A Tiger in Eden (7 page)

Mr Carson, I goes, he’s not Thai then.

I think he’s from Singapore, Olly says, breathing a sigh of relief as the ferry pulls out, but who knows with these cunts.

They had a wee coffee machine on the ferry, sure I hadn’t had coffee in ages, it was good so it was. The ferry wasn’t that busy and it took two hours getting to the mainland so Olly stretched out across a couple of seats for forty winks. I wasn’t tired, the coffee was making my head ping like a line of whizz, sure that’s all speed is anyway. I walked out onto the deck for a look and spotted this gorgeous-looking wee blonde standing by herself looking nervous. She glanced over at me I could see she had a well-thumbed Lonely Planet under her arm so I walks over to say hello sort of thing.

Bout ye, I says, you tried this coffee it’s not too bad actually.

Yes, she goes, I already had a cup it’s quite strong isn’t it.

You all right, I says, she looked like she’d been crying or something.

Yes, she goes, I’m just a bit worried about this town
Satun, there’s nothing about it in the guidebook.

Is there not, I says, sure there’s probably nothing worth seeing there that’s all, I came through on the way down it’s a bit of a shithole.

She bit her lip then and I realised I’d just made her even more nervous than she was before.

But don’t worry about it, I says, me and my friend are staying there tonight so stick with us and you’ll be all right.

She looked relieved then but I could tell she was a bit wary of me the way she was looking at my tatts and that. Loads of these backpackers think they’re adventurous types until they come to some place not in their aul guidebook and then they’re lost sure they depend on that aul thing far too much if you ask me.

I’m Billy, I goes and offers her my hand, and my mate Olly is sleeping through there, he’s French but don’t hold it against him if he tries to chat you up that’s just his way.

She laughs a bit then and says, that’s all right I’m used to it.

I’m sure you are, I goes, thinking I wouldn’t mind this wee looker for myself and thank fuck Olly was dozing so’s I could get in first.

I’m Sigrid, she says, from Stockholm. I’m meeting friends on Ko Samui.

Is that right, I goes, sure that’ll be great craic it’s dead nice over there so it is.

Oh good, she says relieved, is it easy to get there?

Aye, I says, just jump on one of the air-conditioned
buses in Satun they’ll take you right up the coast sure I’ll show you the morrow no problem.

Thanks so much, she goes, I feel better now I was a bit worried about sorting that out.

Tell me something, I goes, ‘cos I always wondered this, is there no ugly people in the Sweden? I always thought the gorgeous blonde people were a myth but every one of youse that I meet looks like a supermodel or something, what do youse eat over there?

I could tell she liked hearing that ‘cos she brushed her hair back over her ears then and smiled a bit. She was a right wee pocket rocket, absolutely gorgeous, perfect skin and lovely piercing blue eyes, in the back of my mind I was thinking I wouldn’t mind retiring to the Sweden if they all look like this one, unbelievable so it was, quite a relief from that English bint with the hairy toes.

And every Irish guy I meet is a charmer, she goes, so I guess we both live up to the stereotype.

C’est vrai
, I says, showing off.

Ah, tu parles français,
she goes, I knew what she said but held my hands up, just a few words, I says, I suppose you speak twelve languages like everyone else from your part of the world.

Only five, she goes, like it was nothing.

Youse must have cracker schools like, I says.

She just shrugs, if you live in Europe you have to learn languages that’s just the way it is.

Fuck me, I was thinking, sure I hardly understand nothing in my own language never mind no one else’s,
I wish I’d paid attention in school then I thought our school was shite anyway even if I had listened, sure all they ever went on about was
x
plus
y
equals the sum of the square root and useless fucking bollocks like that, how was that going to prepare me for having a conversation with some wee honey from Sweden? No wonder the world thinks the Irish are a bunch of dumb Paddies only good for laying bricks and pushing wheelbarrows, sure the truth hurts we’re fucking dopey cunts next to some of these Europeans.

We went inside and sat down for a bit. She was still nervous, I couldn’t blame her looking at our sweaty gobs, but I calmed her down by going through her aul Lonely Planet and pointing out places I’d been and whether or not the guidebook was on the money or spouting a load of aul shite. When she asked me why I’d been on the road so long I told her the aul story about coming into some money after my parents were killed by the IRA and going off round the world to find myself. It was a load of bollocks of course and the first few times I said it to someone I nearly laughed when I got to the bit about finding myself but I was used to it by now and I knew it appealed to the women, look maybe it wasn’t that far from the truth after all I had loads of friends shot or blown into wee sticky pieces by those Provo cunts and I was learning more with every person I met in the Thailand so in for a penny like, sure the more you say something sometimes the truer it becomes.

Sigrid was dead smart, she was in the third year of
some university course, environmental technology or something about how the planet was fucked up by us humans. She talked about it for a bit though I was lost most of the time until she started in about all the rubbish people dumped in the sea and that.

I’ve seen them do it, I says, it’s disgusting so it is, I don’t like that. I told her about this one time me and a couple of others went out in a boat to an island up north and the Thais bundled all our rubbish up into a plastic bag, the bottles and food wrappers and that, and turfed it over the side into the drink. I went mad so I did and told the cunt at the tiller to turn the boat around and pick it up. He just laughed and goes, what’s the big deal. Some fish will eat that and die, I says. So what, he goes. So what? I says, so don’t you cunts rely on fish for your dinner, what are you going to eat if the sea’s full of plastic?

That’s a huge problem, Sigrid goes.

Aye, I says, I couldn’t believe it here we are in paradise and they’re throwing aul bags into the water and spoiling it obviously I was leaving out all the cunts when I was speaking to her ‘cos I didn’t want to put her off of me. So next thing I slapped the Thai lad round the lugs, I says to her, lugs what’s that she goes and I says, ears, right ha ha that’s a funny word, anyway I says, he turned the boat round and went back and I took my shirt off and jumped in I thought he was going to drive off and leave me for a second but he was too feared. I grabbed the plastic bag and threw it back in the boat then
climbed back in and says to him, don’t do that again, what’s wrong with you? He didn’t get it and I suppose he probably just threw the bag in the sea later on when I wasn’t looking but at least I tried, I says, sure it breaks your heart how they treat the place.

Good for you, she goes, if everyone did that maybe they’d think twice, the Irish are not big polluters like some of the other countries.

I don’t know about that, I says to her, you walk down the Shankill Road where I’m from and there’s all these chip wrappers whirling round in wee mini-tornadoes on the street corners, I’d skite any wee lad I saw throwing them down but what can you do people don’t listen unless it affects them.

It’s going to affect everybody that’s the problem, she goes, shaking her head and looking severe.

Well good on ye for taking an interest, I says, we need a few more like you I reckon. She smiled all modest then and I was thinking fuck me if the world was full of women like this no cunt would ever get any work done sure you’d just be happy as Larry licking her clacker all day.

I was quite surprised when Olly woke up ‘cos he wasn’t that interested in her, sure I thought he’d be all over her but maybe she was a bit too classy for him or something. I think he was used to hanging around with a different type of women, ones he could take advantage of. I was pleased so I was ‘cos if we liked different types then that was good there’d be no aul conflict, sure there’s
nothing worse than two lads fighting over some wee girl’s hole, how pathetic is that like. Course you had to watch him I reckoned once your back was turned, he’d be in there like a flash and I didn’t want him to say something stupid or disgusting that would wreck my wee Swedish fantasy.

Anyway the ferry docks at the mainland and we find ourselves with no way of getting into town, there was no taxis or tuk-tuks or nothing. All the other passengers on the ferry were locals, I suppose they weren’t expecting three westerners at that time of the morning. Olly looks at me and says, how far is it to Satun can we walk, no way, I says, it’s fucking miles away so it is and what about Sigrid, he gives her a dirty look like she’s already some inconvenience and I says, haul on a minute there’s some local lads with mopeds over there, I’ll sort this out.

I goes over to these three hard-looking lads sitting on their bikes staring at us over their mirrored sunglasses and I says, bout ye lads, any chance of a lift into town sure we’ll pay you for your trouble. One of them spoke a bit of English so him and me argued over the price for a bit, it does my head in but the Thais love it. I noticed that in the markets if you’re buying an aul T-shirt or something the worst thing you can do is say how much is this like ‘cos that lets them set the upper price and the cunts will say something outrageous like eight hundred baht and then you say I’ll give you four hundred and by the end of the piece you’re paying six hundred baht for some piece-of-shit T-shirt that you could of got for two
hundred if you’d started the bidding in the first place by looking disgusted and saying here I’ll give you fifty baht for this aul thing. They’re sly but you can’t blame them for taking advantage of the dumb-cunt westerners who’re just here to fuck their daughters and wreck the place.

The lads agreed so we jumps on the back of the bikes, Sigrid was a bit nervous understandable like, but I says, don’t worry we’ll be all right if there’s any trouble Olly and me we’re well equipped to knock the fuck out of them, it wouldn’t of surprised me if Olly had a piece on him and all. She needn’t have worried, the lads knew their business and the ride into town was quite nice zooming through the countryside. The one I was holding onto turns to me as we’re going along and says, you want happy-happy tonight, don’t worry about me, I says to him, I’ll sort myself out thanks very much.

He just ignores me and says, you want young girl I can get for you, what do you mean, I goes, not liking the sound of this, how young?

Ten, twelve years old he says, I get for you tonight you make happy-happy.

Get to fuck, I says to him, that’s disgusting I’m not into that, you like older girls, he goes, I get you sixteen, seventeen.

Persistent fucker aren’t ye, I says, maybe you didn’t hear me I said no you dirty bastard, you’re a bad man, I goes.

He just shrugs and laughs, men come over from Malaysia looking for young girl, he says, I give them
business.

I was raging so I was if he hadn’t of been driving the motorbike I’d of smacked him round the lugs it made me sad so it did thinking that every time he saw a white face like mine the first thing he thought was this fella’s a kiddie fiddler, sure I’d only been in the country ten fucking minutes something needs to be done about the Thailand where evil fuckers like that can have their way with a wean.

Something similar must of happened with Olly ‘cos when we gets into town and the lads take us direct to some dive of a guest house they were obviously getting a commission from, Olly jumps off and says, we’re not staying here c’mon you two, what’s going on, Sigrid says, grab your bag, I told her, trust me you don’t want to be staying in this place we’ll find somewhere better down the road. The three lads were raging that we didn’t want to stay there but what could they do, Olly was striding away down the street I caught up to him with Sigrid trailing behind and says did they offer you a wee girl too,
Oui,
he goes, spitting in the gutter,
putain de cochons.

What’s that mean, I goes, knowing it wasn’t good, fucking pigs, he says,
c’est vrai
, I goes, and he laughs, I’ll have to teach you some more phrases.

Aye sounds good, I goes, I like the words, where we going anyway do you know?

Nah, he says, but there must be an old hotel or something round here that the backpackers don’t know about. I want to meet some locals I hate all that backpacker
talk,
what countries have you done
and all that, aye, I says, does my head in too, what’s with her then, he goes, nodding in Sigrid’s direction.

She’ll be away in the morning, I says, just helping her out, he raises one eyebrow then and goes, sure sure you’ll be helping her out of her clothes later on I suppose.

Give me a break, I says, she’s fucking gorgeous so she is, do you not think so?

Olly just makes a face and goes, if you like that type she’s too European for me, too boring, I’m into exotic women now. Sigrid catches up to us then and says something to him in the French, he laughs a bit and answers her back then winks at me and says, though maybe I could make an exception in this case.

It didn’t take us long to find this amazing old crumbling hotel, it was obvious no backpackers ever stayed there ‘cos the room we got for the three of us was dirt cheap and fucking huge, the ceilings were dead high, the whole thing was bigger than most houses back home, it wasn’t luxury or nothing, the place had a real rundown feel to it but I liked it. This is perfect, Olly goes. There were two beds, one double for me and him and a single for Sigrid, she was happy enough with that and didn’t seem bothered sharing with us. I suppose safety in numbers when you’re in a strange place is the way to go like.

Olly started on her about not relying on the Lonely Planet and how you could have a much better time doing your own thing and she goes, yeah I see what you mean,
it’s good making your own decisions for a change, where do you reckon we can find something to eat I’m starving. Leave it to the Frenchman, Olly says, come on let’s go out for a look around.