The Travel Mate

by Mark Green

  The Italian gasped, tried to wrench away, but Barry squeezed tighter. He ducked his head down to shield them both from Jody’s relentless attack, causing her to overbalance and tumble to the floor.

  He searched the faces of the Italian’s angry friends, his eyes connecting with a black haired, pock-faced character, who appeared to be more concerned and less aggressive than the others. ‘Just a misunderstanding, okay?’ Barry yelled.

  ‘Okay – you let go, yes?’ said pock-face.

  Barry released his arms, shoved the Italian away from him and stepped back, his hands hanging loose by his side. He flexed up on the balls of his feet, his gaze unblinking as the Italian turned towards him, pain creasing his pretty-boy features. Barry watched his opponent glance around the faces of the other travellers, then nod curtly at Barry, merging back into the crowd seeking solace with his friends.

  Barry lowered his gaze to the floor, retrieved his flip-flops, then took three steps and picked up his jettisoned ciggie. He rummaged in his pocket for the lighter, lit up and took a slow drag, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth. He panned around the other travellers in the bar, offering them a lopsided, apologetic smile. ‘Round one to the commonwealth criminal,’ he said, his snigger dispersing as his gaze rested on Charlie, crouched down beside Jody. ‘You calmed down?’ he said, meeting her murderous glare.

  ‘Busted my hand – you’re such a wanker!’

  ‘Hey, you hit me, remember.’

  ‘You deserved it!’ shouted Jody, yanking her hand away from Charlie’s examination.

  ‘For what, being sociable?’

  Jody gritted her teeth, fought back angry tears. Barry sighed, stifled a laugh and turned away, picking his way through the dispersing crowd, heading for the bar.

  • • •

  ‘You’re a very lucky chappie, Rupert. This is the latest model, very sophisticated – all the bells and whistles.’

  Fender pulled Rupert’s trouser leg down over the probation ankle bracelet and straightened up from his kneeling position beside the double bed. He fished his smartphone out of his pocket and began tabbing through several command screens.

  ‘The primary battery is good for six weeks. A multi-network SIM card recalls real time GPS positioning, which is linked to a separate satellite tracking system for complete coverage, anywhere in the world – accurate to within half a metre. But the feature I particularly like is the location tracking alarm, with variable distance profiles. It’s the function that really bites, so to speak, thanks to the built-in Taser, which is activated either by you straying from a pre-set location, or manually by me. So if you decide to do another runner, the Taser will zap you. If you tamper with the ankle bracelet in any way, it will zap you. And if you irritate me, I will zap you. In summary, if you do anything to invite my displeasure, it’s going to hurt.’ Fender enabled the last command prompt on his smartphone and glanced up. ‘Understood?’

  Rupert stared at him, nodding, a weary slump in his shoulders.

  ‘Smashing. You’re fully commissioned. Breakfast at eight?’

  Rupert dropped his head into his hands and mumbled something inaudible.

  ‘Good chap. I’ll see you in the morning, pleasantly rested. Or, alternatively, I’ll get woken by an alarm in the early hours advising me that you’ve tried to abscond. In which case, I’ll find you lying paralysed in the hallway, five metres from here. It’s your choice.’

  Fender withdrew from the room, closing the door gently behind him. ‘Sleep well, Rupert. Big day tomorrow.’

  • • •

  Barry swung his bare feet up onto the bed, lay back and hooked his hands behind his head. He glanced over to his left as Jody exited the bathroom, cradling her right arm on a bag of ice. ‘You’d better hope it’s not broken. Healthcare in this part of the world is costly,’ he said.

  ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘You were flirting with that posh cow!’ Jody winced in pain. She adjusted the ice to a new position.

  ‘You ever considered anger management therapy?’

  ‘Piss off!’

  Barry grinned. ‘It’s getting closer to that point, Jody, where I just might.’

  She stared at him. A long silence descended.

  ‘Charlie doesn’t think it’s broken.’

  Barry glanced up from studying his camera screen.

  ‘He said it’s most likely bruising.’ Jody met his gaze. ‘Charlie did a great job of fixing me up.’

  ‘He strikes me as that type. Patch ’em up, rather than scrap it out.’

  ‘He had lovely hands.’

  Barry laughed. ‘After a few days together, you’re already pulling the jealousy angle. Have you learned nothing about your travel mate?’ He placed his camera in its padded bag on the bedside cabinet and lay back, eyes shut, hands behind his head. The corners of his mouth twitched mischievously.

  ‘You’re going to sleep? You’re pathetic.’

  ‘I’m only pathetic on Fridays. The rest of the week I’m a pretty reasonable guy,’ Barry mumbled, his voice trailing off. He allowed his body to relax into the mattress, leaving Jody staring at him, slack jawed.

  Seventeen

  ‘Welcome to Smokin’ Pot restaurant, I am Banock. It is said that we Cambodians eat anything with four legs, except table and chairs. Today we will make two tasty dishes – rice noodle soup and fish curry.’

  Banock looked around the table at the six travellers and nodded to each of them. ‘Late night, eh, my friends? Too much happiness …?’ he chuckled, waving them to follow him away from the corner restaurant, out onto the street. ‘We go to the market for fresh, really fresh ingredients, okay?’

  ‘Good camera,’ said Barney, the curly haired, twenty-three year old German as they followed Banock through the quiet side street.

  Maddie glanced over at him, hunching the camera strap further over her shoulder, repositioning it. ‘I’m looking after it, for … a friend.’

  ‘Ja, ja. I see, yesterday. I laugh loud – puffing Matilda.’ Barney mimicked Barry’s double-arm choke hold then jiggled his cigarette to the corner of his mouth, replicating Barry’s mannerisms in such a robotic and comical manner that Maddie had to stifle a giggle.

  ‘You mean Barry?’ Maddie asked, noticing Charlie glance over his shoulder at her.

  ‘Ja, his English girl is crazy, no? I buy him beer, try to happy him up.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘No! We smoke, small bit. Then, who cares?’ Barney exaggerated a palms-upturned shrug, a broad grin stretching across his cheeks, almost to the point of a grimace. Barney shot Maddie a conspiratorial glance and leant in towards her. ‘In her eyes, the crazy one … I see much darkness.’

  Barney shook his limbs in a theatrical, eyeball-wobbling full-body shudder. He stopped and pulled back, winking at her, laughing as he trotted away. She watched him skip up to Kao and engage her in witty conversation.

  Maddie shook her head and draped her hand around the camera to stop it knocking into her leg as she followed the trainee-chef convoy behind Banock, into the busy market.

  • • •

  ‘Boy oh boy, what a night.’ Barry rolled over, stretched and opened his eyes. ‘Jody … you in the dunney?’

  He listened for a reply. Silence. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, padding across the cool tile floor. Before he got to the bathroom door, he stopped and turned to scan the contents of the room. On his side of the bed, clothes lay scattered on the floor around his rucksack. On Jody’s side, nothing. No neat stack of clothes. No rucksack. No Jody.

  Barry poked his head into the bathroom to make sure. Nope, no girl’s toiletries bag. He pulled on a pair of board shorts, speared his flip-flops between his toes and grabbed a tee-shirt, yanking it over his head as he stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind him.

  ‘Hi. My girlfriend, Jody. Have you seen her, please?’ he asked the girl on reception
.

  ‘Today, one hour before. She go.’

  ‘Did she say where?’

  ‘Bus, to Phnom Penh.’

  ‘From here, or the bus station?’ he asked, pointing first to the floor, then switching his gesture to indicate outside the hotel lobby.

  ‘Bus bring her. At ten-clock. Go to Phnom Penh.’

  He sighed and dropped his head, swearing softly. Then he slowly straightened. ‘Okay, thank you.’

  Barry sank back against the door of the hotel bedroom and stared at the empty corner where Jody’s stuff should have been. ‘Nice one, mate.’ He stepped away from the door, retrieved his mobile phone form the side table and scrolled through his messages.

  From: Jody

  I can’t stand goodbyes, especially on bad terms. You clearly don’t want to travel with me anymore, so I guess this is Leah Hari. It was fun, while it lasted. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

  Jody

  Barry deposited the phone into his pocket and lifted his camera bag up onto the bed. He searched through the compartments, carefully setting out assorted size lenses, spare batteries and a notebook. He stared at the empty bag. ‘Great. Cheers Jody – just peachy.’

  Clutching his hands on his head, he pushed the bathroom door open with his foot and hoofed it shut behind him.

  • • •

  Maddie placed the camera carefully in her shoulder bag and laid it down in the corner of the open shopfront. She smiled at the other budding cooks and surveyed the selection of different-height tables pushed together in the centre of the shop. On top of each sat a single-burner camping gas stove, deep-sided wok and neatly laid out ingredients. Banock stood at the far end of the cluster of tables, hands on his hips, grinning at his apprentices.

  ‘Stoves on, yes? We begin in three, two, one … cook! Into the pot: oil, garlic, onion, chilli paste. Stir – fast, fast, fast!’

  Maddie grabbed the line of small dishes one by one, pouring and stirring them into the sizzling wok, ducking back from the billowing smoke and potent spicy cooking fumes. Behind her, unseen hands reached down and carefully plucked the camera out of her shoulder bag. The figure stepped back from the shopfront and threaded tanned, hairy legs between bamboo tables and chairs, opening up the perfect wide-angle shot.

  Shh-clitch.

  Memory Card 3. Pic 086

  ‘Cookery sorcery, Cambodian-style farang gourmet forgery. Our intrepid travellers learn the art of creating food farts, from a young Yoda master, with a big heart. An intoxicating gastronomic steam room of exotic smelling spices, guaranteed to purge the pores of impure thoughts and vices …’

  Barry lowered his camera, offering the trainee chefs a weak smile. ‘Morning, travel mates …’ He turned to Maddie. ‘Cheers for looking after me camera.’

  Maddie shot him a concerned look. ‘Oh, no problem. Are you—’

  ‘No burning – stir, stir, stir!’ yelled Banock, his hands on his head in mock panic as he ran around the cluster of gas stoves.

  Maddie spun away from Barry to tend her wok, keeping her head down, focused on stirring the ingredients around the pan. She added the diced fish, chopped chillies and red pepper before stealing a quick glance up, in time to witness Barry amble away.

  ‘He not happy-snappy,’ said Barney.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Sandy, peering at Barney through the collective woks’ cooking fumes.

  ‘You didn’t see last night …?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jealous Jody.’

  ‘Of who?’

  Barney pointed his spatula at Maddie, who didn’t notice, too focused on vigorously tossing sizzling ingredients around her pan. Barney placed his thumb and finger in his mouth, whistling at Barry, prompting him to stop and wander back towards them.

  ‘Sorry for being moody, everyone. I’m skipping town, heading for Phnom Penh – there’s a bus in twenty minutes. Maybe I’ll see you again. Remember, always capture life.’ Barry lifted his camera, freeze-framing the group’s mixture of expressions.

  Memory Card 3. Pic 087

  ‘A collective adios, to the Aussie pain-in-the-ass. Peering through a cooking haze, they stare back in an inquisitive daze. Their opinion of the man behind the lens, unlikely to be someone they’d accept as Facebook friends. So farewell all you travel folk, the condemned man’s off to score himself some action in the big smoke …’

  Barry chuckled as he lowered the camera. ‘Focus on the food – fools! Don’t let a waster like me distract you.’ He turned away from Smokin’ Pot’s open shopfront kitchen and strode purposely away.

  ‘That’s it, gone – just like that?’ Maddie muttered, tending her wok.

  ‘He was a strange one,’ said Charlie, suppressing a smile.

  ‘Or possibly, honourable,’ suggested Gabby, raising her eyebrow in response to Maddie’s enquiring glance.

  Around the group, woks spluttered and hissed, encouraging more vigorous spatula action. Banock cast his eyes over his students and began to work his way around the tables, peering into each pan, nodding his head and turning down the heat setting. ‘Good. Sixty more seconds, then we feast!’

  • • •

  Banock surveyed everyone sitting quietly, sampling their own-cooked meals. Background street sounds filtered into earshot. A moped droned past on an adjacent road, music tinkled from a nearby jewellery shop, a misfiring lorry clunked to a halt down the street, several hire bicycles rattled and squeaked past, drowning out a distant, fast-talking Cambodian discussion.

  Maddie sat back from the table and lay her spoon in the empty bowl, resting her hands on her tummy. ‘That. Was. Delicious.’

  ‘You leave any plastic, on plate?’ smiled Banock.

  Maddie licked her lips and shook her head. ‘Nope. Thank you Banock, I needed that.’

  He tipped his head to acknowledge her, then asked ‘The man with the camera, he is one of your group?’

  ‘We’re all individuals on the bus, so not really a group,’ said Charlie, glancing up from his mobile phone when no one else volunteered a reply.

  ‘It is a mysterious murder movie, ja? We each were bus customers, but some disappear. Until only one is remaining …’ Barney leant forwards in his seat, scanned around the table in slow motion, his mouth open, eyes wide. ‘Two gone already, never returning. Who is next?’ He picked up his spoon, slowly drew it across under his neck then screeched, miming blood spurting from his jugular. He slumped down on the seat, his body jerking sporadically.

  Banock slapped Barney playfully on the shoulder. ‘This is the end of your Cambodian cooking experience. You have survived your own food. Please, enjoy the rest of your day – you are most welcome here. Thank you for learning.’

  Barney, still slumped back in his seat, began clapping under the table, quickly accompanied by the rest of the group. Maddie lifted her bag up onto her lap, delved inside and pulled out Liz’s book about surviving in the killing fields. She toyed with the pages, fanning them through her hands.

  ‘That’s a remarkable story,’ said Gabby, pushing up to her feet.

  ‘A friend gave it to me,’ Maddie replied quickly.

  ‘It’s necessary, I think, to read it while you’re here.’ Gabby stepped away from the table.

  ‘In Battambang?’

  ‘In Cambodia, and in life, generally.’

  Maddie nodded, noting the flicker of a troubled emotion dulling Gabby’s eyes. ‘I’ll catch you later,’ she said, drifting away.

  ‘You gonna stay here and read for a while?’ asked Victoria, smiling past Maddie to make eye contact with Charlie, perched on his seat opposite.

  ‘I think I might, yes. Bit of quiet time …’

  ‘Cool. Catch you later?’

  Maddie nodded, shifting in her seat as she noticed Charlie still sat down, focused on scribbling in a notebook.

  ‘That is good – for Westerners to understand,’ said Banock, gazing at the book cradled in Maddie’s hands. He held her enquiring expression, his eyes calm, serious.
He sat down next to her, opened a bottle of water, took a gulp.

  ‘Were you affected?’ she asked.

  ‘Everyone was affected,’ he said solemnly.

  • • •

  ‘Aggggrrrrhhhh!’ Maddie scrunched her face in agony, buried in the pillow. Wiry fingers kneaded, squeezed and pressed sore muscles, the pressure consistently firm until each brief ten-second respite. Then the hands repositioned, fingertips digging in deeper for another burst of muscle-pummelling discomfort.

  ‘What. The. Hell. Did. You. Tell. Them?’ gasped Victoria, spluttering her words out between manipulations.

  ‘They ask, medium or strong. I say maximum man-power massage. Good, ja?’

  ‘Jesus!’ yelled Victoria, panting between each knuckle-clenching wave of pain. On the next couch along, behind a curtain screen, Maddie tensed, her eyes clenched shut, mouth open, catching short, sharp snorting breaths. ‘Sure. They. Can’t. See? Aaaarrrrhh!’

  Their combined wheezing and stuttering mutterings settled into a consistent pattern of grunts and squeals, until finally the pain eased and warm palms pressed down flat onto their shoulders, radiating heat.

  ‘Bloody hell …’ Maddie muttered, breathless.

  ‘Good exercise, ja?’

  ‘Barney – fuck off,’ said Victoria in a muffled voice.

  He laughed, deep and guttural. ‘More pain for the English. My great grandfather, he be proud.’

  ‘Don’t joke about that shit.’

  ‘All finish,’ said a velvety soft voice belonging to Suki, the Cambodian owner.

  Maddie allowed her body to sink into the padded bench, her shallow raspy breaths slowing, gradually becoming deeper, less painful.

  ‘I thought you said this place was called Healing Hands. Felt more like pummelling knuckles. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move again.’ Victoria flopped her legs over the treatment couch, levering her body upright. ‘I’m ruined … Barney, you’re a knob.’

  ‘Ja. But tomorrow, you will be wonderful, feeling me.’

  ‘Please …’

  Victoria stood behind the curtain and peeled off the cotton massage pyjamas, wincing as she lifted the smock above her head to change back into her shorts and tee-shirt.