Hungry Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Switch the aircon on,’ he said.
    The driver turned and said smilingly, ‘No aircon. Sorry. Open window.’
    ‘Terrific,’ said Donaldson, and flopped back into the seat. He wound the window fully down and let the breeze blow across his face. It felt like a blast from a hair-dryer and if anything it made him sweat even more.
    They soon left the airport lights behind and drove along a double-track road with no pavements, the car constantly swerving to avoid pedestrians. God knows why so many people were out this late at night, thought Donaldson. Maybe the television was bad. There were women with brightly coloured dresses carrying sacks on their heads, children running around parents, kids walking hand in hand. The darkness beyond the headlights of the car was absolute, and the driver seemed to have some sixth sense that allowed him to hit the horn and start moving the car before they came into vision. Motor-cycles buzzed past constantly, young men without crash helmets crouched low over the handlebars with girls riding sidesaddle behind, hair flying in the wind and tears streaming from their eyes.
    Donaldson closed his eyes and tried to relax, and when he opened them again the car was alone on the road. Through the open window he could see the star-packed night sky, but there was no moon and the countryside to either side of the road was totally dark.
    ‘How far?’ he asked the driver.
    ‘Not far. Soon,’ the driver said. He pointed over to the left hand side of the road. ‘Monkeys. Many monkeys.’
    Donaldson peered into the blackness. Nothing. He squinted. Still nothing. He tried opening his eyes wide. Nothing. The driver was looking expectantly over his shoulder, waiting for some reaction.
    ‘Super,’ said Donaldson. The driver nodded, obviously pleased.
    A few minutes later he gestured to the right. ‘Rice fields,’ he said.
    Donaldson looked. Pitch black. ‘Fantastic,’ he said.
    The driver took a left turn and the road narrowed, still supposedly a double track but with passing places every half mile or so. He pointed to the left. ‘Very old temple,’ he said to his passenger. ‘Very famous.’
    Donaldson didn’t even bother to look. ‘Marvellous,’ he said, and settled back in his seat with his eyes closed. Maybe the guy would shut up if he thought he was asleep.
    He didn’t. He continued his guided tour, and Donaldson alternated between ‘Super,’ ‘Fantastic,’ and ‘Marvellous.’
    At one point in the journey they drove along a line of shops that seemed to stretch for miles, all of them open. They were a mixture of cheap and cheerful restaurants, boutiques selling T-shirts and cotton dresses and shops with no fronts that contained racks upon racks of cassette tapes. Obviously pirates, thought Donaldson, cheap counterfeits selling for one tenth the official price. The only customers seemed to be tourists, blonde women with chunky thighs and bra-less breasts and men with long hair and burnt skin uniformly wearing scruffy T-shirts, shorts and sandals. There were no food shops, no sellers of the essentials like soap powder or salt or vegetables. An Asian Golden Mile, without the funfair.
    ‘You want to stop here?’ asked the driver.
    Donaldson shook his head. ‘Are we nearly there?’
    ‘Soon,’ said the driver, honking his horn at a yellow jeep trying to push in from a darkened side-road.
    The car slowed to a walking pace behind a queue of Land Rovers, jeeps and bicycles that seemed in no hurry to move any faster. Probably the heat, thought Donaldson, wiping his glasses again. A thin balding man with John Lennon glasses bought a bowl of noodles and pieces of meat on little wooden sticks from a street vendor and leant against the bonnet of a parked car to eat while his companion, a broad-hipped woman with cornflower hair tied in braids, watched. ‘Don’t you just love this food?’ he said in a mid-Western drawl and she smiled. One case of hepatitis B coming right up, thought