by John Harris
‘No, not Chinese name. Eve’yone have Chinese name but also have Engrish name.’
Her femininity was a shock. She spoke and carried herself in a way that I’d never seen before, in a way that Western women have long since forgotten.
I watched her sip her orange juice before saying that I’d just arrived in Hong Kong and was looking for work.
‘My boss is gwailo, I work in gwailo company,’ she said. ‘Many gwailo.’
‘What’s a gwailo?’
‘You are gwailo. Gwailo white man.’
The penny dropped. ‘What do you do for your boss?’
She giggled. ‘I am sec’etaly, but boss not here. On’y me. I win competition to wisit government house,’ she screwed up her face, ‘but don’t like it.’ She told me that she worked for a huge property company and thought that they may have a job to suit me. Not being involved in the business dealings herself, she gave me her boss’s name and number and said that I should phone the following Monday morning.
After we had chatted for about ten minutes someone banged a gong and announced that dinner would be served shortly.
‘Will you sit next to me?’ she asked coyly. ‘I’m af aid.’
‘I’m not invited,’ I said, surprised at my own honesty. ‘But I want to see you again. Can I have your phone number?’
She blushed and pointed to the card she’d given me.
‘But that’s work,’ I said looking up. A few people started to leave the room to go to dinner and I suddenly panicked, thinking that I’d never see this girl again. I really panicked. ‘But can I–’
‘John,’ Rick was standing behind me tapping my shoulder, ‘the game’s up.’
Most of the people had left the room, and the Scotsman was coming towards us, straightening his bow tie while he stretched his neck, a look of grim determination on his face. ‘What about tomorrow,’ I asked, turning back to Apple. ‘It’s Sunday. What do you do on Sundays?’
‘John, come on, let’s go.’ Rick was impatient.
‘Hold it, Rick. What’s the number of the youth hostel?’
‘I don’t know. Come on!’
‘Apple?’
‘Monday.’
The Scotsman arrived. ‘Excuse me, miss,’ he said sternly, ‘you need to go into the dining hall now.’ She blushed again and was taken out by one of the waiters.
He turned and said something to me too, but I was too preoccupied with Apple’s wiggle to notice. Her wiggle, her hair, her... everything.
SIX
I knew there was something wrong with me because I spent the whole of Sunday walking around the youth hostel in a daydream. People, their faces and actions came and went but all I could think about was Apple’s eyes and lips and the way she spoke. Rick kept talking to me but all I did was nod mechanically and say, ‘Mmm, what?’ He’d repeat the question or statement but before the sentence was finished I was off to dreamland once again.
Things that would normally have made me laugh seemed insignificant too, and I’d just snort obligingly at the joke and nod while staring into space. For example, the TV in the hostel was switched to one of the Chinese channels that night, and was showing a kind of Miss World contest, only instead of being Miss Hong Kong it was called Miss Factory, China. One by one the workers came up to the interviewer, dressed only in their bikinis, and had to utter a few rehearsed words into the microphone. According to one of these girls, when asked what she wished for should she be crowned Miss Factory, she replied, ‘I would like to eat lamb chops, that is my dream.’ Everyone in the hostel roared with laughter. Except me. I seemed to be staring right through the TV set.
I wondered where Apple was and if she had a boyfriend or not.
After two sleepless nights, Monday morning came around, and at nine o’clock I was on the phone to a Mr Leiky, Apple’s boss. She had yet to arrive at the office so he was answering the early calls. I told him the story of my meeting with his secretary (with a few necessary omissions) and he asked me to come along for an interview.
I phoned up Best Tailors to say that I’d be a day late returning the suit, and by half past nine I was in a McDonald’s restaurant toilet changing out of my shorts and flip-flops. With borrowed clothes on my back and a borrowed briefcase in my hand that held only my ragged beachwear, I strode into the company’s plush reception area and was shown into the office by Apple.
To cut a short story even shorter, I got the job. The interview was nothing like the ones I was used to in England where three or four people sit and grill you for half an hour, trying their hardest to catch you out. This was a one to one in which we basically just chatted about everything, from the part of London we both came from to what it was like to live and work in Hong Kong. Apple’s boss seemed more interested in whether or not I was an accomplished footballer than a good worker, and I soon forgot all about my earlier worry of how to hide the fact that I’d spent the past two years fucking about on beaches instead of working. There was a minor sweat when I knocked over the briefcase and one of my flip-flops slid out, but I hurriedly kicked it back in without him noticing.
On the way out, I asked Apple if she wanted to go out to the pub that night, and to my complete delight she agreed. ‘Tonight,’ I repeated, unsure if she was aware what she had consented to.
‘Yes, I do understand Engrish you know?’
Her boss came out and found me sitting on the edge of her desk. ‘You don’t waste any time, John,’ he said, and I quickly jumped off. ‘Apple, could you get this typed up before lunch. Thanks,’ and he went back into his office.
‘What time shall we meet then?’ I asked, moving back in and leaning over her computer.
She smiled, her brilliant white teeth flashing like the flesh of an apple against the red peel that was her lipstick. She didn’t know any of the pubs by name so we agreed to meet at the bottom of a street called Lan Kwai Fong at seven and go from there. Even with limited funds, over the past few weeks I had come to know the area quite well and I thought I could easily impress her with my knowledge of its nightlife.
Lan Kwai Fong is what Wan Chai used to be in the fifties: the centre of Hong Kong’s nightlife. Wan Chai is still there, and still has bars, but with its decrepit old brothels and downbeat discotheques it has categorically refused to reinvent itself, and consequently repels the younger generation rather than attracts it. In any case, anyone wanting to pay for sex would go to Tsim Sha Tsui where the really beautiful Chinese girls are employed, and not Wan Chai where the dregs from the rest of Asia are gamely worked.
Lan Kwai Fong is a small, comfortable street full of bars, without a red light in sight. I sat in one of them, alone, sipping a beer before Apple arrived. Most of the people sitting around the bar were foreigners, and I began to think that I could be sitting in any bar anywhere in the world when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I looked round.
‘Hi,’ said the Chinese girl in an American accent. ‘Just finished work?’
‘No,’ I said, turning around on the stool, ‘haven’t started. Tomorrow’s the big day. You?’
She held up her briefcase. ‘With anyone?’
‘Um... ’ I hesitated.
What I’m about to say may not sound like much to most people, but for me it was a big deal. A very big deal. I actually said ‘yes’ to that girl’s question, and it wasn’t until later, thinking back, that I realised how significant it was for me to say it. She was stunningly beautiful, and as she walked away I almost couldn’t believe what I’d said.
When Apple came we went off to another pub up the street to avoid any embarrassment, and sat at the bar. ‘You look beautiful, Apple,’ I said, ‘really beautiful. I think–’ I was cut off mid-sentence by the sight of the same girl from the other pub appearing over Apple’s shoulder. She had obviously followed me. ‘I-I think we should go... ’ My concentration was completely thrown as the girl came in and sat beside us, so close that if I said anything personal she would overhear it.
Apple looked at me and frowned. ‘John?�
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I began to sweat. Shit, I thought, what am I so scared of? I haven’t done anything wrong. ‘I, um, I’m just going to the toilet. Back in a minute.’ The barman directed me to a door in the corner and I went in. I did want to go the toilet anyway but seeing the girl had made the urge stronger. I felt as though I was trying to hide something from Apple. Wrestling with these weird new feelings, I started to wash my hands when there was a crash and a scream from outside.
Apple and the American girl were on top of each other when I came out, rolling around on the floor pulling each other’s hair out. Bar stools and Cantonese expletives went flying as their bodies crashed into everything in their way. I couldn’t understand what was being said but by the look on Apple’s face she was about to kill the other girl. Her claw-like fingernails came out and raked across tender skin, accompanied by the American girl’s animal cry.
With the help of the barman I managed to separate them, and the American fled, clutching her briefcase in one hand and her scratched cheek in the other. Apple immediately ran into the toilet with her handbag before I could really get a look at her face. She emerged two minutes later looking as beautiful as before.
‘What happened?’ I asked as she sat down.
‘That girl call me prostitute,’ she panted, immediately standing again and going red in the face. ‘She says I only with you because you are gwailo, and... ’
‘OK, OK,’ I placed a calming hand on her shoulder and looked over the bar at the barman, who seemed as interested in the subject as I was.
He nodded, ‘It’s true, I heard her say it.’
‘I never have gwailo boyfriend before,’ she said sitting down, a tear welling in her eye.
I couldn’t help myself and leaned across, kissing her once on the lips, while the barman turned away and pretended to polish some glasses.
She said that one kiss was enough for our first date because we were really only supposed to swap phone numbers and, maybe, after one week we could hold hands in public. ‘It is Chinese custom.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s OK, I’m not Chinese,’ I said, and leaned forward and kissed her again.
SEVEN
It was on a Friday that Rick gave me the news. I know that because it was the same day that I received my first pay cheque from work and I had been intending to meet him in Lan Kwai Fong to celebrate. As it turned out, he called me and we ended up celebrating for a totally different reason.
It was midday when the phone rang at work and I was startled out of my usual eight-hour daydream. Rick asked me what I was doing at lunchtime and said he’d like to see me down at the hot dog shop in Lan Kwai Fong where he worked. I said I didn’t mind coming down but wanted to know if anything was wrong. ‘Far from it,’ he replied, and put the receiver down. Weird, I thought.
Over the few weeks since meeting Apple, Rick and I hadn’t seen each other very much at all. He’d got himself a job as manager of a Western-style hot dog shop so both of us were at work during the day, and my passion for Apple meant that I rarely saw him at night. Occasionally we’d bump into each other just before or after going to bed because he had the bottom bunk in the hostel, but otherwise nothing. Not such a bad thing really considering that we had virtually lived in each other’s pockets in the past and hadn’t not seen one another on a single day since meeting in Thailand. Neither of us had broached the subject of living apart, but I sensed a subtle change in our direction, mainly because of Apple. It was probably too subtle for Rick to pick up on, but it was there nonetheless.
It was with these thoughts in mind that I left my office in Sheung Wan at midday and made the ten-minute walk to Central.
Sheung Wan is one of the few remaining places in Hong Kong where one still has the feeling of being in the Far East. Small hole-in-the-wall style Chinese seafood traders still display huge sharks’ fins on stalls outside their shops, while vendors of traditional medicine proclaim to the millions of passers-by that they have a cure for their husbands’ impotence, and hold up a tiger’s penis. And, like everywhere else in Hong Kong, Sheung Wan has dozens of won ton shops. Every lunchtime between twelve and two, these tiny places (‘restaurant’ seems like the wrong word) are frantic with action as half a dozen cooks cram themselves into a corner and cook up noodles and won ton at the rate of a bowl a minute. Anyone who thinks that McDonald’s invented fast food should visit the won ton shops of Hong Kong.
I turned off Des Voeux Road and walked up the hill, or rather pushed my way through the crowd and shuffled up the hill, to the hot dog shop, where Rick was sitting outside, smoking, his face angled up to the sun.
Taking out my first pay-cheque, I approached him, pulling both ends to make a sharp snap sound. ‘Guess what I’ve got?’
He looked at me with a start. ‘You’ve been paid?’
‘Uh-huh.’ I walked up to him and showed him the sum written on it. ‘For two weeks’ work. That’s the same amount I earned picking fruit in five months!’
He took the cheque from me, bit it and said, ‘Unbelievable,’ before standing and pulling another office chair from a heap of builder’s rubble, brushing it off for me to sit down. ‘Do you want me to put some paper down to save your trousers?’
‘No, I can afford to buy some more now,’ I said, sitting and putting the cheque back into my pocket. ‘What’s for lunch?’
‘What do you want? We’ve got dog hot dog, cat hot dog, rat–’
‘Don’t say that, I’m starving. Let me try the, um, cat. What’s the cat like?’
‘Supposed to be chicken,’ he said walking into the little shop and calling back, ‘but I’ve got doubts.’
‘Chicken? How can you have a chicken hot dog? I thought they were supposed to be made of pork or something.’
His head came around the corner, grinning. ‘This is Chino’s Dogs, John,’ he said, pointing to the sign above the shop. ‘"Dogs Make Your Day".’
I looked up and squinted at the sign. ‘OK then, I’ll have dog hot dog. Go on, make my day.’
‘Sure? I don’t want to start cooking fine food only to have you change your mind.’
‘Positive.’
He vanished and came back a moment later with a tiny steaming sausage that was lost in the bun. ‘Your dog, sir.’
‘What,’ I exclaimed, ‘is that?’
‘Hot dog. Chinese have got smaller bodies, they don’t need so much.’ He sat down. ‘We tried serving Western-sized ones but people just ate half and threw the rest in the bin. Take it, it’s burning my hand.’
‘Christ, no wonder they’re small if they’re living off these.’ I took it and bit the end off, scalding my tongue. ‘So, what do you want to tell me?’
Of all the things that might have happened to either Rick or me that would put a stop to our travels, what he told me next was the last thing I would have come up with. On the way to meet him I’d briefly thought about what he wanted to say, and all I could think of was that he’d had enough of Hong Kong and was going to suggest that we leave as soon as possible. That seemed unlikely considering that we had never planned on staying long anyway, and it certainly wasn’t a reason to ask me around at midday. Maybe he’d won the lottery.
‘I’m getting married,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Mustard?’
I immediately choked on the food and with one firm cough the mangled, doughy ball of bread and pork flew out and landed on the pavement. ‘You what?’
‘D’you want mustard on that?’
The coughing fit brought water to my eyes and I had to put the hot dog down to wipe them on my sleeve. Rick patted me on the back. ‘Ahem, I’m OK, I just don’t think I heard you right.’
‘You did. I’m getting married.’
‘You’re get– Who to?’
‘A girl I met here yesterday.’
I put a hand up to stop him patting my back, but also to stop him from talking. ‘Wait a minute, Rick, just wait one minute. Rewind a second. Take it slowly for me, please, from the beginning. You–’
&nbs
p; ‘You think I’m crazy, right?’
‘You met a girl here yesterday,’ I shouted, swivelling the chair to face him, ‘and you’re going to get married?’
‘Yep. I asked her and she said yes. She’s beautiful, John, you’ve got to see her.’
‘Hold it. You met her yesterday and proposed to her, when, last night?’ I swallowed. ‘Too fucking right I think you’re crazy. You must be mental.’
He seemed slightly offended. ‘You’re the same with Apple. You told me how you knew when you first saw her that it was love at first sight, remember? Well, I took the piss then but now I have the same feeling about Laura.’ He sat back.
I was struck dumb for a few seconds by the name, and the way it suddenly personalised what I was saying. I felt as though I’d insulted someone that I hadn’t met. Finally I said, ‘Yeah, but I didn’t agree to marry her the same bloody day! Why the fuck do you want to marry her? Just go out with her, that’s enough isn’t it?’ I found my hands waving about in the air, pleading, and quickly put them down. ‘Arrgh, Rick! Why?’
‘You think I’m doing the wrong thing don’t you?’
I bowed my head and looked at the floor. ‘Yeah, I do. I’m not saying she’s not nice, or that she’s not the right one for you, I’m just saying that you should think about it a bit longer. One day!’
He hesitated. ‘I have thought about it, John. I’ve been thinking about it all night, and it’s right.’ He went into the shop and came back holding two cups of Coke. ‘I’ve got to wait two weeks anyway; it takes that long for the registry here to check that I’m not already married in England.’ He gave me the drink. ‘I want you to be best man.’
‘Course I will, you don’t need to ask, you know that.’ I took a sip, thinking about our situation. ‘You know, this is so funny, you and me, here, living in a hostel... ’
He shook his head. ‘Not any more, we’ve been kicked out.’
I pulled the cup from my lips. ‘What?’
‘We refused to do our daily chores, and you’ve been going around telling the others that they don’t need to do theirs either.’ He took a drink. ‘You know what that old witch who runs the place is like.’
