Foreign Affairs

by Jacqueline George

  “Of course, my dear,” said the Major. “Very serious, but justice has to be seen to be done. Besides, the television people did a very good job with you. You looked so professional. Didn't do so badly with us, although I wish you hadn't worn that striped blouse, Valerie. Maybe we ought to ask one of the television experts what to wear tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Priscilla could not believe it. “We won't be continuing into tomorrow, will we?”

  “We've been discussing that, Priscilla. Over lunch. We've decided the television coverage is very good for the Authority. People will see just how hard we work to protect them. So we'd like you to examine more of the book before we reach our decision. A couple of days more, I should think. Until the cameras get bored.”

  “And then you'll decide against the book?”

  “Oh, I should think so, wouldn't you? Given the content.”

  At this point, Susan Chippings cleared her throat. She had said nothing all morning. “About the story. Do you really think it is true?”

  The thought had troubled Priscilla as well. “I don't know. I mean, I don't know of any people who would behave like that.”

  “Don't you believe it, my girl,” said the Major with a laugh. “You'd be surprised what people get up to once their bedroom curtains are closed. I ought to know. I was in charge of covert surveillance when I was with the Ministry, you know. Used to bug all sorts of bedrooms. Be surprised what I saw and heard. There's naught so queer as folk.”

  Susan was still trying to get her point out. “It's the way he writes about it all. I mean, it's terribly, sort of, well, exciting, I suppose you'd say. I mean, perhaps people liked listening to it.”

  Valerie and Priscilla looked at her blankly for a moment, which made the Major shout with laughter and slap Susan's shoulder. “Well, Valerie and Priscilla certainly didn't get excited over it, did they? No danger of them getting hot and wet!”

  “Really, Major!” said Valerie disdainfully. “Sometimes you are just too coarse.”

  “Humph. Maybe you're right. Sorry about that. Come and watch what The News is going to say about it all.”

  The News had quite a lot to say. The proceedings were the major news item of the day, and Priscilla saw herself addressing the Board. Her dark suit made her look very professional; she was pleased with her appearance. They played nearly all of her initial address. The commentator did upset her by saying that she peered over her glasses at Trehearne with an expression that suggested she disembowelled live pigeons for relaxation.

  Then Trehearne himself came on. Heavily prodded by the reporter to say something dramatic, he only said that the book would speak for itself. Asked for his opinion of the Board, he sounded surprisingly mild. He called them well-meaning and fair people but perhaps a little isolated from the rest of the world. He was positively expansive about Priscilla. Such a sharp mind, he said, and such an attractive and sexy personality. She made him feel quite nervous about his chances of success. Priscilla returned to her office boiling with fury at the adjective ‘sexy’. How degrading!

  When she returned to the hearing room, she had to fight her way in. The number of television cameras had doubled. The Board's coffee table was completely covered with microphones. They had put up a microphone stand for her and another for Trehearne. Things were getting out of hand.

  She had taken time to review her strategy. Incredibly, Trehearne had not been damaged by the morning's revelations. Far from it. He seemed to be gathering popular support. She would give him enough rope to hang himself. The Board wanted a longer period in front of the cameras, and that suited her approach very well. By the end of it, she would bury Trehearne.

  The Board filed in, looking rather grander and more serious than normal. Priscilla was about to start the afternoon session when an interruption came from the back of the room.

  An alien figure pushed her way through the crowd. Obviously female, she wore black from head to toe. A gleaming, full-face, motorcycle crash helmet; skin-tight leather catsuit moulded an elegantly slim figure. She wore expensively tooled cowboy boots. All in immaculate black. She stood in front of the Board and took off her helmet. Long straw-blonde hair spilled over her shoulders. The audience gave a collective sigh as they realised just how perfectly beautiful she was. She spoke.

  “Chairperson, I have an urgent message from the Wandsworth Female Models’ Co-operative.” She passed over a brown envelope. Valerie took out a single sheet of paper and read it with a frown.

  She looked up as if surprised to see the messenger still waiting. “Thank you. You may leave now.”

  “No. I'm going to stay. I've got to report back for the others.” She turned and squeezed into the crowd.

  Valerie sounded nervous. “I suppose I had better read this. It's addressed to the Board from the Models’ Co-operative and says the following: Members of the Wandsworth Female Models’ Co-operative object strongly to comments made by the Investigator about models and their profession. They demand a full and public apology from the Investigator, or the Authority will be asked to take disciplinary action against her. Priscilla, do you want to say something?”

  It was an impossible situation. Better to apologise now in front of the cameras and hope that everyone had forgotten about it by the end of the day. “Certainly, Chairperson. I must apologise for my ill-judged and totally inaccurate comments about a group of hard-working and professional women. I will be more careful in the future.

  “Now, Chairperson, I suggest that we have had enough time to discuss the first story in the book, and that we ought to move on. I would like to pass over the second story as it does not seem to raise issues of gender, and go on to the third.”

  Trehearne stood up. Got you, she thought triumphantly. Let's see how your audience likes this one.

  Trehearne addressed the Board. “Chairperson, the stories in this book are carefully written and are part of a whole. I don't see why the Investigator should be allowed to flick through the book looking for parts that she finds—er—intriguing. It would be useful to the Board to hear the other parts also.”

  Priscilla leapt in. “While the Board is deciding that point, I would like to ask Trehearne a couple of questions. First, have you ever worked on an oil-rig in the Java Sea?”

  “Yes. I—”

  “Yes will be enough, thank you, Trehearne. And did you meet anyone there with the same sexual preference as the laundry worker who features in the second story? That is yes? Good. In that case, I have no objection to moving on to the second story.” At a nod from Valerie, she telephoned to have the tape started.

  The Laundry Boy's Secret

  Tim was shaken to his core. Strange things were meant to happen at sea, and the oil-well tender lay far enough off-shore to qualify, but what confronted him at the ship's rail made his sense of reality flip.

  An oil-rig is an uncompromisingly male environment. It is not that women could not do many of the jobs; it is just that few of them would want to. And if that is true in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, how much truer in the Third World? In Indonesia a few female logging engineers, mostly Westerners, had special permission to work off-shore, but they made only brief visits. Their time aboard was fully occupied with the jobs they had to do, and once they had finished they flew out on the next helicopter. They certainly had no time to lounge about and socialise.

  So when he stepped out on deck to spend a quiet half hour watching the warm Java Sea lap up and down at his feet, the last thing Tim expected to see was an elegant woman in a red filmy dress. Slight, oriental, as beautiful as a dream. She sat on a bollard, eyes closed and head thrown back, enjoying the soft breeze on her face. A matching chiffon scarf fluttered at her neck, and her shoulder-length hair hung behind her. Her stillness added to the sense of unreality. Tim looked around. They were alone.

  Suddenly, she became aware of him, slowly opened her eyes and turned towards him. “Ah, Mr. Tim,” she purred.

  “Dammit, Joan! You scared the life out of me!
You look too real.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tim. You're very nice to me. Come closer and I can be nice to you as well.”

  “Doesn't anybody mind you dressing like that?”

  “Oh, no. Nobody minds after work. Some of them like me very much. Do you like me?” Her voice sounded dreamy. It was just as well that these rigs worked only a two-week rotation. If Tim had been stuck out here for a month or more, as happened in some of the more remote spots, he would be in grave danger of accepting the laundry boy's invitation and finding out exactly what she had hidden under that red dress.

  Transsexuals were an accepted part of the local scene. Every rig seemed to have a couple, mostly working in appropriate jobs like catering or room cleaning. Some of them looked remarkably pretty. Many Indonesian men were slim and lightly-built, easily dressed in women's clothing. During working hours, they behaved like the rest of the crew and used little make-up. Afterwards, they might dress up a little, or wear tight tee-shirts to display their juvenile breasts.

  How did they do that, he wondered, grow breasts? The results looked real enough and moved around just as they should. Did they simply go to the doctor and ask for hormones to turn themselves into women? And then when their figures had changed enough, when their curves had softened and breasts started to grow, what then? What happened to their male part? Did it still work? Did it stand up when they got excited? Could they father children? Imagine picking up one of the pretty young things who chased foreigners in Jakarta, taking her home and then finding that her panties contained more than you had expected. How embarrassing! Tim shuddered at the thought.

  He wanted to ask Joan if she’d had the operation, or if she was saving up for it. It must be a fairly major undertaking, turning a prominence into a pocket. He had heard that surgeons were able to retain the nerve endings and that the new woman could enjoy a wide range of sensations. He looked back at Joan, wondering just what she had hidden under her dress.

  “We meet again on-shore, Mr. Tim, and you can take me to a nice restaurant.”

  Tim laughed at the thought. “I don't think so, Joan. You'll just have to wait your turn along with all the other girls.” It was true. Jakarta was bachelor heaven.

  “Other girls!” snorted Joan. “What do they know? You come with me, Mr. Tim, and I give you very good time. I know how you like.”

  Tim was still chuckling inwardly as he left the deck. If all billy-boys were like Joan, they definitely had a place off-shore, if only because they reminded you of what you were missing.

  He went on shift at midnight. The wind had begun to pick up, and a short sea coming in on the beam was making the tender roll. The movement made his passage along the widow-maker erratic, and he had to grip the rail tightly. The step from the floating tender to the fixed production platform frightened everyone at first, even in normal seas, and when the sea became as boisterous as now, even old hands hesitated. To cross meant standing on the cat walk like a man on a diving board. Between his feet, Tim could see the waves far below. In front of him, reaching towards him from the fixed platform, was the other half of the catwalk. The tender was held in position by eight powerful winches leading thick steel cables out to heavy anchors. These just maintained the tender in position. They could not completely restrain its rolling and pitching. As a result, the catwalk ahead seemed to move rapidly across his field of vision. Up and down, side to side, never still for more than the smallest heartbeat.

  To reach the platform where the derrick was erected and the actual work was taking place, he had only to step over a small gap when the two halves of the catwalk were approximately aligned. Step over and hang on to the safety rail because if he looked back over his shoulder, the place he had just left could be anywhere. It was not called the widow-maker in jest.

  Tim's laboratory was a portable cabin. Metres from his door, the heavy machinery of the rig-floor thundered on its repetitive tasks, men taking an intimate place in the machinery, dancing in an exacting choreography between moving steel, surviving by knowing exactly where and how flesh and bone were permitted to exist in this alien world.

  Inside the laboratory, Tim’s work-space was quiet and air-conditioned. The computers needed protection from the moist sea air and the fertile warmth. He had a comfortable desk, nice lights, a rolling office chair, a coffee maker always on. While the rig was drilling, he had a steady flow of work taking samples, monitoring the sensors and making out reports. Tim's main responsibility was to monitor exactly what was happening at the bottom of the hole at any time, and what rocks they were drilling through. His computers continually checked progress and warned of potential dangers.

  If the rig was not drilling, perhaps tripping out to change the drill bit or running casing before cementing, he had little work to do. Just sit in his office and get on with paperwork or maintenance. When those were completed, he had his books and magazines, or coffee to drink with visitors to his little kingdom.

  He quickly scanned the instruments on entering. His relief was a good man and rarely left him problems to deal with. Everything looked normal, and he went to his desk to flick through the reports for the last twelve hours; nothing much there. He had better get out and sample the cuttings in an hour or two, but for the moment he could relax. He reached for his book and leaned back in his chair. He was half-way through a crime thriller from New York. The wind outside had picked up further and begun to whistle through the derrick.

  Somehow, the New York Police Department did not absorb him that night, and he found his attention wandering from the page. He would have a break in a couple of days, and he thought of what he might do in Jakarta and who he might do it with. Presently he gave up the struggle to read and laid the book face down on the desk.

  He had never lived in a place like Indonesia before. It was almost impossible not to behave like an irresponsible wastrel. Indonesia had a benign climate and enticing towns and countryside. In Jakarta the booze was dirt cheap, and the restaurants served all imaginable cuisines. He could catch free live music in all the major hotels and, above all, there were hordes and hordes of beautiful, beautiful girls who seemed to like rich young foreigners at least as much as he liked them.

  Paradise. At home, he might struggle tongue-tied and embarrassed to pick up a girlfriend. Here he did nothing. They picked him up. True, the line between amateur and professional could sometimes be very blurred, but who cared? Even the hardened street walkers managed to make him feel they did it for fun. And the other girls, who claimed to be secretaries or students, were happy to take something for the taxi fare home, as they put it. It all cost little enough anyway and brought a delightful sense of freedom from obligation.

  And on top of it all, the girls were both beautiful and accomplished. Naturally delicate features, deep black eyes, hair a Western girl would murder for. Honey brown bodies that fitted just nicely under your arm, light as a feather when they fell asleep half on top of you. There must be classes in lovemaking in Indonesian schools because they matched their enthusiasm with a surprising expertise at making a lover feel good. Tim drifted towards sleep with a pleasant hardness filling his shorts.

  The night-time streets welcomed him as he stepped out of the restaurant with a girl on his arm. They would walk back to his apartment; it was not far. He put his arm around the girl's shoulders and drew her to him. She smiled and pressed close as he shortened his stride to match hers. In a few minutes, they would be in bed and she would be climbing over him to give a long, relaxing massage. The apartment was only a couple of blocks away. They turned the corner into an unfamiliar street and walked on.

  Another corner, and another unfamiliar street. Where was the apartment? Tim felt an unreasoning panic wash over him. He had to get to the apartment soon, or maybe the girl would leave. She hugged closer to him in reassurance. They left the street lights behind. Shielded by the darkness, she ran her hand down the front of his coveralls and gripped him hard. “Oh, Mr. Tim! You are ready for me. Do you like me, Mr. Tim?”

/>   Something in the tone of her voice disturbed him. He tried to look at her face, but her head was bent as she looked down to where she was crushing him in her hand. Her grip tightened painfully. As he watched, a delicate hand came up and brushed her wavy hair back behind her ear. Joan! It was Joan! She started to drop to her knees in front of him.

  With a rush, he came awake. Good grief! It was just as well that he would be onshore soon. Dreaming about the laundry boy!

  The noise of the wind seemed to have risen a few notes, and the cabin vibrated gently. He checked his watch. He had been asleep for three hours, and now he would be late taking his samples. He struggled out of his chair and stepped outside, wishing he had remembered to bring his waterproof from his cabin. The drill-floor was unusually quiet as he ran through the rain to the dog-house.

  He went through the door with a rush and found Chuck, the driller, stretched out on the bench.

  “Hey, man. What you doing here?” Chuck was a Texan.

  “Uh—how do you mean?”

  “Didn't nobody tell you? We're shut down. We just hung her off and closed the rams. Sent most the crew down. Just me an' a coupla rough-necks baby-sitting her. You'd better hurry, man, if you want to get back. They're fixing to pull back the tender if it gets any worse. They sent me up sandwiches and a flask of coffee and told me to get comfortable.”

  Sonofabitch! Why had no one thought to pick up the intercom and let him know? “What's the widow-maker like?”

  “She's OK. I just checked 'bout ten minutes ago, and she's about lined up. You just be real careful, 'cos there ain't nobody gonna bother with you if you fall off in this.”

  Well, if they were not drilling, there was nothing he could usefully do up here. If they pulled the tender back from the platform, he would be cut off; no food, no bed, no shower. He decided to go back and ran down to the widow-maker.

  The sea had got a lot worse while he slept. He stood watching the heavy bow of the tender opposite buck and heave. The wind whipped through the gap, mixing sea-spray and rain. The two parts of the widow-maker flew past each other like some crazy fairground ride. Soaked through, he stood gripping the railing and waited for the moment to step over. Christ! It was going to be difficult.