Chapter Thirty-One
The Whores
SHE MISSED HER laptop. The general-use desk computer they had brought out from London was overloaded and slow, but would have to do until the newly upgraded models came out next month. Lastri insisted on vacuuming the entire house every day, and nothing Lea said could dissuade her from her routine. The whine of the vacuum cleaner passing doggedly back and forth along the landing broke her concentration, so she pushed herself back from the screen and went next door to visit Colette.
The Larvin household had become a sterile environment since Rachel’s presence had been removed from it. Colette obsessively cleaned the kitchen and lounge, tidying away all signs of life until the interior resembled a set in a furniture catalogue. The smell of bleach and polish was everywhere.
Colette looked unsettled by Lea’s sudden arrival, as if she regarded her as an unwelcome force for chaos. She was wearing even more makeup than before, a beige mask that almost succeeded in concealing her facial expressions. ‘You’ve missed coffee,’ she warned sharply. ‘Everything got put away.’
‘I’ve had enough coffee to last a lifetime,’ said Lea. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m fine. I keep telling everyone that. Ben’s the one they should be worrying about. He’s virtually stopped speaking—to me, at least.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think, Lea? He’s somehow got it in his head that I should have stopped Rachel from going out to the desert by herself. You saw what she was like, she wouldn’t be told anything. I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d tried.’
‘I’m sure he’s not trying to blame you. I can see what kind of pressure he and Roy are under.’
Colette moped at the kitchen counter, looking for something more to do. ‘The company’s aware of the problem. I know they think they helped with the Friday thing, but I guess that’s cancelled now.’
‘What Friday thing?’
‘You know, the time off.’ When Lea gave her a blank look, she added, ‘Early leave?’
‘What early leave?’
This stopped Colette in her tracks. ‘You mean you don’t know?’
‘Colette, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The senior architects and engineers are allowed to finish early on Friday evenings because they put in so much time over the weekends.’
‘Roy never mentioned that to me. He never gets back before eleven on a Friday. What do they do?’
‘I think they go off drinking somewhere,’ said Colette vaguely. ‘They’re not supposed to, of course, but I’m sure that’s what they do. Ben never tells me much about what goes on at the site anymore. He thinks I won’t understand.’
‘Well, where do they go?’
‘I don’t know, somewhere offsite. Down to the King’s Highway, you know where all those bars are past the airport? I’ve never been out there myself. I don’t think they’re the kind of places women go.’
‘You’re telling me they go to brothels on Friday evenings?’
Colette looked stricken. ‘I really don’t know, I don’t suppose they’re actual brothels. They need to let off steam. I’m sure it’s all harmless.’
‘That depends. Which ones do they go to?’
‘I know there’s one called “The Pink Panther” or something like that. Ben’s always had a habit of picking up matchbooks even though he doesn’t smoke. I found one in his pocket.’
LEA WAITED UNTIL 6:00pm, then set off. Under normal circumstances, there would have been no question of trusting Roy, but lately they were being pushed further and further apart. She wanted to see where her husband went on Friday evenings.
She reached the strip just as the dipping sun had rippled and expanded, turning the horizon to a bilious shade of nylon pink. She had driven along the street once or twice before, but in daylight the dusty plastic bar-fronts were shuttered.
A neon arcade suddenly came to life, twinkling with phosphorescent geometries. Signs in Arabic and mangled English sought attention from passing cars. The Desert Bloom. The Whirlwind. Sexy Sexy. Arabian Nites. Fluorescent tubing crackled with errant electricity. Doorways were illuminated with faded photographs of Chinese girls in the kind of old-fashioned nightclub gowns she associated with drag queens. There were no direct calls to action, but the images were unmistakably clear; girls were available here.
The sidewalk was deserted; vehicles circled and slipped furtively into rear parking lots. Lea took a left turn and followed the route to the car park of a bar called Glamour Cocktails. At the back doors of the clubs, the inferences were more explicit. One sign said Girls At Your Table – Private Rooms. Another read Oriental Or American – She Always Say Yes.
Lea applied the handbrake and waited, watching. Two Korean girls in low-cut shiny red bikini tops, thongs and high heels came out to the back step to smoke. A young Indian man parked his truck and headed over to talk to them, but an older Korean woman appeared and ordered him around to the front of the club, determined to receive her commission.
Lea wondered what these places were like after midnight. She remembered what Rachel had said about Nepalese and Chinese girls working the strip. I have to take a look inside, she decided, getting out of the car.
She chose the emptiest-looking bar, whose neon Pink Pussy logo featured a cartoon cat with disturbingly human breasts lounging in a martini glass. Inside was a single rectangular room, painted purple, hung with incongruous Christmas lights, smelling of disinfectant and incense. An old Elton John song was playing on the bar’s tinny sound system. Along the left-hand side was an American-style drinks counter with unoccupied swivel stools. In the centre of the room stood a square stage with a steel pole at each corner and a selection of mirror-balls hanging at different heights from the ceiling. An LED board displayed more cats with breasts, advanced technology conjuring the most juvenile fantasies.
She felt as if she had wandered onto a porno set before they had begun shooting. A line of gold-painted kitchen chairs were occupied by a few bored girls in red nylon gowns. Each one had a number on her wrist like a beauty contestant. Clearly the rush-hour had yet to start.
She was about to investigate further when a fat little Chinese woman started wheeling across the room in her direction.
‘You husband not here, missus,’ she shouted, flapping her hands as if batting away an annoying insect. ‘Nothing for you here. You go home now!’
Mortified, Lea lost her nerve. Was the purpose of her visit that obvious? How many other wives had followed their husbands to the strip? Flustered, she turned and left, pacing past the gaudy venues lit purple and pink, the colour of bruised flesh.
Peering through the doors, she saw crimson interiors, straw lamps, metallic stages. In some, girls in one-piece swimsuits were penned into corners like mannequin displays awaiting removal from long-derelict department stores.
The last bar, Pussy Ranch, was themed like a spit-and-sawdust Wild West saloon. Above its counter fake ham-hocks hung in string bags, each with a garter attached so that they looked like severed thighs. It was early; the night’s main activities had not yet begun, but men were already arriving to get the best tables.
She felt suddenly sick, and had to get away. Nothing Roy could say would dissuade her that these clubs were anything but brothels. She felt betrayed and disgusted, but there would be no way of resolving the issue without an argument that would paint her as the enemy.
Roy arrived home at ten as usual, but Lea could not bring herself to respond. He went to the refrigerator and rummaged for the ingredients of a sandwich before noticing the silence.
‘Come on then, out with it,’ he said finally, ‘what’s wrong now?’
It was important that she kept her temper. She tried to sound casual. ‘I was talking to Colette and she mentioned you’re allowed to finish early on Fridays. How long has this been going on?’
If Roy was surprised, he did not show it. ‘Not long. It’s a PR exercise. We don’t really take advantage of it.’
‘You mean you just stay at work?’
‘We do for a while. Then we go for a few drinks.’
‘To the bars on King’s Highway.’
‘We’ve only been there a couple of times.’
‘They’re whorehouses, Roy.’
‘Some are. Some are strip-joints and some are just bars. The city’s three-quarters male, honey. We put in long hours. There has to be some level of tolerance. You know how guys can get.’
‘Is that how you get?’
‘Jesus, Lea! We go there for a drink, that’s all.’
‘Which bars?’
‘I don’t know—a country and western-type place, a couple of others, one with a Mexican theme, I can’t remember.’
‘You could go to any number of hotel bars but you go out there.’
‘The men don’t want to pay the prices at hotel bars. They’re not tourists, they’re saving their earnings.’
‘Aren’t you meant to set some kind of moral example?’
‘Morality only covers our work conduct, it doesn’t control what goes on inside our heads.’
‘If you’re going there for any reason other than to have a drink with the boys, you really need to tell me right now.’
‘Or you’ll do what, Lea?’ Roy’s patience had run dry. ‘What are you going to do? History is not going to repeat itself. I have a tough job. We all have to cut loose sometimes. You just have to trust me.’
‘I want to believe you. I was prepared to fight for you before, but right now I don’t know if I’d do it again. I love you, Roy, and I love Cara. But things feel different between the three of us now.’
‘You’re making too big a deal of this.’
She wanted a drink, a cigarette, anything but the conversation they were having. ‘You know, when I was a girl I used to think that love was this fragile thing, but it’s not. It’s tough and strong, and it can survive almost anything. I just need a word from you to tell me we’re okay.’
‘Well, I thought we were. I don’t tell you every little thing because I know how you get. Cara keeps her distance from you because you smother her. In the back of your head there’s always the knowledge that you can’t have another kid. Maybe you should explain that to her one day.’
‘You know I want the time to be right—’
Roy suddenly rounded on her. ‘You know why I don’t tell you where I go? Because the bars are pretty seedy. We know what goes on here, a blind man could see they’re hookers, we look and the conversation gets rough but that’s all, nothing else. We’re not stupid. We know what’s important. Our wives. Our homes. Our families. Okay? Is that good enough for you?’
He popped a beer and headed out of the kitchen, into the pale moonlit garden. He was still standing there, looking up into the inky star-filled sky, when she went to bed.