Hotel Ambrose

Chapter 5.4

"That's my ungle's shop," the China said, pointing at the shop with the China writing on the front.

"No it's not," I said. I'd been walking through the city for ages and I was tired and argumentative.

He didn't argue with me; he just sat down on the gutter next to me. He even offered me some gum. I asked him if it was China brand, but he said it was just PK. He talked about his uncle as we chewed gum.

He said, "Do you have one?"

"One what?"

"A ungle."

"Yeh."

"What's his name?"

"Dirty Joe."

"That's a funny name."

"Fuck you."

He didn't say anything. Chinas don't care what you say to them.

"He has a huge shop," I said. "Bigger than your uncle's."

"Yeh?" he said suspiciously. "What's he sell?"

"Well um, coffee, steam-shovels, biscuits, cigarettes, cats..."

"Cats?"

"Yeh. Dead and alive."

"What do you do with a dead cat?"

"Bury it."

He gave me another suspicious look. I changed the subject, asking him for some more gum. He gave me his last two pieces. I felt a bit shitty about that, but I ate them anyway.

"Does your uncle sell gum?" I said. I figured I'd buy him a new pack, even though I had hardly any money left after buying the nappies. Three bucks! I'd almost had a heart attack. The lady at the supermarket had grinned at me like she thought it was the funniest thing in the world that I was married and had a baby – though now that I think about it I don't think she could have known.

"What's they for?" said the China, pointing at the shopping bag with the nappies inside.

"My son," I said.

He seemed impressed, and I realised he was heaps younger than me, like two years younger or something.

"Does your uncle sell food?" I said.

He nodded furiously.

I followed him into the shop. It had one of those doors that's not really a door, just plastic strips hanging down. I heard all this rapid China talk from a man inside, but when he saw me he switched straight to English: "...bad boy, should be helping your uncle in the store, what I going to do with you?"

The little China hung his head. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

I looked around the shop. I'd never seen so much stuff jammed into one place. I asked the Ungle for the stuff I needed, reading it off my arm because I knew I'd never find anything myself.

"Baby bottle," I said.

"Baby bottle? Ah! Baby bottle! Come, come!" He had one. He handed it to me, smiling so much I thought his face would break in half.

"Baby milk?" I said.

"Baby milk? Ah." He scratched his chin like a monkey does. Then he vanished out the back. He rummaged around, and I heard him talking to a woman out there. I thought he was going to bring out a woman with a big old breast then, but instead he emerged with a big round tin. He put it down on the counter. "Baby milk," he said, rubbing his belly. "Follow instructsen." He pointed at the instructions on the side of the tin and said: "Good boy."

I got the other stuff I needed and the Ungle helped me put it all on the counter. It looked like a lot. The Ungle got behind the counter and rang it all up on the cash register. I put my sixty cents on the counter.

"Twenty-three dorra," the Ungle said.

I covered up the money with my hand. I knew that this was the end: that we had no money left, and we'd have to go back to Crapper and give Fred back, and something caught in my throat.

"Ah boy, don't cry. You have money?"

I looked down at my feet. I hated to cry in front of people, especially people I liked, such as the Ungle.

"What your name?" the Ungle said, scooping up the money on the counter.

"Ben."

He turned around and wrote something on a piece of paper above the cash register. When he stepped away again I saw he had written something in China. "Good boy," he said. "Pay next time, twenty-two dorra, forty cent."

I couldn't believe it. "No," I said.

"Uh uh. You take. Bring back twenty-two dorra forty cent next time. Good boy." He grinned like crazy and put all the stuff into shopping bags and pushed them at me. There was a lot to carry. I kept looking up at the Ungle, wondering if he'd changed his mind, but he didn't stop grinning the whole time.

I only realised when I left that I'd forgotten to buy the little China his chewing gum. I made up my mind to go back as soon as I had enough money to pay the Ungle and buy the gum. I stopped in the street and wrote the shop's address on my arm, which made me feel a bit better about the whole thing. But I had no clue where I was going to get so much money from.

As I walked back to the hotel I wondered why I couldn't hear the Cripple and his dogs. I figured they must have been between songs. But when I got to their spot I couldn't see them. The Nameless Lane was gone too. All I saw was a normal alley. It was straight, and at the other end it opened out onto another busy road. I could feel my heart in my throat.

"Where is he?" I said to a woman passing by. She gave me a strange look and hurried on.

You're on the wrong street, I thought.

I convinced myself that this was what had happened, but my heart was pounding as I started to walk, and there was a heavy weight in my stomach.

I walked for ages. My arms were killing me: I'd never carried so much stuff for so long. I knew if I couldn't find the lane I'd never see Sophie and Fred again. I wondered where the lane could have gone. I didn't know where lanes went to.

I'd been walking for at least an hour, and I was down near the river, when I heard a sound over the roar of the traffic. I started to run. I crossed the road without looking and a car horn blared at me. My arms were on fire and I couldn't breathe. But I ran.

The Cripple and his Dogs were set up opposite a big train station. As usual everyone was ignoring them. The lane came out from between two abandoned warehouses, in the shadow of a railway bridge. Then I had an awful thought. What if it didn't lead back to the hotel any more? What if it went somewhere else?