The Bone Clocks

The sun disintegrates into evening and the skyscrapers over the river begin to fluoresce: there’s a titanic bottle opener; an outsize 1920s interstellar rocket; a supra-Ozymandian obelisk, plus a supporting cast of mere forty-, fifty-, sixty-floor buildings, clustering skywards like a doomed game of Tetris. In Mao’s time Pudong was a salt marsh, Nick Greek was telling me, but now you look for levitating jet-cars. When I was a boy the U.S.A. was synonymous with modernity; now it’s here. So I carry on walking, imagining the past: junks with lanterns swinging in the ebb and flow; the ghostly crisscross of masts and rigging, the groan of hulls laid down in Glasgow, Hamburg, and Marseille; hard, knotted stevedores unloading opium, loading tea; dotted lines of Japanese bombers, bombing the city to rubble; bullets, millions of bullets, bullets from Chicago, bullets from Fukuoka, bullets from Stalingrad, ratatat-tat-tat-tat. If cities have auras, like Zoл always insisted people do, if your “chakra is open,” then Shanghai’s aura is the color of money and power. Its emails can shut down factories in Detroit, denude Australia of its iron ore, strip Zimbabwe of its rhino horn, pump the Dow Jones full of either steroids or financial sewage …

My phone’s ringing. Perfect. My favorite person.

“Hail, O Face That Launched a Thousand Ships.”

“Hello, you idiot. How’s the mysterious Orient?”

“Shanghai’s impressive, but it lacks a Carmen Salvat.”

“And how was the Shanghai International Book Fair?”

“Ah, same old, same old. A good crowd at my event.”

“Great! You gave Nick a run for his money, then?”

“ ‘Nick Greek’ to you,” growls my green-eyed monster. “It’s not a popularity contest, you know.”

“Good to hear you say so. Any sign of Holly yet?”

“No, her flight’s not due in until later—and, anyway, I’ve snuck off from the hotel to the Bund. I’m here now, skyscraper-watching.”

“Amazing, aren’t they? Are they all lit up yet?”

“Yep. Glowing like Lucy andthe Sky andDiamonds. So much for my day, how was yours?”

“A sales meeting with an anxious sales team, an artwork meeting with a frantic printer, and now a lunch meeting with melancholic booksellers, followed by crisis meetings until five.”

“Lovely. Any news from the letting agent?”

“Ye-es. The news is, the apartment’s ours if we—”

“Oh that’s fantastic, darling! I’ll get on to the—”

“But listen, Crisp. I’m not quite as sure about it as I was.”

I stand aside for a troop of cheerful Chinese punks in full regalia. “The Plaza de la Villa flat? It was far and a waythe best place we saw. Plenty of light, space for my study, just about affordable, and please—when we lift the blinds every morning, it’ll be like living over a Pйrez-Reverte novel. I don’t understand: What boxes isn’t it ticking?”

My editor-girlfriend chooses her words with care. “I didn’t realize how attached I am to having my own place, until now. My place here is my own little castle. I like the neighborhood, my neighbors …”

“But, Carmen, your own little castle is little. If I’m to divide my time between London and Madrid, we need somewhere bigger.”

“I know … I just feel we’re rushing things a bit.”

That sinking feeling. “It’s been a year since Perth.”

“I’m not rejecting you, Crispin, honestly. I just …”

Evening in Shanghai is turning suddenly cooler.

“I just … want to carry on as we are for a while, that’s all.”

Everyone I see appears to be one half of a loving couple. I remember this I’m not rejecting you, Crispinfrom my pre-Zoл era, when it marked the beginning of breakups. Resentment snarls through the letterbox, feeding me lines to say: “Carmen, make your sodding mind up!”; “Do you knowhow much we’re wasting on airfares?”; even, “Have you met someone else? Someone Spanish? Someone closer to your own age?”

I tell her, “That’s fine.”

She listens to the long pause. “It is?”

“I’m disappointed, but only because I don’t have enough money to buy a place near yours, so we could establish some sort of Hanseatic League of Little Castles. Maybe if a film deal for Echo Must Diefalls from the skies. Look, this call’s costing you a fortune. Go and cheer up your booksellers.”

“Am I still welcome in Hampstead next week?”

“You’re always welcome in Hampstead. Any week.”

She’s smiling in her office in Madrid, and I’m glad I didn’t listen to the snarls through the letterbox. “Thanks, Crispin. Give my love to Holly, if you meet up. She’s hoping to. And if anyone offers you the deep-fried durian fruit, steer clear. Okay, bye then—love you.”

“Love you too.” And end call. Do we use the L-word because we mean it, or because we want to kid ourselves into thinking we’re still in that blissful state?