Modern manners

Jeremy Clarke had not had sex for six years until he met some Australian apple growers in New Zealand
June 19, 1998

Last summer, I went white-water rafting on the Shotover river in New Zealand. The river was depressingly low: a pedalo on the Serpentine would have been more hazardous. Trussed up in wet suits, life-jackets and crash-helmets, with paddles at the ready, eight of us drifted placidly downstream through cold, sunless gorges. To alleviate our boredom between so-called rapids, my paddling partner and I got chatting.

Jim grew apples in Australia. Ostensibly, he was on a fact-finding tour of New Zealand fruit farms with a party of other Australian apple growers. But in reality, said Jim, these annual apple growers' fact-finding tours were simply an excuse for a boozy tour of New Zealand's brothels, with an occasional glance at the odd orchard. I expressed surprise at this. I hadn't realised that New Zealand was known for its brothels. Sheep yes, fresh air yes, old world charm yes; brothels no. Jim seemed put-out by this, as if I had disparaged part of Australasia for not being quite up to speed. He outlined the apple-growers' itinerary so far. Some of the places he mentioned seemed unlikely stopovers for an international brothel tour, and again I expressed some scepticism.

"Then come out with us tonight and see for yourself," he said.

"What about Aids?" I queried.

"Oh we only have blow jobs mostly," said Jim. "You can't get Aids from a blow job."

"What if her gums bleed and she's a biter?" I said, contentiously. At this point we went sideways into some rapids and Jim shot me a despairing "bloody whinging Pom" look before paddling like fury.

Ma Baker's was a converted shearing shed just outside town. I presented myself at the side door and rang the bell, vaguely conscious of my freshly laundered Calvin Klein underpants. Inside were about 40 Australian apple growers, already insane with alcohol, and on very familiar terms with a dozen Thai girls who were serving drinks and going about their business in a brisk and workmanlike manner. Jim, slitty-eyed with drink and quite fetching in a blue satin dressing gown, welcomed me and introduced me to some of his mates as "the Pommie bastard I met on the boat."

He also introduced me in this manner to the proprietor of Ma Baker: a shy young man with an Old Testament beard and ponytail. "If you fancy a bit, it's 60 bucks for the room for half an hour," he said, coming straight to the point. "After that, it's up to you and the girl how much you pay."

"I really had no idea that growing apples could be such a convivial occupation," I said to Jim as he led me to the bar.

The evening reminded me of some of the wilder parties I had attended as a teenager. In the main bar room we drank and sang and danced continuously to the loud pop music; while out the back was given over to sexual intercourse and vomiting, often to the accompaniment of screaming and breaking glass. There was also a fight, which largely went unnoticed, in which one apple grower quickly overcame another with an unexpected, wholly conclusive, but foul blow; someone else appeared naked in the doorway demanding to know whether anyone knew a good tailor, and was pulled viciously backwards by his hair and out of sight again.

To begin with I had no intention of going with any of the girls, physically attractive as some of them were. Partly by design and partly owing to circumstance, I hadn't had sex for about six years. The design part owed much to the metaphy-sical trauma I experienced on fathering a child (I had previously assumed I had been granted exemption from earthly laws governing cause and effect); then to the high standards of asceticism I set for myself during a consequent five year plan of self-improvement. Circumstance was due to an outstanding lack of opportunity, natural diffidence and dogged sobriety.

Seeing that I was slow getting off the mark, the proprietor sought me out to get me to confirm or deny a rumour he had heard that all Englishmen were "poufs." I parried him, but the more I drank the more beauteous the girls became. When, later, he put his lips to my ear and shouted that as I had come such a long way the management had decided to offer "Poms and poufs" a special room-rate of only 50 bucks, I peeled him a fifty off my wad and went to see whether I was still up to it.

"Haggle like hell with the buggers," he shouted after me as I disappeared out the back.

Although the lovely Min didn't speak much English, after she had pulled my clothes off she seemed to think that everything I said or did was hilariously funny. But when I asked for the menu, she went all businesslike. I could have fuck, she said, or I could have suck, or I could have suck 'n' fuck. However there was to be "no up botty," alas, and "no condom pay more." I said I'd like fuck with condom please. She accepted my first price with alacrity and the next thing I knew we were hard at it.

It didn't take long. A minute and a half at the most. Min removed my condom and held it up to the light to inspect the contents.

"Long time?" she asked.

"About six years," I said sadly, and she fell on to the bed, giggling.