by Mandy Smith
The hours prior to that particular night in Wan Chai had been filled with fun. We were on our penultimate day in Hong Kong and had decided to make the most of the scorching weather by taking a junk boat cruise around some of the outlying islands. The scenery was spectacular: chiselled granite shards covered in green moss formed a beautiful maze for us to sail through, and we passed majestic mountains swathed in forests rising from crystal aqua waters – it was like sailing through a fairy-tale landscape.
There were about fifteen of us on the cruise, including Tom and his mate Jacques, a French first officer who owned the boat – he worked for Air New Zealand and lived on Hong Kong Island. We took bottles of vodka and plastic cups onto the boat and by mid morning we were all very merry. Laura was there, and she and I kept the rest of the crew entertained by singing Northern folk songs, assailing the serene vista with strangled-cat renditions of “Blaydon Races” and “Fog on the Tyne”.
At lunchtime, cross-eyed and staggering, we stopped off at Lamma Island for a bite to eat at the pigeon restaurant Han Lok Yuen, which probably wasn’t the best choice of eatery considering there were five vegetarians among us, who were horrified when our food – all chosen by Tom and Jacques – arrived. There were pigeons, roasted whole with their beaks agape, deep-fried wrinkly chicken feet and chicken testicles. One of the girls had to dash to the toilets to throw up.
Bizarre delicacies aside, we were having a wonderful time – albeit very drunken. Everyone was in high spirits, faces bright red from too much sun … and alcohol. As we clambered back onto the junk boat, vodka-pigeon (with a hint of chicken feet) soup swirling in my stomach, I realised how lucky I was to have a job that enabled me to explore so many exotic countries and experience new and diverse cultures; I couldn’t think of many professions that would enable you to eat chicken testicles at two in the afternoon on Lamma Island.
“We’re so lucky, aren’t we,” I said to Laura as we leaned over the side of the junk boat on our journey back to Hong Kong Island. “I mean, look at this place,” I added, motioning towards the sea, my plastic cup cutting a clumsy arc through the air, vodka leaping into the waters below. “It’s bloody stunning.”
The sun was setting over Hong Kong Island, cradled by the silhouetted mountains, the last of its rays scoring the violet clouds.
“It’s fucking beautiful, babe,” said Laura, hiccuping.
“Magical,” I said.
“We’re very lucky, Mands.”
“Very, very lucky,” I slurred.
“Sooo lucky.”
Once ashore, we continued our party at the Dusk ’til Dawn nightclub, where we literally did party from dusk ’til dawn. It was one of our regular haunts in Wan Chai: open until the early hours, the booze dirt cheap, and always heaving with expats, locals and crew. As our group fractured into smaller groups, Laura and I found ourselves stuck by the bar with Tom and Jacques, who was a complete sleazebag. Stocky, with a grubby tan and hirsute arms, he was full of cheesy chat-up lines, playing up his French accent in an attempt to sound all seductive and sexy but failing miserably.
“French lovers are ze best in ze world,” he said, touching my arm with his clammy hand. “Do you have a lover? Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”
“No, thanks,” I said turning my back in disgust.
Tom burst out laughing and, randomly, groped my arse. “He’s just teasing you, Mandy.”
I was confused; the caring, mature family man I knew and liked had suddenly turned into a boorish lad. And since when did he think it was acceptable to grab my arse? He’d never done that before.
I turned to Laura. “Just tell ’em to ‘va te faire foutre’,” she advised.
“What the hell does that mean?” I said.
“It means ‘fuck off’ in French.”
So I looked Jacques in the eye and in a thick Hartlepudlian accent shouted, “Va te faire foutre.” I grabbed Laura’s arm and we moved onto the dance floor, where we boogied for hours to Beatles and Monkees hits played by a local live band, knocking back bottles of Smirnoff Ice and Hooper’s Hooch, sweating pure alcohol. All was well until Tom and Jacques reappeared. I was singing and dancing to “Love Me Do” with some of the other crew when they came thrashing onto the dance floor, swaying and bumping into everyone, which wasn’t a huge problem – we were all pretty wobbly by this stage. But there was no excuse for what they did next. It happened just after Laura disappeared to the loo.
As “Love Me Do” blended into “Daydream Believer” and we all started swaying our arms over our heads, Jacques slithered his arms around me from behind, grabbed my hips and started grinding his groin against my bum. I wrenched his hands off me and tried to break free from the crowd, but Tom blocked my way, gripped my wrists and yanked my arms above my head, just as Jacques’ hands came creeping around me once more – this time at my chest. I twisted my body, bent my knees and tugged hard with my wrists, but the harder I fought, the tighter Tom gripped. A warped merry-go-round spun past me, a swirl of jeering faces and oscillating bodies, the chirpy strains of “Daydream Believer” becoming increasingly dissonant and mocking. I felt my feet leave the floor as Tom lifted me up by my wrists. Then Jacques pulled my top down to my waist, slithered between Tom and me, and started motor-boating my boobs, his greasy face slapping against my cleavage and rubbing against my white bra, as Tom looked down, laughing. He had an evil glint in his eye that I’d never encountered before, a look that compelled me to fight back with renewed vigour. I lashed out with my dangling feet, kicking Jacques’ knees until he buckled and fell back against Tom, and only then did he let go of my wrists. I pulled up my top, turned and forced my way out of the club, elbowing my way through the sea of revellers, tears streaming down my face. I should maybe have gone to find Laura, but I felt so humiliated and violated – I just wanted to leave. Sure, hosties were always flashing their boobs in public, but the big difference here was that I hadn’t chosen for this to happen. And what Tom and Jacques had just put me through was a sexual assault.
Outside the club I jumped in the first taxi I saw. Dawn was breaking but the neon-lit streets were still buzzing with energy: partygoers spilling out of bars and clubs nestled beneath rundown office blocks, people thronging fast-food shops and local vendors setting up ramshackle market stalls with corrugated roofs. The incident in the club had sobered me up. I was numb with shock. Why had Tom’s behaviour changed so suddenly?
Back at the hotel, I furiously scrubbed myself clean in the shower before calling Jonathan. We hadn’t been getting along as well recently; before I’d left for Hong Kong we’d quarrelled. I never really had blazing rows with Jonathan – mainly because he didn’t stick up for himself, which, ironically, was the reason for most of our arguments. The problem was his mother, Margaret, who detested me with a passion. She was forever interfering in our relationship and criticising me. She controlled Jonathan, and he caved in to her every demand. Her latest trick was to let herself into our house uninvited (Jonathan had given her a set of keys against my wishes), snoop around and rearrange things to how they should be. All I wanted was for Jonathan to man up about it and stop giving in to her.
He sounded grumpy when he answered the phone. “What time is it? I was sleeping,” he said.
“Six in the morning – ten o’clock your time.”
“Is everything okay? Has something happened?”
Through floods of tears I relayed my traumatic experience. “I don’t understand why Tom would do this to me,” I concluded.
“I’ll kill him – and that French bastard,” said Jonathan, his breath jagged. “What were they thinking? You have to report this, Mands … promise me you’ll do that?”
“Okay,” I sniffed, thinking, Why can’t he be this assertive with his mother?
I spent the following day and night in my hotel room with Laura, watching movies and ordering room service. I wasn’t in the mood for mixing with the rest of the crew and the thought of bumping into Tom and his slimy French mate made my blood b
oil. I didn’t even feel up to shopping, which was rare for me. Laura was shocked when I told her what had happened.
“I was looking for you when I came back from the toilets,” she said. “Tom said you’d left because you were tired. I knew that French bloke was an arrogant arsehole but, bloody hell, Tom? You should tell his wife, Mandy. She deserves to know.”
“Maybe,” I sighed. “I’m going to report it, anyway – Jonathan said I should definitely do that.”
I never did spill the beans to Tom’s wife … although I was very tempted. But I did perform one act of revenge that made me feel slightly better about the whole sordid episode. On the flight home I was supposed to be working on the upper deck, in Premium Economy, but that would have meant looking after Tom in the flight deck. So I requested a move to the “R4” position with a duty-free bar at the back of Economy. It’s the least desirable job on the aircraft – as you’re rushed off your feet dealing with the constant demands of duty-free orders – but if it meant I wouldn’t have to speak to Tom, I was more than happy to do it.
As the meal service got underway, Laura came to visit me in the back galley. “Look what I’ve got,” she said, an impish smile on her face. She placed a tray on the counter. “Smoked salmon with crème fraiche and rocket leaves, wild mushroom stroganoff with a creamy risotto, orange juice and chewy Belgium chocolate cake – all for our darling Tom.”
I flashed her a look that said, Are you thinking what I’m thinking? “I think Tom’s meal is lacking something,” I said.
“Me too,” said Laura, cocking her head to one side and pressing her index finger to her lips. “I’m thinking a phlegm garnish would add a superb kick to that risotto.”
“Definitely – it’ll complement the earthy mushroom flavours.”
I cleared my throat and turned my back to Laura. Clearing my chest, I vacuumed as much mucus as I could muster into the back of my throat, swung back round, gobbed a huge, green globule of catarrh smack into Tom’s risotto, and burst out laughing. Laura clutched her stomach, giggling wildly. I grabbed a fork, my body shaking with laughter, and stirred my spit into the risotto.
“Dinner is served,” I declared, prompting another round of giggles.
Laura wiped the smile from her face and picked up the tray. “Bon appétit, Tom,” she said, and swished out of the galley.
Although spitting in Tom’s food had given us a laugh, I still couldn’t erase the seedy memory of that night in Dusk ’til Dawn. My armpits and wrists were still hurting days after I returned to the UK. Taking Jonathan’s advice, I reported the incident to my ground manager, who didn’t seem overly concerned. She told me I could take the matter further if I wished, but it’d probably result in a futile battle of his word against mine. What she could offer, however, was assurance that I would never have to fly with Tom again. So, in order to avoid any confrontation, I accepted this offer … at least I would never have to clap eyes on Tom again.
A week later my manager contacted me again. “Occupational Health would like you to see a psychiatrist,” she said. “It’ll help you recover from your ordeal.”
“Psychiatrist?” I said, laughing. “I’m not mad. He’s the one who needs to see a shrink, not me.”
“It’s company policy. No one’s suggesting you’re mad,” she replied.
I went to see the shrink. I travelled all the way to his office in Bournemouth where he conducted his business in a little office adjacent to his shabby cottage. His name was Philip, a scrawny bloke in his late sixties, with wispy white hair and broomstick-thin shoulders nudging upwards through his cable-knit cardigan. He made me feel like such an idiot. After explaining in detail the events that occurred in Hong Kong, he proceeded to ask me a string of totally unrelated psychoanalytic questions. I think he thought he was Sigmund bloody Freud.
“Tell me about your childhood, Mandy,” he said, steepling his hands beneath his chin.
“What has that got to do with anything?” I said.
“What’s your relationship like with your father?”
This was getting ridiculous. “Look, Philip, I appreciate you’re just doing your job, but I really don’t think I need to be here – I don’t need therapy.”
“Why do you think you don’t need therapy, Mandy? Do you think you’re above needing help – do you feel there’s something wrong, perhaps … the fact you feel no one can help you?”
At that point I stood up, thanked Philip for his time, and left. And that marked the end of my “counselling” sessions.
I was still appalled about being treated in such a degrading manner by Tom and Jacques, but there was a light on the horizon. After I complained again to management about the shambolic counselling session, I was put on a three-month buddy roster with Laura, meaning that we would do all of our trips together. I also passed my senior exams with flying colours. Things were looking up.
CHAPTER 12
CARIBBEAN QUEENS
We had so much fun during our three-month buddy roster. Laura and I went everywhere together: LA, Vegas, Joburg, New York, Japan, Hong Kong, laughing our way from country to country.
In our first month, we were deemed Caribbean Queens – because our roster consisted predominately of Caribbean trips: Barbados, St Lucia, Grenada, Tobago and Antigua. We thought the Caribbean trips were great, because you got extra cash and stayed at beautiful, luxurious resorts. Not many other seniors liked these trips, because a lot of them preferred to visit their rich boyfriends in New York or Los Angeles – and the smaller Upper Class cabin made it much harder work. Which meant Caribbean trips were easy for us to get, even with my low seniority. At the Colony Club, Barbados, you could swim straight from your hotel room to the swimming pool, via a small stream off your balcony, lined with stunning waterfalls and plant life. Most of our days were spent sunbathing, partying on catamarans and scuba diving.
On one trip to Barbados, Laura and I were invited to represent Virgin Atlantic at a promotional event held at the exclusive Sandy Lane resort. We met a few celebrities – Cilla Black, the late Bob Monkhouse and the perma-tanned TV presenter Dale Winton. Sir Cliff Richard, who also owns a house in Barbados, was there, playing a charity tennis game. It was the perfect opportunity to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, whom we were supposed to be promoting our new Upper Class service to, but all Laura and I were interested in that night was the free champagne.
We always had good parties in the Caribbean, especially during hurricane season when high winds and sheet rain battered the islands. That’s when we had some of our wildest room parties; we couldn’t go out or sunbathe so we just drank … and drank.
After a month of living it up in the Caribbean, Laura and I were put on a few New York trips. New York trips are all about shopping, which we did a lot of. All the money I’d saved in the Caribbean was soon frittered away on Sephora products and more handbags from Guess – I had enough shoes and bags to open my own shop.
On our first New York trip, Laura, who’d stayed single since dumping Dan, found herself a fuck buddy, aptly named Randy, a graphic designer who owned a swanky loft apartment in the up-and-coming Meatpacking district. “I think it’s the best sex I’ve ever had,” Laura had said. “It’s proper throw-down stuff – and he’s got the biggest dick.”
Richard Branson came on our New York trip, and, as usual, requested that the whole crew from all six flights that day attend a glitzy function down-route. He popped into our briefing before the flight. “Right, guys,” he said, “Donald Trump’s invited us all to a party tonight … I’d like you all to be there if possible. Girls … and boys, wear something sexy, flirt and just have fun.” Lots of smiling faces nodded at Richard and even the boys seemed to be excited at the thought of a high society party in Manhattan.
“I’m not going to that bloody party,” said Laura as we bounced along the jetway. “I’m seeing Randy. No more phone sex for me; in approximately ten hours’ time I’ll be going for it like the clappers. God, it feels like forever since my lad
y chamber has been serviced.”
“You only saw him last week,” I said.
“A week is a long time, Mands. I need my Randy fix.”
Just hearing Laura say his name made me laugh. “Trust you to have a boyfriend called bloody Randy.”
Laura grinned and jiggled her eyebrows. “Randy by name, randy by nature. Bring it on.”
“I’ll be thinking of you when I’m guzzling champagne at Trump Tower tonight. Can’t you come for a little while? It won’t be the same without you there.”
We stepped onto the plane and turned left – we were both working in Upper Class that day.
“Sorry Mands, no can do. Let’s go for breakfast tomorrow morning though – I’ll fill you in on all the juicy details – then we’ll hit the shops.”
“If you can still walk,” I said.
Richard greeted the passengers as they piled onto the plane, laughing and joking with them and signing autographs. But once we were airborne he did his usual disappearing act to the crew rest area, where he slept until touchdown. Richard had even gone to the lengths of taking the legally required SEP exams to enable him to use the crew rest areas on board every aircraft, so he could get a good night’s sleep without being disturbed.
After checking in at the Helmsley Hotel, I showered and headed along to my colleague Ruth’s room, where a party was already underway. I took all my gear – make-up, clothes to wear for the Trump party and, most importantly, my two complimentary miniatures of vodka. I walked in on the usual chaotic scene: girls screaming and giggling, swapping clothes, doing each other’s hair and make-up and MTV blaring from the television. Laura came in for a drink, looking stunning in a jewel-encrusted black satin dress and heels, and then disappeared to meet Randy. “Wish me luck,” she said, hugging me goodbye.