“Quality control?” asked the little Asian beauty. She gave a strange harshness to the vowel, an American hard a, almost like a Kiddington a in a place were we would apply the sound of an o.
My story was making itself clearer, certainly to me and, I hope, to my audience as well. I smiled a reassuring smile as I spoke. “When you go on holiday, when you go abroad, you cannot always be sure that the water is safe to drink.” I paused here to just ensure that my drift was being followed.
“Drink,” repeated red pyjamas. I assumed it must be a concept that was denied her by her religion.
There was clearly enough understanding to continue. “Well there are often signs in the hotel that say, ‘All the water in this hotel has been personally passed by the manager’.”
“And you are the manager?” It was the giant who made the comment. I had just an inkling that disbelief may have entered her tone, but I was determined to press on, since turning tail to flee was not an option. They would be on me before I’d even got the door open.
Still convinced that this was turning out to be my birthday, with the here and now potentially better than any present, I decided to go for broke. “Yes, that’s right. I am the quality control manager. So that we can ensure the very highest standards of service for our customers, it is my job to do some tests, dry runs, you might say, except lubricating where necessary...”
Now that was going too far. I withdrew.
“Just a few tests to make sure that performance is up to our usual standard...”
“He said nothing about a test.” It was the giant with the American accent. She was probably muttering to herself, “Who is this little polyopia with the English accent?” Her contralto was now more like a salvo of field guns than matured wine.
“No test,” said red pyjamas. “He say everything ready. Papers ready.” Miss Asia looked impatient, a derringer to the double-barrelled twelve-bore to her left. Miss blonde Europe said nothing, but a coy look communicated more than words.
A step or two back was needed. “And who was it that told you that?” I asked. “Was it Mr Jack or Miss Jill?”
“Mr Jack.”
“And this Mr Jack, he is...” I delivered a perfect description by imitation of Mick Watson. She nodded. “...and Miss Jill,” I continued, impersonating Olga’s pony tail. More nods indicated that I was already on safer ground. I still had not been eaten. There were thus grounds upon which to claim a degree of success thus far.
“Yes, they sent me here,” I continued with renewed confidence that this was my birthday. “As I said there are just one or two tests to ensure that you satisfy our quality control standards.”
“We have paid.” It was green lace this time. Her tone was distinctly polyester. To my right, Miss red pyjamas was starting to fume, silently, the black wispiness by her ears clearly starting to bristle.
“Yes, we pay,” confirmed Miss Asia, diminutive in stature but determinedly colossal in will. She then said something that included reference to Boris and it took me about a half a minute to remember that it was me. Again I had to think on my feet, a posture I find habitually difficult. I took my mobile phone from my pocket. At the time, I had no idea why, but it seemed like it might buy some time. It worked. Like any group of people presented with the proximity of communications technology, they paused, thinking it might do something of its own accord.
“I must document,” I said. The word provoked the desired reaction. Despite the fact that none of them understood it as a verb, just saying it seemed to settle them down. They all smiled, reassured. I flipped open the handset and took a quick photo of each face. Ridiculously, each lady posed and smiled in turn as I focused their way, only to re-adopt the previous worried insecurity a split second after my flash. I pressed the record button and turned to the one who seemed the meekest, the one least likely to raise an objection. It was the eastern European lady with the green lace, who until then had been the most reticent.
“Perhaps I should start with you,” I said sympathetically. “Can you please tell me your details? I need them, of course, so I can document you.” Again the word elicited its hoped for smile.
Her reaction rather surprised me. Not only did she speak louder than expected, she strode forward towards me, mimicking an actor playing a quintessentially eager interviewee singled out by a television reporter from the crowds of a shopping centre to offer opinion on detergent. I expected her to say, “Hello, mum,” into my recorder. Instead, a green-painted finger nail prodded my chest while, I am sure, the other hand threatened to squeeze my batatas.
“Look, Boris, you wimble” she said. That was me, of course. “We pay fifteen thousand dollar for this. We want paper, not more uliginous questions. You have paper, give paper now. You have no paper, then jactitate off to klephtic Jack and get the labrose things.” It was inventive, or perhaps invective, of her to include the description of me.
“But it will be a great help if you would give me your details first,” I said, adopting my best salesman tone while retreating. “After all, we want to make sure that your papers are as perfect as possible, don’t we? Any mistakes could cost you much more than you have already paid...”
You know, when ideology fails, belief breaks down, religion founders, usually pragmatism prevails. It was in S273, Getting Results - Marketing For The Unmarketable that I understood the power and potential of just a small dose of self-interest. Don’t cajole. And certainly don’t offer exclusivity. It’s never believed. The thing is probably mass-produced anyway. Don’t advertise something different or special: just emphasise how much your product sits squarely in the current and future interests of those already weakened by having committed half way. Take their money and then give them a free gift, or at least a promise of something extra. Fear of losing what they had thus far achieved prompted all four ladies to buy into my offer. I held up my activated phone.
Since Miss green lace had retreated, I chose to start with the tall, foreboding, threatening, but obviously delicious African giant with the Hollywood accent. Having been wrong in my first choice, I used the random theory of opposites to predict that the toughest looking might prove the most pliable link.
“I am Fatma,” she said.
“Not in the least,” I thought.
“I am from Somaliland. I want to work in London. I have contacts there. I am twenty-three. I give good service. I have a driving licence. A clean one. I had a medical examination before leaving my home. I have the certificate from a private doctor in my room. I clean.”
Her meaning was not completely clear. I doubt, on balance, that she was seeking work as a cleaner.
The Turkish woman spoke next. “I am Maritsa. I am from Armenia. I do special. Pose. Photo. Video. Novelty act. I go Germany. Have contact with good job. IT specialist. Internet. I pay good money for this. I save up. Work hard for years. I save fifteen thousand - and in dollars. Price go up three times - three times! - after I sign one year ago. Now I twenty-seven. I lose one year of work. I need refund! Compensation! Spend three days inside refrigerator. Lorry driver good man, but he turn temperature down when I refuse to get out when he stop in forest. I say no forest between Ankara and Istanbul. He dysphagic caliduct.”
Then the Thai girl spoke up. “Sushila from Indonesia. Sulawesi. I do internet job. I go Denmark. Stay with people from home village. They have business. Restaurant. Also sideline, not side dish.”
And that only left Miss green lace from eastern Europe. “I am Iryna. I friend Miss Jill. I Ukraine. Miss Jill Spanish. You wet-bob impostor!”
“Now wait a minute,” I said, trying to think quickly. I’d have settled just for the infinitive without the adverb. “I am in quality control...”
It was Iryna that thrust herself into the fray. “How about this for quality?” she said, pulling aside to both left and right the loose upper part of her lace, thus revealing a l
arge white bra that protruded like an ammunition store.
“I take your points,” I said.
“We pay good money. Much money. Ten thousand, fifteen thousand...”
“Five thousand,” said Sushila. It caused the others to stare for just a moment. It was that unmistakable look of the consumer that has just been told that their genuine imitation purchase was available for fifty dollars less across town. Unluckily for me, the sense of injustice soon passed, its obvious potential to undermine new-found solidarity prompting immediate rejection.
It was Maritsa, the Armenian not-Turk who spoke up. I tried to apologise for having mis-predicted her religion, but the thump she gave me in the stomach took away most of the breath I needed to speak and sent my mobile phone, still open and still recording, onto the tiles. I watched it fall. I felt immediately if momentarily gratified that I had paid that bit extra for the 1680 Classic, because it stayed intact, merely bouncing to halt by the door. But I had surely been rumbled. “Miss Jill not Spanish,” I ventured in my best English. “Miss Jill not Miss Jill. Miss Jill Russian.” I had to try to get them on my side.
“Miss Jill my friend for years in Uzbekistan,” said Miss green lace. “She is Spanish. Brought up in Spain. Alicante. Then in Uzbekistan. Russian mother. Speak Russian, but with accent. Of course Mr Jack not Jack and Miss Jill not Jill. You think we are stupid or something?”
This seemed to cause mirth. I bent down to retrieve my phone which was still recording. I sensed the atmosphere lighten a tad. Sushila came forward and motioned Iryna and Maritsa away from me. It was as if she had sounded a tactical retreat. The others complied. To my surprise, Fatma also helped. My confidence took a slight boost. As the others withdrew, Fatma approached, her step as smooth as a glide. Her intention, she declared, was to help soothe the pain. Immediately she started to massage the area, I stress the area, of my body that Maritsa had struck. I immediately warmed to her. She then spoke. It was clear that the interrogation tactics had merely been modified.
“We can hear you are British. We think you are delivery man, that you come with our new British passports.”
I was dumbfounded for at least two seconds. Things fell into place, at least a little. “But why British?” I asked in my continued naivety. All the girls laughed. I must remember the line. There’s many a Benidorm comic could use it if it gets that kind of reaction. It was Miss green lace who spoke again.
“It has to be European Union. Have German passport. Man say thing in German. You cannot answer. Problem. Have Polish passport. Man say something in Polish. You cannot answer. Problem. Have Dutch passport. Man say something in Dutch. You cannot answer. Problem. Have Russian passport. Man say something in Russian. Problem. Have to go back to ticket office and pay foreigner’s surcharge. Russian passport useless anyway. Have French passport. Man say something in French. Even people from furthest colony on planet, French colony, speak French. Cannot answer. Problem. Have British passport. Man say something in English. You cannot answer. No problem. Not even British can answer, cannot understand him. We have British passport. Go anywhere. No problem.”
It was not the status that my understanding of colonial history might have suggested, but the analysis was immediately and obviously correct. It bore the stamp of experience, thus granting at least face validity to the argument. It was as if three bars had established neighbour proximity in a slot machine and then, collectively, rung the bells.
It was just a few days ago, when I was browsing the sophisticated wares on sale in a Chinese emporium in Benidorm, that I fully appreciated for the first time the true complexity of international transaction. There was much merchandise on offer. There was the elderly bald man, as ever animated in his expulsions as he sat publicly at toilet. There was a battery-driven toothy gangster with dark glasses and broad toothy grin flashing an erection from beneath his black raincoat every few seconds. There was a remote-control car that spent most of the afternoon running over the flip-flopped feet of British tourists as they tried to negotiate the pavement outside. There was a watch that was also a phone and played mini-disks through headphones at the same time. There was a pig-tailed Asian cutie doll with an unlikely pink skin lying on its stomach, wagging its head, kicking its feet and repeatedly singing “I love you” before sprouting a giggle as sickly as advocaat. There was a box of flatulence gas and a tin of cow’s breath. There was an animated, simulated waterfall in luminescent green, mains-driven, with optional add-on Rheinmaidens popping their naked torsos out of the apparently current-less pool above. There was even a real novelty item in the shape of a luminous-dial clock radio that actually worked and did merely what it claimed.
I was in the midst of appreciating the wares on offer when a gentleman nearby attracted my attention. He thought I wanted to buy the display item at my side, a miniature Chinese horoscope calculator. Assuming as one does in a cosmopolitan centre of tourism that there might not be a common language, I grunted in Spanish and moved aside to allow him access. He took the item, proudly becoming accustomed to the feeling of personality-defining ownership, and presented it to the shop owner, a kindly young man from Shanghai who I actually know by name, except that I can never recall its single syllable. The purchaser handed over the item and spoke. I heard and attempted to interpret. He said, “Ayagaaba-ifava.” It took me aback, caused question to arise. I tried quickly to place the language. Imagine my surprise, then, when I turned to see that Mr Li, Lo, Wo, Wu, Ba, Si or whatever had already serviced the request and was fitting a small lithium-cadmium cell into the microscopic appliance. Only then did I realise that the words had been spoken by one who hailed from a province of the United Kingdom, one known for the harshness of its accent and equally for the inability of its inhabitants to open their mouths when speaking. “Ayagaaba-ifava,” thus translated easily in received pronunciation to “Have you got a battery for that?” and Mr Chinese Si had not only understood what I heard as unintelligible, he had serviced the request. My ladies’ point on the British passport registered.
I decided to change tack. I had to restore myself to the upper ground. I thus called upon material I had learned in G888 People Trafficking In A Post-Industrialised Global Economy.
“Look,” I said, “my name is not Boris. It’s Don. Equally, Jack and Jill, the people who are going to bring your papers...” I used the inverted commas again. “...are called Mick and Olga. Let’s not go into detail here. Let’s just act. Let’s get this situation resolved. I know you are being held here, locked in, against your wishes. Clearly you are exploited young women from poor backgrounds being traded into sex slavery. I know the score. Believe me, I wasn’t born yesterday. But it doesn’t have to be like that. I can set you all free. I know the combination for the door. I can open it, get you out and then ferry you one by one on my quad bike down to the coffee bar at the roundabout. From there I can arrange your escape back to your homes. I can set you all free.”
I smiled. I really did deliver the speech with passion. I could have starred at Oberammergau. I had the confidence that comes from a win-win position. Once I had finished, I gave it a good five seconds before I concluded that win-win did not translate into any of the languages nearby. I surely was already starring at Oberammergau. I could feel the nails starting to penetrate.
I had anticipated four grateful beauties to hug and caress their saviour, even to kiss him, and at least drape their femininity close to his presence in thanks for his selfless sacrifice on their behalf. By the time the silence and complete inactivity had run to half a minute, I concluded that none of that was going to happen. I had obviously placed my foot squarely and non-retractably in my mouth. Then Fatma, the giant Somali, put me in my place.
“Look, granddad,” she said, wagging iridescent black-laquered finger nails in my direction, “we have each paid megabucks to get this chance. What makes you think, you colonial-minded nannander, that I would want to go back to a place that offers me the
option of dodging militia bullets, pushing cows to water with a stick or opening my legs for a pittance willing to pay pittances.”
“And why should I go back to a Soviet-era tenement in Yerevan that’s so small I have to push the sofa back to open the door?”
“I came from a massage parlour in Bali where the trade is all tourists who think that a package tour into poverty should include beating up the woman they have just bought.”
“And I suggest you too go pluck chickens...”
“We stand to make eighty thousand a year if we can get legal.”
“So when did your talents earn money like that, granddad?”
I was beginning to get the message. It was in M101, Migration Patterns In A World Where The Illegal Drugs Trade Accounts For More Than The Oil Industry, that I first encountered the wholly credible thesis, many aren’t of course, of Messers Harris and Todaro. It’s what you think you will achieve that motivates the decision to migrate, not the reality, because, of course, you don’t know that until you get there! Now it all made sense. There was just a chance that these ladies did not want to be liberated.
“And what about this quality control?”
I decided to make myself scarce, feeling now like an octopus that had quite literally sought out the red probe a second time. Once burnt, twice scalded. Third time electrocuted, fried. My foot was clearly in it, the ‘it’ being my mouth. I had the opportunity, from my current position, to extricate myself. I was backed up against the door. All I needed to do was reach deftly to my right and I could, with one sweeping gesture, play my tune on the musical hinge and the door would open. I didn’t even need a distraction, because the opening door would fling me forward and the ladies would recoil in horror at my advance. Sometimes, just occasionally, a young woman can imagine nothing more abhorrent than a past-it male making a speedy advance. I could then backtrack and escape.
A Search for Donald Cottee Page 34
