The Backpacker (34 page)

THREE

To save money, for the first few weeks we lived entirely on McDonald's hamburgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner; although there are places where one can get inexpensive bowls of noodles, I didn't discover them until much later. Our days were usually taken up scanning the newspapers for jobs and generally mooching about doing anything to keep us out of the guest house until as late as possible. At night we would walk down to the harbour, look out at the lights of Hong Kong island and dream. ‘Some day,' Rick would say to me, majestically sweeping his hand over the scene, ‘all this'll be yours,' and then burst out laughing.

Two weeks later, we were both almost out of money and, although we knew it was wrong, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going into a pub for a drink. We couldn't afford it, but so what?

The night was spent under the influence of alcohol, blissfully ignoring our predicament, and at about three o'clock in the morning we staggered back to our hovel. The lift was empty for once and we were soon walking along the rat-infested, concrete walkway back to the room. We were so drunk that neither of us bothered to put our trousers up on the bed with our bags, where we usually kept our belongings for safety reasons, and instead just threw them on the floor.

The next day when we awoke, Rick's passport had been stolen. Not a big deal really, but we phoned the police nonetheless to report the incident, and to see what could be done to get it back.

‘Please, sirs,' the India guest house owner pleaded, ‘no need to phone police.'

‘Really,' I said evenly, standing in the corridor with the phone in one hand, ‘and why not?'

He babbled something in my ear about his own security guard, who was usually asleep on the hallway floor, but I'd already started to speak to the policeman on the other end and brushed him away with my hand. After giving my name and that of the guest house, the inspector said they'd be there in five minutes.

One minute later the front doorbell rang and I opened it to twelve policemen. They came in, all twelve in uniform, and stood in the narrow corridor; twelve pens in twelve hands poised over twelve notepads. The sergeant at the front asked Rick what had happened, putting his hand across the Indian's mouth to stop him from speaking.

‘My passport's been stolen,' Rick replied.

‘Who by?' His English was reasonable but the idiocy of the question made Rick ask for a repeat. ‘Who stole it?' the policeman said again.

‘How should I know who stole it? We went out last night, and when I woke up this morning it was gone.'

The officer dropped his hand from the Indian's mouth to take a note but immediately replaced it when he started babbling again. ‘When you first notice it was missing?'

‘This morning, at about ten o'clock.'

There was moment's silence as the policemen thought of his next question. If his head had been made of glass I could have seen the cogs slowly turning as his brain tried to engage his voicebox. ‘So, you have no passport?'

‘Yep, that's about the size of it. Been stolen.' Rick shifted his weight, hands on hips. ‘The passport, nothing else.'

‘Can you show me your ID card please, sir?'

‘ID card? I don't have one, I'm only a tourist.'

The policeman straightened, as though suddenly having been stuck with a great idea, and took a step forward. ‘So, you have no passport
and
no ID?' His chin rose, having finally got to the bottom of the crime, and he said, ‘Do you know it is an offence to enter Hong Kong without valid passport or ID, sir?'

Rick shrugged. ‘I dare say it is, but my passport has been stolen, I had it last night, and this morning when I woke up it was gone. Stolen.'

The sergeant cleared his throat. ‘It is an offence under the basic law of this territory to enter without valid travel documents,' he repeated and nodded self-satisfactorily to his men.

Rick's mouth opened. I could see that he was about to explode so I stepped in. The officer immediately put his hand in front of me. ‘Do you have a passport, sir?'

‘Of course I have,' I said, looking down at his hand on my chest. ‘How d'you think I managed to get into the country?'

‘Please show it to me.' He dropped his arm and turned back to Rick. ‘You must come with us to the police station. Anything you say–'

‘Now hold on,' I said, putting both hands up as though surrendering, ‘this is going too–'

‘Your friend is in Hong Kong without any form of ID and is therefore committing a crime.'

‘How can he be? I phoned you, remember? If we wanted to break the law I wouldn't tell the police would I?'

He was unfazed. ‘Can I see your passport please, sir?'

And so it went on like this for nearly an hour; all of us packed into that tiny corridor. They demanded to inspect the scene of the crime, so all of us tried to go for the world record for the number of human beings in a dormitory. It was like a scene from the
Keystone Cops
. Rick was eventually taken away to the police station for being an illegal immigrant, but returned three hours later without being charged. He had told them that his father was a friend of the governor, and that a distant relative, whose name he couldn't recall but who was only a phone call away, was an ex-commissioner of the Hong Kong police. The news had shaken them by the boots.

‘They actually believed you?' I asked as he sat down on the bunk, exhausted. ‘They're more stupid than I took them for.'

‘I had to say something, otherwise those thick bastards would've charged me.' He stretched out on the bed with a sigh. ‘Even I can't believe they fell for it, but they let me out.'

‘Let you out? They shouldn't have taken you in there to begin with.'

‘I'll tell you what, though, John, I'm glad I did go in. I met this Scottish guy in there... ' he trailed off as though thinking back, and began to laugh. ‘What day is it today?'

I leaned across to the other bed and picked up the copy of the
South China Morning Post
that was lying there, and checked the date. ‘Thursday,' I said, throwing it back, ‘why?'

‘Brilliant.'

‘What is?'

He sat up. ‘Saturday night there's a party and you and me are invited.'

‘Party?'

‘Not too busy are you?'

I shrugged.

‘Believe me, you want to go to this party. The guy I've just been speaking to in the police station has organised some security for a party on Saturday night. But this is no ordinary party, John, this one's in the governor's residence.'

My mind went back to an article in the previous week's newspaper, in which there'd been complaints about the disuse of such a large property since the hand over of Hong Kong to China. The Chinese were apparently unwilling to use the colonial residence, supposedly because of bad feng shui, but it still didn't quite follow why there would be a party in the house. ‘What's the party for?' I said with renewed interest, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

‘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 light 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.