Tikki’s laugh tinkled through the room again. ‘No way. You see the houses next door when you drove up?’
He remembered the line of shacks he had passed. ‘Yes.’
‘We lived in house on the end.’
‘How many of you?’
‘I live with my mother and father. They still there. With my sister and her husband and with my husband.’
‘So, how many children were there when Doris was little?’
‘Doris had two sisters and two brothers. And my sister, she had three more. There were many people in that house. No bathroom, no running water. Difficult, difficult times.’
‘Who made the money?’
‘My father. He worked in the village, cleaning up in the shop. My husband and my brother-in-law, they travel to the cities to do construction work. They were always away. Whenever they come back, boom one of us got pregnant again.’ She laughed uproariously at the idea.
‘So, who earned the money for this?’ He gestured around the sparkling little room.
‘I did.’ She banged her chest proudly. ‘Tikki went to work and made the money to buy everything. My husband and my brother-in-law built it.’
‘Where is your husband now?’
‘He is away, working in Saudi Arabia.’
‘How did you earn the money?’
‘I went to see Lord Jeremy Pevensey. He helped me so much. He paid for me to have an operation so poof no more babies.’ She patted her stomach affectionately. ‘Then I worked as masseuse at the Golden Heaven. I was very good masseuse. Made very happy customers and received many tips.’ She smiled proudly.
‘Who looked after your children while you were in Manila?’
‘My mother. She is a very good woman. Very hard-working. She wanted her daughters and her granddaughters to be a big success and she looks after the children so we can have big-time careers.’
‘How did Doris get into the business?’
‘Jeremy very nice man. He always talked to me like I was his friend when I gave him massage and I told him about my children. He said I should bring the girls to meet him and he would make sure they had big-time careers like Tikki.’ She laughed happily. ‘I was so proud of them.’
‘How old were they when you took them to meet him?’ Joe asked, remembering the photograph of the laughing girls which Doris had had in her room.
Tikki wrinkled her brow, trying to work it out. ‘I think they were fifteen, fourteen and thirteen. They were very pretty girls. And very polite. And very hard-working. Their grandmother, she brought them up so well, so strict, in the old-fashioned days. You know what I mean? Here, look,’ she said as she went into the bedroom and re-emerged with a photograph in an ornate frame. It was a picture of a group of girls in what looked like dancing outfits. They were all waving and laughing at the camera. It was the same group of girls as the photograph he had seen in Doris’ Brighton bedroom, but must have been taken a year or two later. They were all wearing make-up and posing in a childish mockery of provocativeness.
‘These are all our girls,’ Tikki explained. ‘That is the Doris that you know in England.’ Joe looked closely and could see that it was, although she had matured and grown thinner since the photograph was taken. ‘The others are her sisters and her cousins. Lord Jeremy called us all Doris because he couldn’t remember all our names.’ Tikki laughed and Joe forced himself to smile.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Mercedes limousine arrived at the hotel for Joe at exactly the time Pevensey had predicted. The driver, who introduced himself as Fred, was a respectful but jolly man in short sleeves and sandals. As he held up an umbrella and ushered Joe into the back seat of the car, he pointed out the bar and suggested Joe should help himself to a drink on the way.
‘Is it far?’ Joe asked.
‘Sometimes there are traffic jams,’ Fred said cheerfully, before closing the door and leaving Joe cocooned in quiet luxury, able to watch the street life passing by the darkened windows, knowing he was invisible to the people he was spying on.
The building that housed Golden Heaven was not as smart as the people working there. A doorman in a uniform which would not have looked out of place outside a five-star London hotel came to open the door and usher Joe out. He led him across the pavement under another umbrella and through a rather ordinary-looking glass shop door covered in credit card stickers and hurriedly written notices about opening and closing times.
It was like walking into a public aquarium, except the illuminated tanks on either side of the heavily carpeted, unlit reception area were filled with girls rather than fish. The doorman introduced Joe to a young woman dressed in a uniform that suggested she would be more suited to selling airline tickets or hiring out cars than organising a massage parlour. The doorman explained that Joe was a friend of Lord Pevensey’s. The lady bowed her head with due respect and led him gently around the displays.
‘Please take your time deciding. If you would like a drink while you are making up your mind, please let me know and I will be pleased to serve you. All our girls are fully trained masseuses and will be happy to satisfy all your requirements. Please take your time choosing.’
She backed away, smiling and bowing discreetly. Joe joined the other furtive-looking men as they ogled the women behind the glass, trying to make what seemed impossible choices. The younger, and presumably more popular, girls were working hard to be chosen, pouting, waving and flirting with their unseen admirers on the dark side of the glass. One or two of the older ones were sitting down, busying themselves with their reading or sewing, or just gossiping with one another as they waited for some regular customer to ask for them. They all had numbers pinned to them.
Joe picked a girl who seemed to be brimming with self-confidence. He wanted someone who was likely to talk and be indiscreet. This must have been a stage that all the Dorises had been through and he needed to find out as much about it as possible.
He beckoned over the lady in the uniform. ‘Number seventeen,’ he said.
The lady smiled sweetly, as if to say that he had made a wise choice, and spoke into a microphone. There must have been a loudspeaker on the other side of the glass because the girl he had selected gave a little jump of excitement at being chosen and hurried out of a door at the back of the aquarium. Joe’s guide took him to another door and showed him through. The girl of his choice was waiting for him with her eyes demurely downcast, a sweet smile and dimpled cheeks. Her hair reached down below her waist.
She led him up a flight of stairs, collecting a pile of clean towels from a laundry woman who sat behind a hatch at the end of the corridor.
‘Welcome to Golden Heaven,’ the girl said, reciting her much-rehearsed speech as they approached the door of the room they had been allocated. ‘My name is Doris and I hope that you will enjoy yourself here today.’
She ushered him into the room, which was laid out very like the one Rod had taken him to in London, complete with a bathtub and a bed. She started to run the bath and helped him to undress, her fingers unselfconsciously brushing against his skin as she peeled the clothes away. He kept asking questions, which she answered like a pre-recorded tape.
‘How long have you been working here?’ he asked as her fingers grazed against his hips.
‘Only a few months.’ She slid his trousers down, kneeling gracefully to lift them over his feet.
‘Where did you come from before?’
She named a village as she folded his clothes neatly onto a stool, but he didn’t catch it.
‘So, who brought you here?’ he asked, trying to ignore the fact that he was now standing naked and aroused in the middle of the room as the water continued to tumble into the bathtub.
‘I was looking for work and a friend introduced me to Golden Heaven.’ She tested the temperature of the water.
‘Do you enjoy it?’
‘Oh yes. It is very interesting work. I meet many interesting people. Lots of handsome men like you.’ She giggled and pulled h
er T-shirt off over her head. She noticed him looking at her small, perfect breasts. ‘You like my tits?’ she asked, caressing them teasingly. ‘They are only little. Tomorrow I have an operation to give me beautiful, big, new breasts. If you come back next week I will look different. Would you like that?’
‘Why do you want to make them bigger?’ Joe asked. ‘They look beautiful now, to me.’
She laughed, as if he was just being kind with his words, as if she knew that all men secretly liked big breasts.
‘I have been offered to go to London for a trip. I want to go very much, but European men like big breasts. Isn’t that right?’ She indicated he should get into the bath.
‘Some of them,’ he said, guardedly, as he lowered himself into the hot water. She took her skirt off. She was wearing nothing underneath. ‘What are you going to be doing in London?’
‘I am going to see the Queen and all the sights,’ she said, her eyes sparkling.
‘I meant for work.’
‘There are many good jobs in England for a hard-working girl like me. I will earn much more money and be able to help my family by sending some back.’
‘Are your family in difficulties?’
‘Oh, sure. It is very hard to live in the Philippines without education. But in London, with my new big tits…’
‘Where are you going to have this operation?’
‘At the Santa Christa Hospital. A very nice hospital. And it is all being paid for by the Golden Heaven. They are good employers.’
‘Where is this hospital?’
‘Close. Just down the street.’
‘Can I come and visit you after the operation?’ he asked. ‘I could bring you some flowers.’
‘That would be so sweet,’ she said, climbing into the bath on top of him, her hair cascading down around him as she bent her head in concentration.
As Joe came out into the street, Fred the chauffeur sprang out of the waiting car and opened the back door for him. The rain had abated, leaving the pavements glistening with water. Passing cars sent up sheets of spray which reflected the bright lights of the buildings.
‘His Lordship said to take you back to the Manila Hotel for dinner,’ Fred said.
Pevensey was in the bar, just as he had been the first night that Joe had seen him, surrounded by a new group of sycophantic men, all laughing at his jokes and encouraging him to tell more stories.
‘Ah, John, my dear friend!’ He didn’t stand, but he held up his arms in a theatrical gesture of welcome. ‘Come and join us, come and join us. How was Golden Heaven?’
‘It was great, thank you.’ Joe was embarrassed to have everyone in the group know where he had just come from, but they all nodded their agreement on what a great place Golden Heaven was.
‘I have big plans for a revamp,’ Pevensey said. ‘I want to do the Golden Heaven up from top to bottom. Make it look as good as this place.’ He gestured around the five-star hotel.
They all nodded their agreement at the wisdom of this idea.
‘How many places like that do you have?’ Joe asked, innocently.
‘Half a dozen. Eventually they will all be little palaces.’
‘So, how many people do you have working for you?’ Joe enquired.
‘Difficult to say. Bit of a floating population. Then there are the ones who get invited to travel by people like your friend, Maisie. I suppose we have a couple of hundred on our books at any one time.’
After two large drinks, Joe was steered through to the dining room with Pevensey’s arm around his shoulder. The big man seemed to be resting most of his weight on Joe, as if he was having trouble holding himself up.
‘It’s good of you to join us,’ he said, quietly. ‘Sometimes colonial company can be very trying. It’s refreshing to see someone from the outside world every now and then.’
‘It was kind of you to invite me,’ Joe replied.
As they reached the table, Pevensey indicated that Joe should sit next to him. The meal had already been ordered and discreet waiters were placing the food in front of the diners as soon as they were settled.
‘How did you come to be living in Manila?’ Joe asked.
‘Long story, old boy,’ Pevensey grinned sheepishly. ‘When I finished at university, the family wanted me to go into law. They wanted someone to administrate the family trusts and all the rest. All deadly boring stuff. I told them I needed a break before I got down to business. I took myself off on the hippy trail for a few months, overland to India, all that stuff.
‘When I got out here I thought I’d arrived in heaven. After a childhood in a draughty great pile in Norfolk, and then on to Eton and Oxford, the tropics were like a dream come true. The women were beautiful and willing and the cost of living was nothing. I had a private income which would have been perfectly adequate in England, but meant I could live like a prince out here.’
‘Didn’t your family try to make you go back?’
‘Of course they did. Tried to cut off my money, but the trustees wouldn’t let ’em. They tried to tempt me back with the prospect of marriage to some tasty little heiress. But why would I want to marry some woman who would give me a hard time, when I could have all the women I wanted out here and they would never give me an ear-bashing about anything? I’m telling you, it’s paradise out here. Don’t you think so?’
‘It certainly has a lot to commend it,’ Joe agreed as the aromas of the food drifted up from the table and he sipped at the champagne which had been poured into his glass.
‘Of course it does.’ Pevensey’s eyelids were becoming heavy and it looked as if he might be about to doze off. He rallied himself and raised his voice to the whole table. ‘And I’m the luckiest man in the world, to be able to afford to entertain my friends like this whenever I want.’
There was a murmur of agreement from around the table and they all raised their glasses in a toast to their host.
Joe found the Santa Christa Hospital eventually, although the flowers he had bought in the hotel florist’s were starting to look a little droopy by the time he eventually walked in. It was a building which couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but which already had an air of degeneration and neglect.
The reception area was stark and empty, the curling lino tiles smelling of disinfectant. A man in a sweat-stained shirt sat in a chair in one corner. On a table next to him stood an electric fan, a kettle and a few dirty mugs.
‘I’m here to visit Doris, from the Golden Heaven,’ Joe said in what he hoped was a no-nonsense voice.
‘Golden Heaven girls?’ The man grinned, showing a gappy row of teeth a similar colour to the walls outside. ‘Third floor.’
Joe thought about using the lift, but decided against it and started up the stairs. By the time he reached the third floor he was bathed in sweat.
Voices echoed all over the building from the curtainless, carpetless rooms and bare corridors. Someone somewhere must have dropped a kidney dish for a clattering sound was reverberating endlessly. There were several doors to choose from, each with a small window of reinforced glass. Joe peered through the first and saw a couple of beds which seemed to be occupied by men, although it was hard to see through the jungle of tubes and pipes attached to them. The next one had a child sitting up in a bed with a huge bandage around his head. He was surrounded by his extended family, all fussing over him at once.
In the third room he saw four beds, and on the nearest one he could make out a mass of dark hair spread on the pillow. He cautiously opened the door and poked his head round. The hair rose from the pillow and a pretty face looked at him with a sleepy smile. He was about to speak when three other identical heads lifted themselves up in the other beds. They were all young, round-faced and pretty. He had to rack his memory to think what Doris had looked like. They all smiled sweetly.
‘Doris?’ he asked, tentatively.
‘Yes,’ they all answered.
‘Hi, Mr John,’ the one in the furthest bed said and he breathed
a sigh of relief.
‘Hello, Doris,’ he said, walking over to her bedside. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Feeling tip-top,’ Doris laughed, pulling down the sheets to show the enormous bandaged bust which had blossomed inside her hospital gown. ‘Do you think the English men will like these, Mr John?’
‘I’m sure they will, Doris,’ he said, laying the flowers down on the end of her bed, since there were no tables or surfaces in the room. ‘Are you all in here for the same thing?’
‘Sure,’ Doris said. ‘Show Mr John your new breasts!’
The other girls all giggled weakly and pulled down their sheets to show him their proud new possessions, straining at their dressings.
‘We all going to London together next month,’ Doris crowed happily.
‘Listen,’ Joe said, getting out a note pad and a pen. ‘I live in London. I’ll give you my telephone number and address. If you get into any trouble over there and need a friend, just call me. In fact, call me anyway. I’d like to see you again.’
Doris giggled sleepily. She had dark rings under her eyes and he guessed she was meant to be resting after her operation. He ripped out the piece of paper and folded it into her hand.
‘And your friends as well. If any of you need anything, just call or write to me.’
‘What the fuck are you doing in here?’ a familiar voice roared into the room from the doorway.
Joe jumped and turned to see the surgeon from the Wimpole Clinic standing with his hands on his hips. This time it was even less obvious that he was medically qualified. He was wearing a short sleeved Hawaiian shirt covered in vivid pink flamingos against a red sunset, and white trousers so thin they were almost see-through. The same medallion nestled in his chest hair, but his tan had improved since Joe saw him last.
‘I know you from somewhere,’ the doctor said, narrowing his eyes as he tried to picture where Joe’s face might fit in his memory.
‘I don’t think so,’ Joe protested.
‘You were visiting the other fucking girl in London. What is it with you? You kinky for girls in hospital beds or something?’
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