All the Fabulous Beasts

by Priya Sharma

  I pulled at the side tie of her bikini bottoms. Suzie pressed her lips together as I ripped the packet open and rolled on the condom. The smell of the lubricant and the oily texture made me feel sick. I didn’t want to be distracted. I needed to stay in the moment. I pushed her down and she opened her legs. We moved against each other, mouths and groin joined. I nudged my way into her, towards the heat within her.

  Instead of the mounting excitement I was overcome by the feeling that something was wrong. Something was missing. So it was, yet again, that I failed to make a success of sex. I wilted with each thrust, getting rougher as I got softer until I lay flaccid against her thigh.

  “It’s okay.” Suzie kissed my cheek. “Just lie here with me. Let’s just be together.”

  “It’s not okay.”

  What would’ve happened if I’d stayed there, in her arms? Instead, I got up and ran to the water, plunging into the safety of the waves.

  *

  I was dreaming of the sea.

  The average person can stay underwater for forty seconds. The best free divers can manage six minutes.

  I can stay under for half an hour.

  In my dream, I felt my heart beating; one slow boom after another. My diaphragm twitched. It was just a reflex, my body trying to make me breathe but I ignored it.

  My dreaming seabed was a drowned land with hills and valleys. It was punctuated by ship wrecks reclaimed by coral and anemones, by eels and fishes.

  I crossed a field of moon jelly fish. They numbered in millions. These ethereal, pulsing creatures were a dense carpet of alien blooms. There shouldn’t have be so many. They thrive on pollution. It’s our fault, not theirs. Like all living things, they procreate while they may.

  *

  Cadogan had made all the arrangements for my trip to Hong Kong. He handed me a wallet containing ticket and instructions.

  “It’s first class all the way for you.” His grin revealed yellowed teeth.

  Cadogan had even arranged someone to collect me from the airport. The driver wore a black suit, cut like something from GQ magazine. The man insisted on carrying my rucksack and opened the rear passenger seat of the Mercedes for me. People kept looking at my jeans and scruffy boots, wondering if I was a film star or singer they should recognise.

  I sank back into the leather seats. We emerged from an underpass. Hong Kong’s islands arose from the South China Sea. High rises clung to their lower slopes and green covered the peaks. It was beautiful but I wanted more. I wanted the frisson of recognition.

  “Tsing Ma bridge.” The driver was embarrassed by his lack of English. He needn’t have been. I knew no Cantonese. Not even please or thank you.

  It was a suspension bridge, stretching out across the water with its graceful arcs and angles. A tanker passed under us, a floating monolith shepherded along by smaller tugs.

  There was another island to our left. I could see wooden houses on stilts along the shoreline and boats stacked up beneath them.

  “Ma Wan.” I didn’t know if the driver had noticed my interest or was just announcing that we were close. Then he added, “Old part. Here is new part. Park Island.”

  Park Island Apartment Complex was coming into view. Tower block after tower block. We took the slip road down towards it.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a—”, he paused, searching for the correct word, “Noah’s Ark. For tourists.”

  A theme park for the evangelical, with the Ark beached in the bridge’s shadow. Life sized model animals poured from its hull in pairs, into the garden below.

  At least it wasn’t the crucifixion.

  “No cars allowed beyond this.” He pulled up by an escalator.

  I refused his help with my rucksack and he refused payment, not even a tip. Cadogan had dealt with everything.

  The escalator came out onto a plaza. This was something familiar. The suspension bridge bisected the sea and sky. Tsing Yi Island rose ahead of me. A ferry was docked at the terminal, topped by a clock tower. Suddenly, the small child inside me was turning circles in the sun. I had run around the plaza on a day like this.

  I found the right apartment block and rung the buzzer. The man at the desk gave me a toothy smile when he saw me and let me in. He wore the concierge uniform; grey trousers, white shirt, and a blue and orange striped tie. I showed him my passport, as instructed by Cadogan, and in return received a set of keys. I was trembling as he called the lift for me. I looked at the man’s shoes while we waited. They were polished to a high shine. He took pride in his work.

  The hall of my father’s apartment. The walls were white, marked with nails where pictures had once hung. I put down my rucksack and pulled off my boots. There was a stillness and I had the oddest idea that someone was waiting for me. I expected to go into the lounge and find Dad there, the same distant look on his face as when I’d last seen him in a restaurant in Barcelona. We’d both been passing through.

  He wasn’t there, of course. There was a dark grey, L-shaped sofa, the minimalist sort that always looks modern and uncomfortable. The coffee table was glass-topped. The bookshelves were empty. Each surface was polished which made me feel sadder, somehow. I went through the kitchen cupboards. They’d been fully stocked. Fresh milk was in the fridge. Cadogan’s efficiency.

  The cleaner had made up the master bedroom for me. The wardrobes and bedside tables were empty. I slammed the doors shut, seething at the fruitlessness of travelling half way around the world because of a throwaway comment from Cadogan. Stupid.

  There was a second bedroom. A nautical-themed frieze ran around the walls. Sea creatures bobbed along with the boats. An orange octopus smiled despite being sun-faded. A purple octopus wore a sailor’s hat at a jaunty angle. It was a child’s room. My room.

  I was exhausted. I pulled a cushion from the rattan chair, lay down on the rug of thick, blue pile, and feel asleep in the square of sun.

  *

  I went out for breakfast, even though there was plenty of food in the apartment. The coffee was strong, covered in a layer of foam, coated with cocoa dust. I ate a croissant and then a second, realising that I was hungry.

  Park Island had a manicured, artificial feel. The pathways between the buildings were covered so you could walk the length of the complex without being bothered by rain or sun. Gardeners tended the borders and cleaners emptied litter bins.

  I read the notices regarding the consultation on the ferry fees while I waited for the lift. The concierge bowed to someone. As the lift doors opened the mirrored walls reflected the woman behind me. She followed me in and turned on her heel. I leant over and pressed the button, looking at her enquiringly.

  “Same floor.”

  She was stylish in tight khaki trousers and a well cut white shirt. She looked at me with unconcealed curiosity. I looked right back. She was in her late sixties and from Hong Kong, I thought. Her hair was bobbed and she had flat cheekbones.

  On impulse I reached out and touched the charms on her bracelet. Each one was marine—a sea urchin, a manta ray, a starfish, and a seahorse.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  She wasn’t unnerved by my breach of her personal space.

  “I love it,” she said. “Do you love it?”

  “Yes.”

  As the lift doors opened at our floor I extended an arm. After you. She turned right and then left. We found ourselves outside neighbouring doors. She burst out laughing. I didn’t understand why.

  “You’re Jonathan Brigg’s son, Thomas.”

  She took my face in her hands. I could hardly object. The charms tinkled as she moved. I got a waft of whatever perfume she wore. There were notes of brine, algae and dry driftwood. I resisted rubbing my nose against her wrist.

  “You don’t remember me, do you? I’m Darla.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re handsome. You have your dad’s jaw.” Her face changed as if she just remembered Dad was dead. “Should I
be saying how sorry I am for your loss?”

  “You can’t mourn what you didn’t know.”

  “You have the look of someone who’s been mourning his entire life.”

  My smile was the bitter curve of being understood far too late in life for it to make a difference.

  “Are you in a rush? Why don’t you come in and tell me what you’ve been doing all these years?”

  *

  Darla’s apartment mirrored Dad’s but it had been remodelled. One of the bedrooms had been removed to make the lounge larger. The white walls were covered in swathes of blue canvas.

  “What do you think of them?”

  “They’re wonderful.”

  “I did them.”

  Darla went off to fix us a drink without asking what I wanted. I admired her work while I waited. Blue, the most nuanced colour. All her paintings were abstracts, ranging from stormy greys, through brooding indigos and onto playful aquamarines and greens. The movement of the oil paint reflected the moods of each shade.

  There were gallery catalogues and monographs on the coffee table. Darla wasn’t an amateur dauber. Each one was about her work.

  She put a tray down and passed me a chunky glass tumbler. I took a sip. Whisky and soda.

  “What’s with Noah’s Ark?” I asked. We looked down on it from her window.

  “One of the brothers who developed the island built it when he found God.”

  “It doesn’t look like it could save a pair of everything.”

  “Token atonement for his sins. I say we need a great flood. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Such a strange thing to say but before I could ask her more she went on, “I tried to find you. I know Jonathan went to Germany but what about you?”

  “I was sent to boarding school in England. Lots of them. I kept getting expelled. When I was twelve I went to Texas. One of Dad’s cousins offered to take me in. Did you keep in touch with Dad?”

  “No. He was a busy man. Very in demand. Brilliant engineer from what I gathered. Good business brain too. He made a lot of clever investments. The family you lived with, were they good to you?”

  “It was just Uncle Paul and Aunty Jean. And yes, they were. Why do you care?”

  “You were such a lonely, sad little boy. I like to think that someone was kind to you. Do you still see them?”

  “No. I’m not a very good human being.”

  “That’s okay. Neither am I.”

  I didn’t want to remember my last conversation with Paul and Jean. I called them before I left for Hong Kong. It was the first time in over a year.

  We’ve been so worried about you. Not a single reproach for missing Dad’s funeral, just concern and sympathy.

  Paul and Jean didn’t deserve my shoddy treatment. They put our awkward interactions down to their inexperience with children and adolescents and to my rootless, unloved state. The real issue was that I was strange. It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t to know what the problem was when I barely knew myself. The arid vista outside my window unsettled me. There was no water to salve the endless land.

  “Did you see much of your dad?”

  “No. He used to phone once a month but the time between calls got longer and longer, and the calls themselves got shorter and shorter.”

  “What happened to you after Texas?”

  “I left when I was eighteen. I worked in bars and restaurants. Between what I made and Dad’s allowance, I managed.”

  I didn’t use much of what Dad sent me but I wanted my lack of ambition and education to piss Dad off. If Darla judged me, she gave no sign.

  *

  I tried to explore the city.

  I queued with the commuters at the ferry terminal on Ma Wan island. There were people dressed for city jobs. Children in a variety of different school uniforms that looked like something from 1940s Britain. The younger ones were shepherded along by helpers, the maids-of-all-work imported from Bangladesh and the Philippines.

  Water sprayed the window as we headed into choppy straights, crossed by a tanker that made us bob up and down like a toy in a tub. Most of the passengers didn’t even look up, intent on their phones or tablets.

  After fifteen minutes the ferry curved around the islands and Central came into view. This was the financial heart of Hong Kong; The Bank of China, HSBC, Standard Chartered, all sought to dominate one another. Their success was manifest in steel and glass. Its wealth was crushing. People teemed along the waterfront.

  I stayed on the ferry and went back to Ma Wan.

  *

  I was dreaming of the sea.

  Except everything was mixed up, as if one ocean had run into another. Sea creatures that should never meet swam alongside one another. Many were out of their normal depths.

  The dolphins were puzzled. They didn’t know whether I was fish or mammal. They were frustrated when I didn’t join in with their chatter so they abandoned me.

  I dove deeper. That far down my lungs were compressed to the size of clenched fists. Below thirty metres my eardrums should burst but they never do. I’m made of more pliable stuff. My concavities and my long, spidery limbs give me negative buoyancy.

  Fishes followed me. The water was dense with them. There were silver sardines, open-mouthed. Tropical colours and spots darted around me, in the most electric of blues, the yellows neon. Tuna and swordfish cut through them.

  The human view of beauty is arbitrary. The Atlantic seabass was a joy, muscular in its velvet grey. Its light smattering of gold scales were elegant and tasteful.

  And rays. Finally, the rays. They covered me with the friendly flap of their wings. They looped-the-loop for me, revealing smiling white undersides. They’re an amiable sort. They have grinding plates, not teeth.

  Eels that lurked in holes revealed themselves. They came rippling out like black ribbons. Their secret is extra-terrestrial in its nature. A second set of jaws complete with teeth, as if one isn’t enough.

  In my dream, I felt the shift, my blood moving inward to prevent my organs collapsing. The familiar feeling was like a balm. It comforted me. I accepted the ocean’s pressure and its depths in a kind of meditation.

  *

  Darla is the closest I’ve ever had to a real friend.

  She cooked me delicacies for purists, not the standard fare dished up for tourists. We trekked the dragon’s back, a ridge running around Shek O Country Park. We followed the dragon’s undulating spine, the sea on one side of us and the hills on the others, covered in blazing azaleas. The heat and the humidity were stifling but it was worth it to plunge into the cool waters of Big Wave Bay at the end.

  There weren’t any big waves but it was a proper beach, not like the artificial one on Ma Wan which was a strip of sand that was raked each morning.

  Darla was a strong and graceful swimmer. I fought the urge to overtake her, to go far out and then dive until I reached the bottom. To stay there until I was sated. I resolved to return alone, when the beach was quieter.

  Afterwards we stretched out on towels. Darla was striking in a navy halter-neck swimsuit and cherry red nail varnish on her finger and toenails. We drew looks from people who strolled by, curious about the nature of our relationship.

  A group of young women unfurled a blanket nearby and started laying out a feast. They seemed happy in a way I’d never known, attractive because everything was ahead of them.

  Darla’s careless sophistication drew them, just as it had drawn me. One of the women came over and offered her a fancy pastry from a carton. Darla refused with a wave of the hand but gave her a big smile. I followed suit. The young woman nodded, suddenly shy at her own forwardness, but her gaze sought me again when she’d returned to her circle of friends.

  “Shall I get her back for you?” Darla asked. She sensed my hesitation. “Do you prefer men?”

  “Women might as well be a different species to me. Men are no better.” I’d tried both without success. “Darla, are you my mother?”

  “No, silly boy, I’m
far too old.”

  “You don’t look it.” I rolled onto my back, shielding my eyes from the sun with my forearm. “I’m disappointed.”

  “I’m not sure whether I’m flattered or not.”

  “Do you have any family?”

  “Not children. But I’m responsible for a large extended family. Totally self-appointed, of course, because somebody has to make the difficult decisions.”

  “You make it sound like a military operation.”

  “It’s about survival.”

  I’d never seen her so serious. It added years to her face. “Darla, do you know anything about my mother?”

  “Very little.” She sighed.

  “Am I being tiresome?

  “No, never. You might not like what you hear though. She left you at reception in a cardboard box with strict instructions to call your father’s apartment. Except he was at a meeting with investors. It was for his land reclamation project.”

  Land is king. Kowloon waterfront, which sits across the bay from Central, was once submerged.

  “They heard you squalling and called me instead. I looked after you until he came back.”

  “What was her name?”

  “I don’t know. I only ever saw her at a distance. I think your father met her on one of his evening walks. She lived in the fishing village on the other side of the island. She was from one of the old families.”

  “I saw it from the bridge on my way here.”

  “You should take a closer look. Not many people live there now. Most of them have relocated. It’ll get knocked down eventually to build luxury apartments. That’s progress.”

  “Tell me about the old families.”

  Darla sat up and put sun cream on her arms. I watched as she rubbed it in.

  “They were a different breed, those fishermen and women. Some of their daughters became pearl divers.” She chuckled. “I don’t know if they were people who adapted to the sea or fish that had learnt to live on land. I swear, they’d stay underwater for quarter of an hour in one go. I used to time them.”

  It was only then that I realised I’d been holding my breath.

  *

  I needed to be outside the confines of the apartment. I was staying in a space that would normally house an extended family in Hong Kong and yet it chafed.