by Wade, Calvin
“Oh, sorry, you are English, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I asked if you could speak German! I suspect most Europeans in Hong Kong are going to be British, after all, you sort of own the place!”
“For now!”
“That’s right, until ’97, then the deal ends, I believe.”
“Yes, then it’s back to China for Hong Kong!”
“And back to English for the British here?”
“Maybe. I certainly won’t be here in ’97, so I’m not too worried.”
“Do you live here now then or are you just travelling through?”
“A bit of both really. I met some lads,”, I wasn’t sure whether he would understand the term ‘lads’ so I re-phrased, “some young men, when I was in Singapore and came over here with them, but after four weeks, they moved on to Australia and I stayed here.”
“On your own?”
“Initially yes. I had started work in a hotel over in Kowloon and decided I wanted to stay. I’d had enough of the young men really, so didn’t want to be traipsing around Australia with them! They farted too much!”
I made him laugh.
“I think the English word ‘fart’ is a funny word!”
“What’s the word for fart in German?”
“‘Pupsen would be ‘to fart’!”
“That’s funny too!”
“Yes,” he smiled, “I suppose it is! So, how long is it since these young men left you?”
“Twelve months.”
He looked genuinely concerned for my welfare.
“So you have been here all alone for twelve months?”
“No, not really,” I re-assured him, “I’ve worked in two hotels and a hostel, so I’ve met a few friends along the way. Are you working here?”
“No, no, I’m backpacking. I was backpacking in Indonesia and Vietnam with my girlfriend, but here in Hong Kong, it is just me.”
“Has your girlfriend gone back to Germany?”
“Oh, I’m not German, I’m Swiss.”
I was surprised, largely down to me knowing very little about Switzerland.
“I thought they spoke French in Switzerland.”
“In the western side, French is the main language, but mostly German in the rest. Some Italian and Romansh too in some parts.”
I should have asked what Romansh was, but I didn’t! I wrongly presumed it was Romanian!
“Well, I never knew that!”
“Now you do!”
“Your girlfriend,” I asked again, “went back to Switzerland then?”
No, no, she’s still travelling. She just found another boyfriend to travel with!”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Poor you!”
“No, I’m happier on my own! She wasn’t a farter like your young men, just, you know, fewer arguments!”
“I don’t know,” I smiled, “I argue with myself some times!”
I realised I still did not know his name or him mine.
“Sorry, I’m Kelly.”
I stretched out my hand and we shook firmly. He sat down on the wall next to me.
“Pleased to meet you, Kelly! I’m Christian!” he replied, “do you mind if I sit with you a while and watch the darkness win his battle with the day?”
“Be my guest! It’s nice to have some company. Your English, is great!”
“Do you think so? It could be better!”
“Well, it’s a damn sight better than my German! I only know pupsen!”
“Hopefully not a word you would be wanting to use too often!”
“No!”
And that was how two lonely European souls came together in Hong Kong.
Richie
Our three remaining vodka shots soon began their transition to urine. We decided we would knock them back and head off to somewhere else. Trying to be the ‘Big Man’, I knocked two of them back and left the other for Jemma to polish off. Jemma wanted to return to the bar at the back of the ‘Scarisbrick Hotel, where we had been earlier, as she thought it would be buzzing in there by now. As I had finally managed to kiss Jemma, having desired such an occurrence since my body produced swimmers, I was in no rush to go anywhere fast. In fact, as I was well aware that I had had more than enough to drink, all I wanted was a deserted bus shelter in which to re-ignite the passion. At the outset of our relationship, what Jemma wanted Jemma got, so I struggled to my feet and headed to the exit with her, ready to move on to the ‘Scarisbrick’.
As we opened the door of the pub, a howling wind invited itself in and rain swept along the road in swarms, like King Kong was standing over us with a giant watering can.
“We’re going to get soaked!” Jemma shouted but was almost drowned out by the wind and rain.
“We can do it in stages!” I yelled back, “just keep diving into the shop entrances!”
I wondered whether Jemma would spot my alterior motive, but if she did, she did not seem to mind! Every doorway we stopped at, I pounced, cupping her face in my hands and kissing her passionately. On the third or fourth pit stop, I let my left arm off its leash and like an excited ferret, it found its way up Jemma’s top. As I tinkered under Jemma’s bra like a straight Liberace, my blood supply seemed to surge to a central point vertically down from my bellybutton! Those breasts felt amazing and I remember thinking that Jemma could always hire them out to the National Health Service as a natural remedy to brewers droop! Not that I would have allowed that to happen, although I pictured an orderly queue outside Amy’s Mum and Dad’s every Friday and Saturday night after closing time, full of male drinkers of all ages ready for their medicine! Admittedly political correctness was the last thing on my mind at this stage of inebriation!
“Your boobs are fantastic!” I blurted out post-kiss, “you hide them well!”
“They’re actually quite literally a pain!” Jemma revealed, “they give me backache!”
“What size are they?” I enquired. I had no idea how bra sizes worked, I knew womens dress sizes were six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen etc, but bra sizes were beyond my comprehension. I just asked so I could ring Caroline the following day and seek confirmation that they were freakishly humungous! This was dependent on enough brain cells surviving through the night.
“32D”.
“Wow!” I replied. I had no idea what 32D meant, but all the same, ‘wow’!
After several further stops, several more kisses and a couple more feels under Jemma’s top, we arrived, saturated and satiated, at the ‘Scarisbrick Hotel’. The ‘Scarisbrick ’ is an unusual hotel, in that it successfully manages to cater for both the younger and older generations. It has a traditional hotel bar in a room to the left of the entrance reception, playing music by crooners from the fifties, whilst at the back of reception, there is a boxing ring shaped bar, in the centre of a large room, normally packed to the rafters with the under forties, who dance along to the loud, modern music that blares out. The boxing ring bar is full of bar staff who’s CV must include a modelling contract and a twelve month spell in the circus where they need to have mastered the art of juggling. Each glass has to spin twelve times and touch the ceiling before a drop is served. In the reception area, Jemma and I surveyed the damage to our bodies inflicted by the wind and rain.
“I’m absolutely drenched!” Jemma moaned, stating the obvious, as droplets of rain were taking it in turns to drip off her hair and zig zag down her face like it was a ski slope.
I was in no mood for negativity. Positive thoughts only! Drink does that to me initially, in those pre-hangover hours, whilst my brain is still in its expanded state.
“Come on Jemma! Who cares? I still love you and think about it, a few weeks ago, you were stuck in Styal, would you not have given your right arm to be outside on the rainy streets of Southport on a Friday evening?”
I think Jemma missed most of my motivational words, she just picked up on one section.
“You love me?”
“I love you! Yes!”
I was going to say, I’m not ‘in love’ with you yet, but I love you, but then I stopped myself throwing a negative into a positive. I loved her, that’s all Jemma needed to know.
Having dried ourselves as best we could, we went through to the back bar and it was indeed crammed with young, lively drinkers and barmen spinning bottles and ringing bells to indicate pretty girls had just paid them a flirtatious tip. On Jemma’s insistence, I headed straight to the bar, to get her another vodka and diet coke. I was considering getting myself a blackcurrant and soda, to give me an opportunity to dilute the Stella and vodka, but unfortunately Jemma accompanied me to the bar.
Within twenty seconds, a highly tanned, highly moisturised, highly arrogant barman, nodded at me to indicate that it was my turn to give my order. As we had struggled through to the bar, I noticed he had treated his stunningly sexy previous customer rather differently, leaning right over the bar to let her whisper in his ear. Chivalry was alive and kicking in Southport.
“A vodka and diet coke please and a blackcurrant and soda!”
I shouted to be heard over the James track , ‘Laid’ which was encouraging a healthy bout of singing from the clientele.
“Hang on! Hang on! What are you having?” Jemma questioned.
“A blackcurrant and soda!”
“Oh no, you’re not! If I’m drinking, you’re drinking!”
Jemma rocked a little as she said this, as though there was a tiny earthquake whose epicentre was below her feet.
“I’ve just had five of those six vodkas, Jemma!”
“It’s not my fault you’re crap at ‘Three Yeys or a Nay!’”
“Yes it is, you made the bloody game up!”
Jemma looked at the barman, who would no doubt have abandoned my request by now, if the prettiest girl in the bar was not by my side.
“Get him a double vodka and coke!” Jemma shouted firmly.
“Thanks Jemma!” I said sarcastically.
The barman knew who to obey. He went off in seach of vodka and coke, leaving the blackcurrant and soda feeling unwanted and praying that one of the old drinkers from the next generation bar, may wander in by mistake. Once the barman returned, I paid him and took the drinks from him, despite this, the whole time he gazed only at Jemma. He received the tip he deserved off me. There was no bell ringing!
As we walked away from the bar, to allow several thirsty drinkers to take our place, we found ourselves, face to face and toe to toe with two unkempt characters, who looked like they were tag team wrestlers. They would have been the ‘Laurel & Hardy’ of the ring, as one of them looked like Ollie with a beard and without a top hat, whilst the other looked like Stan’s anorexic grandson. Like the barman, their focus was on Jemma rather than me, but this time, the look was vengeful rather than in admiration or desire.
“Well look who it is!” said the scale breaker of the pair.
“No wonder this country is in a mess, when scum like you are free to roam the streets.”
“Morgan, good to see you again!” Jemma said calmly to the rotund scruff.
“You too, Cam! Richie, I don’t know whether you remember these two gentlemen from my mother’s funeral. Morgan and Cameron, this is Richie.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Handshakes were definitely inappropriate.
I hesitated long enough for Southport’s impersonators of Syd Little and Eddie Large to pick up the conversation.
“We would never have set foot in your house that day if we’d have known what you did!” said Morgan.
“Bollocks!” replied Jemma, “two words that can prove that statement wrong. FREE BEER!”
“Unlike you, Jemma, we have some morals! Everyone in Ormskirk is disgusted that you’re out of jail,” said skinny Cameron, “I nearly wrote to my MP.”
“And then it dawned on you, that you can’t write!” Jemma responed.
Cameron sneered at Jemma. I half expected him to get a bow tie out and spin it around or come back with an idiotic response that led to an admonishment from his fat friend, who would then implement a slapstick punishment. Unfortunately, the other half was right, as he just continued to sneer.
“Life should mean life for murderers!” Morgan interjected aggressively.
“I wasn’t sentenced to life, Morg!”
“Well, you should have been! Life for a life. Your mother was our friend.”
“That says a lot!” Jemma replied.
“Anyway,” I said, the alcohol having started to kick in further,
“Jemma did not kill her mother!”
I should have kept my sticky beak out. Jemma could have handled the pair of them single handedly. Drinking and kissing in the same night, had obviously thrown rational thought out the window.
“How would you know, pretty boy?” asked Morgan, as he took a swig from his bottle.
“I just know.”
“Because she told you,” said Cameron, “and because you’re wanting to get into her knickers, you believe her! How stupid are you, pretty boy? If she told you that she shit golden eggs, you’d believe her!”
I smiled sardonically back at the pair of them.
“Jemma does shit golden eggs! Has she not told you? Twice a day. I collect them. I make a bloody fortune at Easter!”
“Fuck off smart arse!” Morgan said, his face was reddening and he was almost growling now.
I couldn’t help myself.
“You’ll find it’s Jemma’s arse that smarts. She’s the one who lays the golden eggs! In fact, thinking about it, I forgot to collect them one week, a few years back, I heard her mother slipped on them. They were on the stairs.”
I didn’t see the punch coming, but I heard it whistle past my left ear. Morgan, as I suspect is stereotypical for a twenty stone beast, obviously packed a lot of power in his punch, but not a huge amount of accuracy. Having failed to connect with his punch, he lunged towards me and I did what any self-preserving coward would do, I ran, pushing my way through the throngs of people. It was like a scene from the end of a Benny Hill sketch, but without the breasts, as I was chased around a circuit of the bar, by two furious thugs, shaking their fists.
As I reached the starting point from which I fled, having literally come full circle, I collected Jemma by the hand, as she had stood motionless and bemused throughout.“Quick, let’s get out of here!” I urged. “Your Mum’s mates will probably tie me up and torture me by singing ‘Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia’!”
Jemma and I ran out of the bar, through reception, out the front entrance and into a wet and windy Lord Street. Turning left, we sprinted along the pavement, gaining an ever increasing lead on our pursuing pair, before taking a left into one of the side streets, packed with amusement arcades and then an immediate right into a road lined with bed and breakfast guest houses, the majority with neon blue “vacancy” signs lit up.
“Have we lost them?” Jemma panted.
“I’ve no idea! Quick! Nip in here!”
We jogged up the path of the nearest ‘B&B’ which had a picture of a palm tree in the bay window and a sign above the front door saying, “Tropical Paradise Guest House”. Even in the near darkness, it was evident a lick of paint would not go amiss. As we entered, ‘Tropical Paradise’, a white poodle, with a pink bow around its neck, ran up to greet us, wagging her tail. The long, narrow hallway smelt damp and the wallpaper was a 1970’s floral design that was peeling at the corners. There was a reception hatch on the left wall, that was closed and on the right, a staircase with a carpet that was patchy rather than threadbare. Southport had some great Guest Houses but this wasn’t one of them.
“I need to go and dry off, again!” Jemma moaned, “and I could do with a wee after all that excitement! Do you think we lost them?”
“I think so.”
“Me too! Morgan’s done ten years for murder, when he was in his twenties. He strangled his ex-girlfriends new boyfriend.”
“Now you tell me! You’ve never been out with him, have you?�
��
“NO!”
“Good!”
In spite of my brush with death, my penis was still sending cryptic messages to my brain.
“Given a convicted murderer is chasing us, do you think it’d be an idea to book in here and just lay low for an hour?”
The irony of hiding from one convicted killer by lying low with another, had not escaped me.
“Why not?” Jemma shrugged. “Let me go and find a toilet first!”
Jemma headed up the creaking staircase and not wanting to give her the opportunity to have a change of heart about the room, I rang the bell, on a small wooden table, outside the closed hatch. The bell was next to a handwritten sign that said,
“We are tending to the needs of our other guests right now. If you require our assistance, please ring the bell and we will be with you as soon as we can.”
Within a minute, a small lady with wizened features emerged from a door at the end of the hallway. She must have been well into her sixties, wearing a pink dressing gown, fluffy pink slippers and tight rollers in her hair. She moved towards me in tiny steps, almost shuffling, puffing on a cigarette as she moved. She was like a miniature steam train. As she slowly approached, the door of the ‘Guest House’ swung open and my heart skipped a beat whilst my head turned. Thankfully though, I was not confronted by Morgan and Cameron, but a tall, moustachioed, dark haired gentleman, clad head to toe in black leather. In all likelihood, he had just finished his Freddie Mercury tribute act in a local pub.
“What are you after, luvvies?” said the smoking dwarf with a heavy Liverpudlian accent.
“Do you have a double room, please?” I asked politely.
“Now look love,” she replied, “I’d love to give you a double room, I’m dead liberal me, but I can’t. Honestly I can’t. It’s me husband, Frank, he’d have me guts for garters, if I let you pair share a double room. Have a twin or two singles, but not a double, love. He just doesn’t like gays. Says it’s not natural. He says you shouldn’t be putting square pegs in round holes.
