Kerry yawned and put her hat over her face. ‘Wake me if I start to sizzle.’
I would have liked to nap but the presence of Collins made me wary. I wished he’d gone with the others. I wondered whether he thought he had a chance with Kerry or me and the idea made me pity him a little.
Anyway, someone had to stay awake to watch over Cal who was still a kid and very far from home. It was easy to forget that about him. It wasn’t only that he looked like a stronger, healthier version of the locals, but that he moved with such confidence and spoke with the assumption that he would be heard and understood. And at this moment, he looked properly adult. His childlike pose drew attention to how unchildlike he was. The long, muscular thighs tucked into the broad chest. The sharp, angled jaw nestling into the hard bubble of his bicep.
‘I think I’m going to go get a beer after all,’ I said, and looked to Collins in time to see that his gaze, too, was trained on Cal. He blinked, then looked at me enquiringly, but I’d seen his glassy eyes and flushed skin. I saw now the popping of the tiny muscles in his cheek as he forced a smile.
‘Oh, right. Yes, go ahead,’ he said and I believe I heard the grinding effort of not looking back at the sleeping boy.
‘I should take Cal with me.’
‘Let the kid sleep,’ he said, his eyes focused on the space over my head.
‘Cal!’ I sank my fingers into his shoulder and shook him unnecessarily hard. He moaned and feigned weakness. ‘C’mon. Walk to the pub with me.’
Kerry scowled with one eye still closed and told me to stop fussing. Collins didn’t protest again. He smoked and watched the sky as if none of it concerned him.
‘Scared to walk to the pub on your own?’ Cal said as we set off.
‘I’ve been going to pubs on my own since before you were born, mister.’
‘So what’s with dragging me up?’
‘Collins. I thought . . . I thought he and Kerry might want to be alone.’
Cal slapped my back. ‘You crack me up, man.’
‘Do I?’
‘Collins is gay.’
‘Is he? How do you know?’
‘I can tell when someone’s checking me out.’
‘Careful here.’ We’d reached one of the city’s many unofficial sidewalk motorbike parking stations and were forced to step down onto the road and walk in single file. ‘Was he really?’ I called over my shoulder.
‘Dude’s not subtle.’
‘Does it bother you?’
‘He bothers me. Bloody posing whinger. Couldn’t care less if he’s gay.’
‘But him checking you out. Does that make you uncomfortable?’
Cal cackled and slapped my back again. He left his hand there between my shoulder blades as though he was pushing me along the roadside. ‘Mischa,’ he said. ‘I’m used to being checked out. It never bothers me. People like to look at beautiful things, you know?’
‘Goodness. Alright, nearly there. See your dad’s foot poking out from under that awning?’
‘That’s Dad’s foot? Geez, he’s white, isn’t he? Can’t believe he doesn’t burst into flames out here. You too.’ He touched the back of my neck. ‘The skin just here – it’s translucent.’
I covered the shiver by reaching up and adjusting my hat. ‘I’m careful about sun protection,’ I said. He dropped his hand and I felt old and prissy. It didn’t matter. We’d reached the bar and Cal was already kicking at his father’s foot, telling him to cover it up before we all went blind.
Kerry arrived five minutes later. ‘That Colin chap jumped on a as soon as you both left. Said to tell you, Henry, that he’ll see you at the office. Bloody hell, can’t we ever go to places with air-con?’
Two beers in, Henry asked Matthew to give him a ride home. ‘Wait here with Mischa and Kerry, okay?’ Matthew said and Cal saluted and took a slug of beer.
The faded yellow canvas over our heads blocked out the sun but trapped the humidity. I was wetter than when I’d stepped out of the shower that morning. Kerry’s face glistened despite her constant use of a hand fan printed with a Tiger Beer logo. Only Cal looked cool, his skin dry and his hair tousled as if by a sea breeze. For half a minute it was quiet enough to hear an electro-pop version of an old Sinatra song playing on a tinny radio nearby, then another wave of motos roared past and Cal let out an enormous beery burp.
‘Charming,’ Kerry said. Then, ‘Hey Mish, what did you think of Colin? I mean, I know he’s a bit of a dork, but if he got rid of the suit and—’
‘He’s gay, Kez.’
‘Is he? Did Henry tell you?’
‘I did,’ Cal said. ‘Couldn’t take his eyes off me all through lunch.’
‘Really?’
‘Hey, he’s only human.’
Kerry shrieked. She leant across the table and fixed Cal with a serious wide-eyed look. ‘And you’re into that, are you? Doing it with fellas, I mean?’
‘Kerry!’
‘Nah. I don’t think so, anyway. Not that I’ve ever tried. How about you? Ever done it with another chick?’
Kerry shrieked again. ‘God, Mish, isn’t he a scream? Nothing like his dad. Listen, I bloody wish I could feel it for the ladies. Every straight bloke in Hanoi is Asian or only into Asians. Or both.’
He sat up straighter, tilted his chin. ‘You have a problem with Asians?’
‘No, no. Listen, it’s just they’re not my type. Not very masculine, you know? Too delicate. Oh, please don’t be offended, Cal. I mean, you’re obviously not a typical . . . I mean you’re a lot, uh, bigger and . . .’ Kerry looked to me.
‘You have your father’s height,’ I told him. ‘And you weren’t raised here. You were well fed.’
Cal slipped his sunglasses down on his nose and peered at me over the top. ‘You calling me fat, Mischa?’
‘She didn’t mean that,’ Kerry said. ‘It’s childhood nutrition. You grew tall and strong on all that grain-fed beef and creamy milk. Kids grow up hungry here and never lose the look.’
Cal’s eyes challenged me over his lenses. ‘What about you?’
‘Oh, I’ve always been well fed.’
‘Mmm,’ he said, looking at me a moment longer, then pushing his glasses back over his eyes. ‘I meant, do you agree with Kerry, about Asian men.’
‘Kerry and I rarely agree on anything. That’s why we have such fun together.’
Kerry bumped her shoulder into mine.
‘So you do find Asian men attractive?’
‘Oh. Well. I don’t know.’
Cal smiled out of the corner of his mouth. ‘You don’t know if you find them attractive?’
‘Some of them.’
‘Which ones?’
‘What?’ I looked around, desperate for a waiter to wave down, but we were alone out there. ‘I need some iced tea.’
‘Which Vietnamese men do you find attractive?’
‘Oh, you know who is nice?’ Kerry said. ‘Johnny Tri Nguyen. He’s very muscular, very, ah . . .’ She clenched her fists.
‘What do you reckon, Mish? Johnny Nguyen worth a tumble?’
‘He’s American, isn’t he? Finally! Em oi! Iced tea?’ The waiter pointed to a Lipton’s poster featuring a tall glass filled with ice, lemon and pale, golden-brown tea. I smiled yes. ‘.’
‘You’re having ice?’ Cal asked.
‘Mischa has a steel stomach,’ Kerry said.
‘You would, too, if you stopped eating like a bloody tourist. Let the bugs do their work on you and you’ll be right from then on.’
‘If by “bugs” you mean cholera and dysentery then I’ll pass, thank you. Must pee. Back in a tick.’
‘Kerry’s kind of racist, huh?’ Cal said when she was gone.
‘She can’t help who she’s attracted to.’
‘Mmm. But there’s a difference, isn’t there, between being attracted to people with a certain build or whatever, and being attracted – or not – to people of a certain race because you think they’ll act in some stereotypical way
. Kerry thinks Asian men are weak, feminine. That’s a stereotype.’
‘True.’
‘It’s like the old geezers who say they just happen to be attracted to Asian-looking women. They flock to Mum, all over her for about ten minutes. Then they figure out she’s not a meek, low-rent geisha so they move on.’ He shrugged with one shoulder. ‘It’s nothing to do with how she looks. It’s what they think she’ll be.’
‘Your mum must be a strong person. Raising you alone, far away from her family.’
He shifted in his seat, dipped his head, so he was peering over his glasses again. ‘See, me, I’ve had girlfriends from all over. Japanese, Lebanese, Maltese, Nigerian, Greek, plain old white-bread Anglo-Aussie.’
‘You’ve been around a lot for a kid.’
He sat back and I fizzed at the sting on his face. Behind him, at the entrance to the building Kerry chatted to the waiter who was holding my rapidly warming tea in one hand and swiping a napkin across his forehead with the other.
Matthew returned and bought another round. I opted for lemon juice, which annoyed Matthew and Kerry more than it should have. I, in turn, felt irritated by the both of them. Matthew with his continual and entirely unnecessary explanations to and about Cal, and Kerry with her forced double entendres and attention-drawing cackle. It felt late although it wasn’t and I wanted to leave but the thought of haggling with a driver kept me in my seat. For years I had been vowing to get a bike of my own, and my failure to have done so felt, on this afternoon, disgraceful. What was the point of living in this suffocating, alien place if I was going to allow myself to be dependent and vulnerable? I might as well go back to the States where I could at least drive my dependent, vulnerable self around in an air-conditioned sedan.
‘I think I’ll head off,’ I said. ‘I’m exhausted
‘Because you stopped drinking,’ Kerry said. ‘I told you this would happen.’
‘Yeah. You win.’ I put some money on the table and gathered up my bag and sunhat. ‘I’ll see you later.’
I stood for a moment on the street, sussing out the apparent sobriety of the drivers slouched over their bikes on the opposite corner.
‘Mischa, wait a sec.’ Cal jogged the few metres to where I was standing. ‘You were going to lend me that book about the history of the literature temple?’
‘Oh. Well, I don’t have it on me, obviously. I’ll bring it along next time.’
‘I can come and pick it up if you like. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘I guess so. Um, I don’t know when I’ll be home. Just . . .’ I waved towards the waiting drivers. I figured the one who got to me the quickest would likely be the most sober.
‘Cool. So I’ll text you and if you’re home, I can come and pick it up.’
‘Okay. Um, Cal, I need to – Yes, moto. . Twenty thousand, okay?’
The driver shook his head, held up three fingers.
‘What’s your number?’ Cal’s fingers were poised over his phone.
‘Can you get it from your dad? Twenty thousand. Or I go with him.’ I pointed to a driver who was, unfortunately, snoring loudly enough for us to hear him across the street.
The man shrugged, held up three fingers again.
‘Ugh. Fine. Thirty. Let’s just go.’ I grabbed the offered helmet and climbed up behind the driver. I threw a half-wave in Cal’s direction as we roared off into the flow of traffic.
There’s a knack to riding on . Om means hug, but wrapping your arms around the driver is only acceptable if you’re already intimate with each other. I’d heard of single women being escorted inside at the end of the trip after hugging their driver, but I’d never been game to try the ploy for myself. What if the driver turned violent once we were inside? What if, as I’d heard about happening, he demanded payment for the sex as well as the ride? What if I hugged a driver the whole way home only to have him take my proffered bills and roar away?
I’d rather my assumption that Vietnamese men didn’t want to sleep with me remained untested, and so I always kept my hands on my thighs and tensed my stomach muscles. If I’d misjudged the sobriety of the driver, I would have to reach back and grasp the bar behind me, but holding on made me feel like a tourist and left me with wrenched shoulders.
I don’t remember what the ride home was like that day, so it must have been smooth enough. What I remember was the text I received as I was unlocking my front door.
U tearing off on a mb, not even holding on, coolest thing ive seen. Ur so kickass. CU 2moz
The words look silly written down here. They look silly on my phone screen, too, but I can’t bring myself to delete them. They let me see how far I’d come from the woman who once walked for three hours in 90 per cent humidity because she was too afraid to hop on a motorbike taxi. The message straightened my spine. It still does.
n Sunday mornings I would wake to the pealing bells of St Joseph and the sound of an extra couple of hundred motorbikes honking their way down my street. There aren’t many Catholics in Hanoi, but there are too many to fit comfortably into the very few churches, and so minutes after the bells stopped, the loudspeakers broadcasting the service to those who didn’t make it inside started up.
The service was in Vietnamese, but Kerry attended every week anyway, sure that God would give her points for effort. Afterwards, she would often walk up to my place for confession. I’m not being flippant: Kerry really did feel the need to confess her sins and as there were no English-speaking priests in town, I had to do. At least I had Irish blood and was celibate, she liked to say.
The morning after the picnic, Kerry stood at my kitchen window staring mournfully at the grime-streaked neo-gothic spires of her church. ‘I was up in An Province this week. We’re setting up an education unit there. It’ll be good. It’ll do good, I mean, but the thing is, I was sitting there with the local liaison going over the budget with her and I realised that I could double the annual budget if me and my team – three of us, mind – went without pay for a month. A month. It’s fucking obscene.’
‘Kez, you go through this same thing every time you set up a new project. Guilt is not helpful.’
The kettle whistled and Kerry sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you have any proper coffee?’
‘I only have proper coffee.’ Most people I knew had Italian plungers and bought imported coffee at the French grocer, but I liked doing it the Viet way. I placed two feather-light tin phins over two thick, clumsily handblown glasses. I half-filled the phins with ground beans, poured on boiling water and then placed the tin lids over the top. I liked watching as the thick, black liquid drip-drip-dripped until the glass was so fogged up you couldn’t see, but Kerry was sighing tragically and so I set the glasses aside and turned my attention back to her.
‘There was a little boy there with a tumour the size of my fist growing on his nose. I mean, I guessed he had a nose under it, you couldn’t see. He shadowed me the whole time I was there. Didn’t speak, didn’t beg, just trailed behind me, sat at my feet, watched me. The worst thing, Mish, the absolute worst thing is that when I was there I thought to myself that I wouldn’t be able to get his face out of my head – but then I got home and didn’t think about him until this morning in church. I closed my eyes during the opening prayer and there he was. Poor little mite. Six years old and I could barely stand to look at him.’
‘Agent Orange?’
‘Probably. It’s not what I was there for. I think we have a dioxin project in that area. I should find out. See! See! I didn’t even rush straight back to the office to find out. I flat out bloody forgot him.’
I removed the phins and carried the steamy glasses over to the window. Kerry received her coffee with both hands as though it was the Holy Chalice.
Our Sunday morning confession sessions were always one-sided because I never had anything to confess. Perhaps if I’d been raised Catholic I would have found something to feel guilty about, but although I was no moral hero, my conscience was clear. I paid my way in the world, tried t
o help people who seemed to want it, and leave alone those who didn’t. I had no need to steal or cheat and nothing about which I needed to lie. It sounds as though I’m bragging; I’m not. I lived like that while it was easy to do so. As soon as I had an incentive to behave badly, I did.
On that morning, though, I was calm and clear of conscience. My phone beeped and I reacted without a second thought. ‘God, that Cal’s an eager little beaver,’ I told Kerry. ‘I mentioned this book yesterday and he’s already texted to see if he can come and pick it up.’
‘He’s a weird one. Still can’t believe he’s Matthew’s. I’d kill to know the story there.’
‘Apparently the mother is unhappy about him being here. Hates Vietnam, he says.’
‘He told you that? When I asked him about his mum he went all mumbly.’
‘Of course, he’s a teenager; immediately on guard when asked a direct question, but happy to volunteer the most intimate details when given two seconds of silence.’
‘True, that. Universal, I reckon. Girls at our sexual-health seminars are exactly the same.’ Kerry took a sip and grimaced. ‘Like bloody petrol,’ she said as she did almost every time she drank Vietnamese coffee. ‘God, my head hurts. It’s not even alcohol. It’s the six hours of doof-doof music I had to listen to while trying to meet a fella who isn’t a complete fucking imbecile.’
‘Everybody in those backpacker joints is an imbecile. You included. I have no idea why you continue to do that to yourself.’
Kerry pressed her forehead against the kitchen window. ‘My worst fear is that I won’t get a European posting before I’m forty. I’ll finally get sent somewhere with men who think big-titted blondes are hot and I’ll be grey and saggy.’
‘That’s your worst fear?’
‘That and the likelihood of HIV reaching epidemic proportions because Vietnamese society refuses to officially recognise the existence of prostitution, drug injecting and bum-fucking.’ She sipped, grimaced. ‘But that feels like something I can prevent. Getting old . . . being sexless . . . Ugh. Maybe I should just quit. Go back to London. Buy a flat and get knocked up and all that.’