Thai Girl (45 page)

Ben was the last onto the boat and remained standing so Fon could see him as the boat pushed out through the waves. Halfway to the ferry he saw that Fon had left the trees and was running down to the water's edge. She blew him a kiss of farewell with both hands as she had done a few glorious days before, but this time she did it twice and once more again. He could see her dancing up to her knees in the waves, trying to throw off the bleakness of the moment. He raised a hand in reply.

When the boat came alongside the ferry, he went up to the top deck and stood in the stern and stared back at the distant shore. He could see that Fon had been joined by Gaeo; they seemed to be standing together talking. He tried waving with both arms but there was no response. Then the big diesel engine started up and the men cast off the mooring lines. As the ferry moved steadily out to sea, he stood leaning over the rail, his eyes straining towards the tiny figures on the beach. Just before it rounded the headland and the bay disappeared from view, he thought he saw them separate and go in different directions along the beach for another day's work.

Ben sat in a corner at the stern to avoid anyone staring at him and tried to stay composed. But something more precious than he had ever possessed was being ripped out of him as their two worlds were torn apart. Briefly he held back the tears but then the white sand and jet skis, the brightly coloured umbrellas and holiday bungalows along the shore misted over and became a distant blur.

But life had to go on. After a depressing bus ride back to Bangkok sitting too close to the smell of the toilet cubicle and with the air conditioning hardly working, Ben took a taxi from the Eastern Bus Terminus to the Georgia Hotel off Sukhumvit Road. Now early evening, he checked into a top floor room and took a shower. It was a pity he had no clean clothes to change into; he would just have to make sure nobody came too close.

The familiar old-world atmosphere of the hotel was a calming influence,

distancing him a little from the traumas of the day, and he found himself thinking of Emma. He went downstairs to check his email and was pleased to find a brief message from her saying she was arriving in Bangkok at the Southern Bus Terminus the following evening. She was planning to go direct to the airport after some final shopping and would be there at least three hours before the flight was due to leave late that night. It crossed his mind that if he got to the airport when the flight desk opened, perhaps they could check in together.

As he slowly rejoined the world of the living, he began to grasp that tomorrow was the first day of Songkhran, the Thai New Year festival, and that he would have the whole day free before flying out that night. Maca had told him about Songkhran and how the Thais go crazy, thronging the streets and chucking water at each other. As the hot season was over and it was now the very hot season, this seemed a thoroughly good idea and, despite everything, he was not going to miss out on it.

A long night's sleep, misery and the swimming pool got him through to noon of his very last day when he had to settle up and check out of his hotel room. He put on his oldest shorts and a faded shirt which he could dump when they were wet and chalky later that afternoon. He stuffed the clothes he was going to wear on the flight into a plastic bag and left his rucksack with the receptionist. As he was paying his bill, he met a French couple who asked him how to get to Khao San Road. This was always the liveliest and wettest place in town where most of the young people of Bangkok would already be throwing water and smearing white stuff on each others' faces, so Ben suggested they share a taxi.

On the way there the taxi was sprayed by kids with hoses and by marauding pick-ups packed with excited teenagers armed with water guns. In the taxi they were safe and dry but passengers in tuk tuks were at risk of a dousing. Nearing Khao San Road the traffic locked solid and Ben and the French couple decided to get out and walk. Saying goodbye to them, he pressed ahead on his own. Now the streets were overwhelmed by tens of thousands of young Thais aimlessly milling around. They were mostly male, in shorts and tee shirts, all comprehensively soaked and covered in white paste. The roads, pavements, parked cars, phone boxes and buildings were awash with water and liberally smeared in white. It was mayhem, a seething, excited mob out to have fun and

to get very wet and white.

Ben found the crowds becoming denser as he came within a few hundred yards of Khao San Road and, with the revellers packed shoulder to shoulder, he could hardly move. His six foot height was an advantage as he was able to tower over most of the Thais, though a foreigner was a conspicuous and interesting target. Water fell in torrents from above and came horizontally from windows, from balconies, from parked trucks, from everywhere. He was by now totally sodden, but it was so hot that the showers were very welcome.

Nor could he avoid being smeared with liquid chalk. As he made his way through the crush, the gentle faces of the boys and girls gazed up at him, wished him ‘Happy New Year', and caressed his cheeks with a handful of white paste from their plastic pots. He soon got the idea that as they came within range he too could dip his hand into their pots and plaster a little revenge on their cheeks. Nobody resisted or ducked away; they all took it on the chin. Khao San Road was an aggression-free zone.

The road was now jammed solid with sodden grey ghosts. At one bottleneck caused by a parked truck, the street was even more crowded and the pressure increased to the point that toes were getting trodden on. Ben was quite glad Emma was not there as she hated crowds. He decided to cut through one of the side alleys to the lanes at the back and found a beer garden where he sat and had a drink, the chalk drying and cracking on his cheeks. Then he fought his way back to Rajadamnoen Avenue to find transport to Sukhumvit Road, but it looked a forlorn hope. Both sides of the carriageway were closed off and there were thousands of young Thais cruising around flinging water, flirting with the girls and showing off to their friends. It was a happy disaster area of water and whiteness.

By a small miracle an empty tuk tuk came by, so Ben flagged it down and climbed onto the open seat. The driver was in manic mood and the noisy little monster stormed away through the milling crowds, swerving round the Democracy Monument and braking hard at the first traffic jam. Just as it stopped, one of the cruising pick-ups loaded with wild-eyed warriors and water guns drew alongside. They whooped with joy when they saw the
farang
in the back of the tuk tuk. Ben was a sitting duck, but it was so hot he could take to yet another drenching like a duck to water.

Songkhran, a new year, a promise of new beginnings, had given him a few hours when he had almost managed to forget about Fon. It was boarding the airport bus from Sukhumvit Road that brought home to him the awful finality of leaving Thailand and the girl he loved, to fly back to London and whatever his future might bring.

33

The taxi that took Emma from her final shopping in Siam Square to Bangkok's Don Muang airport was old and smelly. It took an age to find its way through the traffic jams and then hurtled along the elevated expressway, the driver juggling with the wheel to keep it in a straight line. She watched the interminable cityscape for the last time, psyching herself up to re-enter the real world of jobs and responsibility and thinking about Ben. She was not at all sure how she felt about seeing him again; much water had flowed under many bridges since she walked out on him on Koh Samet.

Since breaking free and being apart for a time, her new-found freedom to explore fresh relationships had proved to be totally liberating. She had made friends of many kinds who took her seriously and showed interest in everything she had to say. Now she was confident she would no longer be overwhelmed by his irrepressible personality and almost wanted him to be there at the check-in desk, if only to show off her own transformation. To her surprise, she had done extraordinarily well travelling alone.

Saying a silent goodbye to the heat and humidity of Thailand, she pushed her baggage trolley through the automatic door into the air-conditioned chill of the airport. It was an immediate return to the bleak anonymity of the industrial society, a world of plate glass, stainless steel and plastic. Even the Thai airport staff seemed distant, depressed by the impersonal departures hall and the endless stream of foreign faces.

Her backpack had grown heavy with presents in the last few hours but it was still too early to check it onto the flight. After an uncomfortable night on the bus coming back from the southern islands, she now dreaded the dreary wait in the airport and the long flight home. It could help to pass the time if Ben turned up soon, though it might go very badly. He had not replied to her last email and, if he was still seething from his dumping and the disaster at the Regal, he could refuse to have anything to do with her. But she was hoping diplomatic relations would be restored; apart from anything else, she was curious to hear about his time in Thailand as a single man.

Still more than three hours before the flight departure time, she was sitting on a hard plastic seat reading a novel when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

‘Hey Emm, there you are. Fantastic!'

‘Hi Ben, I wasn't sure you'd show up,' she said a little awkwardly.

They did one of those cheek to cheek kisses that usually mean nothing, but which for Emma had the association of past intimacy; Ben was still an attractive guy.

‘Emm, you look amazing … never seen you looking so good,' he said smiling broadly.

‘You too, you devil.'

‘How d'you take off so much weight with all that food out there?'

‘Swimming and the outdoor stuff, I suppose. Just seemed to drop off me.'

‘Grown out those highlights too. Dark hair's still the best.'

‘I'd noticed you liked black hair!'

Ben ignored her gentle taunt.

‘Let's get a drink then, while we wait for check in,' he said.

Emma was relieved Ben had bounced back so easily since the split-up, though she hoped being given the push had not been entirely painless for him. She let him open the cross-examination.

‘So what've you been up to, Emm? How was Chiang Mai?' he asked as they sat down and ordered coffees.

‘Really great. The mountains always were my first choice,' she said pointedly.

‘Tell me more then,' said Ben. ‘I'm not prying.'

‘Well, there were lots of us coming and going, meeting new people all the time … Swedes, Dutch, Canadians. Stayed in this amazing guesthouse inside the moat just off Moolmuang Road. This Thai guy called Eddie's rebuilt an old teak house, planted palms and things around the rooms and furnished it all with antiques. It's the sort of place you can't sit and have a drink without chatting to everyone.'

‘Sounds great. It was sociable like that on Koh Chang.'

‘You went to Koh Chang? Everyone says it's excellent.'

‘Brilliant. So what did you get up to in Chiang Mai?'

‘You know, the usual things … going to temples, eating, drinking, music. There's some great places … like the roof-top bar by the Tha Pae Gate. And we fell in love with this Thai singer called Nong at one of the restaurants … sang to an acoustic guitar. Don Maclean, Cat Stevens, Beatles … that sort of stuff. We were his fan club for a few days.'

She casually leaned across and tried Ben's cappuccino.

‘Do any trekking?' he said, ignoring the familiarity.

‘We did a three day trek near Pai. Two day ones, you're on the road half the time.'

‘It's a bit packaged isn't it though, the trekking?'

‘Suppose so, but it's still worth it. You see places you'd never get to on your own and the scenery's mind-blowing.'

‘Do you actually get into the hilltribes?'

‘Of course … had one freezing night in a village, miles from anywhere.'

‘But wasn't it a bit touristy? Souvenirs for sale and stuff?'

‘Not at all. In fact they almost totally ignored us … didn't even sell us food.'

‘And did you see anything of their way of life?'

‘Yes, lots. And Gin, our guide was great … dead keen to tell us all about them.'

‘Which tribe was it?' he asked as he watched the people going by with loaded luggage trolleys.

‘Lisu. Gin said they'd moved from southern China to Burma a few generations ago and crossed into Thailand in the early seventies. They're refugees really. Some of them don't have Thai identity cards so they can't register their kids for education … can't even get a motorbike licence. Seems it's a big problem up there.'

‘And how do they live?'

‘In bamboo huts on the hillside … it's pretty basic. And they raise chickens and pigs and clear the jungle for slash and burn agriculture. We saw a small field of opium poppies … they grow some for “medicinal” purposes.

Then there's upland rice … and ginger which is good money but depletes the soil. They have to rest the land for three or four years and they clear it again by burning it off, which the authorities don't like. And we saw them bringing bat guano down from the limestone caves in the mountains for fertiliser.'