Short Story: Aftershock

Short Story: Aftershock

It was early evening in Hong Kong one Friday in 1991. Bonita rushed into the lift of her Whampoa tower block, clutching her handbag and the bottle of wine. She was dressed in the black jacket that she always wore on such occasions and her fine, dark hair was tied back, accentuating her tanned good looks. As the lift descended she found herself going over the details of the ‘drop’ again and again in her mind.

She was an air-hostess with a major Hong Kong based airline. A Malaysian National, she had been befriended by another air-hostess the previous year, a local girl from Hong Kong, and the two of them had become reasonable friends. The other girl always seemed to be a little insincere, however, and was always pushing to introduce Bonita to her 'friends'. Eventually Bonita agreed and it was not long before the 'friends' began asking her to do them small favours in return for a cash reward. Initially the favours had been merely the smuggling of small packages into Hong Kong, but more recently the 'friends' had started leaving packages at her flat with instructions as to where, when and to whom they should be delivered or dropped.

Bonita did not have a good relationship with her family and yet, due to some inner belief in duty, she kept sending them the sums of money that they demanded and expected. The more she sent the more they demanded, until the sums almost equalled her entire disposable income. This had led to her initial decision to get involved with the 'friends', a decision that she had quickly regretted. However after she requested to break her contact with them, they threatened to expose her to her family and the airline. She was trapped and she knew it.

Leaving the lift she ran towards the steps leading down to the taxi rank.

"Bonita, Bonita! Where the hell have you been?" The young British man blocked her passage and looked accusingly into her deep brown eyes. "I've been waiting for you for two hours. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Fighting back tears, Bonita pushed past him.

"Look Richard, I forgot that I had already promised some of my friends that I would meet them tonight. I'm sorry, I must go. I'm late."

"You're sorry? I've just driven down from the New Territories to see you. Why do you keep on changing our dates at the last minute? Bonita, Bonita, stop!"

Running away from him, she leapt into a taxi and instructed the driver to take her to the Kowloon Star Ferry pier. Sitting back in the air-conditioned car, she let her tears flow. Because of the ‘friends’, her love life was a mess as she could never guarantee her availability for appointments. Richard was the first person who really did seem to care about her and she had already confessed a few facts about the 'friends' to him.

However he did not know enough to realise what she was really doing. Despite everything, he still seemed to want her, making her feel even more trapped. The innocent looking wine bottle burned like fire between her legs, except that, to the best of her knowledge, the liquid inside it was not wine.

She arrived at the Star Ferry three minutes late and, paying the driver, she crossed the bus lane and started looking for her contacts. There they were, two seedy looking Cantonese youths in fake designer clothing, one with a mobile phone, lounging near a shop, trying to look casual. Half Chinese and half Malay, Bonita felt no love for most Cantonese, especially when they criticised her for not being fluent in their language.

Once she knew that they had recognised her, she walked past them to the turnstile and dropped in her dollar. As she passed she heard one of them say something about flying chickens, Cantonese slang implying that air-hostesses are nothing but airborne prostitutes. The other hissed, "You're late, bitch!"

Ignoring them she mingled with the crowds and walked up the steps leading towards the boarding area. Surrounded by normal people, with normal lives and normal worries, she suddenly felt alone, afraid and slightly nauseated. The consequences of being caught by the authorities were never far from the back of her mind. In her imagination she felt the presence of the two youths behind her, no doubt ogling her as she walked.

The wait for the ferry, although only a couple of minutes, seemed to take an eternity.

At last the incoming vessel docked and the passengers began to pour off. When they were clear the blue coated sailor opened the iron gate that held back the incoming passengers, and the crowd around her surged forward. Bonita allowed the two youths to overtake her as they crossed the gangway, and then she followed them aft into the cabin. Once they had sat down, she saw a middle-aged European sit in the seat immediately in front of them. As planned, she moved towards him and caught his eye.

"Hi, how are you? Fancy meeting you here?"

"I'm fine honey, why don't you join me?" he said in an American accent, patting the seat next to him.

Sitting down, she exchanged pleasantries and at the same time casually passed him the bottle of wine. They briefly discussed a party that they would meet at later that night.

The ferry cast off.

A gentle breeze wafted across the upper deck, offering some relief from the oppressive heat, unbearable, even after sunset, because of the high humidity. Already her skin felt damp, oily and dirty.

Quickly she looked around her, always more relaxed when afloat. On the next bench was a young European male dressed in the regulation order T shirt, Rayban sunglasses, shorts and sailing shoes. He was lounging across his seat, deep in conversation with a Chinese. A couple of seats behind her she could hear some Filipinos conversing in a mixture of English, Tagalog, Cantonese and Nepali. In front of her were a couple of Chinese teenagers, obviously very much in love. The girl kept leaning towards the guy, looking into his eyes and smiling. He was playing with her long, thick, black hair, turning some of the strands into a brush and gently stroking her cheek with it, being rewarded with more smiles and some slight caresses.

Across the harbour the lights of Victoria glittered and sparkled and in the ferry Bonita felt for a few seconds only, that she was cut-off from the problems in her life. These peaceful thoughts did not last long, however, despite the gentle throbbing of the engine and the soothing vibrations transmitted through her feet and her buttocks. They were dispelled by the cacophony of sound from the other passengers, the ceaseless c1amour of scores of people shouting and yelling at each other with no consideration for their fellow travellers.

Their destination hove into view as the ferry prepared to berth with her port side to. The ten minute journey seemed to have flown by in as many seconds. As the vessel coasted in towards the pier, the old wrinkled Chinese crewman walked towards the gangway and prepared to release the rope securing it.

"Okay Honey, I'll see you later. I've got to rush now," said the man, getting up and moving to join the rapidly forming queue on the port side.

"See you, bitch," taunted one of her two contacts as they also got up and joined the queue.

Once again, looking at all the normal people around her, Bonita felt afraid and very, very alone. How she longed to be really free, free from Triads and free of her commitments to her family. Perhaps more than anything, she longed to be properly loved.

The gangway crashed down and the multi-racial crowd, like lemmings, spilled across it in their haste to rush somewhere else. Looking at her watch she saw that it was ten past nine and, because she had blown her date with Richard, she was in no hurry. Following the crowd as they descended the steps leading to the Star Ferry concourse, great tears of unhappiness started to well up and run down her face, smudging her make up. Entering the crowded concourse, she almost missed the drama unfolding there.

A man was holding the arm of her American who was loudly demanding to know what the hell was going on. His bottle of wine was being held by another. The two Cantonese had been pushed back against the glass of the South China Morning Post Bookshop by another couple of men. Through her tears, and because of the crowd, Bonita did not really understand what was happening.

Realisation dawned as she recognised the man detaining the American as the young European from the Ferry. At the same time a couple of uniformed Chinese policemen were pushing their way through the gathering crowd.

As her mind accepted the fact that the police were arresting the men, it also registered that she was caught as well. She went into shock. From far away she heard someone saying, "There she is. Stop her!"

Blindly she turned towards the underpass, but her legs were too weak to carry her forward. "Run, run!" her mind screamed, but all she was capable of doing was grabbing on to one of the iron pillars for support. The heat, the shock and the noise took effect and the people and the lights began spinning around as her stomach clenched in a painful contraction. A hand grabbed her arm from behind causing her to utter a small hopeless cry of despair. Turning her head she saw Richard. Dimly she remembered that he was a Police officer as well as her boyfriend.

"Darling, you've had enough. That’s Toby over there, my friend in CID. He’s known about your problem for some weeks. It's over now. I'm taking you home. We can worry about the formalities tomorrow."

This final surprise, combined with the aftershock of having seen the arrests, and the final release of tensions and worries that had been haunting her for months, was too much for Bonita. As she felt his strong arms go around her, her mind gave up, her legs collapsed, and she blacked out.