LIFE
drove to the centre of Singapore just in time
for the Garden Rhapsody light and sound
show.
‘Look! Supertrees! Can you see them?’
she said. You couldn’t miss them. Tower-
ing above and around us were a dozen or so
50-metre-tall branched steel structures twin-
kling with coloured lights. For a quarter of an
hour the lights changed colour in time to the
chord changes of sentimental songs from hit
musicals. We sat cross-legged on the ground
among a thousand other tourists gaping
upwards. ‘Look! No litter! Very clean!’ said
Joy, impatiently diverting my attention from
the rhapsody of light and sound to the clean-
liness of the concrete on which we sat. I obe-
diently searched the concrete for litter. ‘Did
you enjoy?’ she said when the music stopped
and the lights ceased to flash. ‘Very gay,’ I
said. ‘Gay?’ she said. She was dumbfound-
ed. ‘What you mean, gay? I don’t understand
you. Now we eat.’
We ate at a table for two in a circular
restaurant perched in the canopy of one of
these ridiculous Supertrees. Joy ordered the
restaurant staff around with toe-curling per-
emptoriness. She chose the dishes. Quick-
ly losing confidence in the intelligence of
the waiter, she would have truck only with
the manager. When at last she found time
for conversation with her new client, she
monopolised it.
Joy was a simple soul and inordinate-
ly proud of the social status conferred by
her prestigious occupation of tourist guide.
There was a very famous, very beautiful
Hong Kong film starlet, in fact, who pre-
ferred to use her above any other guide
when she visited Singapore. She showed me
a photograph on her huge smartphone: Joy
standing next to this beautiful Hong Kong
film star. Joy’s face was a picture of star-
struck defiance. ‘Which one is you?’ I said.
‘Funny,’ she said, dismissively.
She was immensely popular, she said,
and particularly with American tourists.
One of them had lately sent her a Donald
Trump election-campaign baseball cap. It
was a special edition, I must understand.
Instead of saying ‘Trump–Pence’, this oneJoy showed me a video clip of
Kate Middleton looking very
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or go to http://www.spectator.com.au/T021A0330 333 0050 quoting A152Ahttp://www.spectator.co.uk/A152AINTRODUCTORY OFFER:Iran is our natural allyThe National Trust in trouble Boris in LibyaThe lesson of HoustonDATES WITH DIANAMY TAKICan you forgive her?Isabel Hardman and Matthew Parris on Theresa May’s fateA Ghost in the Rylands Library
The other members of the conference
are scholars of after-lives
but since my papers lie in this archive
I am visiting the story
of old conflicts and silly disappointments
now once again exposed:I am a ghost
of all the messy drafts which here survive
- a nd so much energ y went into t hem
I might have managed a more sensible life.
Instead I chose to register
all t hat felt wit h so much urgency
it could not be forgiven.
My generous hosts,
it is a n honour to be in your possession.
I was always driven
to find the human voice within a song
and set out thoughts as clear
as spoken words could make them –
but for all my dedicationit was the living mattered most.
— Elaine Feinstein
said simply ‘Trump’, which made it far more
covetable. That is how much her Americans
love and appreciate her. She would bring it
tomorrow and show me. Unfortunately for
me, she would not be wearing it. It was too
precious. But she would bring it and let me
have a look at it.
Another feather in her cap was getting
to shake hands with the Duchess of Cam-
bridge five years ago. Joy flicked through her
phone’s photo album and showed me a video
clip of Kate Middleton looking very glad to
have just met Joy. Joy told me how adroit she
had been that day in obtaining information
from a security guard — one of her many
contacts — about which part of the penned-
in crowd Kate would make for first.
I was indeed most fortunate, I agreed,
to be allocated such a prestigious and well-
connected guide. Something akin to modes-
ty fleetingly softened her features. Amazing
as her life was, however, Joy felt that she was
destined for greater things. This job was only