Thereafter I burnt for such images. Hungrily, I sought books on Angkor Wat and delighted in the sepia-tints of the ruined water gardens there. I spent the whole of my last summer in Oxford ensconced in the Bodleian, tucked away in its dustiest recesses. I read about the Summer Palace at Hué, the Fragrant City of central Vietnam, and in my mind’s eye rebuilt its gardens, filling them with courtyards of perfect proportions and earthenware pots. That summer was (as old men wistfully and embarrassingly recall) the last of its kind. I wandered in the Deer Park on my own and lay on the dry, sweet-smelling grass. I felt, in a desperately gauche undergraduate way, life about to change. My skin tingled constantly; I never slept.
One bright autumn afternoon, not long after I moved to London, I was strolling through Grosvenor Square when, through a window, I saw an opulent room decorated with faded panoramic wallpaper depicting temples and elephants and palms under a vast powder-blue sky. I recognised it at once as “Hindoustan,” made by Jean Zuber. I stood on the pavement in the chill of the gathering October wind, gazing into that colourful space. The room seemed to glow with warmth; the turbanned natives in their sampan wore only loincloths as they sweltered in the sun. I drew my coat tightly around me and walked away, through the scattering of dead autumnal leaves. I realised then that no picture could satisfy me. No matter how much I indulged my senses in libraries and museums I would still feel malnourished. I had fasted all my life, but now, at last, I was ready to feast. My entire being trembled with hunger, and I decided to leave England forever.
It is why I came here: this was where I would find my paradise, my tropical Arcadia, my vision of perfection.
I REMEMBER STEPPING OFF the ship at Singapore harbour, watching the sampans and tugboats bobbing gently in the bay. Smooth-skinned men and women sold fruit the colour of the sun and called to one another in birdlike intonations. The smells, too, were intoxicating. All around me the air had a curious odour of earth and caramel. What was it? Warmth. I had never known it to have a smell of its own, but it did. Perhaps I did not know the smell of warmth because I had never truly felt it before.
I did not stay long in Singapore. Everywhere I went, drunken, high-spirited troops rampaged through the streets. With their arms draped across one another’s shoulders, they sang “There’ll always be an England,” depressingly out of tune. I went to the Raffles Hotel a few times, but only because I was told that I might glimpse its Armenian owner waltzing with his guests whilst balancing a whisky-and-soda on his head. On one of my visits there, I was accosted by a plump, pink-cheeked man with thinning red hair. He held his tie between his fat fingers and waved it in my face. “Wormwood! Don’t you remember me?” he bellowed, and all heads turned to witness this tender reunion.
“No,” I replied — stiffly, I recall — and turned to converse with the bartender.
“It’s me — Lucy!” he cried.
“Lucy?”
“Yes, Bill. William Lucy. Parkside — remember? And then Oxford. I was at Brasenose and you were at. . Magdalen, weren’t you? I didn’t bump into you much at Oxford.”
“I was in London most of the time.”
“What the devil brings you here? Last I heard, you’d moved to London to act in musical comedies. You aren’t here to entertain the troops, are you?”
I could sense the rest of the room straining to hear my reply: a new arrival in Singapore always aroused interest. I gulped at my gin-and-tonic. “No, you must have me confused with someone else,” I said. “I’m just passing through. Travelling. Thought I’d see the world before I settled down.” I looked him in the eye and smiled.
Thereafter I avoided the Raffles assiduously, and any tenuous associations with my compatriots quickly began to wither. I never saw the waltzing Armenian.
My Singapore was to be found in the alleys of Bugis Street and Chinatown, where shopkeepers recognised me and gave me cups of sweet coffee at three o’clock in the morning. All life — all real life — gathered there after dark, and strangers found solace in one another’s company. Merchants, prostitutes, and scholars moved as equals in this place. I would sit all night watching the va et vient of lascars and madmen; I was alone but never lonely. And it was here, at precisely eleven o’clock one evening, that I met Johnny.
He was sitting on his own in a corner of the coffee shop at the end of Cowan Street, diligently reading a book. It was a rare sight, a Chinese reading an English book in this part of town, so I took a table next to his and decided to engage him in conversation.
“Shelley?” I said with genuine surprise when I saw what he was reading.
He looked up as if confused.
“Have you read a lot of Shelley?” I asked again.
He looked at me blankly. I began to wonder if he understood me. I moved to his table, and as I sat down he lifted the book and placed it on his lap, as if hiding it from me.
