Chasing Chris Campbell

by Genevieve Gannon

  I leaned my head against the cold glass of the mirror. My stomach groaned, irritated by the toxic porridge of curry, chocolate, alcohol and weed. I dug in my bag for my case of pills. I took two anti-nausea tablets, two Imodiums, a cold and flu pill – because it promised to help me sleep – and a Panadol. I washed it all down with a rehydrating tablet dissolved in the last of my bottled water. It fizzed inside me. My stomach expanded with the gas. I burped, then doubled over the toilet and ejected the wet mess into the bowl.

  I flopped back onto my pillow. I missed my sister, and wondered, in my weakened state, whether she could sense something was wrong.

  I alternated between shivering and sweating; throwing the blankets away from my body, then greedily clamouring for them minutes later. In the dead of night I went to my bag and pulled out extra pants and socks and a beanie. Minutes later I was tearing them off again and throwing the beanie across the room. My teeth chattered. I felt delirious. I moaned, and made wobbly dashes to the bathroom.

  Somehow, I made it through the night.

  When I woke, my pillow was wet with drool. A dry white, tell-tale trail marked its origin at my mouth. I looked for Sarah. Her bed was empty and neatly made.

  My phone was sitting on my bedside table. There was a message from Cass.

  How’s it going? I haven’t heard from you in a while.

  I found him, but now I’m sick! I texted back. After that exertion, my arm fell back to the mattress like a stone.

  I heard the doorknob jiggle. I could hear men’s voices. I wiped furiously at my face. I sat up and straightened my singlet. I tried to tuck my hair behind my ear but it had taken on the properties of an industrial spring and refused to sit flat.

  Chris and Noah entered with a bottle of water for me, and a roll of loo paper. I cringed when I saw the toilet paper in Chris’s hand.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Chris’s face was creased with concern. They both looked hungover. A man in a brown cardigan carrying a leather bag followed them inside.

  ‘This is Dr Adhikari,’ said Chris.

  The man nodded hello and began to ask questions. I looked out the window so I wouldn’t have to meet Chris’s gaze.

  ‘I think that you have dysentery,’ the doctor said after examining me.

  ‘Guess you’ll be laid up here for a while,’ Noah gave a sympathetic grimace.

  ‘What? No –’ I started to protest.

  ‘Hey, trust me,’ Chris said, sitting by my side, ‘you don’t want to travel with this. I got it the day after I landed in Goa, ended up in a hospital for eight days. Woke up with this,’ he said tugging at his beard. ‘And a nurse kissing me on the lips.’

  I wanted to cry. My head was still thumping and I was freezing despite the sunlight outside.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Chris went on. ‘I’ll stay here and keep you company.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘’Course. Thanks for giving me an excuse to spend a few extra days in the mountains.’

  In my head, trumpets blared a song of praise to Chris.

  ‘Christopher,’ Noah interrupted the symphony. ‘We booked on a flight back to Hong Kong tomorrow morning. Don’t you have a new contract starting?’

  Chris shrugged. ‘So, something came up.’

  ‘No –’ My voice was hoarse. ‘You’ve got to be in Hong Kong. I’ll be fine in a couple of days. I just need rest.’

  Noah nodded. ‘Sleep. Water.’

  ‘But you’re sick.’ Chris kissed the top of my forehead.

  ‘Exactly. You should keep away.’

  ‘I’ll risk it.’

  Noah frowned.

  ‘I can stay,’ Sarah chirped.

  ‘No,’ Chris and I protested together.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t have to be back at work for another week.’

  I sniffed. I felt like a burden, but I didn’t want to be left alone. ‘None of you should have to stay. I feel really bad …’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Noah.

  ‘I’ll call the company,’ Chris said. ‘I’ll ask them if I can start next week.’

  I shook my head. ‘You have to go,’ I choked. ‘Really. I’d hate you to lose a job over this.’

  ‘We’ll be fine here.’ Sarah nodded confidently.

  Chris dug his hands into his pockets. ‘As long as you’re sure.’

  ‘I am,’ I said, but I was crying inside.

  ‘Okay,’ He leaned down and gave me a quick hug, as did Noah. ‘I hope you shake this quickly.’

  I nodded, determined.

  Chris blew me a kiss from the door then disappeared. I let my head fall back against the pillow and squeezed my eyes shut.

  He was gone again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took a week for the illness to clear. After seven days of delirium and endless dreams, I woke one morning beneath clouds of my own breath and felt okay.

  ‘She lives,’ said Sarah. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Better.’

  Sarah was a saint. All week she diverted my attention by reading long, colourful passages from The Crossing of Callan von Coure – a filthy and very badly written book she’d bought at Bangkok airport. Callan was a poor but honourable servant who wanted to get back to the land of his birth. But he was forever passing through towns with female sentry guards, or kingdoms presided over by princesses, whose favour had to be won if he were to proceed to the next town, where he would inevitably find a female landlord.

  Sarah read aloud how he vanquished the guards with his a thrust of his meat javelin. He conquered their Venus mounds with his throbbing sceptre, and pierced their defences with his engorged manhood, his quivering member, or his noble blade, to make his way across the giant mythical land of Gelderlee. We cackled as she repeated the juiciest parts.

  ‘He unsheathed his pleasure probe,’ Sarah read slowly.

  ‘He plundered her garden of fruit.’

  ‘He lapped up love’s sweet nectar.’

  ‘Stop it, stop it!’ I laughed. ‘My stomach.’

  At the end of the week, Sarah had to fly back to Jakarta. I thanked her and hugged her, and on the eighth day I woke alone. Her well-thumbed copy of The Crossing of Callan von Coure was sitting on my bedside table with a note.

  Hope to see you again soon. Keep in touch! Sarah.a.hutchins@yahoo.com. Xx

  My phone was full of messages from Cass.

  Why aren’t you writing back? What’s happened?

  I tapped out an answer: I’ve been so sick! I’m okay now. But, I do think some news would ease my suffering.

  I wobbled up the path to the homestead. Now that the revellers had gone, I saw it was a grand old building with an open fireplace. There was a wooden swing-seat outside that faced the valley. I took a seat and sucked in the cool air. A waiter brought me a cup of chai tea smelling of milk and spices that I felt sure would do me good.

  I wasn’t quite ready to face the organisation that would be required to return to Kathmandu, so instead I started writing in my travel diary:

  Day 22: Nagarkot, Nepal. Illness appears to have gone. Views are amazing. Chris has gone but I’m still glad I came.

  I tried to sketch the rice fields cut into the mountains but my drawing ended up looking like a stack of dinner plates.

  Cass wrote back to me:

  Ok, news. Last night Adnan took me to a Middle Eastern poetry night. He’s glorious.

  I smiled. Inside they were serving curry. I had been fantasising about lettuce again. Harry would have teased me, I thought. Or perhaps, he would have conjured up a clandestine cafe where they had a supply of black market salad. I had to settle for plain rice and another cup of chai.

  I munched the rice, contemplating my next move. Chris was gone again. The closest person I knew was hundreds of kilometres away. There wasn’t even a computer I could use to write to Cass. I pulled out my mobile phone. There was a very weak signal.

  In Himalayan foothills. I typed. What else is going on in Melbourne?

 
; I stared at the screen waiting for a reply, but none came. I missed Cass desperately. The illness had worn down my pride. I decided when I returned to Kathmandu I would look for flights home. A tear ran down my cheek. I didn’t like to give up, but it was getting too hard.

  The plateau the resort was built on presided over a sheer drop of about thirty metres. On its lip in front of me, a couple were sitting side by side on a stone bench, looking out over the valley. Soon they wandered back up towards the homestead.

  ‘Well, hello there,’ the woman said in a broad, mid-western American accent. ‘You must be the young Australian girl.’ She had a silvery blonde bob and was wearing high-waisted jeans.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You’re famous around here. They had a doctor up twice. Almost took you down to the hospital, except you refused to go.’

  I didn’t remember any of this.

  ‘I’m Lauren Albright, and this here is my husband, Kevin.’

  Her husband wore matching high-waisted jeans.

  ‘You want a ride back down?’ Kevin asked. ‘From what I hear of the bus, it’s not something you should experience with a delicate stomach.’ He unleashed a claggy smoker’s laugh.

  ‘A lift would be great.’

  Their van was an old Kombi painted with swirling mythical creatures – a wizard, a Valkyrie and a giant, emerald-eyed serpent. Halfway down the mountain we stopped at a viewing deck and perched on a stone bench to prepare lunch. Kevin was peeling an orange with a pen knife.

  ‘So you got a boyfriend, honey?’ he asked as he peeled. I looked to Lauren to leap to my defence by telling her husband not to pry. But she didn’t. She just stared at me and awaited my answer.

  ‘There was a boy up in Nagarkot. That’s why I was there, but … he left. I’m thinking it’s time to go home.’

  ‘So you’re giving up?’ Kevin handed me an orange segment.

  I shrugged.

  ‘Do you know how many times I had to chase her and chase her and chase her?’ he asked, nodding at his wife.

  ‘Oh honey, it’s different. She’s a girl. A girl doesn’t like to go chasing after men.’

  ‘If he’s the right one she should.’ Kevin pointed his pen knife to make his point.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Lauren said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  ‘What don’t I understand? The way I see it, women can vote, women can work, women can chase.’

  ‘My husband’s a bit of a romantic,’ Lauren said. ‘When we were younger he couldn’t understand why I wanted to build a career first. He thinks love is the highest calling.’

  ‘Works for me, though.’ He leaned over and kissed his wife.

  Hours later the Albrights dropped me at a hotel Lauren recommended. She hugged me goodbye, and handed me a piece of paper with their address and contact number in Bangalore, just in case.

  I thanked them again and said goodbye. I was able to easily get a room so I dropped my bag off and went for a stroll up the main strip of Kathmandu.

  I climbed up to the top of a four-storey restaurant that boasted it was the highest in Kathmandu Valley, and therefore the highest in the world. I was panting from the first step. The illness had sapped my energy. The wooden stairwell opened onto a rooftop dining area surrounded by the peaks of the Himalayas. They formed a complete ring around the valley, like the points of a crystal crown. The sight took my breath away. I picked up the menu and, remembering Harry’s advice, ordered some plain naan bread. They even served milkshakes. I ordered one of those too. Strawberry. In his honour.

  As I drank, I thought about what Kevin Albright had said. My phone shuddered with the arrival of a message. It was Chris.

  Hope you feel better Vy. Sorry for abandoning you. I feel so bad about it. I’ll make it up to you. Xx.

  I smiled.

  My return ticket was booked to Hong Kong but I had mentally committed to changing it so I could go home to Melbourne. I reread Chris’s message. He was expecting to see me. Maybe I shouldn’t give up.

  I opened the panorama app on my phone and snapped a shot of the mountains.

  I’m on top of the world, I typed. I thought about sending it to Chris but something stopped me. I scrolled past his name and instead sent it to Harry. Then I copied the photo and sent it to Kym. It would be nice to see Kym again, too. She was still in Hong Kong. As was a job with Glaxo Smith-Kline, potentially.

  After lunch I checked my mail. There was a note from Mum saying she was hoping I was keeping hydrated in the Asian heat.

  ‘You should go and visit Ken Li,’ she urged, referring to a business partner of Dad’s who had invited me to dinner. I felt a stab of guilt. Mum still thought I was in Hong Kong.

  There was an email from Cass:

  Congratulations! You’re past the three week mark. How are you feeling? Are you making friends?

  And another email, this time from Tessa in Hong Kong:

  We need qualified researchers to work on a short term project. Would you be interested? They’re just casual shifts but it’s good $$.

  And finally an email from Chris. Despite the disappointing turn of events over the past few weeks, the sight of his name still made my pulse race.

  Vy!!

  How are you, you poor thing? I’ve gone home to Oz for a few days but I’ll be back in HK next Sunday. X

  I frowned, disappointed. I was jealous of Chris being in Melbourne, and jealous of the Melburnians who got to be near him. But at the thought of my old haunts, memories of Michael came rushing in too. A few lines down on my Inbox I could see his email sitting there, read but not answered. My stomach cramped with guilt and anxiety. I realised Melbourne was not an option right now. However, Hong Kong was.

  I wrote back a simple one-liner to Chris: Yup. See you in HK.

  Then I replied to Tessa: Glaxo would be great. I’ll send you my resume.

  I sat back and waited for the emails to send. One month, I decided. I’d give Hong Kong one month to try and make things work.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The door opened a crack and a small Chinese girl peered out at me. I could smell the musty scent that settles into a dwelling when it’s not aired out. This mixed with the heady fragrance of pan-Asian cooking: curry powder, fish sauce, chilli, coriander, garlic.

  ‘Violet?’ the girl said in a small voice.

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled my best please-rent-me-a-room smile and stuck out my hand.

  She took my finger-tips gingerly in hers and shook them.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, opening the door to reveal a gloomy space.

  I squinted, adjusting to the thin light. By the door was a huge pile of shoes. Inside, a willowy twenty-something with long black hair sat on a couch, leaning over a textbook with a pen in her hand.

  ‘This is Helen,’ said my host. The girl looked up and examined me.

  ‘And you must be Gloria,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, come through.’

  We filed passed shoe mountain to a kitchenette the size of a broom cupboard. It had only two gas burners and a mini fridge. Bottles of sauces and spices covered most of the food preparation area. Each was marked with a white label: Helen’s, Gloria’s, Anne’s.

  ‘There are three of you living here at the moment?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Gloria opened a cupboard to reveal one-quarter was bare. ‘Room for one more’.

  Gloria opened the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen to show that each girl had her own shelf. A plate, a bowl, a cup, a saucepan. Cooking provisions for one. All the while she peppered me with questions: Did I smoke? Did I play loud music? Did I go out late?

  I followed her through the nominal lounge room, then down a hallway filled with boxes to the bedrooms. The first was cramped. Two single beds stood side by side, separated by a dressing table with four drawers. Like everything else in the house, they were labelled: the top two, Helen’s, the bottom two, Gloria’s. The beds were made immaculately. One bore faded white blossoms, the other blue patterns that
implied seashells.

  ‘You share rooms?’ I asked.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Gloria nodded, opening the door to a second bedroom. ‘And this would be your room,’ she said.

  It was identical to the last one.

  ‘And one bathroom.’ She walked the two steps required to cross the room, to a door which opened to reveal a steamy, white ensuite.

  ‘The rent is very cheap,’ Gloria said. ‘You said you worked in scientific research?’

  ‘Um, kind of.’

  I already knew I didn’t want this place. I had two more rooms to visit, but I had a feeling that for the price I was willing to pay I’d be seeing more of the same. The apartment I’d visited that morning had been offering not a bedroom, but a bed in the lounge room, cordoned off from the main area by a curtain. A tall wardrobe formed one solid ‘wall’.

  ‘We have a few more people coming through, I’ll call you at the end of the day to let you know our decision,’ Gloria said.

  ‘Thanks for your time.’ I shook her hand again and made a hasty exit. Instead of visiting the next two places on my list I retreated to a Delifrance where I ordered a coffee. As an afterthought I added a croissant to my order so I would have a paper bag to hyperventilate into.

  Chris lived in a part of the city called the Mid-Levels – a series of identical high-rise buildings connected by futuristic outdoor escalators. They were divided into the central, east, and west areas. I had been searching just outside the Mid-Levels because the expat village was incredibly expensive. But I realised I might have to adjust my expectations.

  I went to an internet cafe, found a website full of expat roommate ads, and increased the amount of rent I was willing to pay by fifty dollars a week.

  Something came up right in the heart of the Mid-Levels:

  Female flatmate wanted, 25-35 years.

  Excitedly I clicked on it:

  Spiritual young witch wanted to join our coven.

  No. I scrolled through more ads in vain. They were either too expensive or too prescriptive (must have own foot loofah?!).