The Man Who Loved Islands

by David F. Ross

  And then, just when Bobby was starting to feel the lash of Laurie Revlon’s tongue and the constant reminders of contractual obligations in perpetuity, a miracle happened. Literally.

  Max Mojo rang Bobby’s drawbridge-mounted doorbell. The story of The Miraculous Vespas had passed into cult legend, principally because Max, the band’s enigmatic, delusional manager, had disappeared without trace along with Clifford X. Raymonde, the veteran producer of their only major single ‘It’s A Miracle (Thank You)’. The four-piece themselves had broken up, and had maintained a more dignified silence about their last days as a band, which only added to its mystique. However, industry rumours persisted about a legendary LP, the only tapes of which had been lost in an arson attack that had destroyed Raymonde’s Ayrshire recording studio.

  ‘Get that will ye?’ shouted Bobby Cassidy despite being closer to the CCTV monitor and release switch than Hamish May. ‘Who is it anyway?’

  ‘Gie’s a fuckin’ minute, ya lazy bastart,’ shouted Hammy. ‘Ye’ve got yer ain fuckin’ legs, man … even though ye rarely bloody use them these days.’

  ‘Aye, okay. Just tell us who’s there!’

  ‘It’s some old cunt. Cannae work him oot. This screen’s aw grainy, Bob.’

  ‘Get oot an’ clean it then, fuck sake!’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Hammy.

  ‘Whit is it?’ said Bobby.

  ‘This aul’ duffer’s got a face like a ninety-year-old Jamaican scrotum that’s been turned inside oot!’

  Bobby snorted at Hammy’s description, then got up to look for himself. Although presented in monochrome, the old man’s leathery skin was clear to see on the distorted image leaning in to the camera and looking back at them.

  ‘Bit auld tae be a windae cleaner, an’ too scabby tae be a Mormon, ah’d have thought,’ laughed Bobby.

  ‘Aye, an’ either too deaf or fuckin’ stupid tae realise ye’ve got tae press the button tae speak back tae us. Look … fuckin’ walloper.’

  They watched in hysterics as the old man acted out a full expressive story of explanation in total silence.

  ‘Open the fuckin’ door an’ let us in, Cassidy, ya gadgie that ye are!’

  Bobby jumped back. The voice was familiar but it wasn’t coming from the old man, it came from Max Mojo, who was hiding behind him.

  Max Mojo and Cliff ‘X-Ray’ Raymonde had dropped on Casa Cassidy out of nowhere. In their possession were the ‘lost’ tapes of an album that many wanted to hear but most believed to be nonexistent. It took a while for X-Ray to get the LP tapes sorted but, with the money fronted by Laurie Revlon, and the recordings held at Revolution Studios, it was clear to everyone who heard the initial playbacks that this was a phenomenal record. And to herald its return, Max Mojo wanted his old mucker, Bobby Cassidy to remix ‘It’s A Miracle’ and reposition the band as part of the cool Balearic indie-beat scene.

  With Laurie Revlon’s contractual blessing, Bobby Cassidy worked wonders on the original single. He increased its speed and mixed it in a higher key. Unusual samples from Simple Minds’ ‘Promised You a Miracle’ were added and random dialogue from the Martin Scorcese film Taxi Driver was scattered liberally around the backbeats. It was pressed, bootleg style, as a twelve-inch single in a simple, blue transparent plastic sleeve with a yellow title sticker. Max – high at the time, naturally – had initially insisted on a Peter Saville-designed ‘4D sleeve … so folk can fuckin’ feel the music through different time zones’. But that was officially ruled out as being ‘cost-prohibitive’, and unofficially ruled out due to no one having the slightest fucking clue what he was talking about. There was no B-side and, in order to appease the band’s temperamental singer/songwriter, Grant Delgado, the words ‘Anti-Complacency League, Baby! (Slight return)’ were scratched into the run-off grooves. The record was an incredible critical and radio success. It revived Bobby, both professionally and personally. He was certain Joey Miller would’ve loved it.

  Chapter Nine

  October 2014. Shanghai, China

  Joseph scans the room, unsure of where he is. It’s a large, uncluttered room, but some form of balanced Feng Shui order seems to have been applied. Unlikely to be heaven, then, he figures. More likely the other place. ‘IKEA, maybe?’ he whispers to himself.

  ‘Ah, Mista Miller. I hope you are fine now.’ The voice comes from behind him. He hasn’t even appreciated there is a ‘behind him’. He lifts himself up slowly on his elbows and edges gingerly against the collection of soft pillows before sinking into them.

  ‘Where am I?’ he croaks. A familiar face wanders into view. It is the interpreter.

  ‘You are in Mr Li’s clinic, sir. You fell last night.’

  ‘Fuck sake, last night.’ Recollections instantly accelerate into his head like Formula 1 cars racing for the first bend. Some of them collide. His addled brain bears the brunt. Joseph looks around quickly. He isn’t in a recovery room. There don’t appear to have been any unauthorised procedures carried out. He is in silk pyjamas that don’t belong to him but other than that he seems fine.

  ‘What happened tae me?’ he asks hopefully.

  ‘Doctor think you have suffer anxiety attack, Mr Miller,’ says the interpreter. Joseph feels embarrassed. ‘He say “too much alcohol, not enough sleep”. Ah …’ the interpreter searches for a word. He looks across the ceiling as if he might find it written there. It comes to him. ‘Dehydrate.’

  Joseph sighs, not quite knowing what to do next. A full reconstruction of the circumstances of the previous evening is slowly forming. He won’t see Mr Li or his sons again, not even to apologise or express gratitude to them. He is now being dealt with solely by the lower orders. He hasn’t caused them dishonour, but he has prompted a loss of face – mainly his – with the owner of the KYTV establishment.

  ‘Doctor come back to check. Remove drip. Then you go?’ It is said very politely but to Joseph, it translates as: Make sure the cunt isn’t going to die on the premises then get him to fuck out of here! Joseph looks at his hand. There is no sign of any saline drip within the room, but the small plastic connector that facilitated its route into the vein is still taped and embedded there. He hasn’t noticed it. He gets out of the bed. He is unsteady. The interpreter holds out a hand but appears relieved when Joseph declines it. He steps gingerly over to where he assumes the shower is. He is like Bambi on the ice. He reaches the door and holds its handle tightly.

  ‘Where are my clothes?’ he asks. The interpreter simply nods in the direction of the en-suite. Constantly smiling, but – Joseph surmises – internally raging at being stuck with this embarrassing fuck-up.

  They drive the short distance to the airport in total silence. The short flight back to Shanghai is turbulent, and Joseph – normally a very good flyer – feels ill and disorientated when they land. He heads straight for a toilet near the baggage collection carousel and vomits violently. He arrives back at the hotel. He pays the taxi driver. He is still dehydrated and exhausted. He sits on a sheltered concrete plinth and opens a bottle of water. He reaches into a jacket pocket and takes out his phone. He punches the numbers.

  ‘Carlos? Is that you? It’s Joseph.’

  ‘Megan, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but we’ve received a serious complaint from a guest.’

  Megan has foreseen this. Cockney Jack would have expected her to seek her own redress and, in anticipation, he has acted quickly with a counter. That doesn’t mean it will be any easier for her to accept, or to address with her employers. The Doubletree Group has a fixed and very formal process for dealing with customer grievances.

  Megan Carter sits in the air-conditioned office as Alison Wang, the new Head of Human Resources, adjusts her glasses and her posture and delivers her considered adjudication. Cockney Jack and his cohorts have all written letters on Doubletree headed paper claiming Megan ignored their polite requests regarding the type of hire car they ordered. Furthermore, she became extremely abusive, and used foul and threatening language. Having tripped
and fallen backwards over a small hedge, she then accused one of the guests of pushing her when he was in fact trying to help her to her feet. In all the years of their firm’s patronage of Doubletree Hotels, claim the tersely worded statements – it is the most unacceptable service and treatment by a member of staff that any of the Cockney Jack lads has ever witnessed. The letters stress that action should be taken or their organisation will take its substantial custom elsewhere. CCTV footage indeed illustrates her fall, although the guests threatening gestures have been ruled out as a cause. One of her Chinese hotel colleagues who witnessed the contretemps has substantiated the complaints of the hotel’s guests. Megan is devastated that a fellow worker thinks so little of her, but the complicity has been bought. She is given a two-week suspension to appease the complainants, but on full pay. The English party of four have a substantial corporate bill reduced by fifty percent. Their company’s patronage is very important to Doubletree.

  ‘Megan?’ the voice surprises her. It is familiar, but also caring in its tone. She looks up. It comes from Joseph Miller. ‘Is everythin’ alright? You’ve been cryin’.’

  ‘Ah … I’m sorry. Yes, I’m fine. Just had a bit of bad news,’ she says.

  ‘Aye, me too.’ He smiles, hoping it will help the moment. It doesn’t. She affects composure like a professional actress hearing the word Action! But Joseph is equally practised in rehearsed deception.

  ‘Let me get that for ye,’ says Joseph. He can see she is upset and struggling to manoeuvre through the heavy, glass side door that Joseph himself has just come through. He walks back out into the hotel’s covered forecourt. Crowds of tourists and business people jostle for space near where the taxis are stopping. For a country so otherwise regimented, queuing is a totally alien concept. It will be some time before the excitable throng clears. He offers to walk with Megan, carrying her bags.

  Despite herself, reluctantly, hesitatingly, she accepts.

  They walk slowly. The humidity is stifling. The unseasonal heat has remained constant through September. Thunderstorms have been predicted, but they have stalled off the coast of the East China Sea, as if they are contemplating their next move; deciding in which direction to drift next.

  ‘Cappuccino?’ he says.

  ‘Yes, that’s me. Thanks,’ she says. She has ordered. She has spotted a seat by the window. He has told her to sit down. He pays. He wipes his mouth on a napkin and picks up a metal box of mints. Despite the water, the flat, iron taste of sickness remains in his throat.

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘Em, I’ll have to take the two weeks away and then go and see the Regional Manager when he returns.’

  ‘From holiday?’

  ‘No,’ she smiles. ‘They never seem to take holidays. He’s over in the Philippines training people apparently.’

  ‘Ah, right. Ah see,’ he says. He lifts his cup but then spills some of the coffee on his trousers. ‘Fuck!’ he mumbles. ‘Do ye no’ have yer own holidays?’ he asks. ‘Somewhere tae go just tae get away, like?’

  As they strolled to the coffee shop Joseph offered to speak to the hotel’s management and ensure such blatantly false complaints were countered. Megan didn’t want that though. It perplexes Joseph that she seems content to let these lies blemish her work record. He can’t quite understand it.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I mean, I have breaks, but I don’t really have any … I’m happy just staying at home,’ she says.

  ‘An’ where is home, then?’ he says, smiling.

  She visibly stiffens.

  He briefly wonders if he has said something different from what he thinks he said; something more threatening. ‘Ah’m sorry. Ah didnae mean tae…’

  ‘No. No, sorry … it’s me. I don’t have many friends here. This isn’t … it’s not home. You become accustomed to your own company, you know?’

  ‘Aye,’ says Joseph, ‘ah know that only too well.’

  ‘Are you working in Shanghai?’ she asks him.

  ‘No, well no’ really,’ he says. There is a difficult pause. Their conversation is like two people separately navigating a maze, not entirely sure where it is going, occasionally bumping into each other by accident, constantly trying to recall the route they took before hitting a dead end, and starting again.

  ‘Dae you live on yer own then?’ He says this, and again immediately regrets it. It sounds like a chat-up line from the early 80s.

  She doesn’t react. These exchanges are like a game of battleships.

  ‘What do you do? Back home, I mean?’ Her questions are a defence against having to respond to his. She is fascinating. It is clear to him that she is hiding something of herself. She sits back in the chair and her arms only unfold to reach her cup.

  ‘Ah’m a designer. An architect, although ah’m no’ sure for how much longer,’ he says. ‘Have ye always worked in hospitality?’

  ‘No.’ A pause, then. ‘Not always. What do you mean by not for much longer?’ She is a challenge.

  ‘Ach, ah think my partners are forcing me out,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ she says, but in a non-committal way, as if it simply seems like the right thing to say. She is being led by his downbeat delivery.

  ‘Aye, fuck it. It’s a young man’s game an’ ah’m no’ that anymore,’ he says. ‘Too tired. Too many aches an’ pains, ye know? Mental and physical. It’s hard tae keep up wi’ the pace of things nowadays.’

  She relaxes, but only a bit.

  He continues. ‘It’s a lonely life, wi’ all the travelling an’ that. Ah mean, look at me for Christ sake! Ah’m really only thirty.’

  He smiles. She does too. Her face lights up when she does.

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, you look very good…’ Her voice tails off, not because she doesn’t believe it; she just can’t comprehend she has actually said it.

  He looks perplexed; a man out of practice at receiving any form of favourable compliment.

  She blushes. ‘…I just meant, you know … for your age … for a man who’s just turned fifty…’

  She laughs. He does too. He finds her ham-fisted attempts at flirtatious small talk endearing. He laughs only because his are no better.

  ‘Aye … it’s fine. Ah know what ye mean. The George Clooney effect, eh? Middle-aged guy in a black suit wi’ a white shirt, greying hair? He’s done wonders for our demographic, so he has.’

  She smiles again. Her face radiates warmth.

  He orders another two coffees. She relaxes into one of the coffee shop’s brown leather sofas, kicking off her heeled shoes and pulling her legs up to her side. Her shoulders drop, a weight lifted from them. Solitude has made him a miserable bastard, but her response to it seems almost enigmatic, like she craves it. He tries a different approach.

  ‘What’ll ye do if the hearing disnae go well?’

  She looks like she’s sifting through his words and the tone of their delivery for hidden traps or unexploded ordnance.

  ‘I’ll maybe move on. I’ve been here quite a while now, anyway. It’s a nice city but there are others.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How long have ye been here?’ He is aware of her searching his face for any clues regarding his veracity. She is determinedly hiding something significant about her past. It is none of his business, but he still wants to know what it might be. His own past is so brutally and irrevocably fucked that probing someone else’s dysfunction is a convenient way of avoiding his own, albeit temporarily.

  ‘What are ye runnin’ away fae, Megan?’ He surprises himself with the directness of the question.

  She puts her legs down, and straight into her shoes, the last thirty minutes have been a soft-touch polygraph test that she has just failed on the final question. Flustered, she rustles her things together: a phone, a small mirror, a pair of glasses, a lipstick, an open pack of handkerchiefs all collected and thrown carelessly into her bag. He catches her by the wrist. She
instinctively stiffens but still holds his gaze, shocked not that he’s touched her but by something else. There is something about him; something different from others who’ve tried to get close these past five years.

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ she says softly.

  He releases his grip.

  ‘Ah’m sorry. Ah didnae mean tae grab…’ He sits back. ‘Look, ah recognise this. Ah don’t know whit it is, but yer boltin’ fae somethin’, or someone.’ He is aware that a Chinese couple at an adjacent table are looking at them, having stopped their own conversation when he grabbed her wrist. They will be analysing the human dynamic: Desperate father and disrespectful daughter? Inappropriate employer and angry employee? An affair between an older man and a younger woman that has just reached a conclusion? They won’t interfere, but externalised public displays of emotion are notable, even in the cosmopolitan cities.

  She glances at the Chinese couple with a look that indicates embarrassment but that they need not be concerned. The Chinese couple look away. If they have concluded anything from the potential options, their faces don’t betray it.

  He continues. ‘A few years back, a really close pal died an’ ah’ve been drifting ever since. The remorse was terrible, an’ even though ah couldn’t have prevented it, ah felt … ah still feel … responsible. Ah should’ve done more. Ah should’ve seen the signs. Ah should’ve listened when he wis tryin’ tae find a way tae communicate.’ He leans back in his seat. ‘Ah’m here in China supposed tae be tryin’ to write this stupid fucking book – a practice monograph – but mostly all ah’ve written about so far is sort of about him, an’ all the stuff leadin’ up to the end, in order to try an’ explain it all tae somebody else.’ He sips from the small glass of water that has come free with a preposterously expensive coffee. ‘Earlier on, just before ah bumped intae you comin’ out, ah wis on the phone tae my former partner. He’s retired an’ he lives in Barcelona. He told me that the firm – the one that we founded together over twenty years ago – had been sold tae an American company an’ that my current partners – devious bastards to a fucking man, by the way – have bought me out without my consent.’