by John Harris
Dave had a new way of chatting up girls that involved him pretending to be a film star. Apparently inspired by Rick’s audacity in Thailand with the Sir Rick/Jim Thompson façade, he had taken the idea and developed it into his own American style. It had worked for him in Pinang so he saw no reason why it shouldn’t be just as successful in the city. The fact that a 007 movie was being shot somewhere in the region would add credibility to his act.
‘007 is a white man though,’ Rick said incredulously. ‘Even Japanese people must know that. Christ, Dave, that drink’s gone to your head.’
Dave rolled his shoulders. ‘I don’t need to be James Bond. Fuck, Rick, you can be him if you want. I’ll be Cubby Broccoli.’
‘What?’ I exclaimed, and burst out laughing.
Dave looked surprised. ‘Why not? They won’t know what the fucking director looks like.’
Rick shook his head in disbelief. ‘Dave, Cubby Broccoli’s a white man as well, and about seventy years old!’
‘Not to mention dead,’ I added.
‘Well, fuck him then, I’ll be the black dude in the James Bond movie, they always have a black guy.’
‘How d’you know there’s a black actor in this James Bond film?’
He pushed his fingers into his curly hair. ‘They always have at least one black and one Chinese. Gives the movie wider appeal.’
I took a sip of beer and thought, before saying, ‘Come to mention it, Dave, you look a bit like that guy in the old Bruce Lee Films.’
Dave’s eyes widened. ‘I’ll be him then. What’s his name?’
‘Couldn’t tell you. Tell them you’re Samuel Jackson.’
He pointed at me. ‘I fuckin’ love you John. That’s me, Samuel L. Jackson. Right, John, you’re the cinematographer, and Rick, you can be umm... ’
‘Stunt co-ordinator!’ Rick suggested, pushing out his chest. ‘It’s a Bond film, there’ll be loads of stunts.’
‘Right on, Rick. You can be the hard man. Let’s move it.’
Dave got up to leave and I caught his arm. ‘Dave, you can’t just go bowling over there and say, "Hi, I’m a movie star. Want a shag?"’
‘Yeah? I don’t wanna dance!’
We looked at each other, puzzled. ‘What?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Dance?’
‘Shag, you said, right? That’s a dance. I don’t want no fuckin’ dancing. Not unless it’s in the ol’ boudoir.’
‘Dave, shag means... Oh never mind.’ I pushed him into his seat. ‘We’ll go over and sit at that table next to theirs.’ He looked over and then back at me. ‘And casually, as though we’ve just got into town, we’ll start talking about location shots.’
‘Location shots and shit, yeah.’ Dave repeated my words, nodding, and the three of us leaned in, almost touching heads. ‘Then what?’
‘That’s it. They’ll overhear us talking about the movie we’re making and fall right into our laps.’
Rick looked over at the four women. ‘I’m not having that fat one.’
‘You don’t have to,’ said Dave, looking over, ‘there’re three others to choose from.’
Dave was wrong; there were not three others to choose from. At best there were two to choose from and even one of those was a bit iffy. I was beginning to wish that we had followed Dave’s earlier advice and gone down to one of the discos in town, rather than come to Raffles. It had been my idea, suggesting that a night of passion with a rich tourist would make a welcome change from the usual energetic young backpacker girls.
Raffles, as usual, was full of married women in their thirties, sitting around sipping cocktails after a hard day’s shopping in the expensive malls. Most of them were either Japanese or Taiwanese, dressed up to the nines in Gucci and Versace gear that made them look ten years older than they were. Their sole purpose for being in Singapore was to have a weekend shopping spree on their husbands’ credit cards, and, we hoped, to have a good time.
Rick said they wouldn’t have known a good time if it jumped up and hit them over the head. ‘Too blinded by money to know what a good time is,’ he said. Of the three of us he was the most reluctant to go along with the game, but Dave and I buttered him up with tales of the possible rewards involved.
‘Passion,’ I said, as Dave and I went through the list of pleasures that awaited us. ‘Passion and good living.’
‘Five-star accommodation,’ Dave added, ‘in the Ruffles Hotel, don’t you know!’
‘Raffles,’ I corrected. ‘Caviar.’
‘You’ll be a toy boy,’ he said to Rick, tilting his head to one side and grinning.
‘Never have to work again,’ I added.
‘Just think, as much champagne as you can drink!’
‘OK, OK.’ Rick picked up his glass. ‘Let’s go over.’
Dave slapped his back, ‘Thataboy,’ and we went over to the table next to the four women and listened for clues as to their origin. As soon as they saw us walk over their language changed from Japanese to English, as though they were expecting us to talk to them. We all nodded a gentle bow towards them and sat down. Dave immediately flew into the act.
‘Sir William?’ he said far too loudly, gesturing to a chair.
‘Thanks, Dave.’
‘Now,’ Dave said sitting down, ‘about those stunts, Sir William. Where do you think we should shoot those city scenes from the new Bond movie?’
‘You can call him William, Samuel,’ I said, ‘no matter.’
‘Yes. William it is then. Where do you think, William? And please, call me Samuel.’
Rick and I had our backs to the women but it didn’t matter, I could see their interest reflected in Dave’s face.
‘Well, I thought we could shoot the city scenes here in Singapore. Make a nice contrast, what?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Dave looked at me. ‘And what do you think, John? A nice contrast?’
Contrast to what? I wondered. Dave was looking right through me at the women, his head constantly bobbing about, eyes blinking incessantly. His manner was so obviously faked that I had trouble keeping a straight face. ‘Yes,’ was all I could manage before picking up my glass and releasing the laugh, echoing inside.
Dave clapped once. ‘So, that’s the location sorted. But what about Bond girls? We need lots of girls for this movie. James Bond needs women, women, women! Am I right, John?’
‘Yes,’ I said, trying to take the glass away. ‘What we need... ’
‘Mm?’
‘Are... ’
‘Yes?’
‘Some, um, local girls.’
‘Japanese girls you mean? That’s a great idea.’
‘Yes,’ chimed Rick, and said, ‘Japanese girls!’ so loudly it nearly burst my ear drum.
‘Hi ladies.’ Dave had made eye contact. Rick and I moved apart slightly, allowing Dave to shoot down the centre like a bowling ball, pushing our table to one side.
We all shook hands (a bit formal I thought, though obviously a requirement in Japanese greetings because it was their idea) and introduced ourselves exactly as we had rehearsed. I was a famous cinematographer who, along with Rick, had worked on all of the Bond films in recent years, in addition to half a dozen epics that Dave reeled off in quick succession. Thankfully they hadn’t heard of any cinematographers.
Dave had supposedly met us on the set of a film he was shooting with Tarantino, and although two of the women had seen the film, neither of them knew the names of the black actors. As we suspected they couldn’t tell one black face from another, and soon Dave was signing autographs. He could have said he was Al Jolson and they would have asked for his signature.
Also as suspected, they were bored housewives of Japanese businessmen on a weekend’s spending spree. Every drink, like everything else they bought, was charged to their gold cards, which were paid for, of course, by their husbands in Japan. It occurred to me later, while I was in bed with one of them, that their husbands were probably doing exactly the same thing at home at exactly th
e same time plus two hours, according to my Collins Gem World Atlas, with their mistresses.
Once the barriers were down between us the rest was easy. We ordered drink after drink and their husbands paid for them, and every time I pretended to put my hand in my pocket the women would protest, saying that they’d been to Singapore many times before and it was their privilege to pay for us. After all, it was our first time in Asia!
After an hour or so the fat one stood up drunkenly and said that she was tired, and was given the job of taking all of the day’s shopping back to her room.
‘Oh,’ I said, trying to look surprised, ‘are you staying here, in Raffles?’
‘Yes, but the rooms are awful, so small. We have one each you know.’
Rick, Dave and I looked at each other and tried to hide our astonishment. It must have looked odd because all three of us suddenly felt the urge to scratch our faces. I turned to the one I’d been talking to and whispered, ‘I tried to book a room here but they were full.’
‘Would you like to share mine?’ she whispered back, slurring every word. ‘There’s plenty of space.’
I spent a night in heaven, that night in Raffles hotel. After living in crappy backpacker guest houses and sleeping on shitty old trains and buses, the crisp white sheets and marbled bathroom alone were enough to give me an orgasm. We ordered champagne and caviar, polishing off two bottles at God knows how many dollars a throw, before clearing out the mini bar and making love for the umpteenth time.
Their rooms were on the second floor of a courtyard that overlooked a lawn, and every so often I’d go outside for a spot of fresh air, only to find that Rick and Dave had had the same idea. It was like telepathy: three doors swung open and three figures in underpants came outside smoking a cigarette. We always ended up having the same three-way conversation, and always started by Rick.
‘Any luck on finding that Bond girl, Samuel?’ he’d ask.
‘Not yet, Sir William.’
‘John?’
‘Nope. Still looking, I’m afraid.’
‘Me too,’ he’d reply, and the three of us would go back inside.
THREE
We’d been in Singapore about ten days, and were planning on catching the boat to the Indonesian island of Batam before our limit of stay expired, when something happened that changed the course of our plans completely. All the talk of Australia had gone out of the window for the time being, and none of us could see beyond the Indonesian island that was visible from the top floor of a CBD skyscraper on a clear day.
None of us were bored with Singapore, in fact quite the opposite. Despite all other backpackers’ advice to the contrary, we were having a good time, spending the nights in Raffles, playing our James Bond game, and spending the days in one of the open air public swimming pools in town. We had discovered that for one Singapore dollar a day it was possible to stay out of mischief and spend very little money lounging around a spotlessly clean, almost empty pool, which also kept us cool in the tropical humidity that constantly hung over the city.
Our tenth day in the city started out no different to the rest, and after managing to wake at nine for a breakfast of one boiled egg and two slices of bread with butter or (not and) jam, we grabbed our shorts and headed to the pool in the park near Raffles Place. As usual I took my pocket radio along to listen to the day’s pop on Singapore FM, while Rick went off to the bank to change some money, saying that he’d meet us at the pool later.
‘Don’t know why you bother with that thing, John,’ Dave said, standing over me as he emerged from the pool.
‘Dave, d’you mind?’ I picked up the radio quickly to stop it from getting wet. ‘You’re dripping on my trannie!’
He slumped on the sunbed next to me. ‘Fuckin’ trannie. Jesus! We’re putting men on Mars and you British are still listening to the wireless.’
I put the radio down on the opposite side to Dave’s spreading puddle of water and squinted at the swimming pool. A woman was breast-stroking up and down, and I watched as the ripples from her wake caught the light of the morning sun before they spread out, hit the sheer tiled sides and made their way back into the middle.
Most of the other travellers staying at our guest house had declined this morning’s offer to go to the pool – they always did. ‘Go to a swimming pool?’ they’d baulk. ‘You should go to Thailand or Malaysia, to the beautiful beaches. Why do you want to spend more than one day in this city?’ They all said the same thing, day after day as one left and another one came. As soon as they put their backpack down and sat on the bunk bed, out would come the guidebook with the possible routes in and out of the city. ‘How long have you been here?’ they’d ask me. The look on their faces when I told them two weeks was one of utter shock and disbelief. Of course, they would only be staying one day, two at most. They had only just arrived and had never been here before ‘but the guidebook said...’ Sometimes I wanted to shove their book down their throat.
Guidebooks have got a lot to answer for – guidebooks and the bush telegraph. Word of mouth can often be worse than a book for spreading misleading information. Backpackers gossip like old women, and all it takes is a word from one traveller to another, overheard in the reception of a guest house, to guarantee continent-wide broadcast. And that’s exactly the way it was for Singapore. One person went there and told somebody else that it was only worth a day, ‘just to say you’ve been there’, the word spread and eventually became written in stone.
I looked from the glimmering water up to the geometric patch of hazy blue sky. It was like lying beside a rectangular pond in the valley of a canyon, the buildings appearing to lean inwards, allowing only a piece of sky the width of a football pitch to shine through the top of the canyon. The only gap in the canyon wall was where side streets separated one row of buildings from another, producing V shaped ravines in the crisp line between rooftops and sky.
‘John!’ I snapped out of the daydream. ‘Listen!’ Dave shouted, picking up my radio. At the end of all the hourly news bulletins, Singapore FM always has a couple of items of local news; nothing earth-shattering, usually a cat stuck up a tree, or local boy saved in storm drain drama, but today’s local item was different. ‘It’s about us!’
‘Shh,’ I said, leaning closer.
The over-concerned radio presenter was explaining to the listeners that some men, pretending to be involved in the latest James Bond movie, were conning locals out of money. He said that the ‘gang’ was potentially dangerous.
‘No way! Dangerous? That’s bullshit, man.’ Dave stood up and waved my radio in the air. ‘All we did was talk to girls and have some fun, that’s all. We didn’t take any fuckin’ money!’
‘Dave, do me a favour and give me the radio will you.’
‘Sorry.’ He handed it over. ‘But, hey, that’s bullshit, John. We didn’t hurt anyone. I’ve never broken the law in my life.’
‘What, never?’ I asked doubtfully.
He hesitated. ‘Well, at school I maybe stole some candies from other kids, but that’s it.’
‘Yeah, same as me really.’ I held the radio to my ear, expecting it to crackle out an apology. ‘It must have been the staff at Raffles who reported us. Why d’you think they’re making such a big deal about it? Propaganda?’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, you know how over-protected the Singaporeans are. Maybe the government just blows everything out of proportion to keep everyone in check. Scare them into thinking that the government’s watching.’
‘Conspiracy theorist huh?’ He nodded, turned and dived into the pool, swimming a full length underwater before surfacing.
‘They’re probably watching us right this minute,’ he shouted back from the other end.
I looked up again at the buildings around us and nodded. ‘A few thousand office workers are that’s for sure.’
Another good thing about the one-dollar swimming pool was that it allowed us to catch up on the sleep we weren’t getting at night,
and to the sound of Dave’s splashes mixed with the hum of the traffic I closed my eyes and started to drift off. Like pink shutters my eyelid membranes went down and warmed, heated by the mid-morning sun. The smell of chlorine mixed with the odour of freshly cut grass from the nearby park reminded me of the lido where I used to live in London, and the warmth, smells and sounds all came together at once, so perfectly, and in such harmony that I would have slept and dreamt if I hadn’t heard a voice.
The next thing I knew I was being shaken. ‘Sir. Excuse me sir, your friend is outside. Sir?’
Wiping away a sliver of dribble from the corner of my mouth, I turned over and looked up, squinting hard at the bright face.
‘Sir, your friend is outside,’ the pool attendant repeated.
‘Well tell him to come inside,’ I said sleepily.
‘He has no money. Cannot come in.’
I crawled wearily off the sunbed and stood up, going dizzy from lack of blood to the brain. Dave was still doing lengths underwater, his brown figure wobbling with each thrust of his arms, and I cursed him, following the attendant to the turnstile where Rick was waiting.
‘Didn’t you hear me shouting?’ he said as I arrived.
‘I was asleep, sorry.’
‘Where’s Dave?’ he puffed, wiping the sweat from his face.
‘Underwater.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘Haven’t you got any change?’ I said, handing him the dollar coin I’d brought, correctly assuming that he didn’t have any.
‘Worse than that,’ he said, pushing through the turnstile, ‘I haven’t got any dollars. You know all that baht that I knocked off from Ta? It’s forged.’
‘You’re kidding?’ I said, suddenly waking up. ‘Forged?’
‘Yeah, I’m kidding, and I just stood out here for the past five minutes for the fun of it. Of course I’m not fooking kidding!’
At first I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything, and we walked over to the sunbeds in silence, Dave following alongside in the water.
‘Dave,’ I said as we reached the other end, ‘you’d better get out and come over here. We’ve got some serious thinking to do.’