Tuesday 13th November
I’ve been arrested.
I’m locked in a room so small that when I took my diary out of my cabin-bag I bumped my elbows on both walls. The only light is from a tiny window above my head and there’s an armed guard at the door. I think his name is ‘Wang’, which is appropriate because he’s wielding a big old weapon at waist level which could do a man a lot of damage. Anyway, the point I should be making is this…
What the actual effing fuck?
We’d landed in Hong Kong and exited the plane, no problem. I’d spotted an Asian woman at the gate holding a card with my name on it. Bev and Rachel had been dead impressed, thinking I’d arranged a chauffeured trip around the city before tonight’s connecting flight. I was almost entirely sure I hadn’t, but I stepped forward anyway, curious to find out what she wanted. The lady gave me a shy little bow, whispered a word into a radio and, before I knew it, three armed-policemen had appeared out of nowhere, grabbed my shoulders and marched me away. No explanation. Now I’m sitting here BRICKING it. What if they make me disappear? I’ve always hated magic.
At first, I assumed it was a gay thing (not that it declares my penchant for penis on my passport), but I’ve asked Yahoo and apparently the ban on homos entering this country was lifted in the 90’s. That’s when they decided that we were, regrettably, legal. I’ve since learnt that the problem is because the name on my plane ticket doesn’t exactly match the name on my passport. Long story short, I should never have got Bev to book my ticket for me. I only asked so we could make sure I sat with them but I think she got ‘forename’ and ‘surname’ confused and I’m down on my plane ticket as St. John Kevin. Not Kevin St. John which is on my passport and has, you know, been my name all my life. It wasn’t mentioned in Heathrow but come to think of it the lady on the gate did call me “your holiness”.
Unfortunately, the girls aren’t around to help clear up the situation because the last time I saw them they were skipping off to McDonalds saying, “at least the food there looks safe.” So I’m stuck here.
Thank goodness this room has one of those new fangled wi-fi hot spot things.
From: captainkevman@live.co.uk
To: 'Friends & Family' Group
Subject: Hong Kong - Phooey!
Date: Tues 13 Nov - 10:37
Hello everyone. Or should I say, ‘Knee How?’ which is how they greet each other here in Hong Kong. Which is where I am. Happily relaxing between flights and not under any stress at all. Everyone is so… attentive and the room where I’m hanging out is super cosy.
I’m writing to you from 6,000 miles east of where I was this morning (yesterday) when I was shoe-horned into a Vauxhall Corsa with three giant backpacker backpacks, three rucksacks, three cabin-bags, two Essex girls and a slightly stressed dad on the wrong side of 50 on driving duties. I’m not saying the car was crammed to an alarming capacity, but I did a nervous fart and changed gear.
We’ve currently in China, having stopped for a bit of fuel and a stretch. The first leg has taken us 13 hours and I must admit the Malaysian Airways plane has been far more comfortable than I expected. I’d had visions of caged chickens in the aisles and no air con but it was full of technical gadgetry with no poultry to be seen. I’ve never flown long-haul before, and I spent much of the flight entranced by the tiny plane on the TV screen in front of me, showing where we were travelling in real time. I noticed we were flying over ‘Western Siberia’ for hours and before today I couldn’t have told you with certainty that Western Siberia was even a real country. I’m learning already! The same screen informed me we were 33,000 feet in the air and that the temperature outside was -85 degrees. Bev and Rachel spent most of the journey huddled under a blanket, grumbling that someone had left a window open.
It’s occurred to me that some of you haven’t actually met my travelling companions, so let me give you a quick bit of background. After all, it was their dream to spend Christmas Day on Bondi Beach that persuaded me to come on this adventure in the first place.
Beverley and I started work at Corks Wine Bar on the same day, just over three years ago. We became instant friends. I guess I’d describe her as my fag hag and she’d take that title proudly and in the spirit in which it was intended. She might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she is stunning inside and out and has a heart of gold. Curvaceous, blond and in her early-twenties (I’ve heard her describe me the same way), she has waves of golden hair and a crooked smile that could almost turn me. If I wasn’t, I would, and I love her very much. She quit Corks last year after being groped one too many times by merlot-soaked molesters and took a new job at the local Wetherspoons, which is where she met Rachel.
Rachel is stylish and street-smart and always up for a party. She has poker-straight brown hair and a splattering of freckles over a small nose which she says guys find “adorbs”, which is why – after she cakes herself in make-up – she draws them back on. She’s a bit shorter than average, but what she lacks in stature she more than makes up for in heels. She’s sharp-tongued, fashion-focussed and can spot a label from 100 metres. She refers to me as her gay accessory – or, more accurately her ‘fag bangle’ – which I don’t resent at all. I’m used to hanging around making others look good. Incidentally, her shrill voice sounds like a Cockney cat being strangled. Just saying.
The three of us intend to be Ambassadors to Essex, proving to Australia and the world that not everyone who comes from there is a vajazzled, perma-tanned moron with badly-drawn eyebrows and a donkey laugh. To demonstrate that Essex isn’t all about vacant chewing-gum grins and sex addiction, and that most of its residents are naturally beautiful, intelligent people, and hardly chavvy at all. *Cough*
A final thought. Airplane toilets. It’s not the easiest thing to do, take a poo in a room the size of a shoe box, but add the overhead lighting from hell, no wash facilities for eight time zones, and an evil flush that would whip your innards out of your arse if you don’t stand up quick enough and you’d have the same mile-high experience that I’ve had. How on earth two people are supposed to get up to anything kinky in them is beyond me. I barely had room to undo my own belt.
Now we’re at the airport, I’ve had time to do some research on our final destination and it seems Australia is proper big. It’s both the largest island in the world AND the only country that is also a continent. Twenty-four times bigger than the UK, it only has a third of the population, mainly because the centre of Australia is so inhospitable that it’s practically devoid of human life. In fact, 90% of the residents live around the edges in ten big cities, which sounds remarkably similar to the world according to Judge Dredd if I remember my old comics correctly. The country is divided into five ‘territories’ and tomorrow morning we’ll be arriving in ‘Victoria’, which is both the country’s smallest state and the first female I’ll have entered in a long time.
Thanks for your emails. I’ll respond when I can.
Love Kev x
[INTERNET PROVIDED BY HONG KONG SECURITY HOTSPOT]
..
[EMAIL MESSAGE BLOCKED] [POSSIBLE MALICIOUS CONTENT]
[NO FURTHER ATTEMPTS WILL BE MADE]
11.20am
I’m so impressed with the email I wrote home. It comes across as cheerful and upbeat, when in truth I typed it with trembling hands, a thumping heart and a spasming a-hole. I want so much for everyone to think I can do this, but I’ve not even made it to Australia yet and already I want to go home.
Things have got so much worse in the last few minutes. How was I supposed to know taking a photo out the window would be illegal? You can only see the runway! I just figured it would be the only photo I’d get of Hong Kong. You’d think I was trying to shoot a person not a picture. Wang got right in my face and shouted foreign words that needed lots of saliva. The machine-gun at his hip swung to face me and I swear I nearly vomited out of my butt.
AND HE CONFISCATED MY PHONE!
4.15pm
I admit I wanted lots of new experiences on this trip, but being someone’s bitch in a Hong Kong prison was not one of them. I can’t help but expect a cavity search at any minute, which is a horrible thought as I’ve seen Wang’s fingernails.
I can’t get my head around it. Yesterday, I was at home having a cup of tea and a hob-nob, and today, I’m literally halfway across the world, locked in a room with a big Asian copper and his mighty weapon. Yet it sort of feels like I’ve just popped out for milk.
I hadn’t even felt sad when I was leaving home. I was saying goodbye to everyone I loved and everything I knew, and I had no idea when I was going to see them again. But I didn’t shed a tear, didn’t even want to. Mum had stood there in the rain, crying, Sis had hugged me just a tad too long, and Tommy had stumbled after the car, sobbing his heart out once we’d pulled away. Michael hadn’t even shown up. Bev asked if I was going to press my hand up against the window and gaze out as they disappeared from view like they do on Eastenders, but instead I just stared straight ahead feeling… what, numb? No. Determined. I knew a new road lay before me and I had to see where it led. And I don’t mean the M25, I knew that led to Heathrow.
It’s ironic. The whole point of escaping Essex, England, and my life as a whole, was to keep my overactive brain occupied with exciting new adventures and possibilities, and to get over Phil without having time to actually stop and think about it. Unfortunately, less than a day in, I go and get incarcerated with nothing to do but think.
“We’ll be together forever.”
That’s what Phil used to tell me, and being the hopeless romantic I am I’d accepted that without question. Even after those words sounded more like a threat than a promise of enduring love. After all, who was I to turn my back on someone who was actually willing to be with me? So I stayed, like a faithful puppy, even when everything I did made him angry. Was I really that bad? I know I didn’t put that random stranger in his bed, so why do I feel so guilty about it?
It pisses me off to admit it but I miss him, like a part of me has gone. Even after catching him sprawled out, legs in the air and begging for it, the image burned onto my eyeballs. Even now the thought of them together kicks the air out of my lungs. He’d snuck away from our own anniversary party to meet someone. Forgot he’d given me a key. Afterwards, I’d stumbled out to my car to drive home, and blinded by tears, and being totally blotto, I was lucky I only crashed into his neighbour’s garden.
He’d pleaded with me for two weeks to take him back, desperate for another chance. Making me feel increasingly unreasonable until, stupidly, I’d given in.
“Ok, I forgive you!”
And that was all he needed. His face had changed immediately.
“About fucking time, I’m always the one that gets to do the dumping. And you are officially dumped.”
He’d wanted me back only so he could finish with me himself.
Is there any way to humiliate someone more completely? He’d left, taking what little remaining self-respect I had with him, along with a pair of my favourite jeans that he’d been wearing at the time.
But you know what? Maybe being forced to sit in this room and confront my own brain for a bit wasn’t such a bad thing. Instead of asking myself, “Why did he leave me?” I’m just now thinking, for the first time ever, “Why the fuck didn’t I leave him?” That’s got to be progress.
5.55pm
IF I DON’T GET OUT OF THIS SODDING ROOM I AM GOING TO MISS MY PLANE!
