Thai Girl (25 page)

Pausing for a moment, he looked up at Jack and Ben.

‘Okay, only fie minute. You wait me please.'

‘Shall we?' said Jack.

‘Well, you can if you want to,' said Ben. ‘How much is it anyway?'

‘Hundred baht … almost a day's wage for the locals, but worth every satang.'

When the fortune-teller had finished with the girls, he motioned to Jack to sit down on the stool opposite him and started his routine.

‘Up to you … anything you think for future inside card. You do like this, fifty times.'

Jack shuffled the pack and put it down in front of him. With a flourish, the fortune-teller then took the cards one by one from the top of the pack, placing them in a pattern face up on the table. In a high-pitched, nasal monotone he began his performance.

‘You lucky more, lucky so much. Later no problem, for car, for plane … not have accident. Good. Future, later, up to you. Maybe before sometime you hungry, you not eat something, you drink, you eat every day.' He glanced up at Jack. ‘You have in family lady? My wife, girlfriend, boyfriend … you have, not have?'

‘No,' said Jack.

‘Uh huh … sorry! Be careful for lady people somewhere straight. Up to you, you can try, for future. She good seventy per cent, she bad thirty, coming soon to see you. She
pompui
little bit, she wife, she lucky more to you, you take care her a lot. Have father? Have? Not have? You tell me, I tell you.'

‘No, he's dead,' said Jack smiling broadly.

‘Sorry, no problem … him never die in your heart. Mother have?'

‘No. Dead.'

‘Sorry, no problem … in family, miss you so much!'

‘But they're all dead, Romeo,' said Jack cheerfully.

‘Be careful for body, maybe here and here, fifty-fifty now,' persisted the fortune-teller, pointing to his stomach and knees. ‘You welly, welly good heart also … you want people look soft in your heart.'

‘You're right there, matey.'

‘Big job, not lucky quickly. Later money come see you so much, for job, for business, for work hard.'

‘I can't wait,' grinned Jack.

‘Later you lucky number one the world! Thank you sir, what you want to know? You ask me no problem.'

‘How's Huddersfield going to do in the League? You know, second division.'

‘Sorry sir, I not know that one sir. Thank you sir,
korp khun ka,
'
said the fortune-teller accepting Jack's hundred-baht note with both hands and pouting sweetly.

‘That was weird,' said Ben as Jack got up to go. ‘So Jack, money come see you so much. You lucky number one the world.'

‘Yes, I'm chuffed, but I still don't know if Huddersfield's going to be relegated.'

The neon-lit streets were throbbing with activity, with foodstalls, taxis and tuk tuks, and everywhere skinny Thai girls in tight jeans, not all of them beautiful, tottering dangerously on platform heels. As he walked with Jack towards the Eleganza Hotel, Ben found himself following a most unsavoury-looking lady of the night. Despite being very overweight, she was wearing a tight yellow Chinese-style cheongsam dress which only just covered her rump. Beside the driveway to the hotel entrance there was a small Buddhist shrine. As she approached the shrine, she put her hands together and bowed deeply, almost showing her knickers. Ben was scared something would split.

‘That's even weirder,' he said to Jack.

‘Why so? These women are tolerated. If they fail to follow the Eightfold Path they need to make merit like everyone else. There's no hypocrisy round here … though she ought to suffer in hell for that skirt.'

‘Yes, I don't think much of the bar girls' dress sense.'

‘That's why I like the go-go dancers,' said Jack wryly. ‘They never dress badly … they don't dress at all!'

After what he had seen that evening, Ben thought there could be no more surprises, but just as they got to the Eleganza they passed a young Muslim man smartly dressed in stylish jeans, polo shirt and trainers holding hands with a blue pillar box. She was swathed from head to toe in Islamic dress, even the slot for her eyes covered with an opaque gauze. Ben felt he had now seen everything; this crazy place was where all worlds collide.

The Eleganza Hotel turned out to be a huge nondescript tower block. In the lobby a few men, some Middle Eastern, were sitting around on plush sofas. Ben looked unimpressed.

‘The coffee shop's where it all happens,' said Jack. ‘It's one of the oldest pick up joints around.'

They went down the stairs into the basement and came to a doorway with a desk set up like a checkpoint. There was a notice over the door which read, ‘Weapon Free Area. Liquor and Beverage are not Allowed to Bring Inside.'

They went through into a large and gloomy room like a canteen. It was very run-down, the drab decor unmaintained, the tiled floor worn and dirty. Two juke boxes, one playing western music, the other songs from Isaan, loudly competed for dominance. At the tables sat Thai women of all ages, the most ghastly looking slags and slappers that Ben in his limited experience had ever seen. One of them sitting nearby was fixing him with her beady eye. He felt distinctly uncomfortable and wanted to bolt back up the stairs.

‘Well, this is the coffee shop of the infamous Eleganza. Like it?' said Jack.

‘No, it's just about the most awful place I've ever been in.'

‘Well, you ain't seen nuttin' yet. Wait ‘til you see the Bier Kellar later on tonight. But now we're here, do you want to see another goldfish bowl?'

Ben was not sure he did.

Walking back down the lobby, Jack steered him towards a small flight of stairs leading into the bowels of the building. They went down the stairs and along a corridor and there it was. A bored-looking girl sitting at the desk opposite the window ignored the new arrivals but there was an excited flutter in the goldfish bowl. The women put on their best pouts.

‘Christ,' said Ben, ‘it's the Widow Twankie.'

The goldfish bowl was filled with pantomime dames of the most voluptuous sort. They were in lace-up boots with high heels, a short frothy underskirt displaying ample legs, their tight bodices and low-cut blouse bursting with cleavage. Large tumbled curls, plump rouged cheeks and mascara laid on with a trowel completed the picture. Ben hardly had the nerve to look at them but Jack was coolly surveying the field.

‘Nowt to my taste, but obviously the clientele here love ‘em like this,' he said, smiling at the women who sweetly responded. When Ben turned and retreated down the corridor, the women's disappointed eyes followed him. As he took a quick backward glance, one of them blew him a parting kiss.

‘Maybe we should go on to Big Bazzas next,' said Jack as they left the Eleganza. It's mainly Australian expatriates there and good for a quiet drink. I hope Bazza's in tonight.'

‘Who's Bazza?'

‘He's the Australian who owns the place … great raconteur and good company unless he takes against you.'

‘He does, does he?'

‘Yes, sometimes. It's like an initiation first time you go in … every spade's a bloody shovel. Oh, and Bazza weighs half a ton, and he does
The Times
crossword faster than you can read the clues.'

By this time they had crossed Sukhumvit Road and were heading down one of the
sois
on the other side.

‘In case Bazza's there tonight, I ought to tell you one of his best stories,' said Jack. ‘Wouldn't fancy my chances if I told it in front of him.'

Ben tried to keep up with Jack in the crowded street and to listen at the same time.

‘Bazza's got this new girlfriend who takes him to her home in the North East … just a wooden house on stilts and all the animals living underneath. Now Bazza snores big-time, a gurgly, wet whoopee cushion of a snore. That night he goes to bed with his girlfriend and he starts snoring. The girlfriend can't sleep, the family can't sleep and the animals under the house can't sleep. The animals wonder what beast their mistress has bedded. They've no idea what this wild, warbling sound can be. The dogs begin to howl and whimper, the pigs start snorting, the buffaloes bellow and the geese honk. This wakes up the dogs next door who join in the barking … then the next house and the next. In the morning everyone looks ashen. The local headman wants to know what set the animals off. But it was nothing … just big Bazza the Aussie windbag in full cry.'

‘Nice one, Jack,' said Ben, not exactly splitting his sides.

‘Yes, and knowing Bazz, there might even be a grain of truth in it.' Jack mopped his brow as he turned the corner. ‘Well, we're here. This is it, the world famous, the one and only … Big Bazza's bar!'

20

When they came off the street into the welcome chill of the air conditioning, Ben was surprised that Big Bazza's bar was so small. The bar was a narrow room almost filled with a U-shaped counter enclosing a working space from which the girls served the customers, a motley collection of older farang men perched on bar stools nursing glasses of beer. The walls were hung with posters and with framed photos of past hijinx in the bar. There were several shots of girls in short skirts going upstairs, of pallid
farang
backsides with trousers at half-mast and one of Bazza himself stranded like a whale on an anonymous tropical beach.

‘The drinkers in here are usually expats working as engineers and so on,' explained Jack.

Ben thought they looked a rough lot.

‘But where's Bazza?' he asked.

‘I've a horrible feeling he's not here. Maybe he's gone upcountry on snoring safari.'

They found vacant bar stools and ordered drinks. A strikingly pretty bar girl in blue skirt and white blouse poured two large Chang beers into chilled glasses. With Ben's interest very definitely engaged, Jack broached the unavoidable topic.

‘So, Ben lad, what do you think of Thai women then?'

‘Wow!' he said dreamily, ‘they're mind-blowing, but I'm not sure I even begin to understand them.'

‘Well I've tried pretty hard,' said Jack, pleased to talk on his favourite subject. ‘Though it isn't their looks that blows my mind.
Farang
women are just men with tits, but here they're real women.'

‘Better not let the feminists hear you, Jack,' teased Ben.

‘They're half the problem, matey. Nowadays a Yorkshire lass can't be a mother and home-maker anymore without feeling guilty. But the Thais can still be proper women.'

‘Maybe with a lower status?'

‘Maybe, Ben. But my point's that they're feminine right through and that's what I find so attractive. And going with a Thai girl for a few weeks can still be a game … as a guy you've got all the cards but she keeps you guessing. Go clubbing in Huddersfield and you get jumped on by some inebriated tottie with fat legs wanting a one-night stand … but here there's still a bit of subtlety.'

Ben was definitely not convinced.

‘Tell us another Jack!' he challenged. ‘Even when you're paying?'

‘Yes, even then it's a game. That's what makes it fun.'

Ben paused in thought for a moment, staring into his beer.

‘But Jack, I still feel uncomfortable with the idea of paying for sex.'

‘Me too, if you mean straight prostitution … girls servicing several men a night. But as I say, my girls are courtesans and I give'em money to help their families. It's never a quick shag for a fixed fee.'

‘But it's not that great for the girls, is it,' insisted Ben.

‘Not if they get pushed into it … by poverty, drugs, children to feed and so on.'

‘Exactly! That's most of 'em, isn't it? Which is why commercial sex bothers me.'

‘The girls that go with the
farang
can usually look after themselves, but it's the ones getting screwed by Thai men for a few baht that I worry about.'

‘And what about the girls working with Asian tourists?' Ben asked.

‘They've got their own clubs and places in Bangkok. The punters from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and so on insist on pale skin … that's what beauty means to them, while we like these dark skinned Isaan girls.'

Mention of Isaan made Ben think again of Fon. Sent to work in Bangkok, she had somehow avoided being a bar girl, but her life seemed so hard and unrewarding.

‘What do you think it's like for a girl from a poor farming family who stays behind in the village?' he asked Jack.

‘She'll end up with a Thai boy who'll get her pregnant and then be unfaithful,' said Jack. ‘She's last in the pecking-order in the home. Mother-in-law kicks her round the place and she does all the house work … maybe the farming too. It can be tough.'

‘And what does she get out of the deal?'

‘She gets food and protection … but she shouldn't be too interested in sex herself or she won't be respectable.'

‘Is it always that bad, Jack?' asked Ben dubiously.

‘No, probably not. If she raises sons and runs the household, she'll be powerful … even more so if the men are always drunk or away working. I'm sure lots of Thai families function better than ours do, but a girl from a poor farming family probably fears the worst, so it doesn't seem much to give up when she has a chance to work in a bar and be independent.'

‘But being a sex worker isn't that great either, is it.'

‘Well, it depends. If she saves and gets out early, she can buy a farm or small business for her family and maybe get married.'

‘But she has to sit in bars all night waiting to be screwed by some old pervert.'

Ben suddenly realised this was more than tactless but Jack passed it by.

‘Yes, that's what they have to do,' he said. ‘And then they can look a million dollars, send money back to their families and walk tall … exactly what every girl wants. And the alternative? Grubbing around in a rice paddy for life, carrying babies and waiting for her husband to come home and infect her with something nasty.'