Bar Girl (14 page)

‘Bee,’ she said.

‘Identity card?’ The old woman raised an eyebrow.

‘I don’t have one,’ Siswan answered, in all honesty.

‘Where are you from?’

Siswan lied again, giving the old woman the name of a village they had passed through on their way to the coast.

‘You will have to share. Sign here.’ The old woman turned the worn book towards her and opened the pages to the most recent. ‘You can write, can’t you?’

‘Yes. I can write. And read,’ Siswan told her as she inserted her false name on the first free line.

‘Most of you can’t,’ the old woman said, as she turned the book towards her and checked what Siswan had written.

Siswan didn’t answer or make a comment. There didn’t seem to be any need. The old woman didn’t appear to need any.

‘What’s the matter with your arm?’

‘I cut it working in the fields,’ Siswan told her.

She didn’t ask any further questions. She’d seen enough girls walk in here with bandages or scars. They all said they cut themselves working in the fields.

‘Room eleven.’ She nodded towards the back of the foyer where Siswan could make out a flight of stairs. ‘Back here at seven tomorrow morning to start work.’

‘What will I be doing?’ Siswan asked.

‘Laundry,’ the old woman told her.

Siswan started towards the stairs. Her small bundle of clothes seemed heavy as they swung from her arm. Before she reached the first step she stopped and turned.

‘What is your name?’ she asked the back of the old woman.

‘Ma.’ She didn’t turn. Just said the word.

‘Thank you, Ma,’ Siswan said and, once again, made for the stairs.

The room was small. There was a single, dim light bulb hanging by a twisted wire from the ceiling. There was no window. The walls were bare concrete. No paint. No colour. The air hung heavy and smelled musty. Two beds, one on each side of the room, contained single, foam-filled mattresses. Nothing else. No sheets. No pillows.

There was a rail along one wall. Two tee shirts and a pair of worn shorts hung from it. To the left an opening, that had once been filled with a door, led to a small bathroom. A hole in the floor, surrounded by a white porcelain rim, sufficed as the toilet. A large black dustbin, filled with water, contained a small plastic yellow bowl. The combination served as a shower and toilet cistern. It was enough.

Siswan chose the bed nearest the door. Opened her bundle on it. Hung up her shirts and spare shorts on the rail beside the existing clothing. She stripped off and stepped into the bathroom. Washed herself from head to feet. The cold water made her feel more awake. Cooler. She found what remained of a bar of soap on the floor beside the large bucket. She used it to wash herself and her hair. It felt good to get clean again.

She removed the grubby bandage from her arm and looked, for the first time, at the scar that ran down to her wrist. Black stitches held the wound closed. The flesh on either side looked red and swollen. She counted eighteen stitches.

After carefully washing her arm, and making sure she rinsed it thoroughly with the cold water, she washed the bandage and hung it over the rail. The thin gauze wouldn’t take long to dry in this heat, she decided.

She dried herself, using one of her spare tee shirts. She was very careful to dry the stitches in her arm. Then she washed the tee shirt and the other clothes she had been wearing. She hung the wet items in the bathroom to drip dry.

By the time she had finished her laundry, the bandage was dry enough to replace. She wound it, as best she could, around her arm and tied it off at the wrist. It would do to protect the wound from dirt.

Finally, when she felt that she was ready for the following day, she pulled a clean shirt over her head to act as a nightgown and allowed herself to collapse onto the single bare mattress of her chosen bed. Within minutes she was fast asleep.

It seemed only a short time before she was shaken rudely awake. She was still too tired to do anything about it. A hand shook her shoulder, a voice spoke.

‘You’re in my bed.’

Siswan rolled over and looked into the face of an older girl. Her thoughts returned to the old man in the park. He had said much the same thing. The eyes staring at her were cold and hard. There was no kindness within them.

‘I said, you’re in my bed!’ the girl shouted at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Siswan mumbled sleepily. ‘I didn’t know.’

She struggled to her feet and crossed the small space to fall onto the other bed. It sagged badly in the middle and she realised why the girl had been so insistent that she move. She rolled about trying to get comfortable. In the end, despite the awkward position the bed forced her to take up, she fell asleep once more.

When she awoke in the early hours of the morning, her body ached from her uncomfortable sleeping position. She stretched her limbs as best she could before trying to sit up. She didn’t know what time it was but she guessed it was early. She was so used to waking early that she would have surprised herself more than anyone to have overslept.

She slowly crossed to turn on the small light. Her body still felt stiff and her back hurt as she walked the few paces. She turned on the light and saw, for the first time, her roommates’ prostrate body lying prone on her bed. She lay naked and didn’t move. The only sign that she was even alive was the slight raising of her chest as she breathed.

Siswan took a few seconds to look at the girl. She didn’t look quite so old as she had the previous night. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. Her breasts were fully developed and hung slightly to either side of her body. The dark patch of her pubic hair formed a tangled triangle as it descended between her legs. She carried more weight than Siswan. Slightly chubby, Siswan thought.

The girl’s long black hair was strewn around her head and framed her face as she lay on the old mattress. One hand lay across her stomach and Siswan noted the broken fingernails and weather beaten skin. Her hands looked as though they worked hard.

Suddenly, the girl moved. A turn of her body. A small groan. The light no doubt disturbing her slumber. Siswan moved at once. She didn’t want to be caught staring at the girl. She moved towards the bathroom. She would take another shower, get dressed and go downstairs to see what the day would bring.

When she entered the bathroom she found that all her clothes had been taken down from their various hanging places and thrown onto the floor next to the toilet hole. With a silent sigh she started to pick them up, only to notice the strong smell of urine emanating from them. Siswan stopped picking the clothes up. Why would a girl she didn’t know do something like that? What kind of girl, what kind of person, would be so unkind? An anger began to swell inside her. She had felt this anger before. The time she had finally dealt with Bak. Now she felt it again. A slow anger. An anger that could be used.

She picked up a shirt from the top of the pile. Twisted it until it wouldn’t turn anymore. Folded it, and twisted again. When she had finished she held a hardened club of cloth that was soaked in urine. She returned to the small bedroom.

The girl had turned fully onto her stomach. Her bare buttocks rose into the air. Siswan could make out small, pale stretch marks on her skin. Without thinking too much about what she was doing she allowed the anger within her to well up. Allowed it to control her actions. Her feelings. She brought the homemade club down as hard as she possibly could across the girl’s buttocks.

There was a moment of hesitation. A moment before what had happened penetrated the mind of the sleeping girl. A second or two passed before the intense pain she felt made her fully awake. During that time Siswan watched in compassionless fascination as the stretch marks on the girl’s bottom disappeared beneath the redness that rose from deep within the skin.

With a suddenness that made Siswan take a step back the girl awoke, turned and screamed all in one go. She twitched off the bed as though her backside was on fire.

Within moments she understood what had happened and looked at Siswan with evil intent written in her eyes. She started up from the bed quickly. So quickly it almost took Siswan by surprise. The girl’s arms reached out towards her and her fingers sought to scratch. Siswan moved too fast.

Even as the hands came together to claw their way through her skin, she ducked beneath them. Moving to the side, she swung the club once more. This time she caught the girl across the ribs. She heard the gasp of air escape the girl’s lungs. Even as she started to turn, Siswan hit her again. This time across her shoulder. The girl was nowhere near as fast as a scorpion. Not so dangerous either. She fought like a girl. Tried again to scratch Siswan. To grab her hair. To slap her. A cat fighter.

Siswan was no match for her opponent. With ease she twisted away from her clawing hands. Slipped beneath her open handed slaps. She hit her again and again with the coiled shirt until, with a suddenness that matched the beginning, the fight was over.

The girl slipped to the floor and hung her head in defeat. Siswan had beaten her. She sat down on the edge of her bed and looked at the girl. Waited for the sobs to stop.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked her finally, when the girl was quiet.

‘Noy,’ the girl answered, quietly.

‘Mine is Bee. Pleased to meet you, Noy,’ Siswan said, with a smile.

Noy looked up. Her hair covered half her face. She brushed it away with the back of her hand. She sniffed loudly and rubbed the tears away from her eyes. She looked into the smiling face of Siswan and couldn’t help but smile back.

‘Pleased to meet you too, Bee,’ she said, and held out her hand.

They shook hands and laughed. Siswan helped her up. Noy stood only an inch or two taller than her.

‘Sorry about the clothes,’ Noy said. ‘I had a bad day yesterday.’ She added, as an excuse.

‘Sorry about the bruises,’ Siswan said.

Noy looked down. The red welts across her shoulder and chest were already beginning to turn blue. The one across her backside was almost black. She twisted as far as she could to see it.

‘I won’t be able to sit down for a while, that’s for sure,’ she said, as she craned her neck.

‘No. I don’t expect you will,’ Siswan agreed.

Noy stopped inspecting her body and turned to face Siswan properly.

‘How old are you, Bee?’ she asked.

‘Sixteen,’ Siswan told her, without hesitation.

‘A year younger than me. Where are you from? What are you doing in this dump?’

Siswan gave her the name of the village she had given to Ma. Told her she was here because of a family dispute. Nothing else.

‘What happened to your arm?’

‘I cut it working in the fields.’

‘Oh, really?’ Noy couldn’t be sure if the girl was telling the truth, or not. It was difficult to tell.

‘No. Not really,’ Siswan said, looking Noy in the eyes.

For the next three weeks Siswan worked in the laundry washing sheets and towels from hotels, tablecloths from restaurants and everyday clothing from farangs. The never ending piles of dirty clothes were brought to the back of the house by trucks, carts and even piled high on the back of motorbikes.

The back yard contained a large shed made from corrugated steel sheets that, during the height of the day, became unbearably hot. She, and the other ten or so girls, loaded the big copper vats, stirred the clothes by hand with wooden poles whilst the water boiled, lifted the heavy bundles into the concrete trough that ran down one side of the shed, and rinsed it all under the cold water from the continuously running taps.

Once rinsed, the clothing had to be hung out on the multitude of clothes lines to dry in the sun. If, as it did on many occasions, it rained, the girls all had to stop what they were doing and run to bring in the dry clothing before it was ruined.

When the clothes were dry they had to be ironed, using old, worn-out electric irons that sometimes got hot, sometimes didn’t. Once ironed, the clothing had to be folded and bagged ready for the return trip to the customers. The hardest part was trying to keep track of what belonged to whom. Customers often complained that some item or another had gone missing.

It was long, hot and hard work that wore Siswan out each day. Every evening she had just enough energy to wash her own clothing, clean the bandage on her arm, shower and then collapse onto her uncomfortable bed to sleep a dreamless sleep. Her fingernails began to break at the edges and her hands became worn and sore from the caustic washing powders.

Hardly any of the girls spoke as they worked. They were too tired. Had nothing to say. They just got on with their given work and fell into their beds at night. Ma allowed each girl a small breakfast of rice and, usually, dried fish. Sometimes pork if she could get it cheap enough. Lunch consisted of more rice, some vegetables served with hot spices and, if they were lucky, maybe some chicken or chicken broth. Most of the time Siswan felt hungry.

She quickly learned that it did no good to complain. Ma wasn’t even the owner of the place. She just worked there for a man who lived further up country. He came down once whilst Siswan was there. A small man, with a small moustache. He looked like a weasel. He didn’t stay long. Just looked into the shed one day and inspected some of the finished laundry. Siswan had heard him tell Ma that he expected her to use less soap. It was expensive, he said. Get the girls to stir more. That was cheaper.