‘Come, Mister Barry.’

He had never been with any woman other than his wife: to almost the same degree that he was assured and combative in his business dealings, he was shy and reticent in all matters intimate or personal. His previous undressings had been solemn and silent; here Chi-mei kept giggling as she helped him take off his turban, slip off his choga and untie his pyjamas. When she tried to pull off his sacred waist-strings he whispered: ‘This piece thread blongi joss-pidgin thing. No can take off.’

She uttered a yelp of a laugh. ‘Waa! Joss-pidgin thread also have got?’

‘Have. Have.’

‘White Hat Devil have too muchi big cloth.’

‘White Hat Devil have nother-piece thingi too muchi big.’

The cramped space, the hard edges of the timbers, the rocking of the sampan and the smell of dried fish that percolated up from the bilges created an almost delirious urgency. Love-making with Shireenbai was a clinical affair and their bodies seemed hardly to touch except where necessity demanded. Bahram was utterly unprepared for the sweat, the stickiness, the slippages and mistaken gropings, the sudden fart that burst from her when he least expected it.

Afterwards, when they were lying in each other’s arms, they heard the sound of fireworks and thrust their heads out of the covering. Something was being celebrated in a lakeside village and rockets were arcing through the sky. The blazes of colour above were so brilliantly mirrored upon the dark surface of the water that the sampan seemed to be suspended within a glowing sphere of light.

When the boat turned shorewards, Bahram was not in the least surprised to hear her say: ‘Now Mister Barry give cumshaw. Lob-pidgin have makee do. Eat chicken must pay. Mister Barry must give daaih-big cumshaw.’

For half an hour they bickered over how much money he would part with – and the bargaining was sweeter than any love-talk could possibly have been. It was the language he knew best, the language he used all day, and he was able to say much more with it than he could have with endearments. In the end he gladly gave her everything he had.

When he was about to go ashore she said: ‘Mister Barry must give Allow cumshaw also.’

Bahram’s pockets were empty, and he laughed. ‘No more cash have got. Later can give Allow cumshaw.’

The boy had followed him back to his lodgings, and Bahram, in a fit of generosity, had rewarded him with a gift that had brought a beaming smile to his face: he had given him half a cake of Malwa opium and told him to sell it immediately. ‘Buy shoes, buy clothes, eat rice. Dak mh dak aa?’

Dak! Mh-goi-saai! The boy had run off with a delighted grin on his face.

After that Bahram and Chi-mei had begun to meet regularly, once or twice a week. These ‘lob-pidgin’ sessions were always arranged through the boy, Allow. Bahram would see him running around the enclave, with the other lads, and all it took was a raised eyebrow, a glance. He would go to the waterfront in the evening and there she would be, in the sampan.