Giving my sweat-drenched thatch a quick comb, I marched smiling into the Golden Shamrock. A laid-back youth watched me come.
“Hello,” I said. No air-conditioning in this titchy place. The carpet and decor were definitely grubby. A fan flapped lazily overhead. “Has Mr. Goodman arrived yet, please?”
He wasn’t really interested. A few keys hung behind him on a board.
“He works in Princes Building. We’re meeting here.” A dusty restaurant sign pointed at the stairs. “For supper,” I added wistfully.
“No Goodman,” he said while I peered irritably at the visiting card.
“Look,” I said, tut-tutting. “Could I use your phone, please? Only, I’m short of change…”
To my amazement he nudged the desk phone to me and went back to watching a video screen running an ancient Western. My spirits soared at this evidence that I’d not lost my old touch, stupidly not yet realizing that in Hong Kong local phone calls are free. I dialed and got through first go. You can understand my astonishment at such efficiency, used as I was to the feeble intermittency of East Anglia’s phony phones.
“Goodman here.”
I nearly fainted with relief. “Mr. Goodman? Hello! Hello! Er, this is Lovejoy.”
“Lovejoy?” A pause. “Yes?” He’d forgotten me. I could tell. But he was my lifeline and I wasn’t going to let go.
“Er, we met on the plane.”
“Oh, yes. The antiques artist. What can I do for you, Lovejoy?”
“Well, I’m actually in a spot, Mr. Goodman.” From shame I turned my back to the counter, though the desk clerk seemed oblivious. “I had my pockets picked at Kai Tak.
I’m broke.”
His tone said he had heard all this before. “Look, old sport. I’m in business, not charity.
Sorry, but—”
“Money!” I yelled, terrified lest he hang up. “Money for you! That sale!” I hunted my feeble memory. What the hell had he droned on about? Some ceramics or other?
Furniture? “Hello?”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“I can finger the genuine for you! Honest to God! You’ll make a killing! Promise!” I’m pathetic. I ask you, begging to be employed by a perfect stranger.
Pause. “What do you know the rest of us don’t, Lovejoy? Only divvies can play that game.”
“I’m a divvy, Mr. Goodman. Honest. Try me out. Anything antique.” Another frightening pause. I babbled incoherently on. “I’ll give you addresses, numbers you can call.
Anybody’ll tell you.” I hated my quavering voice.
Still wary, but a decision. “No harm to meet, I suppose. Come over, Princes Building, Central District—”
“I can’t, Mr. Goodman. I’m over in Kowloon. The map says Princes Building’s on the island. I haven’t the fare.” Best not to say too much.
“I see.” Aye, I thought dryly. Trust an art merchant to spot percentage trouble. “Very well. Kowloon side, then. I’ll come over on the Star Ferry tonight. Nine o’clock okay for you?”
My appointment book was relatively clear. “Where?”
“By the big clock tower, Star Ferry pier.”
Eagerly I repeated the instructions. “Thanks. Honest, Mr. Goodman. It’s really great of you—”
Click, burr. I said a casual thanks to the desk clerk, who was now staring at me as I replaced the receiver, and sauntered out into the heat. Definitely not my usual jauntiness, but at least with better odds on survival. Spirits lifting, I had a drink at the Peninsula Hotel’s fountain pool to fend off dehydration, hoping the water was safe, and stared boldly back at the staff frowning out.
I’d survive to nine o’clock if it killed me. As it was, it killed somebody else.
Whether it was relief or having talked to somebody in the vernacular, I honestly don’t know. But all of a sudden I felt alert, awake. A psychologist’d say that I’d received a fix, a squirt of life along that mental umbilical cord connecting me with antiques—and as everybody knows they’re the font of the entire universe. Whatever, I stepped out of that door and my mind blew. I saw Hong Kong for the first time. I still don’t know if it was a terrible mistake, or the best thing’s ever happened.
First imagine all the colors of the spectrum. Then motion, everything on the kinetic boil, teeming and hurtling on the go. Then noise at such a level of din you simply can’t hear the bloody stuff. Then daylight so blindingly sunny that it pries your eyelids apart to flash searing pain into your poor inexperienced eyes. Add heat so sapping that you feel crushed. Then imagine pandemonium, bedlam, swirling you into bewilderment. Now quadruple all superlatives and the whole thunderous melee is still miles off the real thing. Every visible inch is turmoil, marvelous with life.
The street was, I learned later, a dull off-peak one near Nathan Road in the dozy midafternoon. It seemed like Piccadilly Circus on Derby Day because I was new. I found myself in the whirlwind, now pushing among pavement crowds, now being swept away in sudden surges of the human torrent. Buses, cars streaming, barrows clattering, and all competing against that most constant racket of all: speech. For Hong Kong talks. I was amazed, God knows why. But all the time Chinese people laugh, exclaim, are astonished, roar delighted denials and imprecations, hold forth, anything as long as the old vocal chords are on max. At first I thought they were all angry. Within minutes I guessed it must be their Cantonese that happens to need vehemence.
That’s not all. Hong Kong does. On every pavement market there’s action. Not mere activity. It’s sheer pace. Immediacy’s the name of the game. The tiny lad piggybacking his tinier sister is making mileage. Chinese shoppers noisily bargain and rush back to bargain again. All sights, sounds are concentrated around potential customers. I
