Ah Fatt shook his head as though he had been woken from a trance. ‘If I tell, you not believe me.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘That ship belong … my family. My father.’ Ah Fatt gave a hoot of laughter.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only that. It belong my father family.’

A fiery, sour-smelling liquor had appeared before them now, and Ah Fatt poured some into a small white cup. Then he took a sip and laughed, in the way he sometimes did when he was embarrassed or uneasy. Whether this was a sign of seriousness or frivolity, Neel could not tell, for with Ah Fatt the outward manifestations of inner states were not as they were with other people: in the few months that he had known him, Neel had discovered that where Ah Fatt was concerned, bouts of apparently childlike silliness could sometimes be symptoms of seething anger, while a spell of brooding silence could betoken nothing more portentous than a fit of drowsiness.

Now despite the laughter, Neel could sense that Ah Fatt was not joking, or at least, not entirely: between him and the ship across the river there was some powerful but conflicted connection, some link that he was trying to resist.

‘What’s the ship’s name then?’ he said, on a note of challenge, half-hoping that Ah Fatt would not know the answer.

The reply came back without a missed breath: ‘Name: Anahita. In Father’s religion, that the name of the goddess of water. Like our A-Ma. Before, had statue in front, of goddess. It was – what do you call it – ?’

‘… the figurehead?’

‘Figurehead. Gone now. Family will be sad. Especially Grandfather, who built ship.’

‘ “Grandfather”?’ said Neel. ‘On your father’s side, you mean?’

‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘On side of Father’s Elder Wife. Seth Rustamjee Mistrie: famous shipbuilder of Bombay …’

He was interupted by the cook, who stood up to hand over a dish of browned chicken feet. Ah Fatt picked out a piece and offered it to her with his chopsticks, and after a few moments of laughter and joking, she allowed him to slip it between her teeth. Then she slapped his hand away, with a giggle, and he turned back to Neel.

‘Sorry,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Long time see no woman. No chance do jaahk.’ He laughed and poured more liquor into their cups. ‘Only see you. Two of us, feet tied like chickens.’ He pointed at the trussed birds on the boat’s roof and laughed again.

Neel nodded: ‘It’s true.’

Through their time at sea they had been so closely bound and confined that it was impossible to move or turn except in tandem. Neel had never spent so much time with another human being, in such close proximity, never before experienced such extended intimacy with another physical presence – and yet now, as often before, he had the feeling that he knew nothing at all about Ah Fatt.

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Neel, ‘that you’re related to Seth Rustamjee Mistrie?’