Saint Jack (3 page)

“No,” I said, “I'm just an old beachcomber—drinking's my sport, nyah!”

That made him chuckle; I was laughing too, and as I shifted on the seat I felt a lump in my back pocket press into my butt: two thick envelopes of pornographic pictures I had brought along just in case he asked. Their reminding pressure stopped my laughing.

The taxi driver tilted his head back and said, “Bloomies? Eshbishin wid two gull? You want boy? Mushudge? What you want I get. What you like?”

“Just a game of squash, driver, thank you very much,” I said in a pompous fruity voice to this poor feller for the benefit of the horse's ass next to me. Then I smiled at William and tried to tip him a wink, but his head was out the window and he was blinking and gulping at the breeze and probably wondering what he was doing on that tedious little island.

I
WALKED
into a bar where they did not know me well and I could hear the Chinese whispers: “Who does that jackass think he is?” And then it ceased; my face made silence. It was not the face you expected in Ho's or Toby's or the Honey Bar, in the Golden Treasure or Loon's Tip-Top. Years ago I had not minded, but later my heart sank on the evenings all my regulars were tied up and I had to go into these joints recruiting. I got stares from round-shouldered youths sitting with plump hostesses; and the secret society members watched me—in Ho's the Three Dots, in the Honey Bar the Flying Dragons. There was no goblin as frightening as a member of a secret society staring me down. He first appeared to have no eyes, then the slits became apparent and I guessed he was peering at me from somewhere behind the slits. I never saw the eyes. The slits didn't speak; and it was impossible to read the face, too smooth for a message. I turned away and slipped the manager a few dollars to release the girl, and when I was hurrying out I heard growls and grunts I didn't understand, then titters. On the sidewalk I heard the whole bar crackle and explode into yelling laughter. Now they had eyes; but I was outside.

One night a thug spoke to me. He was sitting up front at the bar eating a cold pork pie with his fingers. He was wearing the secret society uniform, a short-sleeved shirt with the top four buttons undone, sunglasses—though it was dark—and his hair rather long, with wispy wing-tufts hanging past his ears. I didn't think he saw me talking to the manager, and after I passed the money over and turned to go the thug put his hand on my shoulder, and rubbing pork flakes into it, said gruffly, “Where you does wuck?”

I didn't answer. I hurried down the gloomy single aisle of the bar, past eerily lit Chinese faces. The thug called out, “
Where you wucking!
” That was in the Tai-Hwa on Cecil Street, and I never went near it again.

Who is he?
they murmured in the Belvedere, the Hilton, the Goodwood when I was in the lobby flicking through a magazine, waiting for one of my girls to finish upstairs. I could have passed for a golf pro when I was wearing my monogrammed red knit jersey—the one with long sleeves—and my mustard-colored slacks and white ventilated shoes. No one knew I had a good tan because I worked for Hing, who refused to pay for taxis in town and who sent me everywhere, but always to redheads, with parcels. In my short-sleeved flowered batik shirt, with my tattoos displayed, they took me for a beachcomber with a private income or a profitable sideline, perhaps “an interesting character.” Once, in the Pebble Bar of the Hotel Singapura, an American lady who was three sheets to the wind said I looked like a movie actor she knew, but she couldn't think of his name.

“What's your name?” she asked.

I smiled, to give her the impression that I might be that actor, said, “Take a guess, sweetheart,” and then I left; leaving, I heard some hoots, from the gang of oil riggers who always drank there, and I knew who they were hooting at.

My appearance, this look of a millionaire down on his luck, which is also the look of a bum attempting to be princely, was never quite right for most of the places I had to go. I was the wrong color in the Tai-Hwa and all the other Chinese joints—that was clear; at the Starlight, strictly Cantonese, they seated me with elderly hostesses and overcharged me. I was too dressy for the settler hangouts and never had enough money for more than one drink at the Hilton or Raffles, though I looked as if I might have belonged in those hotels. I certainly looked like a member of the Tanglin Club, the Swiss Club, the Cricket Club, and all the others where my chits were signed for me by fellers who liked my discretion. I was always welcome in the clubs, but that was a business matter. And they did not laugh at the Bandung: they knew me there.

 

In the taxi I mentioned the Bandung to Leigh; he didn't say no, but he thought we should stop at Hing's first—“Let's have a look at the
towkay
” was what he said. We got stuck in rush-hour traffic, a solid unmoving line of cars. There was an accident up front, and the cars were passing the wrecked sedan at a crawl to note down the license number so they could play it on the lottery. There was a bus in front of us displaying the bewildering sign
I Don't Know Why, But I Prefer Sanyo.
The local phrase for beeping was “horning,” and they were horning to beat the band. We sat and sweated, gagging on the exhaust fumes; it was after five by the time we got to Hing's.

Little Hing was sitting in the shop entrance reading the racing form. He sat like a roosting fowl, his feet on the seat, his knees drawn up under his chin. Seeing us, he turned his bony face and bawled upstairs, then he locked his teeth and snuffled and paddled the air with his free hand, which meant we were to wait.

“Your Oriental politeness,” I said. “He'll spit in a minute, probably hock a louie on your shoes, so watch out.”

We had made Big Hing wait; now, to save face, he was making us wait. Hing spent the best part of a day saving face, and Yardley said, “When you see his face you wonder why he bothers.”

Gopi, the
peon
, brought a wooden stool for Leigh, but Leigh just winced at it and studied Hing's sign:
Chop Hing Kheng Fatt: Ship Chandlers & Provisioners
, and below that in smaller assured script,
Catering & Victualling, Marine Hardware, Importers, Wholesale Drygoods & Foodstuffs, Licensed Agents, Frozen Meat
, and the motto, “
All Kinds of Deck & Engine Stores & Bonded Stores & Sundries
.” “Sundries” was my department. The signs on the shops to the left and right of Hing, and all the other shops—biscuit-colored, peeling, cracked and trying to collapse, a dusty terrace of shophouses sinking shoulder to shoulder on Beach Road—were identical but for the owner's name; even the stains and cracks were reduplicated down the road as far as you could see. But there was something final in the decline, an air of ramshackle permanency common in Eastern ports, as if having fallen so far they would fall no further.

“What's your club in Hong Kong?” I asked.

“Just one, I'm afraid,” he said. He paused and smiled. “The Royal Hong Kong.”

“Jockey or Yacht?”

“Yacht,” he said quickly, losing his smile.

Little Hing spat and went back to his racing form without bothering to see where the clam landed.

“Missed again,” I said, winking at Leigh. “I've heard the Yacht Club's a smashing place,” I said, and he looked at me the way he had when I said “Honkers.” “You're in luck, actually. You have a reciprocal membership with the Tanglin here and probably a couple of others as well.”

“No,” he said, “I inquired about that before I came down. Bit of a nuisance, really. But there it is.”

He was lying. I knew the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and the Tanglin Club had reciprocal memberships and privileges; a member of one could sign bar chits at the other and use all the club's facilities. So he was not a member, and there we were standing on the Beach Road sidewalk, on the lip of its smelly monsoon drain, at the beck and call of a surly little
towkay
who had chosen to sulk upstairs, lying about clubs we didn't belong to. It made me sad, like the pictures hidden in my back pocket I would never admit to having: two grown men practicing lies, and why?

Big Hing came out in his pajamas and gave Leigh that secret society stare. Hing was not a member; he was a paid-up victim of the Red Eleven, who controlled Beach Road and collected “coffee money” for protection. The payment gave Hing a certain standing, for having victimized him the Red Eleven would stick by him and fight anyone who tried to squeeze him. Leigh handed over a letter, and we waited while Hing gnawed the sealing wax from the flap. He put on his old wire glasses and read the column of characters, then he smiled his angry eyeless smile and nodded at Leigh.

“I trust everything is in order,” said Leigh to Hing.

It was a wasted remark; Hing was muttering to Little Hing, and Little replied by muttering into the racing form he held against his face.

“Where's our friend going to put up?” I asked.

“Booked at the Strand,” said Big Hing. “Can come tomorrow.” He picked up his grandson and bounced the trouserless little feller to show the interview was over.

The Strand Hotel was on Scotts Road, diagonally across the road from the Tanglin Club. As we were pulling into the Strand's driveway, under the arch with the sign reading
European Cuisine
—
Weddings
—
Parties
—
Reasonable Prices
, Leigh saw the Tanglin signboard and said, “Why don't we pop over for a drink?”

I let my watch horrify me. “God,” I said, “it's nearly half past six. That place is a madhouse this time of day. Fellers having a drink after work. Look, William, I know a quiet little—”

“I'd love to have a look at those new squash courts of yours,” he said. He hit me hard on the arm and said heartily, “Come
on
, Flowers, I'll buy you a drink.” He gave his suitcase to the room-boy at the Strand, signed the register, and then clapped his stomach with two hands. “Ready?”

“I'll buy you a drink,” said Leigh, but that was impossible because money was not allowed and only a member could sign chits. The brass plaque on the club entrance—
MEMBERS ONLY—
mocked us both. I looked for someone I knew, but all I could see were tanned long-legged mothers, fine women in toweling smocks, holding beach bags and children's hands, waiting for their
syce
-driven cars after a day at the club pool. They were eagerly whispering to each other, and laughing; the sight of that joy lifted my heart—I couldn't help but think they were plotting some trivial infidelity.

“The new squash courts are over there,” I said, stepping nimbly past the doorman and bounding up the stairs.

“Drink first,” said Leigh. “I'm absolutely parched.” He was enjoying himself and he seemed right at home. He led the way into the Churchill Room, and “Very agreeable” he said, twice, as he looked for an opening at the bar.

The Churchill Room had just been renovated: thick wall-to-wall carpets, a new photograph of Winston, a raised bar, and a very efficient air-conditioning system. In spite of the cool air I was perspiring, a damp panel of shirt clung to my back; I was searching for a familiar face, someone I knew who might sign a drink chit. The bar was packed with men in white shirts and ties, some wearing stiff planter's shorts, standing close to the counter in groups of three or four, braying to their companions or sort of climbing over each other and waving chit pads at the barmen. Leigh was pushing ahead of me and I had just reached out to tap him on the shoulder and tell him I had remembered something important—my nerve had failed me so completely I could not think what, and prayed for necessity's inspiration—when I saw old Gunstone over in the corner at one of the small tables, drinking alone.

Gunstone was one of my first clients; he was in his seventies and came to Singapore when it was a rubber estate and a few rows of shophouses and go-downs. During the war he was captured by the Japanese and put to work on the Siamese Death Railway. He told me how he had buried his friend on the Burmese border, a statement like a motto of hopeless devotion, an obscure form of rescue,
I buried my friend.
He was the only client who took me to lunch when he wanted a girl, but he was also the cagiest, because I had to make all the arrangements for him and even put my own name on the hotel register. What he did with the girls, I never knew—I never asked: I did not monkey with a feller's confidence—but it was my abiding fear that one day Gunstone's engine was going to stop in a hotel room I had reserved, and I was going to have to explain my name in the register. I never saw Gunstone's wife; he only took her to the club at night and most of my club work was in the daytime.

“Jack,” he said, welcoming me, showing me an empty chair. Good old Gunstone.

“Evening, Mr. Gunstone,” I said. It was a servile greeting, I knew, but I could not see Leigh and I was worried.

Gunstone seemed glad to see me; that was a relief. I feared questions like, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“What'll you have?” asked Gunstone.

“Small Anchor,” I said, and as Gunstone turned to find a waiter Leigh appeared with a drink in his hand.

“Chappie here wants your signature, Flowers,” said Leigh.

I took the chit pad from the waiter and put it on Gunstone's table, saying “All in good time,” then introduced Leigh. Gunstone said, “Ever run into old So-and-So in Hong Kong?” and Leigh said charmingly, “I've never had the pleasure.” Gunstone began describing the feller, saying, “He's got the vilest habits and he's incredibly mean and nasty and—” Gunstone smiled—“perfectly fascinating. He might be in U.K. now, on leave.”

“Do you ever go back to U.K.?” Leigh asked.

“Used to,” said Gunstone. “But the last time I was there they passed a bill making homosexuality legal. I said to my wife, ‘Let's get out of here before they make the blasted thing compulsory!'”