Authors: Emily Barr
This is all wrong. I live in Brighton. That is where I belong. Thinking I could come here, at the age of thirty-nine, and act like a backpacker was stupid. I am not one of life’s backpackers and I never could be. I did not ‘go travelling’ in my youth, because I never wanted to. I cannot do this.
I step over a little wall and out of the car park. I look up and down the flat tarmacked road for a bus. The sun shines mercilessly on my head. There is nothing. I am lost.
Obviously, the worst thing to do would be to get into another taxi, with the person who came over to ask why I was crying, and see which bizarre spot I might end up in this time. All the same, this is what I do.
‘Hello,’ says the man. ‘Please do not cry. Where you go?’
He is smiling at me, and he nods to his taxi behind him.
‘I want the bus to Kuala Besut,’ I say.
He laughs and points to a building beyond the car park.
‘Here there is train to the airport or bus to Malacca. You want to go to Malacca? Very beautiful town.’
‘No!’ I sniff and try to pull myself together. At least there is a bus here. That makes things a bit better. What, I wonder, would the chances have been of me, Sussex working mother, sitting crying in front of this man, this Kuala Lumpur taxi driver? It seems so profoundly unlikely that our paths should ever have crossed; and yet they have.
‘You need to go to Putra,’ he tells me, and he is calm and authoritative, and when he walks off I duly follow him, nodding because I recognise the name from the guidebook. Again, I sit on the shiny vinyl of a back seat, and watch the meter climbing as we reverse my previous journey and head back along the motorway, into the city. I see the Petronas Towers up ahead, and the hazy skyline of the sprawling, friendly city, and I tell myself that a little misadventure does not matter. In fact, seeing the city from behind a cab window is a reassuring, safe thing to do, and I would rather go back and forth by cab all day than get on to a long-distance bus.
Stupid woman, I tell myself. I could have booked an internal flight, which would have taken about an hour. Then I could have got a taxi, which would also have taken an hour, and gone straight to the boat. I could almost be at the island by now. Instead, I thought, from the comfort of my terraced house in Hove, that it would be more authentic and interesting to travel by land and to see the interior of Malaysia in passing. And look at me: I cannot even bloody turn up at the right bus stop.
I have been saying ‘mm’, I realise, to the driver, without listening. That is a workplace habit, as well as a maternal one.
‘Sorry?’ I add, leaning forward. ‘Can you say that again?’
He nods. ‘I say, I take you to Kuala Besut? All the way to where you go. One thousand ringgit? We agree.’
Oh good God.
‘No,’ I say. I dredge up a firm and decisive voice. ‘No, I don’t have a thousand ringgit. Please just take me to the bus station.’
‘But you agreed! You say “mm”.’
‘Which is not “yes”,’ I point out.
He shrugs. ‘OK, how much you want to pay?’
‘I want to pay whatever the bus costs. Because I want to go on the bus. I don’t have spare money to take a taxi
all the way across the country
!’
‘Eight hundred?’
‘No!’
‘OK. Seven hundred. That is the best price.’
I look out of the window, hoping we are not already on the main road to the east coast.
‘Look,’ I say, as sternly as I can. ‘If you’re not taking me to the bus station, why don’t you let me out here and I’ll pay you what it says on the meter.’ Then I look at the meter and gasp. It says seventy-four ringgit. Last time I looked, it said seven. The taxi I just took in the opposite direction cost forty-one.
‘The meter is
very
high,’ I tell him, wondering how confrontational to be, and how best to get the hell out of this taxi. I know as soon as I have spoken that I should have gone for a furious approach.
The man is studying me stonily in the rear-view mirror.
‘Is a very long way,’ he says.
I take my mobile out and make a show of reading the sticker on the inside of the window, which tells me how to report an errant driver. I look for a number to phone, but there does not seem to be one, so I key in the email address instead.
He is still staring, unsmiling. I do the same thing back; but I am well aware that we are speeding along a highway in a car that is entirely under his control, and that even if I were able to leap out, he would still have my backpack in his boot.
‘Nearly there,’ he tells me. I narrow my eyes at him, though I doubt he notices. Neither of us speaks.
And then, all of a sudden, he has pulled over on the hard shoulder, and cars are zipping past right next to my door. The driver has jumped out and marched around to the boot, and so I check the meter, which is showing a massive eighty ringgit, and try to open the door on the pavement side. It will not budge, so I open the other one and step out on to the motorway, feeling my hair swept up by the breeze of the traffic that thunders past. Somehow, although I would be terrified to be inches from speeding traffic at home, this seems the least of my worries right now.
I hand him the money with a scowl. He accepts it gracelessly, and I notice, to my immense surprise, that I am next to Putra bus station. I hoist my bag on to my back and try to forget how badly I have screwed up the very simple matter of getting from my hotel (which I think I can see from the bus station doorway) to here. At least I am here, and it is 10.20, so I am in time for the bus. Nothing else matters. I make an effort not to translate what I have spent on taxis today into supermarket shops or child benefit.
The bus station is basic, with concrete walls, rows of plastic seats and a line of windows belonging to different companies, selling tickets to various places. The floor is dusty and tiled. Most people are clearly local: right now, if there was another foreigner with a backpack, I would march up to them and start talking.
This fact makes me smile, in spite of my frustration. When we were happy together, Chris and I made a show of not needing anything from the outside world. We were both happy to hide away in our own little universe. Neither of us is any good at starting conversations with people we don’t know, and neither of us has advanced social skills. Yet now, dirty, not-drunk, and unnerved by the discovery that I am a truly terrible traveller, I would talk to anyone.
An electronic board shows that there is indeed a bus heading to Kuala Besut in ten minutes. I find the right ticket counter and stand politely, waiting for the headscarved woman behind it to finish her telephone conversation.
I look down at myself. I am wearing a long batik skirt I bought yesterday, bright pink with flowers outlined on it in brown, with a black T-shirt from New Look, and a pair of pink flip-flops. My hair is tied back with a hairband, scraped completely off my face. I look like a grown-up backpacker. I
am
a grown-up backpacker. Chris would probably like me looking like this. Soon, I am sure, we will bear each other no ill-will. He is probably glad, already, to imagine me happy.
The woman is looking at me, her face open and questioning.
‘Yes?’ she says.
I wonder what it would be like to wear one of those headscarves. It carefully covers every bit of her hair, keeps her head slick and smooth as a Russian doll’s. It is pinched closed tightly under her chin, so there is no danger of any stray lock peeking out. What, I want to ask her, is so shameful about hair? I have no idea, and touch my own head self-consciously. I get my hair cut so it’s straight across the bottom every now and then, and then let it grow straggly in between. Does this woman think I am brazen and shameless? Do I think she is submissive and coerced? I have no idea, as we have not yet exchanged a single word.
‘Hello,’ I say, wishing I were able to do this in Malay. ‘Can I have a ticket to Kuala Besut for the ten-thirty bus please?’
She nods, takes a ticket from the pile next to her and starts filling it in with a Bic biro. At the same time, she makes a phone call, then shakes her head and puts everything down.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Bus full.’
I bite my lip. ‘The bus can’t be full!’
Why did I say that? Of course it can be full.
‘Sorry. Night bus, nine p.m.?’
The idea is not appealing. I curse the taxi driver once again.
‘Anything else I can do?’
She shrugs. I look at the destinations listed in the window of her little booth. One of them rings a bell.
‘What about this place?’ I point to it, then hazard a pronunciation. ‘Kuala Terengganu? That’s on the way, isn’t it? In the right direction?’
She nods. ‘Bus at eleven fifteen. Six hours.’
I buy a ticket for this unknown place-on-the-way, and find a rickety plastic seat, part of a row of them, all attached to the same metal bar. I sit next to a woman who is smoking and has an enormous Louis Vuitton-style suitcase. She smiles at me as I dump my shabby backpack next to her posh case.
‘Hello,’ she says.
‘Hello,’ I reply, and get out my guidebook to look up the town in which I will be making my unscheduled overnight stop.
Malaysia rolls past the window. Kuala Lumpur’s suburbs stretch on, and then give way to greenery. I have never seen anything so green. It looks like rainforest stretching away, with tall palm trees, small palm trees, fronds and jungly things. After a while, I begin to realise that it is going to be like this for the whole six hours, as this busload of people and I traverse the country.
It is exhilarating to know that I am on this bus, on my own; that I have got here by myself, made this happen (eventually) myself, and that I am thousands of miles away from my normal life. I like being on the move. It means I am not anywhere in particular, and am not having to engage with anything or anyone.
I behaved terribly recently, and I have taken myself away from my life. That is good.
I am not missing Daisy too much yet, because last year I had to train myself to allow her to go and stay with Chris without letting my heart break. It was horrific, but I am steeled, now, to spending time without her. She is with her other parent, I tell myself repeatedly, and that is fine.
I did love him, in a way. I loved it that he gave me Daisy. I loved it that he was as shambolic as I was, that we improvised our own little family.
Our wedding was a small civil affair in Brighton, with a party in a seafood restaurant afterwards. It was happy. Everyone else was drunk, and I was hugely pregnant. I overrode all my misgivings, as, it transpired, did Chris.
The bus rumbles on. I stare at the guidebook without reading it for a while, and then take out a novel and don’t read that, instead.
We stop, after a few hours, for what I suppose is lunch, though it is hard to keep track of the time. The sun is hot, the ground dusty and the Malaysian version of the motorway services is delightful. A low concrete building, painted brightly in blue and yellow, houses numerous food stalls which face out on to a courtyard of long tables. I find the loo first, and then order some random food, by pointing, from a smiley woman. It all works. Even though I am not where I planned to be, and not heading where I planned to head to, it all feels OK. This is definitely the right direction.
Cathy
May 1988
God’s Village
There is something exciting going on. I don’t know what it is yet, but I know they will tell us when they are ready. I can hardly wait to find out. Neither can Philip. We whisper about it and try to work it out, whenever we are away from them. I am In Love with Philip. It is hard work, but I
am
. We are going to get married when we’re a little bit older and I will take on wifely duties. That is my destiny. I have always known it.
If the secret is something big, something amazing, then perhaps it will all be all right. Could it be something that will allow me to accept my destiny? All my hopes are pinned on that.
I am fairly sure that we are not even meant to know that there is something we are not meant to know. I do my best to do my work, to go to school, to go to church and bible study and carry out all my chores and duties, in as normal a manner as possible. Yet I feel my eyes darting around as I seek evidence or clues everywhere. Please, I whisper, internally. Please, please be something big. Be something life-changing.
Because as things stand, my life is about to close in on me. I will have no choice, soon, but to forget my ideas and curiosities and accept what I have been given by God.
I will take my exams soon, my GCSEs, and then I will leave school for ever. My first exam is next week: it is going to be physics. My last is on June the 17th: English language. In many ways I am not going to miss going to school at all. I will certainly not miss being taunted as a freak and having my beliefs laughed at by pupils and teachers alike. I see the teachers trying not to giggle, sometimes, when Philip or Martha or I express or explain our tenets. It is horribly unprofessional of them.
Laugh at the children from the cult
, they must think (NB we are not a cult!).
It’s an easy way to get everyone else on side
.
I will miss studying, though. I would like to do A levels. I can’t say that out loud, because apparently God does not want me to do A levels. Besides, not doing A levels will mean that I can spend my time here, where everyone understands me. When I come home every day, the relief of not being out in the world is so immense; it feels like climbing into a warm bath. So when my whole life takes place in this compound, then, perhaps, I will be properly happy. This is what I try to believe, all the time. There is nothing for me to do but be happy with my lot. If you are not happy with your lot, bad things happen to you. Victoria discovered that the hard way, and because of what happened to her, I know I am going to have to put up with my destiny.
Cassandra, my mother, says, about the way people are to us at school: ‘These things are sent to test us.’ I am secretly bored of that. She has been saying it since I was old enough to understand, and she will never elaborate on it beyond something like: ‘Jesus knows, Cath. He sees your suffering in His name.’ And I sometimes think, really? Does he, actually? But I can’t say it, because one thing you cannot do here is question your elders. Another thing you cannot do is question Jesus. So I would be in double trouble.