2012
LILI
Pat was as nervous as a young man on his first date when he left to pick up Lili at Heathrow. There were no privileges for Lili, she held a Hong Kong SAR Chinese, or simply SAR, passport, and on arrival had to pass through border controls like any other traveller. The Chinese government did not recognise dual nationality for any of its citizens, however, SAR passports did provide certain advantages for Hongkongers entering the UK.
Strictly speaking Lili was not a Hongkonger, but thanks to the influence of her very wealthy and very well connected family she had acquired the status of a British National (Overseas) before Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, when many of the colony’s wealthy families feared for their future under Chinese rule. As it happened things turned out well and the disaster that many had predicted never happened.
It was five-thirty in the afternoon when she wheeled her trolley out of the customs area. Pat’s heart jumped, though the sight of her overloaded baggage trolley was a little disconcerting to someone like him who boasted of travelling lightly.
Preferring a day flight Lily had left Hong Kong mid-morning and had relaxed in the comfort of her first class seat on the long Cathay Pacific flight, almost thirteen hours flying time. She looked fresh and raring to go.
Lili was no stranger to London having spent a year at the LSE as a student, although it had been a confusing sojourn for a young Chinese girl who had left home for the first time. Her visits to London since that time had been few and quick as her business had been focused on China and Hong Kong with the occasional visits to Singapore or North East Asia.
Chinese families and businesses were not frivolous and her vacations to Bali, Vancouver or San Francisco had been short affairs with no semblance to the breaks of Europe’s gilded youth to Ibiza or Marbella, the bling capitals of the Mediterranean, with their nightclubs, stylish designer emporia, mega yachts and Champagne spray parties, where living it up in the sun, on the sand and in beach bars and restaurants was almost a way of life.
Pat had difficulty in concentrating on the early Friday evening traffic as Lili chattered, commenting on the airport security, border controls, the passing scenery and her plans. She asked him about the presence of soldiers in and around the airport and their curious attire, with their desert fatigues it seemed to her as though they had just arrived from Iraq.
Pat had to agree with her, it was incongruous to see the military in sand coloured battle dress with the dull damp London weather.
“So how long does it take to get there?”
“Where?”
“Your place silly. I looked it up on Google street view.”
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes,” replied Pat as they passed the Hammersmith flyover.
“Is anybody there?”
’No, of course not. Mrs Reilly will be gone by the time we get there.”
“Who is Mrs Reilly,” asked Lili a little sharply.
Pat laughed: “She’s my house keeper, I’ve already told you about her.”
“Oh.”
She placed her hand on his as a sign of regret for her sharp tone. Pat glanced at her fine fingers, the perfect colour of her skin and her beautiful manicured nails. He congratulated himself on finding such a beauty, though at the same time could not help questioning her interest in him considering he was not as an outstanding example of male beauty.
It was a struggle to get all of Lili’s luggage up the to penthouse apartment that overlooked the Thames. Lili headed directly to the panoramic windows to take in the view over Battersea Park and Chelsea’s Ranelagh Gardens on the other side of the river.
“Beautiful,” she said turning around to admire the apartment.
She laughed and threw her arms around Pat. “Are you pleased to see me?”
“Who wouldn’t be,” he said feeling her soft body against his. “Let’s get these inside,” he added pointing to the luggage.
“Where’s our room?”
“There, I’ve made space in the dressing room for all your things,” Pat said leading the way, pleased he moved his affairs to the second bedroom. Lili would clearly be needing plenty of space. “There’s the bathroom if you need it.”
T
hames, Chelsea Bridge, Battersea Park
A couple of minutes later she reappeared finding Pat looking out over the Thames. The clouds were clearing and the evening promised to be pleasantly warm.
“What are our plans? Are we going to eat?” she asked with a mischievous smile.
“Up to you.”
“Well I’d like to stretch my legs after the flight.”
“Well we can take a walk on Kings Road, it’s not far, but very fashionable and perhaps you’ll see somewhere you’d like to eat.”
“How shall I dress?”
“Casual.”
*
Pat preferred taking the Jaguar to avoid the dust and noise of the traffic on Chelsea Bridge Road and by luck found a parking spot off Sloane Square behind Peter Jones.
The evening was pleasantly warm giving Lili the chance to take-in the latest London fashions, stopping at almost every shop window. It was not something that Pat was used to, but he had never seen her so excited, she was like a teenager bubbling over at everything she saw, passers-bye, cars, restaurants, cinemas, pubs and coffee shops. It was almost nine when she decided it was time to eat. Pat anticipating the moment had already booked a table at the Cheney Walk Brasserie, a trendy French style bistro, where he was a well known client. The restaurant was situated in an apple green nineteenth century corner house decorated with coach lamps. Their table, on the first floor, overlooked Chelsea Bank Gardens with the Thames beyond between the trees.
Lili was thrilled, it was so different from Hong Kong and even more so than Guangzhou. She took Pat’s hand pleased that he been able to anticipate what she preferred best.
“I hope you like French food?”
“Of course, it’s delightful here.”
“It was once a Victorian pub,” he told her remembering the owner’s story.
Pat helped her with the menu, displaying his knowledge of French. They ordered scallops followed by grilled sea bass and chocolate fondant, then with a flourish he ordered a Chablis 1er cru from the wine list. Once the formalities were over they concentrated their talk on each other and the week ahead.
It was almost midnight when they returned to the apartment. Lili told him she was not in the least bit tired, but as soon as they dropped onto the sofa she closed her eyes and was asleep.
*
Lili was up early, she showered and slipped back into the bed putting her arms around Pat, gently waking him up.
“I’m so sorry I went asleep like that. Let’s make up for it now,” she whispered in his ear.
Pat was fascinated by Lili’s body, its smoothness, its firmness. He was fairly expert in the matter. Over the years during his travels he had encountered many women, but Lili was special. Their relationship had started slowly, each a little suspicious of the other, both very different, from distant worlds, which did not stop them discovering they had one thing in common, their desire for the exotic.
Pat, an Irishman from Limerick who had reached the top, was a good looking man. He had not been lucky in love, his wife Mary, once she realized they would not have children, had sought refuge in religion, dedicating her life to the church, it was God’s choosing. Five years earlier, after a short illness she had suddenly died, cloistered in a Limerick convent, a tragic end for the lively young woman Pat had married almost twenty years earlier.
Pat hated to admit it to himself, but it had been a release. He was a non-practicing Catholic, though his upbringing had instilled in him a fierce respect for the laws of the church, as had been his wife, which meant there had been no question of divorce.
It was nine when the sound of Mrs Reilly awoke them again. She was busying herself preparing the breakfast as she often did at weekends when Pat asked her to come in. She lived barely ten mi
nutes away by foot on the other side of Chelsea Bridge on the Ebury Bridge Road.
“Who is there?” asked Lili.
“Don’t worry it’s Mrs Reilly. We’ll have breakfast now.”
The sun was streaming in and the view of Battersea Park from the bedroom window was splendid, the trees dressed in their late spring greenery. Pat slipped on a dressing gown and passed one to Lili.
“I can’t be seen like this!”
“Of course you can, she won’t bite you.”
Pat presented a very shy Lili to Mrs Reilly who was delighted to see Kennedy had found himself a nice young woman. The fact she was Chinese did not worry her in the least. London was a multi-cultural society and even her own children had made mixed marriages, as she called them, meaning with Protestants.
*
With the arrival of the fine weather Jack Reagan set out to take a closer look at London’s new landmarks: the Shard and the Gould Tower. He was surprised by the new spurt of office construction in the City, a sure sign that the economy was on the mend.
From London Bridge he headed for Borough Market where he stopped to buy a pastrami bagel at one of the many stalls in the food court that now occupied the pedestrian zone. He then wandered down Cathedral Street to the riverside where he found a bench and sat down to watch the passers-by: pretty office girls and tourists. He ate his bagel with relish and was just wiping his mouth when he was startled to see Pat Kennedy strolling along in the company of a pretty Chinese girl.
“Pat!”
“Jack, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!” he replied with a laugh. “It’s a long time.”
“Let me introduce you to Lili.”
Reagan already understood she was more than a casual acquaintance of Kennedy’s from they way they had held hands, quickly separating when he surprised them.
Reagan smiled and bowed politely whilst admiring Pat’s taste.
“I’m over for a few days looking after my properties in Pimlico.”
“You’re not that far from us.”
Reagan noted the ‘us’.
‘Is Marie-Helene with you?’ asked Kennedy.
“Unfortunately not, she doesn’t like hanging around while I look after my business.”
They all laughed.
“We’re having a little evening for friends tonight, why don’t you come over if your free.”
“I’d like that.”
“Informal. At eight.”
‘Fine.’
“Chelsea … Battersea,” said Kennedy pulling out a card, “here’s the address.”
The couple continued on there way as Reagan admired the couple.
They had got to know each other after being introduced in Biarritz by Tom Barton. Reagan had becoming one of a small group of ‘bad boys’ that got together whenever Pat and his friends were in town.
*
The couple arrived at the Royal Opera House in style, dropped off at the main entrance by Pat’s driver. It was one of the privileges of being rich, and rich he was. Things had gone quickly over the past twelve or fourteen years, he had made the right choices, met the right people, been in the right place at the right times and taken risks that had paid off. There had as always been difficult moments, but chance had it he made the right decisions, unlike certain others he knew.
Pat Kennedy was a wealthy man thanks to the annual stock options he had received, which exceeded his salaries and bonuses combined since he had joined the bank. Pat had exercised his rights at propitious moments and had made considerable profits, especially following the creation of INI, investing his gains in a prime property portfolio and diversified investments in blue chip companies on both sides of the Atlantic at the right moment, as London prime property saw spectacular returns, with the US stock market doubling in the space of just eighteen months. He was riding high and it seemed nothing that could stop him from becoming even richer.
The bank’s transformation into an international commercial and investment institution placed it amongst the worlds top one hundred banks in terms of the combined assets of the holding controlled by Michael Fitzwilliams and Sergei Tarasov.
*
Lili would enjoy Puccini’s La Rondine, Pat was certain she would. He was pleased with his choice, it seemed as if the programming of the opera had been timed for Lili’s visit and the beauty of the music would mark the start of her visit.
The bank, as patron of the Royal Opera, had reserved seats in the grand tier, where they were guaranteed a perfect view, not only of the opera but also the magnificent opera house.
Pat desperately wanted to please and impress Lili. In spite of his meteoric rise to the summit of the City banking world, he had never quite shaken off his modest, straitjacketed, background and upbringing, on the edge of Limerick City in Ireland. Arriving at the Royal Opera House in the company of the beautiful daughter of a rich Chinese family was a sure sign he had made it. The twenty or so years age difference did not worry him in the slightest, at forty nine he was in good condition and felt he was at the prime of his life.
He was prepared to go to almost any length to make her visit to London a memorable one. Though a slight shadow of doubt lingered in his mind when he thought back to his own first reaction to Chinese opera, which time had done nothing to improve. There was a difference however: Lili’s education in Hong Kong and London had made her mind receptive to Western culture; the same could not be said for Pat, nothing in Limerick could have prepared him for Chinese opera.
As a young man in Ireland his only contact with China was the Jade Garden, a Chinese takeaway, near the Church of the Holy Rosary on O’Connell Street. He had to wait until his first visit to London to discover Soho for his first real, though very distant, contact with the heathen Middle Kingdom, as Brother McGuire at the Salesian College had called it.
After ten days in London Lili got down to business. Not only had her feelings for Pat been confirmed, she was also totally seduced by what he had shown her of his life in London. For a young Chinese woman, pushing thirty, Lili’s family was anxious that she marry, though the idea of her marrying a guailos was not what they had had in mind, even if he was rich. There were many thousands of very rich candidates in China to choose from. But times had changed and if mixed marriages in Guangzhou were rare, in Hong Kong they were more frequent and Lili knew she had the support of her brother and cousins.
In any case she had her own ideas. The globalised world was a small place and distances had shrunk with the speed and comfort of modern air travel. Lili could fly from one home to another in less than a day and in the kind of comfort tourist class passengers could only dream of.
Finding a home in London would not be difficult, at least for those with the money. It seemed straightforward to Lili, who formed a clear idea of what she wanted after having being invited by both Fitzwilliams and Tarasov to their respective homes in Knightsbridge.
“I’ll call Sarah Kavanagh and she’ll line up visits to suitable properties for us if you like.”
“Something traditional Pat, I wouldn’t want to be accused of being too bling back home. There’s been a lot of scandals, you know throwing money about, not to speak of corruption and all that. My father told us to be careful about conspicuous consumption.”
“Well you don’t have to worry about that here.”
“Well stories get home. Baidu loves it, I don’t want my photos posted by bloggers with those of government officials wearing very expensive watches or driving fancy cars.”
“Probably not good for business in Hong Kong?”
“That’s right. Recently expensive wines and shark fin soup sales are down a lot.” Then she added with a laugh: “Though I’ve heard they’re selling a lot of private jets today.”
“Coming to Europe to spend.”
“Like me.”
“It seems you prefer foreign brands,” Pat said pointing a finger at himself.
“Yes,” she said laughing, “and fo
reign cars.”
*
No sooner than Lili said goodbye the Shanghai stock exchange crashed. Here we go again, thought Pat, just when it seemed the much-needed calm had settled over global markets. The Shanghai composite dropped another 5.31%, bringing the losses to over fifteen percent since the People’s Bank of China had raised overnight rates the week before. Since the wild peak of August 2007, it had lost two thirds of its value, scuttle-butting along at around the 2000 points level. Monday, 24 June, it hit a low of 1963 points, a level not seen since the Lehman Brothers event.
It was not a good augur for investing in China, but, thought Pat optimistically, a lot of Chinese would want to start hedging their bets by getting money out of the country.
He wondered whether the move by the PboC, which had sent overnight interbank rates to thirteen percent, had been to purge speculative excess, or was it trying to hide a bigger problem?
He did not think it would go much further, his recent experience told the risk of default talked about in the financial press was scaremongering and in reality he should be betting on Chinese markets, if what Lili told him was anything to go by.
Talk of systemic collapse was rubbish, the US was on the rebound, as was the UK. Europe was behind, but the cycles were different. Ireland had not gone bust, neither had Spain or Portugal and even Greece was hanging on.
It was never as bad as it seemed.
It was true that the Chinese problem stemmed from new credit creation, beyond regulatory reach, but shadow banking was nothing new in China, or Asia in general.
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