Her room on the seventeenth floor was compact, but spotlessly clean, bright and modern. From her tiny balcony was one of the best views she’d ever seen in her life.
To her left, rows of gleaming white hotels towered over the beach almost reaching the water’s edge and behind them Diamond Head reached magnificently out towards the ocean as tufts of white clouds swirled around its extinct volcanic crater. Almost directly below her the red and white outrigger canoes with their multicoloured sails carved a graceful foaming path through the crystal-clear, blue waters. They easily rode the smooth, even swells breaking over the dark reefs not far from shore. The excited cries of the tourists riding inside were carried up to her balcony by the gentle sea breezes.
Surfboard riders and windsurfers looking like distant pockets of flowers in their vividly coloured board-shorts were scattered across the shimmering sapphire waters — some catching waves, others just lying, enjoying the radiant warm sunshine. Further out to sea yachts and power-boats surged across the waves just below the horizon. Andrea was absolutely enraptured for quite some time. She went inside to unpack her bag, but still feeling a little tired, decided to lie down on the bed for a while. In what seemed like seconds she drifted off into a deep, soothing sleep. It was almost five o’clock when she woke up.
The confusion of waking up in a strange room not knowing where she was startled her at first. Realising where she was she sat up on the edge of the bed and checked her watch. She remembered she had to meet the boys at six — better get a wriggle on.
She was still yawning and rubbing her eyes when she got under the shower but felt considerably better when she got out — a little hungry, too. Rather than have to search for a restaurant she decided to have something sent up to her room. God, my fifty dollars a day won’t go far, she thought, as she scanned the menu in her room; a steak sandwich at five dollars and a cup of coffee at $1.50 was the cheapest. After tipping the room waiter a quarter, which he looked at like it was a dead cockroach, she ate her meal standing in the cool breeze on her balcony. She changed into a loose-fitting blue dress with a small, white flower pattern. Time to meet the boys; not very Hawaiian, she thought, giving herself a quick check in the mirror on the way out.
Kalakau Avenue was just starting to come to life as she walked briskly towards the Reef Hotel. Fat gawking couples from the American mid-west wearing matching Hawaiian shirts and mumus; the men in ridiculous check shorts chomping on huge cigars, mingled with hordes of Japanese festooned with cameras and nametags. The way they bowed and smiled all the time reminded her of a lot of wind-up dolls. Andrea shook her head with amused bewilderment and walked into the lobby of the hotel and caught the lift to the top floor.
She stepped into a neatly furnished, intimate sort of a room with a bar at one end that faced a large balcony overlooking the ocean. It looked like the place was just starting to fill up. Biting delicately on a nail, she looked nervously around the room for John and Tommy, finally spotting them out on the balcony talking to two girls. Not wanting to go barging straight over she waited a little apprehensively till Tommy saw her and waved her over.
‘Hello, what have we got here?’ said John as she approached them. ‘A typical Australian tourist. Where’s your can of Fosters?’
‘Where’s all the Hawaiian gear?’ replied Andrea, noticing the boys were wearing button-down-collar shirts and dress jeans.
‘Turn it up,’ said Tommy, ‘we leave the Hawaiian shirts for the Yank tourists. They all love to get around looking like walking greenhouses.’
John introduced her to the two girls, Sharron and Jill, who were in the same flight crew. ‘Well, would you like a caarrktail?’ drawled John.
‘Yeah, better get the girl a caarrktail,’ mimicked Jill.
Andrea started to get some money out of her handbag. ‘That’s all right,’ said John, heading for the bar. He returned a couple of minutes later with a big, frothy, pink drink garnished with fruit.
‘What’s this?’ asked Andrea.
‘A strawberry daiquiri.’
‘It’s beautiful anyway,’ said Andrea, taking a sip. ‘Thank you.’
Three strawberry and two banana daiquiris and a mai-tai later Andrea was feeling quite good.
‘How are those caarrktails going?’ asked John.
‘Bloody bewdy mate,’ grinned Andrea, ‘better than Fosters.’
‘That’s the idea,’ said Sharron excitedly. ‘Bung on the old Aussie accent. The Yanks love it.’
‘Yeah, Hogespeak’s the go,’ said Tommy. ‘Plenty of “g’days” and “’owyer goins”. The seppos come in like Botany Bay mullets. You wait and see.’ He nodded at Jill and Sharron. ‘It’s got these two old tarts plenty of free feeds before today I can tell you.’ Jill clipped Tommy across the top of the head and they all burst out laughing.
They stayed drinking, laughing and watching the most gorgeous ocean sunset Andrea had ever seen. The sun didn’t seem to set; it was as though it just slowly dissolved into the sea in an indescribable array of spreading colours. Just before the bar closed Jill suggested they all go and get something to eat; John noticed the hesitant look on Andrea’s face and told her not to worry — it was on them; they had an allowance anyway.
They walked to a little Japanese-American restaurant in Kuhio Avenue where Andrea had a sensational terryaki steak. After a couple of bottles of good Californian wine they said they’d take her out to a few night-spots and show her how to get herself a rich Yank. John told her they couldn’t stay out too late as the crew were flying on to San Francisco at 8 a.m., which meant they had to be up fairly early looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But they’d show her the ropes and then cut her loose.
First stop was Bobbie McGee’s — a big bar set on a split level up from a dance floor full of flashing lights. They had two drinks there and moved on to Spatt’s in the Hyatt Regency. There wasn’t much happening there so they ambled over to Bullwinkle’s. It was only just firing but they stayed there long enough for a shout and for the girls to get their complimentary rose from the management.
‘Well Andrea, we’ve saved the best for last,’ said John. ‘Let’s go to Anabelle’s.’
‘Anabelle’s? Where’s that?’
‘On top of the Illakai. It used to be the the Top Of The Eye. Besides that’s where we’re staying and it’s right next door, more or less, to your place. Let’s go, team.’
‘Good idea,’ chorused the others.
Seeing as the crew were staying at the hotel the doorman let them into Anabelle’s for nothing, and when Andrea stepped through the foyer she could hardly believe her eyes. Three tiers of bars ran round a huge dance floor covered with pulsating lights over which hung an immense video screen surrounded by spinning mirror balls. Behind that an enormous glassedin balcony overlooked Waikiki Beach all the way up to Diamond Head. The music was raging and the place was packed but the service was good, and in no time at all an attractive waitress had brought their drinks.
They stood there talking for a few minutes with Andrea giving the clientele a thorough perusal — most of the men were very well-dressed and quite handsome. There was nothing wrong with the ladies either. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Jill yawn. John spoke.
‘I hate to put a dampener on things,’ he said, ‘but I think we’d better start to take it a bit easy.’
‘Yes. I’ll get the next shout and I think we might go, eh?’ said Sharron. ‘I’m as tired as buggery myself.’
By this time Andrea was starting to get a bit weary, too; all the ‘caarrktails’ and the huge meal were starting to take their toll. They finished their drinks and left.
‘Now don’t forget to ring me when you get back to Sydney, and let me know how you got on,’ said Jill as she gave Andrea her phone number in the foyer of the Illakai Hotel.
‘I will for sure. And thanks for everything tonight. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated it.’ They all threw their arms round Andrea as they said their goodbyes. When you make new fr
iends far from home it adds a whole new dimension to the word ‘friendship’. She stopped and waved to them as they disappeared into the lift, then turned and headed for the Hilton. She stopped at an all-night deli in the foyer to get a plastic bag of chopped pineapple, which she placed in the small fridge in her room. In five minutes she was dead to the world.
All the people in Andrea’s package tour were mustered in the foyer of the hotel like a herd of floral decorated sheep when she joined them in her T-shirt, jeans and sneakers at nine the following morning. A bus tour around Honolulu had been arranged, so Andrea had decided to go along — it was included in the trip and a way of seeing some of Hawaii on the cheap.
They boarded the air-conditioned bus and first stop was a museum of Hawaiian culture and history, which was nice but also boring. The Marine Park proved a little more interesting; the performing dolphins and the killer whale certainly livened things up a bit. Andrea decided to take some photos.
This was another thing she was going to promise herself one day she thought, as she took the little Canomatic out of her bag: a new camera — this one was just about buggered. It was all right when it worked and took crystal-clear pictures but it had an automatic rewind and something was wrong with the shutter mechanism, so every now and again the bloody thing would go off on its own giving Andrea beautiful pictures of absolutely nothing and wasting expensive film at the same time. She took several photos, wasting two in the process.
Next stop was Pearl Harbour and the Arizona War Memorial. As she stood on the concrete monument built over the old battleship, and the bell tolled to herald a recorded speech of what had happened on that fateful day in 1941, Andrea found it hard to believe that the bodies of the sailors who went down with the Arizona were actually still entombed beneath her. As she watched little slicks of oil still rising to the surface from the old ship she considered it one of the most moving experiences of her life.
On the way back to Honolulu Andrea got off the bus at Ala-Moana to visit the huge shopping centre and maybe buy some presents. She told the others she’d see them back at the hotel.
Ala-Moana shopping centre almost blew Andrea’s mind. Shop after fabulous little shop built up around two huge department stores were packed with casually dressed people taking advantage of a perfect day to do their shopping. How she would have liked to have hit the place with plenty of money. She shouted herself to two satay sticks and bought two T-shirts, one with ‘Elephant Grass’ on the front for her young brother and a ‘Life-guard Waikiki Beach’ for herself. The others in the family could wait till she saw how much money she had left at the end of the trip. She took some more photos, checking the film before she put the camera back in her bag; then left to return to the hotel.
She got back to the hotel around four, changed into her bikini and had a swim at the private beach, then lay around one of the pools soaking up the sun for a couple of hours. A little restaurant in the lobby sold reasonable food at the right price so she had a shrimp salad with Russian dressing, bread and coffee. She went to her room to lie down for a while — stopping at the deli to buy two cans of Olympia beer and two mini-bottles of Bacardi.
It was about nine when she woke up. She took her time having a shower and changing into a neat, white dress with a pattern of tiny, coloured butterflies and matching white shoes. She took one of the cans of Olympia out of the fridge, opened it, took a couple of mouthfuls then tipped one the mini-bottles of Bacardi into it. The price of drinks in Anabelle’s was pretty outrageous she thought as she stood on her balcony sipping on the can. This was one way of getting a bit of a cheap glow up before she left. The first can made her feel quite chirpy — the second one made her feel even better.
Annabelle’s was just as packed as the previous night when she got there and this time she had to pay to get in. She got a Scotch and dry at the bar then moved out among the crowd trying not to stay in the one place too long. Two more Scotches and an hour later no one had approached her or so much as even asked for a dance. I don’t wonder, she thought, looking at some of the younger girls getting around in their short skirts and tops showing an unimaginable amount of gravity-defying cleavage. Who’d want an old plain-jane like me? But Andrea looked nice all the same, but nice, not sexy,.
She was standing by the bar finishing her third Scotch, when a cocktail waitress tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a drink — a mai-tai.
‘Excuse me miss,’ said the waitress, ‘but the gentleman at the end of the bar sent you this.’
‘Oh. Thank you very much.’ She gave the waitress her empty glass, took a sip of the mai-tai and looked over towards the end of the bar to see a man in a light blue, floral shirt raise his drink and smile. Andrea smiled back. He made a polite gesture with his hand to the empty seat next to him, beckoning her to join him. Andrea shrugged her shoulders slightly and feeling a little self-conscious strolled over. What the hell.
‘I hope you don’t take me the wrong way,’ he said as Andrea approached him. ‘But I saw you standing there for a while, and I thought maybe you might like a drink. Most everybody seems to like mai-tais.’ He seemed to be a friendly-enough type with a strong, slow American accent and an open, not too flashy smile. His well-groomed, greyish hair and slightly overweight appearance suggested he might be somewhere in his late forties and behind a pair of black, steel-rimmed glasses he had interesting, dark-brown eyes.
‘No, that’s all right. Thanks very much, it was nice of you,’ replied Andrea with a coy smile.
‘That accent. Are you Australian?’
‘Yes. Can you tell that easy?’
‘Kind of. You here on vacation?’
‘Yes. Ten days, eight to go.’
‘So am I. Anyway why don’t you sit down and we’ll talk for a while?’ He got up and moved the empty bar stool next to him. Andrea sat down.
He introduced himself as Malcolm Andrews — Mal for short. He was an architect, single, lived in Missouri and was in Hawaii on his annual holiday with six days to go. Andrea found him to be quite charming and very polite, happy to buy her several expensive drinks while they sat chatting. On the dance floor he didn’t move around too badly either. Nothing wrong with Mal, thought Andrea — in fact a lot of Australian men she’d met could take a few lessons from Malcolm Andrews.
‘So what do you think of Anabelle’s, Angela?’ he asked as they took a breather from the dance floor. ‘Oh I’m sorry. It’s “Andrea”, isn’t it? Still, you look like a little Aussie angel to me. You don’t look anything near twenty-nine you know.’
Andrea blushed slightly but through the glow in her cheeks from the mai-tais it was scarcely noticeable. ‘It’s absolutely fabulous. I love it. I only wish I’d brought my camera. I’d love to get some photos. In fact I might even go back to my hotel and get it.’
‘I’ll walk you back if you like.’
‘That’s all right. It’s only about a block away.’
‘I don’t mind. Even if it is only a block, funny things can happen in Honolulu on Saturday night. I’ve seen it myself. I can wait down in the foyer for you.’
‘Okay.’ Andrea shrugged and picked up her handbag. ‘Thanks.’
On the way back to the hotel Malcolm couldn’t have been more gentlemanly or polite, opening doors for her, ushering her through the crowds and gently taking her arm when they crossed the busy street swarming with Saturday night traffic. So in the foyer of the hotel, when he uncomfortably asked her if it would be all right if he used her bathroom for a moment, Andrea thought it a reasonable enough request which would be a bit rude to refuse.
‘Honestly I won’t be a minute,’ he said, as he went to the bathroom in her small room and closed the door.
‘No worries,’ replied Andrea. She got the little camera out of her bag and checked to see if there was any film left. Eight shots. That should do, she thought, but I’ll take another roll just in case. She turned on the rest of the lights while she rummaged through her bag for the film, leaving the Canomatic still out
of its case on a small dressing table next to the bed.
She still had her back to the bathroom when she heard Mal come out. A second or two later her room radio went on abruptly and rather loudly. She thought this a bit odd and was about to turn around and say something when suddenly she felt a hand clamp savagely round her mouth and she was flung violently backwards on to the bed. Terror-stricken she looked up into Malcolm Andrews’s face. His glasses were gone and the face that had seemed so kind before had now turned to stone, and those interesting brown eyes now burned with an evil, lusting intensity that chilled her to the marrow.
With his hand clamped over her mouth half suffocating her Andrea tried futilely to scream with horror and disbelief that this terrible outrage was actually happening. But all that came from her was muffled squeals and a torrent of hot, salty tears.
As she felt her new white dress being ripped open she attempted to bite his hand, but a vicious slap across the ear stunned her and a cruel punch in the stomach knocked the wind out of her. With his forearm now in her mouth and her arms pinned beneath her Andrea felt her underwear being torn off. Though she struggled desperately with the little strength she had left, Malcolm Andrews was upon her like some panting, cursing, evil, filthy animal.
She clenched her eyes, sobbing. Her head swam and her face and stomach ached but that pain was nothing compared to the feeling of the brutal, sickening act she was being forced into.
Finally she felt him shudder over her and he stopped. While the whole sordid incident probably lasted no more than a few minutes, to Andrea it seemed like an eternity of pain and inhumane degradation. Then he savaged her again.
Andrea didn’t have the strength to scream or even move. She lay on her side clutching at her stomach when Andrews finally left her alone — all she could do was whimper pitifully. He’d turned the radio off now, and she could hear his now even breathing as he stood by the edge of the bed getting dressed.
The Real Thing Page 29