From the side of his mouth Ah Fatt hissed at Neel: ‘You go on. Keep walking. We talk later.’

Neel gave him a nod and walked on at a steady pace, not stopping till he was a good distance away. Then, from the shelter of a stall, he turned to watch the two men.

Even from that distance it was clear that Vico was pleading with Ah Fatt, who seemed unconvinced and unresponsive. But in a while he unbent a little, and Vico, visibly relieved, gave him a hug before hurrying off towards the creek, where an elegant ship’s cutter awaited him.

Neel waited a bit before intercepting Ah Fatt. ‘Who was that?’

‘Father’s purser, Vico. I tell you about him, no?’

‘What did he say?’

‘He say, Father sick. He want me very much. I must go see him.’

‘And you agreed?’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Fatt in his laconic way. ‘I go to ship. Later today. They send boat for me.’

For reasons that he could not quite understand, Neel was deeply disquieted by Ah Fatt’s plan. ‘But we have to talk about this, Ah Fatt,’ he said. ‘What will you tell your father? When he asks where you’ve been these last few years what will you say?’

‘Nothing,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Will tell him nothing. Will tell him that I join ship and leave China three years before. At sea all this time.’

‘But what if he finds out that you were in India? And about your jail sentence and all that?’

‘Impossible,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘He can-na! After I leave Canton, all time I use different name. In jail they have only my body: no proper name, nothing. Nothing to connect me with all that.’

‘And after that? What if he wants to keep you with him?’

Ah Fatt shook his head. ‘No. He will not want me with him. He too much afraid Elder Wife will find out. About me.’

Then Ah Fatt had one of his odd moments of almost uncanny perceptiveness. Throwing his arm around Neel’s shoulder he said: ‘You afraid I am going to leave you alone, eh Neel? Do not worry. You my friend, no? I can-na leave you all lone in this place.’

That evening, after Ah Fatt had left to visit the Anahita, Neel went back to the kitchen-boat and sat waiting for a while. As the hours passed he began to doubt that Ah Fatt would return that night and he grew increasingly impatient with himself: what reason was there to feel that his own future hinged upon the outcome of Ah Fatt’s meeting with his father? If it came to a parting of their ways, he would have to manage as best he could – that was all there was to it. He rose to his feet, and made his way aft, to the covered ‘house’ in the stern of the kitchen-boat. This was where he had spent the last couple of nights and he fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down.