The Travel Mate

by Mark Green

  ‘Okay, let’s go have some fun!’ Victoria yelled, responding to the lacklustre reception from the ensemble. ‘Great, we’ve got a German contingent,’ she muttered to Maddie, before beaming at the group and throwing her hands into the air. ‘Okay guys and gals. Get ready to juice up and chill down into slo-mo – it’s off to Joe-Ho’s we go … happy, happy, happy!’

  Maddie observed Victoria virtually skip down the steps, hands held out, gathering her brood into following her with a theatrical sweeping motion. Maddie tagged on behind two fresh-faced boys, barely twenty, both with smooth haircuts, earlobe piercings and all about us chest-puffing bravado.

  For the hundredth time – what the hell am I doing here?!

  • • •

  Rupert stepped out of the taxi into the bustling nonchalance of the Khao San Road. He paid the driver, retrieved his suitcase and stared up at the flashing neon signs, becoming more prominent now as dusk cloaked the grey skyline with a darker, broody palette.

  He checked his phone, reminding himself of his instructions, then picked his way through the human traffic, heading across the flow of pedestrians to a narrow alley between a clothing parasol and a rickety trestle crammed full of mobile phone accessories. Both stalls touted their wares beneath a white sign with red and blue lettering, advertising a sterling silver shop.

  Rupert walked with slow, muscle-cramping steps, sweating more than the cool evening temperature would normally encourage. His eyes darted left, right, over his shoulder, twitchy fingers tightening around the Samsonite’s extendible handle, the wheels juddering across the road’s textured flagstones. Around him, the narrow sides of the alley closed in, getting progressively darker the farther away he shuffled from the normality of the street.

  • • •

  The flashing red, white and blue two-hearts neon insignia for Gullible Travels out-dazzled all the other signs on the Khao San Road – bigger, brighter, with more vibrant psychedelic colours. Below its enticing magnetism, a constant stream of scooters weaved their way through the bustling crowd, leaving trails of exhaust fumes swirling at ankle level, eerily illuminated by flashes of red brake lights in the dusky night. This fresh intermittent pollution overlaid the competing aromas of alcohol breath, fatty pork skewers sizzling on miniature barbeques, body odour, stale vegetables and potent pour hommes et femmes perfume, constantly mixed together with the motion of human legs, out on the prowl.

  ‘Never underestimate the adventures waiting inside Gullible Travels! Let’s hang loose and party hard!’ Victoria yelled, whooping and punching the air.

  She led the group beneath the flashing neon sign, between two twenty-foot high, ten-foot long fibreglass hiking boots. One boot had been painted in the American stars and stripes, the other in the Thai national flag colours, matching Maddie’s tee-shirt emblems. The tongue of each boot lolled lazily back over the toe, forming the counter to an open-top booth. In the left boot, a Thai girl danced provocatively, wearing skimpy cut-off khaki shorts and signature two-heart design bikini top. To her right, a slim Western guy gyrated enthusiastically, displaying his abs beneath a cropped US Marine combat top and Army cap, which hosted the Gullible Travels insignia.

  Victoria paused by the tall, purple-gloss entrance doors beyond the huge boots. She turned to face the group, making eye contact one by one, then raised her hands to the sky and plunged them down, crumpling her body into a low squat, signalling the purple doors to open. The group became saturated with the sound of Tina Turner belting out Simply the Best, with enough volume and accompanying blast from a giant wind machine to sway some of them back half a step, plastering involuntary grins across their wide-eyed faces. Multi-coloured flashing floor squares with signature heart shapes lit in sequence underfoot, their red, white and blue glows projecting heart images sporadically on the chest-height swirling smoke, interspersed with pulsating red, white and blue laser strobes emanating from deep within the club. The entire building throbbed with a bone-rattling acoustic bass and Tina’s soulful lyrics.

  Maddie’s hair swept back in the blast of air, puffing her cheeks, forcing an involuntary grin as she swayed back. She held out a hand to prevent the person in front from stepping backwards onto her, then cautiously followed the other travellers into the cavernous interior. Maddie filtered past Victoria, still crouched on the floor, her hair dancing on the rush of air, arms outstretched, palms upturned in a welcome to this not-so-humble establishment greeting.

  ‘You okay down there?’ Maddie asked, stooping down to peer at Victoria, who cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘My knees can’t handle much more of this.’

  Maddie scooped her hands under Victoria’s arms, helping her up.

  ‘Did they like the grand entrance?’

  ‘I think so … is it always like this?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. “This is big-banging-kok, babe,” as Joe-Ho would say.’ Victoria swept her hand out in a grandiose gesture. ‘It can be overwhelming, all this extravagance. But I absolutely love it.’

  Maddie followed Victoria further into the stroboscopic, flashing-floor wind tunnel. She half-turned, aware of the entrance doors closing behind her, coinciding with the strength of the breeze subsiding. The multi-coloured floor slowed its sporadic blinking, now matching their walking speed, the squares changing colour under each footstep. Red. White. Blue.

  ‘Drinks!’ yelled Victoria over Tina Turner’s vocals, now blending into a vibrant contemporary dance remix, played at a marginally quieter, teeth-tingling volume. The narrow corridor opened out to a reception area, fifty feet square. Neon pink up-lighting bathed the floor in a soft glow, illuminating the smiling faces of the bar staff, three quarters of their height consumed within sunken floor booths. Victoria stooped down and collected two azure-blue cocktail glasses off the knee-high bar. She straightened up to hand one to Maddie, waving a hand in front of her face to break her fixated ground-level stare.

  ‘Lilliputian bar staff?’

  ‘Yeah, kind of a quirky theme, isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess … feels a bit weird – uncomfortable.’

  ‘That’s the idea, I think. Cocktails laced with irony.’

  Maddie sipped the cool blue peppermint flavour liquid through a curly straw. ‘Unusual flavour. It tastes—’

  ‘Potent. Yeah, they call it Blue Rinse.’

  Maddie stifled a cough, wincing as she forced herself to swallow. She glanced around at the other travellers, mingling by several other identical sunken bar areas. Victoria followed her gaze. ‘It’s a curious mix of voyeurism and social commentary on the perception of an East meets West superiority complex, don’t you think?’

  ‘Is that Joe-Ho’s intellectual marketing concept, regurgitated into your sales patter?’

  Victoria sniggered. ‘Perhaps. Have fun, I’ve got to mingle. I’ll keep an eye out for you.’

  Victoria scanned around the room, nodded at Maddie, then sauntered off towards her next target. Maddie watched her approach a group of young male travellers, all sporting slicked back hair and carefully shaped wispy beards, oozing testosterone-fuelled confidence.

  You’d be right at home, Rupert.

  ‘You’re new here,’ said a polite, slightly nasal English voice.

  Maddie turned to face the man. ‘That obvious?’

  ‘There’s a look, that first-timers adopt. Sort of a glazed sheen of disbelief and mild shock that a Thai owner can belittle his compatriots so blatantly.’

  ‘Or is he belittling us? We’re paying customers, after all.’

  He grinned, perfect white teeth glowing in the UV light filters. ‘Could be … I’m Darwin.’

  ‘Of course you are. I’m Maddie.’

  ‘Madeline, by birth …?’ Another flash of impossibly white teeth, the focal point of his deeply tanned parchment-like complexion. ‘So …’ Darwin began, easing his head in closer, as if to confide something of staggering importance.

  His twinkling eyes, cheeky smile and amiable body language were cruelly curtailed by the bar plungin
g into darkness. An instant later several multi-coloured laser holograms of Elvis Presley in his classic white jewelled suit appeared around the room. Glitter began falling from the ceiling, its sparkling freefall vividly illuminated with flashes of UV light, casting a shroud of dreamlike anticipation throughout the clientele.

  Dum dum daaa … Dum DUM, DAAA!

  The opening chords of Eve of the War from the musical version of The War of the Worlds pounded through chest cavities and echoed inside near-perforated eardrums. Beyond the edge of the bar area, dry ice smoke crept eerily out from floor level, its pink pigment gradually darkening to devilish blood-red. Piercing white spotlights projected ghostly skeletal shadows onto a large projector screen on the far wall. Maddie glanced at Darwin. He looked mildly amused and oddly nonplussed. At least he’d stepped back, no longer crowding her.

  ‘It’s time …’ a soft, Thai-accented voice whispered, becoming louder and deeper. ‘It’s time … it’s time for Gullible Travels speed-mating – big-banging Bangkok style!’

  Smoke filtered away and spotlights pulsed intermittent beams, revealing more of the large multi-tiered amphitheatre-inspired space. Music faded out, as everyone turned to watch a figure rise up from the floor, illuminated by powerful spotlights. He had short spiky hair, coloured with an inch-wide red line over each ear and a two inch-wide blue band from his forehead to the nape of his neck. Below the two-hearts Gullible Travels tee-shirt he wore faded jeans and pristine white sneakers. Arms stretched high above his head, he yelled into his headset microphone. ‘Heeeeere’s … Joe-Ho!’

  Cheering and canned laughter erupted, echoing around the multi-speaker system, prompting accompanying wolf whistles and whoops from the assembled travellers.

  ‘Tonight, giants of the world, we search for Gullible travel mates – big-banging Bangkok style!’ The random spotlights settled, picking out miniature tables and chairs randomly placed on tiers of different height terracing around the club. Each table had been set up with a miniature table tennis net and two bats, which had ‘Yes’ written in neon green US Army-style lettering on one side, and ‘No’ in red on the reverse.

  ‘New game, no blame. Banging-Bangkok style.’ Joe-Ho crouched into a pseudo-Usain Bolt lightning posture. His outstretched hand pointed a smartphone towards the nearest couple seated at a tiny table. ‘Gullible Travellers …’ shouted Joe-Ho, his words echoing around the club. He sporadically pointed at random tables, lit up under flashes of spotlight beams as he delivered his staccato instructions. ‘Download our travel mate app, and – start – your – questions!’

  Joe-Ho pressed a command on his mobile phone. A whirling spotlight beam pulsated around the miniature table tennis desks, at each location highlighting a male traveller on one side of the table’s low net. They hunched awkwardly on the tiny chairs, facing towards a girl, crouched down opposite. On the screen, the drivers leapt into their vintage race cars, wheels spinning away, chaotically weaving across the track to avoid the other cars, all vying for position. Joe-Ho raised his arms, grinning, then dropped them to his side. ‘Go, go, GO!’

  Maddie flinched at the hand laid on her shoulder. She spun round, stepped back and swept her arm out, brushing the hand aside.

  ‘Whoa, relax – you’re up …’ said Victoria, rubbing her forearm, pointing at a table high up on a far tier.

  ‘Sorry, some of these guys can be … persistent.’

  ‘I hear you. Up there, at those shrunken tables, the world’s finest blaggers, freeloaders and ten-second-lovers await. But knowing that, makes it fun. Go investigate, find yourself someone …’

  ‘You’re not painting an attractive picture.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m on the rebound.’

  Maddie watched Victoria saunter over to the nearest table, where she sat down opposite a guy with dreadlocks, muscular arms and a ready smile.

  ‘He nice. You go there,’ said an accented voice beside Maddie, belonging to a pretty Thai girl. She hooked her arm under Maddie’s elbow and led her towards a vacant miniature chair opposite a teenage guy with acne, windswept gelled hair and a tight tee-shirt.

  ‘Hi. I’m—’ Maddie began.

  ‘Uh-huh. You’re new to this? Yup, thought so. The guys do the asking. Rules, see. How old are you?’

  ‘Oh. I’m … older than you.’

  ‘For sure.’

  She wriggled to get comfy on the tiny chair, holding eye contact with him, the silence building. ‘I’m Maddie. What’s your—’

  ‘I ask the questions.’

  Maddie eased back, straightening her back. She folded her arms and tilted her head, observing him.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked again.

  ‘Too old for this bullshit.’ She pushed up from the chair and turned to walk away.

  ‘Wait. You’re married – the ring. So why are you here?’

  Maddie stopped, glanced back at him. ‘Escaping from those sort of questions.’

  ‘I’m Rod. I’m eighteen – nineteen next month. Finishing off my gap year. Sorry if I seemed abrupt, I thought girls liked the confident types.’

  Maddie examined him for a few moments, then rolled her eyes, relaxed her shoulders and sat back down. ‘Confident doesn’t mean arrogant,’ she said, toying with the table tennis bat. ‘I’m twenty-six. I’m here … actually, I’m here because of this engagement ring. It was given to me by someone I was once very fond of. It’s now six hours since I left him at Bangkok Airport after deciding I needed to prove that I’m worthy of more from a marriage than being suffocated by insensitive hypocrisy. So I’m going to travel for a month, see if I can manage alone.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you were here to have some fun.’

  • • •

  Shh-clitch.

  Memory Card 2. Pic 377

  ‘The uncomfortable awkwardness of his body language is key, why doesn’t the young buck now desperately backpedalling take stock, really see? He’s miscalculated, underestimated her self-conscious ambiguous persona – does her distaste at his immature directness suggest he might be hiding a massive boner? And yet, he seems to have encouraged her to pull back from the brink of finality, forcing her to re-evaluate, to question: what is this wannabe’s true reality? What will be the result of her rejection of his curiosity, will it open up the opportunity for her to look inside, explore her own honesty?’

  • • •

  Maddie glanced over at Barry, his expensive camera dangling from its strap as he ambled away, Jody clamped to his side.

  Is that the guy from the market?

  ‘Maddie …?’

  ‘Sorry, this place, is … mesmerising.’

  Rod picked up his table tennis bat, slowly twirled the Yes and No sides. ‘Ready to vote?’

  ‘Oh, right. Already?’

  ‘That’s the idea of speed-travel-mating, Banging-kok style.’

  She picked up her bat, flicking her wrist between each side. ‘Banging-kok style. Is he for real?’ she mumbled, absently.

  ‘Joe-Ho? Oh yeah. He’s a legend. Sooo … what’s it going to be?’ Rod flicked his eyes down and twirled the bat to display a luminous green Yes. Maddie briefly met his gaze.

  ‘Ah, thing is Rod, I’m not really in the market for—’

  ‘Gullible Travellers, make your choice … NOW!’ yelled Joe-Ho, centre stage under a bright spotlight, his arms stretched skywards. Individual beams of light targeted each table, illuminating the couples under an eerie effervescent glow.

  Maddie mouthed ‘sorry’ at Rod as she held up her No rejection. She stood awkwardly, shaking cramp out of her legs, catching his crestfallen expression. She shrugged, then paused, as if considering saying something else. Instead she attempted a smile, then stepped down from the tiered clusters of couples.

  ‘Oh, no. No, no, nooooo! No escape for pretty lady!’ Joe-Ho beamed and clasped Maddie’s hand, scampering with her across to the opposite side of the dance floor. ‘Plenty more gentlemen. Not all same-same. But first, you need drink. Better then, much better …�
��

  Nine

  Maddie poured a glug of Chang beer into her mouth and savoured the cooling sensation as it worked its way down her throat. ‘Joe-Ho’s right, much better now,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Who’s right about what?’ said a coarse, East London-accented voice.

  Maddie lifted her focus from the half-empty bottle in her hand to the guy who’d just plonked himself down opposite her. He folded scrawny tattooed arms across his chest, hands propping up tiny biceps. A wispy, patchy excuse for a beard clung to his sallow cheeks. Long greasy hair poked out from below his stars and stripes bandanna.

  Is he for real?

  ‘You’re American … with that accent?’

  ‘Sure am, honey.’

  She nodded, cast her eyes around the other tables. ‘This anything like dating at home?’

  ‘Same-same.’

  ‘Banging-kok style? God help you.’

  ‘You don’t seem to be in a very interested place, right now.’

  Maddie took a slug of beer. ‘Nope.’

  He stood up and walked away. ‘Beaver basher,’ he muttered as he left.

  Touchy.

  Maddie gazed around at the other tables. A girl of around twenty-five with blonde spiky highlights and eyebrow piercings had moved her chair to the same side as her male companion, an ordinary-looking guy in his late thirties. She held her mobile phone at arm’s length, filming their conversation, smooching shoulder to shoulder with him, all touchy-feely body language and animated hand gestures. Maddie shifted her gaze on. Two guys leaned across another small table, their mouths clamped together, eyes tightly shut. Above them, at the top of the last tier, Victoria sat opposite Darwin, sharing a cigarette.

  ‘Hello. Hope you don’t mind me asking … but is this seat taken?’

  Maddie glanced up at the figure towering over her. She took in his expensive-looking Velcro-strap walking sandals, ripped jeans and fashionable patterned shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and two buttons open at the collar, below a strong jawline and piercing blue eyes.

  ‘Oh, er … sure, please take it. The other guy left. I think I scared him off.’