Wednesday 30 July 2014

Arrested Development

A development consultant in China finds life getting out of control.
[Rated R]



Farmer selling produce from a donkey cart, Gansu Province  (Photo: M. Griffiths)



Arrested development

 

By Matthew Griffiths

 

 

[Rated R]

 

 

“Damn bureaucrats!” he said slamming down the phone. “They can’t run a project to save themselves but they want to tell me how to run mine!”

“What’s wrong Mr Bob?” asked Stephanie, his Chinese secretary.

“Bloody Ministry of Forestry in Beijing again. Can’t stop sticking their fingers into everything. Worse than the ADB and the World Bank put together!”

He rubbed his chest. Damned indigestion. He popped a pill from his top drawer. He’d barely got back from a banquet lunch with the local ministry officials when the phone had rung from their bosses in Beijing. He’d thought he’d fobbed them off with food and booze but obviously not. He’d have to get them drunker next time.

His mobile rang. He recognised the number. “Hi darling, how are you?”

Stephanie looked away.

“That’s great…..” His wife rang several times a week with updates from home, and to ask him when he was going back. The kids were old enough to pretty much look after themselves so he didn’t feel a pressing need to race back for their benefit. He also found the office bound work back home much less interesting than being overseas.

“I’ll do my best. I’ve got to finish this stage 2 report. Then I can come back for a few months while the ADB review it and make themselves feel needed. …..Ok love you too.”

He was forty eight, overweight and unfit, but still handsome enough to attract younger women. Stephanie was half his age, pretty, enthusiastic in bed, and she actually seemed to care about him.

He watched her trying to look busy at her desk. He didn’t think of it as being unfaithful or going behind his wife’s back. It was different over here. It felt like he had two separate lives. Here he drank and smoked as much as he wanted and bedded the secretary several times a week.

Back home he was quite different. Ok, he still drank, but he was a good husband. His wife seemed to think so anyway, mostly.

He turned his head and looked out the window at the skyline of a dusty, polluted city in northern China. It was a provincial capital and tried hard to look prosperous, but drive an hour in any direction to the hills and you saw enough poverty and environmental degradation to keep a development consultant employed for years.

And he had been. First in Thailand, then Cambodia, Vietnam. For some reason China had sucked him in and didn’t want to let go. He loved the food, the culture, the cheap booze and cigarettes, and, he had to admit, the women.

Bob stared out the window for a while at the white tiled buildings opposite decorated with huge billboards advertising jewellery, cars and other stuff most of the people in the city couldn’t afford. Except maybe the mobile phones. Even the migrant workers from the country who laboured on the construction sites seemed to have those.

He turned back to his computer and sent an email to Stephanie.  Can you come to the hotel tonight, dinner and …?

She replied quickly.  Sorry, my mother make me meet some boy. Maybe lunch tomorrow?

He nodded to her when she turned to look at him. He looked at his inbox. Fifteen unread emails since this morning. Just stop hassling me so I can get on with it, for goodness sake.

Boss from development consulting companyAlmost feel he wants me off the job. New guy just trying to impress, or maybe get one of his mates in?

ADB project case managerDemanding the draft report again. Two months late blah blah. If not for me it would be much worse. Stop changing the rules will ya…

Local officialcomplaining again about the amount of land involved. They were scared the project would cut their timber kickbacks. Less money for banquets, booze and massages…The project was replanting trees on denuded and eroding hillsides, plus some agricultural improvements to more than offset the farmer’s drop in income. He had got the locals on board, they could see the damage to their land, but some of the officials weren’t so keen.

Justin GreenwoodHmmmpf. He opened the email. “Hi Bob, Hope things are going well. Just wondering if you can give me an update. I’m in Beijing now and I’m keen to know when I can start on the project. Best regards, Justin.”

Justin was a young guy who wanted to get into the international development business. He had good qualifications and some volunteer experience in Africa, even spoke some Chinese. Getting in was tough though. He reminded him of a former self, still idealistic, full of enthusiasm, out to save the world.

As team leader he was able to get his own people on projects, as long as the AusAID or whoever was happy with the team as a whole. He’d promised the kid he’d get him on the project to get a few months experience. Trouble was the new project manager wouldn’t let him. The jerk only wanted his own people on the job, even though they knew nothing about China. He’d tried to think of ways to get around it but it just wasn’t going to happen.

He felt sorry for him. He didn’t like to break his word. But he had to learn that this industry was not as nicey nicey as he thought it was. Most projects were two steps forward, one step back, if they went well. More likely one step forward and one back. Sometimes, and he had a bad feeling about this one, it was two steps back and whole lot of grief.

He clicked ‘block sender’ on the email menu tab. Sorry mate. Go and teach English for a while or something.

He wondered for a moment when he stopped being one of the good guys. Then he turned to his more pressing problems.

The next morning he had a ten minute shouting match with the project manager. He was flying up from Sydney next week to “sort things out.” Shit. Got to get this report done before then.

The ADB contact rang too, wasting another half an hour. I’m doing my best to get a good result for the government’s money. Give me a break here…

Then he’d read a draft report from one of the technical experts and spent the rest of the morning rewriting it. “Clown.”

He looked at his watch. Ten to twelve. Stephanie was looking at him out of the corner of her eye, her hand playing with the expensive gold bangles he had given her a few weeks before. He nodded and headed for the door. “I’m out for lunch.” he announced to the rest of the office.

He walked to his hotel a couple of blocks away. He left the door to his room slightly ajar. She joined him a discreet fifteen minutes later carrying some takeaway food in plastic bags. Stephanie passed on some of the office gossip while they ate, then she closed the curtains, undressed and slipped into bed.

Soon she was lying beneath him moaning as he thrust into her. He loved the way she responded so well to his efforts.

There was a click and the door opened quietly. Suddenly there was flash, then another and another, blinding Bob.  “What the..??!!”

Stephanie screamed.

“Shit, sorry.” the figure said then left the room. The door closed again with a click. Bob withdrew from Stephanie and sat on the bed rubbing his eyes to get rid of the light bursts behind his eyelids.

Who was that? Who sent them? A damn set up! What did he say? “Shit, sorry.” A foreigner? Must be sent by that arsehole from the consulting company. Nice touch using the old Chinese honey-pot trick. He knows more about China than I thought.

“You!” he shouted at Stephanie. “You set me up!”

“No. No.” She pulled the sheet up to cover herself. “Not me, Mr Bob, not me.” She burst into tears.

“Geez.” If not the boss then who? AusAid?  No way. Not their style. The ministry? The locals wouldn’t use a foreigner. And why bother. They get their cut regardless of who is team leader. Maybe the local government protecting their revenues? He’d give them as good as he got. They were hardly boy scouts. His wife? Surely not. No, no, she didn’t know anyone here to organise such a thing. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He shouted. He rubbed his chest. Damned indigestion. He groped for his pills before he remembered they were still in the office.

Stephanie’s eyes widened, “Mr Bob, you ok?”

He pressed his hand to his chest again. His arm felt strange now too. He looked at her.

“Call an ambulance.” he said and slumped to the floor.

 
********
 

 
To find out who took the photos read Love at First Flight.

Where did Justin Greenwood end up?  For some clues see Trial by FireTell Him He's Dreaming, and Under Development.


MORE STORIES....

The Nature of Love - A couple in love enjoy a day out in nature but something is amiss...
 

Broken China - Four families. Four dreams. Four very different paths.

My Crazy China Trip - (Humour) A novice traveller gets more than he bargains for during 15 days in China. (10 Parts)
 
Love at First Flight - A foreign teacher arrives in China and falls in love with a local, but the path of true love is anything but smooth. (5 parts)

Trial by Fire - When a woman in Tibet self-immolates two witnesses face a dangerous dilemma.  (4 parts)

Arrested Development - A development consultant in China finds life getting out of control. [Rated R] 
SHORTLISTED for the Lord Grimdark Award. See the list here.

Beijing Private Eyes - Drama, Romance, Karaoke, Kidnap!   A foreign teacher in Beijing meets an attractive stranger and offers to help, then things get complicated. (A long story in 8 parts)

Tell him he's dreaming - An engineer has an environmental epiphany but things don't work out as planned.  GAINED 5th PLACE in
the New Zealand Writers College Short Story competition. See the list of finalists here. 

 

Entries in the post-industrial / peak oil short story competition:
My story 'Promised Land' has been selected for the forthcoming anthology "After Oil 2: The Years of Crisis".  You can read the other entries here.

A previous set of stories was published in 2012 in a book entitled After Oil: SF Visions of a Post-Petroleum World, available from Amazon (Amazon) or in Australia from Fishpond (Fishpond).

Stories set in China:

Winds of Change –  In 2022 a migrant worker struggles to realise his dreams and fulfil his family obligations.


Outside In – It's 2050, the country and economy have changed. A recycler studies for an exam to improve his prospects, and an indentured servant plans her escape.

Seeds of Time – (Sequel to Outside In). In 2055 rural China prospers again after a period of dramatic changes, then things are complicated by a strange visitor and a hidden object.


Stories set in Australia: A North Queensland Trilogy


Robots on Mars – 2025. A space-mad city boy adjusts to life in the country and tries to solve a mystery.    (Note: no actual robots or Martians involved)


Promised Land – (Sequel to Robots on Mars). It’s 2050 and development threatens the rural district. Is it what they really need and if not, how can they stop it?

Heart of Glass - (Sequel to Promised Land). The year is 2099, high school graduates prepare to step into adulthood and the community prepares to celebrate the turn of a new century. 

Tell me what you think.  Constructive comments welcome.

If you like the story share with it with your friends.
 

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