Private Dancer (33 page)

As I was pulling her clothes out, I saw an envelope at the back of the wardrobe. There were photographs inside. Pictures of Joy and her sisters, a young Joy with her mother, Joy with her father. There were other photographs, photographs taken in Zombie. Photographs of Joy with farangs. They'd obviously been taken fairly recently because she was wearing her waitress uniform. In all of them she was in the same pose, smiling at the camera with one hand resting on the guy's thigh. I wasn't special. I was one of many. I tore the photographs up, all of them, and threw them into the toilet.

I tossed my set of keys and the key card on to the bed, to show her that I'd never be back. I stood there for several seconds, staring at the keys, panting from the exertion of trashing the room. Then I picked up the keys and put them into my pocket. I don't know why I did that.

Actually, that's not true. I do know. Despite everything, despite catching her with another man,

despite tearing her room apart, I still wanted to be able to go back to her.

I went outside. She wasn't there. The Thai guy was there, still smiling. He pointed out to the street. “She go that way,” he said.

After I left Joy's room, I went to Fatso's Bar and got drunk. Big Ron was there and I told him what I'd done. “Drop her,” he said. “She's been lying to you from Day One.”

I couldn't argue with him. It seemed that no matter what I did, no matter how I tried to help,

no matter what allowances I made, she always let me down. I have a friend in New York, Mary's her name. We were at university together but she's been in the States for almost twenty years now. Anyway, Mary lives in this apartment block on 57th Street, on the tenth or eleventh floor, I forget which. One day she finds this stray kitten, probably wasn't more than a few months old,

and she takes it in. She loves this cat, and she really looks after it. Dotes on it. Then one day the cat climbs out of the bathroom window and falls all ten stories. Or eleven. Splat. Except that the cat's not dead, it lands on a sloping roof or something which breaks its fall. Mary rushes the cat around to the local vet and it's good news, bad news. The good news is that he can save the cat,

the bad news is that it's going to cost a small fortune, several thousand dollars. The cat's got a broken leg, a fractured spine, internal bleeding, most of its nine lives are out of the window,

literally. The vet suggests that the best thing to do would be to put the cat down, a simple,

painless injection, total cost ten bucks or thereabouts.

Mary thinks about it. She doesn't have money to throw away, but she loved that cat. “Do what you have to do to save her,” says Mary.

The vet does his stuff. The cat spends almost a month in the vet's surgery, then another two months in a body cast, lying around Mary's apartment being hand-fed like a bloody princess. Eventually the cast comes off and the cat's as good as new. And Mary's stuck with a hefty overdraft.

A week after the cast came off, Mary gets a phone call at her office. It's the vet. Seems the doorman discovered her cat lying on the ground and had brought it in. Mary remembered that she'd left the bathroom window open. The cat had fallen out of it again.

“Severe injuries again, I'm afraid,” said the vet. “Massive internal bleeding, both front legs broken, several ribs cracked. We can save her, but it's going to be expensive...”

Mary didn't hesitate. “Kill it,” she said, and put down the phone.

That's how I felt about Joy. I'd done everything I could, but it seemed that it was never enough, she'd always go back to her old ways, she'd always revert to type. I had to walk away.

I went home and slept. Bruce woke me up at about six o'clock in the morning. Joy's friend Wan was on the phone. “Pete, Joy want see you,” she said.

“I can't,” I said.

“You not understand Joy,” said Wan. “That not boyfriend Joy. He sell yar mar.”

Yar mar was the local name for amphetamines. I'd read about it in the Bangkok Post. Yar mar translated as horse drug, so-called because of the energy it gave users. The police got so fed up with the drug's sexy image that they tried to rechristen it yar bar, crazy drug. It's a big thing among the bargirls, it helps give them the energy to dance all night, and helps them overcome their shyness. Many are addicted. Joy had always denied that she took drugs. But as I'd already discovered, Joy and the truth didn't exactly have a close, personal relationship.

“I'm sorry, Wan, I don't believe her.”

“She speak true, Pete. Joy love you, only you. She say she want to kill herself.”

I hung up.

BIG RON Pete looked like shit when he came into the bar. He kept talking about “the game”, as if what he was doing with Joy was some sort of abstract competition. He's fooling himself. She's destroying him and he can't see it. The sad thing is, he thinks he's winning whatever game it is he's playing.

He says the tattoo shows that he's winning the game, because whatever happens she's going to go through the rest of her life with his name on her shoulder. Bollocks. She doesn't give a fuck about that. She's a Buddhist, the body means nothing because next life she'll be back as somebody else anyway. In fact, she probably reckons that she's winning the game because he's behaving so badly: he'll probably return as a fucking cockroach. Life to a Buddhist is all about earning merit in this life to improve your lot in the next. And nothing Pete has done since meeting Joy has earned him any merit, that's for sure.

He's like a fucking marlin taking on a game fisherman. I bet the marlin thinks he's winning the game as he thrashes around in the water. “Look at the boat I've caught,” the marlin probably thinks. He gets pulled in, and as he's hauled on to the boat he's fucking thrilled to bits. "Yeah,

look at me, I'm taking over the boat." Yeah, right up to the minute he's clubbed to death, the fucking fish probably thinks he's winning the game. Pete just can't see it, but he's taken the bait and she's hauling him in. What a sad fuck.

PETE I was lying on the sofa watching television when Bruce came in, red-faced and practically foaming at the mouth.

“I've fucking had it with you,” he said.

I was shocked, because he's usually the most easy-going of guys. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Joy's dead,” he said.

I went cold. Like my blood had turned to ice in my veins. Time stopped. It seemed like an eternity before I could speak. “No way.”

Bruce's face was red and his eyes hard. "She hanged herself. I'm fucking fed up with you,

you've played one mind game too many with that girl."

“Why do you think she's dead?” I was stunned. I couldn't believe that Joy would kill herself. It was impossible. Unthinkable.

“Tukkata called this afternoon, while you were out. You're a bastard, Pete. She never did you any harm.”

“And Tukkata said Joy was dead?”

“She said Sunan had called her. One of Joy's friends had phoned Surin and said that Joy had hanged herself. Sunan called Tukkata wanting to know where you were.”

“It doesn't make any sense, Bruce. There'd be no point in Joy killing herself. It's all about money, and there'd be no profit in her killing herself. It's impossible.”

“I'm only telling you what Tukkata told me. I've had a fucking shitty day, Pete, all because of you. First I get the phone call from Tukkata, then I go to Fatso's and everyone's talking about you beating Joy up.”

“I slapped her, I didn't...” “And you trashed her room, smashed her TV.”

Big Ron had obviously told everybody. That was my own fault. I'd always known that there are no secrets in Fatso's, everything said there is for public consumption.

“And now she's dead.” He walked away. I sat at the table, too shocked to move.

So here I am, sitting in a taxi waiting for a traffic light to turn green, staring with unseeing eyes at three fat tourists feeding bananas to an elephant. I can't think straight. I just keep hearing Bruce's voice rattling around my head. “Joy's dead.”

Part of me didn't believe it, didn't want to believe it, but she'd cut her wrists before and she'd talked about killing herself and coming back to haunt me. Maybe this time she'd done it for real.

Maybe she'd done what Mon had done. I closed my eyes and prayed that she wasn't dead. But what if she was? What if she'd hanged herself and what if she'd left a note? She had my name tattooed on her shoulder, for God's sake. She was living in a room I'd paid for. And less than twenty-four hours earlier I'd hit her and trashed her room. What if she'd really done it, where did that leave me? How would I be able to live with myself? How could I?

Bruce had been right, Joy had never done anything to hurt me. She'd never pretended to be anything other than what she was, a bargirl, and if I'd resented the fact that that was what she was, then that was my problem, not hers. I'd had no right to try to change her life, to try to fit her into a mould of my making. I'd pushed her, I'd pushed her and I'd hit her and if she was really,

truly dead then I deserved to be dead, too. I couldn't go on living, not with the knowledge that I'd killed her, that I'd pushed her too far, over the edge.

The amber light blinked below the red light but it seemed to do it in slow motion and it felt like an eternity before the green light went on. The traffic ahead of us crawled as if it were driving through water. I wanted to shout and scream, to tell the driver to put his foot down, to drive like the wind, but there was nothing I could do other than fight to stay calm, to hold on to what sanity I had left.

We went by the elephant. “Charng,” said the driver, nodding and pointing. He had a small gold statue of a priest on the dashboard, an impassive, bald old man in a loincloth. What goes around comes around. If she was dead then I was damned, for this life and God alone knows how many more. I was tainted. Black. I didn't deserve to live. Joy had never tried to hurt me, never done anything to harm me. Whenever she got angry at me she'd always turn it inwards, she'd hurt herself. I was the one who'd shouted, who'd sworn. I was the one who'd lashed out. Who'd hit her.

The cab jolted to a halt. We were at the corner of Soi 71 and Soi DJ. On the way to Joy's room I passed Wan. I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn't recognise her at first. I called after her and she came back. “Joy?” I said. I was so muddled I couldn't even form a sentence.

“Big problem,” she said. She'd been crying.

The blood seemed to drain from my head. She was dead. Joy was dead.

I don't know why but I took her hand and together we went to the apartment block. As we got closer, I saw a figure on the balcony, bent over a washing-up bowl. It was Joy. I hurried towards her. She looked up and glared at me but her expression didn't worry me, so strong was the sense of relief that flowed over me. “Thank God,” I said.

She turned her head away and concentrated on the pair of jeans she was washing.

JOY Was I surprised that Pete came back? No, it was just a matter of time. He was always arguing with me and then making up afterwards. Hot and cold, loving and angry, Pete switches back and forth all the time. He's not consistent. Most farangs I've met have been like that. You never really know where you are with them. One minute they say they love you, the next minute they say they never want to see you again.

Thai men don't behave that way. Thai men say what they mean, and stick to it. Thai men hardly ever say that they love you, they show that they do and that's all that counts. But if a Thai man does say he loves you, it means he wants to stay with you and take care of you. If a farang says he loves you, it just means he wants to fuck you.

Pete didn't hurt me when he hit me. Not physically, anyway. I mean, it hurt for a little bit but there wasn't a bruise or anything. Men have always hit me, ever since I was a child. My father used to hit me if I didn't do what he wanted, my teachers used to hit me at school, my brothers used to hit me if they thought I was lazy at home. Park used to hit me when he was drunk. So I wasn't surprised that Pete hit me. That's what men do to women. My father used to hit my mother, too. I used to hear her crying at night. Mon's husband used to hit Mon, and Bird hits Sunan. That's just the way it is in Thailand. Well, that's the way it is in our family, anyway.

What really upset me is that I hadn't done anything wrong. The guy wasn't a boyfriend, he was just selling me some drugs. I was bored and I wanted a buzz. I called his pager number and he said he'd come around with the stuff. He'd only been there a few minutes when Pete broke down the door. Pete wouldn't listen, it was as if he'd already made up his mind that I was a bad girl and there was nothing I could do or say to convince him otherwise. When he started trashing my room, I ran away. I wasn't scared, and I didn't really mind him breaking the TV and all the rest of the stuff. After all, it was his room, he was paying the rent and other than the clothes, Pete had pretty much paid for everything. So if he decided he wanted to destroy it, well, that was his business.

That's not to say I wasn't upset, I was. I was angry that he didn't trust me, and that he felt he could control my life. It's like he thought I was a dog, and that because he fed me and gave me a place to live, he could treat me any way he wanted.

I went around to Wan's room and we drank beer. I kept crying and Wan told me that I was being silly, that I should just forget Pete and go back to Zombie. I could earn more money working in the bar than Pete gave me, and I wouldn't have to worry about what anybody thought.

I tried to explain that I was tired of working and that I just wanted someone to take care of me. I was tired of supporting my family, tired of all the demands they kept making on me, tired of my friends asking for money. I wanted to leave Thailand, I wanted to start my life again.

I went back early in the morning. The flat was a mess. He'd broken everything that could be broken and he'd thrown my clothes on the floor. He'd even torn up the pictures of my family,

including the photographs of Mon. I sat in the middle of the room and started crying. What he did wasn't fair. He had no right to tear up the pictures, they were the only ones I had of Mon.