The Backpacker

by John Harris

  ‘Some official function. This Scottish guy reckons the ex-governor’s going to be in town so they’re holding a party at his old house. They still use it whenever they can; usually for slap-up dinners or for visiting dignitaries, that sort of thing. They leave it to the kilt to organise the security.’

  The questions were queuing up in my head. ‘What’s he doing in the police station then?’

  Rick shrugged. ‘Organising this inept police force, who knows?’ He wasn’t on my side of the bars though, I can tell you that. It was him who told me to say that I knew the governor, and him that put in a good word and got me out. According to him the police out here are hopeless; he has to order them about like robots.’

  I pictured the ex-governor of Hong Kong arriving at the airport and being turned away because of invalid travel documents. ‘But why the fuck would he invite a stranger?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that.’ He shuffled to the edge of the bed. ‘He’s been here thirty years, he told me. He was here in ‘the good ol’ days’ as he put it, and now he’s had enough. He’s worked under one governor or another, and now it’s all ended he couldn’t give a shit. You should see the way he talks to those policeman,’ Rick closed his eyes and tilted his head, ‘unbelievable. They bow and scrape to him like shoeshines.’

  ‘I’m not interested in that colonial power bullshit. Guys like him shouldn’t be here. All that stuff makes me sick.’

  He snorted. ‘Right. You’re not coming then?’

  ‘Now I didn’t say that.’

  There was a pause in which we both shook our heads a lot without speaking, and Rick said, ‘There’s only one small drawback: we’ve got to wear suits.’

  ‘Suits!’

  ‘And ties.’

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ I lay down. ‘Well that’s that then. How can we afford suits when we’ve barely got enough money to eat?’

  He scratched an imaginary beard. ‘Yeah, that’s a difficult one I know. We can hire one downstairs in the arcade, but I doubt if we can even afford that; even the crappy Indian ones are expensive.’

  I looked around the room for inspiration, and for some reason finally settled my gaze upon the communal electric iron lying in the corner. ‘I’ve got it!’ I said, jumping down off the bunk. ‘Have you paid for this room yet?’

  ‘No, we don’t have to until we leave, and... ’

  I smiled and Rick followed the line of questioning, breaking into a board grin. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘they did steal my passport.’ It was true that we had both suspected the Indian security guard, or another member of the staff, of carrying out the theft. All of the other guests in our room were known to us personally, and no one else had a key to the dorm. ‘It’s only fair.’

  ‘And just.’

  ‘What goes around... ’

  We wallowed in our self-righteousness for a moment, and I said, ‘Where will we go to, though? We can’t stay around here, all these Indians know each other.’

  ‘There’s a youth hostel on Hong Kong island, we could give that a try.’

  ‘That’s it then. We sneak out tomorrow morning as early as possible, without paying, and move over to the island side.’ I clapped once and walked across to pick up the electric iron.

  ‘What the fook are you doing?’

  ‘Might need to iron a shirt,’ I said, and stuffed it into my bag. ‘Got to look smart on Saturday night.’

  FOUR

  The so-called security guard of our guest house was asleep on the corridor floor as usual when I peeped out of our room. ‘So-called’ because he was just another relative of the owner and his level of securing apparently involved nothing more extensive than a quick peek into the girls’ dorm during the daytime. Most of the day he was out, and at night his vigilance amounted to sleeping at an angle across the floor, apparently believing that all Chinese burglars are unable to pick their feet up more than a few inches when they walk.

  I turned to Rick and gave a thumbs up, whispering, ‘OK,’ but he came and took a look anyway. ‘I’ve just told you it’s OK,’ I said curtly.

  ‘I’m the stealth-master around here,’ he whispered an inch from my ear. I tutted and moved from the door to let him past, a sliver of light from the corridor window producing a thin, vertical white line like a scar the length of his face, crossing one eye. ‘What time is it?’ he said, closing one eye and observing the snoring guard.

  ‘Two minutes after the last time you asked. Two minutes past seven.’

  Most of the other people in the dorms were still asleep, but a few had jobs and would soon be stirring: making coffee in the hall, coughing up phlegm, going to the toilet. The previous night the owner had told us that he’d also suspected the security guard of the crime, which made us feel a little better about walking out.

  We picked up our bags and stepped out into the hallway, tiptoeing silently over the body. The guard turned over in his sleep and snorted just as one of my feet was poised above his face. I froze in mid-air. Shit. Finding a comfortable spot on his side, he shuffled a bit and, to my amazement, put a thumb into his mouth and started sucking noisily.

  Rick looked back, one hand on the front door latch and suppressed a giggle. ‘Come on,’ he mouthed. Allowing gravity to pull my front leg forwards, still holding my flip-flops in one hand, I crept over the body and joined Rick outside, where we immediately fell into fits of laughter.

  In the street, Hong Kongers were already waking up to the bright warm sun of an early morning that would soon turn into another scorchingly hot and steamy day. It was already humid but the heat was still bearable; the traffic having not yet clogged the roads or the air.

  The youth hostel Rick had spoken about was right at the far end of Hong Kong island, above a place called Kennedy Town. We caught the ferry, jumped on a tram for the remainder of the journey and walked up the hill to the hostel to save money on the cab fare.

  At noon, having showered and met a few people, we had to walk back down again to find somewhere that hired out suits. Kennedy Town, we discovered, was next to useless for that sort of thing, while the central district was out of the question because of cost. Reluctantly, we caught the ferry back over to Kowloon and slipped into an Indian tailor back in Chungking Mansions, where we dispelled another of Hong Kong’s myths.

  I had always been led to believe that a trip to Hong Kong wasn’t complete without a visit to one of the numerous tailors in Kowloon. Just go into any one of them, I imagined, get measured up and the next day return to collect a knockout, made-to-measure copy of the latest suit to go down the catwalks of Paris. And all for less than the cost of decent meal. Bollocks. If you don’t mind paying double what you’d pay back in Europe, or anywhere else, for a suit of inferior quality, you’ll find plenty of tailors in Kowloon willing to make one. You can get a suit at normal prices (not cheap) but it’s made of crimplene and hangs off the wearer with all the panache of a tablecloth.

  Luckily Rick and I didn’t mind looking like extras in a B movie, and we persuaded the Indian tailor to rent two of them to us for forty-eight hours. He wrote on the deposit receipt the exact time that the suits were to be returned, or else we’d lose our money.

  ‘What d’you think?’ I asked Rick, looking in the mirror and laughing.

  The Indian man butted in. ‘Very good, sir, you both look so-f ne-gentlemen.’

  ‘Feels a bit funny.’

  ‘No no no, sir.’ He squatted and ran a hand up the inside of each leg. ‘This fit perfect for you.’

  ‘Too long aren’t they?’ Rick said, checking himself in the mirror and hoisting up his new trousers.

  The Indian pinned up each bell bottom and took a step back. ‘Ahhh,’ he said, tilting his head to one side and clasping his hands in approval, ‘that is lovely.’

  ‘Flares though?’

  Rick turned to look at me and started laughing again. ‘Fook, I can see your balls.’

  ‘Eh?’ I looked down to check, but the fly was done up.

  ‘No, the li
ght from behind shines right through the material. There’s a silhouette of your nuts.’ The Indian man just looked perplexed and started fumbling at the turn-ups again.

  I felt the thinness of the material, ‘Well it’s all we can afford. I’ll just have to stay away from bright lights, that’s all.’

  The agreed price for the hire included two shirts and ties that we were allowed to pick out from a suitably old-fashioned collection that the tailor assured us were pure silk. I said it didn’t matter what they were made of, they were still twenty years out of date, but Rick actually thought they were the latest designs. ‘Bloody northern redneck,’ I goaded, trying one on.

  ‘Southern poof.’

  We had a short, good-natured slanging match over which half of England was the best to be born in, before both agreeing that it was all crap anyway in comparison with Asia, and admired our worldliness in the mirror. I tied the knot and squirmed. ‘Feels horrible doesn’t it? Wearing clothes, I mean.’

  ‘Mmm. Feels like I’m in a straitjacket. Trapped in someone else’s clothes or something.’

  I nodded. ‘It’s not just that, it’s the whole idea of being back in civilisation, I think. Do you realise, apart from Australia, we haven’t worn clothes in two years?’

  Rick looked disapprovingly at himself in the mirror. ‘It’s not the clothes, it’s us. We’d look odd even in the best suits.’

  Not for the first time since arriving back in modern civilisation I felt ill at ease. It’s weird really, because I used to think the civilised world was where all the fun was, and although I could understand Rick’s recent complaints about Hong Kong, being from London I’d have expected to fit right in. Hong Kong was a welcome change from the real Asia but I was beginning to feel that that’s all it was: a novel change of scenery.

  The person staring back from the mirror wasn’t me; the transformation really was that remarkable. I leaned closer so that my nose touched the glass, filling my field of vision with two eyes, my body disappearing into the background, and John Harris emerged once more. Phew! It was just the clothes after all, I’m still inside there somewhere. We paid and left, carrying two large bags with Best Tailors printed on the sides in Olde Worlde lettering.

  Throughout the whole journey back up to the youth hostel I caught myself walking with an unnatural gait, looking at my reflection in every shop window I passed. I’m not a vain person, I was just trying to see if I was still me.

  FIVE

  Saturday night came around; Rick and I slogged our way up towards Government House dressed in our new suits, bell-bottoms swinging freely.

  ‘Albert Road?’ he asked.

  I pulled out the scrap of paper and stopped beneath the street sign, wiping away the river of sweat that was obscuring my vision. ‘That’s what he said.’ I had copied part of a street map from someone’s guidebook back at the youth hostel but it seemed that the governor’s residence had been replaced by a zoo. We had been around the place twice now. Using my rolled up silk tie as a swab I soaked up some of the sweat on my face and neck. ‘It’s got to be here somewhere,’ I panted. ‘I need a drink.’

  Rick took the damp map from me, and was about to ask a passer-by when a black limousine drew up, the electric window sinking into the door. ‘Hello again.’ A man’s head poked out of the window. ‘Lost? It’s just up ahead. Keep going around the curve in the road and it’s on the right, ’K?’ The pane of glass emerged from the door and slid back up as the car moved off.

  ‘Fooking hell,’ Rick fumed, staring at the car’s vanishing tail lights.

  ‘Is that the Scottish guy you met in the police station?’

  ‘Yeah. Could have given us a fooking lift.’

  After resting and sweating a few more pints, we walked off in the direction the car had gone. We were arguing about whose fault it was that we’d taken the wrong road earlier, when the Scot stuck his head out through a small iron gate in a twenty-foot high perimeter wall. ‘In here boys.’

  We shrugged and followed him, accompanied by a policeman, through some bushes and out onto an immaculate floodlit lawn, beyond which was a huge house thronging with people. Black limos were pulling in through the large entrance gates and stopping on the circular drive, while press cameras flashed as local celebrities and dignitaries stepped out in dinner suits, accompanied by their gowned women.

  ‘Now,’ the Scotsman said in a croaky voice that sounded like a posh version of Sean Connery’s, ‘as you know, gwailos are a little thin on the ground at the moment,’ he broke off as we ducked under a conifer and then continued, ‘so I’d like you two to remain in the picture but in the background. Give the old hoose a bit of white presence, if you catch my drift, hmm?’

  ‘What the fuck’s a gwailo?’ I whispered to Rick.

  ‘Dunno. Don’t ask.’

  We all walked in single file around the manicured flowerbeds and in through a side door that led into a long, dimly lit corridor. We were told to get washed and smartened up in one of the toilets, before being taken into the main entrance hall where all the action was.

  By ‘action’ I mean a lot of dreary looking fat Chinamen in suits, all smoking cigars and looking like they were about to have a heart attack. I’d never seen a fat Chinese person before, and it was quite a shock after having spent so much time in parts of Asia where people are lean and healthy, especially the men. These guys were all bloated and ashen-faced, but accompanied by the most stunning women I’d ever seen. Up until that point I hadn’t seen an ugly Chinese woman in Hong Kong, but these women took my breath away.

  ‘Right,’ said the Scotsman, suddenly appearing through a side door, ‘I want you two to just stand here against this wall, like soldiers. Straight, man, straight! Don’t talk to anyone, don’t look at anyone, just stand there and smile, ’K? You’ll be paid later, and then you can get back to wherever it is you came from.’ He turned and went across to the other side.

  ‘What?’ I moved forward but Rick held my arm. ‘What’s all this "go back to where you came from" shit?’

  ‘That Scottish prick.’

  ‘Pick up that vase and hit him over the head,’ I said through clenched teeth, grabbing the rim.

  ‘No. I’ve got a better idea.’ He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me towards an open doorway on the other side of the hall. In the room a lot of people were sipping cocktails and eating hors d’oeuvres.

  ‘See it? Just to piss him off let’s go straight in there and mingle with the crowd.’

  Without hesitating or even replying, I looked back at the Scotsman to see if he was watching, and when he started to speak to one of the dignitaries in the crowd we walked quickly but casually across the hall and into the room. I walked straight up to the sea of faces and held out my hand to the first person nearest the door. ‘Good evening. John Harris,’ I said at the top of my voice.

  The Chinese man broke off the conversation he was having with a middle-aged woman and turned to me, putting on the most fake smile I’d ever seen. ‘Evening,’ he said shaking my hand. ‘Glad you could-ahh-come. My wife.’ He gestured to the woman and I shook her hand before kissing it.

  Rick was beside me in an instant, and I turned to him, catching a glimpse of a fuming Scotsman in the background. ‘This is Sir William George Garthrick Jenner.’

  ‘Helloo.’ Rick tried an upper-class accent but he just sounded gay. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance.’

  ‘Ahh-good evening,’ the man said in his croaky voice. ‘My wife.’

  ‘Helloo, my name’s Sir William, so pleased to meet you.’ This time his voice sounded like John Merrick, the elephant man.

  The man snapped his fingers in the air and a tray of drinks was brought over. We took a glass of champagne each and said cheers before the man and his wife moved off to another person, ‘Ahh if you’d excuse me?’ The second he left our side we both took a step further into the room and struck up a conversation with another couple. As Rick introduced himself I looked behind to see the Scotsman standin
g in the doorway. Brilliant! What a nice twist; he invited us here and even he’s not allowed into the room. I lifted my glass to him and tipped an imaginary hat before turning around and being struck by lightning.

  I wouldn’t like to say that I didn’t believe in love at first sight up to that point. How can one say there’s no such thing when the only way of knowing is to fall in love at first sight? It’s like, no one believes in ghosts until they see one, but then it’s too late not to believe.

  As I moved closer she began to blush, her milky-white skin turning the colour of one of Jack’s Red Delicious as she lowered her eyes. I think I even blushed when I introduced myself.

  Two almond-shaped eyes looked up at me, the edges turned up slightly in that beautiful Asian way. Her small button nose and full red lips gave her such an extreme amount of sex appeal, mixed with a childlike beauty I’d never seen before, that I think I actually gasped out loud. Her blue-black hair hung straight down onto tiny shoulders that were exposed from the top of her ball-gown so invitingly that I almost kissed them there and then. Further down, her small breasts gave a gentle bulge to her top half, while her sides curved into the smallest waist and most perfect bum I’d ever seen.

  ‘Hi,’ she peeped, holding out her delicate hand, ‘I’m Apple.’

  I shook her hand and laughed. ‘Apple?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said a little more sternly, ‘Apple’, and proceeded to spell it for me.

  ‘That’s a fruit,’ I said, trying to keep my eyes off her cleavage. ‘You weren’t named after a fruit were you?’

  A blank expression. ‘Prease speak more srowry, thank you.’

  ‘Why are you called Apple? That’s not a Chinese name.’