Johnny, her husband, insisted that air-conditioning was essential to his efficiency. He always felt too warm. He was that type of Chinese current in South East Asia, exuberant of flesh and spirit, boisterous, exuding an aggressive, apprehensive jollity, the unconcealed expression of a perpetual fear. Sons of the toil in all the rich fair lands which would be neither rich nor anything but backward kampongs without them, the Overseas Chinese wield wealth but not power, remain at the mercy of officialdom and political change, which for generations they have placated with bribery. Thus Johnny’s father had paid hierarchies of British and Malay officials regular sums of money to carry on his business, and Johnny knew in his bones, bred in Singapore, that without money a man was nothing, nothing but labour, contract labour to toil, to be deported or brought in, as occasion pleased and the refusal to work of the native peoples demanded. Only wealth achieved human dignity. His banks were air-conditioned, and his company offices, and the block of flats (ultra-modern) he was building to overlook the Singapore river. The Abacus protested, but over their bedroom Johnny won.

When the Tams threw their enormous All-Singapore parties (their guests the Commissioner, the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, the Air Marshal, the General, the Admiral, bankers and businessmen of the larger variety, and the wealthiest racehorse owners, many of them doctors in private practice); when expensive motor cars chauffeured by haughty Malay syces lined up for a mile or so, and the City Traffic Police diverted ordinary motorists from the road; how nice it was – said Johnny – for The Abacus to take the ladies upstairs after dinner to the large, air-conditioned master bedroom with its four bathrooms, two by two, heliotrope, turquoise, cinnabar, and amethyst their sanitary fittings; with the two beds enthroned, spread with black brocade embroidered in gold and silver thread; with the niello silver-backed combs and brushes, and the solid gold ones; with the Chinese thumb paintings of chrysanthemum and cassia, traditional Cathay loveliness maintained at the equator by the last of the thumb painters; and the lamp-stands of ivory and yellow crystal with pale cream lace shades, and the curtains of French imported silk, zebra black lines spiralling on a white background, and the white velvet carpet, and the black marble floor! And the air-conditioning! What great face, concluded Johnny, this gave to The Abacus, Betty, his wife!

The bedroom was the design of Fanette Archway, Johnny’s present mistress. Mrs Archway had come to the city after the war, and with a French accent, a good carriage, and interior decorating, had made her way into society. Fanette Archway only did the houses of the Chinese; Europeans meant credit and little cash. Chinese gave her the freedom of their bank accounts, with results startling and financially depletory, but with a great acquisition of standing.