Chapter Twenty-One: A Brush With The Law
“The women of Tahiti have long had an ill-founded reputation of being promiscuous.”
• • •
The dormitory was empty when Stuart returned to it. He had a shower in the communal, semi open-air bathroom, a facility which the hostel shared with the camp-site, disturbing a small yellow gecko, which scuttled for safety between one of the cracks in the white, wall tiles, as soon as the first drops of cold water emerged from the rusty metal nozzle of the shower attachment. Most of the holes in the shower head were blocked with a thick, white gunge, like drying salt crystals in a heat-baked pond, and a thin trickle of water was the best that Stuart had ever been able to achieve from the apparatus, even when both taps were opened to their full capacity. The hot water did not appear to be on, no matter what time of day Stuart had experimented with it, but for the moment he was just pleased to feel the cooling tendrils running across his shoulders and down his back. Small twigs and green bits of plant debris washed from his hair and off his body and collected in a swirling mass, along with a frothing scum of old soap powder, around the plug hole in the tiled floor, seemingly destined to forever make ever decreasing orbits, whilst never being completely washed away. The shower now off and a large towel wrapped around him, Stuart inspected his face in the mirror. He looked tired. He had a slight scratch across one side of his forehead, disappearing where it met his eyebrow. He needed a shave. He had not shaved for several days and he had an untidy stubble on his chin and stray, wispy hairs appearing across his neck and up the side of his face. He rubbed his hand experimentally across his cheek, forcing the skin taunt by pushing his tongue into the pouch of flesh, enjoying the novel feel of the rough little bristles to the touch. No. They would have to come off.
It was not something that he would normally have done. He generally despised the practice, so common on the backpack trail, of ‘borrowing’ someone else’s possessions. He believed that certain standards should be maintained whatever the location or circumstances. Perhaps he thought his action would be justifiable, since stacked against the other events of the last week it was hardly a great crime. Although was this just the start of a spiral of decreasing morality for him? One wrong deed making all others acceptable? No, it was nothing as complicated as that. It was simply that Norbert had left his toilet bag conveniently behind in the bathroom and Stuart could not be arsed to go back to the dormitory and fish around in his luggage to find his own razor. Norbert would not mind. At least, he was not around to find out.
Stuart looked around him. All was quiet. He had the whole camp to himself tonight as far as he could tell. Even the Brown’s tent had been in darkness. It was a smart bag: water-proof material and a draw-string top - they did not appear to be hard up, Norbert and Corrie, they had nice possessions. He pulled the strings and stretched the top of the bag so that he could see inside. He hoped that Norbert had a disposable razor he could use, it would be just like him to have a flash, battery-operated model. Flannel, toothpaste, shaving brush, nail scissors... Shaving brush? Stuart pulled out the stocky item. It was surprisingly heavy, with a solid, white handle - it could not be ivory but it looked like a similar material - and ended in a soft brush of stubby, pepper-and-salt coloured hairs, like those of a greying man trying to deny the passing of the years. Stuart had seen the item before, surely? He turned it over in his hands. Embossed on the handle were the three initials I.B.H.. Stuart had never known Ian’s middle or surname, but he recognised the object from when he had watched the Englishman unpack when he had first arrived at Chez Pauline. He had been surprised by the item then and Ian had explained to him that it was his one small luxury on his travels.
“You know, like Desert Island Discs. You are allowed one extravagance. My shaving kit is mine.” He had pulled at one side of his moustache proudly. “Rather vain, I know. But I always like to try to keep it looking trim.”
Stefan’s book, Ian’s shaving set, what else had the man acquired? And more importantly, how? Stuart did a hurried rummage through the rest of the wash bag, before putting everything back in what he hoped was the position they had been in previously.
Filled with a mixture of curiosity and fury, Stuart had gathered up his clothes from the bathroom floor, and still dressed in just the towel and the trainers he had forced his feet half into, had hurried back through the moonlit gardens of Chez Pauline to the dormitory he shared with the others. As he suspected the place was deserted. He pulled out the case from beneath Norbert’s bed and hauled it up onto his own bunk without a thought for the consequences of his action. If Norbert had been there, he would have confronted him with the evidence of the shaving brush, there and then. In his absence, he intended to do the next best thing, search through his possessions. He no longer saw it as an infringement of privacy. He, Stuart, had a right to know what was going on. The case, though, proved the first stumbling block. He should have realised that it would be locked. He could have probably forced the lock, or even ripped the fabric with the pocket knife he possessed, but he hesitated at actually damaging the other man’s items. What was it he was looking for, in any case? Perhaps something that belonged to Jenny? Something that might explain why she had taken off so hurriedly, or if she had actually gone at all. He was almost scared of what he might uncover. The truth is not always a pleasant discovery. It would make more sense that if the couple had purloined any items belonging to the young English woman, the chances were that they would be concealed in Corrie’s baggage. With this in mind, Stuart replaced Norbert’s case, where he had found it underneath his bed, and turned his attention to Corrie’s voluminous backpack, which was lying, already open, on the top bunk, where she slept. He felt a sense of unease as he started dragging out her clothes, but there was no time for social niceties. It was rather like being a magician, pulling an endless stream of garments from a top hat: the sack seemed bottomless. Tee-shirts, shorts, underwear: a multi-coloured array of clothes was strewn around the bed, like Nepalese prayer flags fluttering around a temple. Would he recognise anything of Jenny’s if he saw it? Momentarily, Stuart’s attention was taken by a piece of vibrant, orange fabric tucked in the dark recesses at the bottom of the backpack. He tugged hard, yanking the material clear of the thick, well-thumbed novels which pinned it in place. Another tee-shirt. It was certainly the colour that Jenny favoured, but Stuart could not swear that it was her actual belonging. If it had had ‘Huddersfield Girls School On Tour’ emblazoned across the front, he might have felt a degree of justification for his search, but a tee-shirt is a tee-shirt is a tee-shirt.
“Looking for something?” The tone was level, amused even. Not the furious outrage that Stuart would have anticipated. He turned expecting to see Norbert too, but Corrie was alone.
Stuart had never prized himself on thinking swiftly on his feet, but even if he had had several hours to rehearse an explanation he did not think that he could have manufactured one that sufficiently covered his activity. “Um,” he hedged.
Corrie advanced towards him. Was it his imagination or was she swaying her hips provocatively as she walked? It was not something that he had especially noticed about her previously. If anything it seemed rather over done. In other circumstances it could have been a distinct turn-on, at the moment Stuart’s primary emotion was fear. Corrie was standing beside him and viewing her possessions with a detached expression. She picked up a pair of her skimpy, pastel-coloured knickers and held them out towards him between thumb and forefinger, “Is this what you want?”
Stuart was immediately on the defensive, “No, no,” his hands held up, protective in front of him.
Corrie continued, more coaxingly, “It’s OK. I understand. There is nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Had she been drinking? There was the faintest hint of alcohol on her breath. The cool Swiss was behaving anything but remote.
“Where’s Norbert?” asked Stuart. Why? Why did
he ask this? It was an automatic guilty reaction. He found himself being swept along by the woman’s forceful personality.
“I don’t know,” Corrie said, “I believe he was meeting someone tonight.” The words were rather bitter. Was this it? Had Norbert not confided even in her that it was the cheese-thief that he was planning to meet, and she was suspecting some infidelity on his part? She had definitely been drinking. There was no mistaking it now.
“Is this good?” In desperation, Stuart lunged behind him and picked up one of the books which he had discovered in her rucksack and which he had discarded on the mattress. It was a travel account by a well known writer.
Corrie barely glanced at the volume, “Not very. I don’t like travel writing.”
“Oh, why not?” Distract. Distract.
Corrie looked puzzled but halted her progress towards him, “I don’t know. Do you?”
“No, not really.”
Corrie took a further step and almost stumbled. Stuart began to reach out to save her and then changed his mind and drew back. Corrie grabbed the frame of the bed and managed to use the structure to swing herself around so that she ended up in a seated position on Norbert’s lower bunk. The shock of the near-fall brought her to her senses and she started to apologise, “I am sorry. I think I may have drunk ...”
Stuart felt more relaxed now, “It’s OK.” For want of any better conversation he returned to the travel book which he continued to hold, “So what’s so wrong with this?”
Corrie removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes, then proceeded to clean the lenses with a corner of her cotton skirt, unaware that she had dragged the material so high up that she was revealing the corner of her underwear and the smooth skin of her upper thigh. Stuart noticed the exposed row of black dots on the skin along the line of the fabric, where the shaved hairs were beginning to grow back. She replaced her spectacles carefully but allowed her skirt to fall back in dishevelled folds across her leg. “This?”
“Yes.”
Her usual, intelligent manner was soon returned, “I guess I just find them... what is the word? Phoney?”
“Oh? Why so?” Stuart was still conscious of his own invidious position. Corrie’s most intimate possessions were still strewn all over her bed. Now that he was reassured that he was not going to become the victim of a lovelorn, stronger woman’s revenge strategy - much as the idea might appeal to him in the abstract - he was desperately trying to divert her attention from questioning him about his own peculiar behaviour.
This time, and more typical of her normal, controlled behaviour, Corrie took time to think about her answer before replying, “It is an artificial construct. You agree?” Stuart nodded noncommittally, allowing Corrie to continue, “You get someone that has never been to a country before, that knows nothing about the people, or the customs, or anything. Yes?”
“Yes,” agreed Stuart.
“They find some... what? Slant? Like a journalist. You know?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps they cycle up every mountain over three thousand metres. Or they meet everyone whose surname is Amin. Or...” Corrie smiled, her alcohol-dulled brain searching for another example.
Stuart stepped in, “They follow some well-worn route which every local already knows about and accepts as the norm, but which seems vaguely exotic to the rest of us.” Stuart was quite surprised at his own display of passion.
“Yes, that too,” agreed Corrie, “And then they write about it as though they have lived there all their life. I remember, Norbert and I, we went to Devon once. You know in England.”
It was an unnecessary explanation for Stuart, “Yes, I know.”
“To Lundy Island,” said Corrie.
“Nice.” Not ironic this time.
“Yes. We went because we had read an article in a magazine. It sounded as though the author knew the place so well. Do you know. We saw all the places he described in the first hour of being there. I do not think that he spent longer than a day on the island.”
“But you might not have gone at all if you hadn’t read the article,” argued Stuart.
Corrie was not to be distracted from her point, “It was a cheat. He was a phoney. Anthropologists, they are the same.”
Stuart could not keep up with her train of thought, “Huh?”
Corrie, though, had returned to her earlier theme, “I want to explore a place for myself. Travel writing it is like masturbation. You are not shocked, I hope?” she added, witnessing Stuart’s surprised expression.
“No.”
“It is like hearing about someone else’s fantasies. I want to live these things myself, not... what? Vic..., Vicar...? I do not know the word. Through someone else.”
“I agree,” said Stuart, his eyes wide, wondering just how much living he actually did want to do. Perhaps he was always destined to be one of life’s vicarious pleasure seekers.
“I want to go to bed now.”
Stuart looked even more startled, before realising that the beautiful young Swiss woman meant on her own. To sleep. Corrie was wrestling her clothes back into her rucksack, clearing a space for herself on her bed, apparently having forgotten how the garments came to be so deposited in the first place.
Stuart decided it would be wise to leave her to her tidying up. “Sleep well,” he said, but Corrie was engrossed in her task and did not answer him.