Bar Girl (31 page)

When Tom finished, he rolled out of the bed and went to the bathroom to shower. The next thing Mai knew, he was shouting that she was a dirty slut and hitting her across the arms and legs. When she turned to confront him he laid into her with his fists. She was too startled to do anything about it and, even before she could cry out, the blows had beaten her almost unconscious.

The next thing she remembered was the cleaner lady waking her up and crying about all the blood on the bed. When the cleaner saw her face she called the police.

‘Was she cut?’ Nok asked.

‘No. Just bruised and dazed. The blood was from her period. It was a heavy one,’ Nong told them.

‘I knew a guy that didn’t like that,’ Joy said. ‘He wouldn’t go near me when I was on.’

‘Most men don’t like it,’ Nong said. ‘That’s why we use the sponge.’

‘Fucking bastard,’ Nok put in. ‘How’d he like to bleed every month?’

‘The most important thing is that Mai is okay,’ Nong said. ‘She’s badly bruised and has a hell of a bump on her head, but she’ll live.’

‘What is it with men, anyway?’ Bee said. ‘Don’t they know a woman can’t do anything about it?’

‘It’s only blood,’ Joy said.

‘Yeah. I’d like to see them put a rag in their ass holes every month,’ said Nok

‘In their ass holes?’ Joy asked.

‘Well, they haven’t got a vagina,’ Nok pointed out.

‘Yeah, but wouldn’t it be better if they just bled out of their dicks for a week?’ Joy asked.

‘Well, okay. But they should also have something big shoved in their ass holes. That’s what they expect us to do,’ Nok pointed out.

‘Did they catch him?’ Siswan asked, whilst the rest of the girls contemplated Nok’s suggestion.

‘What? Oh. Yes, they caught him,’ Nong replied. ‘Apparently, he left the hotel early in the morning. Packed up all his stuff and moved to another one. The police tracked him down.’

‘Good!’ Joy said. ‘I hope they put him in prison.’

‘That won’t happen,’ Siswan said, quietly.

‘How do you know?’ Nok turned on her. ‘You don’t know!’

‘He’ll be fined. Told to leave. If he pays enough he won’t even have to do that,’ Nong put in.

‘That’s not fair,’ Bee said.

‘Life isn’t fair, Bee,’ Siswan said.

‘But, what about Mai. What about her?’ Joy asked.

‘She’ll stay in hospital for another night,’ Nong told them.

‘Then what?’ Nok shouted, angrily. ‘Then what happens?’

‘She’ll have to pay the hospital bill and either come back to work or go home,’ Siswan said.

‘Doesn’t anyone care what happens to her?’ Joy asked, quietly.

‘No, Joy,’ Siswan said, flatly. ‘No one cares what happens to a bar girl. Why should they?’

‘Because we’re human. Because we have feelings. Because we can get hurt as well,’ Nok pointed out.

‘Who cares?’ Siswan said.

Nok rushed at her. Made to grab at her throat, her hair. She was almost crying in rage. Spittle sprayed out of her mouth as she shouted.

‘You don’t fucking care! You don’t give a shit!’

Siswan easily slipped out of the way of the girls hands. Easily ducked the clawing fingers. She didn’t fight back. Didn’t lash out at the girl. There was no need. No need to fight because it was over before it started. Nok sank to her knees in front of the bar. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘Nobody gives a shit,’ she said, quietly. ‘Nobody gives a fucking shit.’

Joy and Bee helped her to her feet. Sat her down on a bar stool. Siswan went and got her a drink of water. She held the glass out to the distraught girl. A few moments passed before she spoke.

‘The only people we have on our side, Nok,’ she told her. ‘Are ourselves. There’s no one else.’

Nok looked up at her through her tears. She drank some of the water.

‘I didn’t want to do this,’ she said, between sips.

‘No.’ Siswan looked at all of the girls around her. ‘I guess you didn‘t. It just seemed an easy way to make money, didn’t it.’

None of the girls spoke. None argued. The money. It was all about the money and sometimes, just sometimes, the price they paid was high.

‘Okay,’ Nong said. ‘Let’s go back to work.’

There was nothing else they could do. Nothing else that mattered. Siswan knew that all the shouting, kicking and screaming in the world wouldn’t do any good. You chose your life. You lived your life.

It was about an hour later that Steve came to the bar. He looked awful. As he approached he gave a wai to each of them in turn. He knew their ways.

‘I am so sorry,’ he said to the girls. ‘I am so very sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, Steve,’ Nong said to him. ‘Sit down. You don’t look so good.’

‘I only found out about it this evening,’ he said, taking a seat. ‘I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. How’s the girl? I don’t remember her name.’

‘Why would you remember, Steve?’ Siswan asked him. ‘She was only another bar girl.’

‘Oh, don’t be like that, Siswan,’ he said apologetically. ‘You know I don’t think like that.’

Siswan didn’t believe him. Not for one second did she believe that he cared. He was a nice enough guy. Was always polite, always bought a drink for the girls. Nice enough. He was no saint though. He still took the girls. Still had sex with them.

‘No, I know that, Steve,’ she smiled at him. ‘Her name is Mai.’

‘How is she?’

‘She’ll be fine. We’ll take care of her,’ Siswan said, in a voice loud enough for all the girls to hear.

‘Well. If there’s anything I can do?’ Steve asked.

There’s loads you can do, she thought. You can pay the hospital bill. You can go to the police. You can cause a stink over this. A stink that the authorities would have to listen to. You could make sure that Thomas gets what he deserves.

‘No. There’s nothing you can do, Steve,’ she said.

Steve sat awkwardly for a few moments more. She could tell he wanted to buy a drink. A drink to calm his nerves. A drink to take him through another night in paradise. She didn’t offer any help.

‘Well, I’d better be going,’ he said.

‘Okay, Steve,’ she smiled. ‘Thanks for coming.’

‘I didn’t know, Siswan. Honestly I didn’t,’ he said, before leaving the bar and walking away.

Mai was sent home the following evening. Nong and Siswan met her at the hospital entrance and took her back to the apartment. Her face was a mass of black and blue bruises. One eye was so swollen it was almost closed.

‘I don’t think I can work tonight,’ she joked to Nong.

‘No. Maybe tomorrow?’ Nong joked back.

Siswan helped Mai into her room. Sat her on the bed. She looked into her face.

‘Are you alright?’ she asked, as she held the girls hands.

‘Yes. I’ll be okay,’ Mai said. ‘I don’t remember much. Just his voice shouting at me.’

Siswan didn’t reply. Just sat there on the edge of the bed and held her hands. She wanted to give Mai time. Time to talk if she needed to.

‘I should have used the sponge,’ she said, quietly.

‘No. It was his fault, Mai. His alone,’ Siswan replied. ‘He was wrong. Just a fool of a man who got scared at the sight of blood.’

‘I’m not pregnant though,’ Mai tried to smile at her. ‘That’s good.’

‘Yes,’ Siswan said. ‘That’s very good.’

‘I took his shoes off. He had them on the bed.’ Mai leaned into Siswan’s shoulder.

Siswan felt the sobs rather than heard them. Mai cried without any noise. Normally so talkative. A girl who talked so much. Now, as she cried into Siswan’s arms, she didn’t make a sound. Siswan held her tightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Mai said, after a few moments.

‘That’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry about anything,’ Siswan said, looking into her face.

‘I didn’t expect him to do that,’ Mai said, wiping away the tears. ‘He seemed like a nice man.’

‘They all do,’ Nong put in. ‘They all seem nice.’

‘Wasn’t bad looking, either,’ Mai continued.

‘Maybe, but he didn’t have a good heart did he?’ Siswan told her.

‘No. That’s for sure,’ Mai almost laughed. ‘He didn’t even pay me.’

All three girls laughed together then. The crises was over. Mai was going to be fine. Siswan was amazed at her courage. Amazed at all the girls, really. The life they chose, or found themselves in, wasn’t an easy one. At first it seemed an easy route to take. An easy path to follow. They could make a lot of money. A lot of money to please their families. A lot of money to change their lives. It seemed so easy. At first.

Once they’d been doing it for a while, they learned that it wasn’t so easy after all. That there wasn’t as much money as they had first thought. The families soon got used to the little they sent home. Got used to it and wanted more. Demanded more. Once you became a bar girl it was difficult to stop. And of course, there was always the dream. The one in a million chance that a farang with a good heart would come to take you away. The dream that kept them going. Kept them turning up night after night. The dream of the man with a good heart. One in a million.

The problem was that nights like the one Mai had been through happened all too often. One in ten thousand? One in a thousand? The odds were definitely in the favour of the nightmares. Not the dream.

‘You’ll be alright, Mai,’ Nong told her. ‘We’ll soon have you chattering away in the bar again.’

‘Oh, no,’ Siswan groaned, and they all laughed again.

‘Oh, don’t,’ Mai said. ‘It really hurts when I laugh.’

The three girls looked at one another for a few seconds before bursting out in gales of laughter. The more Mai groaned in pain the more all three of them laughed. They couldn’t stop. Even in pain, Mai giggled uncontrollably. Siswan felt pains in her sides and she still couldn’t stop laughing. Finally, with tears rolling down her face, Mia pushed them both out of her room.

‘Get out! Before you kill me!’ she shouted through the pain of her laughter.

‘Out!’

Nong and Siswan finally stopped giggling by the time they got back to the bar. They both agreed that Mai would be fine and spent the night serving farangs as usual.

‘She’ll be back within a week,’ Nong stated to the others. ‘You’ll see.’

As it happened, Mai never returned to the bar, or any other bar come to that. When Bee got home that night she hadn’t noticed anything unusual. Mai had been tucked up in bed, fast asleep. At least Bee had assumed she was asleep.

It wasn’t until half way through the following morning that anyone knew that something was wrong. Siswan had got up, early as usual, and had headed for the beach. She hadn’t seen anything wrong.

It was when Nok awoke a few hours later that the awful truth dawned. She had opened her bedside drawer to discover that her whole stock of ya baa was missing. About thirty tablets all in all.

Mai had taken every one of them and had died in her sleep the night before. When Bee had pulled back the sheet they had seen the staring eyes. The bruised face even more darkened by the congealing blood. A thin line of vomit had trickled from the corner of Mai’s mouth and had trailed onto the pillow.

When the car came to take her body to the hospital, Siswan had asked one of the men what would happen to her.

‘Her family will be told,’ he’d said.

Siswan wondered what the family would do. Would they give her a good funeral in the temple? Hold a party in her honour? Call all the friends and relatives around to celebrate the life of a girl who had taken care of them for so long?

She wondered how the family would be able to pay for such a funeral, such a party? Now that the bread winner was gone? How would they manage now? Did Mai have a sister who could take her place? A brother who could earn as much as she could? Siswan didn’t think so. She didn’t think there would be a party. She didn’t think anyone would be invited to celebrate the life of a bar girl.

The following day Siswan bought herself a new knife. She chose a fairly small blade but one that looked evil. It had a curved edge, a sharp point and a serrated back. With the press of a button the blade slid out from the handle. What had happened to Mai wasn’t going to happen to her. Not without a fight.