Written in the Stars
Some fish food is foreordained
Theophilus ‘Hatchet’ Hatherleigh’s reputation went before him. Economic liberal, rugged individualist, laissez-faire economist – call him what you will, the man was mean. As a schoolboy he had taught himself to peel an orange in his pocket to avoid sharing it with his classmates.
As an adult, his religious hatred of padded budgets, pork barrels, and political patronage earned him few admirers and even fewer friends in Her Majesty’s rapidly shrinking Colonial Service. By the mid-nineteen seventies the once mighty beast of Empire had been reduced to a few scattered bones; but if anybody could find something left on a bone to pick at, it was Hatherleigh. On his honeymoon in Eastbourne, he stole sugar cubes from the breakfast table and asked his bride to wash his underpants in the hotel sink to save on laundry costs.
His marriage, it was said, was nearly as brief as his governorship of Hong Kong. For his was the shortest and unhappiest tenure of any of Hong Kong’s twenty-nine governors. Indeed, his term of office was so ill-starred that it has been stricken from the records. His predecessor had scarcely reached Aden on his homeward voyage aboard the P&O ship Oriana, when a telegraph arrived, imploring him to resume his old post. All his sins had been forgiven.
Hatherleigh’s soubriquet, ‘Hatchet’, related to his passion for fiscal restraint and belied an abhorrence of physical violence. So, it was most distressing that he should die in the way in which he did: hacked into twenty-three pieces and consumed by the muck-feeding fish of Victoria Harbour … but let us not get ahead of ourselves.
Hatherleigh had had a good war. Although a weak chest ruled out active service, the war nevertheless allowed him to express his creative side. It is said a man who chooses a profession that he loves will never work a day in his life. Hatherleigh’s time in the War Office Pensions Department was the best holiday of his life – better by far than his post-nuptial sojourn in Eastbourne. He spent five years auditing pension payments to war-widows and injured soldiers. Having clawed back more than three thousand pounds in over-payments to bereaved housewives and limbless youths, Hatherleigh could share in the glory of Britain’s victory. Storming Nazi gun emplacements or escaping from Colditz was all well and good, but Hatherleigh had saved the country real cash money.
Indeed, his pension-snatching was so successful that he was not released into the Colonial Service until 1947, meaning he sadly ‘missed India’. By then the empire was going down the drain. He and his colleagues circled the plughole, hoping to administer something before there was nothing left to administer. Brief postings to Burma, the Sudan and Malaya followed, where his duties consisted of paying people off as cheaply as possible, and shipping them home on the longest, most cost-effective and uncomfortable routes.
Having carved himself a niche, he was a shoo-in for promotion to the Committee for Responsible Accounting Practices, one of the few Commonwealth agencies seldom referred to by its acronym. The Committee’s purpose was as simple as it was condescending: keeping an eye on the natives. Just because the former colonies now had the keys to their own treasuries, that didn’t mean they could be allowed to do what they liked with the contents. Like a schoolmarm in a ladies’ college, Hatherleigh’s duty was to instil the discipline of good housekeeping into his less-developed charges. Development aid from London was conditional upon attendance at Hatherleigh’s classes.
So it was that Hatherleigh, now in his 50s, came to be in the newly-named Sri Lanka, lecturing the finance minister, one Felix Dias Bandaranaike, on the importance of balancing his books. The patrician Bandaranaike knew all about colonial condescension and how to deal with it. He confided in Hatherleigh, ‘as one gentleman to another,’ his fear that communists had infiltrated the public library and were squandering taxpayer money on degenerate – possibly communist – authors. Scandalised, Hatherleigh charged into the fray. He was angrily waving duplicate copies of The Female Eunuch under the chief librarian’s nose when fate finally tracked him down and thrust greatness upon him.
Hong Kong, it seemed, was in need of his leadership. Sir Murray MacLehose, Hatherleigh’s predecessor, had ruined the place completely. In his tenure as governor, he had housed thousands of refugees, inaugurated country parks and imposed nine years of compulsory education. Worse still, he had introduced weekly rest days, compensation for injured workers and old-age pensions. The business community would not stand for it. The chairman of the Great Oriental Bank led a delegation to Downing Street in London, demanding his removal and insisting on selecting his successor. They poured over the curricula vitae, rejecting each one until they got to Hatherleigh’s.
‘What about this one?’ said Sir Fedelis Randall of Randall, Prendegrast & Co. ‘Ha! They call him the Hatchet. He put the screws on the widows and malingerers. Just the sort of man we need in Hong Kong.’
‘I like him,’ said the chairman of the Bank. So they went for an early lunch at the East India Club.
When the news reached Sri Lanka, Finance Minister Bandaranaike was the first to congratulate Hatherleigh on his appointment. He hosted a celebratory dinner at the Colombo Club. Over a magnificent Jaffna curry and indifferent claret, he toasted Hatherleigh’s success and politely inquired how soon he would be able to depart.
‘It’s most inconvenient,’ said Hatherleigh, his neck reddening above the collar of his polyester shirt. ‘They are insisting that I go to London to be fitted for my ceremonial uniform – white suit, plumed helmet, and all that. It could take weeks.’
‘Nonsense, old boy,’ said Bandaranaike calmly. ‘Those tropical uniforms are all the same. You can just borrow one from William Gopallawa. He was the last Governor General here. He has the sword and everything. In fact, that’s him over there, asleep on the veranda. Hai! Willie! Wake up. We need to borrow your suit.’
‘It would be good to save the expense of a new one,’ said Hatherleigh thoughtfully. ‘But he’s not as tall as me, so it might be a bit short in the trousers.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Bandaranaike. ‘You’ll just need to stoop a little. Now, drink up. There’s a flight via Singapore at midnight. I’ll take you to the airport myself.’
‘Oh, I won’t be flying,’ said Hatherleigh. ‘Air fares are outrageous. We can’t ask the taxpayers to pay for that. I shall travel by sea. Besides, it is more becoming for a governor to arrive by ship.’
Bandaranaike dispatched his private secretary to look up the sailing times.
Hatherleigh bade goodbye to a grateful nation from the deck of the good ship Caledonia, resplendent in his borrowed uniform. The smell of mothballs billowed from the fabric, and, crouch as he might, the trousers were definitely on the short side. The ostrich plumes in the helmet had been crushed in Gopallawa’s wardrobe, but Bandaranaike’s secretary had obtained some whitish chicken feathers from a poultry stall in Colpetty Market. Nobody would know the difference.
Gopawalla and Bandaranaike stood on the docks along with a sombre delegation from the public library. Hatherleigh was touched at the sincerity of their farewell.
The Sri Lankans’ smiles faltered and there was a ripple of concern when Hatherleigh scuttled back down the gangway.
‘I found these in the pocket,’ he said to Gopawalla, handing him some reading glasses and a set of car keys.
‘Bugger me,’ said the old man. ‘I’ve been looking for those for years.’
The two-day voyage to Singapore gave Hatherleigh ample time to read his briefing notes, which had arrived by diplomatic bag from London. Wonderful words and phrases leapt from the foolscap pages: ‘economic miracle’, ‘strong work ethic’, ‘low-taxation.’ He never imagined an official document could sound like William Blake. Entrepreneurs from around the world had built a capitalist Jerusalem among Hong Kong’s green hills and dark, satanic mills. And now it would all come under Hatherleigh’s benign, incorruptible rule.
The Caledonia’s Glaswegian captain had been well briefed on his august guest, and invited him to dine at his table. He described Hong Kong’s wonderful deepwater harbour and the reception Hatherleigh would receive when the Caledonia docked, by special permission, at the naval wharf by the Tamar Building.
Alas, the ship suffered engine trouble during the night, and limped into Singapore almost half a day late. The captain explained that the repairs could take up to a week, so Hatherleigh had to search along the Pasir Panjang docks for another vessel to take him to Hong Kong. Hot and tired, he finally negotiated a passage aboard the SS Sevastopol, a cargo ship owned by the Sino Soviet Shipping Corporation. She was due to sail in an hour, which gave Hatherleigh just enough time to fetch his things, and give the captain of the Caledonia a hastily-written list of twenty-seven ways to run his ship more efficiently.
Nobody helped His Excellency carry his luggage up the gangway to the Sevastopol. When he introduced himself to the captain, he responded with a terse “Colonial governor, eh?” then lit his pipe and went back to the bridge. Hatherleigh’s mood was not dampened in the slightest. As Hong Kong approached, his spirits soared. He hardly slept during his last night aboard, and long before they reached the muddy waters of the Pearl River Estuary, he was on deck, dressed in his white suit, surrounded by a miasma of mothball fumes. The captain steamed around Hong Kong Island and entered the harbour through the Lei Yu Mun passage. The new governor marvelled at the junks with their brown ribbed sails, and the swarms of little sampans, all safe under the wing of the indomitable Royal Navy.
At noon they passed the typhoon shelter at Causeway Bay. Hatherleigh was flattered to hear a cannon being fired – obviously in honour of his arrival. He saluted and stood to attention – the shortness of his trousers be damned. A moment later he saw the Tsim Sha Tsui clock tower to starboard and the distinctive shape of the Tamar Building to port. A crowd had gathered on the naval wharf under strings of red, white and blue bunting. He could hear the sound of a brass band over the clamour of the city.
Hatherleigh stood to attention again, waiting for the Sevastopol to draw alongside, but she kept steaming through the harbour. With as much dignity as he could muster, His Excellency ran up to the bridge to ask what the hell was going on. ‘We’re supposed to be docking there!’ he said to the captain. ‘There’s an official reception for me. Look, they’re all waiting for me. There’s even a band.’
‘That,’ said the captain, ‘Is British Naval Dockyard. This is Soviet ship. We will berth at Ocean Terminal.’
‘But I’m the governor!’
‘Yes. I know. Colonial governor,’ said the captain, closing the door in Hatherleigh’s face.
He stood on the quayside, like a magnificently-dressed human statue. Some passers-by paused in front of him, wondering whether they should throw a coin into the plumed helmet he was holding under his arm. Sweating profusely through his uniform, His Excellency took stock of the situation. Somebody at Tamar would realise the mistake and send a boat to pick him up. Now he thought about it, that would be a more dignified entrance than arriving in an old Russian tub. But, after fifteen minutes in the blazing sun, he realised he would have to make his own way across the harbour. When he met his new aide de camp, he would skin him alive.
Hatherleigh remembered his briefing notes. The Star Ferry provided a ‘cheap and reliable’ service from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central. From there he could commandeer a rickshaw to the ceremony. He put on his helmet, shouldered his luggage, and set off in the direction of the clocktower. Small Chinese boys and large American tourists gawped as he passed.
‘Hey, buddy! Where’s the rest of the marching band?’ asked a man in a Hawaiian shirt. Hatherleigh lacked the breath to respond.
His arms and shoulders aching, his chicken feathers starting to droop, the sword swinging wildly at his side, the twenty-sixth governor of Hong Kong stumbled into the Star Ferry terminal and lurched towards the barriers. ‘Let me through! Government business.’
The uniformed employee considered the sweat-drenched, purple-faced madman lurching towards him. It was near the end of a very long shift, so he took the line of least resistance and opened the gate for him. For the first time that day, Hatherleigh had a stroke of luck. A ferry was just about to depart. He scrambled over the gangway, dropped his luggage, and collapsed into a seat. Once the ferry was underway, a welcome breeze slipped through the cabin. Hatherleigh tried to get his breathing back under control. Dark rings of sweat had soaked through the underarms of his jacket and the feathers in his helmet were starting to come out where the glue had melted in the sun. The hilt of his sword poked him uncomfortably in the ribs. This really was absolutely unacceptable. Heads would roll, but it was a good job he was so resourceful. Another man would have gone to pieces.
Hatherleigh recalled that the Central ferry pier was directly across the harbour, but for some reason the ferry was taking a diagonal course further east along Hong Kong Island. Soon they were passing Tamar again, where the band was still playing and guests milling around listlessly. Hatherleigh strode into the wheelhouse and confronted the captain.
‘Where the hell are we going? This ferry is supposed to go to Central.’
‘Not this one, mate,’ said the Captain. ‘This is the Wan Chai Ferry.’
‘What? But I need to get to Tamar.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to get the tram back then, won’t you? Anyway, you’re not supposed to be distracting me while we’re underway.’ He pointed insouciantly to a sign on the door.
‘Do you know who you’re speaking to? I’m the governor of this colony.’
‘I don’t care if you’re the bloody Aga Khan, mate. I’m the captain of the Morning Star. Now trot on back to your seat.’
‘Turn this boat around at once. I demand you take me to Central. I order you on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. In fact… never mind Central … pull alongside the naval wharf at Tamar.’
The captain stood up and gestured to a burly deckhand. ‘Now listen to me, my lad…’
‘No, you listen to me,’ screeched Hatherleigh, his lip curled back like a mad dog. ‘If you don’t take me to Tamar I will … I will.’ He drew his sword and waved the rusty blade at the deckhand. ‘I will cut you to ribbons.’
‘But this is the Star Ferry,’ said the captain in amazement. ‘The integrity of our schedule is everything. If that breaks down then we’re lost. The whole colony falls to pieces. I won’t do it.’
‘Don’t test me,’ said Hatherleigh, taking a step forward. ‘I’ve had a very trying day.’
‘This is piracy,’ said the captain. ‘Never in all my days… I will comply with your demands under protest, but you will need to answer to the authorities for this.’
‘I am the authorities, you idiot. I’m the governor.’
‘I mean the company’s board of directors.’
Hatherleigh dropped his voice to an icy whisper. ‘Damn you. Damn your board of directors, and damn your stupid little ferry!’
The captain shuddered with horror, as though Hatherleigh had just spat upon a bible. ‘On your head be it,’ he said, and turned the wheel towards Tamar.
The crew dropped the gangway onto the wharf and Hatherleigh stepped ashore, followed by the three elderly housewives he had conscripted to carry his luggage. He stood facing the smartly-dressed crowd, who stared at him in stunned silence, their champagne glasses and canapes frozen halfway to their mouths. The only sound to be heard was the Union Jack snapping in the stiffening breeze, which carried away the last feathers from his helmet. The cuffs of his trousers flapped against his calves. The regimental band tried to strike up ‘God Save the Queen’ but gave up in disarray halfway through the first verse.
‘My God,’ said an elderly man dressed like a bishop. ‘He hijacked the Star Ferry. And what the devil has he done to his trousers?’ A chorus of angry muttering broke out, and Hatherleigh wondered for a moment whether he had gate-crashed a high-class public stoning.
At length a tall man in a helmet similar to Hatherleigh’s – but with all its plumes intact – stepped forward. ‘Ponsonby, Your Excellency. I’m your aide de camp. There appears to have been a mix-up. I think I had better take you straight to Government House.’ He led Hatherleigh through the hostile crowd, with the three old ladies following happily in their wake.
‘What on earth is the matter with those people?’ asked Hatherleigh as the gubernatorial Rolls Royce sped up Cotton Tree Drive.
‘Perhaps, it would be better for me to explain in the morning, Sir. I’m sure you would like a bath and a change of clothes.’
‘Very well,’ said Hatherleigh. ‘I suggest you use the time to come up with a decent excuse for this debacle.’
Hatherleigh slept fitfully. Still dehydrated, his dreams were feverish. Men in captain’s uniforms chased him around a burning ship, while hideously fat tourists looked on, jeering and taking photographs. The smell of burning became more intense. When he awoke in the darkness of his new bedroom, he could almost swear there was smoke in the air. Yes, there was – but it wasn’t woodsmoke. It was tobacco.
Hatherleigh winced and covered his eyes as somebody threw back the long silk curtains. He looked painfully through the slit in his eyelids at a ring of people standing around his bed. Sure enough, there was a pug-like Englishman with a lit cigar in his mouth.
‘Good morning, Your Excellency!’ Ponsonby was wearing a smart grey suit. ‘Allow me to introduce your Executive Council. This is Mr. Obediah Cornwallis from the Great Oriental Bank; Sir Fedelis Randall of Randall, Prendegrast & Co; Dr. Kwan, Chancellor of the University; and Madam Li of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.’
‘Couldn’t the introductions wait until after breakfast?’ said Hatherleigh. ‘What time is it, anyway?’
‘It’s quarter past six, Sir. The Council has just finished an emergency meeting to discuss yesterday’s unfortunate events.’
‘Well, I’m pleased to see you are taking it seriously. It was a dreadful breach of protocol. But I’m prepared to accept your apologies and draw a line under it. Fresh start. Water under the bridge, and all that.’ Hatherleigh sat up in bed. ‘Now, Ponsonby, if you would be so kind as to take the council members down to the dining room, I will get dressed and we can all get to know each other over breakfast.’
‘Ah, I don’t think you quite understand, Your Excellency,’ said Ponsonby. ‘You see…’
‘We’re not here for breakfast,’ snapped Sir Fedelis. ‘We’re here to resolve this disaster with the ferry.’
Hatherleigh was not going to be bullied on his first day on the job, and certainly not before he had got out of his pyjamas. ‘I appreciate that commandeering a vessel was unorthodox. And if my treatment of the captain was a little…well…brusque, I would simply add that man was highly insubordinate and needed to be put in his place. In the circumstances, I believe that a small diversion was entirely justified.’
‘Justified? Justified?’ exploded Obediah Cornwallis. ‘You caused a twenty-three-minute delay to the schedule.’
‘The knock-on effects lasted all day,’ groaned Madam Li, as if wracked with physical agony.
‘I like reliable transport as much as anybody,’ said Hatherleigh, ‘But I think you’re rather overreacting.’
Dr. Kwan raised his hand to impose some academic detachment upon the proceedings.
‘We believe we may have found a solution. The ferry company’s board of directors have graciously agreed to see you this morning at seven twenty-nine. I hope together we can find a way forward.’
Hatherleigh looked at Ponsonby for help. ‘I would strongly advise it, Sir,’ he said.
‘Very well,’ said Hatherleigh. ‘I will go and meet the ferry people. But if you think I’m going to apologise…’ Reading the hostility in the room, he left the sentence unfinished.
‘Excellent,’ said Ponsonby. ‘The car will be ready in fifteen minutes.’
‘Don’t be late,’ said Cornwallis, striding out of the room.
‘I had such hopes for you,’ said Sir Fidelis, shaking his head sadly as he departed.
The Rolls Royce slid through the new Cross Harbour Tunnel, empty of traffic at that time of the morning. Hatherleigh sat in the back with Ponsonby.
‘You will be meeting three directors, Sir,’ said Ponsonby. ‘The first, Mr. Poon, is a local gentleman. Very well respected. He’s an expert in fung shui, so everybody calls him master, or si-fu. The second is Miss Ecaterina. She’s from Romania, I believe. Charming lady. The third is called Fereydoun. We’re not sure where he’s from or when he arrived in Hong Kong. If I had to guess I would say he was Persian, but who knows? He doesn’t say much.’
They turned from Chatham Road into Salisbury Road. Passing the Peninsula Hotel on their right, they stopped outside the old clock tower by the harbour. The driver opened the door for them and they walked towards the tower.
‘I think the best thing is to let them do the talking,’ said Ponsonby. He stopped outside the ancient wooden doors and consulted his watch, waiting until its hands showed precisely seven twenty-nine before knocking three times. The doors swung open and Ponsonby led the way up a steep teak staircase.
‘Bloody funny place for a boardroom,’ said Hatherleigh, his legs aching from the previous day’s exertions. ‘Bloody strange time, too.’
Panting slightly, they passed up through the clock mechanism to a room at the top of the tower. Three figures sat at a round table. They each stood and bowed. Hatherleigh took the only empty chair at the table, while Ponsonby stood by the door.
Hatherleigh’s seat was opposite Master Poon. The man’s blind white eyes made him feel uncomfortable. He should really cover them up with dark glasses, thought Hatherleigh.
‘You look tired,’ said Poon. ‘Please have some tea – it’s very refreshing.’ He gestured towards a porcelain cup on the table in front of Hatherleigh, who was now feeling even more uncomfortable. He gulped some tea. It was delicious, but some loose tea leaves caught in his throat.
Miss Ecaterina’s cobalt-blue eyes were even more distracting than Poon’s. She wore a scarf around her head and large hoop earrings. She reminded Hatherleigh of a fortune-teller his ex-wife had insisted on seeing on the pier at Eastbourne. That woman had been an ugly old fraud, telling Mrs Hatherleigh that she would meet a handsome stranger, even though she was obviously newly married. By contrast, Miss Ecaterina was astonishingly beautiful and disconcertingly young.
‘Are you old enough to be a board member?’ asked Hatherleigh, who could never get it right with attractive women. ‘You look about eighteen.’
Miss Ecaterina raised her chin. ‘I assure you, Governor, I am much, much older than I look. So is my colleague, Fereydoun.’ She wafted a delicate hand towards the third board member, who looked about ninety. The old man smiled absently through his wispy beard and adjusted his white skull cap.
In the silence that followed, Hatherleigh looked around the room. Large windows in each wall gave commanding views of the city, the harbour and the hills beyond. The polished table was inlaid with the cardinal points, like a giant compass. The twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac were arranged every thirty degrees in a ring beneath the glossy varnish. Hatherleigh realised that if the compass points in the table were accurate, the corners of the clocktower pointed precisely north, south, east and west.
Master Poon broke the silence. ‘At the Star Ferry Company, our mission is to safeguard the economic welfare of Hong Kong.’
‘I rather thought that was my responsibility and the Financial Secretary’s, but we are grateful for your help,’ replied the governor.
Poon gave him a kindly look with his blind eyes and went on. ‘Do you know the secret of Hong Kong’s economic success, Your Excellency?’
‘Well, there are many factors, but chief among them is the strong work ethic of its largely immigrant population.’
The board members laughed in unison. ‘If hard work was the secret, those rickshaw coolies down there by the ferry would be millionaires, wouldn’t they?’ said Miss Ecaterina.
‘Well,’ responded Hatherleigh, ‘It’s a melting pot, isn’t it? The low tax rate is a stimulus to Asian entrepreneurialism, while the incorruptible British regime ensures a level playing field.’
Fereydoun’s beard wobbled and Master Poon politely covered his mouth as they laughed. ‘Incorruptible!’ giggled Miss Ecaterina. Hatherleigh thought he heard a snigger from Ponsonby behind him and bristled at their impudence.
‘Well, then. Perhaps you would be so kind as to enlighten me.’
‘Joss,’ said Poon.
‘Joss?’
‘Luck,’ explained Miss Ecaterina. ‘Hong Kong thrives by cultivating the good and avoiding the bad. It’s everywhere around us: house gods, amulets, roadside shrines, auspicious number plates.’
‘I hardly think we have a monopoly on superstition,’ said Hatherleigh.
‘No,’ agreed Master Poon, ‘but you were right when you spoke of our melting pot. We have taken the best elements from the world’s mystic traditions and combined them into something much more powerful.’ Hatherleigh’s right eyebrow moved towards his hairline.
‘I see you are sceptical, Your Excellency, but let me give you an example,’ said Master Poon. ‘That hotel across the road is called the Peninsula. It’s owned by Baghdadi Jews. But if you get in the lift, you will see that there is no fourth floor, and no thirteenth floor, in deference to both Chinese and Christian numerology.’
‘But that’s silly. They just renamed the fourth floor as the fifth. Nobody would claim it makes any difference.’
‘Of course it makes a difference,’ said Miss Ecaterina. ‘It has been voted the best hotel in the world for ten years in a row. They have the highest occupancy rate in Asia.’ Fereydoun nodded sagely.
‘Take our own company,’ continued Master Poon before Hatherleigh could object. ‘We were founded by a Parsee merchant in eighteen eighty-eight – a very auspicious year, by the way. When he retired, he sold it to Paul Chater, an Armenian, and Jardine Matheson, a company of Scotsmen. Along the way we picked up the traditions of each one – the best way to keep ships safe at sea. To this day we have ladies christen our new ships with champagne and then burn offerings to Tin Hau, the Chinese Goddess of Heaven. And here we are, almost a century later.’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Hatherleigh. ‘I think that’s hogwash. As a rational man, I don’t believe our fates are written in the stars. I believe we make our own luck.’
The board of directors smiled identical, patient smiles. ‘Well, that’s just the thing, Your Excellency,’ said Miss Ecaterina. ‘Seventy-five years ago, our company discovered that both of those things are true.’
‘What?’
‘We discovered that while our destinies are governed by the stars, we can – how do I put it – create our own lucky stars.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Hatherleigh.
Miss Ecaterina smiled the patient smile again. ‘We operate twelve ferries. One for each zodiac sign in the Chinese and Western traditions. Each one is named after a star, and each one carries in her engine room a powerful combination of crystals, charms and idols. As they sail on their three routes around the harbour, they weave a pattern like the movement of the heavenly bodies they represent. And as the harbour is at the centre of life in Hong Kong, they weave the city’s fortune, for good or for ill. As the board of directors, it is our task to draw on our respective traditions to ensure that the schedule is perfectly adjusted to block bad joss and magnify good fortune. I’m pleased to say that we have been successful and the city has prospered.’
‘Are you honestly trying to tell me that the ferry schedule affects the fortunes of the colony?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Master Poon. ‘When you diverted Morning Star yesterday afternoon, the stock market dropped five percent. I lost a bundle on Great Oriental Bank stock and it took us all night to get things back on track.’ Fereydoun nodded silently in agreement.
‘I know it’s a lot to take in,’ said Miss Ecaterina sympathetically. ‘For a long time we didn’t inform your predecessors. We let them think it was their policies that were working.’ The three board members chuckled. ‘But in the sixties Sir David Trench failed to protect the Star Ferry from violent street protests. Our schedules were disrupted for weeks and the unrest nearly got out of control. Of course you weren’t to know, and I’m sorry that we weren’t able to brief you before yesterday’s unfortunate events.’
‘Well,’ said Hatherleigh, ‘I consider myself more than adequately briefed now. So, if you’ve nothing else to say about witchcraft and the financial system, I think I had better be getting on with actually running the colony.’ He looked over his shoulder at Ponsonby. ‘Fetch the car, please.’
‘Before you go,’ said Master Poon, ‘We need your assurance that you will not move the location of the piers.’
This was more than Hatherleigh could take. ‘First of all, Master Poon, I am not in the habit of making policy decisions at the request of a bunch of charlatans in fancy dress. And secondly, why on earth would I want to move the ferry pier?’
‘Well,’ said Miss Ecaterina evenly, ‘It’s been done before, and it will be done again. It never ends well, I assure you.’
Hatherleigh was almost at the door when Fereydoun spoke for the first time. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched, with a South London twang. ‘Hold your horses, Governor. Disrupting the schedule is one thing, but you actually cursed the ferry. I believe your exact words were ‘Damn you. Damn your board of directors, and damn your stupid little ferry.’’
‘I stand by those words!’ said Hatherleigh. ‘I’ve never met a greater bunch of prating mountebanks in all my life.’
‘I would strongly advise a retraction, Your Excellency. A wise man does not curse the fates. Not if he knows what’s good for him.’
‘I will not be lectured to by a mob of glass-eyed grifters. So, I say again, damn the lot of you, and damn your stupid little ferries.’ He turned on his heel and marched down the stairs. Ponsonby stood there aghast; his hands raised in silent apology.
‘I don’t think he took it very well, do you?’ said Fereydoun.
Miss Ecaterina walked around the table and looked into Hatherleigh’s tea cup. ‘Oh dear,’ she said quietly.
‘What year was he born?’ Master Poon asked Ponsonby.
‘Nineteen twenty-two.’
‘Year of the dog. Oh dear,’ said Master Poon.
‘What date?’ asked Fereydoon.
‘The fourteenth of October.’
‘Libra. Oh dear,’ said Fereydoon.
‘Does anybody know what day it is today?’ asked Miss Ecaterina.
‘It’s Friday,’ said Ponsonby. ‘Thirteenth of May.’
‘Oh dear,’ said everyone in unison.
Ponsonby turned and ran down the stairs. Hatherleigh had already reached the car, where the chauffeur was standing with his hands on his hips.
‘It’s very bad luck, Sir,’ he said. ‘We seem to have got two punctures, but we only have one spare tyre. I’ll need to call Government House for help.’
‘Bloody hell!’ replied the Governor. ‘I’m not waiting for that. I’ll take the ferry to Central. Tell them to pick me up on the other side.’
The employee in the ferry terminal recognised Hatherleigh from the day before and opened the barrier without comment. Hatherleigh joined the back of the queue waiting to board Northern Star, which was bobbing beside the pier in a light swell. An old amah in front of him carried a little girl in her arms. The child was eating a mango and had yellow juice all over her face. She put out her tongue at the angry-looking man and then hid her sticky face in the amah’s neck.
The last to cross the gangway, Hatherleigh failed to notice that the child had dropped her mango. He stood on the stone, slipped across the gangway and flipped over the safety chain into the water below, quite unseen by the deckhand, who was cooing at the little girl. When Hatherleigh surfaced, the gangway had been raised. The deckhand blew his whistle and unfastened the mooring rope.
Unluckily for Hatherleigh, the wake from the SS Sevastopol, which was leaving the harbour, pushed the ferry back against the pier, where it crushed the governor like a grape against the timber pillars. His flaccid, elongated body was carried by the current towards the brass propeller, which chopped him into twenty-three pieces and turned the surrounding water a milky pink.
Ponsonby stood on the quayside wondering what to do next. The Marine Police would need to fish the chunks of body out of the harbour. He decided to call them from the ferry pier, but then thought better of it. The cops would only get in the way of the ferry, and Ponsonby’s investment portfolio couldn’t take another battering like yesterday. He would let the fish enjoy their meal. He strolled back to the car, rubbing the lucky rabbit’s foot in his pocket.
Julian Lyden is a Hong Kong-based writer with an interest in folklore, murder and the unseen forces which shape our lives. Having lived in seven different countries and worked in everything from aviation to agriculture, he is convinced that there is no better place than Hong Kong, and no more rewarding experience than writing about it. To these eternal verities he would add that it is always preferable to cross Victoria Harbour by sea, and that Morning Star is the undisputed queen of the Star Ferries.
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I love reading a story about HK by someone who clearly knows and loves HK. This is most excellently written and highly enjoyable.
That's a fabulous story.