Twilight in Kuta

indeed carry a few more original tricks up his sleeve. One is to switch the meter off a hundred meters or so before the destination is reached in the hope that the passenger hasn’t been paying attention and he can then overcharge him exorbitantly upon arrival, while another trick is to absolutely totally never have any change whatsoever. This is done in the hope that a passenger will simply hand over a large denomination note and tell him to keep the change. If the passenger does not do this then the driver will, very reluctantly, take the note and walk as slowly as is humanely possible around the immediate vicinity ‘trying’ to find a roadside kiosk or small shop that can provide the necessary ‘uang kecil’ small money. Invariably, though, the driver will eventually report back to the passenger, who has been waiting in the vehicle all this time, that he has been unable to find anyone to break the large note, and so the game continues.

  Surabaya, November 1995

Months rolled by and Yossy became busier with her job. She worked almost as many hours as I did and when she arrived home she was often exhausted and out on her feet. She still loved Bali Party and her friends there and seemed to be developing quite a tight group with half a dozen or so of the more outgoing and flamboyant set. I am not sure if I have got all their names correct here, but from memory there was a guy called Ari, his girlfriend, Yuni, another girl called Reina, a chap whose name escapes me, and finally a bloke called Satria. Evidently they all worked in the same department and formed a kind of ‘Dream Team’ designed to chase new clients. It all seemed a bit complicated and, although interested, I found it all a bit difficult to follow at times.

Yossy certainly seemed to be cut out for the job though. She had patience and an inherent kindness, which meant she was willing and able to assist her less able friends and colleagues with help and advice, if necessary even by telephone after she had finally returned home late into the night.

For my part I was still working hard doing what I did. Business was good and I was earning considerably more money than before. I had started doing a lot of private teaching and so was spending most of my days running around the city from place to place wherever there was a job on.

As a result, we were able to start saving quite a lot of money and earmarked the New Year as the time to buy a car, and after that the plan was to crack on and save for the deposit on a house. That, as I told Yossy, was an investment for the future and was better than renting, which we had been doing since we got married and which, although cheap, I considered to be lost money.

Although I did have my own bank account and Yossy and I had a joint one, she was the one who handled all the money. That’s the way we both decided we wanted it from the beginning as she could deal with all the bureaucratic nonsense while I played the dumb foreigner. A role I came to play all too well.

I must admit it was a role I enjoyed playing back then, though. Although able to speak basic Indonesian, having studied it fairly intensively in the year before I came out here, it sometimes played well to not let on I could understand much of what was going on and so be able to eavesdrop on what people were saying. It also enabled me to have a ready-made excuse for not doing the awkward and annoying little things I didn’t want to do.

Anyway, Yossy was happy to look after the finances. She paid all the bills and sorted out all the things such as savings, payments, utility bills and the like. I really couldn’t be bothered with all of that sort of stuff.

Then one day, all of a sudden, Yossy left Bali Party.

It all went wrong in a blink of an eye and I felt so sorry for her when it did. She was simply devastated and couldn’t stop crying. It broke my heart to see her so down and I wished there was something I could do to put things right. I was just grateful that she had such good friends helping her so much and being so supportive.

In a way, I guess it could be said that my insistence she look after our money was to blame for what happened. In January of 1996 we finally decided to splash out and buy a car. We went to the local Toyota dealer who gave us a good deal on a Kijang. Cars in Indonesia are very expensive in real terms and ours was no exception, with a ten million rupiah down payment and monthly instalments of about a million and a half rupiah for three years. So, all told it made a bit of a dent in our savings and there was a small monthly burden to consider too, but taking into consideration the amount we were both earning, it was nothing for us to worry about.

As it happened, a couple of days before the end of the month I gave Yossy the money as normal to go and pay the monthly instalment wherever she made it (I really should have known where this was, but I didn’t) and arranged to come to her office to pick her up at around 10pm as normal. When I got there, instead of the receptionist asking me to take a seat while she called Yossy, as was normal practice, she ushered me straight through. I thought this was a bit weird but didn’t really think too much of it until I caught sight of Yoss.

She was in floods of tears and was being comforted by