Typhoon. Charles Cumming
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guy Patten. I talked to some of his people today. You know what’s going on down there at Government House? Nothing. You’ve got three months left before this whole place gets passed over to the Chinese and all anybody can think about is removals trucks and air tickets home and how they can get to kiss ass with Prince Charles at the handover before he boards the good ship Rule Britannia.’
This was vintage Coolidge: a blend of conjecture, hard facts and nonsense, all designed to wind up the Brits. Dinner was never going to be a sedate affair. Miles lived for conflict and its resolution in his favour and took a particular joy in Joe’s inability fully to argue issues of state in the presence of Isabella. She knew absolutely nothing about his work as a spy. At the same time, Waterfield had made Miles conscious of RUN back in 1996 as a result of blowback on a joint SIS/CIA bugging operation into the four candidates who were standing for the post of Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. That had created a nasty vacuum in the relationship between the four of us, and Miles was constantly probing at the edges of Joe’s cover in a way that was both childish and very dangerous.
It is worth saying something more about the relationship between the two of them, which became so central to events over the course of the next eight years. In spite of all that he had achieved, there is no question in my mind that Miles was jealous of Joe: jealous of his youth, his background as a privileged son of England, of the apparent ease with which he had earned a reputation as a first-rate undercover officer after just two years in the job. Everything that was appealing about Joe – his decency, his intelligence, his loyalty and charm – was taken as a personal affront by the always competitive Coolidge, who saw himself as a working-class boy made good whose progress through life had been stymied at every turn by an Ivy League/WASP conspiracy of which Joe would one day almost certainly become a part. This was nonsense, of course – Miles had risen far and fast, in many cases further and faster than Agency graduates of Princeton, Yale and Harvard – but it suited him to bear a grudge and the prejudice gave his relationship with Joe a precariousness which ultimately proved destructive.
Of course there was also Isabella. In cities awash with gorgeous, ego-flattering local girls, it is difficult to overstate the impact that a beautiful Caucasian woman can have on the hearts and souls of Western men in Asia. In her case, however, it was more than just rarity value; all of us, I think, were a little in love with Isabella Aubert. Miles concealed his obsession for a long time, in aggression towards her as well as wild promiscuity, but he was always, in one way or another, pursuing her. Joe’s possession of Isabella was the perpetual insult of Miles’s time in Hong Kong. That she was Joe’s girl, the lover of an Englishman whom he admired and despised in almost equal measure, only made the situation worse.
‘When you say ‘‘Patten’s people’’,’ I asked, ‘who exactly do you mean?’
Miles rubbed his neck and ignored my question. He was usually wary of me. He knew that I was smart and independent-minded but he needed my connections as a journalist and therefore kept me at the sort of length which hacks find irresistible: expensive lunches, covered bar bills, tidbits of sensitive information exchanged in the usual quid pro quo. We were, at best, very good professional friends, but I suspected – wrongly, as it turned out – that the minute I left Hong Kong I would probably never hear another word from Miles Coolidge ever again.
‘I mean, what exactly has that guy done in five years as governor?’
‘You’re talking about Patten now?’ Joe’s head was still in the menu, his voice uninflected to the point of seeming bored.
‘Yeah, I’m talking about Patten. Here’s my theory. He comes here in ’92, failed politician, can’t even hold down a job as a member of parliament; his ego must be going crazy. He thinks, ‘‘I have to do something, I have to make my mark. The mansion and the private yacht and the gubernatorial Rolls-Royce aren’t doing it for me. I have to be The Man.’’’
Isabella was laughing.
‘What’s funny?’ Joe asked her, but he was smiling too.
‘Guber what?’ she said.
‘‘‘Gubernatorial’’. It means ‘‘of the government’’. A gift of office. Jesus. I thought your parents gave you guys an expensive education?’
‘Anyway…’ Joe said, encouraging Miles to continue.
‘Anyway, so Chris is sitting there in Government House watching TV, maybe he’s arguing with Lavender over the remote control, Whisky and Soda are licking their balls’ – Lavender was Patten’s wife, Whisky and Soda their dogs. Miles got a good laugh for this – ‘and he says to himself, ‘‘How can I really mess this thing up? How can I make the British government’s handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China the biggest political and diplomatic shitstorm of modern times? I know. I’ll introduce democracy. After ninety years of colonial rule in which none of my predecessors have given a monkey’s ass about the six million people who live here, I’m gonna make sure China gives them a vote.’’ ’
‘Haven’t we heard this before?’ I said.
‘I’m not finished.’ There was just enough time for us to order some food and wine before Miles started up again. ‘What’s always really riled me about that guy is the hypocrisy, you know? He’s presented himself as this Man of the People, a stand-up guy from the sole remaining civilized nation on the face of the earth, but you really think he wanted democracy for humanitarian reasons?’
‘Yes I do.’ The firmness of Joe’s interjection took us all by surprise. To be honest, I had assumed he wasn’t listening. ‘And not because he enjoyed making waves, not because he enjoyed thumbing his nose at Beijing, but because he was doing his job. Nobody is saying that Chris Patten is a saint, Miles. He has his vanities, he has his ego, we all do. But in this instance he was brave and true to his principles. In fact it amazes me that people still question what he tried to do. Making sure that the people of Hong Kong enjoy the same quality of life under the Chinese government that they’ve enjoyed under British rule for the past ninety-nine years wasn’t a particularly bold strategy. It was just common sense. It wasn’t just the right thing to do morally; it was the only thing to do, politically and economically. Imagine the alternative.’
Isabella did a comic beam of pride and grabbed Joe’s hand, muttering, ‘Join us after this break, when Joe Lennox tackles world poverty…’
‘Oh come on.’ Miles drained his vodka and tonic as if it were a glass of water. ‘I love you, man, but you’re so fucking naïve. Chris Patten is a politician. No politician ever did anything except for his own personal gain.’
‘Are all Americans this cynical?’ Isabella asked. ‘This deranged?’
‘Only the stupid ones,’ I replied, and Miles threw a chewed olive stone at me. Then Joe came back at him.
‘You know what, Miles?’ He lit a cigarette and pointed it like a dart across the table. ‘Ever since I’ve known you you’ve been delivering this same old monologue about Patten and the Brits and how we’re all in it for the money or the personal gain or whatever argument you’ve concocted to make yourself feel better about the compromises you make every day down at the American embassy. Well call me naïve, but I believe there is such a thing as a decent man and Patten is the closest thing you’re going to get to it in public life.’ The arrival of our starters did nothing to deflect Joe from the task he had set himself. Miles pretended to be enthralled by his grilled prawns, but all of us knew he was about to get pummelled. ‘It’s time I put you out of your misery. I don’t want to come off sounding like a PR man for Chris Patten, but pretty much all of the commitments made to the people of Hong Kong five years ago have been fulfilled by his administration. There are more teachers in schools, more doctors and nurses in hospitals, thousands of new beds for the elderly. When Patten got here in ’92 there were sixty-five thousand Cantonese living in slum housing. Now there are something like fifteen thousand. You should read the papers, Miles, it’s all in there. Crime is down, pollution is down, economic growth up. In fact the only thing that hasn’t changed is people like