Jalan Jalan (32 page)

‘You have been running while I was in the bathroom?'

My eyes can't meet his. I force a laugh.

‘Why do you say that?'

‘You have sweat on your face.'

‘It's hot.'

‘There is air conditioning.'

‘Perhaps it's the thought of Teddy and his voodoo.'

‘You will see it is not voodoo. But you will see. You have no excuse for not going.'

‘But Tuesday is only three days away. My teach—'

‘I must see Pak Andy later today. I will tell him you must have time off. Do not worry about him. His debt has made him my bitch.' He manages one of his almost-smiles at this. I manage a whole one.

‘Your American English is really good.'

‘I thought this phrase was universal English.'

‘It probably is, but it started in the States, I'm sure.'

‘Most things do these days. Most things do.' He stands up and looks down at me. ‘Go there. Lampuuk. That is almost the last thing I want you to do.'

‘Almost? What else?' I prepare for the drug-dealing bit, or the smuggling, or whatever strange something this man is going to ask of me.

‘Pay the bill. It is your turn.' He leaves without another word, steps out into the heat in his black suit, sun reflecting off slicked-back hair. I watch through the window as a car pulls up beside him. He climbs in and is gone.

I ask for the bill, wondering if I have enough cash on me.

‘No bill,' says the waiter, stern-faced and polite. ‘Always free here for Mr Charles.'

I put a generous tip on the table and leave, confused, guilty for looking at his book. There is a grumbling in my stomach. I feel something else. Excitement? No, but something. Tingling. Perhaps about this meeting with Teddy, maybe about travelling to Banda Aceh, or maybe about the numbers in my pocket.

Or is it about Laura? This is all to do with Laura. Everything: my confusion, my situation, my unhappiness, my anger. My anger at myself for hoping again, for letting her in when she doesn't exist. For the other night I spent with her in the storm. And why does she only come when she feels like it?

Yes, why does she only come when I don't expect her? The selfish, selfish bitch. I wince at the word and for using it for her, but fuck, she's ruined me. I don't know who I am now. One minute strong and confident and somehow sort of happy, and the next miserable and alone. She has made me mad. Clinically mad. Bitch.

I don't believe it's possible, but I hope Teddy will sort me out, rid me of her. Give me a reason to carry on and maybe enjoy life again. I am suddenly feeling empty, gut-twisting empty; I haven't even got Old Me
or New Me
down there; I'm not sure who or what I am anymore. I'm rubbing my head, aware that a dull throb is behind my eyes. I walk down the street, the busy, hot, stinking street where dust sticks to me and everyone watches me. Watches the foreigner. The strange man who is so big and awkward-looking. Out of place like an elephant in a field of sheep.

She just fucks with me. Plays with me. She died and now all she does is mess with my head. And that is not what Laura was. Laura was understanding, wise, kind. Alive. Whoever it is that comes to me now, it is not the Laura I know. It is a Laura changed by death, made bitter and hurtful.

Fuck, it's so hot today. The traffic is so noisy and the smell of rotting rubbish burns my nose. Getting so deep up my nostrils I won't be able to get rid of it. It will stick like the stench of vomit. And the throbbing behind my eyes has started to spread through my head.

‘Well, fuck you, Laura. If you don't come now to discuss this, fuck you.'

I wait for a response.

‘Exactly. Point made. I fucking miss you, and when I really want to see you, you don't come.'
Bule
, big, awkward, talking to himself. What do I care?

Ah, is that her next to me? I sense her as I walk along the pavement. But when I look, she isn't there.

I miss my old girlfriend. ‘My solid, funny, annoying girlfriend.' My lips are moving while I walk. I'm willing her to come to me, but with each step I take, she still doesn't appear, and I grow angrier.

‘Don't give a shit. Don't give a shit. Don't give a shit.' Each time louder. I shout the last and people around me stare. ‘Don't give a shit.' Suddenly I run into the road, forcing a motor
becak
to stop. Sunlight is scalding my eyes, giving strength to the fire that now burns in my head.

‘Crazy
bule
,' the driver yells and before he has time to do or say anything else, while taxis and yellow buses beep horns behind him, I jump in his sidecar with such a force that it nearly overbalances him and the bike.

‘Hotel Garuda,' I tell him. It's the only place I can think of to dull my head, to dampen the burn in my skull and to get pissed up in the afternoon. And I want to get pissed up.

I am pissed up. The skull pain has been numbed by drinks at Garuda. But I've moved on from there. I stumble through the doors at Memphis into a world of spinning lights and forced deafness. A thumping, repetitive drumming hits my ears like a boxer punching and punching them. It's a different assault to the headache. This repetition aids the numbness. It feels good. I'm looking at everything as though through coloured sweet-wrappers. Everything is crinkly and unclear and yet vivid. And I'm angry. The bitch still hasn't made an appearance. One day she's all over me like life was never whacked out of her and the next she's roadkill, dead and empty and rotting.

Well what about me, you cow? Getting my hopes up for something that's impossible. Pretending you never died, just so that you can break me apart again when you want. Make me crazy and force me to run away and live in this other world just to get over you. And then you follow me here and mess with me so I can't move on. I can't change.

You fucking BITCH.

‘Whisky and Coke.' The wallop with which my chest hits the bar as I fall against it knocks the words out. I reach between my legs, fumble behind me and pull a stool up while the barman does as he's told. He places the drink on the bar and I throw a note next to it. Spinning around on my stool I scan the room like a broken CCTV camera. The image is shaky and nothing is in focus but the camera manages to go from left to right without falling off its mount.

Is that Charles? Come on, turn around. Black suit, black hair. Nope. Not Charles. Your club, but you wouldn't be seen dead here of a night. Not your thing, eh Charlie boy?

I move from the stool and collapse onto a chair by the dance floor, being oh so careful with my glass as I put it on the table. There are only a few people shimmering around the place at various tables and in darkened corners and only one person swirling in their psychedelic secret garden on the dance floor. She is
bule
. Light-brown hair flops over her face and she moves like some hippy chick from Woodstock. Her dancing seems familiar.

‘Still not coming for me then, ickle Laura?' I ask the room, not caring if anyone sees me talking. They can't hear me above this hammering wall of sound that's wrapped around me. ‘Eh, I said not coming then?'

Silence in the thunder. Is that an oxymoron? Who knows? Who cares?

Closing my eyes I sip on my whisky and amuse myself with the slight dizzying of my mind. There is a hand on my neck and a warm breath of unheard words next to my ear.

‘Ah, you couldn't resist, could you?'

I open my eyes to see Laura. But it isn't her. This face is familiar but too close for me to see all its features and complete the jigsaw. I put my hand just below her neck and push back. The face falls together under the mess of brown hair.

‘Ha. Julie.'

‘Ha. Newbie.' She pulls a chair up next to mine and leans in close again, mouth millimetres from enveloping my ear. She smells of sweat and coconut.

‘Didn't recognise you swirling around out there.'

‘What you doing here, hero man?'

‘Getting fuck-faced mostly.' I wave my glass at her.

‘Feeling down? What is it with you? What's your story? Tell me for once.'

‘Nah. It'd make your brain explode.'

‘I think that's already happening.' She laughs and shakes her head around to prove it. ‘Go on.'

‘Nope.' I'm not sure why I don't want to tell her. Scared? Not sure what will happen once the weight of it falls from my mouth again? Just too drunk to get my tongue around it? Anyway, ‘Nope, nope, nope.'

‘Well how about some medicine then? It's got to be about nine. And it's Saturday night. And I, too, wish to get fuck-faced.'

‘Why? What's your story then? Marty been too much?'

She touches her nose with her index finger, then points it at me.

‘Spot on. Marty's a fucking pillow on my face, suffocating me. I wish he'd give me a fucking break. Know what I mean?'

‘Oh. Is that my fault? Leaving you two alone together at Toba?'

‘Nah. Would have happened eventually. You obviously weren't going to shag me, so he was the next choice.' She punches my arm and sniggers. ‘Not really. Like I said, you're too fucking skinny, man. Too delicate.'

‘Let's get medicine.'

‘Well, alrighty then.' She puts her hand up and calls over a waiter. Five minutes later he's handing us little blue pills from under his apron.

‘These look different,' Julie says as she turns one over in her hand.

The waiter leans down to talk to her. Green laser lights descend in lines through foggy dry ice to the floor. She nods and gets close enough to eat my ear.

‘Says they're the same
obat
to the usual, but changed the colour. Do the same shit.'

‘Whatever,' I say and throw the pill to the back of my throat.

‘Let's dance these bastards up.' Julie pulls me by the arm to a stormy ship's deck of a dance floor where we sway from side to side and a strange seasickness starts to work its way up my legs.

I try to stamp it away. Banging feet on the floor. One of them clicks like wood on wood. Ha, a wooden leg. I am Long John Silver. She is my first mate. I salute her. We dance a shanty. The ship pitches on a swell. I stumble across the deck and hold on to the rails. The ship rights herself. The lights are flashing all around. We're in a storm, me hearties. I hang on to my first mate and shout in her ear over the clap of thunder, ‘No frigging in the rigging.' She looks at me, eyes wide, and then laughs a hearty sailor's laugh.

‘Aye aye, Cap'n.''

What's that coming through the wind and rain and lightning? A dark and dusky girl. She is a beauty. Must be from a nearby island. She talks to my first mate and first mate nods. First mate hands me over. Dusky beauty leads me to a seat below decks. Out of the storm.

‘What you do, Crazy?'

Ah, native girl knows the lingo. And a familiar voice. A soft hand strokes my cheek. Familiar touch too.

‘Aha, Princess Eka. What are ye doing on my ship?'

‘So now you crazy pirate. I think you take very strong
obat
. I get you water.'

‘Water? There be nothing here but water.' I laugh as I look to the sea and don't find it.

A bottle is put in my hands.

‘Drink.'

I drink. I drink it all. Feel it flowing down and down inside, cooling. It feels like a long time since something so pure passed my lips. I blink at the lightning in the night sky. It flashes a few more times until it turns back into spinning wheels of bulbs and strobes and lasers.

‘I'm fucked.'

‘Yes, you are. And you look very bad. You should go home.'

‘I like fucked.' Suddenly my stomach burns. I cradle it with both arms. Sweat drips off my head onto my trouser legs.

‘I think you sick.'

‘Just fucked…' I get up and stagger to the toilets. Where are the toilets? Everything is suddenly banging at my back door to be let out. But toilets? I don't know where they are. Can't see the signs for the lights. I stagger and bounce from table to wall to table. Another hand is on my arm, strong and guiding. It is a man. From where? Where do I know him from? ‘Where do I know you from?'