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Authors: Martin Booth

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‘I have a car waiting to take you to the Mandarin, sir. Your bags are already taken care of. Do follow me. I trust you’ve had a comfortable flight?’

The company Mercedes was parked by the kerb and the Chinese chauffeur was holding the door open as they stepped out into the humid night from the air-conditioned atmosphere of the airport buildings. The smells of the Orient, the sounds of the baggage coolies and the guttural Cantonese voices washed over them and David wondered what had happened to the thirty-odd years in between.

‘Sawyer, would you ask the chauffeur to drive down Argyle Street and Waterloo Road
en route,
please?’

The representative gave his orders to the chauffeur in fluent Cantonese before joining him in the front of the car.

The junction of Waterloo Road and Argyle Street was traversed by a flyover. The hill opposite the hotel had disappeared and, in its place, there were apartment buildings. The hotel, too, had gone. Just after the railway bridge, the only landmark he could remember and one that reassured him that not everything had altered unequivocally, they took a left turn and were soon on to the link road to the cross-harbour road tunnel.

The hotel was sumptuous. Once in their suite on the twelfth floor, they showered and dressed for dinner. As the warm water flowed over him, David shed the discomfort of the long flight from London and then sat at the window in his bathrobe as his wife bathed.

The vista before him was much the same as the one he had seen from the plane, only now he was nearer and lower to it, feeling it becoming an intrinsic part of him once more. Even though it was so changed, he knew that under its veneer Hong Kong was still as it had always been, with its tiny crowded streets and food stalls, its temples and alleys, its throngs of people and never-ending state of motion.

*   *   *

The Mercedes was waiting in front of the hotel, as David had ordered it should be. Peter Gordon, their local manager, had kept it free for him. All through the working breakfast he had had with the Chinese representatives and the man from the Los Angeles office he had been thinking ahead to this moment and now, as the car door was opened for him by the commissionaire, David felt the cold air swing outwards at him and it caused him to shiver involuntarily. He settled into the back seat.

‘Is your wife joining you, sir?’ the driver enquired politely. He was not allowed to park for too long before the hotel lobby.

‘No. She’s gone shopping and sight-seeing with Mr Gordon’s wife. Over on Kowloon-side.’

‘Where do you wish to go, sir?’

‘Drive out towards Big Wave Bay. Go through Wong Nai Chung Gap and down Repulse Bay Road, not the other way round through North Point. Through Tai Tam.’

‘Yes, sir.’

When they reached the T-junction of Tai Tam Road with Shek O Road he knocked on the sliding screen separating driver from passenger.

‘Go right, then left. Stop halfway down the hill.’

The driver, surprised at this order, obeyed. He thought he was taking the Number One Man from London on a sight-seeing excursion. Possibly he might have been asked to find a good massage parlour – other executives had requested that of him, and this one had got rid of his wife and the Number One Hong Kong Manager for the afternoon.

‘Wait here, please,’ David instructed as the driver held the door open for him. ‘I shall be a quarter of an hour.’

The sun was scorchingly hot: David had forgotten just how harsh it could be. He had not gone twenty yards before he was soaked with sweat. He could feel it trickling down inside his shirt and soaking into the top of his trousers.

The stone was surrounded by low plants, the dusty foliage of which was tired and limp in the coarse glare of mid-summer. He looked at the carving. There was a maple leaf on the top and a cross below. In between was cut, ‘Brigadier J.K. Lawson The Royal Canadian Regiment 19th December 1941 Age 54’.

David walked on, growing hotter. A parched breeze was blowing up the hill from Chai Wan and the sea. In a corner of the cemetery he found what he was searching for: it was a brand new headstone. He placed his hand upon it and attempted to shift it by rocking it to and fro. They had done a good job of it: it was firmly inserted in its base. He stood back and regarded the inscription. It was plainly and unpretentiously lettered. He was very pleased with it. Stooping, he looked at the writing through the protective shadow of his sunglasses. He read it to himself, but out loud:

‘“Joseph Sandingham Died Christmas Eve 1952 – He saw what no man should be made to see; he died fearing what we all must fear.”’

From his wallet, David took out a dull silver disc and a folded piece of stiff paper. He squatted by the graveside and, with his hand, scooped a hollow in the arid soil. In it, he put the half-crown and the photo which time had all but faded clean. Only the ink was still quite evident. He smoothed the dirt over them.

‘Money and an old companion for the after-life,’ David said as if he were some Chinese at the grave of his ancestors. Then, turning tiredly, he walked away towards the car, the dry breeze drifting the dust under his glasses and into his eyes.

By the same author

Fiction

THE CARRIER

THE BAD TRACK

Verse

THE CRYING EMBERS

CORONIS

SNATH

THE BREVITIES

THE KNOTTING SEQUENCE

EXTENDING UPON THE KINGDOM

DEVILS’ WINE

THE CNOT DIALOGUES

MEETING THE SNOWY NORTH AGAIN

KILLING THE MOSCS

Non-Fiction

THE BOOK OF CATS (co-written with George MacBeth)

CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND NORTH AMERICAN VERSE (ed)

THE UNPUBLISHED POEMS OF JAMES ELROY FLECKER (ed)

Critical Studies

TRAVELLING THROUGH THE SENSES: A CRITICAL

STUDY OF THE POETRY OF GEORGE MACBETH

BRITISH VERSE 1964–84: DRIVING THROUGH THE BARRICADES

HIROSHIMA JOE.
Copyright © 1985 by Martin Booth. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Booth, Martin.

Hiroshima Joe.

ISBN 0-312-26805-X

1. World War, 1939-1945—Fiction I. Title.

PR6052.063H5   1985       823'.914     85-30747

First published in the United States by The Atlantic Monthly Press

First Picador Edition: January 2003

eISBN 9781466853980

First eBook edition: August 2013

BOOK: Hiroshima Joe
7.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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