Mong-Kok: a few hours later.
Connor and I spend the evening above Lan Kwai Fong. He wants to taste the city for himself but finds nothing. We arrive at a Lebanese hashish bar and watch people move up and down steep walkways. The high stories of tall buildings are at eye level. There are bright signs everywhere, advertising numerous vices.
‘Eoghan, then?’
‘Completely off on one.’
‘And people are asking questions?’
‘It’s a turning into a national situation. People are leaving the countryside in the north.’
‘You can’t be serious? Is he careful?’
‘They won’t find them. They could find him, and then what? It’s just excessive.’
I can only shrug. He abstains for long periods, kills violently for a few weeks in serial, and goes back off the radar.
‘You’re the only one that’s ever been able to keep track of him. You should come back and talk to him.’
‘What does it matter?’
‘It’s not good for us. People are getting superstitious. These days we’re lucky they don’t believe in Vampires.’
‘Not in the age of reason, surely.’
‘You do have a sense of humor. April, come home and talk sense into him.’
‘I have business in Canada.’
‘It can be a stop-over.’
When we return to the MTR station, an elderly man harasses us. We pay him no attention at first but I can understand him. He’s calling us foreigners, ‘Gweilo’.
I like him, so I ask him to come and sit with us. He complies, finding his composure. He is pleased with my knowledge of Cantonese. Connor is not interested, and looks at his phone.
‘Where from?’
‘Oi-Yi-Lan’ Ireland.
He tells me that Ireland is a beautiful country, that he visited once on a brief tour of Western Europe. He tells me that we should leave Hong Kong and go back.
‘What was the point in learning to speak Cantonese?’
‘You speak it badly.’
I am impressed, and I shake the man’s hand. He is deathly thin, sheet white and freezing cold. I realize, after a second, that he is one of us.
‘You’re a clever trickster.’ I tell him. I have met him before, but he is a chameleon.
He looks at me with deep, beady eyes and smiles. I haven’t tried to hear his thoughts, but I realize that I cannot. He is well guarded, and very old.
‘You are a beautiful young thing.’
I can tell he doesn’t drink human blood, but probably lives on cats. He smells of mange.
Connor tunes in, realizing that the old man is not human.
‘Shame to have come over at such a late hour? Who turned this poor old fuck? Surely he was close to death?’
He responds in perfect, eloquent english;
‘A Doctor, in 1743. I was ill, and one of the practitioners gave me the ‘Huài xiě’ in exchange for my Niece’s virginity.’
‘You dirty old bastard. Selling your Niece.’ Connor laughs, maliciously.
He lifts his arms and eyebrows. ‘Oh no, I was out cold. I would rather have died! she did it herself!’
I am quiet, enjoying the exchange.
‘And what about her?’
‘She lives in Singapore.’
‘And you give me shit? You call me Gweilo? You’re a foreigner in the 21st century.’
‘She should come home, and you two should leave.’
‘You’re right. April, listen to him. He knows what he’s talking about.’
Connor has me by the arm as we get off the train near Mongkok. We move through a night-market. He tells me that the market, and Hong Kong itself, suit me perfectly. It is, he tells me, notorious, cheap and fake. There are prostitutes behind the stalls, they stand by lurid DVD stores. It is archaic. The medium only lost relevance ten years ago.
A girl catches my eye. She is local, tall, and very beautiful. Her Adam’s apple gives her away as kuà nǚ, or 男跨女, as they sometimes say here. I mean to suggest that the girl hasn’t always ostensibly been a girl.
I slip through the stall adjacent, where a man aggressively tries to sell me a fake Rolex. The stalls in the market are shrouded in white, plastic sheet. She smiles at me and I can sense something ruthless and vengeful in her. Occasionally, in a mortal, these things fascinate me.
‘Good evening!’ I smile at her. ‘Not so many girls like us around here?’
‘Oh, baby, I can see you.’ She’s drunk, and the low rasp in her voice pleases me.
‘How is business?’
‘They’re killing us, baby.’
‘You don’t need to die though? Do you?’
‘Maybe I do.’ She lifts a bottle of 7-UP from a long coat. It smells of straight vodka.
‘You can come with us.’ I gesture to Connor, who stands impatiently waiting.
‘He’s not my type, baby. He likes boys.’
‘Not like that. Just come with us.’ I open my purse for her, and show her a few thousand dollars. ‘Come.’
She walks through a dark passage by one of the DVD stores. She emerges a few minutes later with a man. He wears reading glasses. He takes a wad of cash from me. I link arms with her, and she follows me through the market. She is tall, she puffs a cigarette in the humid air, she says nothing. Connor is not amused. He speaks to me telepathically.
‘You want to kill a girl like you? Is this some exercise in self-castigation?’
‘I want to turn her before I leave the city. Go and get the pimp and take him to the house and we’ll eat him in front of her. I’ll see you there.’
‘That’s a gag. What if she doesn’t want it?’
‘I can see it in her, she will.’
Connor is surprised. To bring someone over is an uncommon desire. On rare occasions there are people we are drawn to, but not in the predatory sense. Even then, it is usually forbidden by whichever territorial power, or refused by the subject. I will throw her into the deep end, I think to myself, and see how she reacts.
The trains are quiet. She watches the glowing tower blocks as we move through the city, asking me questions about myself which I don’t answer. She asks me if I have a secret. I tell her that I’ve sold my soul to the Devil, to be pretty. She laughs at me and tells me she knows the Devil; that he works somewhere downtown.
Back in the New Territories, my guest is drowsy after the long train ride. I neglect to learn her name. She is considerably drunker. I suggest she might want to sleep on the sofa, which is large. I would offer her my bed, but it is broken. I won’t fix it because I don’t sleep in it. It came with the room.
She refuses, and takes a tube of mascara out of her fake leather handbag. The tube of mascara, when opened, reveals a lack of mascara and an excess of cocaine. She carves a large, unsteady line on the coffee-table with a HSBC debit card. She searches through the bag again, and takes out a pre-rolled $10 HKD. It is fixed in shape by the pull-tab from a beer can.
‘You want some? It’s not pure.’
‘I’m fine, but thank you.’
I sit beside her, she takes the line. She is surprisingly graceful.
‘Long time coming.’ She smiles. I admire her thick accent.
‘Do the men like you? The way you are?’
‘Do they like you?’ She asks me. She looks at her nails and smirks. They are sharp, chrome acrylics.
‘It doesn’t matter whether they like me or not. They usually won’t survive me.’ I am deadpan.
She sits back in the chair and laughs. She thinks I am joking. ‘Sometimes they want the hand. Other times they know what they want.’
‘You said they’re killing you.’
She explains in fragmented, but well spoken English.
‘A girl I know, they beat her so bad, she went to the hospital. She’s dead, but it was an overdose. It’s my opinion, you want to know something? I blame them.’
‘Them?’
‘The ones we work for.’
I can sense Connor in the hallway, the pimp following behind him. I can hear Connor think; This is a pointless exercise, she’s got a savior complex. I can’t hear the pimp, he has been hypnotized.
‘Your boss is here. I’m going to kill him. I’ll show you how.’
She looks at me. She thinks she has misunderstood.
Connor enters the room, the pimp follows. He is plainly dressed in a navy tracksuit. My guest tries to address him, horrified, but he doesn’t respond. She looks at me and then back at him. I smile at her, and hold my index finger up where we can both see it. My fingernail, sharp already, extends into a small, transparent blade.
‘I’m going to cut him on the neck, alright? Don’t be afraid. I need to do it so I can warm up. I need to drink the blood, you see?’ I prick the man, who has conveniently knelt into position, on the neck. A steady, thick stream of blood gushes out and crosses his shoulder. It begins to soak into the tracksuit.
I can sense her stomach drop. In her thoughts, she is afraid of what ‘they’ are going to do to her when he tells them.
‘Look at me!’
She looks me dead in the eyes, she is paralyzed with confusion and will not speak.
‘No one is going to hurt you tonight, okay? Now look.’
I lean into the man’s neck, which smells of a fake aftershave from the market, and take a long pull from his jugular vein. It is hot, and I can taste cocaine, but it is a trace amount. Likely taken the week previous.
‘Let me out. You’re fucking insane! You don’t know who you’re fucking with! They’ll fucking kill us all! What did you do to him?’
‘We’ve put a spell on him. You know Dracula? Like in the movies?’
‘You’re not a fucking Vampire! You’re insane!’
She stands up, panicked, and makes for the door.
‘Wait!’ Connor calls after her. He stands behind the kitchen counter, contemplating the scene carefully. She turns and looks at him. He places a brief hold on the normal momentum of time, which is a gift of his, and steps toward the door. He locks it and unscrews the doorknob.
The blood has stopped flowing. I sit up from my drink and wait. Connor steps toward my guest and removes the handbag from her motionless arm. He walks back to the kitchen counter, setting it down. Time resumes, to my relief, and the man’s blood begins to flow again. The girl looks down, suddenly unsteady, and notices the missing handbag.
‘Listen! We told you nobody’s gonna hurt you. Sit back down and pay attention. If you want it, we’re gonna show you some tricks. No man will take your earnings away again. You won’t need earnings. Come and talk to me? What’s your name?’
Calming her takes time, but we don’t hypnotize, or make her forget. This is what I expected. She is capable. She’s on the sofa, chain-smoking and doing cocaine long into the next morning.
I assure her that she doesn’t have to decide tonight, but if she did, she could join us. There are people who will take care of her. She can leave Hong Kong, if she wants to. She can skip the cocaine come-down.
‘Will I die?’
‘Yes. Then again, when you decide to.’
‘What about my soul?’
I appeal to the Canton in her. ‘There’s only one Tao, and we’re already sharing it.’
‘Do I have to kill them?’
‘They can die.’
‘So you don’t have to?’
‘They don’t need to die. And you can drink other types of blood, but it’s not half as good.’
‘You’re still killing people, even if you need the blood.’
I’m tired of this subject, but I entertain her.
‘I’m very old, but yes, when I kill people I try not to cause a lot of collateral. We don’t kill children, we don’t terrorize people. You see? Look.’
I gesture to the dead pimp on the floor. He has been emptied entirely, and various other fluids have begun to seep out of him. ‘He enjoyed it.’ I smile at her.
She laughs, haphazardly staring at me, and shakes an empty packet of cigarettes. She throws it down.
Connor lunges at the dead man and takes a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He looks up at us, thrilled. ‘Look here!’
He tosses them to her. She holds the packet up and looks at it. Her hands shake.
‘I’ve never asked him for a cigarette. I was warned never to ask him for anything.’
‘Well, look! He’s had a change of heart.’ The three of us look at him. He is motionless.
‘Can you sleep?’
‘We take naps.’
Connor laughs. He does not.
‘I want to sleep for a long time, and when I wake I’ll do it.’
‘I’ll help you.’
I hypnotize her, I’ll give her two days. We can introduce her to Robin and Lizzie before we fly out.
While she sleeps, Connor and I realize that we don’t know her name. I look for an ID but can’t find one. The HSBC debit says: ‘L. Wong.’ I try to read her mind, but she is dreaming.
‘We’ll call her Lou?’
‘I like that.’
‘What if we went on a spree, before we left?’
One thing worth knowing is that the Cantonese coven, which is a governing body for the city’s blood-drinkers, requires you to register deaths. Requirements have become so stringent lately that failing to register for over twenty-four hours can incur a hefty fine.
I speak to Connor, who looks over the balcony at people crossing the road.
‘We have to go to Wan Chai. To the Police HQ.’
‘It’s a funny way of doing things, isn’t it?’
‘We can call an Uber. The trains take forever in that direction.’
The driver is wearing small, circular black sunglasses. We drive Castle Peak Road and cross a few bridges. There are tankers and freight carriers in the sea around the coast. In the back of the taxi, Connor shows me photos of vintage spoons he acquired at an auction in Tyrone.
‘And this one, it’s hysterical. It’s got a big pair of hands. Look at that.’
‘That’s hysterical.’ I don’t care.
‘And, April, if I weren’t dead already.’
He flicks through photos. On the bottom of one spoon, the engraved head of a sad clown. The top, on the reverse, is the same clown distinctly happier.
‘Isn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever seen? How many of these did they make?’
‘It’s diabolical. You’ve got the worst taste in everything.’
‘Don’t I?’
In the cross-harbor tunnel across Victoria Bay, on the way to Hong Kong Island, we don’t talk. Wan Chai is alive, as usual, with a schizophrenic array of mental activity. I have to guard myself to get through it, it’s closing on mid-day.
Signs, medicine shops, restaurants, people, buses, shuttles, high-rises, tobacconists.
Outside the tall Police Headquarters, we stand on one of the foot-bridges and have a cigarette. When we go in, we speak to a receptionist.
‘I’d like to talk to someone about getting a personal police check? Visa related.’
She directs us to a red phone, and I call a four digit number printed below.
‘Hello?’
‘Extension 6962, please.’
‘Let me transfer you, one moment.’
‘Hello?’
‘One, singular, male, Mongkok night market. Transported to Tuen-Mun, Circular road..’
‘Please take a seat in the waiting area! Someone will be down to speak with you soon.’
I sit in the waiting area. Connor looks around. He studies the wall. There are fliers. A hotline for domestic abuse. On the print, a woman sits on the floor with her head buried in her hands.
‘This is a drag. Every damn time? 24 hours?’’
‘When they get to know you they’re fine.’
A lady, who I know as Olivia, steps in and calls us to follow. She is exceptionally old, and her eyes burn a distinct Amber which comes with great age. Olivia works between the ultra-secretive Cantonese Coven and Hong Kong’s human authorities as a liaison officer. She has a short, black haircut and her nails are painted yellow.
We sit in a room and she closes the door. There are people walking by in the hallway, I can see them through the frosted glass on the door.
‘Nice to see you again, April!’
She looks at Connor. ‘Pleasure to meet you! I’m Olivia. Passport?’ She beams at us.
‘I’m aware that you don’t have a permit for hunting in Hong Kong.’
I interrupt, before he can say anything. ‘He didn’t hunt or kill anyone.’
‘I ate before I came. But I did lure the man to the house. Forgive me, I’m not familiar with the rules.’
She studies the passport before handing it back, smiling. ‘Please refrain from participation without a permit going forward. For now, we can overlook it. An address for the collection, please?’
‘In the apartment I’ve been staying at, in Tuen Mun.’
I give her the address. She assures us that someone will have it taken care of shortly. In a city so busy, the chain of authority is steep and tight. I am carefully guarding my intention to turn the prostitute, but Olivia is a natural mind reader.
‘Is the girl you’re thinking about Local?’
‘That’s right.’
‘She’ll have to come and register with us to have her memory cleared. It’s not common practice, and you should know, you’ve broken several rules already. You can’t just hide corpses in drains and expect insects to eat them. Do you have any details for her?’
‘The name L. Wong on a debit card. She’s a prostitute I met in Mongkok. That’s all I know. I apologize for getting ahead of myself.’
‘High-ranking coven members reserve the sole right to turn Hong Kong nationals, or residents with leave to remain in the country.’ She looks unimpressed.
‘If you’re so kind, can we bring her here? If someone can come and have a look at her. She’s taken very well to the truth. We’ve put her to sleep for now. I think she makes an excellent candidate.’
“We will take her here and clear her memory.’
‘So you won’t let me turn her? Even if she comes and registers with you?’
‘If we find that she has been turned, without clearance from a relevant authority, you are likely to be deported and heavily fined.’
Connor looks bewildered. He is smiling. He looks at her, and then at me. Where we come from collusion like this is unheard of.
‘I understand. Thank you. I will wake her and bring her here.’
‘No need, the team will take her when they’re collecting the corpse. Is there anything else you need to declare?’
‘Not at all. Thank you Olivia. What time can we expect the team?’
‘During the night. We’re stretched at the moment, there are over three hundred active in the city this week. Visitors from Guangzhou and Beijing! Thankfully a few of them are abstinent.’
‘Isn’t that something?’ Connor remarks. ‘There must be thirty vampires in Ireland. I only know one of them that doesn’t partake.’
She stands with us and walks us to the foyer. We exchange pleasantries with the desk staff. Outside, the traffic is bustling, we move through Wan Chai. There are thousands of people walking in the streets.
‘It’s a shame about Lou.’ Connor sighs. ‘I was coming around to her.’
‘It’s a shame. I don’t want to irritate the locals.’
We return to Tuen Mun by taxi. I wake Lou, who complains of a headache. I tell her that I’m sorry, that I have to withdraw my offer. She is furious.
‘You can’t do that to me, it’s not fair. You’ll send me back? You made promises to me. You came and took me away like an angel.’
‘There are people like us in the city, and they won’t allow it. I should have thought before I said those things. I promise, you won’t remember anything. It’ll be like it never happened.’
‘I want to remember! Do you know what I’m going back to?’ She swears profusely in Cantonese. ‘I want this. Give it to me, now.’ She stands, uneven, and searches for a lighter in her pocket.
I say nothing. Connor looks at me, entreats me to reconsider. He thinks of how we can get out of the city. He thinks we can take any random lady from the street, put her to sleep, and leave her for the team. If anyone figured it out, we would be gone.
‘Who is it with the savior complex?’
‘We can hypnotize our way through the airport. They won’t be able to trace us.’ Typically, this is not good practice. Even for a vampire.
‘For all we know, they could be listening to us right now!’
‘Come on.’
Lou looks at us, her hair is disheveled and her makeup is smudged across her eyes.
‘You want it?’
‘Give it to me!’
I look her in the eyes, coldly, and before she has time to squeal I cut the side of her neck with my fingernail and take a mouthful of blood. I swallow it. I stop myself from gagging, I can taste the substance abuse. I cut my own wrist, which drips heavily, and hold it to her mouth.
‘Go on, you have to swallow some of that. Are you ready?’
She opens her mouth, reluctantly, and carefully laps at the wound. She winces at the taste.
‘Connor, go and get a girl from the street and put her to sleep. We can go to Robin and Lizzie, we’ll leave tomorrow morning.’
Connor steps over the dead man, who has gone an indecent blue, and disappears through the door. Lou has already begun to react, she heaves on the sofa. I help her stand. I take out my phone and order the third Uber of the day.
‘What is your name, though? We’ve been calling you Lou.’
She is wheezing heavily. She steadies herself against the wall.
‘I like that.’
‘I’m going to have to kill you, you know that? But it won’t be for long.’
‘Will I see anything?’
‘Not this time, anyway.’
To bring someone into our world, a mythical rite known in Ireland as Díoltas Phort Láirge is performed. This translates roughly as the Revenge of Waterford. In our mythology, the Dearg Due is a battered woman. A Waterford local, who rose from the grave to drain the blood of her abuser. I have never met her, personally.
The mythology of several cultures tell a similar story. We are those beings, and when the legend is set aside, no-one really knows how we came about. Some say that we are À Rebours, against nature, while others ask if a snake should be punished for eating a toad.
In parts of Europe, the rite is performed in fanatic ritual by archaic, insular Luceferians. In more civilized circles, as a Druidic rite of initiation. In the old days, Druids would make sacrifices to the members of the Dearg Due, and would themselves be granted immortality for their service.
Advancing into the 21st Century, it is sometimes a cold and clinical procedure, performed in secret hospitals. There are rules, depending where you go, and there are those who ignore them. The living for the most part are largely unaware.
The steps are as follows. To begin, you must be an immortal. Drink the blood of the initiate, but stop and let it animate you. The mortal then swallows your blood, just a drop, before they’re killed. They will wake within a few hours.
An important part of the process is a method to kill. It can fail, and shooting a person through the skull will fail. Most commonly it’s poison, but it can be strangulation, oxygen deprivation, and in some cases if done precisely, the neck can be snapped. The resulting immortal wears a neck brace for a day or two. Violence is considered to be unnecessary in both transforming and feeding, but I have enjoyed it at times.
The Vampire, which is a stupid word, come in every race and creed. Beliefs about our origin are as numerous as the cultures in which we’ve thrived. Some have been able to trace the lineage of powerful sects back to the ancient world. But the spread, like a virus from remote prehistory, has no ground zero.
I don’t have poison available in the apartment, so I opt to suffocate her.
‘Trust me, alright?’ I look carefully into her eyes. ‘Go to sleep, nothing can wake you up.’
She is asleep on the sofa a moment later, and I hold a pillow over her face. She is dead after a very minor struggle. I toss the pillow aside and go to the balcony to have a smoke. I haven’t smoked since Wan Chai.
When I’m done, I lift Lou’s corpse over my shoulder. Her hair hangs across her face. I carry her into the hallway and we take the elevator to the ground floor, where I pass Connor. A lady follows him, seeming to know exactly where she is going. He nods at me and they step into the elevator behind us.
In the cab, a friendly middle-eastern driver takes us to Yuen Long, where Robin and Elizabeth have been living. With some tricks, I ensure he doesn’t quite register the corpse. Connor is staying in the apartment. He will let me know when the collection is done.
‘My darling little weasel!’ Elizabeth hugs me. Her thick, brown hair smells of lavender.
‘Alright, mate?’ Robin, who is always nonchalant, embraces me as well.
‘And what is this poor dead thing over your shoulder?’ Lizzie inspects the girl. ‘What sort of muddle have you gotten yourself into?’
‘She’s local.’
‘You buffoon!’ She laughs, but with trepidation.
Robin is scratching his blonde hair, looking at the dead girl with a mild expression of discomfort.
‘They will pick her up, I suppose, but they’ll make a dent in your bank account for it if she’s local.’
‘And, buffoon, aren’t you on thin ice already? Leaving people in gutters?’ Lizzie interjects.
I dump Lou on the sofa-bed. Lizzie covers her hands with her eyes, as though to say I could have asked.
‘She’ll be waking up soon. I’ve turned her, I think. We’re going to fly to Ireland on short notice.’
‘Oh promised Ireland! Robin, should we pay a visit home sometime?’
‘Oh, England, my lion heart.’ He responds, very sarcastically.
‘I’m going to Ireland for a while, and then on to Canada.’
‘Canada?!’ Lizzie cried.
Winter in Canada. It’s very beautiful. I have people in West Alberta, maybe British Columbia. I like the cold.’
‘You devil! Take me with you!’
Lou coughs, suddenly and violently. She sits upright. Her eyes are ablaze, and her chest heaving.
Lizzie screams. ‘Another heavenly day!’
Robin chimes in. ‘A crime committed!’
‘I’m still at large for now.’
‘Are you taking her with you?’
‘No, I think she has loose ends to tie. Don’t you Lou?’
The three of us look at her. She gasps, eyes rolled back in her head, and begins to convulse. She pukes bile on the rug,
‘And she can come and visit us. We can visit her, too, if they let me back.’
‘You might get away with it!’ Said robin, ‘Should we have champagne?’
I hate champagne. I prefer red wine or whiskey. Whiskey on the rocks with coke. Apparently tannins are my thing. They exacerbate a hangover, but I haven’t been hungover in sixty years.
I am 99 years old, if you include the 28 I spent alive. It has been sixty years, give or take. In that time I’ve turned three people, and I would not wish to tally the number I’ve killed. You can’t turn anyone, you have to ‘see’ something in them. It can’t be explained, but there’s an uncommon ‘knowing’. Only then will the desire to actually turn someone come, and it’s in good taste to have them consent.
‘None for me. I haven’t gotten away with it yet.’
‘Do you know anything about her?’
‘Only that if she’s the vengeful type, some people are going to die.’
‘People are going to die anyway.’
‘I suppose so.’
They’re having champagne, I’m having tea. The apartment is decorated with avant-garde little things. A portrait of a suited man with the head of a cheetah hangs on the wall. The creature’s eyes stare blankly into the room. Underneath, a standing Sarcophagus. If that wasn’t enough, a statue of Betty Boop.
The night outside is quiet. The walkways have cleared, and cars pass beneath the bridges. In the park there are people on a swing-set. The torchlight on someone’s phone moves back and forth as they go.
Connor writes to tell me that the collection has gone by without incident. He will come and join us, and will bring his champagne. Robin and Lizzie intend to get drunk. After an hour, Lou has stopped convulsing. She looks around the room like someone on a heavy dose of LSD. Lizzie, in her warm, southern English accent, calls her.
‘My love! Are you alright, duck? Lou?’
Lou takes a deep breath and looks at her.
If you’re wondering, we still breathe the air. We urinate a pale red, and we have sex just the same. There’s nothing to shit out, unless you eat mortal food, or an excess of blood gives you diarrhea. Generally the body metabolizes blood like an engine eats petrol. Whatever it is, vampirism keeps the cells regenerating at peak efficiency. The body repairs itself miraculously fast. Sunlight is not an issue, nor are crosses or garlic. The primary downside is the requirement for blood.
‘Can you hear us?’
She lays on her back, on the floor, and coughs. This will be an after effect of having been smothered to death. It will pass shortly.
Connor arrives, he is thrilled to see the duo. A few hours pass in conversation. In time, Lou is upright and speaks her first immortal words.
‘Oh, my God.’
‘He has abandoned you!’ Robin laughs, drunk.
‘Oh.. My god.’
‘Lo and behold.’ He continues.
I fetch blood from the fridge in the kitchen and bring her a glass. I sit with her on the rug. I ask her how her chest feels. Better than before. She sips at the glass before quickly downing it. I can see a recognizable ferocity in her face.
‘Robin and Lizzie will take care of you while you’re adjusting. They’ll show you how to use your tricks.’
‘You won’t stay with me?’ She seems lethargic.
‘I have places to be. I’ll be in touch, we’ll see you again.’
She is ecstatic. She stares at her own raised hand. She looks at me suddenly and asks about the pimp.
‘He’s dead, baby. In Hong Kong you’ve got people who will clean up for you. It’s a luxury. Where I come from we have to deal with the mess we make ourselves.’
‘There’s a similar program in a few cities I’ve been to.’ Robin speaks to Connor.
‘Certainly not Dublin. There’s too few of us. You gotta trick your way out of the city and find somewhere to put your leftovers.’ He re-fills his glass with Champagne. ‘Job well done, April.’
‘I’m glad, Lou. But you really don’t know what you’ve done.’ I take a drag from my cigarette. ‘And I still can’t drive, after all these years. Can you imagine the taxi drivers I’ve hypnotized? I’ve even had them dig holes for me.’
Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong international airport. People are looking at Connor, who wears a beret, huge sunglasses and a brown fur coat. It is not at all sunny. The transparent ceilings are tall, the main terminal is spacious and heavily air conditioned. I look at the lady working the British Airways stall directly in the eyes, and tell her that she’s been expecting us. She must go to fetch the duty manager at once.
Her confused superior shows up before long. She is unhappy, and demands to know what we want. A few minutes later, she’s escorting us personally through the airport to our gate. We haven’t paid a penny for that matter. She directs us through some regularly locked corridors, for which she has keys, and we bypass the security booths. They haven’t even looked at our passports. Her name is Cynthia, I discover, and she is mesmerized by the opportunity to assist members of the Royal Family. This was Connor’s touch, and by no means necessary.
A long line of exhausted people with suitcases stand at the gate. The slow check-in process continues. We quickly pass them, and after a few words with the bewildered gate staff, Cynthia escorts us to the first class cabin.
In the cabin, Connor quickly orders a double vodka cranberry. On second thought, the kind stewardess should just bring the bottle. In life, Connor rarely drank alcohol, and sparingly when he did. Nowadays he is a corrupt and scandalous drunk. Our booth is the most spacious in the cabin, a private room. It features a queen bed, a small kitchenette, a large television, a shower and two sofas.
A few hours in, and we are disreputably drunk. A 1995 Mugler runway show plays on the television while I attempt to covertly smoke a cigarette in the shower. The alarm goes off, and two staff appear at the door, firmly knocking.
One of the staff holds Connor’s attention. He is tall, with dark curly hair and auburn eyes. His name-tag says, ‘Julian: Madrid, Spain’. The other hostess is an older lady from Hong Kong. Her name is Margot.
We convince them we have no idea what set the alarm off. Despite the ashed butts and stray lighter, they can find no evidence of smoking in the room. Connor insists that the two join us for a drink. He assures them that their superiors, no less the pilot himself, would be furious if they did not. If anyone comes looking for them, Connor announces, he will make them join us for a drink as well. This could go on until there is no-one left to attend the plane.
Julian and Margot, after logging the faulty smoke alarm, return to the booth and join us on the sofas. I take myself to the front of the plane and convince the senior stewardess that we will be needing them for the duration of the flight. She is pleased to oblige and announces over the PA that ‘dinner service has been cancelled’. The passengers are in uproar, and there are numerous complaints about the noise and smell of cigarette smoke.
Julian, who speaks with a Spanish accent, flirts profusely with Connor. I can tell that Connor is not entrancing him, but has invited the man to express himself despite professional obligations. Before long, Julian is exercising all of his charm to impress the demon. Connor is enthralled, the two become lost in conversation.
Margot, a woman of forty, who has now smoked four cigarettes and wrapped a sock around the alarm, tells me the story of her most recent boyfriend’s misdemeanors, and her eventual decision to put him out of the house. On a few occasions, the door knocks and we ignore it.
Four or five hours in, the door is not knocked but beaten, and visibly shakes. I am blind drunk, having discovered a cache of wine bottles in the mini-fridge by the bed. Connor, with Julian, has finished the bottle of vodka and moved to a bottle of champagne. I make my way to the door. Margot debates with Connor and Julian about the best albums of the seventies and eighties.
When I open the door, a brash woman with slick blonde hair fumes at me. She has come to tell us off – on behalf of her fellow passengers. Our behavior has been a hot topic, it seems, and the remaining staff are refusing to act. It becomes clear that she is Scottish.
‘There are people on this plane gaspin’ for a fuckin cigarette includin’ maself! But we have te put up wie’ it. So why can’t you? What kinda fucking job is this now? The staff anaw? And I don’t know how you’re getting away wie it but you’re fuckin’ disgraceful! And the fuckin’ noise! There’s people trying e’ sleep!’
Although I’m blind, I hold her gaze. I suggest that we remind her of old friends. We’ve been waiting for her to join us, and we’re dying to hear what she’s been up to. What the rest of the plane thinks doesn’t matter. She’ll never see any of them again.
She begins to laugh, almost outrageously, and claps her hands. I pass her an empty glass and pour her a generous drink. She sits by Margot and I, and introduces herself as Georgina. ‘And thank fuck for that!’ She announces, lighting a cigarette. Another hour passes.
‘And I would not lie to you, April. I would not lie to you, Gina. That bastard took $300 out of my purse. My hard earned money, while he sits on his fucking arse. To spend it all in Lan Kwai Fong, on drinks for women! And I told him he can stay in fucking Lan Kwai Fong on the street! He is not to return to my house.’ Margot slurs.
‘And yer’ fuckin’ right anaw! I don’t care what any cunt says, if you give a cunt like at an inch he’ll take a fuckin’ mile. You’re just right, hen.’
‘You did what you had to do. And rightly so. You should have hit him a fair dig. Good for you, love.’
More time elapses, we are approaching London. The lights had been dimmed for a number of hours but suddenly re-ignite, to our displeasure. Gina and Julian argue over football, while Margot, Connor and I sit on the floor and discuss men.
‘This man had a serious effect on me. I was going to kill him, I thought so, but there was something about him that really made me..’
‘Kill him?’ Margot gasped.
‘It’s a figure of speech.’ Connor smiles. ‘It means I thought it would be a one night thing, you know?’
Margot laughs, genuinely, and agrees. It is not a figure of speech she’s ever heard, but of course she knows he can’t have meant it literally.
‘That’s how it happens sometimes. You think you’re all big, and like.. Independent. But they get you when you don’t expect it.’
Connor puffs on a cigarette. ‘We could bring him over, couldn’t we?’
‘To Ireland?’
‘Yes, and you know.’
‘You’ll tell him the truth?’
‘About what’s between your legs?’ He insults me, mischievously.
‘Fuck you! Who do you think I am? You can’t speak to me like that.’
‘Aside from a transvestite? A cold blooded killer.’
Margot laughs, ‘You’re very pretty, whatever you are. Don’t you listen to him!’
Connor gives me a devious glare. He tells me, telepathically, that he would like to taste Julian. I tell him that if he must, let it be a little drink. These are our friends.
When the plane lands, our hosts are asleep on the bed. Gina, withdrawing to the runway, falls down the metal steps and is transported by a medical team into Heathrow airport. Connor and I make our escape.
Connor attempts, with difficulty, to alter the way people around us perceive time. He thinks that we can slip through passport control. There is no need for this, as we hold entirely valid Irish passports. At any rate, he is much too drunk.
We pass through connection security with ease, and find that the next flight for Belfast will be leaving shortly. A longer wait for Dublin. We opt to go to the North, where we will try to find Eoghan.
I steady myself, because I will need to delude the staff at the gate. In any case, Connor is much too drunk.
cancel - cancel - violet flame 