Free Endangered Species by Richard Woodman

to a client. He watched her as she turned anxiously to the bedside table and the crinkled heap of dollars. He followed her gaze and then their eyes met again. It was all they had in common, he thought, with a sudden pain, knowing she liked him no more than any of the others, that pile of paper money, left incautiously for him to retake if he had the mind to. He had wanted and paid; she had wanted and sold.
    He lay back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. The gecko had gone.
    Beside him Sharimah rose. In an oddly private gesture she turned away from him and drew on a wrap. It was the signal that he had had from her what he had paid for: his time wasup. She walked to the window and sat down upon a rickety chair, indicating he should dress and leave. She lit a cigarette from a packet lying on the window sill. A faint cloud of smoke blew back into the room.
    He got up and began dressing.
    â€˜Can I see you again when I come back to Singapore?’ he asked. Was he coming back to Singapore? Did he want to buy this girl who did not like him again? Why not? The illusion of love was better than the wasted passion he had known with Caroline.
    The rapidly growing light caught her face in haunting profile. The cigarette smoke trailed from her mouth like ectoplasm.
    â€˜Maybe you not want to see me when you come back.’ Her face was expressionless. ‘Maybe you have ’nother girl in Hong Kong.’
    â€˜Maybe.’ He made to leave, then paused with his hand on the door handle. ‘Sharimah?’
    She only half-turned her head, so he could see the angle of her cheek but not her eyes.
    â€˜Did . . . did you like me?’ It was a stupid, gauche question and she turned full face and stared at him, her eyes wide, disbelieving. He thought, for a moment, she was going to shrug indifferently and play the bored whore, but, miraculously, her expression softened and she looked as she had in the first, innocent, uncomprehending moment of waking. ‘You okay,’ she said, then swung to the window. Taylor did not see she was crying as he backed out of the room.
    Mackinnon woke parched and priapic, disturbed by vague feelings of remorse. The empty gin bottle and half-finished drink stood evidence of his indulgence as he collected his thoughts. Such lapses of rectitude were rare, but they brought the taste of guilt to his lips.
    There had been a time . . . but it was best not to think ofit, to close the cupboard door and lock it on the skeleton within. It was a long time ago and the man who never made a mistake, Mackinnon consoled himself, never made anything . . .
    He slaked his burning thirst, relieved his abused bladder and, having showered, wound a towel round his waist and padded about the dayroom clearing away the bottle and glass, then walked out on deck. The first light of dawn flushed the eastern sky and the morning smell of the tropics, even on the edge of this teeming city, was refreshing. He thought, with a pang of nostalgic regret, that he would not smell it many more times, and he drew long draughts of the cool, scented air into his lungs. The faint suggestion of a headache lurked and he leaned on the rail and stared down on the empty wharf.
    Ahead and astern lay the crescent of moored ships, the brilliant glare of their deck lights gradually fading, superseded by the rapidly growing daylight of the equatorial latitude. The wharf was dusted with detritus alongside each of the
Matthew Flinders
’s hatches. Stacks of pallets stood by the locked doors of the godowns while wisps of straw and chips of polystyrene packing bore witness to the cargo discharged the day before. Mackinnon looked at his watch. In an hour the scene would be transformed with the arrival of the ‘wharfies’, the tally clerks, the foremen and stevedores. The security man coming on duty would bring him a copy of the
Straits Times
and the agent’s runner would be aboard with the