A Trick of Light

by Deborah A Rogers

  We go to view the apartment. The Cavendish Heights block is set amongst bush-clad hills, away from the city. The flat is on the twenty second floor and is filthy. There are cockroaches in the freezer and a curry-stained couch.

  “Needs a coat of paint of course,” says my father.

  In my room there’s a view of Victoria Harbour. A cruise ship is docked at Ocean Terminal. But the window has bars and there’s no way to take them off.

  “What are they for?” I ask Celia.

  “To stop children falling out.”

  When it’s time to go, Celia and I find my father on the balcony looking at the mountain range on Kowloon.

  “That’s China over there,” he says.

  He turns to me.

  “What do you think? Is it alright?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” he says. “We’ll get a barbeque, too, just like back home.”

  *

  A week before we move into Mount Butler, my father buys a new couch from IKEA. It is pine and has yellow cushions and is very expensive. Celia is not impressed. Bills from the holiday have started to come in. She waves them in the air.

  “What about these?”

  He shrugs. “I’m up for promotion.”

  He is very proud of his couch. After we shift into the apartment, he spends an entire afternoon trying out different arrangements in the lounge. When he is done, he settles back and reads his new Clancy book cover-to-cover, moving only once to go to the toilet.

  Celia confides in me.

  “We do not have any money. The power could be shut off.”

  “I thought he was rich,” I say.

  “Alcohol is very expensive in Hong Kong, especially in bars.”

  *

  The summer holidays come to an end and I go back to school in August, the start of the new school year in Hong Kong. Sarah and I are not in the same class anymore but we still see each other at lunch. One day when we are on the roof having a smoke, I ask her if her parents ever get drunk.

  “Once Dishmop got tipsy at my cousin's wedding, but that’s about it.”

  “What about your Dad?”

  “He might have a whiskey when he gets home from work.”

  “Just one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My father drinks all night, doesn’t go to bed until 3 or 4 in the morning then he gets up at 7 to go to work.”

  “He must be very tired.”

  “That’s the thing, he doesn’t seem to be.”

  I pause and look out at the bush and wonder what strange animals are out there, foraging in the undergrowth.

  “I think he’s an alcoholic,” I say.

  “I think he might be,” says Sarah.

  *

  Sarah’s birthday is the day before mine. Both of us will be fifteen. She is still a virgin and has been trying to lose it for at least a year with no luck.

  “There’s a club in Sheung Wan,” she says. “Where American sailors hang out. We should go for our birthdays.”

  “What about ID?”

  “They never ask.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  On Saturday night, we tell our parents we are staying over at each other’s houses and go to the toilets at the MTR station and change our clothes and put on our makeup and our best high heels. I buy some condoms and Barcardi at the Seven Eleven. We sit in a park and have a drink. I open the box of condoms. Each one is wrapped in a different colour. I have never used a condom before and cannot imagine bringing it up in the heat of the moment.

  “Here.”

  “Six!” says Sarah. “What do you think I am?”

  “You never know, you might like it.”

  She pauses.

  “Will it hurt?”

  I think of Trent and the first night we did it.

  “Not for long.”

  At 8.30 we go to the bar. We get a stamp at the door and no one asks for ID. Coloured lights roam around the empty dance floor. Hardly anyone is here; we have come too early.

  Three African American soldiers sit in a corner booth, drinking Budweiser. One asks if we want a beer so we slip in beside them. The short guy shakes my hand.

  “I’m Mike.”

  “Hi.”

  “That’s Abraham and Vernon.”

  Abraham is talking to Sarah. Vernon just looks pissed off.

  “Where ya’ll from?” says Mike.

  “New Zealand.”

  “Gee. New Zealand,” he says, frowning. “Oh yeah, that is in Australia.”

  “Just by Sydney,” I say.

  We talk and drink and the place fills up. Around midnight bar girls filter in. They are mostly Thais, but there are also a few Filipinos and Chinese girls too. They wear sequined halter tops and push up bras and wrap themselves around anyone who buys them a drink.

  Everyone is happy and dancing and having fun. Sarah and I are on the dance floor with Mike and Abraham. Mike is doing all his best moves and getting very close. Nearby a crow-eyed bar girl dances sexy with a Ginger-headed Brit. Before that she was sitting in the lap of a rowdy marine.

  Me and Sarah take a break and go to the toilet and the bar girl is in there, applying eyeliner and lipstick.

  “You look like you are having fun,” I say to her, waiting for a toilet to come free.

  The smile drops from her face. She barks out words, flings her hands, gets in my face. I do not understand what she is yelling. A clutch of women form a half circle around us.

  “What did you say?” shouts Sarah when she comes out of the toilet.

  “Nothing.”

  The bar girl screams one last sentence and stalks out.

  “What a nut job,” says Sarah.

  The owner comes in, an ex-pat Brit with a blunt cut bob and ruby red lipstick.

  “She says you called her a slut.”

  “No way,” I say.

  “Her boyfriend is a triad. She was going to tell him to slit your throat.”

  “Bloody Hell,” says Sarah.

  “I talked her out of it.”

  The woman eyes us.

  “How old are you two, anyway?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “I didn’t come down in the last shower,” she says. “Any more trouble and you’re both out. Clear?”

  Later I see the bar girl sitting in a different man’s lap. She comes over to me on the dance floor, well and truly liquored up. I brace for a punch in the face, but she puts her arms around my neck instead.

  “Sorry very much,” she says.

  “No problem.”

  She doesn’t let go and rests her head on my chest and I am forced to slow dance to “Careless Whisper” and also “Lady in Red.”

  *

  Sometime after 2am Sarah murmurs that Abraham wants to take her to a hotel. When they are gone, Mike and I walk along the waterfront. He points to a warship in the harbour.

  “That’s home,” he says.

  “How do you get to it, way out there?”

  “By launch. I’ll show you around if you want.”

  “That’s okay.”

  We stumble onto a construction site and sit down. He kisses me and I am thinking of the condoms in my bag and this new thing called AIDS but am too embarrassed to make the request. Before I know it, I'm on my back on a plank of wood in the mud, looking up at a crane with its massive hooks and chains, the taste of diesel on my lips, him between my legs, without a condom. When he's finished, he rolls off and pulls up his pants.

  “I appreciate it,” he says.

  We walk back to Des Voeux Road and Mike leaves for his ship. It is 3am and the streets are quiet. This has not gone as planned. I should be in a good hotel, between clean sheets, ankles interlocked with a sleeping lover’s. Instead, I have nowhere to go.

  There is no other choice, I must catch a taxi home and make up some lie about why I have come back in the middle of the night. But when I look in my handbag, my wallet isn't there. Then I recall I could not fit the Bacardi in my handbag as well as my
wallet so gave it to Sarah. I sit on the Ladder Street steps and hold my head in my hands.

  I feel sick but must move on. I circle back to the American Club, where Sarah and Abraham may have got a room. But when I ask at reception, they just shrug their shoulders.

  I loiter outside, not knowing where I should go or what to do. My head pounds and I want my bed. There are bushes near the entrance so I push myself between them and find a little den out of sight from the road. Stones and twigs press into the backs of my thighs as I settle down for the night. But sleep does not come. It gets cold and I shudder in my thin blouse. Things begin to move in the bushes around me.

  I decide I cannot stay here so start walking. Queens Road is quiet but well lit. I stick close to the road because of alleyway shadows. Apartment blocks loom overhead and I wonder if anyone is watching. I think back to when I ranaway and what it was like to live day-to-day without a place to call home and climbing out my bedroom window, grass cushioning my footfall, leaves rustling in the night air. Here, the air is stale and I cannot see the moon because of the buildings.

  It’s on to Central then into Wan Chai. The streets are deserted and shop shutters are down. Stalls are padlocked and barred. No trams move back and forth. No cars stop and start. No Pecking duck and barbequed pork swing from hooks.

  I press on. Traffic lights change from red to orange to green to red. There is the smell of an open sewer nearby. I am really chilled now. Goosebumps strike along my forearms. But I keep going, through Causeway Bay, along Hennessy Road, then up Tai Hang Road toward the hills.

  Soon apartment blocks give way to bush and Causeway Bay is well behind me. I follow the road as it loops its way round the hillside. The path becomes steep and my breath laboured. Now I am no longer cold, but sweating. When I look back, the city is below me, blinking and distant.

  I am totally alone here. And it’s dark, so dark I can barely see my own hand in front of my face. I do not know where the apartment is but guess that it’s in this general direction, so continue on until the air is fresh and the city is a faint glint through the vegetation.

  Then I sense movement. A shadow slips toward me. A man. One that will surely kill me. He comes closer and my knees start to knock. I wonder whether he will use a knife or his hands, whether he will rape me first or wait until later. Then I wonder if anyone will ever find my body up here in the jungle.

  I ready myself for the blow to the head or the arm to the throat, but the man simply nods as he passes. After a minute, I sneak a look over my shoulder. I can’t see a thing, but can hear his footsteps grow faint. There is the urge to shout with relief but I tell myself to focus and keep going. Sometime later, when I look up, the Cavendish Heights block appears. Behind it, the sky is lighting up.

  The guard is asleep at his post and I slip through the gates unnoticed. I have no watch so don’t know what the time is. But given the sun is just rising it must be early, too soon to go to the apartment, so I take the service elevator to the roof top instead.

  When I get there, I sit on the ledge and kick off my shoes; my feet are bloody and torn. On the horizon a golden sun inches up over the city. My eyes water when I think of home. I am not sure I will ever return. I look down. It would be so easy to move an inch and be done with it. But the courage leaves me.

  I manage to doze off. When I stir, it feels around 9 o’clock so I decide to go down to the apartment. Celia opens the door in her nightwear, rubbing her eyes. I have got it horribly wrong. Chung Si is not even up watching cartoons.

  Celia’s eyes drop to my crumpled attire.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  I push past her and head for my room.

  Seconds later, my father storms in. There is a crinkle on his cheek from the pillow.

  “Sarah’s mum had to drop her dad at the airport early, so she gave me a lift.”

  “Bull shit.”

  He grabs up my handbag and tips out the contents.

  “There aren’t any drugs,” I say.

  He sees the condoms and looks disgusted.

  “I’m nearly an adult, I can do what I want.”

  “You are fourteen!”

  “Fifteen tomorrow!”

  He tosses my bag into my chest.

  “You’re grounded.”

  “How long?”

  He doesn’t answer and slams the door behind him.

  It is dark when I wake; I have slept for the whole day. Out the window, there’s Mike's ship in the harbour, a string of lights lit up from one side of the boat to the other. I think of him there, sleeping in a hammock, cigarette behind his ear, pin-up girl stuck to the wall. I listen to the Platoon soundtrack. I play “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” three times then go to back bed.

  In the morning, the boat is gone.

  *

  There is an unwrapped present outside my bedroom door. A brand new walkman still in its box. It looks as if someone has accidentally left it behind. At first, I am not even sure it is meant for me then I see the Birthday card. When I open the card up, it is blank inside.

  Later that night it is just me and Celia because my father has gone out. We are watching television when she gives me a small box.

  “Open it.”

  I pull at the silver ribbon and lift off the lid. Inside there is a beautiful gold necklace. The gold is yellow, like the nose rings the Indian girls wear at school.

  “Very good quality,” she says. “24 Carat.”

  It is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever given me. I put it on and she does up the clasp.

  “Suits you,” she says.

  Twenty-Six

  WHEN WE ARE back at school, Sarah tells me she lost her virginity to Abraham at a hotel in Central. They put a coin in a slot and the bed vibrated. She can't wait to tell Naomi. Then she tells me her family is being transferred to Japan.

  “I don’t want to go to bloody Japan. They spit everywhere.”

  “This is very bad,” I say.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “When do you have to leave?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “That’s too soon!”

  “I know.”

  “We could get jobs and a flat in the New Territories. It’s cheap out there.”

  “Dishmop says I have to go. Besides you need to be sixteen to leave school.”

  We just sit there and stare at the ground.

  “I’ll write,” she says finally, “and when you’re back in New Zealand, I’ll come and visit you.”

  She stands up and hooks her bag over her shoulder.

  “Maybe I’ll bring Naomi too.”

  *

  Celia asks me what’s wrong.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Are you sick?”

  “I’m fine.”

  But everything is not fine. I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. Sarah will soon be gone. It will just be me again, on my own, in the concrete jungle.

  *

  On Saturday Celia asks if I want to go shopping in Wan Chai.

  “I know the best factory outlets.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Go on,” says my father. “I’ll look after Chung Si.”

  I decide that it might do me good after all.

  We catch the minibus to the factory shops along Johnson Road. The shops are stuffed with racks of clothes, men’s on one side, women’s on the other. I squeeze through the rows and flick through jackets, t-shirts, skirts and jeans. Some are last seasons, others are seconds with a missing button or an un-hemmed sleeve.

  It’s hot work but fun and I find a skirt and a pair of jeans I like, although I have to guess they will fit because there is nowhere to try anything on in private. When I show Celia, she says –

  “Pretty.”

  She tries on a white winter coat. It is only $25 dollars.

  “What do you think?” she says.

  “Looks good.”

  We pay the lady who is sitting on a plastic stool eating noodles from a
chipped bowl.

  It is late afternoon by the time we get to the wet market to buy some things for tea. There’s a butcher with a bloody white singlet, whacking a meat cleaver into some ribs. I watch as he throws the unwanted flesh into a large bamboo basket with two cow’s heads and a string of flyblown intestines. He hoses down his chopping block, and blood and water merge in the gutter.

  On the other side of the street, fat-bellied fish, cockles, hairy crabs and eels bubble in buckets. A stray cat stares longingly at a crayfish the size of a healthy lamb before someone shoos it away. Celia buys some sea bass, fresh noodles, onions and sprouts then we catch a taxi home.

  When we get back to the apartment my father is abnormally quiet. Celia cooks a nice meal but it is eaten in silence except for the thank you he gives at the end. He doesn’t say much else for the rest of the night. I wonder if he has the flu, although I have never even seen him with a cold.

  He gets a phone call which he takes in his room. He is shouting and I can’t make out most of it. Then comes a word – Judas! Celia goes to see what is wrong; I follow but stay out of sight by the door.

  “You were supposed to be my friend,” he says quietly into the phone before hanging up.

  He sits at the end of the bed, shoulders hunched, staring blankly at the floor.

  “They gave it to McKay,” he says to no one in particular.

  Later Celia tells me they said his work is slipping.

  *

  The next day when I return home from my shift at The Old English Teahouse the smell of barbequed meat greets me. It’s as if yesterday didn’t happen. My father is on the balcony happily turning sausages and lamb chops on a three burner he bought from a departing expat. Chung Si sits on a chair watching him cook, chomping a sausage wrapped in bread. He smiles when he sees me and points to the food with the tongs.

  “Look, just like home.”

  “Not really.”

  “Have something to eat.”

  “I’m alright.”

  “It’s good, Rachel,” says Chung Si.

  “No thanks.”

  I go to my room and close the door.

  Later that night I sneak into the kitchen for leftovers, two blackened sausages and a withered beef steak. My father is alone on the balcony staring at the mountains that lead to the Mainland. I pause and watch him there, forearms resting on the rails, drink in hand, searching the darkness.