Read Online Ghosts of Manila by James Hamilton-Paterson - Free Book Online
Authors: James Hamilton-Paterson
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advertising?’ She had spent real money on having craftsmen remove the name from the face of her AudemarsPiguet watch and make trainers in single plain colours (three black pairs, three brown). Somewhere in Belsize Park in a lock-up garage was her futuristic Japanese sports car from which she herself had removed an embarrassing name and assorted chrome letters and numerals from its rear.
The result was to give everything she wore or drove an exclusive, one-off aura. When she and Hugh had gone skiing everyone on the slopes immediately noticed her difference without as easily identifying its source. Blonde hair and striking figures were no particular rarity in Klosters; in fact they were common, and looked it. Ysabella stood out for reasons of absence, because of what she didn’t have, wasn’t wearing. Her absurdly expensive carbon fibre Head skis had been resprayed matt white, obliterating all the semiotics of skiing. Her suit was a uniform severe smoke grey. Her knitted hat was tawny, the colour of an old harrow abandoned in the corner of a field. Her exclusiveness was terrific as she sped deftly, clad in her powerful lack, among the anonymous day-glo throng. Their march was stolen. They launched counter-attacks under the ‘for your own good’ flag. ‘Break a leg up there and you’d be only too glad to be wearing something visible to a helicopter.’ ‘No I shouldn’t,’ she retorted. ‘I’d be downright ashamed.’ In a closely zippered pocket she carried a large square of hideous material. ‘What kind of wet goes out dressed for rescue? Always the safety net? A third parachute?’
But a few weeks of living by herself in Manila in something called an ‘apartelle’ (a word she couldn’t bring herself to say) was producing its own subtle erosions, as if it had begun to unpick the nametape from the identity she treasured. There were the capering children who besieged her whenever she left the block, faces bright with snot and eyes, who she discovered were displaced victims of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. They lived in boxes and packing cases on a scrap of wasteland behind the building, running out barefoot among the traffic temporarily halted at the lights along thundering Roxas, flitting like little ghosts with outstretched hands through the fog of exhaust fumes, begging from drivers and passengers. A part of her began to unravel slightly, leaving her both anxious and listless. It was as if a small haemorrhage had opened up which she had yet to find and staunch, a desultory tropic bleeding which did something to the will.
She was an early riser and could find nothing nearby which wasopen and would serve her breakfast. Dunkin Donuts was out of the question. Instead she brought home a clutch of newspapers and made herself coffee in a kitchen which contained almost nothing except three butter knives with bamboo handles and a jar of black treacle which had been instant coffee until the humidity got to it. She would sit at a table overlooking the scatter of moored ships waiting to unload and read the Philippine English language press with diverted incredulity.
Day by day she read the papers and drank her coffee. At first the news entwined itself with the faces of friends back in England who, she thought, would particularly enjoy this irony, that outrage, those headlines. After a while, though, the stories just boiled up like a plume of oil from an abyss, spreading out into a uniform and iridescent stain, variable in local details but predictable overall. The incidents all had about them the air of having taken place at night, as if it was only the morning sun falling across the page which finally brought them to light. They covered Ysabella’s news-sheets in a bright slick. A few weeks’ assiduous study made of them something almost ritualistic. Yet if she thought this oily glint might be a society’s recognisable features, its personality and heart remained enigmatic and concealed. Day by day policemen shot it
The result was to give everything she wore or drove an exclusive, one-off aura. When she and Hugh had gone skiing everyone on the slopes immediately noticed her difference without as easily identifying its source. Blonde hair and striking figures were no particular rarity in Klosters; in fact they were common, and looked it. Ysabella stood out for reasons of absence, because of what she didn’t have, wasn’t wearing. Her absurdly expensive carbon fibre Head skis had been resprayed matt white, obliterating all the semiotics of skiing. Her suit was a uniform severe smoke grey. Her knitted hat was tawny, the colour of an old harrow abandoned in the corner of a field. Her exclusiveness was terrific as she sped deftly, clad in her powerful lack, among the anonymous day-glo throng. Their march was stolen. They launched counter-attacks under the ‘for your own good’ flag. ‘Break a leg up there and you’d be only too glad to be wearing something visible to a helicopter.’ ‘No I shouldn’t,’ she retorted. ‘I’d be downright ashamed.’ In a closely zippered pocket she carried a large square of hideous material. ‘What kind of wet goes out dressed for rescue? Always the safety net? A third parachute?’
But a few weeks of living by herself in Manila in something called an ‘apartelle’ (a word she couldn’t bring herself to say) was producing its own subtle erosions, as if it had begun to unpick the nametape from the identity she treasured. There were the capering children who besieged her whenever she left the block, faces bright with snot and eyes, who she discovered were displaced victims of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. They lived in boxes and packing cases on a scrap of wasteland behind the building, running out barefoot among the traffic temporarily halted at the lights along thundering Roxas, flitting like little ghosts with outstretched hands through the fog of exhaust fumes, begging from drivers and passengers. A part of her began to unravel slightly, leaving her both anxious and listless. It was as if a small haemorrhage had opened up which she had yet to find and staunch, a desultory tropic bleeding which did something to the will.
She was an early riser and could find nothing nearby which wasopen and would serve her breakfast. Dunkin Donuts was out of the question. Instead she brought home a clutch of newspapers and made herself coffee in a kitchen which contained almost nothing except three butter knives with bamboo handles and a jar of black treacle which had been instant coffee until the humidity got to it. She would sit at a table overlooking the scatter of moored ships waiting to unload and read the Philippine English language press with diverted incredulity.
Day by day she read the papers and drank her coffee. At first the news entwined itself with the faces of friends back in England who, she thought, would particularly enjoy this irony, that outrage, those headlines. After a while, though, the stories just boiled up like a plume of oil from an abyss, spreading out into a uniform and iridescent stain, variable in local details but predictable overall. The incidents all had about them the air of having taken place at night, as if it was only the morning sun falling across the page which finally brought them to light. They covered Ysabella’s news-sheets in a bright slick. A few weeks’ assiduous study made of them something almost ritualistic. Yet if she thought this oily glint might be a society’s recognisable features, its personality and heart remained enigmatic and concealed. Day by day policemen shot it
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