by John Harris
FOUR
We were still thinking about the forged baht that night when we walked along the well-lit streets towards Little India. I hadn’t yet told Rick where we were going because I knew that if I did he’d flip. He had never liked India, and the idea of wasting a night on the town in what would probably be the dirtiest part of Singapore wouldn’t make him happy. I was mildly interested to see if it would live up to its name, and we could hardly go back to Raffles. In any case, I needed a change from five-star luxury and rich women; their perfume always made me sneeze.
At first none of us spoke, we just trudged along the streets wondering what came next. The whole episode with the forged money had really put the dampers on everything, including Rick’s birthday, which we should have been celebrating that night. Rick told Dave and me what had actually happened at the bank that morning, and it was amazing that he had returned to the pool at all; he could easily have been behind bars.
Thinking that we were soon going to Indonesia, Rick had decided, after some deliberation, that he would be better off with a fistful of dollars and not Thai baht. He stood to lose some money, changing from one currency to another and then back into rupiah later on, but we all agreed that it made sense in the long run. None of us had ever been to Indonesia before and therefore had no idea how easy it would be to change Thai currency there. Singaporean banks were happy to take it, so better to be safe than sorry.
Rick told us that he’d walked into the bank, first customer of the morning, and plonked the wad of cash onto the teller’s counter. They agreed the exchange rate, and were about to start counting out the US dollars when the woman who was serving him noticed something odd about the pictures on the notes. She put one under an ultra-violet lamp, frowned, and then tried another. And another, and another. ‘What’s wrong?’ Rick had asked. The woman ignored him and whispered something to a colleague who then went out the back, presumably to fetch the manager.
By now, Rick said, it was obvious that the money was forged. He sweated, his heart pounding as he looked nervously around for his escape. There was no point in waiting about to find out what would happen next so he just said goodbye to the clerk and walked very casually out of the bank. When he hit the street he ran, and didn’t stop running until he got to the swimming pool.
Dave naively suggested that Rick should go back to the bank and explain that he had received the money from a licensed money changer in Malaysia. Pretty ridiculous considering that our passport stamps would show that we were heading south and not north. Why the hell would he be changing money into Thai baht?
‘You’re a businessman doing deals in–’
‘Shut up, Dave!’
He shut up.
Rick looked up as we went to cross the road and then looked back down as we walked. ‘Where’re we going, John?’
‘Just have a walk around,’ I said, momentarily looking up to check that the road was clear. Dave looked up at me but didn’t speak.
We walked half a mile or so before Rick noticed a change in his surroundings, and then only because a rat ran across his feet. He looked up with a start, left, then right and finally doing a three-sixty spin and sniffing the air. ‘Fook, it stinks around here. Where are we?’
I didn’t answer.
‘And there’s loads of rubbish!’
‘There’s a little bar over there,’ I said quickly, pointing down an alleyway. ‘There’re lots of them. Shall we have a drink?’
He eyed me cautiously before turning into a bustling side street, crammed full of tables and chairs. People, mostly Indians and a few Chinese, were sitting outside shops eating noodles or curries and swigging bottles of beer.
‘Fooking hell,’ Rick said, stopping in his tracks, ‘now that’s what I call a birthday present.’
Dave and I followed his gaze past the tables, and noticed to our astonishment that the whole street was wall-to-wall brothels. Little doorways with a tatty curtain across them were cheek-by-jowl, the glow of a red light warming the first few feet of the pavement outside each one.
‘Happy Birthday,’ I said, surprised at the discovery. ‘Now let’s sit down and have a drink.’
‘Thanks, lads, I knew I could rely on you two to cheer me up.’ Rick patted our backs. ‘Nice one.’
Dave looked at me, raising his eyebrows as if to say, ‘What the fuck’s he on about?’ and sat down at the nearest table.
I ordered three beers and they were on the table being opened before I’d even sat down. ‘So,’ I said, pouring mine into a glass, ‘what are we going to do?’ The cold beer hit the humid air and foamed. ‘I’ve got some money, not a lot, but enough to get me into Indo. What about you Dave?’
He looked up mid-pour. ‘I’ve got to get a job if I don’t want to be on the next plane back to the States. Let’s face it, we’ve all got to get jobs, otherwise, boom!’
Rick suddenly stood up, looking down the street. A beautiful Indian girl, five feet ten and dressed in a full length, red evening dress was walking towards us. Her full, round breasts were almost falling out of a V-shaped slit in the gown that ran from her collar bone down to a point just above her navel. She looked like she was wearing it back-to-front.
‘Look at that!’ Rick gasped, putting his glass on the table and nearly missing.
Dave looked, proclaimed himself in love, and went to stand up but Rick pushed him back down.
The woman in red approached our table, her red high-heel shoes clip-clopping along until she reached Rick. She was even more beautiful close up, no pimples or pock-marked skin, just the perfect woman. She stopped, put one hand on Rick’s crotch and kissed his lips.
‘Jesus,’ I said, staring and trying to form another word.
Dave’s month was hanging open, and the beer in his hand was spilling onto the table so I nudged it upright. ‘Thanks,’ he managed to say, still spellbound. ‘My God, have you ever seen anything like her before?’
We watched Rick float down the street behind the woman, led like a balloon on her string, and disappear into one of the doorways. A moment later he was back, asking for money, his face smeared with lipstick.
‘Only if I can share her,’ Dave replied as he put his hand into his pocket to cover half the cost.
Rick placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘I’d do the same on your birthday, Dave, you know that.’
‘I had my birthday on Koh Pha-Ngan, remember? Fuck, you only rolled me a joint!’
‘Yeah I remember that,’ he said, laughing nostalgically. ‘Toomy made you a seashell necklace, how romantic. Cough up.’
Dave begrudgingly put his money on the table. ‘Whose idea was it to come to Little India anyway, man?’
Rick looked down his nose. ‘So, that’s where we are. No wonder you wouldn’t tell me. Well, serves you two right then.’ He scooped up the cash and turned to walk off. ‘Back in an hour.’
Dave and I sat and drank, and waited. Occasionally we talked about what we were going to do next, but mainly we just got drunk and speculated as to what was going on in that room down the street. The more drunk we got the more jealous he became. ‘D’you think she’s a he?’ he slurred, pouring out yet another beer that neither of us could really afford. ‘I think so. I think Rick’s got more than he bargained for.’
After nearly two hours Rick came back down the street with a look of awe on his face. That’s the only way I can describe it. He wasn’t smiling, which was strange, but he looked totally at peace with the world, and totally in awe, as though he’d seen an apparition.
‘Well?’ Dave said as Rick sat back down at our table. ‘Spill the beans, man.’
I nodded and leaned forward, eager to know the ins and outs. ‘C’mon, what happened?’
Slowly Rick took hold of his warm beer and poured out a full glass, as though in a dream. He seemed to be staring right through the table. ‘We’re leaving. Tomorrow night.’
Dave and I were gagging, leaning way over the table, willing him to give us more information. I swa
llowed hard. ‘Yeah?’
Rick glanced at both of us. ‘She read my palm.’
Dave burst out laughing. ‘Read your fuckin’ palm, man? Ha! Is that it? Didn’t you fu–?’
‘Yeah of course I did, but then she read my palm.’ He took another drink and looked starry-eyed at his hand. ‘We’re leaving tomorrow night. On a boat.’
Dave looked at me, and then at Rick, his white eyes swivelling like ping-pong balls against his face. ‘Says who?’
‘Her.’ He pulled a business card from his pocket. ‘Lady Mysta Geng.’
‘Gimme that.’ Dave snatched the card.
‘We haven’t got a boat though,’ I said dismissively. ‘She’s not a very good palmist.’
There was a moment’s silence as Rick smiled to himself before saying. ‘We will have tomorrow. Remember that boat we saw in Changi Yacht Club, John. The same as the one I said my dad used to own?’
Dave frowned at me in confusion, unable to follow the sudden change in the course of the conversation. ‘The one owned by the Japanese businessman who’s never here,’ I said, ‘yeah?’
Rick leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. A broad grin spread across his face. ‘Well I’m going to steal it.’
FIVE
There was no way Dave or I would entertain the idea of stealing a boat, it was just too ridiculous to be true. After Rick had first told us his scheme we were in tears of laughter, rolling around outside the bar, slapping him on the back. The more we laughed, however, the more serious became the look on Rick’s face, as though he was being insulted, and the more serious his look, the more I realised that he wasn’t joking.
As we walked back to the dorm that night he told Dave and me that if we didn’t want to come along it would mean the end of his travelling, that he’d have to get a job, because although he felt he could sail a boat he didn’t want to do it alone. ‘Come on,’ he goaded, ‘what have we got to lose?’ Dave and I pointed out that we had many things to lose, including our lives, and told Rick to drop the idea once and for all. We were not going to do it and that was final.
We all went to bed thinking about boats and the images that Rick had conjured up; of sailing off into the sunset and drifting around the fourteen thousand islands of Indonesia. The next morning when I awoke Dave was already staring at me from his bunk on the opposite side of the room. He wasn’t saying anything, just lying on his side in his boxers, with his hands under his head, staring. He wasn’t smiling, but there was the hint of a smirk on his lips, the glint of mischief.
As if to confirm what was on Dave’s mind, I rolled onto one side and hung my head over the side of the bed frame to check on Rick who had the bottom bunk. He too was staring up at me with the same look, only a wider smirk. ‘Oh no,’ I mumbled, and rolled onto my back.
‘Listen, John.’ Dave swung his legs over the side of his bed and sat up. The person on the bottom bunk groaned and Dave checked his watch. ‘Oops,’ he mouthed, and pointed upstairs, ‘only eight-thirty. Breakfast?’
I wasn’t hungry but it seemed too important not to join in the discussion, so I dressed quickly (shorts and flip-flops never take long) and we went up the stairs.
The breakfast-room had just opened and the grumpy old Chinese guy who served the meals was just boiling the eggs when we arrived.
‘Wha’ you wan’?’ he growled, his eyes peering through puffy slits. ‘No foo’.’ He tapped his watch so hard that the impact made the fat under his arm wobble. ‘No foo’, only eigh’ thir’y.’
‘Fuck him.’ Dave turned on his heels. ‘Let’s go to McDonald’s.’
Mornings in the tropics are almost as good in cities as they are in the jungles and on the beaches. The air is warm, but not uncomfortably hot, and always seems to carry more smells with it than it does in temperate climates. I don’t know if it’s got something to do with the humidity, or perhaps simply that tropical places are smellier, but the air is tangible, almost alive. There’s only one thing that beats tropical mornings, and that’s tropical mornings when you’ve got all the time in the world and a plan to work out. Add to that a McMuffin and hash brown and you’re in dreamland. An English breakfast would have been better but what can you expect from the tropics?
We sat down at the open seated area, and to my surprise Dave threw my pocket atlas on the table. ‘Just borrowed it.’
‘Thief.’
Dave sat down. ‘It’s your turn to buy the breakfast, John.’
I got up again and sauntered to the counter, bought three breakfasts and took them back to our table.
‘OK,’ Rick started, sliding his tray of food over to his side, ‘let’s talk about what we’re going to do. Dave and I reckon that if we can get a boat, between us we can sail it to Bali.’
Rick concentrated on the atlas momentarily, looking for the appropriate map. ‘It’s really no distance at all, look.’ We leaned closer to see where he was pointing on the map. It certainly didn’t look far. ‘And,’ he continued, ‘if we stick to the northern side of Sumatra and Java, in the Java Sea, we’ll be avoiding the Indian Ocean. It’ll be like sailing on a lake.’
Dave nodded, so I nodded. He may have been young but he’d spent enough time at sea during his service to know danger when he saw it. The serene expression on his face and ready agreement with what Rick was saying was comforting.
‘We’ll have to watch the Makassar Straits,’ Rick went on, ‘between Borneo and Sulawesi, but other than that... ’
‘Why,’ I said, ‘what happens in the Mak–?’
‘Makassar Straits? North-east equatorial current comes through there. So long as we’ve got wind we should be all right though.’
Dave nodded seriously again. ‘I’ve been through there twice before, it’s a breeze.’
‘What, literally?’ I asked sarcastically.
‘No, I mean it’s easy. But there usually is a breeze.’ He hesitated. ‘That was on a 20,000-tonne warship, though.’
I leaned back in the chair and rolled my head. ‘This is too ridiculous. Here we are, looking at a ten-dollar pocket atlas, and you two are using it to navigate around the globe! Be serious for Christ’s sake, we’ll get ourselves killed.’
Rick pushed the south-east Asia page towards me. ‘See this?’ he said, pointing at a patch of blue, ‘I’ve sailed all along there before with my dad. It’s so easy.’
I looked up from the map. ‘Have you sailed to Bali before?’
He slid the book back to his side of the table. ‘No, but it’s the same. So long as we don’t cross over into open ocean swells, that forty-two footer is more than equal to these seas. Christ, I could do it in a boat half that size.’
‘What about charts?’ Dave rested his chin in one hand. ‘Where can we get charts for these waters?’
‘No problem. We can go to the admiralty office in town, or, better still, buy them at the yacht club. Anyway, chances are they’re already on that boat.’ He closed the book and looked at me. ‘Oh come on, John, it’ll be brilliant.’
I shook my head. ‘And what if we get caught?’
‘All we’ve got to do is get it out of Singapore waters and we’re free. The border with Indo is only about ten miles away, that’s an hour’s sailing! We’ll do it at night, under steam.’
I looked at Dave with a question mark in my eyes.
‘Engine, he means. What about fuel?’ he said, turning back to Rick.
‘Easy, we take a can of two-stroke with us.’
‘Fresh water?’
‘Get it in Batam. Come on, Dave, these are minor obstacles, you know that. All we’ve got to do is have the balls to jump on the boat, start her up and go. Simple.’ Rick folded his arms. ‘That yacht club’s empty during the daytime so there’ll definitely be no one there at night. You heard what Chan-the-boatman said John, no one ever uses those boats, they’re just a tax dodge.’ Rick sat back and then leaned forward again. ‘The owner’s Japanese for Christ’s sake, he lives in Japan! He probably comes here t
wice a year. He won’t even know the boat’s missing until next year!’
I looked at Dave. ‘What d’you think?’
‘Me? I’m in! Sailing is no problem. Like Rick said, that’s virtually an inland sea. You’d get bigger waves on the great lakes in Canada than you would on that.’ He stabbed the book with his finger. ‘I think we should go tonight if we can get the charts. Rick?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘You two are serious aren’t you?’ I shook my head and stared at the table. ‘This is crazy.’
‘Does that mean you’re in then?’
‘No, it doesn’t. If we’ve run out of money then we’ll have to get jobs.’ They both moved back as though threatened, a look of shock on their faces. ‘Yeah, I don’t want to go back to work either,’ I said. ‘This past year has been the best of my life and I want to go on travelling. But without money... ’
There was a moment’s silence as we all stared at the floor, before Rick spoke. ‘How can we get work here, we don’t even have a work visa?’
‘Bar work?’ I suggested half-heartedly. ‘Any kind of work that’s temporary. There’re bound to be places where they need English speakers.’
They both looked unimpressed, shaking their heads at one another as though I was the one who was suggesting something extraordinary. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Rick leaned over the table again, ‘we’ll go around all the bars today and see if there’s any work. If there is, we give it a go and try to earn enough cash to move on.’
‘And if there isn’t?’ I prompted, knowing what the reply would be.
‘Bon voyage!’ Dave put his hands into the middle of the table. ‘That’s the McPlan. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ said Rick, and put his hands on top of Dave’s. They both looked at me.
I quickly ran over the likelihood of getting work in Singapore but drew a blank. It was an unknown factor. I didn’t know anyone who had recently acquired a job in Singapore, or anywhere else in Asia for that matter.
‘John?’