The Backpacker

by John Harris

  The reason the youth hostels in Hong Kong are able to offer cheap accommodation is because their operating costs are much lower than normal guest houses. They achieve this by issuing a work rota whereby all guests are required to carry out a daily task, such as cleaning the toilets or dorms and tidying the mess hall, thus saving on cleaner’s wages. Over the past few weeks I’d fallen out with the manager and told everyone that they didn’t need to do any work because they were all paying guests.

  I sighed. ‘How long has she given us?’

  ‘Until tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Have you got any more bombshells you want to drop, or is that it for now? I don’t think I can take any more.’

  He sniggered. ‘Nothing else. I don’t think. Oh, I might need to borrow some money for a wedding ring.’

  ‘No problem. Anything else? Where are you going to live?’

  He shrugged. ‘Haven’t really thought about it. I get paid at the end of this month so we should be able to rent a shoe box.’

  I nodded and sipped the Coke, occasionally gazing up at the square of sky that was visible between the buildings. We sat and talked things over for nearly an hour, and Rick described his fiancée to me in detail. Among the things that came out was her catholic religion, and I wondered if he wasn’t marrying her just to get her into bed.

  ‘She won’t sleep with me out of wedlock, John,’ he giggled in answer to my question as I stood up to make my way back to work. ‘I’ve got to marry her to get her knickers off.’

  ‘I hope you’re joking, Rick. Don’t fall for the oldest trick in the book.’ I slapped him on the back and started to walk away. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’ he called after me.

  ‘Congratulations’, I shouted back. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’ I went away down the busy street, dreaming and bumping into people more than usual. I tried to picture what the needle on a compass looked like, and wondered whether or not it was a two-edged sword.

  EIGHT

  A certificate of non-impediment; that’s what Rick and Laura had to obtain before they could be married, Rick’s from England, Laura’s from the Philippines. As the best man, I saw it as my duty to protect the groom-to-be, and that’s why I spent the two weeks it took for the necessary clearance to come through trying to dissuade my best friend from taking the plunge. And, unlike the previous month, I spent almost all of my evenings with Rick, either in the company of Apple or, more usually, alone with him.

  It wasn’t that I thought he was a condemned man waiting on death row, or that I thought he shouldn’t get married (who am I to say what’s right for him?), I just wanted him to put the brakes on a little. The fact was that, financially speaking, their future didn’t look rosy, and when, after being chucked out of the youth hostel, I rented a room, Rick moved in with me temporarily. It would have to be temporary because it was a single room just large enough for one single and one put-me-up bed. Basically, a flat had been converted into five rooms, three of which (mine included) had no windows at all, just four formica walls. When my alarm clock woke me at eight o’clock every morning, it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. The noise coming from the queue of people waiting to use the communal toilet at the end of the hall was my only confirmation that it was in fact morning.

  I made enquiries with the landlord as to whether or not other rooms would become vacant over the next few weeks but drew a blank, adopting, like Rick, a ‘cross that bridge when we come to it’ attitude. If he didn’t mind running the risk of having no bed to sleep in on his wedding night, why the hell should I?

  Apple, I think, was the most ecstatic of all over the prospect of going to a wedding. The Chinese generally seem to love ceremonies, add to that the influence of Hollywood love stories that flood Hong Kong and you have a nation of girls obsessed with romance. For the two weeks before the big day she questioned me non-stop, constantly bobbing up and down with excitement trying to pry a little more information out of me.

  During that time I learned a whole repertoire of sounds that Chinese girls make when showing emotion. ‘Yerrrrr!’ or ‘Yieew!’ with a stamp of the foot was Apple’s reaction to a negative answer; I learned that on the Friday evening before the wedding when I tried to explain what a stag night was. Apparently Chinese men don’t have them, and she insisted that the only reason I didn’t want her along was because I was going out to meet other women. I was going to say, ‘Yes, of course, that’s what a stag night is for!’ but decided that Chinese culture wouldn’t understand, and kept quiet instead. ‘It’s just a night out in which the best man and the groom go over last minute details of the wedding,’ I pleaded, kissing her. ‘See you tomorrow morning.’

  The barmaid asked us to come down off the tables so we both jumped together, landing heavily in the crowd.

  It was still only ten o’clock in the evening but Rick and I were already slurring words and dancing on the tables. The pub’s band were just setting up their equipment in the corner but we were too excited to sit around and wait. The anticipation of tomorrow’s wedding combined with tequila shots had given us all the guts we needed, and more.

  Rick held on to the barmaid’s arm as he landed. ‘You know I’m getting married tomorrow?’ he said as quietly as the juke box and crowd would allow.

  ‘Ri’, why you tell me?’ she replied, putting her hands on her hips.

  ‘This is your last chance to kiss me.’ He grabbed her around the waist and clamped his mouth onto her soft face.

  I ordered two more tequilas and offered one to Rick, allowing the girl a chance to pull from the embrace. ‘Typical!’ he said, gesturing to the whole room. ‘As soon as you say you’re getting married the girls start falling over themselves to get at you. Fooking typical.’

  ‘She was hardly falling over herself, Rick.’ I passed him the tiny glass of clear liquid. ‘Still got time to change your mind you know. Never too late.’

  He hesitated for a moment, watching the beautiful girl as she threaded her way through the mass of customers to get to the bar where another tray of drinks were waiting to be handed out. She wore only a singlet and I could see the side of her breasts, shiny with perspiration, every time she lifted her arms to collect a glass. ‘I need a woman, John,’ Rick said dreamily, still staring at the girl.

  ‘Chat one up then, there’re plenty to choose from in here.’

  Apparently ignoring my comment, he looked around the bar and said, ‘One last woman – before I get married... ’

  ‘You mean... a woman?’ I wasn’t following him.

  ‘A woman, John, not a girl. I need a woman tonight. These girls are all very pretty, but I don’t want to spend the whole night chatting them up and then find myself going home alone. Too risky.’

  ‘Ahh, you mean a woman.’

  ‘Yes. One who can take me in hand and give me a good seeing to. A real woman.’

  We clinked glassed and drank the fiery liquid. ‘So, ahem, where to next then?’

  ‘Wan Chai?’

  I shook my head. ‘Kowloon side’s better. My contractors always talk about the clubs in Tsim Sha Tsui being the best in Hong Kong. They reckon it’s what Wan Chai used to be like thirty years ago.’ Someone at another table dropped a glass and it shattered on the floor. I looked around briefly before I said, ‘I know roughly where they are. One of them is called Club Paris, everyone’s heard of it. All we have to do is jump into a cab and ask the driver, he’ll know.’

  He raised his eyebrows, mulling over the possibility of a good time on his last night of freedom as a single man. ‘Club Paris,’ he echoed, ‘sounds exotic.’

  ‘Hundreds of girls, I mean women, all waiting to give you a good seeing to. Don’t worry about the money, it’ll be my wedding gift to you.’

  ‘Wedding gifts are supposed to be for the both of us, aren’t they? What does Laura get out of it?’ I shrugged, ‘Aids probably.’

  We went out and hailed a cab and, as expected, the dri
ver knew the club in question. Within twenty minutes we had crossed the harbour and were sitting in a small room surrounded by half a dozen girls wearing only underwear. The room had karaoke and a TV in one corner, and a long sofa that curved around the walls. The girls giggled and fed us fruit from bowls that were arranged on a glass coffee table in the middle, while Rick and I tried to look dignified and not tear off their skimpy lingerie.

  I was trying to get a word of English out of a Shanghai girl who seemed to be overly obsessed with the hair on my chest, while Rick was buried under the other five in the corner. He managed to breathe for long enough to let out a giggle before another tongue shot into his mouth and cut him off. His crotch was hidden beneath a pile of hands, all massaging one another. He looked like he was beneath an octopus in lace.

  ‘Shouldn’t have told them you were getting married tomorrow,’ I giggled. ‘Now you’ll be here forever fighting that lot off.’

  ‘Mmm! Mmm!’

  The mama-san, the woman in charge, eventually came in to take orders for more drinks and fruit platters. She clapped her hands and the girls got up and scurried out, to be immediately replaced by a different six. After half an hour of this turn around system I’d completely forgotten what the first girls had looked like and couldn’t decide which one was the most beautiful. They were all stunning.

  The woman came in again and clapped, but I put up a hand in protest. ‘No more please. Too many, I can’t remember them all.’

  She laughed and sat on the sofa between Rick and me. ‘Which one you like?’

  ‘Rick?’ I said, unwilling to make the first move. I’d never done this sort of thing before and I still felt uneasy.

  ‘They’re all fooking lovely,’ he said with delight, ‘all thirty-six of ’em.’

  ‘How do you know there are thirty-six?’ I slurred.

  ‘Six changes, six in each batch, that equals thirty-six.’

  ‘You should be an accountant.’

  ‘In a brothel.’

  The woman stood up to leave. ‘So what happens now?’ I asked, standing up with her.

  ‘You must choose one. I bring in new girl, one for you and one for you.’ She wagged a finger. ‘Very beautiful girls from Peking, only for special customer. Wait.’ She left and a moment later reappeared with two models. They were both six feet tall and had huge silicone breast implants that meant they had to walk leaning backwards, as though they were going uphill. Rick and I agreed that the search was over and, after a few minutes of discussion in which the mama told us the paying arrangements, we paid for the drinks and left, a Chinese version of Barbie on each of our arms.

  We were led through the brightly lit streets by the girls, like two poor donkeys on ropes, towards a pre-arranged ‘love hotel’ where rooms were rented out by the hour. I almost ran, I was so ashamed to be seen with the girl; she couldn’t have looked more like a prostitute if she’d tried. In the club she had been wearing only underwear and I had expected her to put on jeans and a T-shirt before we left. Instead she just slipped on a plastic raincoat that only came down to the bottom of her buttocks, leaving the tops of her long, stockinged legs visible. Every step she took caused the plastic coat to ride up over her bum and reveal her frilly knickers.

  With barely concealed relief, the four of us entered the love hotel, booked into a room each, and I shut the door behind us.

  The girl immediately started to ask for double the price that had been agreed with her boss. ‘You pay now!’ she insisted. I slumped on the huge bed and looked at my reflection in the mirrored ceiling. I closed my eyes briefly but the room started to spin from the effect of the tequilas so I opened them again. My double was still staring back at me. ‘He says I shouldn’t pay you so much,’ I said, pointing at my reflection, ‘him and your boss.’

  She didn’t follow the English. ‘You pay now.’

  ‘"You pay now, you pay now." Can’t you say anything else?’

  ‘You pay now!’ She held up two fingers. ‘Two.’

  ‘One. Your boss say one, not two.’ I rolled off the bed and she instantly took the key out of the door and popped it into her handbag.

  ‘Two!’ she shouted, and pushed herself against the door in a crucifix, her huge tits bursting through the V-neck of the raincoat. All of the innocent, smiling beauty that had so radiated from her face before was suddenly replaced with a look of sheer rage, born out of greed.

  ‘This is stupid,’ I said appeasingly, trying to calm her down, ‘your mama told me the price, and now you’ve changed it.’ I stood up and walked to the door. ‘Let’s just forget the whole thing, shall we?’ We stood face to face, staring into each other’s eyes, almost touching noses, before she moved her head to one side and went over to the phone. I tried the door but it was locked. ‘Give me the key,’ I demanded, slightly panicky. ‘Who are you calling? Phone your boss,’ I said, thinking that she already was, ‘good idea. Phone your boss and she’ll tell you that I’m right.’

  ‘Police.’ She pointed at the phone and started speaking Mandarin.

  ‘Police!’ I huffed. ‘Prostitution is illegal in Hong Kong, or don’t you know that?’ Any sexual desire in me that hadn’t been killed by the alcohol was now well and truly doused by this woman’s sudden change in behaviour. I watched her talk for a moment, speculating on how quickly she would change back to being nice if I offered her the money she was asking, and went into the toilet, locking the door behind me.

  Above the toilet was a small window with flimsy aluminium bars across it. I pondered over the reasoning behind them for a second before giving them an exploratory yank. The whole lot, frame and all, came off, sending chunks of plaster and screws rattling into the bathtub. Quickly zipping up my fly, I opened the window, and without thinking about what I was doing, threw the bars onto the floor and climbed out into the warm, humid night air.

  I didn’t remember coming upstairs to the room, but when I looked down into the street below I could see that we were at least a floor up above pavement level. ‘Shit.’ I held on to the window frame and edged forwards, trying to gauge whether I was one or two storeys up, when there was a laugh from the next room along from mine. I could hear Rick’s voice and the sound of a shower being turned on, and then a shadow passed by the frosted glass.

  ‘Sir?’

  I started and almost lost my footing on the ledge before looking back into my bathroom. There was a knock on the bathroom door and a man’s stern voice the unmistakably stony voice of a policeman. ‘Sir? Could you come out please, sir? This woman says you’ve cheated her out of some money.’

  I leaned my head in and shouted, ‘Yeah, just a minute, I’m having a shit,’ and shuffled along the ledge to Rick’s room, rapping on the glass. The glow from the neon street sign bathed the whole wall in light, and when Rick opened the window his shocked face was a beautiful soft purple. ‘Good evening,’ I giggled, ‘window cleaning service.’

  ‘What the fook are you doing out there? Get in.’

  ‘Just came to say goodnight.’

  He leaned out and looked down onto the street; left then right. ‘What happened to the girl?’

  ‘She’s otherwise engaged. A bit like you really,’ I said, pointing behind him at the girl clutching a towel to her breasts. ‘I’m off.’ I turned around to face the street and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning. You’ve got to be at the registry by eleven, remember, so don’t be late.’ And before he could reply, I crouched down and jumped into thin air.

  NINE

  ‘B-b-b-beep, b-b-b-beep, b-b-b-beep.’

  I leaned out of bed and swept my hand blindly over the floor until it came into contact with the cheap plastic alarm clock. Picking it up and depressing the button, I checked the luminous dial hovering magically in the pitch-black room. Ten o’clock. Ten?

  ‘Ten o’clock! Rick! Rick!’ Still leaning over, I shook his camp bed to wake him but it just slid across the floor without the weight of a body to hold it down. ‘Rick?’ As soon as my legs swung over th
e side of the bed and my feet touched the floor I winced in pain, and the memory of the previous night’s jump from the window came flooding back.

  ‘Shit!’ I paused, one hand still holding the clock, before stepping gingerly onto the floor to test my ankles.

  Just as I hobbled to the door and switched on the bedroom light, the front doorbell rang. ‘Thank God for that.’ Heaving a sigh of relief, I opened the door and made my way down the hall, opening the front door without looking through the spy-hole. It was Apple, looking radiant in her best designer gear. She kissed me and came in. I swore.

  ‘You don’t want me come today?’ Her eyes flicked down to the floor, hurt.

  ‘No. I’m sorry. It’s not you.’ I returned the kiss and shut the door behind her. ‘It’s Rick.’ I quickly ran over a story in my head to explain away the previous night to a suspicious Chinese mind. ‘He’s, umm... ’

  ‘He is leady?’

  ‘Well, that’s sort of the problem.’ I said, ushering her over to our room and pushing open the door to present the empty bed, ‘... he’s not here.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. We got drunk last night and I left him in the bar. I thought he’d be back by now.’

  ‘This not good for wedding celemony. Chinese say bad luck if late: late for wedding mean man beat wife.’ She shook her head morbidly.

  ‘And what about if the woman is late for the wedding?’ I asked, momentarily distracted by this new Chinese logic.

  ‘This good, no have probrem.’

  At that moment there was the sound of a key turning in the front door lock and we both spun around to watch Rick come bursting through. He shut the door and looked up. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Thought you’d changed your mind,’ I said releasing my breath.

  ‘Course not, I’m getting married at eleven o’clock. Let’s get moving!’

  ‘Talk about cutting it fine. Fucking hell. Do you know what time it is?’