The Backpacker

by John Harris

  ‘That is OK, sir, thank you.’

  ‘Then that’s it,’ I said, turning to Rick. ‘We toddle off back to the guest house, get changed, come back here and blow this joint apart. What d’you say?’

  Rick agreed.

  FAST FORWARD

  Twenty minutes later we were back, dressed in our dirtiest clothes but meeting the requirements laid down by the management. We sauntered through the swing doors and asked for the Writers’ Bar.

  ‘Over there, sir,’ a worried looking waiter replied, ‘but–’

  Through another set of teak and glass doors, silently across the carpeted main hall with its three-inch thick pile, beneath the huge chandelier and over to the small bar where a dozen bloated, red-faced businessmen and their wives, dressed in DJs and gowns, sipped martinis before eating in the adjacent dining room.

  ‘This looks all right,’ I said, taking in the opulence. ‘You make yourself comfortable on that sofa and I’ll get the drinks. What d’you want?’

  ‘Sling,’ Rick replied without hesitation.

  ‘That’s easy.’ I turned to go to the bar and ran straight into the manager, who’d obviously been alerted by the doorman.

  ‘Umm, wouldn’t you rather go to the famous Long Bar, sir?’ he said nervously. He was Singaporean but his English was perfect.

  ‘Two Singapore Slings,’ I said over his shoulder to the barman, completely ignoring the manager’s presence. The barman started to panic, unsure whether to wait for an instruction from his boss or not. Unfortunately for him there were no other people waiting to be served so he started to polish some glasses instead.

  ‘Sir?’

  I faced the manager.

  ‘Wouldn’t you much rather go to the famous Long Bar, sir?’

  This business of wearing the wrong clothes was beginning to get on my nerves; clothes that were de rigueur on the beaches we’d stayed on were about as welcome in the real world as a tuxedo on Hat Rin. I was beginning to feel like I was being firmly but politely put in my place; it seemed as though everyone was saying, ‘Yes, well, you may have been a big-shot back then with the other wasters and party animals, but here you’re nothing. Get a life!’ I could feel the anger boiling up inside me.

  ‘Wouldn’t you, sir?’ he repeated, his nose almost touching mine. There was complete silence all around us as everyone stopped chatting to watch the stand-off. It was me against him, us against them, fat businessmen against travellers, down-trodden workers like him versus the pricks that push him around.

  ‘You’re taking the wrong side,’ I said evenly, staring into his eyes.

  He blinked once, the tension beginning to show. ‘Sir?’

  I didn’t repeat it, instead letting the air escape from my lungs. My head was pounding with built-up pressure. I turned to walk away, catching my own reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and got the shock of my life. The person staring back at me was tanned, young and full of life, while the people around me were dead, like over-stuffed, over-cosmeticised corpses. The contrast between us couldn’t have been greater if I’d walked into the bar stark naked. My reflected image and I patted both Ricks on the shoulder and said, ‘The Long Bar it is, then.’

  The Long Bar, as you might expect, is little more than a theme pub; a modern replica of the one where my uncle and Rick’s relative had once sat all those years ago sipping cocktails. Nowadays the Singapore Slings are ready-mixed in a large plastic barrel, so that the barman doesn’t need to strain himself with a cocktail shaker, and cost more than double what we were paying per night for a bed at the guest house.

  ‘One Singapore Sling or two extra nights’ kip?’ Rick asked himself sarcastically after ordering them. ‘So we choose the drink. How sensible.’

  ‘That’s a dollar a gulp,’ I said, taking mine from the bar top. ‘Sips only, it’s got to last.’

  We sat at the bar for a while listening to the band; Rick took a couple of photos to send home to his mum and dad as a keepsake.

  ‘Find a girl,’ I said, before he could take another picture. ‘Any Asian girl. You said that your mum’s photograph was of a man with an Asian girl on his lap.’ I scanned the bar, settling on two girls sitting in a corner. They must be tourists, I reasoned, they’re drinking Slings. ‘Those two look OK.’ Without waiting for a reply I walked over to them. ‘Excuse me, do you speak English?’

  They both giggled into their hands and hunched their shoulders. ‘A ’ittle,’ said one, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

  I mimed taking a picture. ‘Can you [point at them] take a picture [close one eye, wink and cluck tongue] for me [point at myself] and friend [point at grinning Rick].’

  ‘Yes yes.’ She stood up and bowed twice, one for each ‘yes’.

  At first she stood ten feet away, expecting to be the one holding the camera, but I explained that I wanted her in the picture, on Rick’s lap, and she moved forward timidly and leaned against him. Rick immediately grabbed her around the waist and deposited her soft bottom squarely on his groin. ‘Weh-hey!’ Before she could protest I took the picture.

  I’ve never seen that photograph, but to this day Rick’s mum is probably looking at a lovely shot of her son cuddling with a cute Asian girl in Raffles hotel, Singapore, blissfully unaware that two seconds later he was wincing from a slapped face.

  ‘You won’t do that again in a hurry will you?’ a voice behind us said as the girl walked smartly back to her friend. Rick stopped rubbing his cheek, surprised to have suddenly heard an Irish accent, and we both spun around to locate the voice. The woman was sitting alone at the bar, Sling in one hand, camera in the other. ‘How long you been here?’ she asked, turning her attention to me in an obvious attempt to alleviate Rick’s embarrassment.

  ‘Two days. You?’

  ‘Same. Just came down from bloody Thailand.’

  I picked up my drink. ‘Didn’t you like it?’

  ‘You could say that.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I spent one night in Bangkok, hated it, so I went down to the islands.’

  ‘Just left home then?’ Rick added.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve only been away,’ she looked at her watch, ‘one week tomorrow.’

  ‘One week!’ I put my glass down. ‘How’d you get this far in one week?’

  ‘Got a round-the-world ticket. Flew Bangkok to Samui, spent one night on,’ she paused to remind herself, ‘no, two nights on Koh Pha-Ngan, hated it there, went back to Samui and flew here via KL. Kuala Lumpur was all right,’ she sipped her cocktail, ‘spent two nights there.’

  ‘Hated Koh Pha-Ngan?’ Rick said, incredulous, and glanced quickly at me. ‘We loved it.’

  She raised her eyebrows as if doubting Rick’s sanity, and said, ‘It’s all right if you like being in a war-zone, I suppose, but personally I want to relax, that’s why I left Northern Ireland.’

  By ‘war-zone’ I took it that she wasn’t into the party and drugs scene on the island. ‘Yeah I suppose the nightlife can be a bit of a shock for someone who’s expecting a deserted island,’ I said, and popped the glacé cherry from my cocktail into my mouth.

  ‘Nightlife? I’m talking about all that other stuff that’s going on there; all that Mafia bullshit.’ She shifted on her stool. ‘I don’t mind parties day and night but I draw the line at gang warfare.’

  I swallowed the cherry whole. ‘What?’

  ‘When were you last there?’

  I looked at Rick and he answered. ‘About three weeks ago; something like that.’

  ‘Well,’ she continued, taking a peanut from a bowl on the bar, ‘maybe it was different then. I don’t know what it was like when you were there, but the Thais are shooting each other on Hat Rin beach now.’

  Rick’s mouth gaped open, I could see his fillings and I’m sure he could see mine too as we looked at each other in silence, forgetting the woman beside us. Images suddenly flashed past my eyes like the dramatic headlines in a newspaper, the same way they do in the movies when a blank screen is filled from infinit
y with a spinning tabloid: Dhoom! "Koh Pha-Ngan in Mafia Bloodbath!" Or, Dhoom! "Massacre At Blood Beach!"

  ‘Shit,’ I finally managed to say, and bowed my head. ‘What about poor Dave?’

  The woman’s mood seemed to brighten. ‘Oh, they weren’t touching the tourists, the Thais were only killing each other.’ She gulped down the last of her drink and ordered another. ‘Dave?’ she said, frowning and cracking a peanut shell between her teeth.

  I looked up at her.

  ‘You said Dave. There’s a guy at my youth hostel here called Dave.’

  ‘So?’ I didn’t mean to sound rude but it came out sounding like a rebuff, and she frowned to remind me of my curtness. I couldn’t quite make the connection between what she was saying and what I was thinking.

  ‘Well, he’s just been on Koh Pha-Ngan. Black guy.’

  My heart stopped. ‘With an afro?’ I said, leaning forward and inadvertently placing a hand on her thigh.

  ‘And about seven-foot tall?’ Rick chipped in excitedly, also leaning forward and putting a hand on her leg. ‘Including the hair I mean.’

  She moved back instinctively, surprised at the intimacy of the gesture. ‘Yeah, used to be in the Marines I think.’

  CHAPTER 7

  MCPLAN

  ONE

  Dave was sitting outside McDonald’s when we saw him, on the open-air kiddie seating area. He was stuffing a Big Mac into his mouth and had another two lined up alongside, ready, like a conveyor-belt eating machine. Even from where we stood on the other side of the road I could see the relish all over his mouth. It made him look like a half-starved, rabid animal with white foam running down his chin, the other half of the kill clenched tightly in his hands.

  The meeting place had been Dave’s idea. Not that I don’t like McDonald’s, I do, I just didn’t think it was a very grown up place to meet, that’s all; I’m used to meeting people in pubs. After the Irish woman had told us about Dave we had left Raffles immediately and went to the youth hostel she was staying at for a positive ID. She showed us to his bed space, it was empty of human life but piled high with stuff: clothes, books, guitar strings (no guitar), all of which I recognised as Dave’s belongings. ‘When d’you think he’ll be back?’ I’d asked the Irish woman.

  ‘Usually doesn’t come back until quite late, when the rest of us are asleep. Keeps some pretty weird hours this mate of yours.’

  I’d nodded in agreement. Dave, like Rick, often stayed awake all night, whether he had something to occupy his time or not, and I could easily picture him walking around the streets of Singapore, chatting to anyone and everyone he came across. Also like Rick, he loved video games, and I knew that at a push I could find him in the main arcade in the biggest shopping mall on Orchard Road.

  The Irish woman had said she was staying in for the rest of the night and would pass on our message to Dave, that we were alive and well and in Singapore, so we wrote down the address of our guest house for him to get in touch and left. On the way out, to confirm that it was indeed the same Dave, I’d checked the register at the reception and found his name: ‘Lord David Norton - NYC’

  The next day we missed each other again. This time he’d come to our place and left a typically militaristic message saying that we should meet him at the big open-air McDonald’s on Orchard Road at 20.00 hrs.

  ‘D’you think he’s going to be pissed off?’ I asked Rick as we crossed the road towards the McDonald’s. I’d been thinking a lot about this question over the past forty-eight hours. In fact, since we were first told that Dave was here I hadn’t thought about much else. The way I saw it we had left him for dead on Koh Pha-Ngan, and however I tried to justify it in my mind I came to the same conclusion; that we should never have left him behind.

  ‘About what?’ Rick replied, looking left and right to check the traffic.

  ‘You know. Koh Pha-Ngan.’

  ‘Careful!’ Rick put his arm in front of me as a truck rumbled past, the question going unanswered until we had sprinted across the last lane of traffic, onto the steps of the restaurant. ‘Guess we’ll find out now.’

  Dave was so busy on his second burger that he didn’t notice us until we were standing beside him. Some kids were jumping on the playground toys around him so he probably wasn’t paying any attention anyway. Every time a kid strayed too close to him a watchful mother would panic and come to the rescue, looking at Dave as though he was some kind of alien, or pervert. I don’t think Singaporeans have seen many black people before.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Ahem! Sir David Norton I presume.’

  His head shot up; eyes like saucers and cheeks puffed out with food. ‘You... ’ He hurriedly chewed the food that was stored in his mouth to leave room for talking, and then launched into a five-minute verbal attack, spraying us with hamburger chunks.

  I didn’t bother to argue with him because most of what he said was true: how we could have come back for him, or at least warned him in some way of what was happening. At first I attempted to give my apology but he wouldn’t accept it, saying that I could ‘shove it where the sun don’t shine’; my strategy after that was to just say nothing until he calmed down a bit. I knew he didn’t mean what he said and would soon be swapping stories with us, and asking questions about how we’d escaped from the island. Dave’s youthful sense of adventure didn’t allow his memory room to store grudges.

  ‘I couldn’t Dave,’ Rick spoke softly after the five minutes of abuse we’d received. ‘Be realistic, you weren’t there, how could I?’

  Dave had settled down enough to start eating again. ‘You could have left a message. Shit!’

  Rick tried to placate him and explained how he’d spent most of the night, after going to Hat Rin, looking for Dave in and around town but hadn’t been able to find him. Dave wasn’t convinced. ‘Did you look in at the house? Did you think,’ he put a finger to his temple, ‘"I wonder if Dave’s at the house?" huh?’

  Rick didn’t repeat that looking up at the house wasn’t an option, and accepted responsibility. We both did, and we both apologised. This turned the tables slightly and Dave blushed.

  ‘So what happened to you after we left?’ I asked, finally sitting down. Dave avoided eye contact with me. ‘Dave?’

  ‘Well actually,’ he paused to open his third Big Mac box, obviously trying to hide a grin, ‘I left pretty soon after you guys.’ He pulled out the burger and took a bite, more to hide the spreading smile than out of hunger.

  ‘Yeah, just how soon?’

  ‘Look, you guys should have told me.’

  ‘How soon?’ I raised my voice and he lowered his eyes like a scolded child. ‘You fucker. I bet you left the same night, right?’

  He spread his arms. ‘Well I wasn’t gonna hang around to see what happened. Man, those girls were going ape-shit when they found out we’d taken you to the hospital.’

  ‘You wanker, Dave. Here we are feeling guilty, and you left before us! We’re supposed to have come back for you and you’d already gone?’ I reached over and grabbed his Coke, taking a gulp.

  ‘Hey, get your own, Lord John,’ he said, snatching the cup back possessively. ‘Remember, I ain’t forgiven you two yet.’

  I paused. ‘How did you know something was wrong anyway?’

  He tapped a nostril with one finger.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Highly-tuned senses, John. Trained to sniff out these kinda things, know what I mean?’

  Rick snorted. ‘Funny you didn’t sniff it out beforehand, Mr Highly-Tuned Marine.’

  Dave just grinned behind the up-ended Coke cup.

  We sat and talked through the past few weeks, each person giving his own account of events and analysing each other’s. Upon Rick’s disappearance from the house, Dave had spent one night in Hat Rin and had then boarded the first ferry out the next morning, via Samui to the mainland, catching the next train south to Malaysia. He told us how he’d come back from the jungle and found the house empty, most of h
is money gone, and thought that Rick and I may have double-crossed him; that we were both in on the game with Ta and her friends. He had actually left Thailand before us, taking the train only as far as Butterworth. His original intention had been to spend only a night or two in Pinang to obtain a new visa, and then to cross back into Thailand and head north into the mountains. However, after meeting a Japanese girl who, according to Dave, was loaded, he had decided to stay on that island. A week later they split and he had changed his mind about Thailand, choosing instead to continue south to Singapore, missing out KL altogether.

  ‘So, what have you boys got planned?’ Dave said, after we’d shaken hands and agreed that Thailand was water under the bridge. ‘I know you British, always got something up your sleeve.’ He crushed the paper cup. ‘Or perhaps you need a new leader?’

  ‘I’ll ignore that last comment.’ I glanced at Rick. ‘How about a drink to celebrate?’

  Rick rubbed his hands. ‘Don’t mind.’

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘Sounds good to me. Hey listen,’ he leaned over the table as though ready to tell us a secret, ‘I know this great little bar just down here, got the most gorgeous Singaporean girls inside.’

  ‘What’s the name of it?’

  ‘Umm, don’t remember, exactly. But who cares? I know where it is.’

  I thought for a moment and said, ‘Ever been to Raffles, Dave?’

  TWO

  ‘It’s simple,’ Dave shouted over the music, ‘just lie. You know, just like that Lord John and Sir Rick stuff. I’m telling you, man, it works every time.’

  I nodded at him, indicating that I’d heard what was said. The noise from the band in the corner was far too loud for the size of the bar, and every time the drummer hit his snare drum it made me blink.

  ‘I didn’t know they were making a James Bond film out here.’ Rick was cupping his ears to shield them from the music. ‘Where?’

  ‘Maybe not here in Singapore,’ Dave replied, ‘but somewhere around this part of the world. I saw it on the TV yesterday, at the hostel.’ He looked back at the four Japanese women sitting at one of the tables and winked. They giggled into their hands.