was Derek, an odd-looking kid, his round face decorated with multiple piercings including studs around his cheeks, chin, nose, ears and tongue. The boy reminded Carver of a Christmas decoration his mother used to make: a whole orange punctured with cloves arranged in symmetrical patterns. It hung from the Christmas tree throughout the holiday and then in his mother’s clothes cupboard. Derek looked like a human version of this homemade decoration, while smelling significantly less aromatic. Carver stared at Derek, whose hand was hovering above the bucket.
‘There’s loads of sand and cigarettes and shit in there sir.’ Carver glanced inside and, taking a clean-ish handkerchief from his breast pocket, lined the bottom of the bucket.
‘There you go.’ The young man remained unconvinced. ‘Get a move on, Derek, you know the score, either put your phone in the fire bucket or bugger off.’
William had tried getting his students to switch their phones off, to put them away in their bags or inside the old-fashioned hinged desks that they sat at, but none of this had worked. If they were within an arm’s length of their mobiles, then they were incapable of focussing on anything else.
Once the bucket was filled and the class was seated, Carver went to sort out the window blinds. He lifted and lowered them with several jerky pulls of the toggled cord before eventually the blinds fell to the sill with a metallic crash.
‘Right, listen up.’ Carver looked at the rows of expectant faces. ‘The first couple of weeks we’ve done some journalistic history, a few of the big scoops and stories that’ve changed things here in this country and elsewhere.’ Sitting in the middle of the front row, Naz had her hand up. Naz often had her hand up.
A Cursed Place Page 2
