The Glory Dance

By John Ivor

The kupu bush, unique to a South Pacific island, is habitat to poisonous butterflies yet promises to enable cheap energy, cure disease and end world hunger. When a London conglomerate secures trading rights and sends James Harvey to fetch samples, he faces government spies, commercial rivals and murder – also falls in love. Superpowers contend for the independent island, where Russia plans a naval base. After James agrees to help the island princess regain her throne, they seek justice at the United Nations. Here violence flares anew as ruthless foes prepare to kill them

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darling Newspaper Press
• Release date: Nov 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005777982

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

London

THE violence began soon after I joined Donald & Donald, a worldwide multi-national with a finger in everybody’s pocket, and the cause of the violence was not hard to recognize.

Violence goes hand in hand with the making of money. This truth asserts itself in every land, in every language, in every history, battlefield and boardroom. Beneath the veneer of integrity, there is not a market where Ethics can stand up too long against Profit. Such is the story of Mankind, written in blood, bank cheques and treachery; the hungrier the person the greater is their violence. Neanderthals discovered this while squabbling over a meaty bone, and civilized people perfected the instinct with nuclear weapons and the more subtle mayhem of monopoly trading.

Donalds had been building monopolies for centuries before I walked into their London headquarters, and just by being there I became an empire builder of sorts. The company held the world in a money-milking grasp, ignoring famines, disegarding wars, evading taxes, toppling governments – all with the purpose of swelling its vast assets and perpetuating its tsunami of cash. As a new executive in the Public Relations Division, I earned my modest weekly share of the loot and struggled to make it meet my commitments: a third-share in rent of a bachelor commune in Earls Court, a monthly hire-purchase instalment on a secondhand Toyota, and an occasional booze-up or seduction.

Such had been my simple needs gravitating from the provincial plains of country journalism to the big-city canyons of Fleet Street, but Inflation kept putting up the price of everything. In my new job with Donalds I found that public relations paid quite a lot more than reporting news for a national daily. There was also my health problem.

Diagnosing cancer, the specialist said avoiding stress could counter the disease for months. He declind to guess how many. Stress is guaranteed when chasing deadlines against ruthless competition in the world’s Press capital. So I quit the street that never sleeps for the trade that never fails – writing nice things about dull people. Too late I found out that PR and the sedate office routines have a stress style all their own, mysterious and many in their ways of attack.

The first enemy I made was Hardcastle-Wenson, a crotchety colonial relic who grumpily did not approve and chronically was not amused. In particular he disapproved of, and was not amused by, me. Every morning, stiff and sharp as his starched collar, he made this loudly clear to the staff. I was an ignorant upstart who, he said, should have stayed in the vulgar cess of newspapers. There at least I would be surrounded by equally foolish and forward clowns, and give no pain in the corridors of multi-national commerce.

‘Plants!’ He shouted across his neat and empty desktop to my tangled paper spread of works in progress. An office memo that morning had appointed me to a fresh task. ‘You know bugger all about agriculture,’ he sneered.

I avoided his testy tomato-face, made allowance for his superior years, and tried to explain once more. ‘But I don’t have to be an expert botanist. I’ll only be writing about this bush. Research, old chap, the enquiring mind, the public pulse, getting the right image. That’s why they picked me, piece of cake to a pro reporter.’

‘Garbage. You’ve never been east of Frinton-on-Sea.’

I knew he had wanted this trip himself. He had craved my mission, lobbied over tense weeks of jealousy, and had been put down none too gently. The firm would not be sending him abroad again. He was past it, an ex-planter grazing out his last working years in gentle clerical duties, in office premises weathered by history and the grime of decades.

Let me explain immediately that the Hardcastle-Wensons of this world, and my particular fellow in London, play no part in the narrative to come. I mention him, them, the breed, only as a personification of the British trading conglomerate. History changes a setting, the spirit thrives eternally. Succeeding the plains of India today are the rocky hills of the Moon, or the seabed off oil-rich Brunei, but the same love of wealth prevails. Alive and ruthless as ever is the urge to make a buck where lesser men hesitate to dabble.

The empire builders of our modern world, I learned at Donalds, expand monetary boundaries rather than geographical ones. They wear pressed pinstripes and carry a briefcase where sun-helmeted forebears brandished the Union Jack and a bottle of gin; or like Hardcastle-Wenson converted jungle acres into prolific plantations of coffee, rubber and tobacco.

Me? I was content to take home my humble wage and to live my last twelve months in modest comfort. They lured me out to Asia with the promise of a rise, a two-week trip, and a hint this might somehow help what they described as my ‘special problem’. The kupu bush, you see, had a cell-preserving quality that our company scientists claimed might possibly inhibit some forms of cancer, and thereby enrich Donald & Donald as its sole supplier.

‘Cancer, James. The medical aspect gives you a personal interest,’ said Williams, the London boss who over-heartily conferred my appointment. ‘What’s more, you’ll enjoy 14 days in luxury hotels, and there’s no real business to bother about. All you do is bring back some plants.’

‘Bring them? I thought I was going to write about them.’

‘No, gawdsakes, we don’t want any publicity. Not at this juncture. Just a bush or two for further research. Needs someone to see they get here quietly and safely.’

‘But Mr Williams sir, I have no experience in transporting plants.’

‘They’ll be expertly packed and ready for you.’ He shrugged. ‘You just handle the bloody paperwork. Export dockets and that. You come back with ’em, nursemaid ’em on the plane. Simple.’

So here I am heading for newly independent Singapore, crossroads of the Far East. James Harvey, nursemaid to plants. Health: outwardly sound, actually not long to live. Frame of mind: mild anticipation. Outlook: determined to enjoy the holiday despite Death’s grim proximity.

Folk who have a score or two in years left to live can never know the sweetness of life to a man with only months. Believe me, I really was enjoying the humdrum air journey, the soggy tray-dinner, even the outdated inflight movies.

Fate was chuckling but I could not hear. My memory was still savouring the cosy interview I’d had the honour to receive, in person, from Mr Johnnie Abernethy Donald the 24th. His briefing was bestowed in his London den, a penthouse elegantly located and perhaps once elegantly furnished. The day I saw it, Park Lane sophistication had succumbed totally to the man’s ancestral geegaws, and it resembled a tartan warehouse. Curtains, upholstery, even the wallpaper carried designs more suited to a tin of Dundee shortbread. The wall-to-wall carpet was tartan too, although little of the dark green expanse was visible beneath a litter of family souvenirs and heirlooms.

These formed heaps in the entry hall, along the corridor as I followed the butler. All over Donald’s study a good dig would uncover history, not in the layered order of archaeology but every-which-way in haphazard anarchy.

I trod over a mélange of clan crests, claymores with the rust of ages (or stains more sinister), great carved thrones and wee bright gemstones. There were maps and other tattered parchments, a flag or two, the dress-kilt, as I learned later, of Donald The Deathsword, and the shrunken head of a Mogul emperor. Also stock certificates from history’s ill-fated Darien Scheme, a Turkish hubble-bubble, a royal spittoon of Kelantan silver, a Bengal lance, many brown cracked daguerreotypes and glossy photos, and ledgers, ledgers, ledgers.

Everything I saw was dusty in this junk-filled room, hardly leaving space for the wrinkled chief of our group. I failed to notice him at first, until a scratching and rustling revealed him grubbing at a boxfile of yellowed papers. He sat near the window to get the light, a silvery sort of man, very old, yet his eyes gleamed.

This was the oligarch of our business empire, an individual wealthier than a clutch of kings. His family, I knew, were spread worldwide among the tiers of command and, through them and his many boards, John Abernethy Donald ruled dominions large and plentiful enough to be the envy of an empress – as perhaps they actually had been during the conquering reign of Queen Victoria.

In contrast to his surroundings and the evidence of his careless care for antiques, he was neat in his person. He had smooth silver hair, a round cleanshaven face, and eyes that reflected insatiable interest in living. Just like me, grabbing at life while it lasts.

People said this bloke wanted to be immortal and was achieving this, in print at least, by means of a many-volumed family history. They said he wanted to make sure there had never been a Donald to match him.

This commercially powerful but physically meagre man smiled a welcome, his old lips a gentle pink ripple. I had no idea why I qualified for this rare audience. ‘Please sit down,’ he gleamed.

There was nowhere to sit. I crouched as best I could against the arm of what I suspected to be a Regency carver, even though it was upholstered in the Donalds own clan tartan, an affront of horrible yellow, red and green. Occupying the rest of this chair was a massive ancient bible. Its leather binding had apparently defied the clan colours, but sported instead a big embossed thistle.

The owner and organizer of all this paraphernalia tapped a skeletal finger on a notepad, size A4, that covered his scrawny lap. ‘So, you are the scribbler laddie.’

‘Journalist sir.’

He waved aside my amendment and spoke again in a voice that lulled and enchanted. As I have said, silver was his aura. His words amid that trove of ego came like gentle windbells in a quiet glen, and they comforted me.

‘I am writing the history of the Donalds,’ he said.

I accepted this lie without showing disbelief, but it was well known in the London office that he had a team of historians and authors ghosting it for him. It was also rumoured that he pestered them continually with new discoveries from his own daily delving. This family museum we were in, flotsam of trading centuries, gripped Mr Donald’s whole interest at that time.

‘Look at this, look at it.’ He thrust a cracked sheet of paper at me. It was a coloured print, a portrait, or rather a caricature, grubby with age and ill-use. Its red-nosed subject was a ragged boozer gripping a whisky jug. Across the bottom was printed a verse in faded italic type:

And at his elbow Soutar Johnnie,

his ancient, trusty, drouthie cronie:

Tam loved him like a very brother;

they had been full for weeks together.

I recognized the lines from a poem by Robert Burns. The wild midnight ride of Tam o’Shanter with witches in pursuit. Where was the connection? What could this possibly have to do with my mission? The old gnome sat smirking at me.

CHAPTER TWO

Singapore

THE grubby print could have been torn from some early periodical, but across the bottom of the page something was scrawled in large brown letters: ‘To Soutar Johnnie Donald, the cheeriest sozzled pedlar in all Ayrshire.’

Donald waited until I looked up. ‘Rabbie Burns and my ancestor were best pals,’ he grinned. ‘Rab said his salesman friend inspired the poem. That’s what I want you to remember.’

‘A poem?’

‘A trader.’ Leaning towards me, he reclaimed the heirloom and smoothed it away neatly into its boxfile. ‘The Donalds have spread throughout the world. We even own large parts of it. But what I want you to understand is this: a good trader also peddles ideas. We inspire. The particular item you are going for will inspire the whole world. A great new era is at hand for humankind.’

I nodded, uninspired. A practised trader, like this old spruiker, also has the gift of blarney. His words came to me as sales talk. Doubtless, after a life of spouting sales talk, the current Johnnie Donald couldn’t help himself. Rab’s best friend, oh yeah, and I could imagine the drunken Soutar Johnnie in a wayside pub selling goosequill pens to Robert Burns, and ink at cut-price.

‘Since the Burns connection,’ said Donald, ‘Donald & Donald has taken intimate interest in literature. I enjoyed reading your recent articles in The Times newspaper. About that Japanese cancer clinic.’

Now he was flattering me. Why? Wasn’t he my boss? Wasn’t I here to do his bidding? Do the job, get paid, no complications.

‘I am hardly in the same league as Robert Burns,’ I said. ‘The Japanese initiative did appeal to me, however.’

He responded with a cruel laugh and a cruel comment. ‘Yes, it would. How long have you got now?’

‘Maybe a year or two.’

‘That is what Personnel told me. So let us say you have a year to find inspiration.’

‘For what?’

‘The cancer fight, laddie. My Pharmaceutical Division suggests this plant, the kupu bush, could cure that scourge once and for all. And ye’ll be observing and writing about its very first appearance in medicine. Your words will inspire the health industry, just as Soutar Johnnie Donald gave inspiring power to Rab’s pen. Sadly, cheap whisky pickled both of their brains in the end. Do you drink, laddie?’

‘Can’t afford it much,’ I confessed.

‘Excellent. A clear head makes a steady pen. Most necessary when you are writing Donald & Donald history.’

So that was it, I thought. I was going to be just another of his many ghost writers. His comments about the alleged cancer cure did not inspire me at all. Socalled miracle drugs sweep into news headlines every week, only to prove untrue. Long ago I had stopped believing in such a thing.

‘These kupu plants,’ I asked him, ‘if they are so important shouldn’t a botanist, or a chemist, be making the journey?’

A slow shake of his head. ‘The experts are testing kupu essence here in London with all their tools and databanks. Getting more plants to them from thon Kupu Island is simple, yet only a writer can do the wee piece for my history.’

In my conceit I did not realize at this first meeting that Johnnie Donald the 24th, emperor of the trading world, did not even know my name. To him I was Writer Laddie, or maybe Cancer Laddie. Seated afterwards in the airliner above the clouds it dawned on me that I had been noticed on a whim while Donald was scanning The Times for new ways to profit in the global stakes.

This did not bother me, because bliss is the state of the ignorant and I had the luxury hotels of Southeast Asia to enjoy. I had a rare form of the disease, and thankfully it was painless. I was resigned to my death sentence and content to make the most of what little time was left to me. This day I was a happy traveller freed from the grey weight of England’s skies and winging it to exotic places.

You know bugger all about agriculture. So the man had said. A full knowledge of the kupu bush would have sent me hot-footing back to die peacefully in the corporate jungle of London.

Johnnie Donald the 24th had told me to observe and describe my historical journey, but one sees what one believes. What I saw as the jumbo swept me down the Malayan Peninsula was a modern Sinbad approaching magical lands. Arabia’s fabled mariner had braved stormtossed waters to trade, examine and record for the masses in the casbah. My arrival across the glittering Straits of Johore was swift and smooth in a mechanical roc, compliments of British Airways.

Reaching the tip of the peninsula I wondered at Britain’s former colony. The trading city of Singapore sprouted a cluster of multi-rise blocks around its harbour. History and necessity had banished its mangrove swamps. When we banked for landing I noted commercial fleets in the waters below illustrating Singapore’s domination of Far East maritime and air routes. It was a sight worthy to begin Johnnie Donald’s new chapter of progress and conglomerate triumphs.

‘Welcome to Singapore,’ a female voice announced to seat-belted passengers. ‘Please make your way to the exit ramps.’ Brisk and bright, they bustled us through the formalities of Changi International Airport. It was here I first met Yinyang, although she introduced herself as Miss Chin.

She had got an announcer to page me as I came with a surge of travellers from the Customs Hall.

‘Mister Harvey, I have private car. Follow me please, no problem.’

Miss Chin with dimples, I thought. Demure, neat in a cheongsam, and pleasantly efficient like all these smiling Asian officials.

‘Like fish, isn’t it?’ she smiled.

‘What is?’

‘All these peoples, wave on wave, all netted in and processed. You too, Mister Harvey. The Chinese been making fish profit many thousand year, but now for Singapore the most richest catch is travellers. For tourist and business. I learn this at convent school.’

A philosopher, I decided, and took a second look at her. She was small made, with facial features smooth as porcelain and, yes, a rather squarish chin that accentuated the dimples. She glanced at me from a frame of black smooth hair that had been cut short and styled in a fringe across her forehead. Calm brown eyes stared back at me; she was taking a second look also. She had mentioned convent school and, indeed, she possessed the gaze of a nun: sincere, devoted.

‘You have been before to the Lion City?’ she enquired while gesturing for a Chinese syce to unload my luggage trolley into the boot of a big car gleaming in the sunlight.

‘This is my first time. I was not expecting to be met. I have accommodation booked.’

‘Of course. No problem. I am your escort. At the convent