Spare Key
Written by Frances An, Illustrated by Vân Vũ - September 10th, 2020
The man’s towel is a mini dress that covers the area under his armpits to one-third up his thighs. He wears its illustration of palm trees along a sunset horizon diagonally. The hair along his upper chest and limbs make a silvery wet rug that drips into a puddle at the doorway between the hostel reception area and guest rooms.
I shove the communal fridge door shut and sidle behind the reception desk. Unless I keep furniture between us, I’ll be the next A Current Affair item: 22-year-old Asian-Australian raped in Perth hostel. She was approached by a naked man at 6:30am in the reception area, before the hostel’s opening hours. It was her first time travelling alone. Implicit message: it’s dangerous for young women to travel alone; they must always have a trusted male chaperone – I refuse to become fodder for the media’s sexist ideas!
“Hello, sir…?” I scan the table for potential weapons to strike back with if he lunges for me. Welcome To Perth brochures, Perth CBD maps, Perth Pals Hostel business cards and a wad of blank Commonwealth Bank cheques cover the table.
“I’m so sorry. I left my room to shower and locked myself out.” The man must be a lost international tourist, his British accent is strong as my old Honours’ supervisor’s.
“Oh… Let me see.” I squint at the business card: to call after-hours (non-urgent). Keeping myself behind the desk, I tap the number into my phone. “My phone has unlimited text and call so don’t worry. Do you want to eat in the meantime? I’ve got some bread and hummus from Coles.”
“I’m not hungry, thanks. I’d just like to get dressed as soon as I can,” the man slumps in the chair, the towel dipping between his knees like the canvas shade over a childcare centre, “unless I leave like this, I’ll need to tell my sister that I’ll be late. She’s going to be very cross with me…”
He even looks similar to my supervisor, peppery crew cut hair and stretched giraffe face. I imagine my supervisor being stuck in a towel as he wanders the School of Psychology corridors cooing for signs of life – I must help him.
“L-Let’s just try calling the after-hours phone.” I tap the loudspeaker button.
RECEPTIONIST: “HelloPerthPalsafthoursspeakingHolherewhatcnIdoforyou?”
“Hi, um –,” I hand the phone to the man so he can continue. He keeps one hand at the towel’s knot as he reaches to take it from me.
“Hello, um, I’m Larry – I’m staying in room 7 at Perth Pals Northbridge. I’m so sorry but I’ve locked myself out. What should I do?”
“You’re in luck because we have an agreement with the Maccas nearby. They have a spare key. We ask that you don’t tell anyone else about it or they’ll all start losing their keys. That would be really… yeah,” the receptionist sniggers, “anyway, just show them your receipt on your phone, some ID and they’ll give it to you.”
“But my ID’s in my room and this isn’t my phone.” Larry tilts the phone towards me.
Condensation gathers around my phone’s microphone when I talk straight into it, “I’m Miki from room three. This is my phone.”
The receptionist’s sigh crackles through the loudspeaker, “OKAY… Then does the girl have any ID and receipt?”
“I’ve got a printout of the receipt and a driver’s licence.”
“That’ll do. The Maccas is just down the street. You know the shop with the cactus in front of it? Right next to there. If you both go together and explain the situation, that should work. If not, call me again.”
I look at Larry who twists his arm to dry it against the towel, “… Okay, thank you.”
After I hang up, Larry whimpers, “I-I can always just wait for the hostel staff to arrive. I don’t want you to miss out on seeing Perth because of me.”
“I was just planning to check out a couple of rental spots today. I’m moving to study in a month.” I pull up Google Maps. The nearest McDonalds is four minutes, “OK, it’s not too far.”
We scurry down the stairs when Larry pipes up, “Sorry, can you slow down? My towel’s going to fall down if we go too fast.”
Larry holds up his towel up as we walk through the automatic doors of McDonalds. The air smells of hot chips and cheese. Muscled fluoro shirts, business suits and pencil skirts encasing people of all sizes with bacon and egg McMuffins and coffee occupy the leather seats. A few businessmen with hooded eyelids and curtained hair stare up from their newspapers. They’re all looking at Larry whose towel flap opens in the air conditioner’s breeze to reveal a slit of his entire outer thigh.
“I really wish they’d turn off the aircon,” Larry whispers, trying to tuck his towel further in but it keeps loosening with each inhalation he takes..
“Are you cold?” I peer at the front of the line.
“That too.”
At the queue’s front, an old man in a fedora is translating the entire menu to his wife in Mandarin. Two teenage girls in Big W uniforms sneer at us, their eyelashes like worn toothbrush bristles. One of them rasps, “I’d die of embarrassment if my dad followed me to Maccas in a towel.”
“I’m so sorry,” Larry’s hand hairs spike up.
“At least they just think you’re my dad.”
The old man at the front waves his cane at the cashier and grunts, “You don’t know how to do business!” Everyone in the line takes one step forward. Step by step we finally reach the register which is now unmanned. Red shirts and visors scuttle around the kitchen, scooping chips, flipping patties – one employee’s glove touches the bin. He glances at us, then continues assembling burgers at the back.
A boy with caterpillar eyebrows and a rattail returns to the register, “Yes?’ his eyes flicker to my chest.
“Excuse me. We’re from Perth Pals Hostel,” I realise my bra is undone when the hooks tickle my back, “this gentleman has— ”
“I’ve locked myself out of my room,” Larry starts, pulling the edge of the towel up, “the after-hours receptionist said there’s a spare key here.”
“We’ve only got, like, Big Macs and stuff,” the boy’s finger springs up to point at the menu above him, “maybe she meant Perth CBD Maccas?”
“No, no, the after-hours person said it was here,” I insist, about to launch into the cactus description, “can you ask your manager?”
“Fuckin’…”the rattail-ed employee skates along the oily floors to the back of the kitchen.
I shift my weight along both feet for a few minutes, staring up at the boards that display airbrushed photos of Big Mac Meals and coke with red DEAL labels stuck all over them. Ten dollars is too much for one burger so that sticker probably refers to the three burgers and drinks set – or is that connected to the $19.99 label? I spend a few minutes trying to connect prices to items while other customers comment on “a naked dude”.
Finally, a man in orange hoop earrings motions with his pudgy drumstick arm for us to move over to a STAFF ONLY door. He opens the other side, leading us down a dim passage towards the sign MANAGER ON DUTY: ROSS. Larry fixes his towel wrap while my hands fling themselves up the back of my shirt to fasten the bra.
The room’s smell of disinfectant mixed with beer blasts through my nostril hairs. “We’re so sorry,’ I give a half-nod, half-bow when Ross closes the door.
“Don’t worry, love. These things happen. I’m just going to need some ID and your hostel receipt.” I show Ross my driver’s licence and receipt, “Beautiful. I’ll photocopy these and then get the key for you. Make yourselves at home, won’t be long.”
“Thank you so much.” We sit at a circular table covered in induction manuals, hygiene information, misprinted schedules, and a Dominoes catalogue. Ross takes my card and receipt out of the room.
“We did it.” Larry’s hand flattens over his chest, “I thought that queue was going to last forever.” The photocopier makes a veeeeep… veeeeeeeeeep— brp. I sit up as Ross comes back with an envelope.
“There you go, darling. No dramas.” Ross places the envelope on the table, “Just remember to give that back to reception as soon as you’ve let yourself back in.”
“Thank you so much R – “I open the envelope, “um… the key’s tag has ‘3’ scribbled on it, this looks like the spare key for my room?”
“That’s right, my dear.” Ross’ hoop earrings glimmer as he rests his chin in one palm, “all yours.”
“I-I’m sorry,” the key slides back into the envelope – shhhhh-p, “but we needed the spare key to his room.”
Ross’ parabolic smile pins itself higher up his cheeks but the eye muscles droop, “Then I’ll need some ID – sir.”
“But –” both Larry and I start before I mutter “sorry you go” for Larry to continue, “my IDs are all in my room.”
“Fuckin…” the smile drops like a poster off dusty blue tack. Ross’s hair crinkles under his palms as they pull the skin up from his forehead towards the back of his head. The eyelids are strung upwards as if the skin will come off to reveal an angry raw-muscle face, like a titan from the anime Attack On Titans, “look, mate… I don’t know.”
“I’m so sorry,” Larry and I mutter almost in-sync. We glance at each other, eyebrows pressed against our upper lash lines.
Ross’ face lies parallel to the table against his hands. His balding pattern consists of three prongs like a wind turbine, “OKAY… don’t lose it and give it to reception as soon as you let yourself back in.”
With Larry’s key retrieved, Larry emerges from his Perth Pals room in a Baltic button-up and corduroy trousers, “Thank you so much for your help. Otherwise, I would’ve been waiting out there for hours.”
“I’m glad it all worked out in the end.” My wrist twists to retrieve the hummus I’d stowed at the back of the fridge without knocking over a half-filled Caesar dressing, “I wouldn’t like to be locked out of my room. Are you going to be in-time to see your parents?”
“Better late than never. Just means that I’ll miss out on helping out with my sister’s kids. I love them but – children: they spit everywhere and throw things around… it’s a lot of work.” Larry’s thumbs rest inside his pockets, “hang on, you mentioned you were studying earlier. Wait there!”
My head jerks forward to get a bite of bread and hummus down my throat. Larry returns with a plastic-wrapped stationery set: a ruler with LONDON and red buses printed along it, two Union Jack erasers and a HB pencil decorated with cartoonish Big Bens, “I’m not sure if anyone in uni still writes anything on paper anymore but I thought I should give you something for your help today.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to give it to anyone in your family?” my fingers hold the stationery set’s corner as it comes closer.
“The kids in my family will either try to eat it or say it’s too touristy. I hope that doesn’t bother you too much.”
“No, I love it.” I snap open the plastic lid. The pencil skitters out of the mould but my palm slaps it against my knee just in time.
“I’ll be flying out in the evening so I probably won’t see you again,” Larry slides out his backpack from behind the wall and slings a strap over one shoulder, “but good luck with all your studies.” As Larry’s rubber soles squeak against the stairs, a potential research topic occurs to me: enhancing customer experiences with hostel security.
“This story is based on a true encounter that occurred in a Lisbon hostel, early in the morning before opening hours. My trip to the Disquiet Literary Program in Lisbon was my first time travelling alone. Being a fearful person, I imagined the worst when a naked Canadian tourist (also a Disquiet attendee) requested my help. The misalignment between my initial fears and the actual situation felt like a scene straight out of an anime. I decided to build a feel-good story that pokes fun at bureaucratic procedures.”
- Frances An