Thai Girl (27 page)

Emm.

The message made Ben swallow hard; he was finally on his own. This was the feisty Emma he still liked and the thought of meeting up with her for the flight, though still weeks away, was oddly reassuring. But now he had too much time on his hands to sit around thinking how thoroughly he had messed things up. The tears pricked at the back of his eyes as he tried to adjust to the new reality.

It was already too late to travel back to Koh Samet that day, so in spite of the doubts Jack Russell had sowed in his mind, he decided to call Fon on Gaeo's mobile to say he would be coming back to the island the next day. He went down the hotel stairs and to the call box across the
soi
but it was being used by one of the staff. When it came free, it was like plunging into a super-heated oven. He assembled a pile of coins, found the scrap of paper on which Gaeo's number was written and tried to decipher the dialling instructions. When at last he managed to dial the number, there was no answer. Not understanding the noises the phone was making, he dialled again and sweated. When still nothing happened, he dialled yet again and sweated some more, then gave up in disgust. Either there was no reception on the island or Gaeo's phone was switched off. He felt almost relieved. At least he could tell Fon he had tried.

The rest of the day was now an empty canvas with nothing sketched in. He had a swim in the hotel pool and sat in the sun and tried to read. He saw no sign of Jack Russell and spoke to no-one, so in the afternoon he went out and took a bus to a fruit and vegetable market mentioned in the guidebook. It was in a huge modern building but was still a traditional Asian market. The traders were typical Thais from the countryside and the porters wheeling barrows laden with cabbages in baskets were coolies in baggy shorts and dirty white singlets. It struck him that Bangkok, with its millions of rural migrants still had something of the village about it. This was very much a city of contradictions and contrasts.

As he walked through the crowded market, he noticed an old lady dressed in faded black pyjamas propped up against her fruit stall. She looked as if she had had a hard life in the rice fields, her dark face lined by the years. Frail and bent, she seemed to be muttering to herself, though as he came nearer he realised she was having a spirited argument on her mobile phone.

That evening, alone in Bangkok and finally free for the first time, Ben felt restless. After the sights he had seen with Jack Russell the night before, he could not just sit in his room and contemplate his navel. He decided to head off to Sukhumvit Road to have a few beers and see how the dice would fall.

The next day, despite another very late night, Ben was up early. He collected his laundry, paid his hotel bill and took the Skytrain to the Eastern Bus Terminus where he caught a bus for Koh Samet. This time the journey seemed long and tedious. Apprehensive about how things would go with Fon, he could not concentrate on reading and just wanted to get there.

When the bus arrived at Ban Phe, though Fon was now only a few miles away, still his low spirits did not lift. Once the boat was outside the breakwater, heading into the open sea and as their reunion came closer, he began to feel more positive. By the time the boat picked up its mooring in Ao Sapporot he was in a state of high excitement.

He stood in the bow of the landing craft, straining to see if she was on the beach and as it bumped onto the firm sand, he was the first off, splashing through the waves to the shore. At this time in the afternoon she was usually working or looking for custom, but she did not seem to be there. He left his things at the reception desk of the huts he had stayed in before and went to their usual massage place beside the fallen tree. He walked to one end of the beach and then to the other but there was no Fon. When he bumped into Fon's friend, Gop, she immediately saw his anxious face.

‘You looking Fon?' she asked.

‘Can't find her anywhere. Has she gone away … to Isaan?'

‘Maybe she go Mama house.'

‘Could you see if she's in her room for me?' he asked.

He thought of going with Gop but knew Fon would not like him being seen hanging around her hut. Then as he waited anxiously, he remembered talk of Fon's boyfriend. Yes, perhaps that was it; Fon was in the hut with her boyfriend. His guts were grinding as he waited.

Still smiling, Gop came back a few minutes later.

‘Fon not there. Go other beach,' she said, pointing the way.

Ben hurried across the headland to the beach where he had found Fon plaiting the girl's hair a few days earlier, but she was nowhere to be seen. Then, just as he turned to go back he saw three sleeping forms spread out on the soft sand under the trees at the top of the beach. As he went up to them he recognised Gaeo and Pornpun, but the third, in shapeless brown trousers, her face covered by her arms, did not look like Fon.

Gaeo had now sensed his approach and was stirring. He put his fingers to his lips to silence her but too late, she had warned the sleeping figure that he was there. Fon rolled over and sat up, rubbing her eyes and peered obliquely at Ben. She looked different, darker than he remembered, her hair loose and crumpled. It was not at all his memory of the girl who had taken him to eat at the far beach and had surrendered to a brief clinch in the moonlight.

‘You come already,' said Fon. ‘Why you not phone?'

‘I called you on Gaeo's number but the phone was switched off.'

‘I surprise you come already,' she said.

‘Fon say she dream you come back,' said Gaeo with a grin.

Fon put her face in her hands and peeped out at Ben.

‘Have nightmare,' she said with a laugh.

Ben began to relax a little.

‘Well, I'm here now,' he said, half apologetically.

‘Ben, I not sleep. I sick … yesterday go doctor, buy medicine.' She seemed to be sniffly and to have a slight cold.

‘What sort of medicine?'

‘Have many colour.'

‘And did they make you better?'

‘Yes, little bit, but today very tired.'

Pornpun and Gaeo, now fully awake and ready for work, picked up their plastic boxes and walked away towards Ao Sapporot, leaving Ben alone with Fon.

‘Why you come back Koh Samet?' she asked him unsmilingly.

‘Because I said I'd come back … because you're all I ever think about.'

‘Pak waan.
What you want from me, Ben?'

‘Just to be with you,' he said in a strangled voice.

‘But you can't be with me, not here. I have my work, have Joy … look like bar lady when you follow me like dog.'

‘Let's go somewhere else then … to your village. That's what I'd like most of all.'

‘High season cannot … lose money. House dirty … you not like.'

‘I'd love it … to meet your mum and see where you were brought up.'

‘Okay Ben, later maybe … but now go back. Today look after Joy.'

Ben realised his happy return was now almost over for the day. As they walked back to Ao Sapporot together, Fon asked him what he had done in Bangkok and he gave her some evasive answers. When they came to the place where she always disappeared, she gave him a strained smile and walked away into the trees without a word.

This had hardly been the reunion he had longed for and as he checked into a hut, he went over everything that had been said. The idea of going to Fon's village had come to him on the spur of the moment but she had not dismissed it out of hand. He could think of nothing better.

He now dreaded an evening alone, though it was possible Maca and Chuck were still around. He thought of asking for them at reception; Maca's name was Mackintosh, though he knew from bitter experience he would not need the surname.

In his tiny hut he unpacked his rucksack, then went down to the beach bar and ordered a beer. Even before it had arrived, he heard a familiar voice. It was Maca rolling in, with Chuck only a pace or two behind.

‘How's it with you guys?' asked Ben.

‘Cool,' said Chuck.

‘Good,' said Maca.

‘Have a cool time in Bangkok?' asked Chuck.

‘You bet. How about a beer?'

They sat down together as if Ben had never been away.

‘So you were on your own in Bangkok, were you Ben?' asked Maca.

‘Guess I was.'

‘Must've been wild,' said Chuck.

Ben played the innocent.

‘Well, I did the tourist thing … went to this amazing fruit and veg market.'

‘Fruit and veg? Far out, man!'

‘In the market they were selling turtles. Not sure if they were for food.'

‘Course they're for food. What else?' hooted Chuck.

‘And there were frogs and eels and catfish, all black and squirmy.'

‘Sounds good tucker.'

‘Oh, and bamboo cages with birds in them … far too small to eat. Saw a woman buy a cage full.'

‘Was there a temple nearby?' asked Maca. ‘They release'em at temples to make merit. Maybe the turtles too. It's a Buddhist thing, to get you a better reincarnation next time round.'

‘Pull the other one! They release birds as a good deed?'

‘Yeah mate, dinkie die.'

‘But some poor kid has to catch them in the first place. So he gets a black mark then, just so the rich can let'em go again?'

‘Seems a crazy way of merit-making,' said Maca.

‘Don't really understand Buddhism,' admitted Ben, ‘life being illusory and impermanent and stuff, but I do love the feel of a Buddhist country.'

‘Me too,' said Maca grinning. ‘Most of the CDs, designer labels and stuff are cheap, impermanent fakes. And even the girls are an illusion … half the prettiest ones are ladyboys.'

‘Yeah, and man … reincarnation's far out,' said Chuck in rare flippant mood. ‘If I kill myself smoking dope, maybe I'll come back as a buffalo. But how do I get to be a human again? By being a good buffalo?'

‘Don't knock it,' said Ben. ‘Buddhism's tolerant and adaptable, not like most religions.'

‘Sure is. It's right up to the minute,' said Maca. ‘Thai monks get free transport and internet access, and even the mummified monk in the glass case at Wat Khunaram on Samui wears dark glasses.'

‘Well, I'm into making merit too,' said Ben with a wry smile, ‘though in Bangkok I did go for an oil massage.'

Chuck and Maca looked suddenly attentive.

‘Tell us about it then!' hooted Maca.

‘Okay guys,' said Ben, warming to the subject. ‘You see I missed Fon so much I just had to have a massage … tried an oil massage to see what it's like. You know … research sort of thing!'

There was a chorus of guffaws before he went on.

‘The massage girl was fully dressed, sorry to say, so there I am starkers on this trolley like a slab of dead meat, and she's rubbing baby oil into my buttocks. Not much of a turn-on really … but we had a nice chat.'

‘That's your story and you're sticking to it, huh?' interrupted Maca.

‘Well, there were these awkward silences,' Ben persisted, ‘so I asked her a bit about herself. Says she used to be a hotel cleaner, but massage is a nice little earner … know what I mean. And of course she wouldn't be doing massage at all if she was a good girl, would she, nudge nudge … and did I want a “special”? Of course I said no thanks, though by this time I'm getting into the mood and trying to think of England. Then Buddhism comes up and we chat about that … which means we've done sex and religion. So now for politics. It was election day and I say to her, “I see you've got an election today?” She looks kind of surprised, and you know what she says?'

‘No we don't,' roared Maca, demanding the punch line. ‘What did she say?'

‘Solly,' she says. “Me? Election today? No …
you
have election!” I almost fell off the frigging bed.'

When Maca and Chuck at last stopped laughing, Maca pressed Ben for more details.

‘But it didn't just fizzle out there, did it? What about the climax to the story?'

‘Climax?' replied Ben with an innocent look.

‘Don't tell me you went into that whorehouse and got all oiled up for nothing.'

‘It was only ten thirty in the morning,' he protested.

‘So you Poms can't make it before tea time, eh?' said Maca. ‘She must at least've offered.'

‘Offered what?'

‘Drop it, mate! Did she offer you a hand job?'

Ben paused in near embarrassment.

‘Well, yes she did … but it was going to cost me.'

‘What did she say then?'

‘Say? She didn't say anything … it's not the most difficult thing to get across in sign language!'

They all fell about laughing.

‘But did you accept?' Maca insisted.

‘Let's put it this way. When I go for a haircut, I don't waste money having my hair washed … I wash it myself.'

Chuck and Maca cracked up again.