A Woman of Bangkok (36 page)

So soon I found myself ascending by Jacob’s ladder to a temporal
ersatz
heaven. And many are the mansions in Heaven, but it was to Ratom’s usual room she led me. The girl went to fetch the implements of her trade. Gold Teeth strolled in and sat down on the bed beside me. I fumbled her a bit by way of flattery and she reacted like a ticklish virgin from the same motive. While she was straightening her hair again I asked her how Ratom was.

‘She’s all right. She told me to give you this if you came.’

She pulled a photograph out of the top of her slip. I was quite startled by it: I’d forgotten how handsome Ratom was. ‘Beats Miss Thailand hollow,’ I exclaimed.

She turned it over, and written on the back in English letters that looked queerly like Thai script were the words, ‘To Raj, with loving from the derest lady Ratm.’

I was rather moved. ‘Ratom’s a first-class girl.’

‘Yes. Why don’t you take her away with you? She is tired of this life. She’s had seven years—two with me. We’ve never quarrelled once. If she could better herself, I’d let her go—’

‘But I have no house. All the time I travel, staying in hotels—’

‘Never mind about that. She often stays in hotels too. She likes you, and I know you like her. She would go with you everywhere, give you a good time, and she wouldn’t want too much money, not like Bangkok girls—’

Had Windmill been talking to her?

Before I could say any more my girl returned. Gold Teeth gave me a smile and left us. But there was no joy in betraying Vilai. We had a most perfunctory session. No dalliance. No endearments. No words at all. And all the time I imagined I could hear Ratom’s derisive chuckles behind the mosquito net …

But of course, I overpaid the girl—I always overpaid them. She didn’t say thanks but she leaned against me gratefully for a moment. Stowing the extra note in her skirt-top she said, ‘I need money badly. I am not a prostitute. I am a graduate nurse. But the hospital wages are very low, and I must pay two hundred tics every month for my new bicycle. So I spend my spare time here—’

Four days later we returned to Bangkok. I dropped Windmill at his house and drove straight to the hotel. It was about five o’clock—and who should be at the gate, just turning from the Indian doorkeeper with a disappointed look, but my only true love? Her face lit up, and so I’m sure did mine. But she was ‘sick’ again—‘I always sick when you come Bangkok, darling; I not know why.’ Before long we fell out seriously over the usual subject—money. She said the Chiengmai trip had been put off so long she’d used up the original advance and she needed another, since she was behind with her rent, and also she fancied a durian fruit, and if I gave the boy a hundred tics he could bring one straight away, and she’d eat it before she left. I told her heatedly she only wanted my money and not me, so damn’ well clear out, and she said yes of course she only needed my money, for she could have the other thing forty times a day if she wanted, and what did I amount to, I was only a low-grade worker in a very insignificant concern, but she was very high pipple, she was like Hitler and Tlueman and Ivanhower. At the height of the engagement there was a knock at the door and thinking it was only the boy and glad of any interruption I threw it open. There stood Mrs. Samjohn, with a smile rapidly evaporating from her desiccated face.

No wonder either. Vilai had on nothing but a towel and her earrings and I was in my underpants.

I slammed the door in her face and threw on a shirt, shorts and sandals. She was just getting into the Riley when I caught up with her. I noticed that she was genuinely flushed under the heavily powdered artificial flush she always wore. The wrinkles round her mouth were set as if carved in rock.

‘I’m sorry about just now,’ I babbled, wondering if even that was being too specific. ‘I thought it was the boy—’

‘Never mind, never mind.’ She seemed as apologetic as I—as if I’d caught her eavesdropping. ‘Mr. Samjohn said you were expected home today. I happened to be passing. I thought if you weren’t too tired after your journey you might like to come to the House for a bite to eat—’

‘I would indeed.’

‘But you aren’t dressed and—’ She looked at her watch, and I knew her problem was, not how long it would take me to change my attire, but how long it would take me to get rid of my company.

‘But you needn’t wait for me, you know. I have the jeep here, so I can get out to the House under my own steam—’

I saw that this solution to the problem only increased her grimness. She’d been hoping it would prove insoluble. But she was very well-bred. She said, ‘In that case I’ll be going and we’ll expect you at—say—seven? Seven-fifteen?’ She sounded about as effusive as a dead cod looks.

I returned to my room, torn between a desire to laugh and vexation.

Vilai had dressed. ‘Who she?’

‘That’s my boss’s wife, darling.’

‘Why she come here hotel? She come before?’

‘Yes, once or twice.’

‘Oh. Reely. She come before, see you.’ Suddenly she flared. ‘Why she do that? She in luff wiss you?’

‘Don’t be such a twerp, Vilai. She’d old enough to be my grandmother.’

‘Old make no differnunt. Old girl haff mutss money can haff nice young man if she want … You be careful, Wretch. You haff ’nusser girl, very bad luck for you.’

‘Why, what would you do to me?’

‘Maybe I not do nussink. But anyone do bad to me, very soon he die, I sink. ’Cause I good girl. The God like me very mutss. Anyone not good me, like I good them, he kill.’

‘Bunk. If the God liked you, he’d find a new job for you. Has He done that?’

‘No. No shob yet. Doctor say must wait maybe one more munss.’

‘Doctor? What’s he got to do with it … Vilai, you aren’t—really sick—are you?’

‘You know I sick. I ask you.’

‘Vilai, Vilai!’Another milestone on the road to hell! ‘How long have you had it?’

She was very cool. ‘Today make t’ree day. Tomollow OK.’

I realized that we’d been misunderstanding each other but I continued suffering from shock.

She went on, ‘I go see mutss, mutss doctor. All say same. Must wait one more munss, then will get shob, good more batter than Bolero—’

So by ‘doctor’ she meant fortune-teller. Exasperated I cried, ‘But aren’t you making any effort to get a new job now? Are you just waiting for it to fall into your lap—?’

She said, ‘I try many place. But the girls all jealous me. They not want me go their place. They ask manager, he giff Vilai shob their place, they must all go ’way. ’Cause they know if manager giff me shob their place, man not want go wiss them any more, only want go wiss Vilai.’ She laughed happily.

‘And so now you’re just walking the streets.’

‘Neffer.’ She was hurt and indignant. ‘I Leopard. I neffer haff to walk street in my life. I just
stand
, one hundred men must want. Old man wiss no here’—(touching her head)—‘young boy not haff pass girl yet—’

I gave that subject up too. You never realize how many pitfalls there are in the English language until you start trying to make a Siamese understand it. I tried another line. ‘I met another Englishman upcountry who knows you. He said he saw you one night outside the Champagne Bucket—’

‘Who he? What he name?’

‘His name’s Keeling.’

‘Killing? I not know that boy. Why you spick him about me? I not want you spick usser man about me. Not nice for me.’

‘What he said about you wasn’t nice for me, either. He said you were sozzled and crying and hitting people—’

‘Ah, he lie to you. Must not trust pipple everysing they say, darling. Many pipple not good. I hate very mutss. All time they jealous me, ’cause I very high girl, I not low like them … Why you do?’ (I was putting on long trousers.) ‘You go out now?’

‘Yep.’

‘Where you go?’

‘I’m going out to dinner with Mrs. Samjohn.’

‘Who he?’

‘Mrs. S.—the woman who was here just now. My boss’s wife.’

She was perturbed. ‘Why you want go her house? She haff huss-band?’

‘Of course she has. I keep telling you he’s my boss.’ Perhaps that term wasn’t known to her. ‘He’s manager where I work, darling. It’s he that pays me my money.’

‘Yes, she haff very mutss money, I sink. I see her. She haff gold here, here, here.’ She touched her fingers, wrists, neck and ears. ‘Too many pipple haff plenty money, plenty gold. Only Vilai neffer haff enough. All the time Vilai work, work, work—like she slav’, I sink, but she neffer make any money …’ I refused to rise to this fly. ‘You giff me money today, darling?’—wheedlingly.

‘I’ve told you already, I’ve got none on me.’

‘I look your wallet?’

‘You still don’t trust me even now, do you?’

‘I trust, darling, but I just want look see.’

Knowing there was nothing in it, I threw it on the bed. She pounced on it like a real leopard on its prey. But a quick search showed that there was no notes. She was just on the point of closing it when she came on Ratom’s portrait, which I’d forgotten. That really caused a sensation. She tore it out and devoured it with her eyes. ‘Who this girl?’

‘Which?’ I glanced over my shoulder with nonchalance. ‘Oh her. She’s a friend of mine. Upcountry.’

‘Why she giff you pickser?’

‘Why does any girl give a chap her picture? Because she likes me, I expect.’

‘Why she like you? You giff her money?’ She turned the snap over and saw the inscription. ‘What all this?’

I took the photograph away from her and screwed up my eyes over the writing. ‘It says, “To my darling Reg, with all my love, from his one true sweetheart.”’

She was outraged. But with an effort she controlled her fury. She said gravely, ‘I ask you before, Wretch—you must be careful. Country-girl very bad girl. She only want your money—’

‘And what the hell else do
you
want? If I told you I was never going to give you another ruddy penny as long as I live would you ever come to see me again? I’ll answer for you, sweetheart:
NO.
You’re utterly incapable of loving anyone but yourself. But this lady’—I looked tenderly at Ratom again before I returned her to the wallet—‘she really loves me. I think if I asked her she’d go to the ends of the world with me—’

‘She tell you that? You not want trust, darling. Many girl haff very sweet mouse but not spick truce. All the time very hard here.’ She touched her heart. ‘I not like that sort girl, darling. My mouse not sweet, but spick only truce. I say I come see you, I effer break my plomiss?’

‘Yes, once.’

‘No, neffer.’ I opened the door while she put the finishing touches to her hair. ‘I want you giff me pickser that girl.’

‘What for? She gave it to
me.’

‘She no good for you, darling. She want hurt you—break your heart. I take pickser to temple, I show the God, I ask him this girl very bad, I want he kill—’

‘Bah! What’s she matter to you? She’s only a tabby cat, you’re the mighty Leopard—’

She wouldn’t let me take her anywhere in the jeep. ‘I go
samlor.’
Outside in the yard she clung to my arm. Her face was worried. ‘Don’t forget what I ask you, Wretch. Country girl wiss sweet mouse no good for you. You want usser girl beside me, must take that old girl come to hotel just now to see you. She haff many ring, I sink plenty money. And I sink maybe she like you very mutss, ’cause she old and ugly, but you strong and very good look. I sink she giff you anysing you ask, you silly if you not take—’

‘And hand over to you?’ I was bitterly ashamed to be involved in such a conversation. I felt soiled all over, as if I’d fallen into a cesspool. It was a feeling I quite often got when talking to Vilai. Suddenly this woman who to me was so bewitching would speak ‘truce words’—would reveal with brazen honesty the true nature of her mind. And it was always a bitter shock to me, that revelation, when it came. For I was all the time romantically dreaming of lifting her up to my level through the power of my love, but at such moments I realized how foolish the dream was: she had already pulled
me
down a long way and there was still further to go …

The
samlor
came and she got into it. She said something to the
samlor-
man but nothing more to me. The
samlor
-man sneaked his foot over the crossbar and swerved away with bulging calves. I shouted ‘Saturday’ after her but she gave no sign that she had heard. I watched them pass through the gate and then re-entered the hotel.
‘Ah, krab-ma-lao’
—so you’ve come back—said the boy Arun with a delighted grin, meeting me in the lobby. I found it difficult to make a suitably jaunty reply. Yes,
krab-ma-lao …
Back to the same degrading infatuation that I couldn’t escape even when I went away …

Eleven

Dinner at the Samjohns went off a lot better than I’d expected it would. Mrs. S. apparently hadn’t described the tableau to her husband—yet. That she hadn’t forgotten it though was clear from her silence during the meal, and as soon as the coffee had been poured, she left us.

I slept, as much as I did sleep, in a fool’s paradise that night; but next morning the storms broke. Two of them in swift succession. Frost was furious that I hadn’t repaid his thousand, and though I told him I could do it that day he remained unmollified: ‘You promised to let me have it back quickly …’ I felt flushed for ten minutes after he’s finished dressing me down because I knew I deserved it. Then Samjohn called me into his office. Ostensibly it was about the trip we’d just finished but he came on to another subject at the end. ‘This is not easy to talk about, Joyce. You’re not a child—you’re of an age to look after yourself—and of course you
could
do at home. But here—well, let’s put it this way—you’re still a bit of a child as far as the East is concerned. Don’t think I’m a prude—in my day I was quite the gay dog too—but, well, you don’t want to
throw yourself in the gutter
, Joyce. Have a good time by all means but—don’t make yourself conspicuous. Broderick Peers has a great reputation in Thailand and we don’t want anyone to spoil it … In future, if you get into financial difficulties, come to
me
. I won’t talk, for the sake of the firm’s name … But my real meaning is, don’t get into financial difficulties in the first place. Your salary is small—at least the part that’s paid out here is—and that’s for a sound reason. It gives you enough to have a good time on, but not enough to have
too
good a time on … Don’t take me amiss, Joyce. You have the makings of a valuable man. Compared with most of the young hopefuls England exports nowadays—well, anyway, I’d be sorry to see you go—a competent man—just because of indiscretions …’