Waiting for a Wide Horse Sky. Elaine Kennedy

they, the mongrels?’

      I smiled and answered guardedly, ‘No, that’s all right. We’re divorced.’

      ‘Any kids?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well that’s good. I hate to hear of split ups where there are kids involved.’

      I nodded politely and turned my head to the window and feigned sleep. I wished I could have been with my friends.

      The buses pulled into the parking lot of the Hall of Peace, our first sightseeing stop, and lunch boxes were handed out. Amos left his bus stretching and shaking out his long legs; it had been a long trip. He called out to me.

      ‘How was your trip? Olga’s still curled up at the back in there, dead to the world. Why don’t you go and shout in her ear.’

      ‘Sounds like the sort of thing I do,’ I laughed.

      Marilyn soon joined us and we walked together to the entrance of the Hall of Peace. This, we knew was not just another war memorial but an impressive museum including a waxworks.

      ‘I’m glad I brought my trusty camera,’ Olga said, waving it about, as she joined us.

      ‘Take it from that woman now,’ said Amos, ‘before they turn the ancient cannons on us all.’

      In spite of the warning Olga did get into trouble for trying to get a photo taken with a waxwork Chairman Mao signing a treaty.

      On returning to the buses everyone chose their own bus and place on it. There was no sign of Kim’s macho men. I told the others what Robert had said about Seoul and Daegu. We decided to avoid those two cities and to try for Busan, which sounded so good; on the seaboard and very cosmopolitan.

      The final few days of touring before finishing up at the university were busy and crammed with activities. After looking forward to being somewhere exotic and stimulatingly different most of the group felt surfeited with culture. So much information crammed into a short time was like eating too much rich food. We longed to be elsewhere amongst familiar sights and sounds. Although it was still early days we were recognising the beginning of culture shock and could see that we would need to provide support for each other.

      ‘We have to make sure that we stick together. That is, in the same city at least and if possible sharing accommodation,’ Marilyn said as we sat around a large hotel dinner table after the evening meal on our final night in Seoul.

      ‘We should be able to do that. We just have to be firm about what we want. After all that’s what the contracts promise. We are to share apartments in one of the major cities of choice,’ Olga pointed out.

      ‘But whose choice?’ Amos raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re very quiet tonight, Elaine. What are you thinking about?’

      I let them know what Robert had told me on the bus. ‘Maybe we won’t have the chance to choose where we go or who we share with.’

      ‘Why is everyone getting so glum?’ said Olga. ‘It will all work out. We don’t have to ask Mr Kim for any favours; there’ll be the head honchos there to organise all that when we get back you know.’

      ‘To change the subject, where did you disappear to today, Elaine?’ Marilyn asked.

      She was referring to the time I had strategically got separated from the group in Piwon, the Secret Garden. It had captured my imagination, this hidden world created for the princesses and concubines of the royal family. Instead of following the bobbing red flag and listening to the guide’s never ending commentary I had slipped off down another pathway and enjoyed my own view of the quaint bridges linking little islands in the artificial lakes. It was so nice to stand in silence in the sweet smelling garden and imagine myself alone in such a perfect world. I wondered how many women and children had walked here before me.

      ‘It didn’t take long before they noticed I was gone did it?’ I said, ‘I hope I can go back another time and just see the garden. What spoilt it was having to look at the women’s quarters of the palace. It reminded me of battery hens.’

      Marilyn agreed solemnly. ‘I know what you mean. The garden was so lovely but it would have been the only bright spot in their lives, caged up in the palace with windows too high to see out of and never knowing when they would be sent to spend the night with the fat old king. How old did the guides say they were … about eleven or twelve? You’re right. Just like battery hens.’

      ‘I’m glad you changed the subject.’ Amos rolled his eyes. ‘It was getting depressing there for a while.’

      On the way back to the university everyone slept. It had been an exhausting few days, two palaces, two museums, a music performance, a dance performance and a day of activities in the Korean Folk Village, a simulated village of centuries ago. Added to physical tiredness was the tension of uncertainty about where we would be living and working.

      Ours was not the first bus to arrive back, and when we reached the foyer of the accommodation block there was already a line of others searching for their names on a list showing which city they had been allocated to. A separate notice gave times for interviews and details of how to request share partners for apartments.

      ‘We haven’t even had a chance to request Busan,’ Olga moaned.

      ‘Can you see where we’re assigned to?’ said Amos, leaning over her shoulder.

      ‘Daegu.’ They both said flatly in chorus. ‘All four of us,’ Amos told Marilyn, who was watching him expectantly.

      Over the next few days we went, as a small group, every chance we got to try to negotiate a change to Busan. It was no use. Daegu it would be. We next put our efforts into trying to find out who we would be sharing with. According to the notices pinned up in the foyer two teachers were to share each two-bedroom apartment and married couples would have their own apartment. This rule resulted in several instant couples forming, made easy by the fact that Korean women keep their own names when they marry. Most of our requests resulted in our names being noted on a list but nothing said to confirm that we would be given our preferences. Any attempt to speak personally about arrangements was met with a slowly shaking head and the one word repeated softly with a smile, ‘No.’ It was infuriating but there was nothing that could be done.

      ‘They don’t even listen to us. It makes me angry the way they give no reasons,’ Marilyn told Amos at dinner.

      ‘It’s called “happy-faced fascism”. They are taught to deal with people that way; it’s a method for controlling us.’ Amos explained how he had learnt about this from experience in Singapore. He was not looking his usual happy self, I noticed.

       Five

      The real situation only became known when we reached Daegu and were taken to our accommodation. Most singles were billeted with families. They were given a small room in a crowded house, ate with the family, shared the bathroom and were obliged to keep the ten o’clock curfew. In fact they were expected to explain why they were going out at night in the first place. This didn’t go down well.

      Marilyn and I wanted so much to share an apartment but Marilyn was billeted with a family of five, parents and three daughters. When we met two nights later at the American-style restaurant, TGI Friday’s, Marilyn told me how she had been horrified to find that she would be sleeping on the floor in a tiny room off the eldest daughter’s bedroom.

      ‘I am expected to be in bed by nine-thirty at night so that the daughter is not disturbed and I have to be first to use the bathroom in the morning so I have to be up by six a.m.,’ she said with barely concealed rage.

      ‘Who made those rules?’ I was concerned that Marilyn was no longer her usual buoyant self.

      ‘The Head of the House, as he keeps reminding me … a fat, balding, full-of-himself, middle-aged … despot … with a face like a frog,’ Marilyn said so glumly that I couldn’t hold back laughter.

      ‘I’m sorry, but it does sound funny, the way you describe him.