Maybe 250 layers, applied over two years. I knew without even trying that it would pass the fingernail test: Genuine old can’t be dented, modern rubbish can— but watch out for polyurethane hardeners. Its beauty almost slammed me unconscious, weakened as I was. What cruel accident had cast it among a shoal of pathetic replicas? I knew I could get it for a pittance, only I hadn’t got that much. (I warn you: Genuine ancient lacquer is currently the most underpriced of all antiques.) Tears of frustration ran down my face. I forced myself away. People never want what they have, it seems to me. Like, I mean, Catherine the Great of Russia spurned the immortal Matthew Boulton’s magnificent sidereal clock which he sent her in St.
Petersburg in 1776 (she thought it rather plain). And here were thousands, millions of people who could buy that superb antique, all walking past uncaring. I went and sat by the harbor, feet dangling.
“Lovejoy?”
Somebody was shaking my shoulder. I awoke from a dream, but the jail bars were only the railing and the bottomless sucking pit below the night swirl of Hong Kong’s harbor.
So much for vigilance. Mr. Goodman, though, was there with a Chinese bloke in the waterfront lights. I scrambled up trying to look worth an investment, smiling ingratiatingly. My bottom lip cracked and bled merrily. I gripped Goodman’s hand and wrung it.
“Thanks for coming, sir. You’ll not regret it.”
He gazed at me doubtfully. This boring fellow passenger seemed bigger than I remembered, more vital. Still the same florid bonhomie, only now he was inspecting me with a clear desire to keep his distance. I nodded and beamed at his reluctant companion.
“I know I must look a mess. But if…” Instinct took over. I’d been about to beg for food, plus a few rubles to zip to Macao or phone Janie to cable some gelt. But a beggar is easily ignored. A bum offering a fortune, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish.
That decision kept Algernon out of the reckoning. It also saved my life. “But if you’ll just give me a try, any test, I’ll show you. I’ll divvy for you at that sale you talked of.”
“You can hardly stand up, Lovejoy.”
Shame washed over me. In his voice was the stern admonition the affluent always give to the penniless. Starving to death, old chap? Pull yourself together.
“I told you why. I got dipped.”
“Right. Sim?” His mistrust still showed. People were passing. Another ferry arrived, churned foam, did its slow spin to disgorge passengers. Sim pulled out of his pocket two small cups, porcelain bowls really. Ch’ien Lung teacups, in those blunt Cantonese colors.
His companion spoke, his eyes fixed on me. “One genuine. One not genuine.”
Fit or ill, you have to smile. An attempt had been made to copy the real thing, and believe me, a good fake is worth its weight in gold. The faker had got the glaze right, the scrolled red and green curled right, the design ideal. Lovely work, yes. But modern is always gunge. Only genuine antiques can chime your heart.
“Which, Lovejoy? Right or left?”
I took them from him, turned from Goodman and looked the Chinese bloke in the eye. I tossed both cups over my shoulder. They ploshed faintly in the water below.
“Neither,” I said. “Allow me?”
They stood there. I pointed to the Chinese bloke’s leather case. It was the sort I’d seen people carrying by a wrist loop. He glanced at Goodman, unzipped it and offered me a bundle of purple tissue. Even the blanketing lights couldn’t disguise the little bowl’s beauty. It was painted with a Chinese version of a European garden scene. They’re almost valuable enough to retire on, after the Hervouet sale in Monaco. In a dying flirt with rebellion I made them quiver by pretending, a quick gesture, to chuck that treasure after the duds. “Sorry, chuckie,” I told the eggshell porcelain. “Joke.” And returned it.
The pair looked at each other.
“I can do it again,” I said. “If I live that long.”
“How much do you want to borrow?” Goodman said. His solemn mate muttered a bit in Cantonese.
“Enough for one bellyful and a long-distance phone call. I’ll pay it back.”
Goodman said dryly, “That’s what your sort always says, old chap. What guarantee do we have? The sale’s in three days.”
“Keep me alive and I’ll do the viewing day with you.” Famished as I was, I felt narked.
My lot? For heaven’s sake, I only wanted a bowl of those stringly boiled strips everybody in Kowloon seemed to be eating except me. “Look. I must have a couple of quid, mate, or I’ll die.” To me it seemed such a simple problem: Lend me a fiver and he’d have a trillion-percent return on his loan. “Is starvation such a crime here, for fuck’s sake? I’ll sign anything…” I stood abject, hating myself. Despicable.
“Very well. Come on.”
As I went along, walking quite quickly though having difficulty with a swaying world, I wondered what that expression was on Goodman’s face. His Chinese pal Sim showed only a shrewd understanding, but… ? Disgust. That was it. If I’d had the energy I’d have seethed. In fact I tried it for a millisec, but the concrete rose from underfoot and slammed my left shoulder. I found myself picked up and hauled into a taxi. My coordination had left me, hunger finally doing its job and cutting my feet from under.
Instead of indignant, I felt really quite affable and sat looking out at the glittering shops gliding past outside.
From my experience of later days I realize that we drove along the famous Nathan Road, through Tsim Sha Tsui, and across Jordan Road into Yau Ma Tei, with me smiling quite benignly at the evening crowds, the neon signs kaleidoscoping. The street traders were doing fantastic trade.
We alighted near my old marketplace, now a clutch city of a thousand lights, paraffin lanterns roaring, every square inch occupied. There was a static crowd, I saw. The sudden astonishing din was an opera, right there in the open market. Still smiling and dying, but ever so politely, I stayed put as the taxi battled off. Each of the male characters on the ramshackle stage seemed to be covered in flags, sticks projecting up from their shoulders. You’ve never seen such decorated costume. And the makeup dead white, a foot thick, with rose cheeks. Fantastic. But the noodle stalls were vending away to the hungry. Bags of fruit were being passed—was it free?—among the audience. It was all very festive, steaming, and deafening, with people chatting irrespective of the stage goings-on. I promised myself to pay Chinese opera a proper visit in my next reincarnation.
“Here you are,” Goodman was saying. His scorn showed. He shoved a couple of red notes in my hand. He and his oppo lit cigarettes, gazing at me. Tears started, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I clutched those two notes as if my life depended—well, it did, but you know what I mean. I tottered towards the nearest noodle vendor.
Then the oddest thing.
A couple of mahogany-skinned blokes came up, grinning. Nobody in the crowd took a blind bit of notice as they offered me a bit of brown chewing gum. They wore the frayed shorts, string vests, and sandals of those porters I’d seen laboring all day between vehicles and harbor lighters. One pressed the gum into my hand. I nodded and smiled. Some local custom? Then I tried it and spat it out. It wasn’t chewing gum at all. Politely shaking my head I pushed past their sudden cries of protest and at the nosh vendor.