Jalan Jalan (9 page)

‘Yes, I know. You've already told me.'

‘It's perfect.'

‘Good. At least there's one perfect man in this room.'

I blow her a raspberry.

‘Do that again, bum-wipe, I dare you.'

I blow another one and she wraps her lips over my tongue and pushes hers into my mouth. I lean into her but she pulls away.

‘Uh-uh. Not yet.'

She hands me the next present. This is rectangular and thin. I can tell it's a book, and again it feels familiar. I sod the anticipation and pull the paper off in one go.

‘
Asterix the Gaul
.'

‘Check the date.'

I do. 1969. First English edition.

‘I'm speechless.' I am. She knows what I want better than I do.

‘You've got the set now.'

‘I can't believe you've got me these.' I scan my eyes over my two new prize possessions lying on the bed. ‘These perfect presents. I'm a very happy little boy.'

I lean across and give her a hug, slide my hands inside her dressing gown where it's warm. I kiss her neck. My hands move to the top of her thighs. She pushes me away.

‘Two more to open. Then I might let you.'

The next present is also rectangular.

‘What is this, Book Week?' I free it from the paper. ‘Oh.'

‘Not a first edition. Couldn't quite stretch to that. Twenty p from a charity shop'

‘
The Time Machine
.'

‘By you-know-who. You don't sound excited?' She pokes me in the belly. ‘Sound excited.'

‘You know I hate science fiction. My dad's craziness for it killed mine.'

‘I know. But I love all that stuff. So read it, Bucko. Open your mind to all those mad ideas.'

‘Mm. One day.' I put the book on the floor. ‘Asterix first though.'

‘Bad boy. But I'll let you off as it's your birthday.' She ruffles my hair. ‘OK, last one.'

The fourth present is bottle-shaped. I open it. It's a bottle: Glen-fiddich.

‘Ah, whisky. Your favourite drink,' I say.

‘And yours.' She grabs the bottle off me. ‘But I thought I could have a treat too as I've been so good to you.' She tears the seal off the bottle and pulls the stopper out with her teeth. ‘And after a couple of shots of this,' she slurs with it still between her lips, ‘I might be even better to you.' The stopper is spat across the room. She takes two gulps from the bottle, then hands it to me.

‘Happy birthday, you old fart.'

‘It's a bit early for booze, isn't…'

‘Shut up.' She slips her dressing gown off her shoulders and arms and sits in front of me naked. ‘We're not going anywhere today.'

‘Well, OK then.' I take a big swig, pull my T-shirt over my head while she wriggles my pants down my legs. We sit naked opposite each other, looking at the other's body. Hers leaves me tongue-tied.

I'm pushed onto my back and she straddles my thighs.

‘Ow. Action Man. Under my bum.' I raise my backside.

She pulls him out and looks him in the eye.

‘So, Mr Action Man, my boyfriend here likes you because of your gripping hands. Well, you may well have a firm grip, Mr Soldier, but I think mine is better.' She slides him to safety under the bed and grabs hold of me to prove a point. Her grip is better. Much better. I close my eyes and the day is perfect and for once time doesn't fly, because she is so slow with me and I'm so slow with her and every moment, every touch, every sensation, word and promise is individually gift-wrapped and put in a box marked Best Presents Ever. A box which slides around in one of the many rooms in my soul and sometimes knocks into the walls, reminding me it's still there.

INSPECTION
AND APPROVAL

I
stand
in front of a two-metre-high wall. A camera, mounted next to a large, solid metal gate, is pointed down at me. I check the address against the piece of paper that Pak gave me. It's the right place. I go the gate and press the intercom, put my mouth next to the speaker and look at the camera.

‘I'm the English teacher.'

The gate slides open just enough to let me through. I enter and nearly do the same as Julie, turn around and walk back out. In front of me is a large Chinese man with some sort of gun slung over his shoulder. I have no idea what sort of a gun, only that it is big and long and it makes my sphincter contract.

Stay calm, New Me. New Me is ‘don't give a shit', remember. New Me is after strange and exciting experiences, and this is one. Just smile and walk to the house.

I smile and walk to the house. I say a house, it's more of a mansion. All the ground-floor windows are shuttered up. There are another three men with similar weapons hanging off their shoulders, playing cards on the bonnet of a shining black Range Rover. Another armed man is walking around the side of the house looking up at the top of the wall as he goes. In front of the house is a large wired enclosure with three Alsatians imprisoned in it. They attack the mesh with teeth and slobber as soon as I pass. I step away to the right.

Stay calm. These things don't worry you. Nothing worries you. OK?

Got it. Nothing worries me.

One of the guards opens the polished solid-wood front door and shows me in. Once I'm in he goes back out, closing the door behind him. I stay where I am and take in the room before me. The house is all open plan and marble-tiled floors. Straight ahead is the kitchen area. Three Asian women with Jackie Onassis hairstyles, dressed in ‘60s miniskirts and breast-hugging roll-neck tops, are preparing ornate plates of food. Next to the kitchen area is a table which could seat sixteen at a sit-down meal, but which is now covered with a buffet of dishes I can't make out from here by the door. The smell of garlic and chicken and saffron and a dozen herbs whose names I've never known fills the air.

On the opposite side of the room, four near-middle-aged Chinese men sit in front of a large TV screen watching Manchester United, maybe, versus a team in blue. On the coffee table between the men is a pile of money. As I watch, one of the men throws another five notes onto the pile. He yells something at a blond player on the screen, who from here looks like the ever-present Mr Beckham.

At the end of the room there is no internal wall, just three wide marble steps up into an outside area. Reflections and light ripples dance on the far outside wall, telling me there is probably a pool just up those steps.

‘Ah, the new teacher.' This is one of the men at the TV. ‘Fitri, Benny,' he shouts, ‘your new teacher is here.'

He comes over to me, but keeps an eye over his shoulder at the football.

‘Good to meet you. I am Charles.' He offers me his hand and takes his eyes away from the game to inspect me. He doesn't let go of my hand, but instead holds it tight while he looks deep into my eyes. Unblinking dark, narrow eyes search mine as though he's trying to find something. The intensity hurts. I try not to blink as some sort of defiance to his ocular rape of me, but don't manage it. The intimate examination lasts only two or three seconds, but I haven't been breathing. As he lets go of my hand I suck in air.

He is about forty-five, my height, neatly side-combed hair, thin lines around his eyes—probably from all the examinations he carries out—and despite his red and white Hawaiian shirt, no sense of humour about him whatsoever.

‘Come.' He leads me to the buffet and waves his hand over the food. ‘Eat what you want. Drink the wine, it is flown in from France, the cheese too.' He slices a piece of Brie and takes a bite. ‘The other food is also from Europe and Australia and the States. All good. Please eat what you want.' He is already walking back to his seat. ‘The children come soon.'

He lowers himself slowly into his chair by the TV, where, sitting upright and regal, he returns his attention to Mr Beckham and friends.

The old adage of there being no such thing as a free lunch troubles me a little, but sod it. I pick up a plate from a pile on the table and cut myself some Stilton, perfectly soft Brie, a slice of crusty white bread, avoid the king prawns, lobster and plates of ham, beef and chicken, take a spoonful of mixed salad and another of garlic mushrooms, a slice of some sort of white fish and then pour from a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape into a crystal wine glass. The lesson is going to be worth doing for the food alone.

I stand with the plate in one hand and the wine in the other and am wondering what to do next when a teenage girl and young boy come out of a door near the gamblers. They come straight over to me.

‘I am Fitri,' says the girl, about fifteen and about to become beautiful.

‘I am Benny,' says the boy, about ten and about to become chubbier as he grabs a plate and piles on most of the beef and five tiger prawns.

Their father says something to them in Chinese without looking away from the TV.

‘My father says we should go to the games room. Please, this way,' says Fitri as she leads me and little brother towards the steps. At the top of the steps I swig a large mouthful of wine as I take in the pool, which is half covered by a roof and half open to the blue sky. It's about twenty-five metres in length and surrounded by the rest of the building. There are five doors which go off from it into other parts of the house.

‘Bring your shorts next time,' says Fitri, going on ahead down one side of the pool, ‘we can swim.'

Benny sucks the internal workings of a prawn into his mouth.

I follow them through a door at the far end of the pool and enter a large games room containing a full-size snooker table, dartboard, ping-pong table and jukebox. In the corner is a pile of beanbags, which is where Fitri leads us. She slumps onto one, Benny falls backwards into another, losing his remaining prawns over his shoulder. He picks them up off the floor and puts two onto his plate and one into his mouth. Fitri slaps him across the head.

‘My brother is a pig.'

‘My sister is a bitch.'

I place the wine and plate next to my beanbag and flop into it.

‘First English lesson: bitch is a bad word.' I wriggle around until I'm stable and then pick up my wine. It tastes better than anything Sainsbury's back home has to offer.

‘But she called me a pig,' says Benny, as he pulls the remains of prawn number three from his mouth. He wipes his lips on his arm.

‘Well pig isn't exactly polite, but sometimes it is suitable for little boys.' I shove a handful of mushrooms into my mouth. ‘And for grown men.'

Benny laughs, opens his mouth wide, tilts his head back and slowly lowers the last crustacean into the chasm.

‘Oh great,' says Fitri, ‘two idiot pigs.' Then she laughs.

‘So,' I say, ‘I think your English is already very good. Why is that?'

‘My father speaks very good English and he often takes us to Australia and sometimes America,' Fitri says with a tone of superiority. ‘He goes there on business.'

‘And what is his business?'

‘He owns discos. Also he does import and export.'

‘What does he import and export?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Oh.'

‘He is very important,' adds Benny.

‘I'm sure. So what should I be teaching you two expert students?'

The wine is very good. My glass is already nearly empty.

‘You are the teacher. What do you think?' asks Fitri.

‘OK. Why don't you just ask me questions about anything you want and I'll try to answer. Any mistakes you make I'll try to correct and explain.'

They both agree and we start a question-and-answer session.

‘Do you have a girlfriend?' asks Fitri.

—Good start, says Laura, what are you going to say to that one?

—You're my girlfriend.

—Oh am I? I thought I'm dead and you were trying to forget me.

—Don't remind me.

The wine suddenly turns bitter in my stomach.

‘Well?' interrupts Fitri.

‘Well?' adds Benny.

‘Yes. No. I used to have.'

‘Was she beautiful?'

‘Very.'

‘Do you miss her?'

‘Very much.'

—Oh, get over me. You know you want to.

—I wish I could.

—What happened to New You? I thought he was supposed to be shot of me.

‘Why did you break?'

‘Break up. The proper way to say it is break up.' My voice crackles. ‘Why did you break up?'

‘She left me.' Barely audible.

—Liar. Face the truth. I'm dead, numbnuts.

‘She died.' I drain the last of the wine from my glass and smile at the two children in front of me. ‘She died,' I whisper. I swallow. I blink blurriness from my eyes. There is something big and painful ballooning in my chest.