EUNICE LAM Yin-nei is a prolific writer. Later this month, a critique of her work by a professor in Guangzhou will be launched at the Hong Kong Book Fair. 'He read all 60 of my books before he wrote it,' murmured Lam. 'That was in 1996 and now, of course, I have written a few more.' Everyone I spoke to about her had said she wrote about love and, what with the output, the content and the glamour, I thought she would be a Hong Kong version of Barbara Cartland. But no. 'I think I'm more like a female Hemingway. He's very direct, he doesn't make a lot of fuss.' You therefore might expect Lam to have come crashing through the Mandarin Oriental's Clipper Lounge in a safari suit, letting off gunshots and demanding whisky. In fact, she appeared in dark glasses and a black lacy outfit, the brevity of which drew appreciative glances from every male in the room. She had just had a fitting for an evening dress she will wear at a gala for young designers on July 14, during Hong Kong Fashion Week. 'It's half see-through so I have to be fit,' remarked the slender Lam, and ordered carrot and celery sticks with her camomile tea.
It had taken about 20 phone calls, over a period in which, no doubt, several novels had been written, to arrange this meeting. Eventually Lam had left a message to say that she was only contactable late at night, which is when she does her writing at stupendous speed. She told me her hand-written character rate is the equivalent to about 1,000 words in 30 minutes. (Just as a guide, this piece is about 1,200 words long and let me tell you, dear reader, it's taking me longer than 30 minutes.) The rest of the time she seems to be out on the town, judging by her appearances in the social pages, or taking part in such intellectual tasks as - to take a fairly typical example - the selection of the current Mr Hong Kong. Perhaps there is a unconscious duality, as literary critics say, at work here. In analysing her own output, Lam said: 'In my writing, there are always two layers. The surface layer, of course, is the story. The second layer always has some message. I think that I'm underrated. I think a lot of people don't understand what I'm writing about. They get the first layer but not the second.' And so, too, it could be that frivolous hacks are concentrating far too much on Lam's own surface layer - all those cocktail parties - instead of her yearning core of creativity. 'I don't mind the limelight, in a way I do appreciate the media for appreciating me. But I think they're missing a lot of things if they just concentrate on what you're wearing and how much it cost.' The media was clearly on her mind. Every day she writes what she refers to as an essay for the Hong Kong Daily News and on the day we met the column had been a tirade about the Chinese papers. 'They really broke my heart in the last three years. Some reporters have lost their professional ethics, they've come down to the lowest common denominator. They make things up, they speed the break-up of marriages.' Now that, frankly, was a bit rich, as she had herself broken up the marriage of media personality James Wong in the 1970s with an affair that started while they were both working at TVB. Lam was divorced, with a young son called Oscar, and there was much ballyhoo when Mrs Wong, who became pregnant while the affair was going on, held a press conference at Kai Tak to announce the end of the marriage. Shortly afterwards, Wong and Lam set up an advertising agency together, which was later bought by Saatchi & Saatchi.
The pair were supposed to have married on New Year's Eve 1988, with the writer Louis Cha as witness, but the ceremony was never officially registered. When I queried this, Lam said quickly, 'I'm happy to make the point that James Wong never married me. James asked Mr Cha to be a witness and he was happy to do that, and our friends were so enthusiastic, they said that it would be the wedding of the century. But Mr Wong lost interest. I don't want to say anything more about him.' Wong has since married again. Lam has not. I asked her twice if she had any regrets. The first time, she said: 'I have failures - everyone has in love and in career - but I have no regrets. All those heartaches and frustrations are worth it because they come together with ultimate happiness, it's like a twin.' But an hour or so later - maybe she felt like peeling down to her inner layer - she replied: 'Without regrets we don't have art in this world. And as an artist maybe I have room for more regrets than others.' It seemed to me that an air of sadness hung about her. She's still pretty (which is lucky because it's clear that appearance is important to her), wealthy and successful but somehow fundamentally dissatisfied. Perhaps this is part of her genetic make-up. She should know, as it happens, because she studied genetics at the University of California at Berkeley during the 1960s.
'It was crazy; it suited me 100 per cent, I enjoyed it tremendously,' she enthused. Was it the happiest time of her life? She paused for a long time and said, unexpectedly, 'At Berkeley I thought I was unhappy. I can't explain it, I suppose when you're an adolescent you don't want to be happy.' And now? 'It's the small things, never the great things, that make you happy. My advertising agency was a great success but is that happiness? I don't know.' We talked soberly about death. Lam said, 'I never have any fear of it. I don't care if I die this moment.' I thought that was a bit hard on Oscar, who's a graphic designer in Hong Kong. 'Oh, he knows Mummy has this view and he agrees with me. Longevity is not life, I don't associate that with living. I hope old people don't mind me saying so, but if I lived to 120, my world would already be dead. It would be like living on Mars.' As for love: 'I have had romances all my life but not this year. Not in 1998. And I don't want it. I don't want to sink - emotions can sometimes make you feel overloaded.' As part of an unburdening process, she plans to retreat into the utter silence of a Seoul monastery for three months at the end of the year. She will take a pen and paper but her working habits will have to change. 'You have to get up at three,' she began. Then she gave a little laugh, suddenly amused by her own strange lifestyle.
'Normally, I don't go to bed until three.'